Our ‘Hidden Histories’ project is all coming along really nicely ! Several new and very enthusiastic volunteers have joined the research team and have been given some basic training to get them started on the all-consuming hobby of ‘soldier researching’.  They probably don’t quite realise what they have let themselves in for !

Starting with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web-site, the volunteers have then been busy accessing the individual servicemen’s service records, pension records, census details, birth/baptism/marriage certificates and other valuable sources available on Ancestry, findmypast etc.

As part of the project, we are also in the process of ordering the death certificates of all 206 servicemen from www.gro.gov.uk. While the basic details of the serviceman’s death can be found on CWGC, the death certificates gives valuable additional information:

  • cause of death – which can include details of injuries and their final illness

 

  • the location where the serviceman died – these can include various hospitals and other buildings requisitioned for war use (schools and stately homes)

 

  • the person registering the death was usually a medical personnel but sometimes a family member was present with the serviceman

 

Many of our casualties did not actually die as a direct result of injuries sustained on the battlefield. Illness, especially tuberculosis and influenza, struck the servicemen, already weakened by the deprivations of the Western Front, very hard.

Our servicemen are buried at Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park because they died ‘at home’ – either locally or elsewhere in the UK and were returned to Mile End for burial. Servicemen who died abroad were all buried in the War Grave Commission cemeteries especially designed for the purpose. Some of our THCP men were shipped home from the Western Front to hospitals in the UK where they sadly later died of their wounds. Some died in accident or in one case in an attack by the IRA after the end of the war.

The volunteers will be researching the hospitals linked to the THCP servicemen – such as the Royal Naval Hospital, an existing pre-war military hospital at Haslar (Gosport) or Nethercroft Hospital, Ramsgate. It would be interesting to find out if any of our local women worked as nurses in these hospitals.

The Hidden Histories project is still looking for extra volunteers – no previous experience needed – to help with our research. All the information will be available on our website and will be published in a booklet later in the year.

Please get in touch if you would like to help research one of the names on the War Memorial. Email us on heritage@fothcp.org We would also really like to hear from anyone who is related to one of the men and maybe has memorabilia to share with our research team.

Please check out the individual servicemen’s pages on the web-site where individual stories of the servicemen will be regularly added and updated.