BIS war memorial
Many civil servants have, in times of war, given distinguished service to their country. Some were on active service in the forces, others in vital work at home. The BIS war memorials webpages are dedicated to the memory of over 300 staff from BIS predecessor departments who were killed in action or died in war. By recording their names, together with personal details and photographs, we aim to keep alive the memory of the sacrifice.
The BIS war memorials pages are now available from The National Archives website:
BIS war memorials homepage
Note that these pages are no longer being updated.
Departmental war memorial
The war memorial plaque was unveiled in BIS headquarters at 1 Victoria Street, London SW1, on 11 November 2002. This extract from December 2002 DTI News provides an article about the unveiling in the internal staff newspaper.
It replaced a missing Roll of Honour to staff of the Board of Trade who fell in the First World War. The story of the missing memorial is told on the World War I project page.
The BIS war memorials homepage is intended to supplement the new memorial, by displaying individual stories and photographs. However there is no authoritative list of Board of Trade staff who fell in the Second World War, and while we do have official lists for 1914-1919, we have in most cases researched only very basic details about each man.
Acknowledgements
Many people have contributed to the BIS War Memorials Project and we are grateful to each of them. Our particular thanks go to those relatives of staff who died with whom we have managed to make contact and who have very generously provided photographs and other material and given permission to publish them. We are grateful to several retired staff, who have contributed valuable information about casualties in WW2. We are also thankful to present and former staff, members of the Western Front Association and the Gallipoli Association and others who have taken the trouble to locate and photograph graves and memorials specifically for this website.
Jill Knight, the founder of this project, died on 2 April 2005. Michael Forsyth wrote brief personal memoir of Jill Knight which was published in the November 2005 issue of Firestep, the magazine of the London branch of the Western Front Association.
Copyright and disclaimer
The War Memorials website displays material, photographs and other images which are owned by third parties and are their copyright. Please refer to the statements Crown copyright 2002 and Disclaimer on the main BIS website.
The main sources of material displayed on the war memorials website are acknowledged in a separate list of Sources. Other sources are acknowledged on the page where the information is displayed. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders of the material used. If anyone believes that they hold the copyright of material displayed on the memorial website, please send full details of the item (including the URL) to the BIS War Memorials Project, providing name, address, telephone contact details and an email address.
The virtual memorial was last updated on 15 July 2009, and is no longer being updated.
