Holyhead, St Cybi’s Church War Memorials

St Cybi’s Church is in Holyhead, on the Island of Anglesey, and is a Grade I listed building.

There are very few memorials to the fallen in the Church, in fact I believe there is just one. This is a memorial window (above) to Captain Harry Adeane of the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, a relative of the Stanley family, the premier Holyhead family.

Captain Adeane’s full name was Henry Robert Augustus Adeane, he was the son of Admiral Edward Adeane and Lady Edith Adeane. He was the husband of Victoria Eugenie Adeane, of 1, Dean Trench Street, Westminster, London. He lost his life aged 32 on the 2nd of November 1914 and is remembered at Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial.

Another World War item in the Church is the World War Two (WWII) Delft (I believe) tiled plaque from the Protestant Churches of the Netherlands; gratefully remembering the generous hospitality bestowed upon the Netherlands (Dutch) soldiers, sailors and airmen during their stay in the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1947. The plaque ends with the words ‘I was a stranger and ye took me in’.

Many of the Dutch Marines and Navy personnel stationed at Holyhead during WWII – having met and fallen in love with local girls – actually stayed in Holyhead after the war. I would count several of the children of these marriages as friends, and dutch names in the town are very common now.

One of the Dutch Marines that I knew personally – Teunis Cornelis Van Rootselaar (known as Bob) – was a powerful, strong-minded and highly principled man, and although he was quite old when I knew him, he must have been formidable in his day. To say Bob was devoted to his wife Glenys is an understatement, she was everything to him. His daughter Caroline, and his grandchildren – Andrew and Beth – were also a major part of his life. Bob never even visited his home in Holland after the war, and one reason he gave me was that he could not forgive the Dutch that had collaborated with the Germans during the occupation of Holland.