Saltley Loco Depot First World War Memorial

[Odyssey]

I am doing research about the Saltley Locomotive Depot War Memorial which has just been put on permanent display at Birmingham New Street. If anyone knows anything about the history of the Roll of Honour or the people listed on it please let me know by replying here or private message.
I am particularly interested to know more about the photo on this website, apparently from the unveiling in 1925:

Midland Railway Loco Dept Saltley 1914-1918

Board/Plaque/ Tablet

www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk

I have contacted the person who posted it but he can't remember where he found it. Possibly from a magazine? It seems to be cropped from a larger photo. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Gloster]

A likely source for the photo would be the LMS Magazine: the LMS’ staff journal and not one of the more recent titles of that name. I don’t know whether there was one edition of the magazine for the whole of the LMS system, different editions for the various pre-grouping companies or districts, or a combination of the two.

I wonder why seven names are separated off: could they have been officers when killed or management on the railway? Many memorials took the attitude that death has no rank.

 

[Wandering Pom]

I wonder why seven names are separated off: could they have been officers when killed or management on the railway? Many memorials took the attitude that death has no rank.

The seven separated names "laid down their lives"; the memorial otherwise records those who "joined His Majesty's forces", and by implication survived the War.

 

[Odyssey]

Thank you for this. The 7 names listed at the top are the employees from the depot who died in the conflict.
Are there any copies of the LMS staff magazine online. I will visit the NRM when I can but until then need to make do with the Internet.

 

[Gloster]

The seven separated names "laid down their lives"; the memorial otherwise records those who "joined His Majesty's forces", and by implication survived the War.

That could well be the answer. Several of the seven names come up with likely results on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s site, but a check of seven or eight of the less common names in the lower section gives no results.

 

[WesternLancer]

I am doing research about the Saltley Locomotive Depot War Memorial which has just been put on permanent display at Birmingham New Street. If anyone knows anything about the history of the Roll of Honour or the people listed on it please let me know by replying here or private message.
I am particularly interested to know more about the photo on this website, apparently from the unveiling in 1925:

Midland Railway Loco Dept Saltley 1914-1918

Board/Plaque/ Tablet

www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk

I have contacted the person who posted it but he can't remember where he found it. Possibly from a magazine? It seems to be cropped from a larger photo. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Is it worth you checking with local studies library at Birmingham city council to see if it’s an image from their archive. Might be worth asking them.

Or midland railway studies group at silk mill museum in Derby.

 

[Odyssey]

Is it worth you checking with local studies library at Birmingham city council to see if it’s an image from their archive. Might be worth asking them.

Or midland railway studies group at silk mill museum in Derby.

I am in contact with the very helpful Midland Railway Studies Group already. Birmingham City Council Local Studies is a good shout. Might try that.

 

[WesternLancer]

I am in contact with the very helpful Midland Railway Studies Group already. Birmingham City Council Local Studies is a good shout. Might try that.

Thanks. Good luck with finding out more. Do please update if you do.

 

[Odyssey]

Thanks. Good luck with finding out more. Do please update if you do.

Thank you. I know about the recent history of the plaque. And 6 of the 7 deceased are also listed on the Lutyens Memorial at Derby. So know a bit about them. But got no record of when it was commissioned and where it was constructed. I assume the black and white photo on the War Memorials Trust website is the unveiling ceremony. Very keen to know more about that photo and the people in it.
The similar plaques from the Derby works, now on display on Platform 1 at Derby Station, are better documented because the local paper reported it. I can assume the process for the Saltley Memorial was similar but would be nice to know for sure. Sadly yet to find anything in the Birmingham newspaper archives.

 

[Taunton]

You might check The Railway Magazine for the month or two after the unveiling, as a proportion of their content, news and photographs, came from the PR departments and house magazines of the railway companies.

 

[Odyssey]

A likely source for the photo would be the LMS Magazine: the LMS’ staff journal and not one of the more recent titles of that name. I don’t know whether there was one edition of the magazine for the whole of the LMS system, different editions for the various pre-grouping companies or districts, or a combination of the two.

I wonder why seven names are separated off: could they have been officers when killed or management on the railway? Many memorials took the attitude that death has no rank.

I have contacted the National Railway Museum. Unfortunately that photo could not be found in the LMS Magazine collection.

 

[The exile]

That could well be the answer. Several of the seven names come up with likely results on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s site, but a check of seven or eight of the less common names in the lower section gives no results.

