From 4th August 2014 we will be telling the story of Bedfordshire during the First World War through daily reports posted exactly one hundred years after the events they record. This blog will focus on the war itself, with daily reports from the Front in the style of a modern war correspondent. It will concentrate heavily on the experiences of the Bedfordshire Regiment and will include a daily Roll of Honour naming all the officers and men of the Bedfordshire Regiment and Bedfordshire Yeomanry listed as killed on that date. This is being compiled using the Commonwealth War Graves Commission search facility and Soldiers Died in the Great War. A companion blog will cover events in Bedfordshire and news from the Home Front and will take the form of a scrapbook with a mix of reports from around the county and transcripts of documents, illustrated with contemporary photographs.
Our sources will be local newspapers, particularly the Bedfordshire Times and the Luton News , together with material held at the Bedfordshire and Luton Archive and Record Service. This includes among many other items the war diaries of the Bedfordshire Regiment and other regimental records, individual diaries, letter collections, and the records of local committees and organisations.
For accreditation purposes, the view of old George Street in Hugh Byrne's image was taken by Luton News photographer R.G. Cooper (9075B, July 1947). Negative held at Wardown Park Museum.
ReplyDeleteThis is an extremely fascinating and exciting project, I am only saddened that similar projects are not being created throughout other parts of the country. I am not a local to Bedfordshire, but will be keeping up to date with the Blog's progress :).
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