Fauld Explosion – Graves In Need of Care

 Tutbury Remembers – Fauld Graves 

Your Help Needed
Can You Care for One of the Seven Fauld Graves in
St. Mary’s Churchyard, Tutbury?

In 1944, on the Monday 27th November, at 11:13, just two miles from the centre of Tutbury, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions that the world has ever seen occurred at Fauld, killing 70 people, 18 of whom were never found.  There were:

  • 57 civilians
  • 7 RAF
  • 6 Italian Co-operators (former PoWs, Italy was at this time fighting with the allies)

Many of the civilians were from the Tutbury area.

Could you provide care for just one of the graves of the Tutbury men who died?

Burial records at St. Mary’s Priory Church Tutbury show that eleven of those who died in the Fauld Explosion were buried in the Priory Churchyard, men from Tutbury.

However, the Tutbury Memorials Survey conducted in 2002 by Tutbury Museum Curator Robert Minchin could only find seven of those eleven.  All but one of the burials are in a small area of the Churchyard near to the path; the other burial is nearby where he is buried with his wife.

The graves are very overgrown and untidy – uncared for, even though these men died because of their war duties – they were casualties of WWII and should be Remembered.

Could you help? 

Could you care for just ONE of these war graves.  Once the grave is cleared for the first time, it will just be a question of cutting the grass occasionally to bring some respect to the memory of the man who is buried in that grave.

If you can, please contact rick@nuth.me.uk and I can show you the graves and we can allocate one for you to care for.

 

Name in Burial RegisterAgeTutbury Memorial Survey (TMS) Location
Buried on 2nd December 1944
George H POWELL7 Church Street57Buried at Tutbury. No memorial found.
Henry SHEPHARD,
(Shepherd on headstone)
15 Burton Street 73Buried at Tutbury. No memorial found
Laurence George COKAYNE11 Church Street50C-14-A Vert/Flat/Kerb/White
(On wife’s gravestone)
George SMITH16 Park Lane61A4-68-F Vert/Flat/Kerb/Grey
Ambrose PATTERSON96 Green Lane40Not in TMS
Samuel PICKERING 44 Monk Street36A4-69-G Vert/Scroll/Kerb/White
Buried on 6th December 1944
George PRIESTLEY13 Park Lane,61A4-68-E Kerb/Grey
Buried on 21st December 1944
Joseph BELL,32 Burton Street39Buried at Tutbury. No memorial found.
Buried on 9th January 1945
Edward WOOLLEY
(Christian name also given as Edman)
3 Cornmill Lane,59A4-68-B Kerb/White
Buried on 13th January 1945
William Henry SHEPHARD,15 Burton Street39A4-67-G Vert/Invert V/Kerb/Grey
Buried on 6th February 1945
William GENT8 Monk Street43A4-66-G Vert/Flat/Kerb/Grey