From Barrie Bertram.
AFTER the conclusion of this year’s Armistice commemorations, it is perhaps time for the oft-quoted figure of 862 dead to be consigned to history.

In your Armistice supplement, you published a list derived by the Channel Islands Great War Study Group that contains 1,400-plus names.

While some understandable differences of interpretation exist between those findings and the original 1919 Jersey Roll of Honour and Service from which the 862 is derived, there is still a substantial difference, not least because the 862 excludes Merchant Navy and French losses, the latter from a sizeable part of Jersey’s community in those days.

Research has shown that the entire roll is riddled with errors, and that there are numerous omissions: Howard Davis and women’s contribution to cite just two obvious examples. This is an observation, not a criticism, as the War Roll Committee appointed by the States in April 1917 were hampered by a lack of information and the post-war chaos that reign-ed, a situation that does not exist to the same extent today with the benefits of accessible archives and the internet.

The then Bailiff, William Vernon, in his Preface to the Roll of Honour, hit the nail on head with ‘Let others that come after see to it that his name be not forgotten’, a statement that is no less appropriate today. Almost 90 years on, the 1919 Roll of Honour and Service must be regarded as work that had never been properly completed by the States.

Producing a new roll for 2014, the centenary of the First World War’s outbreak, should become a target for the States, and the money spent would prove of greater value to the everyday Jerseyman and his heritage, as opposed to the amounts devoted to expensive talking shops on Jersey’s independence, or for that matter, pretentious projects such as a National Gallery.
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