Lottery backing research into soldiers’ lives

The Heritage Lottery Fund has announced today that it is backing the Batley Grammar School Foundation Project ‘Batley Lads’ to mark the centenary of the war.

The cash backing is part of the First World War: Then and Now programme, run by the fund.

The project will research all the lives of the fallen of Batley Grammar School finding out where they lived and what they did before joining the army. It aims to build up a social history of the types of pupils and their families who were students at the school before the First World War. The team carrying out the research will then focus on what the soldiers did in the war, where they fought and how they died.

It is hoped that students currently at the school will be able to help with the research.

Philip Wheeler, who is leading the research team, said: “This grant will enable us to really get the full story of the lives of these men, especially by using material from the national archive which is not presently online. Many families in the area will then find out just what their relatives did in the First World War, as well as the present school population.”

The researchers hope that anyone with information about a relative will come forward with information. It is already known that one man on the roll of honour, Private Horace Waller, won a Victoria Cross. The project will include giving the school a full database of the names of the fallen.

There are also plans to create a website and it is hoped that enough information will be gathered to be able to publish a book with each soldier’s story.