A NEW war memorial is planned for Saltash to honour names of war dead missing from previous monuments in the town.

Two new benches will be positioned on the St Nicholas and St Faith Church war memorial site adjacent to the borough war memorial monument. 

Historically, memorials have been funded by public donations; in this spirit Saltash Town Council has launched a crowdfunding campaign to invite the people of Saltash and beyond to contribute to the creation of two new memorial benches. 

A spokesperson for the council said: “These benches will be placed beside the existing borough war memorials and will display the previously omitted names.

“The town council’s aim is to ensure that the phrase "We Will Remember Them" includes every individual known at present, from our town who deserves to be honoured.”

A comprehensive list of missing names has been compiled by Peter Clements, a volunteer for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Eyes on Hands On project, who has been investigating the names of war casualties.

Pinning down a decisive list of those missing from the various war memorials that came into existence between and after the two world wars has been a labour of love for the Royal Navy veteran.

The Saltash resident was approached in 2016, on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, by members of the Saltash and District Branch of the Royal British Legion and asked to identify Saltash’s Somme casualties. He found 10 casualties but noticed that only seven were named on the great war memorials in the town. 

He said: “I could not let this drop. I had to find out why three names were missing.” 

Through his investigations Peter discovered that Saltash and St Stephens had been two separate local authorities prior to 1934 meaning separate First World War memorials, and that there were at least six different memorials to war casualties around the town containing names not on the main Borough of Saltash and St Stephen-by-Saltash War Memorials.

He also discovered that war casualties recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission weren’t noted on the Saltash memorials at all. In total, 77 war dead had failed to find any place on local memorials.

Working together with Peter, the town council’s war memorial working group is now in a position to move forward with new memorials rectifying the omissions from all those years ago. Omissions which were common place according to local war buff and fellow veteran Barry Brooking who has been fighting for two years to have those missing names added to local memorials.

He said: “After both terrible conflicts there was, of course, great relief - but also an understandable outburst of grief at the loss of life, and a wish to remember their sacrifice. 

“There was however no central guidance or criteria set as to who should  be included; it could be those who were killed, or wounded, or who just served, armed servicemen on or off duty or civilians. 

“Local committees often wanted to erect memorials quickly to show how much they cared. However, this often meant that a choice of which names put forward should be included. 

“Some names were not put forward because the casualty had no relatives or friends living locally, and some names could be omitted as they simply could not be afforded and Saltash was not a wealthy town. 

“No provision seems to have been made in many memorials to leave space to add names later.”

He also explains the reason why monuments are normally publicly funded: “Raising the necessary funds locally could be difficult; there was no central funding.” In fact, he points out, the wealth of a particular family often meant the difference between a name being included or not. 

“I understand that if a family could afford a generous donation for a memorial, there was more chance of their lost loved one's name being included! This makes me particularly sad.”

Now he says the town has the chance to correct the situation. “We now have the opportunity to do the right thing, and to put matters right, by honouring and remembering properly all those from our town who lost their lives in the world wars. It will show again how well the Saltash community remembers its own.”

For Peter though, the work continues. “Though I have produced a list of names, verified by Saltash Town Council war memorial working group, of those names missing from the Borough of Saltash and St Stephen-by-Saltash War Memorials; I can’t claim that what I done is in anyway finished. It’s still ‘a work in progress’.”

The Saltash Town Council Crowdfunder can be found at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/saltashborough-war-memorial. The town council has raised £140 of it total of £14,540 to move ahead with the project. The Crowdfunder will run until September 26.