Wales

"Gelli Memorial Plaque" (2015)

In 2014, a field worker from the Imperial War Museum came to Treorchy Comprehensive School and spoke to a history teacher about a memorial plaque which had been found discarded in a skip! The plaque commemorates those who had a connection with the local Bethany English Calvanistic Methodist Chapel which was built around 1880 on Gelli Road, and was finally demolished in 2006.

Over the next six months the after school History Club was involved in a project to get this plaque reinstated and in November 2014 it was unveiled in Gelli Primary School. Members of the History Club researched each of the 12 soldiers on the plaque and discovered their links to the area (Rhondda). They even discovered that the great-great grandnephew of one of the soldiers on the plaque is in their school. They extended their enquiries to investigations about the nature and scale of the war and, also, how it affected the local community. They also designed mini lessons on World War One and worked with local primary school pupils.

View the History Club's visual presentation on YouTube.

The History Club's project won a prize in the Welsh National Heritage Competition of 2015.