In the weeks before Remembrance Sunday this question comes up regularly, from families and from local history groups: can a QR code be added to a war grave or a village war memorial, so that the names lead to the people?
The idea is a good one. The rules are stricter than almost anybody expects, and getting them wrong causes real offence. So, clearly.
Commonwealth War Graves headstones: no
Not a matter of asking nicely. The headstones maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission are the Commission's property and responsibility, in this country and in around 150 others, and their design is deliberately uniform.
That uniformity is the entire point. Rank, class, regiment and wealth were set aside so that every casualty is commemorated identically, which was a radical decision at the time and remains the foundation of how the Commission works. Nothing may be added, fixed or altered by a family, however small, however discreet, and however well meant.
The one element families sometimes forget exists is the personal inscription: for many casualties, the next of kin were permitted to choose a short line at the foot of the stone. Where one was chosen it is already there, and it cannot now be changed.
If you find a CWGC headstone damaged, weathered or obscured, report it to the Commission rather than attempting anything yourself. They maintain them and they want to know.
Village and civic war memorials: almost certainly not, without consent
A war memorial in a village square or a churchyard is not unowned. It has a custodian, usually a parish or town council, a church, or occasionally a Royal British Legion branch or a private trust.
More importantly, a great many UK war memorials are listed structures, a large number of them listed specifically as part of the centenary commemorations. Altering a listed structure without listed building consent is a criminal offence, not a planning irregularity. Attaching a plaque counts as an alteration. In a churchyard you would also be inside the faculty jurisdiction, which is a separate permission again, as described in the churchyard regulations guide.
None of that makes a remembrance project impossible. It means the code does not go on the memorial.
What you can do instead
These are the routes local groups actually take, and several are better than a plaque on the stone would have been.
An interpretation board nearby. Often permitted where an alteration to the memorial is not, because it is a separate structure. Councils are frequently supportive, particularly where a school or history group is involved.
A remembrance bench. Sited near the memorial, entirely conventional, and a plaque on a bench needs no listed building consent. See the bench guide.
Inside the church or hall. A framed board carrying the names and a code, on an interior wall, avoids most of the difficulty. Still ask the incumbent or the trustees.
Printed remembrance cards. One per name, distributed at the service or laid at the memorial for the day and collected afterwards. Nothing is fixed to anything, so nothing needs consent, and this is by far the most common approach for school projects.
A family memorial elsewhere. Where a serviceman has no grave in this country, families often mark them on a family plot, a bench, or at home. On a family-owned memorial the ordinary rules apply, which are set out in the cemetery rules guide.
Veterans who died recently
Worth separating clearly, because the two get confused.
A veteran who served and died years later, of ordinary causes, is not a war casualty in the Commission's sense and is buried in an ordinary grave under ordinary rules. There is no special restriction. A memorial plaque on that grave is treated exactly like any other, and the process is the standard one: the deed holder's consent, a permit, an accredited mason.
For these families a memorial page is often unusually valuable, because service is precisely the part of a life that gets reduced to a line on a stone. A regiment and a pair of dates say almost nothing. The photographs, the postings, the people they served with, and what they actually did say a great deal.
Where to find the records
If you are building a page for someone who served, these are the starting points, and they are more generous than people expect.
- The CWGC casualty records are free and searchable, covering both world wars, and give unit, date, cemetery and often age and next of kin.
- The National Archives hold service records and medal index cards, with much of the First World War material digitised.
- The Imperial War Museums' Lives of the First World War material and their photographic archive.
- Regimental museums, which are frequently the best source of all and are usually staffed by people delighted to be asked.
- Local newspaper archives, often held by the county record office. Local papers reported casualties in detail, and those reports carry the human material that official records do not.
- For more recent service, the Ministry of Defence releases records to next of kin on application.
One request worth making of anyone doing this: check the spelling of every name against the primary record. Names on memorials were sometimes cut wrongly a century ago, and a digital record repeating the error tends to entrench it.
Why it is worth doing
Every village in Britain has a stone with a list of names on it. Most people who walk past read the list and take in nothing, because a list of surnames is not a set of people. Ask anyone who lives in that village who the third name from the top was and they will not know.
They were nineteen. They worked at the mill. There is a photograph of them in the county archive, and their brother's name is four lines further down the same stone.
Turning a list back into people is a genuinely worthwhile piece of work, and it can be done entirely without touching the memorial. Our plaques are used for family memorials rather than public monuments, and if you are running a village or school remembrance project we are glad to talk about how to set the pages up, whether or not you buy anything from us.
Ask the custodian first. Always. On this subject, more than any other, permission asked beforehand is worth a great deal more than forgiveness afterwards.