The Lemsford Local History Group, formed in 2001, is interested in all aspects of the history and the people of this area - both ancient and modern. he parish of Lemsford was created out of the parish of Bishop's Hatfield in 1859. Originally the parish included Lemsford Village itself, with the outlying areas of Cromer Hyde, Stanborough and the Brocket Park Estate plus part of the west side of what is now Welwyn Garden City. Boundary changes in 1927 transferred this latter area to the newly founded Welwyn Garden City.

In late 2013 we had a meeting to decide our topic for the 2014 Lemsford Fete display. 2014 was the anniversary of the start of WW1 and it was decided unanimously to take this monumental event as our theme for the Lemsford fete.

It was decided early on to focus on the men and women who served in the Great war and our first task was to produce a list. One of our founding members Mary de Soyres had researched the Lemsford War Memorial which produced 17 men for our list. We had a visit from Chris and Derek Martendale of the Hatfield History Group who produced a list of men who served in WW1 in Hatfield and from list we found the Men who lived in the parish of Lemsford. The absent voters list provide more names and we completed the list by collating all the entries of soldiers who joined up from the From the Bishop's Hatfield Parish Magazine 1908 to 1919(From 3 volumes 1908– 1921 held by Welwyn Garden Library at the Campus. The total number of men 97 and one woman.

We decided to research the church, school lemsford F.C. and pubs during 1914 – 1918. Other areas we looked at were the reading room, Waifs & strays and the home front.

Terry Morris worked tireless to research all of the servicemen and servicewoman.Members of the group researched their relations and wrote articles on them and their memories. The aim of the group was to make this about the people not the battles. We researched every serviceman and woman and produced detailed articles on the 20 men who died. The articles were framed and will be presented to St Johns school later on this year.

Background information included the regiments they joined, the battles they were in, and letters to and from the troops. We broke down the parish magazine into 3 sections , Church, Home Front, and War records.

We researched, produced articles and images then collated edited and produced the display at the 2014 Lemsford fete to favourable reviews.

Post display we decided to present the display to local groups including schools and the Barn theatre during the week of the production of ‘Oh what a lovely war’. Future bookings include the Howard Centre in November.

With the amount of research and information gathered I decided to build a website to help people understand how the Great war effected Lemsford Parish and changed a way of life. I hope you read our articles and get an understanding of the magnitude of suffering that occurred during this War. I also hope it will produce memories from families who had fathers, mothers, uncles, aunties, grand parents and great grandparents. All memories and images will be added to the site and hopefully produce a long lasting memorial for the men and women of Lemsford.

In conclusion after spending a year of my life reading researching and writing about this terrible war I want to thank all members of LLHG who have contributed and members of the public who gave us their memories. The emotions that this subject has produced is sadness at the waste of life, the ones who died and the ones who came back but were never the same and anger that It was allowed to happen. Of all the images and stories I have read one sums up the waste of War.

David Cochrane 1884 – 1917: Born at Handside, David was the youngest son of Robert and Marion Cochrane. He lived in Lemsford as a boy and started at St Johns school at Lemsford in 1886. In 1911, he was living in Hertford and was married with a one year old daughter. His wife Ada Maud was born in Stanborough. On the 5th of July 1917 aged 33 David was killed in action on the Arras sector and has no known grave. He is commememorated on the Arras Memorial in Fauberg – d’Amiens Cemetery near Arras. His wife was left with 4 little children when he died. Their eldest son, David William had already died at an early age.

Lemsford News September 1917

Roll of Honour: News has been received by Mr & Mrs Cochrane of the death of their son, Private D. Cochrane, of the West Kent Regiment., killed in action on July 5th. Private Cochrane formerly lived in Stanborough. Much sympathy is felt for his parents, and widow who is left with four little children. Mr & Mrs Cochrane’s eldest son died in South Africa, so this is the second they have lost in the service of their country.

The first image shows David with Ada and Child 1910, in happier times They had 4 children, Isabella 1910, Irene 1912, James 1914 and William 1917 the same year David was killed. The image shows Ada as beautiful young woman . The next image shows Ada and the four children in 1918. She is a widow and the war has aged her. The children will grow up without a father. This is the true cost of War. The innocent suffer and this was the war to end all wars.. After you read the above article then look at the images below I have one question , why?.