BY IAN LACEY
The Chertsey Town War Memorial was unveiled 100 years ago on 30 October 1921. To commemorate this centenary, a public history project between Chertsey Museum and Royal Holloway University of London has uncovered some surprising stories about those who lost their lives as a result of the Great War, their bereaved families, and those who returned from the fighting.
The town’s war memorial displays 129 names which represented almost one in 20 of Chertsey’s pre-war population. Therefore, few in the town would have been left untouched by the conflict. The memorial bears the inscription ‘To the honoured memory of the men of Chertsey who fell in the Great War’ but includes the name of a woman, Maud Richardson. Both Maud and her sister Lilian from Windsor Street joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, and Maud died whilst still serving.
Eleanor Hunt of Grove Road lost two of her four sons within a period of five days in the early months of the war. Herbert and Richard Hunt were hailed as heroes after they were mentioned in dispatches for ‘conspicuous conduct’. Herbert also received the Médaille Militaire, a major French military award for bravery. At a time of extreme grief, Eleanor was thrust into the public spotlight, receiving a visit from the local MP, and appearing in several photo stories in the newspapers.
Ernest Joyner from Laburnum Road was another local soldier recognised for gallantry after being awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for bombing a pill-box. Shortly afterwards, following a period of home leave at Christmas 1917, he wrote a letter to the Surrey Herald in which he railed against the many men he had seen around town not wearing uniform. To Ernest, these men were shirking their responsibilities. In the latter stages of the conflict, with conscription imposed and the realities of the war evident to all, local military tribunals received hundreds of requests for exemptions.
One name not on the memorial is Frank Parton. He and Edward Lees were men from similar backgrounds who chose different paths. Born less than two years apart, their family homes were in Bridge Road and their fathers ran local foundries.
The Great War would claim both of their lives, but they would be remembered in different ways. Edward Lees was a soldier and lost his life serving in the Middle East. Frank Parton was a conscientious objector who spent time in prison because of his beliefs and eventually took his own life.
Find all these stories and more on the project blogsite chertseywm100.com or on Facebook and Twitter via #chertseywm100. Gaps still need to be filled so please contact the project’s curator Ian Lacey at Ian.Lacey.2020@live.rhul.ac.uk with any information or images relating to the men and women mentioned in the blogs.