Tales of Lewes and the Great War explored in new book

Spokesman Jonathan Taylor explains: “Back in 2014 as the centenary outbreak of the Great War approached there was an approach to Lewes Town Council by the local branch of the Royal British Legion to update the names on Lewes War Memorial by adding those whose names were left off it in 1922.

“These omissions were for many reasons, not least because their surviving relatives no longer lived in the town or had died, or simply failed to submit their names, or thought that the circumstances of their deaths made them ineligible for inclusion on the bronze plaques. In 15 cases relatives returned the forms too late as the bronze plaques had already been cast.

"As a result over 140 names are missing from the main memorial, some of which can be found on the memorials in local parish churches.

"This book provides biographies of these as well as all those whose names are included on Lewes War Memorial.

"As Lewes War Memorial is listed as a 2* Monument it would be physically impossible to add large numbers of extra names to it a century later. This book was commissioned by the Town Council as a more fitting tribute, at the suggestion of the then Town Clerk, Steve Brigden, who approached the author, former mayor and councillor Graham Mayhew who agreed to undertake the work on a voluntary basis.

“The result of nearly nine years’ work, Lewesians and the Great War, comprising 544 pages, with 390 individual biographies, a historical introduction and a guide to sources, explores Lewes as it was at the outbreak of war, providing a historical narrative of the impact the Great War had on the town up to the end of the war and the Treaty of Versailles and beyond into the early 1920s, covering topics including the social changes wrought by the war, such as the employment opportunities for women, and the treatment of men who had been invalided home and war widows as well as life on the home front and local businesses, and what the war meant for all those left behind when a whole generation of young men volunteered or, from 1916, were conscripted.

“With photographs of individuals from a range of family and other sources, including school archives, local donors of photos of their relatives and not least Edward Reeves Photography, the book is lavishly illustrated with maps and photographs, which also include ones covering trench life from collections in major archives abroad, including in France, Germany, America and Australia, selected by the author to help show the conditions and daily lives of those who served on the Front Lines, both in France and Belgium and also at Gallipoli and in the Middle East, Northern Italy and Northern Greece.

“Priced at £20 and available from Lewes Town Council, this hardback book should be of great interest to anyone with an interest in the individual men and women of Lewes who served in Europe and further afield or history of Lewes in the early 20th century or of the local contribution to the Great War.”