St Mark’s War Dead

Three individual war memorial tablets were installed inside St Mark’s Church, Surbiton KT6 4LS, during the Great War, 1914-1918.  In December 1919, the Parish Magazine listed names for a collective memorial tablet within the Church to commemorate its Great War dead. It was dedicated on 20 October 1920.  In February 1920, the Magazine outlined a proposal for an internal Rood Cross memorial and an external war memorial tablet for St Andrew’s Church to commemorate members of the congregation, and to those connected with the Church, who had fallen in the War.  Both memorials were dedicated on 12 October 1921.  On the night of 2 October 1940, St Mark’s was hit by a Luftwaffe bomb and was severely damaged. All the wartime memorials were destroyed, and the postwar tablet was severely damaged.  Gravestones in the churchyard were scattered or broken. From a photograph of the damaged tablet, it was possible to decipher some names. Some of these were found on the external war memorial of St Andrew’s Church, about which a paper was published in May 2023.  In 1960, St Mark’s was reconsecrated after restoration and The Book of Remembrance, recording persons originally buried in the churchyard, was installed. It incorporates the Roll of Honour which lists 94 names of “those of their Parish and Congregation who gave their lives for their Country in the Great War”.  A list of 111 names of the Parish Great War dead was compiled, including seventeen names not on St Mark’s Roll of Honour and twelve names not on the Surbiton Urban District Council Memorial [“Surbiton Cross”], KT6 6DY. For 109 of these men, biographical notes and details of their death, burial or commemoration are provided.  The Roll of Honour also lists twenty men who died in the Second World War, 1939-1945, including two names which are not on the World War II plaques adjacent to the Cross, KT6 6DY. Biographical notes and details of death, burial or commemoration for most men are in this paper. I wish to thank Jon Moore for most generously sharing with me his research findings on the St Mark’s Great War dead.