Website lists Wiltshire's World War I servicemen

More than 12,000 servicemen associated with Wiltshire are listed on the new website

A website which aims to list every Wiltshire person who lost their life in World War I has been launched.

The Great War Wiltshire Soldiers site lists details of 12,000 servicemen who were either born or died in the county.

Richard Broadhead, a local historian, spent more than 12 years researching service records, letters and newspaper reports to create the online database.

He said: "This is probably the biggest loss of life Wiltshire has had - and each one of those guys had a story."

Servicemen from the army, navy and air force are included, as well as members of the allied forces.

"When I was researching my books it was so difficult to find out information about guys from Wiltshire and to find a single source of information that was filtered and correct," said Mr Broadhead.

'Huge collection'

"At the moment you'll be able to find out their name, the regiment they were in, where they died and you'll be able to find out who their relatives were.

"But we've got an upgrade coming in the new year where we've got a huge collection of named photographs of soldiers from the First World War and we'll be putting the photos to match the names."

According to Mr Broadhead, the website will also allow researchers "for the first time" to search records by town, village or war memorial.

He said: "I'm sure there are some people who go to war memorials, look at the names and think 'who are they?'.

"Now they'll be able to go, find out about them - and hopefully it will give them a better chance of remembering them."