Northumberland

Co Durham

Yorkshire

Contents

Index to the "Civilian War Dead Roll Of Honour" for Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire.

Compiled by Brian Pears

(Data for Yorkshire West Riding supplied by Carl Nutbrown of Ontario, Canada.)

To avoid excessive downloading times, the listings are arranged in ten files covering surnames beginning A-B, C-D, E-G, H-I, J-L, M-N, O-R, S, T-V and W-Y respectively.

The Civilian War Dead Roll of Honour was compiled by the Imperial War Graves Commission. It lists civilians killed, directly or indirectly, by enemy action in the United Kingdom during the 1939 to 1945 war. A copy of the complete roll, consisting of seven bound volumes listing 66375 names, is kept in Westminster Abbey. Individual pages of the roll can be purchased from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (2 Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 7DX) at a modest cost.

Unfortunately it is often very difficult to locate individuals in the Roll because of the way the listings are arranged. The geographical counties are arranged in alphabetical order and, within the counties, we find first the County Boroughs and then the Urban and Rural Districts and the Municipal Boroughs, each in alphabetical order. Then, under each Borough or District heading, the names of the dead are listed in alphabetical order with brief details, apparently obtained from the death register compiled by local registrars. The individuals are listed in the area where they died irrespective of their home addresses or where they were injured. It is this last point which makes the roll difficult to use. Take, for instance, the three members of the Dodgson family of 10 Delacour Road, Blaydon-on-Tyne, who died as a result of an enemy bomb which demolished their home at 10.15 pm on Monday, September 1st 1941. Twenty-year-old Thelma died on the spot and is thus listed under Blaydon U.D., Co. Durham (Page 197). Her sister, Emily, aged 17, was taken to Whickham Cottage Hospital where she died on September 6th. Emily is therefore listed under Whickham U.D., Co. Durham (Page 207). Their father, 56-year-old Albert Greenfield Dodgson, was taken to Newcastle General Hospital where he died on September 18th; he appears on the Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland list (Page 1792). In this index, where possible, the location of the incident causing death is listed.

Not all of the information given in the original Roll of Honour entry is included in the index. Almost all entries give the names of the parents and/or spouse of the deceased, and where the death occurred at a different time and place from the original incident, most entries will give both sets of information. To obtain this additional information it is necessary to purchase the appropriate page of the Roll of Honour from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission at the address given above.

The data in each entry in the index is in the following order:

1. Surname and Forename of deceased

2. Services, if any, to which the deceased belonged (see abbreviations file)

3. Age, in years, months, weeks or days

4. Date of incident causing death*

5. Location of incident causing death*

6. Page number in the Civilian War Dead Roll of Honour

* In most cases deaths occurred at the time and place of the incident, but where this is not the case, the incident particulars are used if possible.

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