Lives of the First World War

Tyne Cot Cemetery, which bears witness to the Third Battle of Ypres, commonly known as the Battle of Passchendaele, is the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in the world in terms of burials. There are 11,961 Commonwealth servicemen buried there, of whom more than 8,300 remain unidentified. The site also contains the Tyne Cot Memorial Wall to the Missing, which commemorates nearly 35,000 servicemen from the United Kingdom and New Zealand who died on the Ypres Salient after 16th August 1917 and whose graves are not known.

Image from Barclays Bank Book of Remembrance - World War One. Completed in April 1959, with parchment pages, the book was decorated and gilded by Dorothy Hutton.

After WW2 it was decided that the permanent official Barclays Bank memorial should be an illuminated inscribed book of remembrance, one for each war. Originally put on display in a purpose-built wall case at 54 Lombard Street, the books were then put on display in the new head office building in the 1990s, and when the head office moved in 2005 to 1 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, the books were put on display in cases there. The WW1 book lists members of staff who lost their lives serving in the armed forces, separated into Barclays Bank, London and South Western Bank, and London and Provincial Bank. The book has parchment pages, with leather binding, engrossed, decorated and gilded by Dorothy Hutton, and bound by Sydney M Cockerell, and includes illustrations of head offices and coats of arms of the three banks. The image shows the page of the WW1 book which features this person’s name as an employee of Barclays Bank Limited.

Some of the eastern districts of Barclays Bank had their own rolls of honour made up locally, as printed posters. The printed Roll of Honour for Chelmsford, Colchester, Great Yarmouth, and Ipswich lists the Barclays Bank employees from those districts who served, and includes temporary staff as well as permanent ones.

Image of the original design for a Barclays Bank colour printed WW1 roll of honour. Reproduced in monochrome in “History of Barclays Bank Limited”, P W Matthews & A W Tuke, 1926, page 396.

Image of the original Barclays Bank WW1 memorial panel formerly in the Great Hall at 54 Lombard Street. Published in Spread Eagle (the staff magazine of Barclays Bank), volume 26 (1951), page 461