What we're working on: April

The only required outcome of this project, as mandated by its funder A Century of Stories, is a 20-minute conference paper at the Century of Stories conference at the University of Leicester (9 November 2018). However, from the beginning we've always been clear that we wanted to create some kind of additional output that was more durable and more accessible to the public. 

The Friends of Welford Road Cemetery have produced five self-guided themed cemetery trails over the years, and we are excited to be working with them to create a new one highlighting international connections of its First World War graves!

Research Visit to Welford Road Cemetery

A few months ago Hanna travelled from Oxford to Leicester to revisit Welford Road Cemetery- the focus of this project- to meet with the Friends of the cemetery, visit the graves we're researching in person, and get a sense of what outputs for this research would be most feasible. 

The cemetery has a designated Commonwealth War Graves Commission plot, but also has individual CWGC headstones scattered throughout the cemetery.

scattered CWGC grave

CWGC plot

CWGC Cross of Sacrifice

'Their name liveth for evermore', standard phrase used at CWGC sites- usually
on the Stone of Remembrance

grave of Samuel Paynter Musson, born in Jamaica and served
with the Indian forces

cemetery's visitor centre

The Friends of Welford Road Cemetery have a small visitor centre that handles visitor queries and stores research related to the cemetery's graves. It was great to meet with some of the Friends and hear about their work. 

Next week we'll have a post up on the outcomes of this meeting: what we decided to create as a more public-facing output for our research, and how the work on that is progressing!

What we're working on: October

Here's a quick update about what the Global War Graves team is working on this month!

Enshia is working on compiling a series of spreadsheets: info on international burials and commemorations of First World War participants in Welford Road Cemetery; international burial or commemoration places of British soldiers who are also commemorated on non-CWGC headstones at Welford; and other international connections. (Working from info drawn from the CWGC database and a PDF created by the Friends of Welford Road Cemetery). 

Hanna is working with the Friends of Welford Road Cemetery to plan and define the public-facing deliverables for the project, and planning next steps for research in the CWGC archives in Maidenhead and a research trip to Leicester. The only mandated outcome for this project is a conference paper to be given in Leicester next November, but we are very excited to announce that we will also be putting on an exhibition of our findings at the cemetery's visitor centre, and creating a First World War edition of the cemetery's popular self-guided walking trails. 

Meet the Research Intern: Enshia Li

Hello! My name is Enshia and I will be serving as a research intern for the Global War Graves Leicester project over the next year. I am a grade 12 student hailing from Toronto, Ontario, so unfortunately I shall be quite distant from Leicester during the process. At school, I am in the International Baccalaureate program, studying History, English Literature, and Chemistry at the higher level.

Recently, the experienced horrors of World War I has passed from personal memory to the historical. Yet we are still -- I am still -- fascinated by its bleak trajectory, the violent chance and machinery of its course, its quake shaking the present, reverberating far into the future. Still now, I am not entirely sure what this explosion means to me, to us, this generation born a century after the soldiers of the First World War.

Although we were born a hundred years apart, I am certain of one thing: remembering their sacrifice. To me, the act of honouring the dead is inseparable from remembering their individual lives, which is why I am so excited to be helping out with this project. By uncovering diverse histories of soldiers, we would add to the collection of WWI memory in the Leicester community, revealing previously neglected identities and narratives.