Cheltenham War Memorial

   LEAVING CHELTENHAM …………..and all that was dear

Cheltenham War Memorial

Location:  The Promenade,  Cheltenham

OS Grid Reference:   SO 948224

Unveiled:   1st October 1921

Names on War Memorial:   1297

Imperial War Museum War Memorial Reference Number:   20599

Names listed on the War Memorial:   1297

Inscriptions on the War Memorial:   Remember the men of Cheltenham who gave their lives for you in the Great War 1914 – 1919.   If they were strangers to one another here in their common home, they served and wrought and died in many lands near and far as a Band of Brothers.   Learn from them so to live and die that, when you have followed them and are no more seen, you may, like them, be remembered and regretted.

The obelisk, designed by R L Boulton & Sons of Cheltenham,  is located in the Promenade adjacent to the Municipal Buildings.   It is made of a combination of local stone quarried in Leckhampton and Portland stone.   On the four elevations are commemorated 1297 local dead with one (the East elevation) listing those Cheltonians killed or died whilst serving with the Gloucestershire Regiment.

Each panel has its own page within this website as follows:

• West   (Unveiling details and names added after unveiling)

• East    (Gloucestershire Regiment A – Y)

• South   (Abbott – Jackson)

• North   (Jackson – Yeandle)

Unveiling and Dedication Service on 1st October 1921

Sunday 18th September 2016.  The unveiling of the newly refurbished War Memorial on the Promenade took place during The Battle of Britain Service.   It was the very first event to take place at the Memorial following a 12 week restoration, and as part of the service, new names added to the memorial were unveiled and an acknowledgment was made of the restoration work.

The council worked with local historians to research and identify people whose names were, due to error or lack of information at the time, omitted from the war memorial.  Six people were found, who fit the criteria of being born or living in Cheltenham (under its present day boundary) at the time they joined up; who died in active service, or of wounds or illness before 31st August 1921, and who are not on any other UK memorial.  The names are:  Elizabeth Hannah Jane Roberts, (the first female to be named on the memorial); Private John George Cox; Private Leonard Ivin; Private Richard Fox; Rifleman Thomas Henry Baker and Private Alfred Belcher.  Members of the families of those men and women whose names were added to the memorial attended the service along with representatives of the regiments in which they served.