Peter Welsh - Washington in the Great War: Whisht Lads

This book had its origins in a study of the names on the South Hylton War Memorial, a pupil at Pennywell School having brought in a collection of documents from South Hylton British Legion Club that were going in the bin if they could not find a home.

Our, that is the Fatfield and Harraton Chums Battalion, first research effort was to identify the men named on the memorial to the brave men of Harraton Parish. Then, with retirement and meeting like-minded people, it became a study of the memorials at Usworth (inside Holy Trinity Church), Washington Village and Fatfield and the formation of a group within the recently formed Wessington U3A. Just like Topsy

If the question is, Wad thou gan? then the answer is We wad and so weve been to visit the graves and memorials of local men in Northern Italy, Berlin, Belgium, France, Gallipoli and the UK and there are still more to see, both at home and abroad.

Not only that, there are some men still not satisfactorily identified the search goes on.

In researching such a topic it is impossible to separate the men from their families, homes, workplaces, attitudes and recreation and the book attempts to give a view of what was happening in Washington during the Great War, as well as paying tribute to the men who were away fighting it and whose fates had such an impact on these three pit villages.

Local libraries and archives have been given files with what we know about the men (and one woman), who died as a result of their service, so if you, dear reader, want more information, it is available. Of course the files were out of date as soon as they were printed and new information has been obtained about some of the men, but thats life. In addition we have many photographs of men, their graves and various pieces of ephemera, all of the latter provided by relatives. All photographs and information can be supplied, by email, free of charge.

All names of men (and one woman) on the memorials at Fatfield, Washington and Usworth are emboldened in the text e.g., Stephen Mills, Fred Armstrong.

Check out wwmp.weebly.com for links to our film Washington Men in the Great War: Wad thou gan? Aye aa wad.

Photograph Credits

Where there is no source against the photograph these are photographs freely available in and around the village. Thus Joan Nichol has a large number of photographs of old Washington, so too Jim Gill, so too Washington History Society. Im aware that its possible that some of the photographs could still have copyright attached but locating the copyright holder seems unlikely. Can I therefore apologise to anyone whose copyright has been infringed and state that it was not done with the intention of denying your rights.