Background
Image of Pte. Tom Cork - Sentinel 2nd June, 1917
The Staffordshire Weekly Sentinel newspaper published photographs of soldiers from the beginning of the Great War in August 1914. The newspapers are held on microfilm at Stoke on Trent City Archives.
The photographs are typically head and shoulder shots in pictures about the size of a cigarette card.
These photographs would have been provided by the soldier's family on a voluntary basis.
It is obvious from the very large number of names in this index (13,776) that placing a soldier's photograph in the newspaper was a very common impulse, but there was no official duty laid on the newspaper to print them
nor any obligation to be comprehensive, in terms of printing a photograph of all North Staffordshire men who died or served.
Nor was it only photographs of the dead that were printed. The brief items of news to which the photographs relate may be that the man in question is 'missing' or 'wounded' or 'prisoner' or 'in hospital'.
Sometimes acts of gallantry are recorded, for others, the story is as much about the parents who may have several sons fighting.
It is therefore not possible to be sure what will be in the accompanying news item, but it usually will give some indication of area and often a street address. It may also mention the parents or wife and sometimes the job that the soldier had before the war.
This is usually, but not always, enough to identify a solider already known to you as being the correct one. It is not much help when trying to find the soldier in the online indexes of service records or medal rolls.
This index
This index covers the Staffordshire Weekly Sentinel from 1914 to 1919. The index contains the following information:
- Surname
- Forename(s) / Initial(s)
- Rank
- Date of issue of newpaper
- Page number
Provision of digitised images
The Staffordshire Weekly Sentinel is held on microfilm at Stoke on Trent City Archives. The quality of the original newspapers and the quality of the microfilming are both variable and some images reproduce very poorly.
The opportunity has also arisen to take some images of both the photographs themselves and some of the accompanying news items from an original of the newspaper. These are of much better quality.
Because of the various options in terms of type of image, image quality and presentation we do not offer an automatic ordering option for the images, but request instead that you contact the Stoke on Trent City Archives on:
Telephone:(+44) 01782 238420
Email:stoke.archives@stoke.gov.uk
in order that we can advise you on the best available options.