Members of Llandysul & District Local History Society have been researching for nearly two years in preparation for an exhibition about WW1 and the men and women who served from the area. There will be a talk to introduce the exhibition at the Porth Hotel on Saturday 15 November at 10.30am from there the audience will be invited to go and see the exhibition in the library building. The exhibition is open to the public from 10am – 2pm on Saturday 15 November.

There will also be a private viewing for Society members and guests on the previous evening, Friday 14th November, 7.30pm.

The society knows that 47 men from the area were killed in the Great War and they are remembered on the War Memorial in St Tysul Church as well as on memorials in numerous chapels and Ysgol Dyffryn Teifi, formerly the County School. Research had already been done about the men on the memorial by the West Wales War Memorial Project www.wwwmp.co.uk, who we are very grateful to. We therefore decided that the focus of our research was to find mention of any of the men and women who went to war from Llandysul and the surrounding area.

Jane Kerr, Chairman of the Society felt that it was as important to honour all the men and women who served in our exhibition, as well as the men who died. The is all the men and women who we could find.

The researchers felt that the best place to begin was to look at four years of the “Llandyssul Column” in the local newspapers of the time by using the resources at the National Library of Wales as well as their Wales Newspaper Online website, once it came online. Other resources included the National Archives, the Commonwealth War Graves and the Ancestry websites. We were also lucky enough to have been given photographs and memorial cards by local residents. To date we have found mention of nearly 390 men and women who served from the Llandysul and surrounding villages. The researchers, Jane Kerr, Sue Watkins, Sue Wateridge, Andrew Williams, Ann Owen, Martin Griffiths and Lesley Parker are sure that there are more and welcome any information.

As we continued our research the local people of Llandysul have started to become interested and offered various family heirlooms for our exhibition.

Eiola Butler has recently given the society two sketches of her uncles. E B Evans was a driver in the Royal Field Artillery and his brother Second Lieutenant H R Evans of the Royal Lancaster Regiment who was awarded the Military Cross from action in Mesopotamia.

The exhibition is in the first floor of the library building in Llandysul. Entry is free and there is a lift. The building is open from about 9-4 everyday and 10-1 on Saturdays.

The photograph shows Jane Kerr, Eiola Butler, Lesley Parker holding the sketches of Eiola’s Uncles: Driver E B Evans, RFA and Second Lieutenant H R Evans, MC.