Staffordshire village church in danger of not holding Remembrance Sunday service
The search is on for someone to hold the Remembrance Sunday service in a Staffordshire church so the village's fallen soldiers are not forgotten.
The Church of the St John the Baptist in Stowe-by-Chartley currently does not have a priest to take the annual service on Sunday, November 13.
Staffordshire historian Neil Thomas is appealing for someone to hold the service as the village has some unique war heroes.
He said: "It does not have to be an ordained minister to take the service so hopefully someone will come forward.
"Stowe-by-Chartley has a rare place in British military history. The Victoria Cross has been awarded to only three father-and-son pairs ever.
"The addition of a second Distinguished Service Order to another son in the same family with all three being commemorated ten miles apart in the same county must be unique."
General Sir Walter Congreve and his son William are commemorated by large marble plaques in the Norman church.
Sir Walter won the Victoria Cross in the Second Boer War in 1899. He fought in the First World War and was later Governor of Malta, where he died in 1927 and was buried off the coast. He was a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and aide-de-camp to King George V, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II.
His eldest son, William, served as a Major in the First World War and was killed in the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. He is buried near Amiens in northern France.
Another son, Sir Geoffrey, drowned when his ship, HMS Quebec, was sunk by a mine in 1941. He was created the first baronet of Congreve, a tiny hamlet near Penkridge, in 1927. Also awarded the Distinguished Service Order by the Queen’s father, King George VI, he is commemorated in the Collegiate Church of St Michael and All Angels in Penkridge. The wreck of the Quebec is his war grave,
Mr Thomas said: "The plaques commemorating Sir Walter and his elder son inside the north wall of the nave of the church were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, architect of the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London.
"It is unclear precisely how all 14 of the fallen of the two world wars from Stowe-by-Chartley and others will be remembered by villagers in the Church of St John the Baptist on Remembrance Sunday, November 13, as no priest is currently available."
