A Millennium Project hosted by the Friends of  Leatherhead Parish Church
LEATHERHEAD WAR MEMORIALS - BACKGROUND

The Friends and Leatherhead Royal British Legion
Liam Sumption and the Leatherhead and District Local History Society
Access to the Town War Memorial, North Street

The Friends and Leatherhead Royal British Legion
In 1998, the Friends and Leatherhead RBL appealed for the names of any who appeared to be missing from the town's war memorials. At the time this was thought likely to involve the inter-war 'policing' actions and the post war conflicts, notably Korea, Malaya, Cyprus, Indonesia, Aden, The Falklands, The Gulf, and possibly other active service casualties such as on UN peacekeeping or Northern Ireland duties.

However, in February 1999, the Leatherhead Advertiser began a series of articles based on research by a local military historian, Ian Whitlock.  Working from a recently issued database of the WWI dead,  drawn from publications that listed them, he found some names of men born or resident in Leatherhead that were apparently missing from the Town War Memorial.

Ian generously accepted an invitation from the Friends to work together with us on further research.  We will also be working together with local churches and interest groups.

Our research is further aided by access via the Internet to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Debt of Honour database of all who gave their lives in WWI or WWII on service with British or Commonwealth forces.  This became available in November 1998.  The CWGC say it now gets 250,000 visits a week!  It provides:

- name
- service number
- rank
- unit
- date of death
- place of burial (or of commemoration, if there is no known grave)
- a description of the CWGC cemetery or memorial
- age and next of kin are also shown, where known


It is a wonderful and very timely resource.  Those who have visited any CWGC cemeteries know what a marvellous job they do. 

Please visit the CWGC main website from our LINKS page.

Liam Sumption and the Leatherhead and District Local History Society
Liam Sumption, moved to Leatherhead in 1983 on his retirement from HM Customs and was able to indulge his interest in researching and writing on military history. In the early 1990s he became interested in those shown on the Leatherhead War Memorial in North Street. He was a keen member of the Leatherhead & District Local History Society.

He eventually deposited with the Society his considerable research on those who were World War I casualties under the title Taken, Not Given. The current researchers are full of admiration and thanks for the work Liam accomplished on the background of the actions in which each casualty occurred. Liam was a non driver and painstakingly visited many locations to collect the information. We fully acknowledge his work and will be adding it to this website. Liam moved to Guildford. We are grateful to the Society for access to Liam's material and would be delighted to hear of his present whereabouts.

Access to the Town War Memorial, North Street (as of July 2004)
The Town War Memorial has been used as a place of shelter by visitors to Leatherhead. On occasion some have been abusive to those visiting the Memorial and there have been litter problems - and worse.

The memorial gates are now kept locked. Some would say it is a sad commentary on our times.

As a concession, a notice has now been put on the memorial gates with a phone number to call for an appointment to view it. The council say that they prefer that their representative will arrive and open the memorial for the visitor and then return later to lock it when the visitor leaves. The council have refused to consider opening the memorial even for a single day of the week.

As an example of the problems, a lady who lives close to the memorial and has a family members named on it. She had experienced such abuse from persons using the memorial as a base, that she said she most certainly did not want it opened.

There is a suggested scheme for the lighting of the memorial.

If you have views on access to the memorial please contact the editor.