Tag Archives: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

War Graves Week draws to a close…

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Note the final event today, and the recordings of the earlier events, from the War Graves Week schedule offered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Join us for War Graves Week – A week to remember

War Graves Week • Discover • Learn • Remember
Today marks the final day of our first ever War Graves Week. We have been blown away by the support we have received and the number of people joining us for tours and events around the United Kingdom and getting involved online with us using the hashtag #WarGravesWeek, and want to thank everyone who has taken part already.
Our final event of the week will be taking place today in Harrogate (Stonefall) Cemetery. There’s still time to grab your tickets to a free walking tour if you live locally, or alternatively you can join us at the cemetery virtually for our final live broadcast at 6:30pm (UK time) tonight on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn or on our website for the closing ceremony.
DISCOVER: There are still a number of talks and tours happening across the UK this weekend if you are yet to join us for a free walking tour of our sites. Alternatively, you can book a free talk for your own group, school or organisation to learn more about the CWGC, our history, our horticulture or our architecture.
LEARN: We have been involved in plenty of activity over the week that you can still catch up on, including a number of podcasts. Listen to us talk all things #WarGravesWeek in: Mentioned in Dispatches, a First World War podcast from the Western Front Association; the Old Front Line, a First World War podcast with military historian and battlefield guide Paul Reed; and Khaki Malarkey, a weekly podcast hosted by Phoebe Style and former Commonwealth War Graves Foundation intern Olivia Smith.
REMEMBER: Those who gave their lives in the World Wars came from our local communities, walked on our streets, and we want you to keep their memory alive. You can still use our postcode search to enter a UK postcode and discover service personnel who came from your local area, or search for any casualty and download a commemorative Tribute to display in your window to highlight those who died in the World Wars this War Graves Week.
It might be the end of #WarGravesWeek, but that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to discover more about your local connection to the World Wars. The men and women who fought and died in the two World Wars are commemorated in cemeteries and on memorials which were built, and are maintained to this day, by the CWGC at more than 23,000 locations in over 150 countries and territories – and there is more than likely a story just waiting to be told on your doorstep.
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Copyright © 2020 Commonwealth War Graves Commission, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
2 Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 7DX

War Graves Week – A week to Remember

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Please note this week of remembrance activities planned by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission over the next week or so.

Join us for War Graves Week – a week to Remember

War Graves Week • Discover • Learn • Remember
Today, 21 May, marks the anniversary of the founding of the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission in 1917. Over 100 years after our work first began, we continue to care for the resting places of the war dead of the two World Wars, ensuring their memory lives on. For our first ever War Graves Week, we want communities to come together to learn about the shared World War heritage on their doorsteps. Learn more about our first national awareness week in the video below.
From today, we’re hosting a weeklong series of events, tours and talks for those based in the United Kingdom – from the Shetland Islands to Penzance, Llandudno to Lowestoft, you can click here to book onto one of the many tours happening around the country over the coming week. Wherever else you are in the world, you can still book to join one of our virtual talks to learn about war graves in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, learn more about our opportunities for young people, or book a talk for your own group, school or organisation.
As part of our War Graves Week activity, we’re bringing the service men and women who came from your street, back to your street. Those who gave their lives in the World Wars came from our local communities, walked on our streets, and we want you to keep their memory alive. Use our new postcode search to enter a UK postcode and discover the service personnel who lived in your local area, or search for any casualty and download a commemorative Tribute to display in your window to highlight those who died in the World Wars this War Graves Week.
All our War Graves Week activity is aimed at highlighting your local connection to those who gave their lives during the World Wars. Kicking off today, Friday 21 May, join us for a live broadcast from 12:00pm (UK time) as we travel around the world to meet the staff who keep the remembrance of our war dead alive. With over 12,000 sites across more than 150 countries and territories, our work around the world is unique and diverse and there is more than likely a CWGC site on your doorstep.
JOIN US LIVE FROM 12:00PM (UK time)
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Copyright © 2020 Commonwealth War Graves Commission, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
2 Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 7DX

War Graves Week – A week to Remember

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An item from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.  Note their programming beginning on 21 May at https://www.cwgc.org/our-war-graves-your-history/war-graves-week-events/digital-festival/

