Relatives to see streets named after war heroes

The search is on to find living relatives of a town's war heroes who will be immortalised in new street names.

Roads in Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, will be named after 11 World War Two service personnel and a jailed suffragette.

The town's deputy mayor, Gary Salmon, is tracking down descendants of the 12 people so they can attend an exhibition which will pay tribute to them.

He said he wanted relatives to know that, although the war was more than a century ago, those who gave their lives were not forgotten.

The roads to be named after the heroes of Higham Ferrers will serve a new estate of 330 homes being built by HarperCrewe Developers.

The site is located between the Ferrers School and the A6.

Higham Ferrers Town Council was offered the chance to propose names for the roads and chose local war heroes and a suffragette.

The main route through the estate will be named Draper Road after William Ernest Draper, who lived on Kimbolton Road and served with the Northamptonshire Regiment.

He was killed on 27 September 1915, aged 31, and his name can be found on the Loos Memorial in Belgium, suggesting his remains were never found.

Gadsby Place honours Sidney Gadsby, who joined the Australian Infantry and died on 27 September 1917, aged 25.

His name is on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Belgium, where the Last Post is played every evening.

Litchfield Drive will pay tribute to two brothers, Reginald and Thomas, who lived in Higham Ferrers and died while serving with the Canadian Army.

Reginald, who was just 19, was laid to rest at a cemetery in Belgium but Thomas's name appears on a war memorial in France, suggesting his body was never found.

Shipley Close is being named after the suffragette, Alice Maud Shipley, who was handed a four-month prison sentence after a window-smashing campaign on 19 March 1912.

She went on hunger strike in Holloway prison and had to be force-fed.

The deputy mayor of Higham Ferrers, Gary Salmon, said: "We want to track down any living relatives to invite them to the exhibition, which will feature each of their stories and any photographs we can track down.

"We want the families to know that, although it is 110 years since the start of World War One, these servicemen have not been forgotten and neither has suffragette Shipley."

He added that street maps would be made to mark all the places where the heroes lived.

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