Published in Windlesora 14 (1995)
© WLHG
A very youthful looking Private Cyril Arthur Ashman. A former pupil at what is now Windsor Boys’ School, he was killed on 28 October 1917. He is buried near Passchendaele in Belgium. As well as the school, he is remembered on the War Memorial at Eton Wick designed by A Y Nutt. His elder brother, Private Henry Douglas Ashman, was lost at Suvla Bay in 1915 and has no known grave.
The late Ken Shepherd lived in St Marks Road, Windsor. He was a founder member of the Western Front Association. In pursuance of his lifelong interest in the Great War, he researched the background to names on all the principal war memorials in the immediate area of Windsor. In addition he visited numerous war cemeteries and combed through back numbers of the Windsor Express. With the close co-operation of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, he built up a collection of over six hundred files on individual men. Many files are quite substantial, but in some cases regrettably, little is known of the men who died in “the war to end all wars“. Interestingly, he identified several men who were not listed on a local war memorial, and found many whose names were shown more than once. In at least one instance, he identified an omission from CWGC records and succeeded in having an inscription added to the mighty Thiepval Memorial in France. He also accumulated a mass of historical information regarding the county regiments. Work was still in hand at the time of his death in 1994. Now all of this valuable data resource has been placed in the safe-keeping of the Royal Borough Collection, at the Tinkers Lane Museum Store.
An interesting example of a local memorial is the ornate oak plaque in the school hall of Windsor Boys’ School. This honours fourteen old boys who gave their lives for their country during the Great War. Amongst those listed are Lieutenant L C J Burnett, MC, Lieutenant J R Lambdin, MC, Rifleman J A Ottrey and Lieutenant L F Woodland. The names of these four men are perpetuated by having school houses named after them. Another former pupil recorded on this memorial is Herbert Henry Hiley, who volunteered promptly. According to the Windsor Express, Trooper Hiley was amongst the 96 men of the local squadron of the Berkshire Yeomanry who marched out of Windsor at 11 a.m. on Tuesday 21 August 1915. The son of Mr J M Hiley, the court postmaster, he lived in New Road and was a member of the Eton Excelsior Rowing Club, Windsor and Eton Football Club and other local sports organisations. Clearly he was much mourned, as he is also remembered on the Windsor War Memorial outside the Parish Church in the High Street, on the Clewer War Memorial, outside the recreation ground in Dedworth Road, and on the Berkshire Yeomanry Memorial at Barry Avenue.
Members of the WFA used a computer to produce a simple printed index to the files forming the Ken Shepherd Archive, and this can be consulted in local reference libraries, regimental museums, and various other locations. The index is a useful initial checkpoint for anyone tracing an individual name. If the index denotes that information is held for a particular man then an arrangement can be made to visit the Royal Borough Collection to study the file.
Windsor Local History Group 