Lost WW1 record tells unique stories of servicemen

A long-lost document which shows the names of 45 men who went to fight in World War One has been described as a "handshake with history" as it goes on display for the first time in decades.

The Roll of Honour was assumed lost before it was found by someone in the tower of St Mary’s Church in Cowley, Gloucestershire, about 20 years ago.

The 110-year-old document then lurked in a dark corner of the church until its significance was recently recognised, resident Petra Vogel said.

It has now been meticulously restored by a specialist paper conservator, with the £1,700 work paid for through local donations.

"It's the individuals who matter, it's their stories," Vogel added.

The roll names men who worked for the owner of the Cowley Estate - which included all the village's houses - Lord Horlick.

Each of the names on the Roll of Honour tells its own unique story.

Private William Fisher, 21, was a gardener at Cowley Manor in 1915 when he volunteered at his first opportunity to join the 10th Battalion of the Glosters.

In letters home to his family, he described his journey through northern France, commenting on haymaking and the quality of local crops.

Before reaching the frontline, Private Fisher contracted mumps and missed the first major battle at Loos.

He wrote to his sister after leaving hospital and said he was excited to join the action at the frontline.

It was to be his last letter as he was killed during his first contact with the enemy, days after posting it.

Private Fisher's letters and service medals are held by the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum.

Museum director Len Evans said they showed a young man desperate to join the battle.

"Like so many men at the time, he chose to go and fight for his country, joining when 100,000 men were recruited very quickly."

An estimated 880,000 of the more than five million military personnel who went off to fight in the war never returned.

Many of those who came home carried life-changing physical and mental injuries.

For a tiny village of only 40 houses, the impact of waving 45 men off to war would change the community forever.

Vogel, who used to be a school history teacher, was fascinated by this piece of history and was at the forefront of fundraising. She said ordinary people had marched away to an entirely different world.

"The footmen, garden boys at the manor, the village blacksmith, the baker, the ordinary folk at the village.

"And in such a tiny village it was pretty much all the men," she said.

Cowley blacksmith Jessie Sly was one of the men lucky enough to come home.

But a lung injury caused by inhaling gas released by his own side on the frontline changed his life.

Although he never met Jessie, his great nephew Andrew McClean knows his story through Jessie's wife, Lizzie Sly, whom Jessie married before heading to the frontline.

"When he came back he was no longer able to carry out that very heavy-duty work of a blacksmith so the lord of the manor decided to make him the village postman.

"The locals could tell he was coming because they could hear him wheezing half a mile off as he came trotting along with the letters."

World War One might have been more than 100 years ago but Vogel said it was important as ever to remember the people who served.

She said restoring the Roll of Honour had been a unifying project for the village.

"It really brings the life of the village from the past into the present. It is this handshake through history, that you can find things out about these people, their ordinary lives, and how it relates to us today." she said.

The document will be on show in St Mary's Church.

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