Introduction

Introduction

The authors are Eifion and Viv Williams. Eif is the technical manager of the site and Viv does most of the research. We live within the Parish of Northop and we are very much amateur historians. The project has its origins in our own family history research where we uncovered stories of family members who served in World War 1. This prompted an interest in our local War Memorial - in Sychdyn. We began to research the men who were named on it. Our focus has always been the human stories behind the memorial, their lives before the war and what eventually happened to them. We claim little specialised knowledge of the details of the war itself. We are not academic researchers but we believe we can substantiate every claim we make. Our sources are all documented in a special page on the site.

Northop Parish and Mr J R Richardson. Before long we realised that our project needed to expand from the village of Sychdyn to incorporate the whole parish - the villages of Northop, Northop Hall and Sychdyn. This is really down to the work, the vision, the tenacity of one man. He was the Headmaster of Northop School throughout the years of the Great War and beyond - Mr J R Richardson. Throughout the war he kept a heroes' gallery in the school - with photographs of all old boys who served in the war. He noted in the school log book whenever one of them died. After the war he produced a book containing all the names of the men from all three villages in the parish who served in the Great War. He also completed a detailed chart containing the same information which hangs today in Northop Church. The school log book demonstrates the affection in which he was held by his ex pupils as many soldiers on leave from the front came to school to visit him. These visits were recorded in the log book.

An On -Line Memorial for the 21st Century. The site takes what Mr Richardson did and adds to it, all that we have found by using the internet, the Archive Office at Hawarden, the County Reference Library and much more. We hope we are creating a Northop Parish Memorial for the 21st century. We have started with World War 1 but fully intend to include World War II. It is an ambitious project and will take some time to complete if indeed it can ever be completed. It is, in the meantime, a labour of love and great satisfaction.

Can you help? Crucial sources of information for us come from the current families of the servicemen that died. We are discovering that most families include an archivist, a keeper of the photographs, someone who knows the stories. We are very grateful to those family archivists who have lent us photographs and documents and told us stories. It is these that bring each story to life. Anyone reading this who is willing to share on this site what they have about a relative named on one of the Parish Memorials is asked to make contact with us through the Guest Book on our contents page. We can promise that we will take the greatest care of your treasures and return them promptly.

Acknowledgements
Many grateful thanks to 'Trinity Mirror Cheshire' for permission to include old newspaper cuttings on the website.

Thanks also to the incredible 'Commonwealth War Graves Commission' which gave consent to reproduce their War Grave certificates.