The Farnhill WW1 Volunteers Project has very deliberately restricted its research efforts to the 68 men whose names appear on the Farnhill Parish Council Roll of Honour.
However during the course of the project we have come across the names of other local men who served during WW1 whose stories deserve to be told.
Article – Missing volunteers & other men who served
During the course of our project the Farnhill Methodist Chapel WW1 Roll of Honour, previous thought to be lost, was given to us. We set about raising funds for the conservation and digital restoration of the Roll which, after 100 years, was in clear need of professional attention.
You can read an article describing the conservation and restoration process.
A slideshow showing the process is also available.
Postcards were the text messages of their day and, throughout the war, Percy Walmsley collected the postcards sent to him from home as well as those he sent home from France. These were gather together into an album and loaned to the project by his grand-daughter, Kath Whitton.
This gallery shows these postcards, photographed in-situ, without removing them from the album.
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Two years of research has enabled us to produce biographies for all 68 men whose names appeared on the 1916 Farnhill Parish Council Roll of Honour.
Today these are published on the Biographies & photographs page.
After many months of work, the digitally restored Farnhill Methodist WW1 Roll of Honour was unveiled during our exhibition “From Farnhill to the Front” on Saturday 10th November 2018.
Here’s a close-up:
The digitally restored roll will be mounted, in an oak frame with UV-filter glass, in the Main Hall of the Institute in due course.
The conserved original is now on permanent loan to the North Yorkshire County Archive in Northallerton.
Below, just a few of the photographs taken during our “From Farnhill to the Front” exhibition on Saturday 10th November 2018.
We had a great turn-out:
People enjoyed the slideshow:
We had displays of artefacts loaned to the project:
Upstairs, more displays and room for a coffee and a chat:
The Knitwick and Yarnhill poppy waterfall made an impressive sight:
The digitally restored Farnhill Methodist Chapel Roll of Honour was unveiled and on display throughout the day. (It will be framed and put on permanent display in the Institute.)
But amongst all the fun and chatter, there was always remembrance, commemoration and an appreciation of sacrifices made. Lest we forget.
We’ve updated our booklet about the Volunteers, which you can download from here.
If you have any information on any of these men, particularly the post-war lives of those men who survived the conflict, we’d like to hear from you.
Watch out for more material from the project coming in the next few days, as the Big Upload continues.
At 11am on 11th November 1918, fighting stopped all over the world and people began to wonder whether they might begin to hope that the war was finally over.
In an article we publish today, exactly 100 years after Armistice Day, we examine the thoughts of some of the people of Farnhill and Kildwick, including:
Article – Some local account of the Armistice
Once our From Farnhill to the Front exhibition is over and the quiet contemplation of the Armistice Day centenary has passed, this website will be a hive of activity as the Big Upload of material resulting from the two years of research carried out by members of this project takes place.
The material will include:
All this will be in addition to the regular Articles and news reports on the project, that we will continue to post up.
To commemorate the centenary of Armistice Day, members of the project team will be laying a wreath at Kildwick War Memorial, on Sunday 11th November 2018.
The project team will also participate in the reading out of names from the War Memorial, which will form part of the St. Andrew’s Church Armistice Day commemorations.
Join us if you can for this act of commemoration and thanksgiving.
Before then, individual poppy crosses will be placed on the 21 graves of Farnhill WW1 Volunteers that the project has identified in the local area.
