UP FRONT
Soldiers
coming home
A second soldier who died in the First World War has been
recognised in Ealing almost a century after his death.
F
ollowing on from Herbert
Crook, whose name was added
to Ealing War Memorial by the
council earlier this year, another
fallen hero who was missing from the
list has been etched on the memorial
wall on Ealing Green.
Serjeant John Harold Garnham, of the
Royal Irish Regiment, was from Ealing.
He was killed during an offensive near
Ypres in the closing weeks of the war,
as the allied forces made a final push to
defeat the German army. In fact, he died
on 14 October 1918, less than a month
before the official cessation of combat
on 11 November.
Thanks to research by his greatnephew Ian Garnham, the omission of
John’s name has been rectified. Although
he is listed close to the battlefield where
he fell, he was one of many British
troops whose names did not make it
on to memorials back home directly
after the war ended – perhaps lost in
the administrative maze and among the
sheer numbers of unidentified war dead.
COMING FULL CIRCLE
Serjeant Garnham’s story threw up a
shock for the family. When Ian’s son
Nathan was studying for his GCSEs
the family took a trip to the battlefield
in Belgium where John fell, and the
Hooge Crater Cemetery.
A log book at the cemetery contains a
roll call of the names of the fallen soldiers
who died there and, to their surprise,
the family saw an Ealing address next
to Serjeant Garnham’s name: Drayton
Grove, West Ealing. Although an Ealing
resident, Ian actually grew up in Jersey
and his father had never mentioned a
past family connection to Ealing.
Ian said: “It’s extraordinary to think we
have come full circle and that I moved
to live in a house just a few hundred
yards from the address where my great
uncle and great-grandmother lived,
completely unknowingly. It is very heartwarming to finally be able to redress my
great uncle’s lack of recognition after all
this time, 97 years.”
WHEN HERBERT CAME HOME
When the story of Herbert Crook was
first published by Around Ealing Extra
earlier this year (www.ealing.gov.uk/
aroundealingextra), a number of
newspapers and websites picked up
the story and it has prompted several
other families to come forward.
4
around ealing
Summer 2015
Mr and Mrs
Crook
Nathan and Ian Garnha
m
Herbert, from Ealing, died while
fighting on one of the First World
War’s most notorious battlefields, the
Somme. His nephew Stuart Crook
and other members of the family were
present when Herbert’s name was
etched on to the memorial.
DO YOU HAVE A LOCAL
UNLISTED HERO?
Both the Crook and Garnham families
had the help and encouragement of
the council’s borough architect Gavin
Leonard, who has been leading the
council’s war memorial restoration
project to commemorate the 100-year
anniversary of the war.
Gavin said: “We would like to
capture as many missing names as
possible between now and 2018, the
centenary of the end of the war. The
families need to conduct their own
research but I am hoping the publicity
might be a catalyst for other relatives to
come forward. If the council can come
somewhere close to completing the
task of honouring local war dead, left
unaccomplished in 1920, then I think it
will be a fitting tribute.”
Contact [email protected] or
call 020 8825 9054.
Click here to read the
Crooks’ story