THE NAMES of four heroes left off the war memorial in Claverdon were finally added in time for Remembrance Day.
Resident Alison Hoddell researched the lives of the village men who lost their lives in both world wars, and also the Afghan War. This resulted in a book called ‘Lest we forget’ which detailed the histories of the men and of their families.
But her research found four men, all very much associated with Claverdon, who died in First World War, were not on the memorial boards in the church. The reason for the omissions is not clear, but
Alison suspects the way the lists were drawn up was not very systematic. A local committee was tasked with the job, and there are no records of how and why they made their decisions.
The village’s Parochial Church Council has, after consultation with members of the families who could be contacted, decided the men should now join their comrades, 104 years after the original memorial board was installed.
A new memorial board, funded by the local Royal British Legion, was formally installed in the church at the Remembrance Service on Sunday November 9.
The men now included are Percy Mitchell, whose father and sister were both notable benefactors of the village, Reginald Price, whose father and brother were both vicars of Claverdon and who died leading his platoon over the top on the first day of the Somme offensive on July 1 in 1916, Arthur Rotton, who was involved in battles in the Balkans and Greece, contracted malaria and was transferred back to a military hospital in Birmingham where he died, and Fred Wilkinson, who served on the Western front and who died in a military hospital after contracting paratyphoid fever in the trenches.
