Lost tribute to war hero discovered in church
AWELSH World War One hero’s memorial plaque which was lost for decades has been found by chance 100 years after his death.
Second Lieutenant Vivian Llewellyn, from the 14th Service Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers, was 20 when he was killed in action in France one week before fighting ended on November 11, 1918.
The memorial to the young Cardiff dock worker will be rededicated at the city’s Highfields Church today.
Three generations of his descendants and a delegation from the Royal British Legion, the Regimental Association of The Royal Welsh and the Western Front Association will be in attendance.
A memorial plaque dedicated to his memory was put up in 1919 in Crwys Hall Methodist Church. But in the 1980s it was removed and forgotten when the church changed hands.
After hearing about the “lost” memorial to his great-uncle, Jeremy Sparkes decided to hunt for it, but was devastated to be told it was nowhere to be found at Highfields Church, which now stands on the site of the former Methodist church.
A century on and the memorial was all but forgotten, removed from the old hall, damaged and stacked in a store cupboard, with not even his family knowing it was there.
Mr Sparkes searched Imperial War Museum data and even found a report from the Western Mail at the time of the plaque’s dedication describing how the young soldier, who was “a charming young fellow”, was hit by a shell.