大象传媒

While most dedicated World War One graveyards were only created after the Imperial War Graves Commission got its Royal Charter in 1917, one Ipswich community was taking matters into their own hands.

A plaque in the towns World War One Field of Remembrance at the Southern end of the Old Cemetery show it was the Women鈥檚 Guild of Ipswich who had the foresight to create a consecrated area dedicated to casualties of WW1. It was they who organised the fundraising, secured the land and got members of the army locally to clear it and lay it out.

The first men were buried in the Field of Remembrance in 1915. In total; 121 are buried there, another 145 are buried in plots across the Old Cemetery. Some of the men have local links, but most are buried there because they died in or near the town. While many of the men were from the Suffolk Regiment, gravestones bear the badges of the London and Royal Berkshire Regiments, the Irish Guards and the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand armies.

The fundraising continued for years, and included a concert to boost the 鈥淔ield of Honour Memorial Fund鈥�, held at the Public hall in Ipswich on 17 May 1919.

The plot is now cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which works across the world, employing local labour people where possible to maintain almost 1.7 million graves of Commonwealth servicemen and women who died in both World Wars, including in the main cemeteries in France and Belgium.

Here John Greenacre from University Campus Suffolk takes us round the cemetery.

Location: Ipswich Cemetery, Ipswich, Suffolk

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