Looking through the King’s Book Of York Heroes at York Minster

THE FIRST THING that strikes you is the faces: row after row of them as you turn the heavy pages.

There is a young man sporting a First World War flying helmet and goggles, who peers out of the page with a slightly anxious expression.

Arthur Toes was his name. He was a flight lieutenant from Victoria Street, York, who was killed in action at the age of 19 on October 27, 1918 – just days before the war came to an end.

On another page is a photograph of Albert Edward Townley, a stoker first class on HMS Ardent. He was from Garden Street in York, and drowned on May 30, 1916, in the Battle of Jutland. He was 23.

And then there is Private Charles Henry Pearson of the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was from Layerthorpe Building in York, and he was gassed in Belgium on September 25, 1917. He, like Arthur Toes, was 19 years old when he died.

The photograph shows a rather cheeky young man with his military cap set at a jaunty angle on his head. But what was it like for him as he choked to death on the gas burning his lungs? We’ll never know.

It is the sheer number of faces peering up at you as you turn the pages of the King’s Book of York Heroes at York Minster that overwhelms you.

There is page after page of them: almost 1,450 men from York and two women (military nurse Eveline Hodgson and Betty Stevenson of the YMCA), all of whom gave their lives for their country on active service in the First World War To look through the pages of this book is a sobering experience: it brings home in a way almost nothing else can from this distance of time what an appalling waste the war was.

“Some of them are so young!” murmurs Vicky Harrison quietly as she leafs through the pages.

But the book is not only a memorial to the men and two women who gave their lives in that war of almost 100 years ago: it is also a monument to the trauma and shock of a city which had lost so many.

The book was commissioned by the city council – but it was a labour of love, an act of remembering in itself, that drew together people from all walks of life in the city.

The cover of the book is made of English oak that was provided by a Mr Pick, the Superintendent of Works at the North Eastern Railway Company’s carriage and wagon department. It was carved by a Mr George Hudson – no relation to the Railway King, stresses Vicky, the Minster’s collections manager – to a design by Edward Ridsdale Tate, who also designed the title and dedication pages.

The photographs and obituaries were collated by Mr A Adams of the Yorkshire Evening Press, and the book was bound by Mr FJ Wells and printed by Mr R Currie, both of the Yorkshire Herald. The clasps and fixings, meanwhile, were done by a Mr Niven Bentley of the Hull Road Engineering and Foundry Works, while a Mr HW Wells did the metal engraving.

The result is a book that is reckoned to be one of the largest in the world. It weighs an astonishing 9 stone 4lbs – as much as an adult woman – and is 28 inches long.

It is a real indication of the impact the war had on the people of York, says Vicky. “There was obviously a great need to commemorate, and not to forget. It was clearly very important to the city.

Astonishingly, the book was put together in fewer than two years. On November 10, 1920 – two years after the war’s end – the Yorkshire Herald dedicated several pages to it. “The King’s Book of York Fallen Heroes” was the headline, above an account of how the book had been presented to the Dean and Chapter of York Minster by the Duke of York.

Apart from a 30-year period between 1967 and 1998, when it was moved to St Martin-le-Grand in Coney Street, the book has been in the Minster ever since.

The great building is the natural resting place for the book: a place of pilgrimage, as well as the moral and spiritual heart of York. The cathedral also then – as now – had a close connection to the military.

Today, the whole Minster serves as the chapel of the Yorkshire Regiment. But historically it had connections with four other regiments: The Yorkshire Volunteers; The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment; the West Yorkshire Regiment and the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

Today, the King’s Book of York Heroes sits in a locked glass case in the North Transept.

Visitors are welcome to look at it through the glass – although if you want to open the case and look through the book properly, you must make an appointment. Minster staff are keen not to do that too often, so as to preserve the book.

In the Minster Library at the Old Palace, however, there is a complete reproduction of the book, which anybody can come along and look through. It makes an ideal starting point for anyone wanting to trace details of a father, grandfather or great uncle who died in the war.

Many cities compiled their own books of those who gave their lives. But what makes York’s special – apart from the sheer physical presence of the book itself – is the fact that almost every entry in it is accompanied by a photograph.

“There are only seven entries that don’t have a photograph,” says Vicky.

From late spring, the King’s Book of York Heroes will form the centrepiece of a major exhibition to be held in the Treasury, in the Undercroft of York Minster.

As well as the book and displays related to it, the exhibition will include a new art installation by Griselda Goldsborough designed as an act of remembrance. It is likely to be an interactive piece of work which will enable visitors to make their own pledges of peace and remembrance.

Following the exhibition the book will return to its glass cabinet, either in the North Transept or elsewhere in the Minster, where it will remain for posterity.

It really is a book for the ages, says Vicky. “It is very substantial. It could last as long as the Minster itself.”

Further details of the exhibition will be released in due course. Watch this space…

Names continue to be added

The first 1,160-or-so entries in the King’s Book of York Heroes – those that were included by the time the book was initially presented to the Minster in 1920 – are listed alphabetically.

The remaining names are listed non-alphabetically in pages that were kept empty at the back. The book’s original designers always wanted it to record every man and woman from York who gave their lives in the war – and knew they would almost certainly have missed some.

Names continue to be added to this day – seven in the last year alone – as relatives come forward with details or photos of ancestors from York who fought and died in the Great War.

You can visit the reproduction of the book by going to the Minster Library in the Old Palace and asking to see it.

To see the original, however, you will need to make an appointment by phoning 01904 557250.

If one of your relatives is included in the book, you can order a copy of the photograph for £17.50.