Woodstock Remembers WWI

Guide Photo Book

The Brownies and Guides were approached in the summer 2019 and asked if they would like to take part in the WW1-Woodstock Then and Now project. The Girl Guides movement was formally founded in 1910 by Baden-Powell and his sister Agnes Baden-Powell.

Girlguiding members made important contributions to the First World War effort – growing food, acting as messengers for government organisations and working in hospitals, factories and soup kitchens.

Kate Yeatman, Woodstock District Guide leader was happy to accept the challenge which saw participants of all ages making contributions and finding how they would have been involved both in WW1 & WW2 with information supplied by County Archivists.

Kate and her daughter Hannah, a Marlborough C of E School student, put a display together on boards supplied by the National lottery Heritage fund.

Alice Hipkiss & Isabel Wheeler’s information about Woodstock soldiers listed on Woodstock War memorial was leant to the Guides so that they could learn more about the individuals whose names they hear read out on Remembrance Sunday bringing their memories back to life. The idea has always been to share information with different generations, to encourage them to come together on projects, to find out more about the soldiers who died in Woodstock and are listed on the War Memorial bringing those names to life so they will never be forgotten.

We also provided a board with information about Woodstock War Graves in Hensington cemetery, which is just a few minutes walk from the Guide hut, 

Several First & Second World War Graves are located in Hensington Road Cemetery, Woodstock.

They are dotted around the cemetery so some of them are difficult to locate and some are family graves rather than Commonwealth War Graves. 

They are: Brooks (WWI), Charlett (WWII), Cooper (WWII), Corkhill (WWII), Crutch (WWI), Darley (WWII), Garrard (WWII), Hoare (WWII), Langdon (WWI), Morley (WWI), Morris (WWII), Slade (WWI), Styles (WWI), Townsend (WWII), Turrill (WWII), and Woods (WWII)

• Enter from this gate look immediately to the right and walk through graves and slightly towards the road. You will find the first Grave of (1) William Crutch. (You can see this grave from outside the cemetery) 
• Turn and walk through the grass in a line slightly to the right of William Crutch, to find (2) James Stanley Cooper whose grave is within a rectangular family plot. Block B Grave 159. 
• Keep walking in the same direction to find (3) Israel Langdon 
• (4) Charles Brooks grave is towards the path again not a CWGC and in a poor state when I visited.
• A little further but more towards the path you should find (5) Robert Edgar Garrard’s grave Block O Grave 57.
• Carry on to the back of the cemetery to the right to find 3 graves (6) AG Woods, (7) William James Charlett Block J Grave 50 & (8) Edward Raymond Turrell. I followed up the other path to find three graves together (9) Arthur Hugh Townsend, (10) William Roland Corkhill & (11) Joseph Harold Darley 
• and then down the other path (nearest the Catholic church) to find (12) Ronald Peter Hoare, not a CWGC grave. 
• Follow this path taking a left turn and then coming back down the middle path find
• (13) Edward Styles which is a cross, (14) Cyril Albert Morris Block H Grave 249 

• (15) Walter Morley comes very close with a cross next to          (16) A Slade a CWCG grave.

The information from the project helped two families who did not know they had relatives on the War Memorial. They were both surprised and pleased to find this out.

Frank Brittain a County Scout Historian travelled from Hertfordshire to visit the exhibition and was impressed with what he saw and heard, along with two visitors from the Glider Pilot Regiment Society. Lovely to meet them all.

The exhibition was open over the Remembrance weekend, November 2019 before transferring to the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum and St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Woodstock.