SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

I had a brief wander round the Beckett Street cemetery yesterday and noticed some militatry style headstones for three soldiers of the West Riding Regiment. Two for the great War and one for World War 2. Two were white and in the style of the usual Military grave Headstone but slightly taller and marrower. Another was the same dimensions but of a darker stone. Does anybody know why these should be different from the usual military heastones?

Just a guess but the military cemeteries belong to/are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commsion and all the headstones would beprovided to a set specification.possiblythese people died at home from wounds sustained in serviceand the local stonemasons did their best to mark their military servicein a similar manner.

Possibly but you can still get a military headstone in those circumstances. I always seek out the military headstones in cemetaries and this is the first time I've come across 'nonstandard' ones.    

There are also quite a few in Armley Cemetery [around twenty odd] having looked at a few of the names and checking their date and place of death, some of these non-standard headstones seem to be memorial markers locally made and placed on a family plot rather than the headstone of an actual grave.

Dont start me about the Commonwealth War Graves Commission!!My Great Uncle was in the West Riding Regiment,2nd Battalion,same as Si's Grandad.Even though he is recorded on the Great War Memorial in St Pats,and he appears on his brothers Army service record as being in the regiment and his name is crossed out because he was killed,the CWGC wont admit they have got my Great Uncles surname wrong.Despite over 20 pages of evidence and reasoned argument they have read very little of it and im now in the process of hitting them with another 20 pages worth.

liits wrote: There are also quite a few in Armley Cemetery [around twenty odd] having looked at a few of the names and checking their date and place of death, some of these non-standard headstones seem to be memorial markers locally made and placed on a family plot rather than the headstone of an actual grave. DO you mean by St Mary's hospital at Hill Top? Quite a few of these show the date of death being 1919, probably due to wounds or flu, if you died in service you get a headstone and they're standard size IIRC.

I’m inclined to think that some of them may be CWG while the others may be “after the style of....”. My uncle’s house backs onto the cemetery [Mitford Road] and I took the opportunity to photograph them all last year. I’ll have to dig the pictures out and stick the pics on Flickr with a link.

cnosni wrote: Dont start me about the Commonwealth War Graves Commission!!My Great Uncle was in the West Riding Regiment,2nd Battalion,same as Si's Grandad.Even though he is recorded on the Great War Memorial in St Pats,and he appears on his brothers Army service record as being in the regiment and his name is crossed out because he was killed,the CWGC wont admit they have got my Great Uncles surname wrong.Despite over 20 pages of evidence and reasoned argument they have read very little of it and im now in the process of hitting them with another 20 pages worth. My grandad was in the 1/8 West Yorks. (It might be 2/8 I forget). He survived the War. But his brother (in the KOYLIs) not so lucky. He was killed at Paschendaele. He was killed in action and we found the batallion's log of what happened, the morning he died.In the 1980s, we discovered my great uncle was not commemorated anywhere. Nothing. Nowhere. There was no rgave and he was not on the Tyne Cot memorial along with the other men (he was a corporal and later on we learned he was one of 5 unidentified bodies found in a collapsed foxhole, after the War. The five were buried alongside eachother and my great uncle was definitely one of them - just no-one was sure which was which).His other brother - who lived into the 1990s - told me that they always knew he was 'lost in action' abut they had no idea about the foxhole thing (my dad found that out visiting the cemetery at a later date).The family had been told in the 1920s he was on the memorial and they never knew he wasn't. The War Graves Commission added him - for a while his was the final name on the memorial. And they sent us photos. We had quite a lot of persuasion to get there, though.Interestingly, my great uncle remembered his brother came home on leave to Leeds 3 weeks before he died. He was bright yellow from mustard gas. He'd been offered a commission but refused to leave his men. The family forced him to go to St James, worried about how ill he looked - but they sent him back to the front, and the drs insultingly accused him of trying to swing the lead (family had to drag him there, his brother said).When we looked at the dates, it looked like my great uncle was passing through Etaples on his way back to the front - the same week as the famous mutiny (as in The Monocled Mutineer).We suspect a lot of the men who were witnesses to what happened in Etaples that week were deliberately sent to their deaths at Passchendaele. And itnerestingly, the 4 men who died in the foxhole with him, were all commemorated on the memorial (none of them had been on leave a few weeks before, I'd assume!)Moral is - don't give up on it. We got my great uncle's name up there. Took 60 years to happen. But it did.

