Thankful Villages

Teigh is generally regarded as a Thankful Village which means it didn’t lose any of its men in the Great War.

A plaque in the church gives thanks for the safe return of eleven men and two women who came home unscathed. But next to the plaque is a list of villagers who served and mentions William Haines who died in France. We have him down as coming from nearby Market Overton – although he is not on the War Memorial there. The suggestion is he was either staying or working in Teigh before he went to war. So is Teigh a Thankful Village – or not?

Another village which could claim to be Thankful is Egleton. We have two men with associations there, both in the Royal Navy, but there is no village war memorial and both are remembered elsewhere. Reuben Carpendale was from Ashwell but moved to live with his cousins in Egleton when his parents emigrated a year before the war. He’s remembered on Portsmouth’s Naval Memorial. Charles Throsby, originally from Leicester, was living with his sister in Egleton before rejoining the Navy when war broke out. So is Egleton a Thankful Village or should these men be remembered there too?