Candles made at Blists Hill for First World War memorial service

Staff from Morris Lubricants and Morris Leisure were at Blists Hill Victorian Town in Telford to try their hand at the historic method of making candles.

Morris Lubricants' founder James Kent Morris first set up in business as a grocer and candlemaker in Shrewsbury in 1869.

And the business has pledged to make the candles for the upcoming service at St Michael's Church in Shrewsbury on Monday August 4.

After instruction at the Candle Factory at Blists Hill Victorian Town, the novice candlemakers got to work making 72 candles to be used in August.

"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, managing director of Morris Lubricants.

"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, Mr Goddard and Ken 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 World War One.

The 72 men are remembered in a forgotten war memorial at St Michael's Church, which Morris Lubricants has also paid to have cleaned.

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."

Mr Goddard was moved to action after hearing about the war memorial at St Michael's Church, which is now the Masonic Hall for the town's Lodges.