The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is the sole organisation charged with the commemoration of members of the Commonwealth forces who died during the two World Wars – the official war periods being 4 August 1914 to 31 August 1921, and 3 September 1939 to 31 December 1947 – where the death was the result either of wounds inflicted or an accident occurring during active service, or disease aggravated by active service. In practice, this means that serving military personnel are commemorated irrespective of the cause, location or circumstances of their death.
Private William Walker had served in France and Belgium before he and two comrades died while on service in Ireland on 22 February 1921. It was known that his body had been returned and buried in the churchyard, but its precise location was unknown. The Commission wished to install a standard war pattern headstone to Private Walker, with the superscription (usual in these circumstances) ‘Buried elsewhere in this Churchyard’. The incumbent and PCC understood the desire for such a memorial, but was also concerned by the possibility of unintended pastoral harm by the official commemoration of an English soldier killed in Ireland. The rector was thought to be particularly concerned in the light of problems of contested heritage. They declined to make a decision on the Commission's request, instead inviting the Commission to petition for a faculty so that the court could carry out the necessary balancing exercise.
The court was satisfied that there was no good reason militating against the introduction of the proposed memorial, whose wording did not mention Ireland at all. First, Private Walker and his comrades had not died in armed conflict with Irish forces, but had been captured and executed as ‘spies’ by the IRA. No-one could sensibly have anything but the most profound sympathy for Private Walker and his family. (The other two comrades were already officially commemorated elsewhere.) More broadly, there would be an unhappy dissonance between receiving a body for burial in a churchyard yet refusing to commemorate them. There was no basis for the fear of upsetting any Irish Catholic who might visit the churchyard, any more than would be the case with any other foreign national viewing a memorial to a soldier who fell in a conflict with that person's own country.
A faculty would issue, permitting the installation of the proposed headstone next to the only other Commission headstone in the churchyard. [DW]
