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My mum and I decided to look at Innerleithen War Memorial and find out more about the names listed on it. We realised we had been at the war memorial many times but had never really stopped to look at the names.

(Bit about Games Week, Remembrance Day service, this year christmas carols at switched on sunday etc with some better pictures!)

Background

On a local online history forum we found reference to the unveiling of Innerleithen’s War Memorial in 1921:

 

The war memorial for Innerleithen which has been erected on a central site of the town adjoining the new Burgh Buildings (the gift of Mr Henry Ballantyne, Walkerburn), was unveiled on Saturday afternoon. The memorial is a rock garden representation of Leithen Valley, with Roman Bridge and Leithen Water in miniature.
Colonel Robertson, O.B.E., in unveiling the tablet, said that the town and parish answered nobly the country’s call. Out of a population of less than 3000, more than 400 men of these voluntarily left their all to offer their lives for their beloved land. Of that gallant band, 72 had sacrificed self, and died the most glorious death that man could die. Provost Mathieson, in accepting custody for the Local Authority, said it was a fitting monument, as it was a “Garden of Memories.” A guard of honour of 110 ex-soldiers was present. The local pipe band played “The Lament” and the Boy Scout buglers sounded the Last Post.  

Source:  The Scottish War Memorials Project Forum Index -> Borders – Civic Memorials -> Innerleithen (Information is from posts on the forum which quote page 5 of The Scotsman of Monday, 5th December 1921)

What we discovered

There are 72 names listed as having died in World War One. These are listed in order of rank which we hadn’t noticed before, we expected them to be listed alphabetically. We began to wonder where all these men had ended up and thought it would be interesting to see what we could find out about them. We were also keen to find out if some of the men with the same surnames were from the same family.

After noting all the names listed for WW1, we did some research on-line. We came across a website run by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. On this we could search by name, rank and regiment and we identified (with almost certainty) nearly all of the casualties remembered in Innerleithen today. The few that we didn’t identify had very common names and no details in the “further information” section which referred to Innerleithen.

 

Names on Innerleithen War Memorial for WW1	72
Number we have identified (mainly from commonwealth war grave records)	67
Number died in each country:
France	36
Belgium	15
UK	8
Turkey	3
Other	5
Number died in each year:
1914	2
1915	10
1916	15
1917	17
1918	20
1919 and later	3

 

By Alastair McNeill P6