Lest We Forget

The work on this publication was started a number of years ago. Its aim was to study the lives of all the men of Betley, who fought in, and died in both the 1914-18 and the 1939-45 World Wars. These men are named on the Roll of Honour which is situated alongside the war memorial window in St. Margaret's Church Betley.  As long as these men were born in, or lived in the village at some time in their short lives, that is all that was necessary for them to be included in this volume.

There are fifteen men named on the war memorial in the church - ten who died during WW1 and five during WW2. Of these men I knew nothing, some information was available from the families of the five men who died during the second world war,  very little was known about the ten men who died during the first world war.

The first step was to obtain a list of village men who went to war and died, this was done by checking the volumes of "Soldiers who died in the great war" which is now available on CD-ROM. This covers only the first world war and gave a total of sixteen men with Betley connections who died in the early conflict, six more than were recorded on the war memorial.  These men were born in Betley but moved away in the early part of their lives to different parts of the country. I still class all these men as children of Betley, and if they should be mentioned on other war memorials in other  parts of the country then that is to their credit. These men gave their lives for the people of not only this country but for the world.  They may be among those men who are honoured by other people in cities and towns around the world for the sacrifice that they made, and if this book helps to keep the memory of these men alive then they will not have made that sacrifice for nothing, they will be remembered.

If you can help in any way to research these men then please let us know.  Thank you.

Philip Coops.

Roll of Honour

The following are the names of the men associated with Betley who gave their lives during the 1914-1918 and the 1939-1945 wars:

FRANK ALBERT BAILEY

GEORGE BAILEY 

BERTRAM BEECH

FRANK THOMAS BEESTON

HARRY BOOTH

ARTHUR BRASSINGTON

ARTHUR BULL

SAMUEL BUTTERS

SYDNEY JOHN CORNES

JAMES DUNN

EDWIN FARRINGTON

GEORGE PERCY GINDERS

JOSEPH EDGAR GINDERS

THOMAS ERNEST HARDERN

FREDERICK WILLIAM HOLDSWORTH

ARTHUR CECIL HOUCHIN

HAROLD HUGHES

HARRY MOSS

THOMAS MURRAY

ALFRED PLATT

WALTER ROSCOE

FRANK GEORGE STUBBS

BASIL OWEN TATHAM

THOMAS HENRY TAYLOR

RAYMOND SAMUEL THICKNESSE

DEREK ARTHUR GROSE TOMLINSON

CYRIL TURNER

ELISHA EDWARD WAGSTAFF

WILFRED WRIGHT