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by Lib Dem team on 26 July, 2014
From Gatley Village Partnership:
There are 17 names on the Gatley War Memorial – Gatley men who gave their lives in the first World War, 100 years ago.
Gatley Village Partnership (GVP) wants these men to be remembered and for everyone to know about them.
With the help of with local historian John Hartley we have placed 17 posters – one for every man who died – on Gatley Green. Each tells the story of one of the men. John will be telling more about them in his talk at St. James’ Church Hall on Sunday 3rd August, 3pm.
GVP will be putting 17 candles around the clock tower, the original war memorial, so that everyone walking or driving through Gatley will be reminded of the sacrifice made by ‘our men’.
Hydes Brewery will dedicate a room in the Prince of Wales pub to Lance Corporal William Taylor who lived with his parents before he went to war. The pub will also be joining in with the Lights Out campaign between 10 and 11pm on August 4th.
Everyone is invited to reflect on the sacrifice of the ‘Gatley 17’ on August 4th, whenthe church will be open, and to join in the Commemoration Service at 8pm in the church and later at the war memorial for 8:45pm
We will never forget.
I am sorry to have missed the talk yesterday since I have only just read your email. My father – a Gatley man – volunteered and served in France in WW1, even though under age.
I’m sorry also to have missed this especially as John Hartley as been instrumental in my tracing of relations who all lived in Gatley.
John H Hewitt, remembered on the Gatley Green Memorial, died of wounds on 6th April, 1918 aged 30 on the Somme, N. France after fighting with the 2nd Leinster Regiment.
John and his wife Lillian, lived at 78, Church Road, Gatley, facing where the memorial was eventually to be sited, in a row of cottages now replaced by a row of shops. He enlisted in June 1916 at Stockport, along with his brother in law, Harold Wood ( aged 18 ) from Crossacres, both in the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry, Harold then posted to the Cheshire Regiment and John to 2nd Btn Leinster Regiment.
Unbeknown to each other, Harold was killed 2 days before John, just 3 miles away from each other, some 25 miles S.E. of Amiens in N.France.
My father, John Alfred, then only 9 years old, also lived at Church Road, and had another brother, Ernest, who had been killed 3 weeks earlier, with the Machine Gun Corps close to Arras, also on the Some.
I have visited both Ernest and Harold’s graves this, and last, year and now having discovered John’s fate, will visit his grave at La Cateau Military Cemetery, Nord, France next year. He has been difficult to trace in the past due to some records only using his middle name, William.
I trsut this information proves of both value and interest
Regards J c Wood – Sandbach, Cheshire