Community pauses to remember fallen
Plea for more info on local men lost in the battle
Last Friday, July 1, marked 100 years since the start of The Battle of the Somme.
Fought in northern France, it was one of the bloodiest of World War One.
And this week Stonehouse Heritage Society asked everyone to pause for a minute to remember the young men from the village who perished during the horrific offensive.
They say they know of nine brave soldiers with a Stonehouse connection who were killed during the carnage.
And eight of them are commemorated on the world-famous Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorial at Thiepval in northern France.
They are: Robert Brownlie, Robert Feelie, Thomas Grimason, Alexander Moore, Alexander Plenderleith, Robert Russell, William Watt and Robert Wilson.
Royalty and leaders from countries around Europe and the Commonwealth joined with service men and women and members of the public for a special service of remembrance at the memorial site, last Friday.
The Thiepval Memorial is the largest Commonwealth war memorial in the world. It commemorates more than 72,000 men who died in the Somme sector between 1915 and March 1918, more than 90 per cent of them during the 1916 battle.
The first day of the Battle of the Somme was the worst day in British military history: 20,000 soldiers died in just a few hours, decimated by German machine gun fire.
For five months the British and French armies fought the Germans in a brutal battle of attrition on a 15-mile front.
The aims of the battle were to relieve the French Army fighting at Verdun and to weaken the German Army.
However, the Allies were unable to break through German lines. In total, there were over one million dead and wounded on all sides.
Stonehouse Heritage Society ask that we take a minute and remember them.
The group have been working for a number of years identifying anyone from Stonehouse who enlisted, fought, survived or died during World War One.
“This research has included trying to obtain pictures of the men, obtaining their service records, details of the awards for gallantry, the prisoner of war camps they were held in to what cemeteries and where they are commemorated,” said chairman Robert Freel.
“The research has been carried out over a number of years by a few members who are no longer with us so thanks must go to the late Jim Davidson, William Mackie and John Rogers and to those who continue the research, John Young, James Monie and me.”
In 2008 over 20 names from both world wars were added to the war memorial and as research continues the society have a few more to add.
“It is important that even today 100 years on we still recognise and acknowledge the suffering that these men went through including their families who lost either a son, a father, a brother,” added Robert.
If anyone has information from pictures or stories on a family member from Stonehouse who fought during the great war, the group would like to hear from them.
Email the group on stonehouseheritage.co.uk info@