Company turns back clock on candle-making mission to mark First World War

One of Shropshire’s oldest companies is turning back the clock to its founder days by making candles to be used at a memorial service to mark the centenary of the First World War in August.

Managing director Andrew Goddard and customer services manager Stuart Holloway from Morris Lubricants were joined by Edward Goddard, managing director of sister company Morris Leisure on the candle-making mission at Blists Hill Victorian Town, one of the Ironbridge Gorge Museums, on Wednesday.

As Morris Lubricants’ founder James Kent Morris first set up in business as a grocer and candlemaker in Shrewsbury in 1869, the trio pledged to make the candles for the service at the town’s St Michael’s Church on Monday, August 4.

After instruction at the Candle Factory at Blists Hill Victorian Town, the novice candlemakers got to work making 72 candles for the memorial service.

“We think it’s fitting that we should make the candles for the service as that is how our business first started,” said Andrew Goddard, who now heads Britain’s leading family-owned, independent oil blenders and marketers.

“We are very grateful to the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust for allowing us to step back in time and make the candles at Blists Hill Victorian Town. I am sure that James Kent Morris would approve.”

Last November, he andKen Bishop, of St Michael’s War Memorial Conservation Group, arranged for 72 men and women to line up outside the company’s headquarters to represent 72 servicemen from the immediate area of Shrewsbury who lost their lives in WW1.

The late servicemen all lived in a small area stretching from Castle Foregate to the Flaxmill in Shrewsbury and some worked at Thomas Corbett Iron Works, which is now home to Morris Lubricants.

The 72 men are remembered in a forgotten war memorial at St Michael’s Church, which Morris Lubricants has paid to have cleaned. It’s the only memorial in Shrewsbury totally dedicated to servicemen who lost their lives in WW1.

Mr Bishop would like people attending the memorial service on August 4 to hold a candle and to blow it out in recognition of a comment made by Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary from 1905-’16, at the outbreak of WW1: "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time."

Andrew Goddard was moved to action after hearing about the forgotten war memorial at St Michael’s Church, which is now the Masonic Hall for the town’s Lodges. Built by public subscription in 1921, the memorial stands beneath a large oak tree.

“It’s a very touching story of a war memorial that had, until recently, been forgotten and the magnitude of the fact that 72 men from such a small area of Shrewsbury went to war and didn’t come home,” said Mr Goddard. “Some of them worked in the buildings that we now own and I think it’s very important that we remember the ultimate sacrifice made by these 72 men.”