Oare - Kent Fallen

On the north wall of the parish church of St. Peter, Oare, Faversham, the
local victims of the Great War are commemorated via the memorial window
shown above, it being the work of F. C. Eden (1884-1944) who was a designer
of churches and ecclesiastical fittings, and it is one of a number of stained
glass windows in churches within the United Kingdom which were designed
by him during the 1920’s, as remembrances to the fallen of the Great War.
Another of the church windows by F. C. Eden was to commemorate the artist
Francis Foster who died during the Great War. Below the window
commemorating the local war dead is the marble memorial tablet pictured,
above and is set into the frame of this once tall lancet window, and that
commemorates by name those who died in the Great War. In addition to the
armed service war deaths, commemorated below them on the memorial tablet
are four civilian casualties of ‘Great Explosion’ which occurred near Oare at
1420 hours on Sunday 2 April 1916, when 109 people lost their lives at the
nearby works of the Cotton Powder Company and the Explosives Loading
Company at Uplees on the Swale. Included amongst the four civilians that
are commemorated is Albert Edward Cole, who is one of three brothers
commemorated on the memorial plaque. As is unfortunately the situation at
virtually every other location in Kent and elsewhere, which have some of
their victims of war not commemorated locally, the same also applies to the
parish of Oare, which has a number of casualties with tangible connections to
the village that are not commemorated on any form of parish tribute. The
accompanying photographs are by Faversham resident Leigh M. Hogben and
the transcriptions are by Patrick D. Scullion.
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