In May 2015 Fordham Local History Society decided to go ahead and apply for the Heritage Lottery Grant for a WW1 Fordham Community Project. We were successful with our application and received £10,000. Our project would be a fitting commemoration to all the men and their families who went to war; to those who returned and to others who fell in distant fields. We were successful with our application.
Go to the War Memorial page for the list of men remembered on our war memorial.
Listed here are the names of men who were added to the memorial, all these names are now on the Essex Roll of Honour which has been updated with all the correct information.
Our project has now been successfully signed off with the Heritage Lottery. The names have been added to the war memorial and the clock has been reinstated. A combined dedication service will be part of this year's Remembrance Service at All Saints Church. By April 2017 our KS2 scheme of work was in place in All Saints Primary School Fordham. The book Fordham's Finest - Preserving the Memory had been published and delivered to every household in Fordham and every child at All Saints Primary School was presented with their own named personal copy to commemorate the Great War. Our week long WW1 exhibition was well received and a great success.
This is the clock which was removed in the 1980s. It has now been repaired but replaced with a more efficient mechanism, thanks to Fordham Parish Council. You may notice the clock face differs to the original which states G. Chambers and the bottom writing reads Colchester. Looking on the balance sheet for the memorial the clock was made by a G. Chambers.
There was a G. Chambers of Colchester and a G. Chambers & Sons of Colchester. George Chambers had two addresses 35 Head Street and 19 Crouch Street Colchester.
Derek Clampin, the grandson of Frank W. Clampin builder of the war memorial was interviewed by Project leader Wendy Shepherd at the start of the project and Derek kindly gave FLHS sketches of the war memorial for our archive. Sadly, Derek will not see the clock back in its original place, but his grandfather's work will stand for many, many years standing proud in Fordham as a fitting memorial to our war dead.
