The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is always very keen to raise awareness of our local war graves and get people to take more of an interest and even adopt them, take care of them and keep them tidy.
That shouldn’t be too difficult here in Oakworth, as we have just five of them in our local cemetery.
This should always be done with permission. Most of these graves are private and some people might not take kindly to a stranger coming and cleaning a grave. Even the ones cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commision should be adopted with their support and we do not recommend you just go a start cleaning up a grave.
Please contact them first if you’d like to get involved through their CWGC Volunteering page.
Oakworth has five actual war graves, in two cemeteries.
Keighley (Oakworth) Cemetery:
The Great War:
Harold Thompson Holmes
Herbert Moore
Albert Reddihough
WW2:
Rennie Hollings
The gravestone of Henry Thompson Holmes in Oakworth Cmetery.
The gravestone of Herbert Moore in Oakworth Cemetery.
The gravestone of Albert Reddihough in Oakworth Cemetery.
The gravestone of Rennie Taylor in Oakworth Cemetery.
Oakworth (Christchurch) Graveyard:
Fred Binns
The gravestone of Fred Binns in Oakworth Cemetery.
They are recognised by the Imperial War Museum and the War Memorials Trust as actual war memorials, they represent a family’s grief and desire to remember their lost relative who died ‘in a foreign field’, which the family had little or no chance of visiting on a regular basis and for those who did visit them, this was probably their one chance in their lifetime that they could afford to visit them at all.
In order to give themselves a place to visit and to remember, they chose to memorialise their relative on their own family gravestone.
One man, William Norman Coates is memorialised on his parents family gravestone and his grandparent’s family gravestone in two separate cemeteries in the village.
Oakworth’s family war memorials:
There are four cemeteries in the village and three of them have a number of war memorial inscriptions on family gravestones.
Keighley (Oakworth) Cemetery has sixteen memorial incriptions:
The family war memorial inscription to Wright Andrews in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Ellis Taylor Buterfield in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to William Norman Coates in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Arthur Norman Cousin in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Herbert Heaton in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Percy Hollings in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Willie McLelland in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to John Henry McVann in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Reginald Mead in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Fred Moore in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Charles Page in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to George Page in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Harold and Charles Parrish in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Allan Pickles in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Norman Powell in Oakworth Cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to William Herbert Priestley in Oakworth Cemetery.
Slack Lane Baptist Chapel graveyard has two war memorial inscriptions:
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The family war memorial inscription to Clifford Baxandall in Slack Lane Baptist Church cemetery.
The family war memorial inscription to Allan Green in Slack Lane Baptist Church cemetery.
Oakworth’s Dockroyd Graveyard has five war memorial inscriptions:
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The family war memorial inscription to William Norman Coates in Oakworth’s Dockroyd graveyard.
The family war memorial inscription to Arthur Moore in Oakworth’s Dockroyd graveyard.
The family war memorial inscription to John Clifford Dawson Moore in Oakworth’s Dockroyd graveyard.
The family war memorial inscription to Joseph Simpson in Oakworth’s Dockroyd graveyard.
The family war memorial inscription to John Paget Sugden in Oakworth’s Dockroyd graveyard.