The Regiment in recent times placed a memorial at the National Arboretum with a Tiger as its main feature. Memorials can be found within the County at both cathedrals, Winchester and Portsmouth, with other memorials at the Aldershot and Portsmouth Garrison Churches. These very often cover what are known as Victoria’s Wars fought far afield and show how death was often more likely through sickness than the spear or musket ball.
In almost every city, town or village of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight there are memorials raised to the dead of both World Wars and all invariably will contain the name of at least one Hampshire Regiment soldier. We have a comprehensive list, taken from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, of the names of all our soldiers who died while on active service from 1914 up to 1992, when we amalgamated. Various town halls and churches also have their own Books of Remembrance in memory of their sons who laid down their lives for them. Within Winchester Cathedral there are also the County Books of Remembrance to the Regiment.
Overseas, the Memorial at Minden celebrating the battle of the same name in 1759 includes the 37th of Foot, and not too far away there is a memorial to the 7th Hampshire at Heteren in Holland which marks a later war in 1944. Even further afield, memorials to the Regiment can be found in Tunisia and Italy. Sadly, as in the case of the 1/4th Hampshire memorial in the Christian Cathedral in Baghdad, some no longer exist as they have been destroyed by later regimes, but there are still Hampshire Regiment names on the Basra Wall memorial, preserved by Saddam Hussein. Further away still are the memorials in Malaya and Borneo; the list is a long one and one is reminded not to forget the great Memorials to the Missing raised after the Great War and the cemeteries by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission where over 10,000 men of the Regiment from this war and WW2 are commemorated.
Recently we have had all Books of Remembrance scanned and thanks to a Heritage Lottery Grant a ‘Touch Screen computer’ has been installed in Winchester Cathedral. It is now possible for visitors to ‘turn the page’ on the touch screen to find their relatives who have been killed while serving since the start of World War One.
