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Roll of Honour
The first war memorial in Bourne was
the extension to the old Butterfield Hospital in North Road, officially
opened in 1921, but there is no list of the men who lost their lives
during the Great War of 1914-18 which has never been exactly determined.
The first roll of honour was inscribed on a wooden plaque which can be
found on the west wall inside the Abbey Church and contains the names of
91 men who died but this was superseded in 1956 by the permanent stone monument in
the War Memorial Gardens alongside the river in South Street. The names of
93 men who lost their lives are inscribed there.
The first man named on the new War Memorial
from the Great War is Harry Allen, an infantryman serving with the 2nd
Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who was killed in France in
1916. He was the son of Albert and Frances Allen, of The Willows,
Meadowgate, Bourne. He was mortally wounded during a trench raid while his
battalion was dug in at the notorious Ploegstert Woods sector in France,
universally known to the troops as "Plugstreet". Captain Robert Graves, of
the Royal Welch Regiment, who later became one of the Great War's
celebrated poets, was severely wounded in another action there about the
same time. He is buried in the Nieppe Communal Cemetery near Armentières
in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of northern France, a small plot of about twenty military graves in the middle of a large
cemetery.
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There
is also a plaque to Harry Allen's memory in the chancel of the Abbey
Church in Bourne. The inscription says:
Sacred to the memory of Harry
Allen of this town who died of wounds received in action in France
10th October 1916, aged 26 years, and was buried at Wieppe cemetery
near Armentiéres. He died the noblest death a man can die, fighting
for God & right & liberty, and such a death is immortality. |
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THE MISSING NAME |
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In 1985, the name of William Smith Michelson
was found to be missing from the Roll of Honour and sign writer Fred Felstead
is seen here rectifying the omission after the intervention of the Royal British Legion.
Also in the picture are, left to right, Councillor Don Fisher, who
was instrumental in adding the name, Michelson's daughter, Mrs
Margaret Taylor, who fought for it to be included, and Eric Walton, chairman of the legion's Bourne
branch.
See Michelson - father and
son
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