The Marldon Roll of Honour is a hand-painted scroll by "Tigray", inscribed on 25 March 1916. It records the officers and men from Marldon serving in His Majesty's Forces during the First World War and is decorated with patriotic artwork including Union Flags, military emblems and the motto "For His Country's Sake".
Unlike the brass memorial plaque in St John the Baptist Church and the village memorial clock tower, which were erected after the war to commemorate those who died, the Roll of Honour was created while the conflict was still being fought. This makes it an unusual survival. Rather than recording the fallen per se, it records those who were actively serving in March 1916, providing a snapshot of Marldon's wartime contribution at a point when the outcome of the war and the fate of many of the men named upon it remained unknown.
Demonstrating that this was still relatively early in the war, only one person on this Roll of Honour is marked as having Died on Service. That was William Low who had died just a month before this Roll of Honour was handwritten. Interestingly he had died at Marldon itself.
Many of the men listed on the Roll would later be commemorated on Marldon War Memorial, making it an important link between those who left the parish to serve and the permanent memorials erected after the war. As a contemporary record produced less than two years into the conflict, the Roll of Honour is one of the earliest surviving commemorative artefacts associated with Marldon's involvement in the Great War.
