Researchers at Bangor University are appealing for information to help them learn more about former University Students and Staff who died during the First World War.

 

For the last few months Lynette Williams, Archivist in Archives & Special Collections at Bangor University, has been working on a project to learn more about former Students and Staff who died during the First World War. The aim of the project was to identify all ninety-seven men listed on the War Memorial Plaques located outside the Pritchard Jones Hall to put faces and stories to the names.

The hope was to find out who these men were, where they came from, who they served with and how they died. The research proved challenging and required Lynette to really dig deep into the Archives and Library resources to identify and piece together the lives of the individuals.

Student Registers were the first resources used to match up the names from the plaques. Only initials and surnames are given on the memorials which meant Lynette had to search through thousands of names in the registers to make sure she had the right people – in some cases identification proved impossible because some of the names were so common and there was very little information available.

In addition to this, Lynette searched through other University records (Committee records, Student Handbooks, Gazettes, Student photographs, Staff records, etc.) and local newspapers from the period to find out further personal details. Military databases were used to research military careers and websites containing local War Memorial information helped in completing the research.

In undertaking this research men whose names were not included on the plaque have been identified – we intend to research these individuals and eventually include them in the project. Lynette also intends to look into the stories of the Students and Staff of the Normal College who enlisted and lost their lives during the war.

Lynette is still piecing together the stories of the fallen and asks anyone who has any information about them to get in touch – archives@bangor.ac.uk

Existing information and pictures of those fallen are available to view on the database here:

https://www.bangor.ac.uk/archives/memorial/InMemoryofthefallenfromtheUniversity-PJHall.php.en

Photo: Bangor University Archives & Special Collections.