Lamps of Sacrifice: Clock Tower

Memorial Clock Tower

Memorial Square, Coalville

Clock tower designed by McCarthy Collings & Co, 1925 (grade II listed)

In 1919 the Urban District Council decided that Coalville needed a bigger memorial to replace the one that had been built into the boundary wall of the railway station.

By July 1920 a War Memorial Committee had been appointed. In that month the committee decided against the option of a cottage hospital scheme, instead favouring the erection of a monument.

In March 1923 the design for a clock tower was selected. The winning design by Harry Collings was to be 67'6" high with a clock face on each of the four sides. It was to stand in ornamental grounds in the Market Place and the estimated cost was £1500. This amount had already been raised.

Land was purchased from the Wyggeston Hospital Trustees and in April 1924 the Charity Commissioners confirmed that the memorial could go ahead. The project was put out to tender and local builders Walter Moss & Sons were appointed to construct the memorial for £2007.

As the available funds fell short of this amount, the difference was raised with door-to-door collections and donations from local companies. This ensured that the Memorial Clock Tower could be unveiled free of debt.

Names

The sourcing of names to include on the Memorial Clock Tower began with an appeal in the Coalville Times in March 1920. A final appeal for names was made on 15 August 1924 and the War Memorial Committee had reached its final decision by 12 December 1924. It was agreed that there should be 354 names inscribed to commemorate the men from the Coalville urban area.

Many of the names that were included are repeated on memorials in the villages of the urban area and - in some cases - further afield. The inscription at the bottom of the Memorial Clock Tower reads "In loving and grateful remembrance of [those] who, to their imperishable honour, gave their lives in the Great War 1914-18".

The 'Famous Fifty'

Among the names are those of the 'Famous Fifty' - a group of young men who were the first to volunteer from the Coalville area in August 1914 and to fight on the Western Front.

On the day they left for war, the men marched from the Church of St John the Baptist in Hugglescote to the station at Coalville, with thousands lining the streets to give them a glorious send-off in a show of patriotic fervour. Of the fifty, twenty-eight were killed in action, while many who did come home later died of their injuries.

William Chambers

The Memorial Clock Tower includes the name of the first soldier from Coalville to die in the war, William Chambers. Just before the outbreak of war William decided to join the navy and walked the 150 miles to Portsmouth to enlist in the Royal Marine Light Infantry.

William was killed on 5 September 1914, aged 22. The ship he was on board, HMS Pathfinder, was sunk about 20 miles off the East Coast. The ship was blown into many pieces and from the crew of over two hundred, only a few survived.

Image credit: Michael Faulkner