Search is on for missing war memorial plaques in Keighley area (From Keighley News)
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Search is on for missing war memorial plaques in Keighley area
10:00am Monday 28th January 2013 in News By David Knights
Ian Walkden displays a picture of the missing George Hattersley war memorial outside the former works in Heber Street, Keighley
Historians are searching for at least nine missing war memorials in the Keighley area.
They hope to track down plaques and windows previously in local churches and businesses.
Some of them may have been destroyed or the wood re-used when their original buildings were demolished.
But members of Keighley’s Men of Worth project believe most of them would have been taken to alternative locations.
They hope they may be laying forgotten but safe in people’s attics or the store rooms of local churches.
Men of Worth, which is run by local volunteers, documents details of local people who have died in past conflicts.
Member Ian Walkden has been researching the possible locations of 11 memorials officially listed as ‘lost’.
The plaques usually list men from local congregations or workforces who died fighting in the First or Second World War.
Missing are memorials that originally belonged to George Hattersley and Sons, the Ancient Order of Foresters, Keighley Albion Cycling Club, Keighley Co-operative Society, the Prudential Assurance Com-pany and PO C M Handley RAF.
There was also a window at Lund Park Wesleyan Chapel, as well as memorials at Temple Street Methodist Church and Knowle Park Congregational Church.
Mr Walkden is particularly interested in the Hattersley memorial, a 14-foot-wide board that hung in the now-demolished engineering works below Keighley Shared Church.
He said: “It was such a magnificent thing. It was described as wood with bronze lettering.”
Mr Walkden has found two previously-missing memorials in recent months by matching their details with memorials stored by Bradford Council’s museums service, their origins previously unknown.
They were originally in Albert Street Baptist Church and the Marlborough Street Congregational Mission.
Mr Walkden is researching local records to confirm whether another council-stored board – listing 12 men who died in the First World War – matches a missing memorial from Devonshire Street Congregational Church.
He is trying to discover the origin of a fourth council memorial, a small trefoil-shaped oak board with nine names, mostly from the Eastwood, Parkwood, Stockbridge and Riddlesden areas.
