The outstanding Herne Hill memorial website was formally made publicly available just this weekend.
It is a volunteer-led project telling the story of those from Herne Hill who served and died in the First World War, as well as other residents who suffered.
There is no traditional memorial to all Herne Hill’s World War I dead.
The database, which currently contains about 350 records (though more names are emerging all the time), has been compiled and edited by the Herne Hill Society with help from the students of the Charter School, North Dulwich, and other local people.
The 100th anniversary of the Armistice was commemorated at a short, well-attended and moving Armistice 2018 ceremony at Herne Hill Station on Sunday morning. Our local Councillors were present.
Colin Wight (HHS), Cllr Becca Thackray, Cllr Jim Dickson, David Statham (MD, SE Trains)
This project is Heritage Lottery funded, thanks to money raised by National Lottery players.
The website can be searched in many ways, including by name and by actual street. This has revealed at least five soldiers from our own street who were killed.
Fawnbrake residents killed in World War I
Lieutenant Reginald Dell
90 Fawnbrake Avenue
Rifleman Herbert Walter Irons
107 Fawnbrake Avenue
Driver Harry Leonard Cruse
114 Fawnbrake Avenue
Lieutenant Fred Philip Hirst
6 Fawnbrake Avenue
Private Thomas Evans
129 Fawnbrake Avenue
Another name, just researched and not yet entered on the dataset, is Private Thomas Evans.
Thomas Evans was 30 years old when he was called up on 10 December 1915, showing his occupation as Architect’s Assistant. The second son and youngest child of Thomas (a King’s Messenger) and Ellen Augusta Evans, he and his older brother and two older sisters were all born in the village of Cark-in-Cartmel near Morecambe Bay in Lancashire. [1911 Census] He married Eleanor Barber at St Leonard’s, Streatham, on 27 May 1916 and was listed as living at his parents’ house, 129 Fawnbrake Avenue, Herne Hill. With his battalion he was posted to France, but was killed in action on 16 September 1916 – one of many thousands killed in the heavy fighting during the Battles of the Somme in Summer/Autumn 1916.
His grave lies in the Warlencourt British Cemetery, near Bapaume in Northern France (Pas de Calais).
More names may emerge as research continues, of course.