Lunchtime Meeting - 12.45pm - Speaker John Davies from 'Men On The Gates'

Members of Oswestry Rotary Club received a preview of a new website documenting the lives of over 300 men from the First World War remembered on the Oswestry War Memorial Gates at Cae Glas Park when project co-ordinator John Davies from the QUBE led project 'Men On The Gates' was the speaker at Oswestry Rotary Club recently. 

Backed by a Heritage Lottery grant, the stories of the lives of the First World War casualties have been researched and recorded to remember their sacrifice and preserve their memory for future generations.  John invited Rotary members to recall names of any family members listed on the gates to demonstrate the Men on the Gates' new interactive website and immediately found the two uncles named by Rotary member Mike Jones.  John was able to dig down beyond their dates to find out where they lived, worked and how they became casualties. 

"Information can be accessed in three main ways: Men on the Gates, Men at the Front and Men at Home." John explained.  "This is a comprehensive heritage resource documenting Oswestry's role in the conflict, providing links to external sites such as the National Archives." John demonstrated.  The men listed on the gates came from many different walks of life and backgrounds with connections between them discovered such as being relations, school friends, work colleagues, neighbours or members of the same church.  All of these links can be examined on the website. 

Rotary members were keen to find out more about their own connections with the 'Men on the Gates' however time for questions ran out so John invited them to explore the website for themselves at menonthegates.org.uk, the website which launches officially on 22nd March with an evening at The Qube where stories of the men who made the ultimate sacrifice will be heard including a talk on the ‘Oswestry Pals’, a website demonstration and a Q&A session.

Rotarian Wagih El Masri summed up the feeling of the meeting in his Vote of Thanks to John: "It is right that we who benefit from the sacrifice of those commemorated on the gates should remember and honour them.  The Men on the Gates project certainly achieves that." he said.

Shedding Light on Oswestry’s Fallen Soldiers

A new website telling the tales of Oswestry’s fallen soldiers will launch in March.

Men on the Gates shines a light on the lives of the men whose names are listed on the Oswestry War Memorial gates who died during the First World War.  It has been led by Qube with funding from the Heritage Lottery.

Project co-ordinator John Davies said: “It has been fascinating, humbling and a privilege to work on this research. We have discovered some extraordinary stories and have also made the Commonwealth War Graves Commission aware of the identities of four men who are not currently registered with them.

“The men listed on the gates came from many different walks of life and we’ve discovered many connections between them. They were relatives, school chums, neighbours, work colleagues and members of the same church.

“It has given us a real appreciation of the devastating effect these losses must have had for the town.”

The project has involved local history organisations and groups including Oswestry Town Museum, the Cambrian Heritage Railway, Oswestry Family History Society and local groups in Llanymynech, Trefonen and Gobowen.  Volunteers have spent the past
two years researching information from the internet, archive records, local churches and from speaking directly to relatives. As part of the project Qube will be posting a number of specially created commemorative postcards to the former addresses of listed men.

Local history volunteer, Janis Menage added: “The streets have changed so much since 1911, so finding these places has actually been quite a challenge.”

To find out more about Men on the Gates project, visit their new website: http://menonthegates.org.uk/

Oswestry Advertizer 14.11.17