Rushden Echo October 21^st 1921, transcribed by Susan Manton

Memorial Tablet at Rushden - Trade Union Club Members
Thirteen War Victims - Dedication by the Rev. Ion Carroll

The memorial tablet in the Trade Union Club, Higham Road, Rushden, by the members to the 107 ex-service and fallen members and recently described in the “Rushden Echo” was unveiled and dedicated on Sunday evening by the Vicar of St. Peter’s (Rev. Ion Carroll). A service was held in the large room at the back of the Club, the Vicar officiating, assisted by Captain W.J. Terry, C.A. and Mr. C. Hancock, junior. There were also present Mr. H. Seckington and Mr. A Dickens, church wardens, and in robes, a full complement of choir boys. Mr. H. Kingham presided at the piano.

After the hymn “O God our Help in ages past”, prayers were led by the Vicar, and the Creed was repeated by the company. Capt. Terry read the lesson I Thess. Iv. 13-18. the hymn “For ever with the Lord” was sung.

The Vicar in a brief address, based on the words “I believe in God” said he hoped that everybody in the room could say that from the bottom of their hearts. As they looked back through the years of war they remembered the times when it seemed Germany’s engines of war, her modern inventions for the destruction of mankind were going to win. Why was it that the German hordes did not press on Paris, Calais and the Channel ports? Why did not Germany send early in war Zeppelin after Zeppelin to England, where there was no protection against them? They could have descended to within a few hundred feet and have blown the towns of England to pieces. He believed God willed that the Germans should not do that because He had some further service for England. If God had not been on their side they would never have won. Today he could say with firmer faith than ever before “I believe in God.”

What about those gallant boys whom they were trying to commemorate in their own way, in their own club? He could say when thinking of them, and he hoped those present could also say “I believe in God.” He believed that God overruled all things for the best, notwithstanding the fact that He foresaw and knew the trouble and anguish that the war would bring too many there and in England. God had something better for those fallen boys than to return to old Blighty. Nothing enraged more than to hear people say that the country had “lost” so many thousand of men in the war. Those men had not been lost. Every man of them had paid the sacrifice for the happiness of those at home. He believed that God had a work for those boys of more value than sparing them to come home.

He also believed in God because he had returned to England and was there to be amongst them, and because so many other ex-servicemen were spared to get back home. Why had they escaped when it seemed utterly impossible for anyone to come our alive? They had been spared because God had a work for them to do amongst their fellows. Let them never be false to the memory of those boys, who gave their lives for the liberty, equality, and for the time when war should be no more. Let them remember how those boys had displayed wonderful unselfishness. They at home had still to carry on the work of making England a country fit for men and women to live in – better than they found it. Looking back over the time since the Armistice they would see many promises remained unfulfilled. Who was to blame? They were and he was. Let them not cast the first stone. Let them not blame the government until they and he could say that they had been unselfish. Wasn’t it true that they had been selfish in their own lives; that although the war was over they had thought very little of other people and far too much about themselves? They and he had failed there at home to carry out those principles for which their gallant boys had died. When they walked in or out of their club and went by that monument, let them ask themselves what they were doing in their own private lives to carry on the work for which those boys gave up everything. God’s will, he believed, would, eventually, conquer and over rule all that was wrong in the world. God was waiting for them to make their response, to return to some of that unselfishness and self sacrifice that was seen amongst men of all ranks in the Army and by the people at home during the war. They needed to get back to that – to get back to the principle of sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice that was ever made when God gave His Son.

After another hymn the Vicar, choir, officials and mourners filed into the passage for the unveiling and dedication ceremony. Having released the Union Jack from the Memorial, the Vicar said “In the faith of Jesus Christ and in grateful memory of the men of all ranks, especially the fallen, whose names are written upon the roll, we dedicate this monument in their memory and to the glory of God, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.”

Councillor C. Bates, as president of the Club presented the first wreath from the Club and said” This Roll of Honour has been placed here by the members of this Club in Honour of those members who served during the war and in grateful memory of those members who fell.