Rolls of Honour
LUDDENDEN & MIDGLEY VILLAGES' ROLLS OF HONOUR
WHAT ARE ROLLS OF HONOUR?
At the outbreak of war, and probably as incentive to join up, many Churches and Chapels, Pubs and Clubs, other organisations including places of work started recording the names of their men who signed up to join the fight.
Originally the lists would have been in the order that the men joined up. Below are the details of all the Rolls of Honour I have found for Luddenden & Midgley.
Booth Congregational Church
The one below is from from Booth Congregational Church.
This list was added to as the next man enlisted, you can see the sheet is numbered up to 54. The first man to enroll was Donald Murgatroyd shortly after war was declared (his war records did not survive, so we do not know the exact date he joined up.)
The third man's war records did survive. Frederick Greenwood from Ive House signed up in October 1915.
Likewise, the 35th man James Holmes joined up 2 years later in June 1917.
Providence Methodist Church
The Roll of Honour from Providence Methodist Church in Midgley (which now resides in the Midgley Community Rooms.) has been for the first part done in Alphabetical order. The first name on this list is Louis John Ackroyd from Well House, Midgley. He joined up on 8th Dec 1915 aged 17 but is unlikely to be the first man to join up from this church.
The alphabetical section ends with Percy Allan Varley, perhaps these 29 men had already signed up by the time the church decided to start a Roll of Honour.
Subsequently this list of 29 alphabetic names was added to with 39 non alphabetical names, presumably these were then in the order that the men signed up?
You can see in the decoration around the border that the emblems of the Four Nations have been included, the Welsh Daffodil, the English Rose, the Irish Shamrock and the Scottish Thistle. The original colours are quite badly faded.
The names of the fallen soldiers on this Roll of Honour are indicated by a box drawn around the name.
Luddenden Dean Wesleyan Church
Many Rolls of honour were later completely rewritten and often embellished, like this one from Luddenden Dean Wesleyan Church. This Roll of Honour's whereabouts is unknown and the photo quality is poor.
A Transcript of the names can be found here
A symbol has put against the names of the soldiers who lost their lives.
Some of the names here also appear on other local Rolls of Honour. And it is clear that the calligraphy on this document is the work of the same person as the Luddenden Working Men's Club Roll of Honour.
Luddenden Working Men's Club
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