A BOOK honouring almost 4,000 Barnsley soldiers who fell in the First World War was presented to the Mayor of Barnsley this week.
The Roll of Honour was produced to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the war by the Barnsley War Memorials Project, after four years of research.
A special bound copy of the book was presented to the Mayor of Barnsley Coun Steve Green this week, who was ‘overwhelmed’ at the amount of effort the group had put in.
“There’s a hell of a lot of work gone into this,” he said. “And it speaks volumes of our town that this much effort and research has gone into something like this.
“It’s a huge privilege and honour to receive it and I will enjoy looking through and seeing all the names written in it every time I come into the town hall.
“To each and every person that has been involved in this, I say a massive thank you.”
The Roll of Honour lists the names of 3,870 Barnsley men who fell in the war. It is the first attempt to bring their names together in a single document, more than 90 years after the idea was proposed in 1922 by then-Mayor of Barnsley, Sam Jones.
Coun Green said: “We are here today because of all these soldiers who gave their lives.
“We are fortunate that we have got democracy and I can stand here today and speak to you, and it means a lot in my mayoral year that there have been so many things such as this happening this year.”
The BWMP took names from more than 600 war memorials around Barnsley, as well as newspapers, absent voter lists and census records, and photographs of the men from the Chronicle, military records and school and family photos. As well as the copy presented to the mayor, copies have been sent to local libraries and history societies, and there is also one in the archives at the Experience Barnsley museum.
The BWMP said they were exploring the idea of doing a short print run for sale to the public.
