The Yorkshire Regiment, - War Memorials Elsewhere

War Memorials Elsewhere, -
Leigh (Greater Manchester)

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The War Memorial for Leigh (Greater Manchester)
Photo : Philip Platt of the War Memorials Online website

The Leigh War Memorial is located in Church Street Gardens, Church St, Leigh.

The Leigh War Memorial is a Portland stone column set on a two-step plinth on a stepped flagged base. The two cast bronze WW1 panels are on the North and South faces and are set between fluted columns with a laurel wreath above each panel. Above them is frieze carrying the dedication, and the date of both World Wars (on the East and West faces), and above that is a two step pedestal surmounted by a laurel wreath, laid flat on top. The East and West faces carry the Sword of Sacrifice between brass uprights resembling spears with a laurel wreath around each point, stood off from the surface on brackets. The WW2 names are on eleven cast bronze plaques set on the top surface of a separate Portland stone plinth on the South side of the main column. This effectively makes this the 'front' of the whole Memorial, and turns the original memorial back-to-front, as the second half of the WW1 names are on that side of the column. The inscriptions are raised, except for some additional names incised at the bottom of the WW1 columns. There is a small cast bronze plaque set below the second panel of WW1 names which carries the name of a casualty of the Yugoslav conflicts of the 1990s.

725 names are commemorated as having lost their lives in the First World War, and 282 in the Second World War.

One soldier who served with the Yorkshire Regiment is commemorated on the War Memorial.

Private William Jones. 25967. 7th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. Formerly 16105 Manchester Regiment. Killed 1 July 1916.
Born Leigh (Lancs), Enlisted Leigh.
Commemorated on the FRICOURT MEMORIAL.
Buried FRICOURT BRITISH CEMETERY.

First World War Commemorations on One of the Panels on the Leigh (Greater Manchester) War Memorial
Photo : David Long of the Imperial War Museum's Register of War Memorials

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