War Memorial
On a Sunday afternoon in December 1920, the people of Leigh gathered on the Village Green to dedicate their war memorial to the men of the parish who had given their lives in the First World War. The ceremony, held on 12 December, drew a congregation of around 300, a remarkable turnout for a village service and a measure of how deeply the losses of the war years were felt in the community.
The memorial itself is a cross in the English Medieval style, worked in Portland stone. Its design came from Mr Arthur Cooksey, and the building work was carried out by the firm of Messrs A Burslem, whose business was based in Tunbridge Wells. The idea of raising a memorial had first been taken up by the Parish Council, which set the scheme in motion.
To bring the project to fruition, a committee was formed under the chairmanship of Mr G W Gordon. Mrs Harold Cox took on the duties of Honorary Treasurer, while Mr G W Boby acted as Honorary Secretary. Among those who gave their time to the committee were Lady Bright, Miss Gordon and Miss Hicks, together with the Vicar, the Rev. G E Weston, and two local medical men, Dr Fraser and Dr Tunks. The remaining members were W Goodwin and C Atkinson, then C Friend and M M Williams, with Harold Cox, J Brooker and B W Baker, followed by W Seal and H Faircloth, and last of all C Pocock — a roll call that shows how widely the effort was shared across the village.
The cost of the memorial was set at £400, and the parish responded so generously that the full amount was raised by subscription. No debt was left behind the finished cross; it stood, as it does today, as a gift from the whole community.
The unveiling was performed by Lieut. General Sir George Fowke, whose honours of KCB and KCMG reflected a distinguished military career. The service that accompanied the unveiling was conducted by the Vicar of Leigh, the Rev. G E Weston, and lasted half an hour. Music was provided by Mr H Hitchcock, the organist, who played a harmonium for the occasion.
The order of service followed the pattern familiar from so many such ceremonies across the country after the war. It opened with the hymn 'O God, our help in ages past'. The Vicar then read aloud the names of the fallen, giving each man his place in the parish's memory, before the congregation sang 'Ten thousand times ten thousand'. The closing hymn was 'Praise to the Holiest in the height', and the National Anthem brought the formal part of the service to an end.
One of the most moving moments came with the sounding of The Last Post and Reveille by Ex-Sergt J Page, who had served in the late R.E. His bugle calls framed the silence in which the gathered crowd remembered their dead.
The choir had marched in procession from the Church to the Green, and after the service relatives of the fallen came forward to place wreaths and flowers around the base of the Cross, a gesture that bound the stone memorial to the families it stood for.
This account is drawn from a contemporary report in the Kent and Sussex Courier, and appeared in the Parish Magazine for November 2024.