Press coverage of the proposed memorial in the Nottinghamshire/South Yorkshire area – William Hackett’s birthplace.
- Read the BBC Nottingham story on Hackett VC, Tunneller William Hackett
The tragic story of the Nottingham miner awarded a Victoria Cross after refusing to leave an injured colleague. Hackett was one of 10,000 other tunnellers whose work was an official secret until the 1960s.
- Read the Nottingham Evening Post story on Hackett VC, Divine courage below the ground
Somewhere beneath this golden field of wheat lies the body of a remarkable hero of the First World War
- Read the South Yorkshire Times story, Special memorial to honour WWI soldier who won Victoria Cross
Sapper William Hackett was posthumously awarded the VC – the British Army’s highest decoration for valour – for giving his life to help an injured comrade on the battlefields of the Western Front in 1916
We are delighted to welcome you to the new look Tunnellers Memorial site. We had always envisaged that it would be much more than a website set up solely to raise funds for the memorial, but more of a repository for information on the Tunnelling Companies of the Royal Engineers.
The site has been extensively redesigned with additional material including:
- A detailed write up of the unveiling ceremony on 19 June 2010 at Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée.
- Three photos galleries of the memorial manufacture, construction and the unveiling ceremony on 19 June 2010.
- Wartime letters and ephemera from the collection of Mrs Freda Warren, granddaughter of William Hackett.
- A page on Sapper Isaac Evans, 254TC – the man who write William Hackett’s letters back to his wife Alice.
- A special song, “Where the Barley Blows”, written and recorded by ex-sapper Roderic ‘Del’ De Lorme in honour of William Hackett VC and the Tunnelling Companies of the First World War.
We welcome visitor’s comments on the website and would love to hear the thoughts and recollections of those who joined us for the memorial unveiling on 19 June 2010.