17th February 2014

Remembering the Great War in our area

The Great War had a significant effect on our area, demonstrated by the number of war memorials which commemorate those who died. These memorials are at St Clements Church, Scarcroft School and at Southlands Methodist Church.

The National Railway Museum will be showcasing the sacrifice of railwaymen, with a list of some 20,000 names of railway employees who died during the First World War

Local buildings played an important role at the time. Belgian nuns and refugee children were given a home in the Bar Convent, where its concert hall was converted into a hospital ward for wounded soldiers.

Nunthorpe Hall was one of seven York auxiliary military hospitals, opening in October 1915 with 50 beds. Bombed in 1916, it closed in 1919, having treated 914 patients.

The Mount was also prepared as a hospital in August 1914. The Mount School has developed a partnership with Millthorpe School, and the Phillip-Melanchthon Gymnasium Schule near Berlin, Germany, to explore memory and commemoration in Britain and Germany.

We’re keen to explore the experience of local families, with information from photographs, soldiers’ letters, diaries and postcards passed down by ancestors who lived here during the war, and/or in the inter-war period.

Contact us for details.