HUNDREDS of people who volunteered to help the wounded during the First World War have been honoured by Keighley's military historians.

The Men of Worth Project has highlighted around 200 local people who served under the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) system.

It is able to finally tell their stories after scouring the archives to gather together documents, photographs, war records and memoirs.

They will now be documented alongside the Men of Worth's past research into hundreds of men who served with the Armed Forces during the First and Second World Was.

Men of worth founder Andy Wade said some of the men and women served at Keighley's four war hospitals while others served with the Red Cross, St John Ambulance Brigade or Royal Army Medical Corps.

"They carried out the whole range of tasks needed for the day-to-day running of a war hospital and their contributions should never be forgotten.

"They worked as nurses, doctors and surgeons; ward masters; ambulance drivers; medical orderlies and stretcher bearers; cooks; clerks and administrators.

The names of the 200-plus volunteers are listed online thanks to the efforts of local woman Christine Hudson.

Mr Wade added: "We'd like to express our gratitude to the Red Cross for making these VAD records freely available.

"The record cards have pointed us to a huge set of local people whom we may have known about if we’d looked through census records, but not that they served in the Great War in these roles.

"Often we see a reference in the newspapers which talks about a soldier being wounded and it refers to his brother also serving and possibly something about a sister being a nurse, but little else about her service.

"Just knowing that they worked as VADs connects the local information on them as individual residents with something far more relevant to our research."

Before the Red Cross records were made available, the Men of Worth's only information about war hospital staff was a list of names on the back of a pamphlet entitled War Hospital Echoes.

Members will now go through the list to see who matches up with names on the Red Cross records, which could allow them to investigate further.

Mr Wade urged people who find one of their relatives' names on the page to get in touch with Men of Worth.

He added: "In theory we have over 250 more names to find out about, and if relatives get in touch with us we could learn more about the war hospitals in Keighley and who worked at them.

"Adding this to the information we have from Keighley Library archives about the four war hospitals here in the town, gives us a much bigger picture of their relevance to local people and how much local involvement went into them."

The only war hospital building still standing is in Spencer Street, just uphill from Keighley Library.

All pictures are courtesy of the Keighley Library archives.

Visit menofworth.org.uk/archives/digital-archive/red-cross-vads to see the new VAD archive.

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