A MEMORIAL honouring First World War dead from Paddock now has a new home.

The ceramic plaque is displayed in the Army Drill Hall on St Paul’s Street next to Huddersfield University and close to the town centre - the hall is the base for Territorial Army soldiers in Huddersfield.

Relatives of a soldier honoured on the plaque discovered its existence and have arranged to have an oak frame put around the memorial and for it to go on the Drill Hall wall.

The Drill Hall already has thousands of names on memorials around its walls – mostly from World War One.

The Paddock memorial had always been at All Saints Church on Church Street and remained there when the church was bought by businessman David Aveyard in 1985.

He converted it into a six-bedroomed family home now called Kirke House. He has agreed to allow the memorial to be moved to the Drill Hall on permanent loan, but will retain ownership.

Relatives of one of the soldiers on the plaque, John William Wallis, have organised the move.

They are his grandchildren John Shaw and Dorothy Firth, along with his nephew Geoff Ashton from Salendine Nook.

Mr Shaw, of Lepton, said: “I’m absolutely delighted the memorial is here now. It is a very fitting place for it.’’

Mrs Firth added: “I’m very happy the memorial is now getting the recognition it deserves.’’

The memorial has 90 names on it with all the soldiers from Paddock.

Many served with the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment.

John William Wallis parents lived on Upper Brow Road in Paddock.

After he got married he and wife, Alice, had two children.

His son, Joseph, was five and his daughter, Edith, was just three when John was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916.

He was serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment and that day was he blackest in British military history for the number of troops killed and injured.

He was 32 when he died and his name – along with more than 70,000 other British and Allied soldiers who have no grave – is on the Thiepval Memorial in France.

The memorial has cost £500 to renovate by providing it with a new oak frame and transparent 2mm-thick polycarbonate sheeting to protect it as some of the ceramic pieces are loose.

The frame was made by Chris Tribe from Chris Tribe Furniture in Scissett and stained to blend in with the other memorials in the Drill Hall.