TOPIC:

The memorial was in Wigan Grammar School. The buildings are now occupied by the local NHS Trust's Outpatients Department and the memorials are just inside the main entrance.

TO FRANK PRICE OF THE SERVICE OF THE IMPERIAL
MILITARY RAILWAYS IN THE TRANSVAAL. BORN 6
JULY 1881, DIED 3 MAY 1901 AT JOHANNESBURG.
AVE IN PERPETUUM, FRATER, AVE, ATQUE VALE.

Hello,
Are they actually marble or stone tablets in frames, they do look rather out of place?
Regards Frank

The wooden frames are clearly not part of the memorial as it was. If you look closely at the edges of the tablet (I'd guess that it's marble) you can see that they're shaped. This can also be seen on the larger, WW1, tablet (part of which is below) and this link shows you what they used to look like.

www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt...ammar+Schools&page=9
. .


The top third looks like it's got a big crack running down.

I think it is very creditable that the new occupiers of the building saw fit to keep the memorials and that they went to some trouble to do so. I have a very jaundiced view of bureaucracies, but in this instance those concerned have my admiration.

Brett

Agreed, it's nice to see an NHS Trust doing something like that. I worked in a hospital in Stoke-on-Trent and when it closed, about eighteen months ago, the war memorial board and tablet were supposed to be sent to the local museum because they weren't wanted in the newly-built hospital buildings on a different site; several months later the museum hadn't received them so the memorials must still have been in the closed hospital. I've no idea what happened to them eventually.

Asking at some hospitals where their war memorial plaques are is sometimes a complete waste of time - nobody knows and nobody seems to care.

Thank you Berenice.

His inscription ends 'But now for all time,my brother, Hail and farewell'