It’s stated very clearly on the memorial that that’s what it means. Quite unusual - but by no means unique. Possibly more common where you have a company (or some other “restricted pool”) wishing to honour all who joined up. Cynically “look how patriotic we were” compared with Bloggs and Son down the road.

 

[WesternLancer]

It’s stated very clearly on the memorial that that’s what it means. Quite unusual - but by no means unique. Possibly more common where you have a company (or some other “restricted pool”) wishing to honour all who joined up. Cynically “look how patriotic we were” compared with Bloggs and Son down the road.

Indeed by no means unique - I have seen war memorials in village churches (often when the memorial is a scroll or similar inside the church) where everyone who served from the parish / village is listed and those who died are separately identified - perhaps by a cross next to their name for example - will often have a 'key' on it somewhere that says that the cross indicates for example 'laid down their life' or some form of words, but all villagers who served are listed.

Public stone memorials however more commonly only name those who lost their lives I suspect. Total speculation on my part here but that may be because of issues like the size of a stone memorial, or the number of names to be carved on it - all of which would have had cost implications at the time, might have served to result in only those whose lives were lost getting listed on such a stone memorial. This cost matter would not be such an issue on a paper scroll or wooden inscribed tablet I speculate.

The War Memorials Trust has a number of interesting fact sheet type resources on memorials and this sort of thing may get addressed in one of those.

As an aside there was a lot of controversy at the time of WW1 about things like this, with some resistance to the idea that memorials should treat all of the dead equally - which resulted in the CWGC (then IWGC) gravestones being all the same style / size etc. Essentially this was because some people (those with the wealth to do so presumably) wanted to erect 'grander' graves / tombstones and or wanted to pay to repatriate the bodies of their family members, and this was resisted by the committee set up to address the issue of large numbers of those being killed and how to mark their graves, and also indeed the names of the missing. See online information about Sir Fabian Ware if interested in this.

 

[The exile]

One of the classic examples being the memorial in the church at Mells in Somerset…

 

[Eyersey468]

Indeed by no means unique - I have seen war memorials in village churches (often when the memorial is a scroll or similar inside the church) where everyone who served from the parish / village is listed and those who died are separately identified - perhaps by a cross next to their name for example - will often have a 'key' on it somewhere that says that the cross indicates for example 'laid down their life' or some form of words, but all villagers who served are listed.

Public stone memorials however more commonly only name those who lost their lives I suspect. Total speculation on my part here but that may be because of issues like the size of a stone memorial, or the number of names to be carved on it - all of which would have had cost implications at the time, might have served to result in only those whose lives were lost getting listed on such a stone memorial. This cost matter would not be such an issue on a paper scroll or wooden inscribed tablet I speculate.

The War Memorials Trust has a number of interesting fact sheet type resources on memorials and this sort of thing may get addressed in one of those.

As an aside there was a lot of controversy at the time of WW1 about things like this, with some resistance to the idea that memorials should treat all of the dead equally - which resulted in the CWGC (then IWGC) gravestones being all the same style / size etc. Essentially this was because some people (those with the wealth to do so presumably) wanted to erect 'grander' graves / tombstones and or wanted to pay to repatriate the bodies of their family members, and this was resisted by the committee set up to address the issue of large numbers of those being killed and how to mark their graves, and also indeed the names of the missing. See online information about Sir Fabian Ware if interested in this.

A lot of the public stone memorials were made after the war with the intention of honouring the war dead

 

[DarloRich]

I wonder why seven names are separated off: could they have been officers when killed or management on the railway? Many memorials took the attitude that death has no rank.

They will have died. The others will have served.

Several of the seven names come up with likely results on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s site

It is also worth remembering that not everyone killed in the first world war has a grave. A distant relative of mine was never identified and is so remembered on the Tyne Cot memorial.

memorials like this were a way, sometimes, of letting the family/friends have something closer to them.

Public stone memorials however more commonly only name those who lost their lives I suspect.

correct - however many "business" memorials like this one show both those who died and those who served. I guess because they were smaller and more personal than the big town memorials

the Saltley Locomotive Depot War Memorial which has just been put on permanent display at Birmingham New Street.

I did not know that - where is it located? I would like to see it.

 

[Gloster]

It is also worth remembering that not everyone killed in the first world war has a grave. A distant relative of mine was never identified and is so remembered on the Tyne Cot memorial.

I think that the CWGC site includes all who died, including those with no known grave.

 

[WesternLancer]

I think that the CWGC site includes all who died, including those with no known grave.

