Church honours WWI soldiers missing from memorial

Alison Hoddell said she wanted to bring those who died back to life

A memorial to four men who were killed in World War One has been unveiled in their home village, thanks to the efforts of a resident who discovered their names were missing from the roll of honour.

The plaque, funded by the Royal British Legion, was installed in the church in Claverdon, Warwickshire, on Remembrance Sunday.

The names of Lt Percy Mitchell, L/Cpl Arthur Rotton, 2nd Lt Reginald Price and Gunner Fred Wilkinson have been engraved on a brass plaque displayed next to the church's original memorial to those lost in the Great War.

Vicar at St Michael & All Angels, the Reverend Phil Hanson, said the church had been able to "put right an injustice".

"People have been, for a hundred years, reading a list of names without necessarily being aware that there were some missing, and so here's our chance to put it right," the vicar said.

"I love the fact that we've put it on the board now so it will stay right - so future generations will always read those names out."

The plaque is next to the church's original memorial for those lost their lives in the Great War

Historian Alison Hoddell, who researched the lives of Claverdon men who died in the two World Wars and Afghanistan for her book, Lest We Forget, published last November, said: "We stand up in church every year, and we say, 'Lest we forget', and we promise we will remember people.

"They are no longer in our memories, and we've forgotten them, so I wanted to find out something about the men of Claverdon who had died in the various wars.

"I started researching their lives to make them real people, to bring them back to life."

The Reverend Phil Hanson said names were missing and they had put it right

Biographical information for the men revealed Lt Mitchell had a father and sister who were both benefactors in the village.

2nd Lt Price had a father and brother who were both vicars of Claverdon. He died leading his platoon on the first day of the Somme offensive on 1 July 1916.

L/Cpl Rotton, who was in battles in the Balkans and Greece, contracted malaria and was transferred to a military hospital in Birmingham, where he died.

Gunner Wilkinson, who served on the Western Front, died in a military hospital after contracting paratyphoid fever in the trenches.

It remains unclear why their names were omitted when the original plaque was created in 1921.