I was in Preston yesterday and, having an hour to kill, popped into the Harris Museum and Art Gallery. I'd already stood in front of the war memorial and had asked at the information centre whether the names of Preston's fallen were recorded anywhere. They are, one thousand, nine hundred and fifty-six of them, on several brass panels as you walk up the stairs in the Harris Museum.
Preston Remembers is heavily involved in the town's commemorations of the First World War and I picked up two leaflets which I am reproducing here. The Harris Museum is also staging a small exhibition around the Memorial and Roll of Honour; an exhibition which is destined to expand in due course.
Of particular interest to me were the Roll of Honour cards which give information about the fallen and were to be completed by family members. I suspect that there is a lot of information contained on thee cards which is unique and the great news is that the Harris Museum is digitising these and should have them online by early 2015. You can see an example of one of these cards in the centre panel of the second image on this blog.
The war memorial and the roll of honour were paid for by voluntary subscriptions and the names of each collector and all the 14,344 subscribers are recorded in the Memorial Book which is in the Harris Museum and Art Gallery. I am not sure whether there are also plans to publish these names online; I hope so.
Preston men who died are also to be found on other memorials in the town.
In the meantime, here are some useful related links:
Preston Remembers
Harris Museum & Art Gallery
Lancashire Infantry Museum
Lancashire Libraries and Archives
War Memorials online
Lives of The First World War
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