‘Local Heroes from Around the World’

Men from all of the area that now makes up Milton Keynes served in the armed forces during the Great War. The ‘Soldiers Died In The Great War’ database, (British Army), gives the following figures of men who declared their place of residence as being in the city area when they joined up:

Newport Pagnell83North Crawley5Astwood1
Bletchley55Emberton4Filgrave1
Wolverton48 Little Brickhill4Haversham1
Olney36Bow Brickhill3Lathbury1
Woburn Sands31Newton Blossomville3Loughton1
Stony Stratford26Stoke Goldington3Milton Keynes1
Hanslope15Wavendon3Moulsoe1
Old Bradwell7Weston Underwood3New Bradwell1
Fenny Stratford6 Calverton2Ravenstone1
Sherington5Woughton2

This, of course, only records those that died; it does not include the many that returned.

It also does not record the many men from this area that fought in the uniform of another country. The local memorials do however, in many cases, record the names of those who had travelled to the far-flung corners of the Empire to start a new life but returned to Europe in the uniform of their adoptive countries to lay down their lives in the mud of France and Belgium for the old country.

fenny_memorial

The memorial in Queensway, Bletchley, commemorates three such men:

mem_det1 mem_det2