Another move for a WW1 War Memorial: The L&Y Railway Carriage and Wagon Depot Roll of Honour
Originally unveiled just after the end of the war, a memorial to the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railwaymen of the company's Railway Carriage and Wagon Depot has found a new, and hopefully permanent home.
Listing 117 men who worked in the Carriage and Wagon Depot, the memorial was originally at the L&Y railway's Newton Heath depot in Manchester. However less than ten year later, the memorial was on the move - to Newton Heath Town Hall.
At the outbreak of war, in 1914, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway company had a 37,000 strong workforce. More than 10,000 employees volunteered for the armed services, with 1,422 losing their lives. After the war, in 1922, the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway was merged with the LNWR (London and North Western Railway) but another merger took place a year later when the LNWR became part of the LMS (London Midland Scottish Railway).
Eventually the LMS was nationalised as part of the creation of British Railways in 1948. These changes to railway operations probably meant a large number of war memorials were lost, and whilst the L&Y Carriage and Wagon Depot memorial was secure in the local town hall, things were far from 'safe'.
The Town Hall was demolished in the 1970s and on the face of it, the war memorial was lost. However thankfully in the 1990s a British Rail employee found it in the undercroft of Manchester Piccadilly station.
Although safely stored for 20 years, the memorial was not publicly on view until it was rededicated and unveiled at Newton Heath TrainCare Centre in 2019, but as a working and active rail centre, visits to the memorial were only possible via special arrangement.
Major roof repairs to Newton Heath TrainCare Centre were scheduled and thankfully a decision was made to enable greater public access to the memorial and so the war memorial has made another move to the Bury Transport Museum, which is operated by East Lancashire Railway.
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