Messrs Jones & Willis Ltd

Yay! This week I received permission to apply for a grant from the War Memorials Trust with the good news that the new funding for War Memorials means that they have changed the grant structure, previously it was up to 50% with a max of £3000, now it is up to 75% with a max of £30,000

That's some increase! It means that I can apply for up to £7,500 of the £10,000 needed.

Part of the application form is giving information about the history of the memorial and as I was gathering my information for this I found a note in the vestry minutes book which I had overlooked before...

I didn't know who made the memorial but it is written in the minutes that the vestry "approved the design submitted by Messrs Jones & Willis." now this isn't proof that the memorial was made by Jones & Willis but it's unlikely that they would have approved their designs then gone to another company! I am visiting the archives next week to check for further information.

Jones & Willis Ltd were a Birmingham-based company formed about 1850, they supplied church furniture, fabrics, clerical robes, carved wood and stone items, metalwork and stained glass. They had premises in London and Liverpool (Concert St off Bold St) A 1905 catalogue of their items is available here on the Internet Archive (free out-of-copyright images, opens in new window) It doesn't show anything that matches the memorial but it is 15 years too early, if anyone finds a later catalogue please let me know!

Dates of Birth

Thanks to the grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund I have been able to order birth certificates for most of the men whose dates of birth are still unknown. D.O.Bs to be added for the following (these names will link to their biographies once they have been updated.)

Arthur Patrick Beattie
Edward Burston
Samuel Butler
Robert Dawson Corran
William Henry Irving Elliott
John Henry Fitzsimmons
Lamont Grave
Thomas Middleton Hulme
Herbert Lloyd Hill
Robert Isherwood
William John Jago
Richard Harkness Jaques
William Keam
George James MacKarell
Charles Stenson
Alfred James Trafford

Additional info - Matthew Jones

The entry for Matthew Jones has been updated today with a photograph, newspaper article giving information about his occupation and family notices from the Liverpool Echo.

Click here to go to the updated post.

Private Joseph Morris identified!

Up until now I have only been able to say that Joseph Morris was the brother of Frank Morris (also on the memorial) that he had pre-war military experience and that he was with Frank on the 1911 census but their mother did not include Joseph on a list of family members on an army form in 1919. This circumstantial evidence led me to say that Frank's brother was a possible ID for the Joseph on the memorial. I had no way of knowing which Joseph Morris he was on the CWGC though.

With the release of the Army Register of Soldier's Effects on Ancestry has come a breakthrough, the entry for Frank Morris's effects shows that some of his money went to his brother, S/13973 Pte Joseph (Morris). Elated at finding this clue I quickly went to the CWGC website and searched for this soldier... he wasn't there. Could it be that Frank's brother had survived and this was an unrelated Morris on the memorial? I just didn't think so, after all the hard work that had gone into identifying Frank I just knew that there had to be something else to find.

Enter the Medal Rolls, also on Ancestry. The Medal Index Cards have been available for some time but the rolls have recently been released and they have the added bonus of giving the previous regiments and regimental numbers for soldiers, and sometimes their enlistment and discharge dates too. So I searched for Joseph Morris S/13973 and got nothing again, until I looked more closely at the results and saw that Pte Joseph Morris S/43185 had a previous regimental number of S/13973, this was the brother of Frank! He served with the Seaforth Highlanders, previously with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Why these Scottish Regiments when his previous service was with The King's (Liverpool Regiment?) who can say, the necessities of war perhaps.

Taking this regimental information back to the CWGC website I found his entry, showing that Private Joseph Morris of 2nd Battalion the Seaforth Highlanders died on 11 April 1917, his name is engraved on Bay 8 of the Arras Memorial.

Raising Money

It's all gone a bit quiet on the blogging front as there are few things to add to the researched information. I'm still busy with the project though, visiting schools and leading remembrance assemblies, teaching children about the meaning and importance of war memorials and hopefully inspiring them to take an interest in their local memorials.

There is also the fundraising, not much has been said about this yet as I'm waiting to see how much money is available from grants first, then we will have a target amount to fundraise.

We will have to raise a total of about £10,000 though, I will be applying for money from the War Memorials Trust and the Heritage Lottery Fund but if you can think of any other grants or associations who might contribute, please let me know !

Amanda