This is a remarkable project and website documenting the geographical distribution of UK citizens who died in the Great War.
The map is here: A Street Near You
When searching, insert the relevant postcode and then press the Enter key. Clicking on the search icon (the magnifying glass) will not necessarily work.
About
Whilst this personal project is just an attempt to explore the local legacy of the First World War, but at a global scale, it has struck me that it is much more than that. At the heart of it is the legacy of those who died in the conflict, and especially the scale of the impact that that would have had on their local communities, it would also never have been possible without the significant legacy created by those who remained, from the families who sent in photographs of their loved ones and which formed the Imperial War Museum's founding Bond of Sacrifice Collection, through the people who diligently compiled official records in the early 1920s and which formed the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's records, right up to the modern-day professionals, volounteers and individuals who have shaped these records, shared them, and also significantly increased and enriched them, especially under the guise of First World War Centenary projects like Lives of the First World War
Data and Sources
This project simply wouldn't exist without the core assets that it draws on. It currently contains nearly 500,000 location records for 410,000 men and women who died whilst serving in the First World War.
- Lives of the First World War - IWM's unique project enabling everyone to share their information, stories and images to compile Life Stories "on nearly 8 million men and women who served in uniform and worked on the home front".
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission - a unique online collection of the details of every serviceman or woman. Many of the locations here are extracted from what they call the 'Additional information' field, which typically contains text such as "Son of Samuel and Sarah Morley, of Derby; husband of F. M. Morley, of 113, Peel St., Ashbourne Rd., Derby.". Note that this information was collected sevral years after the end of the war and it does not necessarily represent an address that the person had lived at.
- Imperial War Museums Collections - one of the richest collections of First World War objects and images, most notably in this context the Bond of Sacrifice Collection and the Women's War Work Collection, togther comprising images of nearly 20,000 individuals who served
- War Memorial Register - another unique record from the Imperial War Museum, comprising records of over 78,000 memorials in the British Isles, together with listings of over one million names that appear on them.
With specific regards to the images, these are from one of three sources - the incredible Bond of Sacrifice Collection, the Women's War Work Collection (both Imperial War Museums), or uploaded by volunteers and individuals to the Lives of the First World War site (which itself is run by IWM). I am grateful to them for making all these available under a non-commercial license.
Additional credits for the software and mapping resources that this is built on
- Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under ODbL.
- Leaflet, the powerful open-source JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps.
Contributing records, reporting errors
The data currently presented has all been extracted from official records or from user contributions to the Lives of the First World War site. I would strongly encourage anyone who wants to add further details to find the Life Story of the person and add details there, which can then in future be added to this site
The inherrent nature of historic records and using modern automated tools to extract information means there are bound to be issues. I will shortly be adding a 'report error' link to each record that can be used to flag an issue and will be queued up ready to be investigated and fixed. I'm afraid as this is a personal project created in my own time, I cannot respond to individual requests right now.
Update! After the initial surge in usage, and some significant upgrades by my web hosts Tsohost the site is now stable and hopefully performing without issues. Previously I posted an appeal for additional funds to cover these server upgrades and I am hugely grateful to those who donated. I now have enough to cover a couple of months without paying the extra out of my own pocket. If you do still want to contribute to the ongoing running of the site, I am still of course happy to take donations towards the cost! To be absolutely clear, any excess will be split as donations between the Imperial War Museums and Commonwealth War Graves Commission, without whose records this site would not have been possible! Thank you.
Contact
For information, questions and bug reports please contact James Morley @jamesinealing | james@jamesmorley.net
Image
The joint graves of Privates Charles William Wiles and A R Taylor, 15 Bn West Yorkshire Regt (Leeds Pals), killed in action on 26 October 1918, probably by a stray shell whilst the unit was resting. Private Wiles lived at the Secretary General's house at 18 Querneby Road, Nottingham. Although fully identified on CWGC records he does not appear on A Street Near You thus demonstrating the difficulties in merging online records as indicated above.
