DESCENDANTS of two soldiers buried in Haworth Parish Church graveyard have come forward with information about their ancestors.

The family members approached the church after it appealed for descendants to help answer a request it had received from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Ulysses Carr, who was 45, and Private Robert Scarborough, who was 18, both died 100 years ago during the First World War.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission wants to provide special signs, either by the graves or at the graveyard entrance, highlighting the men’s bravery during the conflict a century ago.

Jens Hislop, archivist at the church, issued the appeal so that surviving family members had a chance to give their views before any decision was made.

Following an appeal in Telegraph & Argus sister paper the Keighley News, Mr Hislop was contacted by Col Carr’s great-grandniece Stephanie Toothill, of Steeton, who knows him as Uncle Fred.

She said: “His closest living relatives are my mother, his great-niece Dorothy Newsome aged 96, by way of his sister Lucy and another great-niece Mary Oliver, aged 97, living in Australia. She is the daughter of Frederick’s brother.”

Stephanie also has a brother, Nicholas, who lives in Keighley. Col Carr’s medals are with family members in Australia.

Betty Cundall, 86, who lives in Oxford, contacted Mr Hislop to talk about her ancestor, Robert Eric Scarborough.

Mr Hislop also spoke to Betty’s brother Robert Andrew Scarborough, the nephew of the Haworth private, who remembers Haworth Parish Church when he was growing up in the village.

Mr Hislop has charge of the church’s books of graveyard epitaphs and registers of baptisms, marriages and burials since 1645.

He said: “We have recently received a letter from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which wishes to erect some extra signage, at or near the graveyard entrance or by the graves of fallen soldiers from both world wars.

“We have two such graves from the First World War and none from the Second World War.

“Both are family stone monuments, not the distinctive white Commonwealth War Graves Commission stones that one can see in their thousands in northern France and elsewhere.”