We were awarded £10,000 funding by the National Lottery’s Heritage Fund in early 2024 and this was supported later in the year with £3,000 funding from Keighley Town Council.
Our proposal was to add more names to the Borough of Keighley Roll of Honour and to celebrate the centenary year of the original book and our wonderful Borough of Keighley War Memorial, which was unveiled in Keighley’s Town Hall Square on 7th December 1924, attended by several thousand people.
These stories of our history are explained by here by a selection of guest bloggers who will publish over the next weeks and months. We begin with Steve Hunnisett, a battlefield guide and historian who leads tours around London looking at the history and the evidence of the WW2 blitz. He talks about the influence of Edward Johnston:
Steve Hunnisett tells the story of Edward Johnston
Over the years since the creation of the original roll of honour, several additions have been made and we have asked Angela Speight, librarian and archivist at Keighley Library to explain the process. She has used some unique archive material which rarely sees the light of day, to write about the changes made over the years to Keighley’s Great War roll of honour:
Angela Speight – Keighley’s Roll of Honour
Librarian and Archivist Gina Birdsall tells us all about the unique and significant war records held at Keighley Library and how they can be accessed by members of the public:
Gina Birdsall – Keighley Library – World War archives
Local historian Eddie Kelly tells the story of the initial efforts to create a war memorial in Keighley and the process by which this was done, leaving us with a spectacular tribute to the men and women from Keighley who died in the Great War:
Eddie Kelly – Keighley’s War Memorial
Please keep coming back and following our dedicated posts on social media to read about our research work!
Posts on the Bradford and District Local Studies blog:
As part of the agreement to share the research work, selected posts from our blog have been hosted on the Bradford Library’s own blog:
Keighley’s Roll of Honour
Keighley’s War Memorial
Calligrapher Edward Johnston
Keighley Local Studies and Archives
Selected Biographies:
Worker Frances Hildred Mitchell
Private Thomas Kelk
Events which took place:
There were 103 new names added to the Roll of Honour.
Their biographies can be seen here
Exhibition:
From 21st September 2024 an exhibition was on display upstairs in Keighley Library Local Studies and Archives Room, until 5th December 2024.
This told the story of the War Memorial and Roll of Honour books and all of the biographies of the new names being added to our roll of honour. We were honoured that the exhibition was kindly opened by our Mayor of Keighley, Councillor Gulfraz Hussein.
Roll of Honour signing:
A signing ceremony was held to accept the 103 new names in the Roll of Honour Supplementary Volume.
This was a short event upstairs in Keighley Library with the Deputy Mayor Councillor Chris Herd, Andy Wade from the Men of Worth Project, Keighley Town Clerk Joe Cooney, and Angela Speight representing Keighley Library. We completed the signing on 8th November 2024. (Video by Elizabeth King)
Ceremony of unveiling:
A special ceremony was held in Keighley Library to unveil the new names in the Supplementary Volume, the unveiling was carried out by three year old Libby Griffiths and she was assisted by Deputy Mayor Chris Herd.
Libby is a relative of Private Jowett Coulton who is one of the new names added to the book. Also present to witness this event, were a number of family members of several of the new names.
This completed the work to add the names to the Borough of Keighley 1914 – 1918 Roll of Honour.
Timings:
Guests and visitors arrived at 10:00 am.
10:30 am:
The ceremony began with a welcome address by Christine May of Bradford Library Services and an introduction by Andy Wade to explain the process of the event.
The new names in the book were unveiled by Libby Griffiths and Chris Herd by removing a Union flag cover from the cabinet.
The Last Post was played by Judith Hales and standards were lowered, followed by one minute’s silence to remember the Fallen of World War One.
Prayers were led by the Revered Alastair Kirk and thanks were given.
The ceremony ended at around 11.00 am followed by speeches and comments.
11:15 pm
We were then treated to a special portrayal by Irene Lofthouse who told the life of QMAAC Worker Frances Hildred Mitchell, who is now named on the Keighley roll of honour as the only woman from Keighley who died as a result of her service in the Great War.
12:15 pm
Andy Wade gave a short talk of 30 minutes about the research work to add the new names to The Roll of Honour.
The event came to an end at 12:45 pm, to give time to vacate the room as the Local Studies and archives room closed for lunch between 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm.
Centenary of Keighley War Memorial
On 7th December 2024 Keighley Town Council held an event to commemorate the Centenary of our Roll of Honour at Keighley War Memorial.
We were proud to be a part of the celebrations.
Borough of Keighley Roll of Honour – The Great War 1914 – 1918. 2024 Centenary Names.
All thirty schools in Keighley and the Worth Valley received a copy of our printed book along with the accompanying digital output on a USB stick, this contained a pdf file of the book and pdf’s of each individual biography and the accompanying guest blog posts on Keighley’s war memorial etc.
Each of our six review panel members received a copy, plus local library/archives, plus the contributors who helped with the book. Six national institutions also received one.
The Borough of Keighley Great War roll of honour.
New names discovered from research:
The Men of Worth Project’s research over the past 23 years had given us a unique insight into the people of Keighley who fell in the war and we had found over 100 names of local people who served and died in the Great War, who were not named in the Borough of Keighley Great War roll of honour.
In December 2023 we applied to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for a grant to pay for research and digital outputs etc., to highlight the many names we had found who were missing from the roll of honour. We told the stories of how the original roll of names were created and those who undertook the work, plus examples of more names being added from time to time and how that was accomplished.
Follow us on Facebook or Bluesky for up to date posts on what’s knew! We post links to all our blog entries on there, so you get to see them as soon as they appear!
The grant process:
We researched the stories of the candidates we’d found and published them on our website blog. They were reviewed by a group of local people who formed the peer review panel to decide if a candidate was from Keighley or were sufficiently connected with the town to be added to it’s roll of honour by birth, residency, education or employment, prior to their death in the war.
They were: Clare Abberton, Jarlath Bancroft, Caroline Firth, Peter Karkoszka, Paul Skinner, Andrea Walker.
The panel were not directly connected with the Men of Worth Project, and they made the decisions about who to add using a simple voting system, the results of which were anonymised before publication. This was done to bring an inclusivity to the process. We also promoted the work on social media and invited comments from interested parties to give further credence to the decisions. Our project’s role was just to put forward candidates and allow other local people to decide which ones we added.
List for the 2024 Centenary of the Borough of Keighley roll of honour
As each biography was posted, we included a link from their name on that page, to their biography page on our blog.
Visitors could make comments on the biography page (these were all vetted first to eliminate junk mail and offensive remarks.)
The names would eventually be submitted to a professional calligraphy and bookbinding company who wrote the new names into the Supplementary Volume along with any alterations to the spine and pages.
An exhibition in Keighley Library beginning in September displayed the candidate’s biographies to the public over a period of weeks.
The end of our exhibition coincided with an event welcoming the public to witness the unveiling of our updated roll of honour, with a special presentation by a local historical artist who would portray the life story one of the new names.
Our digital output was also printed in a book, a copy of which was given to every school in the Keighley district, along with a digital copy so they can view it with their school computers.
