WW1
INTRODUCTION TO WWI MEN ON THE DINNINGTON WAR MEMORIALS
Jon Harvey
Would the enthusiasm that was shown for going to war in 1914 happen today? To most local men at that time it was an adventure with an opportunity to get away from the daily grind of working at a coal mine, above ground or underground. “It will be all over for Christmas” most people thought, the Germans also thought the same thing.
Today, the ethnic makeup of the UK is so diverse that it is doubtful that any British Government would get away with recruiting so many willing men. There are still too many people around who remember WWII with all its horrors of the Holocaust and causalities on the Russian Front and elsewhere. Also it would very much depend on who the enemy was especially if it was a Muslim State.
It was not until the early battles of the Marne and Mons that the awful reality started to sink in that it was going to be a long haul. Then there was that awful day of the first day on the Somme in July 1916 when tens of thousands were killed. The war spread to Gallipoli, South Africa, Italy, Russia and of course the oceans with each theatre experiencing enormous casualty numbers never seen before.
When I first started on the books for the local war memorials I decided to first look at men from WWII as there are still quite a few of their relatives living in the area. With this in mind I thought it best to deal with WWII whilst these people were still around.
I thought it was going to be much more difficult for WWI seeking out information on the men killed in that war as it is now so long ago. However, it was not as difficult as I thought it would be. With information available from the census returns up to 1911, Forces War Records, Soldiers Died in the Great War and Army records it has been possible to put good histories together of the men concerned. Also, there are still a few relatives living in the Dinnington area, so help came from those sources. In many instances knowing where a battalion was at a certain time helped to pin point the location of a man’s death.
Now I have decided to have a go at featuring WWI men mentioned on the Dinnington war memorials is the fact that the vast majority of them were not born locally. They had come to work at the new collieries in the area at Dinnington, Kiveton and Thurcroft and had only lived in the village from around 1905 onwards.
They came, mainly from Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire. Others came from further afield including one from Tasmania. The common thread was that they were nearly all coal miners or employed otherwise in the coal industry.
Jon Harvey
Would the enthusiasm that was shown for going to war in 1914 happen today? To most local men at that time it was an adventure with an opportunity to get away from the daily grind of working at a coal mine, above ground or underground. “It will be all over for Christmas” most people thought, the Germans also thought the same thing.
Today, the ethnic makeup of the UK is so diverse that it is doubtful that any British Government would get away with recruiting so many willing men. There are still too many people around who remember WWII with all its horrors of the Holocaust and causalities on the Russian Front and elsewhere. Also it would very much depend on who the enemy was especially if it was a Muslim State.
It was not until the early battles of the Marne and Mons that the awful reality started to sink in that it was going to be a long haul. Then there was that awful day of the first day on the Somme in July 1916 when tens of thousands were killed. The war spread to Gallipoli, South Africa, Italy, Russia and of course the oceans with each theatre experiencing enormous casualty numbers never seen before.
When I first started on the books for the local war memorials I decided to first look at men from WWII as there are still quite a few of their relatives living in the area. With this in mind I thought it best to deal with WWII whilst these people were still around.
I thought it was going to be much more difficult for WWI seeking out information on the men killed in that war as it is now so long ago. However, it was not as difficult as I thought it would be. With information available from the census returns up to 1911, Forces War Records, Soldiers Died in the Great War and Army records it has been possible to put good histories together of the men concerned. Also, there are still a few relatives living in the Dinnington area, so help came from those sources. In many instances knowing where a battalion was at a certain time helped to pin point the location of a man’s death.
Now I have decided to have a go at featuring WWI men mentioned on the Dinnington war memorials is the fact that the vast majority of them were not born locally. They had come to work at the new collieries in the area at Dinnington, Kiveton and Thurcroft and had only lived in the village from around 1905 onwards.
They came, mainly from Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire. Others came from further afield including one from Tasmania. The common thread was that they were nearly all coal miners or employed otherwise in the coal industry.
Dinnington Men who lost their Lives in WW1
DINNINGTON MEN KILLED IN WWI – SOME STATISTICS
Of the 128 total men who lost their lives, the bodies of 70 of them were never found i.e. 55% of the total, a dreadful statistic.
A number of men were buried in churchyards in England and one was lost at sea on HMS Hampshire.
So far it has not been possible to obtain details for three men as it is thought they may have been Irish.