War Dead
In Thornhill Gardens, the little park at the top of Cloudesley Road where it joins Richmond Road, there is a war memorial, pictured below, with the following transcription:
THEY WHOM THIS MEMORIAL COMMEMORATES AND WHOSE NAMES ARE RECORDED ON THE WAR SHRINE NOW RESTING IN HOLY TRINITY CHURCH WERE NUMBERED AMONG THOSE WHO AT THE CALL OF KING & COUNTRY LEFT ALL THAT WAS DEAR TO THEM, ENDURED HARDNESS, FACED DANGER AND FINALLY PASSED OUT OF SIGHT OF MEN BY THE PATH OF DUTY AND SELF-SACRIFICE GIVING UP THEIR OWN LIVES THAT OTHERS MIGHT LIVE IN FREEDOM.
Let those who come after see to it that their names are not forgotten
On the reverse are the words
LEST WE FORGET
Sure enough, within Holy Trinity Church there is an attractive carved wooden war shrine with the men's names. This is shown below together with a transcription (thanks Jenny!):
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Jenny has now researched some interesting correspondence about the memorial and the shrine which she found at the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA):
Download "War Shrine Correspondence"
It seems that in 1919 the vicar at the time, Rev S C Rees-Jones, commissioned the memorial to be erected and then exhorted the returning soldiers of Barnsbury ("Our Lads") to transfer the "temporary shrine" which was there before in a procession to "its last resting place" in Holy Trinity Church. He then complains rather bitterly that few of "Our Lads" showed much enthusiasm for this project! However, a fine notice advertising a "Great Torchlight Procession" was published and we must assume that this took place and was no doubt a splendid affair. Jenny does not believe that the temporary War Shrine referred to in the correspondence is the same as the one now in the church. Call me sentimental, but I like to think it is!
Perhaps surprisingly, none of the names transcribed above appear in our Cloudesley Estate records, despite there being many soldiers listed, especially in the Marriages records for the 1914-1918 period. However, several, though not all, appear in a useful site at www.bookofremembrance.islington.gov.uk giving details such as where they lived and where they died. Other names, though again not all, are plotted on a rather good site called "The Streets They Left Behind: Finsbury and Islington 1914-1919" at www.arcgis.com which features an interactive map - a screenshot of our area is shown below. From these sources we can confirm that the men did indeed live locally within Barnsbury. Those identified to date are all from the First World War, suggesting that the "1939-1945" inscription on the war shrine was added as an afterthought.
Of the poppy icons shown above in the Cloudesley Estate area, just one man, JJ Sills, living at 6 Cloudesley Mansions, on the corner of Cloudesley Place and Cloudesley Road, appears on the war shrine in the church. Fortunately, his entry in the "Book of Remembrance" is unusually informative, and from this we learn the following:
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Rifleman John James Sills (1881-1916)CWGC Commemorative CertificateSon of David and Elizabeth Sills, of London; husband of Susannah Fisher Sills, of 6, Cloudesley Mansions, Cloudesley Place, Islington, London.
We even have photographs, not just of John Sills himself, but of his grave in the Somme. The grave photo appears in another fine website called "Find a Grave": https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56451703/john-james-sills Touchingly, this includes a tribute from his great niece Marian.
