The churchyard has a memorial cross to those who died in the two World Wars. The inscription above the plinth reads “This cross was raised to the Glory of God in the year of Our Lord 1923 as a memorial of men connected with the Church and Parish who gave their lives in the Great War or through the hardness then endured.”
1 November 1923
In 1922 it was decided that a war memorial be erected in the church yard. However, things did not run as planned and the minutes of the Parochial Church Council from 90 years ago record the obstacles that they had to overcome. The money for the memorial was raised by parishioners’ donations but there were was an initial lack of donations and a disagreement whether or not there should be names on the memorial. In the end it was decided that ‘no names of persons be engraved on the memorial’. Consecration of the memorial took place on 1 November, some six weeks later than planned. At the time, Rev Charles Francis Cross was the vicar, and the memorial was consecrated by Henry Luke Paget, Bishop of Chester.
In 2000, Eddie Owen, a member of Stretton Parish Council, suggested that the names of parishioners who died in both world wars should be engraved on the war memorial. Articles were placed in the Parish Magazine and also the Warrington Guardian asking for information of people from the area who had died in, or as a result of, the two world wars. After much work by the church wardens at the time, David Hart and Dennis Mascall, a list was gradually compiled.
Stretton Parish Council, in conjunction with St Matthew’s Parochial Church Council, made a major contribution to this as their Millennium Project, together with public donations. Mr Mallett from Hatton cleaned and renovated the memorial. The plaques were dedicated on Sunday 18th March 2001 by the Reverend G Buchan, the assistant priest.
For more information on each of the fallen of the First World War, please see here
The First World War:
John Bostock
Harry Clarke
Henry Perry Dodd
Arthur Ellison
Joseph Haddock
Francis Charles Lyon
Herbert Simpson
Joseph Edward Smith
Frederick Weir
The Second World War
J Burgess
Hugh A C Cameron-Rose
Roy Clark
Cecil Cliffe
Humfrey Fairclough
William Eric Hand
Ann Lawson (two and a half years)
Norman Podmore
Gerard Reardon
Geoffrey Paul Rylands
Harry Glazebrook Rylands
Frank Norman Simpson
William Henry Woods
The History of Stretton, near Warrington 