St Jude's Church, Swansea

The parish of Swansea St Jude covers the Mount Pleasant area of the city, with its characteristic close-packed streets of terraced houses built across the hillside to the north of the city centre. At the end of the First World War, St Jude's church was very new: it began in 1896 as a temporary building. The church hall was finished in 1906 and the new St Jude's constructed on top of it in 1913. It was dedicated in 1915 and a new parish instituted in 1920.

Subsequently, in 2015, the church was forced to close due to structural problems within the building, and the roll of honour was transferred to the Archive Service along with the other parish records.

It is a true work of art. Measuring around 70 x 145 cm, beautifully drawn and finished in gold, it is the largest roll of honour we hold and also contains the greatest number of names, 744 in all. There is a central portion with names in gold capital letters: these are the 51 men from the parish who died in the war. The names recorded below in black ink are those of the men who went to fight and the women who nursed or worked in munitions factories.

Many memorials do not record women's names at all, but the parish of St Jude's decided that all who contributed directly to the war effort should be commemorated. In this memorial, it is impossible to tell how many of those listed are women, because most of the names are a surname and initial only. For example, there is E. J. Evans, who received the Royal Red Cross, a nursing decoration only awarded to women at the time.

Download a large version of the Roll of Honour (PDF, 2 MB) (opens new window)

Back to the list of names