I'm pretty sure you are correct - it will tell you on which memorials / at which site where their name is inscribed and can be found (of the CWGC memorials that is, not other memorials erected by the local communities where people came from or for example where they worked, like this Saltley one - but I'm sure you knew that - just mentioning it in case helpful to any other readers now or in future)

I assume that when a body is found and can be identified (and thus a name placed on the grave), the name is then removed from the relevant memorials of the missing.

 

[Elecman]

I think that the CWGC site includes all who died, including those with no known grave.

That is correct

 

[Odyssey]

They will have died. The others will have served.

It is also worth remembering that not everyone killed in the first world war has a grave. A distant relative of mine was never identified and is so remembered on the Tyne Cot memorial.

memorials like this were a way, sometimes, of letting the family/friends have something closer to them.


correct - however many "business" memorials like this one show both those who died and those who served. I guess because they were smaller and more personal than the big town memorials


I did not know that - where is it located? I would like to see it.

The memorial plaque is located along the central concourse by Ozzy the Bull in a case. The LNWR memorial is beside it.

 

[DarloRich]

The memorial plaque is located along the central concourse by Ozzy the Bull in a case. The LNWR memorial is beside it.

Thanks - I will take a look next time I am up that way

 

[pitdiver]

As an aside in my village we have a a war memorial that only lists those who lost their lives during WW1. When I asked one of the long time residents he replied " remember where we are". I live in an ex mining village so none of the men of the village joined the forces or were called up. Thy were all down the pit.

 

[WesternLancer]

As an aside in my village we have a a war memorial that only lists those who lost their lives during WW1. When I asked one of the long time residents he replied " remember where we are". I live in an ex mining village so none of the men of the village joined the forces or were called up. Thy were all down the pit.

Yes, good point about reserved occupations - one of my grandfathers lived in one of the 53 'Thankful Villages' where no one was lost - there is a memorial in the church to that effect. I see on wikipedia that there are 4 of those in Notts, but I don't think any of them are in the coalfield area.

 

[Gloster]

I don’t think that there were reserved occupations at the beginning of The Great War. It was more a case of owners and managers, and local politicians (often one and the same) saying, “You can do your patriotic duty just as well as those joining the army by continuing to drive trains/dig coal/make rocking horses.” There was also that the sheer number of men volunteering meant that many couldn’t be accomodated by the military and were put off for the moment by them: they had to keep working in order to keep food on the table.

The problems only started to arise in the middle of 1915, when the military was able to and needed to increase its intake, that shortages of manpower in the expanding home industries began to be a problem. The result was that some soldiers were hoiked out of the army and sent back to be civilian workers, and the laws were passed which defined the first Reserved Occupations, although these often had minimum ages for those exempted. As the war went on the exemptions were whittled down as the the army needed more and more men to feed the Flanders mud.

Even before the beginning of World War II they had learnt the lesson and there was a list of reserved occupations and individuals who were to be kept back. I believe that that the list of individuals had 80,000 names on it.

 

[WesternLancer]

I don’t think that there were reserved occupations at the beginning of The Great War. It was more a case of owners and managers, and local politicians (often one and the same) saying, “You can do your patriotic duty just as well as those joining the army by continuing to drive trains/dig coal/make rocking horses.” There was also that the sheer number of men volunteering meant that many couldn’t be accomodated by the military and were put off for the moment by them: they had to keep working in order to keep food on the table.

The problems only started to arise in the middle of 1915, when the military was able to and needed to increase its intake, that shortages of manpower in the expanding home industries began to be a problem. The result was that some soldiers were hoiked out of the army and sent back to be civilian workers, and the laws were passed which defined the first Reserved Occupations, although these often had minimum ages for those exempted. As the war went on the exemptions were whittled down as the the army needed more and more men to feed the Flanders mud.

Even before the beginning of World War II they had learnt the lesson and there was a list of reserved occupations and individuals who were to be kept back. I believe that that the list of individuals had 80,000 names on it.

Thanks. V interesting to read.

 

[ian1944]

As an aside on the separated names on the memorial, even by the standards of WWI carnage there wouldn't have been as many killed from one depot as the number of other names.

Regarding the equality of commemoration given by the standard CWGC headstone, Douglas Haig, famous or infamous depending on your point of view, chose to have a matching one on his grave at Dryburgh Abbey, close to the ancestral pile of Bemerside near Newtown St Boswells. The stone has no military rank or reference to the earldom, and contrasts with the nearby grandiloquent one in marble of Walter Scott.