2019 Project

We researched the other Selby soldiers who had been killed in the First World War and wrote to the current occupiers of eighty-eight of their former addresses to inform the residents of their home’s previous occupant. We also asked these residents to display a window card to promote remembrance of this individual throughout November. These cards were particularly impactful on the streets which had lost several men to the war, such as Olympia Crescent, Volta Street and Millgate. The project received a reception from the local community that we could never have imagined.

We were contacted by the Selby Times, BBC Radio York and BBC Look North who were all interested in getting involved with the project, and our students featured live on the BBC York breakfast show. Our posts on social media also had tens of thousands of views, likes, shares and comments and we received several letters and emails from local residents. One such resident was Mrs Jean Dodds, a descendant of one of the Selby soldiers who was kind enough to lend the school a box of items once belonging to her grandfather. More information on this is available on the William Charles Brown page.

News of our project reached even further afield, and we were honoured to be invited to an award ceremony at the Tower of London where we were presented with a Legacy 110 award. During the ceremony, a representative from University College London was present in the audience and informed us afterwards that we were to be presented with the “Inspiring Young People to Change the World Award” at a formal ceremony in Royal Wootton Bassett.

The aim of this project was to promote remembrance of the specific individuals from the Selby area who joined the war effort. We hoped to not only remember the sacrifice that they made, but also the details of their life before the war and the fact that they once contributed to our community in a variety of ways before 1914. They were and will forever be a part of our town’s history, and we will remember them.

We first discovered the story of William Charles Brown whilst conducting research for our 2019 Remembrance Project, as he was killed in the First World War and had once lived at number 17 Ebor Street in Selby. At this point, we never imagined where his story would take us.

In November 2019 after reading about our project in the Selby Times, Mrs Jean Dodds- a local resident- contacted the school to let us know that she was the Grandaughter of Sergeant William Charles Brown. Mrs Dodds mentioned that she had some items which belonged to William, and was kind enough to invite Miss McCabe to her home to view and borrow these items. The belongings that Jean had of her Grandfather’s could only be described as treasure, and all students and staff at the school who were lucky enough to have viewed them were amazed that such items had survived and had been lent to the school. They included; a photograph of William, the Christmas card that he had sent to his wife from the trenches in 1915, his sketchbook containing notes and drawings that he had made during his service, instruction and training manuals for First World War recruits, the letter which informed his wife of his death and various letters and paperwork relating to his time in service.

Most amazingly we found that amongst the various notes and drawings within the sketchbook there was just a single page that had been written in shorthand. We appealed to the local community and media to help us to decipher this page and we now believe that the first three lines read; “Go to the mine on the track… watch out for the sniper… the main aim of the job is…” The final line of the page is written in a coded form of shorthand and has remained a mystery for over a hundred years. Anyone with any information on what this line may say (see image) is urged to contact the school.

Mrs Dodds was also able to provide us with some more information about William’s life, and we now know that before the outbreak of the First World War, William worked as a policeman in his hometown of Nottingham. After meeting his wife, he moved to the town of Selby. At the time that William was killed, during a shell attack on February 6th 1916, he was aged just 28 years and his wife was eight months pregnant, meaning that he tragically missed the birth of his son (Mrs Dodd’s father) by just a few weeks. Jean also told us that to her knowledge, no one from the family had ever managed to make the trip to Belgium to visit William’s grave. We began making plans to include a visit to the Menin Road South military cemetery, near the town of Ypres, during our next annual visit to Belgium. In February of 2020, a team of five staff and around fifty students visited William’s grave to pay our respects to a man who was once a part of our town’s community, and lost his life in the conflict which became known as the Great War. We left at the graveside a photograph of William along with a short summary of his life, so that other visitors in the future might remember him for the life he lived, as well as the life he lost.

After sending some photographs of our trip to Mrs Dodds upon our return, we learned that she had sadly passed away in late December of 2019. This page has been written with the permission of her children, who have placed our photographs amongst the items once owned by William. We remain extremely grateful to Jean for her generosity in lending us William’s items and sharing his story with us, and we will be sure to keep both William and Mrs Dodds in our thoughts around the time of Remembrance Day each year.