Dear All
Having seen the general discussion that has occurred following Martin's message regarding the UK National Inventory of War Memorials I feel that it is now my turn to reply (thanks though to Martin for answering some of the questions)
I am afraid that we are stuck with the 1974 county boundaries as we are only a staff of two with a tiny budget and if we made changes to the database each time the boundaries changed we would never have time to do any proper work! But I hope that we can work together to make the transfer of information as easy and as relevant to each SMR as possible. Maybe the fact that we do record to district level will be a way forward and will be of use to places like Southend.
With regard to the discussion about recording listed memorials and ones in conservation areas, Martin has now sent the listings list and we will update each record accordingly. As for conservation areas, we do record them but only if we have been sent the information by our field workers. Because of the nature of the Inventory we have had to reply on a vast team of volunteer field workers to collect the information. As these people have come from a variety of backgrounds and interests the type of information they record does vary. For example, Family Historians are really only interested in the names on memorials as opposed to the memorial itself so all we sometimes get are name lists. On the other hand, other field workers have done thorough surveys and completed as many parts of the form as they can. For everyone's interest, I have attached a Word copy of our standard recording form so you can see what we ask them to find.
The whole question of protection of memorials is a very grey area. We work very closely with Friends of War Memorials and all their casework is done on a town/village basis so the transfer of information we hold is very easy. The main problem we encounter is finding out who wants to claim responsibility for their local memorial. The Local Authority Acts go some way to providing an example to follow but the majority of memorials were erected without any form of financial backing for their future upkeep as the local populace assumed that future generations would care for the memorials. Also, the majority of memorials are not on local authority owned land so, in very simplistic terms, it is down to the church or owner of the building to fund its upkeep. The UKNIWM was established with the remit of being a centralised repository of information that people can then use in what ever way they wish. It can help to provide a central contact for the information regarding the memorial but then we leave it to the experts to be able to carry out the physical protection.
I hope this has gone some way to answering the questions posed but if anyone is ever near the Imperial War Museum and would like to look at the database more closely you are more than welcome to visit. Alternatively, questions by e-mail are more than fine!
Mrs Jane Furlong
Project Officer
United Kingdom National Inventory of War Memorials
Imperial War Museum
Lambeth Road
London SE1 6HZ
Tel: 020 7416 5445
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