Did your family live in Topsham in WW1 - Topsham Museum

Added: 03 November 2015

Researchers at the Museum are nearing the end of their research for the first exhibition of the 2016 season.  This will feature the people of Topsham who served in WW1.  Not just servicemen and women, but those who served in various other capacities and the people who stayed in Topsham during the War and how they coped.   We do still need your help!  If your family lived in Topsham during the First World War do you have any photographs, stories, dairies, letters, postcards or other documents which you could share with us?  We'd love to hear from you!

We are trying to compile a short biography of every one of nearly 300 Topsham residents who returned from the conflict. We have already added 275 names to our Topsham "Community" on the Imperial War Museum "Lives of the First World War" digital archive but we need your input to add all the details of their lives and their families:   https://livesofthefirstworldwar.org/ 

We hope that this exhibition will be a fitting tribute not only to local men and women who contributed to the war effort but also to local people on the "Home Front".  We know that there must be some important and moving stories still to be told!  Please contact us.

This photograph is from the Museum Archive*  -  Seven Topsham Sailors, members of the Royal Naval Reserve before the War, who all served on the same ship (HMS Challenger), serving in East and West Africa.  Their names were: Charles Wannell, Frederick May, Albert Wreford, Thomas William Pym, George Pym, Joseph Allen Norton & Ishmael Pym.  They all returned to Topsham at the end of WW1.   Are you related to any of them?

* Photograph Copyright Topsham Museum