From Curiosity to Contribution
A Weekend with The Great War Group
Last month I attended The Great War Group’s annual conference in Bristol. The group is in their 6th year as a registered charity and their mission to promote education, research, and commemoration of the First World War is going strong.
The weekend was packed with seminars on everything from the experiences of tank drivers and the impact of wartime propaganda on the home front, to a thought-provoking evening focused on the legacy of Douglas Haig. Each seminar, presented by a group member, drew different subsets of the audience, each with their own particular niche of interest.
I have been a member of the group since its inception, and they have always been a source of fascinating information, online talks, and a few WhatsApp groups to socialise. Despite the openness of the group, I’d never considered myself to be amongst those that could contribute. Over that weekend I spoke with many people, and every one of them took my keenness for the subject to be encouraged and expanded on, not to just sit back and watch. There was only one person in that room that was stopping me.
Me.
The first steps are always the hardest, but with the encouragement of the group and a few key pointers I was off. I visited the Barking War memorial (although there are also photos available online) and my attention was drawn to a pair of brothers. I looked them up on the Commonwealth War Graves website (free to use) and uncovered details of their service.
Barking born Edmund Thorogood and his brother Ernest were both killed during the war. Edmund served on HMS Queen Mary when it was hit by a German shell, killing almost all of those onboard, at the start of the Battle of Jutland in 1916. His younger brother, Ernest, was killed fighting in Ypres (pronounced Ee Prah) a year later on 6th November 1917. The website provided these details, their rank, regiment/ship they were part of, and their service number. A few crumbs to start to reveal their story.
However, those were only the first names to catch my attention. There are 83 names on the memorial plaque in the church in Dagenham Village (photo below), and a touch under 600 on the Barking Park memorial.
The boys from Barking and Dagenham went out to many different corners of this World War. Countless lost nuggets of history to retrieve and share, but I’ll admit I’m not sure how to find most of those things. But that is the point. I don’t hold a university degree, let alone one in Military History, but I do have a keen interest, a pen, an encouraging community at the Great War Group, add that to a few hours a week to spend digging down rabbit holes and I have got myself a research project.
Will this become a book, an online blog, or private research just for myself. I don’t know yet. There is a wealth of information out there waiting to be discovered, and I am excited to get started.
If you’ve ever stood in front of a war memorial and wondered about the names etched in stone, or have a family member with an unknown military past. Maybe now is the time to start looking.
History doesn’t just need to be for the historians.
This was original written for the Write On! Magazine Thursday Connectors section
Find out more about The Great War Group at greatwargroup.com or https://x.com/greatwargroup
