THEY gave their lives for their country more than 100 years ago but a group of Winchester people have ensured their names will not be forgotten.

A new book, We Will Remember Them - The Great War Dead of Fulflood & Weeke, Winchester has just been published, the result of six years' work.

Recently, the six authors, Derek Whitfield, Geraldine Buchanan, Jenny Watson, Josephine Coleman, Cheryl Davis and Steve Jarvis, gathered around the Great War memorial of St Matthews with St Paul’s in St Paul’s Church, Fulflood, to mark the completion of the book.

All the stories of the 91 names listed on the memorial have been told more fully or even for the first time. The six were the local authors and researchers who have just published the book which they have been working on since 2015.

The 91 names on the memorial are a fifth of Winchester’s Great War dead. Thirty of the 91 men joined the local Hampshire Regiment and a further six the Winchester-based King’s Royal Rifle Corps and the Rifle Brigade.

Young men from Winchester’s western suburbs went to fight and die not only on the Western Front but also at Gallipoli, Mesopotamia and even Russia.

Men from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with family connections in the parish, volunteered to fight for the Mother Country and their names too are remembered on the memorials. One of these men had been on Captain Scott’s final expedition to Antarctica in 1912 and was to die in a German prisoner-of-war camp.

During research, contact was made with the families of three of the men which has enriched the accounts of their lives. With increasing publicity, contact has been made with two more families. The launch at St. Paul’s Church has been delayed because of Covid regulations and is due to take place on Sunday July 25.

As well as being a record of the stories of those men, the book also adds to local history with chapters on the growing but very different suburbs of Weeke and Fulflood in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Also, in the telling of the men and their families’ lives pre-1914, many aspects of the social history of Winchester emerges, such as the more rigid social hierarchy and now-vanished trades.

The book has been the major aspect of the Great War Dead Fulflood & Weeke project. The project now aims to work with local schools to further children's understanding of the Great War and its impact on the local community. Western School, Kings' School and Peter Symonds College are the modern successors of schools which were attended by many of the men whose stories are told in the book. The Westgate County School for Girls, now The Westgate School, was also profoundly affected by the Great War. Many girls and teachers lost loved ones and the school had to move out when the building was used to billet troops during the winter of 1914-15.

Another aspect of the project is a website which will add more information as contact is made with descendants. The group is hoping that they will be get in touch using the project’s email address – greatwardeadwinchesterfulfloodweeke@outlook.com.

This is also the address to order a copy of the book. It costs £20, plus £3 postage. (There is free delivery within Winchester city.) It will be announced in the near future from which select outlets in Winchester it will be possible to buy it from

Images

Book’s Authors & Great War Memorial, St. Paul’s Church

From l. to r. Geraldine Buchanan, Josephine Coleman, Cheryl Davis, Jenny Watson, Steve Jarvis & Derek Whitfield

Close up of a Panel - Great War Memorial, St Paul’s Church

Cover of “We Will Remember Them - The Great War Dead of Fulflood & Weeke, Winchester”