A MEMORIAL has been installed at Radcliffe Library to pay tribute to members of the community who lost their lives in the First World War.

Local servicemen and women will be honoured on the memorial wall which has been put together by staff and volunteers from the library's family history group.

The wall will be updated every month to list the names and details of those who died in the corresponding months throughout the conflict.

Julie Taylor, community library assistant, said: "This is our way of paying respects to the 642 local men and women who died during the First World War, using the information we have gathered from the Radcliffe Times and other sources.

"The public can look at the wall during normal library opening hours.

"This morning we have had a gentleman in who is over from Australia visiting relatives and has found a photo of his grandad, whose name is on the cenotaph.

"He has never seen a picture of his grandad before so it is amazing how our display reaches people, even as far as Australia."

Among those remembered this month is Gertrude Jones, a nursing sister who died aged 31 when her hospital ship was sunk by enemy action on April 10, 1917.

Gertrude is the only woman out of 642 Great War victims commemorated on the Radcliffe Cenotaph.

The special reserve with Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service served on the HMHS Salta, a French steam ship that was requisitioned as a hospital ship during the war.

On April 10, 1917 it was picking up wounded soldiers at the port of Le Havre when it struck a mine laid by a U-boat.

Of the 205 passengers and crew members, nine nurses, 42 members of the Royal Army Medical Corps and 79 crew drowned. A British patrol boat attempted to assist, but also struck a mine and sank.

Gertrude was laid to rest in St Marie Cemetery in Le Havre, and is commemorated on a tombstone in Stand Unitarian Church yard, alongside the name of her husband Charles.

Radcliffe Cenotaph, designed by Sydney March, lists the names of 642 Radcliffe soldiers who fell in the First World War and a few who died later from wounds caused by active military service, as well as the names of soldiers who died in the Second World War.

Anyone looking to find out more about their family tree is invited to attend Radcliffe Library's free family history sessions every Friday morning between 10am and 12 noon.