The war memorial at Dulwich Common

[Louisa]

I have contacted the British Legion about the old war memorial on the border of Dulwich Common and LL, as I believe this being the only memorial to local men and women who gave up their lives in two world wars and beyond, should be taken better care of and should be fully restored to what it was with the removal of undergrowth and weeds, and the painting and restructing of the old iron gate which once surrounded part of it. I believe the church as it was used to care for this memorial but when it became seperated from the COE, it was allowed to go to ruin with little care if any taking place for many years.

I as a long standing local resident have had family members fight and die in both world wars, as I am sure many others of you have, and I think it would be a really fitting tribute if we could get the local council and the current church to help restore this memorial to all those lost locally in ED and the surrounding areas.

I have written a few letters, but will only send them off once I have gathered enough support for this, so if you have the time please could you help support this cause in any way you can. Thanks.

[TillieTrotter]

If you post the address or even better an email address I would be happy to support this.

Nice one Louisa

[SeanMacGabhann]

I hope this doesn't turn into another debate as some things are beyond that

Good reminder to us all Louisa

[macroban]

I support this initiative.

The war memorial is not totally forgotten. It had one wreath last Remembrance Sunday when I visited.

The contrast between this one wreath and the multiple wreaths on the Dulwich Village war memorial was notable.

A second East Dulwich war memorial was in the grounds of Dulwich Hospital. I understand this is currently in safe storage.

I would certainly like to know more about about the East Dulwich Volunteers.

[Amelie]

The memorial was refurbished a couple of years ago, don't know by whom. I will happily support a request to the Legion.

[Huguenot]

Great intentions - just tell us what we have to do!

[Ko]

Yes I support this too.

[Keef]

I'd support it if I knew what the hell you were talking about.... I can't think where this memorial is :-S

Outside the Harvester / Grove Tavern???

[macroban]

The war memorial is actually on the West side of Lordship Lane.

If you walk South from the Harvester, cross Dulwich Common, it's about 10 metres further South.

[peckham_perkster]

I am in total agreement and would gladly sign up for this and if anything else needs doing then would be happy to help.

I too had relatives in both wars and always feel a pang of guilt and shame when I see war memorials looking forgotten and delapidated. It's all far too easy for us to forget now that these wars were so long ago.

I think people sometimes also forget the work the Legion does now which is just as important, especially in light of the recent conflict.

[Dannyboy]

This kind of relates to my day job, so I ought to know a bit more about the memorial than I do. I'm posting up a query about it on The Great War Forum to see if anyone there knows more about this specific memorial or the Dulwich Volunteer Battalion in particular - it's unclear to me whether they would have been a unit set up for home service and to which Regiment they would have been affiliated. If I can find some time, I might have a chat to the library as well and see if they've got anything.

The memorial is on the UK National Inventory of War Memorials, but there's not much information - so anyone who can find out some more should email them to add it on.

[macroban]

Thanks for the reference, Dannyboy. Unfortunately I can't get the site search engine to locate our War Memorial.

I remember being told that our local Volunteers were associated with the London Artists' Rifles. This makes sense because of the East Dulwich barracks, but it may be a natural error because of the proximity. 40-year old memories are probably unreliable anyway.

I hope your research provides more information.

[Louisa]

Just to let everyone know - I contacted the British Legion with an email and phone call citing support from local people on this matter, and so far ive been informed of:

1) A Southwark Council team member who deals specifically with the up-keep of memorials and historic sites around the borough.

2) Contacting the local MP who can inform a special parliamentary committee in the second chamber which helps support the maintenance of these memorials.

I am slightly confused because I always thought the British Legion dealt with these things directly on behalf of those who can no longer speak for themselves. But anyway, it is the role of the ordinary citizen once again to put pressure on yet more third party groups to make sure this memorial is taken better care of. I wonder if a group of us should take a few hours out and go up and do the work ourselves!

[peckham_perkster]

I have an idea Louisa as I volunteer with the Southwark Youth Offending Team, they may be able to help out and get this done, I'll keep you informed but this could be a really good project for them.

[peckham_perkster]

Louisa I don't want to take this over from you as you have clearly done all the work and got us all talking about it. I will totally understand if you don't want the youth offending team to get involved, I just thought it was a really good opportunity for them. Let me know if you don't want me to pursue this further. :-$ Below is what I've done so far but it can all easily have the brakes put on it.

I've had a chat with the guy who coordinates the 'Reparation Scheme' which is something I volunteer on with youth offendors. He is really interested in getting their 'clients' as they call the youth offendors, involved in something like this. He is going to go and have a look at the monument and see what needs doing so they can suss out what tools will be needed and any costs involved. As you can imagine they don't have much money but I told them about the Southwark official you mentioned and suggested they should cough up if needs be, it's in their interests to!

On the back of this I've also suggested looking into any others in the borough that the clients could work on in case there are more that need some work doing to them in case you don't want them to work on this one.

We already do some work with the clients for the British Legion by making poppies, as well as the clients paying back to the community they also learn about the Legion and what it does so this links in nicely.

I won't bore you with the details of how the scheme works and the volunteering I do as that would be getting off subject. What I will say is that the scheme works to ensure that youth offendors work on projects that directly benefit the community working alongside volunteers.

[Louisa]

This sounds like a great idea peckham_perkster, I would be 100% in support of any such move to help maintain this monument. Thanks for your contribution, and to everyone else whos put forward their support.

[peckham_perkster]

(tu):))(tu)

Thanks for the vote of confidence Louisa! I shall add more on the thread once I've heard more from the YOT. However I know some of you on here were trying to actually find out about the monument which I would still be interested to know about so hopefully someone will post some more information.

