I have always been interested in military history and over the past ten years have spent many rewarding hours researching my own family member’s military service and uncovering many facts not previously known to my family. Over the years as my knowledge of family military interest has expanded so too has my interest in the military history of the community around me.

When I applied to become a regional volunteer with the War Memorials Trust (WMT) last year, I noticed that one of the aims of the WMT was to develop a better understanding within communities of the memorials that stand so prominently within the towns and villages throughout the country.

Having met and married a “village” girl 17 years ago, I could think of no better place to research than Purton`s own Memorial to the sacrifice that villagers made 90 years ago during the 1914 -18 Great War. Although The Purton War Memorial also covers the losses suffered during World War 2, my research so far has concentrated on the losses suffered in the First World War.

While progressing my research I also uncovered further memorials around the village of both personal and national interest; these too have been included and described so that this record is as comprehensive an account to the Great War as I can make it in the hope that this knowledge will not now be lost again.

While pursuing my research I read Dr Belt’s 1996 book covering “The war memorials of Purton”. It was only while reading the book that I realized that I was already aware of some other Purton residents who had not been included in Dr Belt’s publication. My research uncovered Purton natives from as far away as Canada and Australia, who heard the call to the Colours and rallied in the prime of their youth to serve the Country they lived in and in which they were born. Although most of them returned seared only by memories of the brutality of war, others, less lucky, died in far away fields of sand, poppies, mud and dust. Many of these were later to be buried in CWGC Cemeteries; others who still lie in those ruinous fields have only their names recorded on CWGC memorial tablets.

They served at sea on land and in the air, traditional regional regiments to fledgling Corps such as the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Air Force (RAF). Purton men and women served their country throughout the war years; deaths are recorded for each year of the conflict and of those who died in the years that followed from the wounds that they received in conflict. Villagers received many awards for gallant acts during the War and villagers progressed through the ranks, some to a high rank by the cessation of hostilities in 1918.

The site is intended to provide an easy to view reference history of Purton`s Great War for all ages, something that people can understand without the complex politics of the War interfering with the story waiting to be told. Hopefully it will encourage the further research of names I have not yet researched fully.

I hope work will be seen as complementing Dr Belt’s earlier published record. If despite my best efforts there are yet other Purton natives whom though qualified for inclusion have been missed, I apologize. As my personal view, no one man or woman who served his or her Nation was more worthy of mention than the next. I have made no attempt to rearrange the names in any particular order; just as in the War men and women fell in no particular order so to are the names listed as and where I have found them. For they all deserve our respect and gratitude no matter the time since they served

………..they gave their day that we might have tomorrow. Bob Lloyd 2008