TenDaysaLoiner wrote: cnosni wrote: Dont start me about the Commonwealth War Graves Commission!!My Great Uncle was in the West Riding Regiment,2nd Battalion,same as Si's Grandad.Even though he is recorded on the Great War Memorial in St Pats,and he appears on his brothers Army service record as being in the regiment and his name is crossed out because he was killed,the CWGC wont admit they have got my Great Uncles surname wrong.Despite over 20 pages of evidence and reasoned argument they have read very little of it and im now in the process of hitting them with another 20 pages worth. My grandad was in the 1/8 West Yorks. (It might be 2/8 I forget). He survived the War. But his brother (in the KOYLIs) not so lucky. He was killed at Paschendaele. He was killed in action and we found the batallion's log of what happened, the morning he died.In the 1980s, we discovered my great uncle was not commemorated anywhere. Nothing. Nowhere. There was no rgave and he was not on the Tyne Cot memorial along with the other men (he was a corporal and later on we learned he was one of 5 unidentified bodies found in a collapsed foxhole, after the War. The five were buried alongside eachother and my great uncle was definitely one of them - just no-one was sure which was which).His other brother - who lived into the 1990s - told me that they always knew he was 'lost in action' abut they had no idea about the foxhole thing (my dad found that out visiting the cemetery at a later date).The family had been told in the 1920s he was on the memorial and they never knew he wasn't. The War Graves Commission added him - for a while his was the final name on the memorial. And they sent us photos. We had quite a lot of persuasion to get there, though.Interestingly, my great uncle remembered his brother came home on leave to Leeds 3 weeks before he died. He was bright yellow from mustard gas. He'd been offered a commission but refused to leave his men. The family forced him to go to St James, worried about how ill he looked - but they sent him back to the front, and the drs insultingly accused him of trying to swing the lead (family had to drag him there, his brother said).When we looked at the dates, it looked like my great uncle was passing through Etaples on his way back to the front - the same week as the famous mutiny (as in The Monocled Mutineer).We suspect a lot of the men who were witnesses to what happened in Etaples that week were deliberately sent to their deaths at Passchendaele. And itnerestingly, the 4 men who died in the foxhole with him, were all commemorated on the memorial (none of them had been on leave a few weeks before, I'd assume!)Moral is - don't give up on it. We got my great uncle's name up there. Took 60 years to happen. But it did. Hi Tens DaysMany thanks for that,it has given me some hope and some food for thought.I have submitted my second letter today,i had to re-present the evidence they had chosen to ignore,presented new evidence,and shot down the reasons they arbiterally produced for not accepting the evidence i presented.They offered me a chance to have a note placed on their records that the suranme of the casualty concerned "may be" what i believed it to be.I sat back for a while and thought,well ok,that may be enough.I cant bring him back and he is in a grave that is marked,though incorrectly.After a few weeks thinking i realised i could not let him down.Id been to his grave in April this year and walked the ground where he died (Si's grandad was in the same battalion).So i m not going to give up,and my 20 page piece of evidence and reasoned argument ended up at 61 pages,sweet jumping Jesus!!!.Id love to share the whole with my friends on here,but its so detailed and long winded that it would take up too much capacity on here.Cant think of anywhere else on the web where i could maybe upload the stuff ive done to get some feedback.Anyway,am off to Canada on Thursday,my better halfs 40th birthday present.See you when i come back

Have a great trip, Chris!