War Memorial

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cares for the cemeteries and memorials of the First and Second World Wars and provides the ‘official’ site of remembrance.  However, there are many other places that people can be remembered.  Many communities and organisations erected war memorials – these could take many forms, and sometimes do include lists of names. 

The Imperial War Museum has a good collection of unveiling programmes from war memorials built in the years after the First World War, and also a good collection of photographs of these memorials held in the Photograph Archive. 

The United Kingdom National Inventory of War Memorials is compiling a list of all memorials in the country.  The origins of the project lay in recording and protecting the various monuments, as many of these were being vandalised, lost and neglected.  It is hoped that funding will be found to enable the project to develop and list the names of those who died.  Click here to find out more about the UKNIWM, and to check what memorials might exist for a particular town, regiment or organisation.