2.30pm-4pm
Led by Peter Hodgkinson and John Clarke, historians and authors of our 2022 book on WW1 burials and commemorations in West Norwood.
Your ticket includes one year's membership of the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery for yourself or someone else.
Please click on the headline for more info and a booking link. This is a ticketed event costing £10 per person and pre-booking is essential.
We will visit 24 graves which have been carefully selected to illustrate different aspects of military and civilian service during the Great War. These include recipients of the Victoria Cross, the Military Cross and the Military Medal; the effects of being seriously wounded by machine gun fire, a rare example of cremated remains, death caused by syphilis, death caused by shellfire causing premature burial, victims of the "Lusitania", the designer of the Porte flying boat, then the largest seaplane in the world, and the highest ranking officer commemorated in the cemetery.
These memorials tell us a lot of society at the time. They mirror the social hierarchy in place which affected who died where of what and who survived and we will see this clearly through the memorials. This only changed with the decision by the War Graves Commission to treat every death with the same dignity and standing, with the same headstone size, shape and material regardless of rank. We will also discuss the marked absence of women in the cemetery.
The tour will cover the whole cemetery and will involve stepping over existing memorials and rough, uneven ground. Please wear closed-toe shoes and consider long trousers, and in hot weather, hats and sunscreen There are water taps and toilet along the route.
John Clarke is the Deputy Chairman of the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery and the historian of Brookwood Cemetery, built shortly after West Norwood Cemetery, again to accommodate the dead of the rapidly growing London. You can find more about his many books here.
Peter Hodgkinson is one of the first to graduate with an MA in British First World War studies from the University of Birmingham in 2006. His PhD in 2013 led to his first book "British Infantry Battalion Commanders in the First World War (2015)".
