{The cross is raised above a circular seat. Running around the bottom of the seat back:}
Their name liveth for evermore.
{309 names are inscribed on the tilted top of the enclosing wall. See Subjects commemorated.}
These WW1 names are inscribed on the tilted top of the enclosing wall, and proved difficult to photograph and transcribe. Some sections are weathered worse than others. Also, we were there on an extremely sunny day, which was excellent for the photos we took but in some sections it was a challenge to see the image in the screen.
The list of names is sequenced as follows, reading clockwise: the first 95 are alphabetical by surname; the second 127 are alphabetical by surname; the last 86 are not in any obvious sequence and contain a number of unusual entries (4 members of the Women's Royal Airforce (Ambrose, Ashley, Porter and Smitherst), an Australian Munition Worker (C. C. Stone), a member of a Supernumerary Company (T. Hall), 2 people who served under an assumed name ( Morris and Randall). And a few with late dates of death, the latest being 1921.
These 3 "batches" not being merged in with each other prior to carving seems odd to us now when all lists are in easily-manipulated spreadsheets. Back then the list would have been manually typed on sheets of papers so re-sorting the 3 lists together would have been a daunting task, prone to the introduction of errors. There are two blank stones in the third section which shows that the memorial was sensibly sized to allow for late additions.
The entry for each name is spread over at least 4 lines. The content for each name generally contains (in this sequence): ID number, rank, name, service unit, date of death, age at death, burial plot number. Not all entries contain all these items. And, very unusually for a war memorial, the first 95 names all end with a message or motto, which seems to have been provided by the family. Many of these are formulaic (e.g. "Gone but not forgotten") but others are touchingly personal (e.g. "From your ever loving wife Daisy", "remembrance of my dear son Tom", "In loving memory of Daddy from his little daughter he never saw", "In sweetest memory of dear Daddie"). And the family of E. Kilburn have used his entry to also commemorate his brother Frank, killed 8 months later.
In the list there are two privates aged 16 and a trumpeter aged 17. The oldest age is 59.
The number of entries on the memorial is 309, and we have also created entries for Morris, Randall, and Frank Kilburn.
Errors that we spotted: The Women's Royal Airforce is given as The Woman's Royal Airforce in 3 of the 4 occurrences. London is given as Londond on one occasion. Corps is given as Corp on one occasion. Remarkably few, though of course there may be many that either we missed or that we could not know (such as a name being misspelt or an incorrect date being given). Flaws in the stone and/or weathering may have caused us to misread characters (1 and 4; 2 and 9; 3 and 5; 7 and 2: are the confusions with which we often struggled.) And then we also may have introduced transpcription errors all oru own.
Site: Kensal Green WW1 and WW2 (2 memorials)
NW10, Kensal Green cemetery, Crematorium Gardens
To find this this memorial it may help to know that it is in section 213 (as shown in an old plan displayed near the main entrance). Our pin is correct.
The WW1 names are inscribed on the tilted top of the surrounding wall. We've not found an image of this memorial before the WW2 changes were made, but it's likely that there was no raised section at the west end, and that the tilted top of the low wall with its list of WW1 names just continued at the same level all the way around. It's also likely that the stones bearing the text "Here are recorded .... buried in this cemetery." were at that time lower on the wall, still at the west end and still just below the tilted top. And that that was the only inscription there.
has "... a Screen Wall memorial lists casualties of both world wars whose graves could not be marked by headstones, besides five Second World War servicemen who were cremated...".
In 2025 we could not find this memorial at the of war memorials, nor at , so, as far as we can see, our transcription of the names is the first.
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