Introduction

The Society started this project in 2014, one hundred years after the start of this momentous conflict. The objectives of the project are:-

To research the stories of those who went to war.
To understand what life was like in our villages at the start of the war.
To discover how our villages changed during the war.

The project team started by finding out as much as possible about the men who died and we published all that we could find about those who came from Sherburn and South Milford.

In order to find out about our villages in 1914 the best source available is the 1911census. This has been extensively researched and analysed. The information has been recorded such that the occupants of individual houses can be identified and, where possible, the location of houses related to the present day villages.

Discovering how life changed during the course of the war is proving difficult, mainly due to the absence of any specific local newspaper that covered the Sherburn area. Local records are not preserved in any one centre, but are spread between Wakefield, Leeds, York and Northallerton. Research is continuing but it may prove that it will not be until the release of the 1921 census will we be able to understand how the war affected our villages.

To mark the anniversary of the end of the war in 2018 our search to find out about those who died was extended to cover Barkston Ash, Saxton and Towton. The results were first displayed in an exhibition at the library and then published on this site.