Pwllheli war memorial

Pwllheli town council logoLink to Welsh TranslationLink to French translationPwllheli war memorial, Embankment Road

This war memorial was erected in 1924 to commemorate the local people who died in the First World War. Names of those who died in the Second World War were added later.

To read their details, choose a category below. We have included the names and details of several people who are not named on the memorial but were connected to the area.

Also named on the memorial is a local man who died in the Falklands conflict in 1982. See below for his details.

Unusually, there is a separate category on the memorial for nurses who died in the First World War. Another nurse from the area, Elizabeth Jones, died in the Second World War and is among the SWW names on the memorial.

Three Pwllheli sailors died when the MV Waimarama was bombed near Malta in 1942 after forming part of a convoy which had to fight its way to the island, then under siege, to deliver vital supplies.

The war memorial was unveiled in June 1924 by former Prime Minister David Lloyd George, whose childhood home is in nearby Llanystumdwy. It features a bronze statue of a soldier on a plinth of polished granite.

There is a dedication in Welsh to the townspeople who fell in the Great War, followed by this couplet:

Yn nwfn swyn ei fynwes O
Caf lonydd, caf le i huno.

This is from a poem by the Rhondda poet Ben Bowen (1878-1903), who was a Baptist minister until excommunicated by his church for his views on theology. The couplet translates roughly as:

In the deep blessing of His bosom,
I shall find peace, a place to rest

With thanks to Byron Jones, of the Merchant Navy Association (Wales)

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First World War

Second World War

Falklands conflict

  • Hughes, William John, Sergeant 24076141. Special Air Service. Died 19/05/1982, aged 34, when the helicopter in which he was being transported crashed. Buried at Hereford (St Martin's) Churchyard. Also commemorated on the Falklands National Monument in Cardiff.
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