The Witney War Memorial
West Oxfordshire’s
War Memorials
Public interest in the history of last
century’s two World Wars has certainly
picked up pace over the last few years.
Recent commemorations of key events,
such as the centenary of the outbreak
of World War One in 2014 and the
seventieth anniversary of the ending of
World War Two in 2015 have encouraged
many people to look back at their
own family’s involvement in these two
colossal conflicts.
The Crier’s Michelle Chard has been to
meet local amateur historian and writer
Jeff Clements, formerly of Witney and
a resident of Carterton since 2002,
for whom a general interest in both
local and military history ended up
becoming a six year quest to uncover
the stories behind almost two hundred
men, commemorated on three West
Oxfordshire War Memorials.
“It was back in 2009 that my father and
I, along with a group of our friends, took
a tour of the battlefields of north eastern
France and Belgium. Upon our return I
used the internet to try and find details
about some of the men recorded on the
War Memorial in Witney, the town I had
grown up in and where my parents still
live. To my surprise I found nothing and
that was where it all started.”
“Of course I wanted to learn who these
men were and what had happened to
them but I was also keen to discover
where they had lived, where they had
gone to school, what jobs they may have
had. It was a tall order and I confess
that I probably overcomplicated the
task by choosing to research not only
the men of the First World War but
also of the Second and by widening my
investigation to include the memorials in
the nearby villages of Crawley and Hailey
– Witney’s neighbouring ‘townships’.”
Interestingly, the village of Curbridge,
Witney’s third township, has no War
Memorial, despite several local men from
there losing their lives in the Great War.
43
