Back to War Memorials – Oswestry & District and Beyond.
Oswestry War Memorial – Cae Glas Park
The Memorial was unveiled on 27 December 1921 at 11.00am by Colonel JV Campbell VC, DSO, ADC (Trefonen ‘Lights Out’ and VCs on line)
Ashlar Limestone – Grade II listed building
Names of the WW1 fallen appear on the inside of the gate pillars, names of WW2 fallen appear on the reverse of the pillars.
There are 303 names of WW1 men – however it is thought that some are double entries – i.e. the name, or variant, appears twice and that the total is about 300. The list too is not entirely all the Oswestry men who fell, there are some curious ommissions – e.g. it is known that there are 2 brothers who fell but only one appears on the Memorial but both appear on Trefonen War Memorial. There are also other Oswestry men who fell in the war but are not on the Memorial, it can be postulated how they came to be omitted – it is known that in other localities relatives did not want their sons, husbands or brothers commemorated.
Unfortunately the records and archive for the Memorial has gone missing. It is not known how the names were selected or submitted. Similarly there are no records as to how the design, construction etc was progressed or who were the contractors. Information regarding the Memorial can only be gleaned from contemporary newspaper reports.
The proposal to create a war memorial for Oswestry was first mooted almost immediately after the war ended. One of the principal movers was the Rev Lutener, vicar of St Oswald’s Church. A public meeting was arranged for DATE with invitations going out to the villages and town representatives. The initial idea was to create a district war memorial including all the villages and settlements in the area. Various ideas were put forward ranging from a building or ‘Memorial Institution’ to a huge memorial arch. However, at the meeting, the villages expressed their intention to have their own memorials to commemorate their own fallen and, although they supported the creation of an Oswestry memorial, this was their primary desire. It would ultimately be up to the relatives of the men to decide which memorial to choose and many names are duplicated on village memorials and elsewhere aside from institutional or ocupational memorials – details of these are given on the men’s entries.
In 2014, to coincide with the WW1 centenary, the memorial was cleaned and renovated – not without some minor damage – the name BDR Davies lost the tail of the ‘R’ to become BDP Davies.
Oswestry War Memorial – names as they appear on the Memorial
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