Join us for War Graves Week – a week to Remember

War Graves Week • Discover • Learn • Remember
War Graves Week (21st – 28th May 2021) is our new awareness week where we are encouraging communities to come together and discover the World War heritage on their doorstep. Many of the men and women who fought and died in the two world wars came from, and are today commemorated in, your local community – lying in cemeteries or named on memorials which were built, and are maintained to this day, by the CWGC. Join us and learn more about them this War Graves Week. 
For the duration of War Graves Week you can type in any UK postcode to a new search function on our website to discover service personnel with a connection to your local area.  They came from our local communities, walked on our streets, and we want you to keep their memory alive. Once you’ve found your local connection, you can download a commemorative tribute to display in your window, sign up to one of our nationwide events, or join us on our social media channels to find out more about casualties and our sites in the UK and around the world.
Click here to find who lived on your street
DISCOVER: Marking War Graves Week can be as simple as visiting your local cemetery or memorial. We commemorate service personnel at more than 23,000 locations in over 150 countries and territories, with more than 300,000 casualties commemorated in the UK alone, so there is more than likely a Commonwealth war grave on your doorstep. To find your nearest war grave, you can download our newly updated app which is available on both Apple and Android devices. Be sure to take a photo of your visit and share this with us on social media using the #WarGravesWeek hashtag.
LEARN: Tune in to our Digital Festival and join us as we host live broadcasts from across the United Kingdom. We commemorate more than 300,000 Commonwealth service personnel across the UK, and you can learn more about these casualties and our work to commemorate them from the comfort of your own home. We will be sharing stories, histories, and speaking to the members of our team from around the world who keep the remembrance of our war dead alive.
REMEMBER: Pay tribute to the men and women of the Commonwealth who died serving across the world, by downloading a special War Graves Week tribute to display in your window at home. You can use CWGC’s casualty database search to find any of the men and women we commemorate and download a tribute for the duration of War Graves Week. Or, if you’re looking for a fun way to get the family involved in War Graves Week, download our new children’s activity booklet – with word searches, I Spy and spot the difference, War Graves Week can be fun for the whole family.

Remembrance Day and anniversaries will always have a place in our work, but War Graves Week is an opportunity for communities to connect with their local heritage in a different way; when the days are longer, when the plants are in bloom, and our sites can be seen in a completely different light. Cemeteries are places for the living, and they were designed to be visited in all seasons. So join us this spring and make your own discovery in War Graves Week – a week to remember.
Find out how you can get involved in War Graves Week
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Copyright © 2020 Commonwealth War Graves Commission, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
2 Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 7DX

A Message from our Director General

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An item from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

An important message from our Director General,
Claire Horton CBE
Today, our Chairman (and Secretary of State for Defence in the United Kingdom) The Rt Honourable Ben Wallace MP, will be making a statement to the House of Commons concerning the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).

The statement to MPs coincides with the publication of research commissioned by us, at the end of 2019 and taken forward by an external Special Committee comprising many global subject matter experts, chaired by one of our Commissioners, Sir Tim Hitchens. The Special Committee was established to review historical inequalities in commemoration during and after the First World War. As their report makes clear, these were significant.
Further information on the report and our response to it, are detailed in the following video message from our Director General, Claire Horton CBE.
We have also published the report, and our response, in full on our website at www.cwgc.org/non-commemoration-report

The Commission is deeply grateful to the Special Committee which has gone about its work with the utmost professionalism, producing a hard hitting and robust report, with solid and important recommendations. The Report makes for sobering reading, and the Commission, now in possession of this detailed research and a greater understanding of the work to be done, will now be taking forward the recommendations and fully implementing them.

Many of the steps we will take will rely on our enduring relationships with many of our existing colleagues and partners, as well as opening up the opportunity for building new partnerships around the world with key stakeholders and especially, with the communities affected.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
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Copyright © 2021 Commonwealth War Graves Commission, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
2 Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 7DX

Queen marks 100 years of RAAF at Runnymede

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An item from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Welcome to the CWGC’s latest newsletter.
Her Majesty The Queen has marked the centenary of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) at the CWGC’s Runnymede Air Forces Memorial.

The Queen was welcomed to the ceremony by CWGC Director General Claire Horton CBE and The Honourable George Brandis, High Commissioner for Australia alongside representatives from the RAAF. A fly past and wreath laying in honour of the RAAF personnel who have given their lives in the past 100 years took place at the event yesterday (Wednesday 31 March).
Claire Horton said: “Today is an historic milestone for the Royal Australian Air Force and we are honoured that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Runnymede Air Forces Memorial has been chosen to mark the occasion.

“Around the world, the sacrifice of men and women from the Commonwealth lives on through the memorials and graves that bear their names. A century on from their formation, the RAAF’s duties at home and abroad remain as strong as ever, as does our commitment at CWGC to remember their fallen forebears.”
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All Eyes on Ieper for Cycling RaceLast Sunday, 28 March, one of Belgium’s premier cycling races started at the CWGC Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial. The Gent to Wevelgem road cycle race, known officially as Gent–Wevelgem – In Flanders Fields, runs through the former Battlefield of the First World War. Click here to learn five fascinating CWGC connections to the world of cycling!
Our Year in Lockdown

Here at CWGC we’re charged with a job that was started over 100 years ago. Despite the dramatic changes the world has seen over the past year, our work continued and just like everyone else we found ways to adapt as we all faced a pandemic that would drastically change the way we lived, worked, and socialised. Join us as we take a look back at a year which surely none of us will forget.
CWGC Director of Horticulture appointed as Trustee of Royal Botanic Gardens, KewOur very own Director of Horticulture, David Richardson, has been appointed as a Trustee of The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. David has worked for the Commission for over 30 years, and the CWGC has a historic connection with Kew. We look forward to strengthening our relationship in the years to come.
Discover our historic sites of remembrance near you with our new and improved CWGC App. Click on the links below to download the App:

Click here to download for Android
Click here to download for iOS
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Copyright © 2021 Commonwealth War Graves Commission, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
2 Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 7DX