The UKNIWM is responsible for a nationwide database of the UK’s war memorials with over 100,000 listed in its archives.
The following information is taken from the UKNIWM website:
“There are an estimated 100,000 war memorials throughout the UK in many differing forms, from the frequently-seen community crosses or plaques to buildings, lych gates, gardens, hospitals, organs, chapels and windows. The UK National Inventory of War Memorials database marks the unique place that they have in our nation’s history and provides for the first time a UK wide database of these memorials commemorating all conflicts, not just those of the First and Second World War.
UKNIWMis part of the Imperial War Museum and isrun by two full-time members of staff but the collection of data has been carried out almost entirely by a vast team of volunteers who have completed standard recording forms and taken photographs.
Attempts had been made previously to carry out a survey of war memorials. In 1921 the Imperial War Museum launched an appeal for photographs of memorials but the response was limitedand no other attempt was made to record this unparalleled programme of construction. Consequently, no centralised record was ever made of exactly what was being erected, where and by whom.
Over 60years later,concern was starting to be expressed as to the condition of some memorials and the fear that they would be lost for ever, a fate which unfortunately had already befallen some. As a result, the UK National Inventory of War Memorials was established in 1989 to try and record these memorials of the First World War, and all other historic conflicts. Based at the Imperial War Museum, this was a joint initiative between the Museum and the Royal Commission on the Historic Monuments of England, now merged with English Heritage.”
To learn more about the UKNIWM’s work, click here.
Images courtesy of UKNIWM’s website.