On-line memorial

Over the past ten days, I've been working on a project related to local history. At the end of April, I went to the local War Memorial and photographed all 23 memorial plaques - pictured above - citing the names of more than 1,100 men of Lewis who laid down their lives for King and Country between 1914 and 1919. This number is out of a total of 6,000 who joined up, and out of a total island population of 26,000 in 1911.

Last week, I took the Roll of Honour and scanned pages with portraits of those mentioned on the Memorial. These past few days, I've processed the scans and extracted 400 individual portraits. They now need to go on a website, and linked to names and former addresses. The medium of the Internet makes it possible for people to access information that is only available in the library here in Stornoway. And it makes it more real to see the faces of those that never saw the outbreak of peace in 1919. A peace that was to last little more than 20 years.

Tags: roll of honour, lewis, 1914, 1918