DOWN MEMORY LANE: A hero well worth remembering

An article in the Observer a few weeks ago suggesting new housing developments in Chichester should be named after some of the city's '˜heroes' caught the eye of Dorothy Adams, who feels her father would be an ideal person to be remembered in this way.

George Welch was one of the first men in Chichester to enlist when the first world war broke out.

He served in the Royal Sussex Regiment, eventually becoming Company Sergeant Major, and was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal which was presented to him by the mayor of Chichester in the Assembly Rooms.

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Frederick, Sgt Welch’s older brother, was killed during the war when he was just 19.

After the war Mr Welch ran a grocery business at the end of Adelaide Road and was a well-known and respected member of the community, becoming deputy mayor of Chichester.

He was a leading light in the St Pancras Community Association – and his daughter, Mrs Adams, won the association’s beauty queen contest when she was 16.

“I don’t think you could get anyone better as a hero of Chichester to have a lasting memory in the form of a housing development or street being named after him,”

Mrs Adams told the Observer.

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“It would be very fitting as there are a lot of people in Chichester who remember him very fondly, and he was a councillor, an alderman and became deputy mayor.”

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