Mystery £1 war photo slowly revealing identities

A cathedral archivist has helped solve at least some of the mystery surrounding a World War One picture bought in a charity shop for £1.

Adrian Maasz has been trying to identify the soldiers of the 1915 officer class of Wadham College, Oxford, since he bought the photo in 2018.

Now an archivist from Durham Cathedral Schools Foundation has confirmed one of the men as Lt Alan George Brown, whose family was from Darlington.

Meanwhile, the same archivist has confirmed the identity of another of the soldiers, Alan Wynne Apperley, who was born in South End in Durham in 1885.

Mr Maasz, who has so far accounted for about 70% of the group, said: "I kept looking at the faces thinking; 'who are you, where are you from, what did you do'."

He was able to identify regiments using insignia, cap badges and shoulder flashes.

The largest group, made up of 10 men, belonged to the Durham Light Infantry but Lt Brown was the lone representative of the Northumberland Fusiliers.

He fought in France and then Italy in 1917, where he was mentioned in dispatches, and where he died in October 1918 aged 24.

Mr Maasz said he was "really grateful" for the archivist's help.

"It really means a lot as it's a really evocative picture and I think it's important to find out who they all are."

Appealing for further information, he said: "The college would have sold copies of the picture to each individual officer so it's quite possible there's a copy sitting in an attic or drawer somewhere which may have all the names on the back."

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