I may go up there tonight after the initial WI meeting (eek) and take some photos to send to them.

[Ko]

Great work Louisa and PP!

[Dannyboy]

The YOT stuff does indeed sound like a plan, and if I can do anything to help, let me know. I've been a bit busy with work, so this is a bit conjectural, but so far as I can work out, the Dulwich Volunteer Battalion who set this up would have been one of the Home Guard style units raised for Home Defence and guard duties during the First World War. The Dulwich Society newsletter refers to them as 'ill fated', but I can't quite work out why, since such units didn't see active service. Perhaps something to do with organisation? There was no battalion of the London Regiment with a specific Dulwich allegiance (as there was for, say Camberwell, or Islington) and those who joined up for active service from Dulwich probably either went into the East Surrey or the Royal West Kent Regiment. The people behind the memorial might help to explain both the phrasing of the inscription and its form: I suspect that it was put up by those who stayed at home, mainly to mark their gratitude to those who served and died overseas, but also, of course, to demonstrate that they were part of the same body of 'veterans'.

There isn't really a good book on the home defence volunteers as a whole, but I'll keep doing the odd bit of digging and I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who is a Dulwich (as opposed to a WWI) expert.

D

[serenity]

Great stuff Louisa. I really hope you're successful,

Serenity x

[TillieTrotter]

This is one of the nicest threads to have happened on the EDF. I really feel that this forum has engendered a community. And I feel right proud to be apart of it. I also would be willing to help with anything to do with this project.

My Great-grandfather lived in Rosendale Road and was in both World Wars. Firstly as a driver in the Royal Field Artillery, he was at the Somme and survived to fight in WWII in The Queens Royal Regiment. His son, my grandfather also fought in WWII as a Lance Corporal in the Reconnaissance Regiment and survived the Attack on Anzio. I feel incredibly proud of my boys and anyone else that went through the same.

Sorry, if that went off topic but couldnt help sharing! (tu) (tu)

[peckham_perkster]

OK, a quick update...

Went down to the memorial on Saturday in between mentoring sessions along with my fellow mentors to suss it all out. I took some photos and sent them to the man who is responsible for the Reparation scheme and spoke to him later on about it. We reckon it's an excellent opportunity and will be getting the wheels in motion as soon as possible. We've come up with ideas about what we can do down there so now it's a case of finding out who is responsible for the churchyard so we can get permission to do the work though I really doubt this will be a problem.

One of the other mentors was telling me that Wildred Owen wrote a book on plants before he went to war so we thought we could plant some of the ones he talked about around along with some poppies.

I'm going to get my local history head on to find out what the regiment's colours were and see if we can't get a flag made up in them. I also want to find out all the names of the men who served as this is missing from the memorial. Another thing is finding photos of the memorial when it was opened in local papers so we can see what it originally looked like to try and restore it as close as possible to this. By chance I spoke to someone at the open gardens thing at Choumert Square who is from the local historical society who has taken my number to give to someone who may be able to help so we shall see.

I was told by someone I work with that there is a fund for sprucing up memorials which I'm going to look into as obviously we need some money to get the project completed properly. The Southwark YOT team can provide tools and clients to do most of the work but we'll need money to buy the flowers and any other materials to do the work. I don't think there was a metal fence around the memorial as I could find no trace of this when scrabbling around it but there was definitely something attached to the front of it.

I am having a meeting with the guy responsible for the Reparation project tonight and along with some other stuff will clearly discuss the way forward with this.

However all of that said if anyone can help me out with some of the research or knows someone who may have information about the memorial, who runs the church etc then please PM me or put it on here, it will all help!

My ideal ending to this would be to have the British Legion come down and officially open it back up again along with possible descendants of the men who served in this, apparently, forgotten regiment.

[Dannyboy]

Perkster

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough - I don't think you will find a list of the dead, because the ones from this battalion wouldn't have gone off to war, although they would have known plenty of others who did. Again, think of it like the Home Guard in WW2 - this was probably a unit made up of old men/reserved occupations/the medically unfit, serving on a part time basis. Similar with the colours - I guess the battalion might have been affiliated to a regular regiment, but there was no formal connection so far as I can see. Someone from the local history society might be able to offer more info I would hope (and I am making a lot of educated guesses here).

I still think that they should be remembered - voluntary effort was absolutely crucial to Britain's First World War, and its impact on the Home Front (other than supposedly revolutionising women's lives) is too often forgotten.

I realise that it would be nice to have some details to accompany any restoration (and also probably important in reparative, citizenship terms?). There might well be a Roll of Honour (ie a list of those who served) or a Roll of Sacrifice (those who died) in the church itself: these were often kept by parishes. If there isn't, there might still be a way to get some names. After 1918, the War Office compiled a list of 'Soldiers Died in the Great War' which lists the dead by birthplace and place of enlistment. It's been put onto CD rom, and is therefore now easy to search - but it's costly. Fortunately, I see that the Department of Printed Books at the Imperial War Museum has a copy. I'll be in there next week, so I could try coming up with a list of dead soldiers from Dulwich for you (although it might be pretty substantial). But I'm presuming that these wouldn't be added to the memorial: it was put up the way it is for a reason.

Sorry for the long post - I'm consciously not trying to write a volume on memorialisation here!

[Amelie]

You could try Dulwich College chapel for a list of the fallen as well, there is a substantial monument outside the chapel - if there is a list it is most likely to be held either at the Chapel or at St Barnabas, Dulwich College and Alleyn's have both had a CCF for many years so there may be lists there too.

[Dannyboy]

True, but these will be lists of former pupils rather than a reflection of the communal effort.