The men whose names were missed off a war memorial

The war dead are known as those who make the ultimate sacrifice - and in recognition of the lives they lay down, their names are often recorded for public display in the villages, towns and cities in which they lived, and for which they died.

So with all that as standard, it was a shock for one archivist to learn that the names of two World War One soldiers had been omitted at the college where they once studied.

But how could such an oversight happen? Who are the men whose names should be shared? And what is being done to put things right?

To some of these questions, there are positive answers. King Edward VI College in Stourbridge is seeking relatives of the pair to attend a Remembrance Day service at which a new memorial stone bearing the names of John Graham Pearson and James Henry Watkins will be unveiled.

"We would love it if there were any relatives of those men... We would love them to come and mark that memorial service with us," said college principal Holly Bembridge, who added Kenneth Wright had been the driving factor behind getting the men recognised.

Mr Wright is the archivist for the Old Edwardians Society which is made up of old boys of the grammar school which eventually became the modern-day college.

It was he who brought the error to light while researching those whose names were included on the original memorial.

Ultimately, it's thought that a headmaster during World War One had been reliant on people getting in touch about deaths of former students, but in the case of Mr Pearson and Mr Watkins, he simply was not notified.

"For slightly different reasons, their families perhaps didn't stay in the area," Ms Bembridge said.

The sixth form college has since been able to establish that Mr Pearson's wider family set up fire brick producer Harris and Pearson, while Mr Watkins was a brewer.

Ms Bembridge explained Mr Pearson's family went to Tasmania, Australia, before World War One.

But, she said, they returned for a short time, which was when he attended the college, before they again relocated.

Of the company bearing his family name, she added: "[Harris and Pearson] were based in Stourbridge, so we wonder if anybody knows that they have connections to this fire brick company.

"Obviously we're not expecting people to come over from Tasmania."

James Henry Watkins was born in 1892 in Westerham, Kent, the principal said.

His father, a brewer, moved to Stourbridge in about 1900 and the son was "second brewer at Aston Brewery".

The parents, from Bowling Green Road, Stourbridge, moved to Scarborough and lived on Albemarle Crescent in the North Yorkshire town.

The college said it would love to hear from descendants of the two or anybody who knows "someone who might be".

The new stone memorial bearing the pair's names has been made possible thanks to a donation by college trustees. It has been added to the existing tribute and will be formally unveiled on 11 November.

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