A POIGNANT service was held at Worcester’s St Thomas’s Church to re-dedicate the Crown East School memorial and remember the four young men whose names are carved into the wooden plaque.
2018 marks the centenary year commemorating the end of the First World War in 1918 and the service on Sunday remembered those brave individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Private Leonard Austin Causier served in the 1st/7th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment; he was killed in action during the Somme offensive on 19th July 1916 at the age of 20 and has no known grave; he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, France.
Private Joseph James Cox served with the 12th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment; he was killed in action on 3rd May 1917 during the Battle of Arras and is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, France. He was the only child of Joseph and Eliza Cox and such was their grief that they commissioned an individual plaque to their son in St Thomas’ Church; he is also remembered on their gravestone in the churchyard.
Private Arthur Ewins served with the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers; he was killed in action on the Somme on 7th July 1916 and like Leonard Causier, is commemorated on Thiepval Memorial. Private Reuben Pingree served with the Army Veterinary Corps; he died on 19th July 1915 aged 20 in Egypt. He is the only one of the four casualties from the school to have a grave in a cemetery.
The memorial to these former pupils was placed in Crown East School shortly after the end of the war and remained there, first on an outside wall of the school building and later inside when the school closed and the building became a glove factory until 2016.
Under the watchful eye of employee Brian Fincher, the memorial remained in place until 2014 when it was removed by Sandra Taylor of the Remember the Fallen website which records the lives of fallen soldiers from the area and taken to Stourport High School for some much needed restoration work.
Over several weeks the memorial was lovingly restored to its original condition by several students from the school under the guidance of teacher Ceri Owens and Dennis Simpson, a former Guardsman who had assisted in the restoration of the school’s own war memorial. Once the work was completed the memorial was returned to Crown East School.
In 2016 the glove factory closed following the death of the owner and the memorial was taken into storage until such time as the necessary paperwork was completed and permission was granted for the memorial to be placed in St Thomas’ church.
The service led by Archdeacon of Worcester Robert Jones and the Rev Anne Potter, vicar of the church, was very well attended with representation by members of the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regimental Association, Brian Fincher and Sandra Taylor who prevented the loss of the memorial and Ceri Owens, Assistant Principal of Stourport High School and Sixth Form Centre as well as regular members of the congregation.
The Exhortation ‘For the Fallen’ was followed by the Last Post during which time two Standards were lowered by members of the Worcester and Sherwood Foresters Regimental Association. Two minutes silence was observed before the sounding of Reveille, the reading of the Kohima epitaph and the re-dedication of the war memorial.
Rev Potter said: “It is lovely that the memorial has been rescued from the previous school building and now has a place of honour on a wall in St Thomas’ Church, Crown East where it will continue to seen by all who enter church.”
