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Little Stukeley

This war memorial is situated in the churchyard of St. Martin’s Church in the village of Little Stukeley, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. It is a plain cross of Weldon limestone on an octagonal plinth with carved corner panels and a moulded base. It is surrounded by a gravelled area and a chain fence with stone uprights. One side of the memorial faces the lane, and this side has a wreath positioned as the circle on a Celtic cross.

The memorial was unveiled by George Charles Montagu, 9th Earl of Sandwich, in 1920. The Montagu’s family seat of Hinchingbrooke was in Huntingdon, just to the south of Little Stukeley (now Hinchingbrooke School) and the Montagu family had intermittently provided Lords Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire since the seventeeth century.

In March 2008 War Memorials Trust gave a grant of £1,200 towards work to apply algicide and wash the memorial, to repoint joints and repair damaged areas with lime mortar, and to replace three areas on the top of the plinth with stone that, as far as possible, matched the original.

One the face of the plinth facing the lane is the inscription:

To the memory of
the following men of Little Stukeley
who gave their lives for their country
in the Great War 1914 – 1918

“God proved them and found them
worthy for Himself” Wisdom III 6

James R. Hotson
Henry S. Ingrey
Thomas H. Ingrey
Herbert Jacobs
Frederick G. Lewin
Oliver V. Reedman
Harold G. Stanyon
Roland V. Watson

“Let those who come after see to it
That their names are not forgotten”
King George V

On the back on the memorial is inscribed:

1939 – 1945
Sgt. RAF K.H. Vigers
Until the day dawns

Some information is available about the men from Little Stukeley who died in the world wars. The first man from the village to fall in the Great War was Pte. Harold Stanyon of the 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. He was in the regular army and his regiment had landed in France on 15 August 1914, eleven days after war had been declared. Pte. Stanyon died during the Somme campaign, likely at the Battle of Guillemont (3 - 6 September 1916 ). This was a subsidiary attack of the offensive, primarily intended to distract German attention from the Romanian front where the Romanians were coming under increasing pressure. The capture of Guillemont had been repeatedly attempted but it finally fell to the British on 3rd September 1916. The attack continued until 6 September when Pte. Stanyon died. On the memorial in the neighbouring village of Great Stukeley the memorial commemorates Pte. Fred Oldfield who was in the same battalion as Pte. Stanyon and died the day before him, also at the Battle of Guillemont.

Pte Reedman also died during the Somme campaign, on 8th October, and Pte. Henry Ingrey on 12th October. Pte. Henry Ingrey was the older brother of Thomas Ingrey, a soldier by profession, who died nearly two years later in September 1918. Their parents, Wilfred and Mary Ann, lived in Little Stukeley.

After the Somme campaign, which ended with 1916, the Allies kept the pressure on the Germans by carrying out operations along the Ancre River. Pte. Frederick Lewin was killed during this, during the capture of the village of Irles on 10th March 1917.

Three of the men on the memorial died in 1918; Pte Hotson in April 1918 during the Second Battle of Kemel, an engagement during the German Spring Offensive. The two others, Pte. Watson and Pte. Thomas Ingrey, died in September 1918, during the subsequent defence and forward advance of the Allies. Pte. Watson died at the Second Battle of Bapaume, and Pte. Ingrey at the Battle of the Canal du Nord.

There is one name from the Second World War on the memorial; Sgt. Kenneth Vigers of the RAF Voluntary Reserve. His parents lived in the nearby village of Abbots Ripton. Sgt. Vigers was a member of the crew of a Wellington bomber which on 10th September 1942 was on a raid to Dusseldorf from Steeple Mordon, Cambridgeshire. The plane crashed at a quarter to midnight into the stack yard at Herne Hill Farm, Chediston, two miles north west of Halesworth, Suffolk. All five members of the crew were killed by the accident. Sgt. Vigers is buried in Little Stukeley churchyard.

Further information

War Memorials Trust reference WM2329
UK National Inventory of War Memorials: 321

Battle of Guillemont
Capture of Irles
Photograph of Engineers of the 4th Division waiting in an abandoned trench to go forward at the Battle of the Canal Du Nord, autumn 1918
Some photographs of, and information, about Lord Sandwich, who unveiled the memorial
The history of Pte. Harold Stanyon’s Brigade, called “The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade” and written by Edward Lord Gleichen is downloadable as a whole text.
Bedfordshire Regiment in World War One (Ptes Stanyon, Hotson and Thomas Ingrey were in the Bedfordshire Regiment).
A database of all the bombers that were lost in World War II
Information about the history of Steeple Morden airfield, where Sgt. Vigers was based

If you have a concern about this memorial please contact the Trust on conservation@warmemorials.org

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