A Scarthin former soldier, James Herbert Toplis, was chosen to unveil Scarthin's War Memorial on the Promenade on 5th September 1920 as he had been the first Scarthin man to enlist. James was the son of James and Lydia Hannah Toplis of Scarthin^[1] and before the War he had been employed as a Warehouse Clerk at Smedley's Hosiery Manufactory at Lea.

The names of the Scarthin men who died in the War are listed in the order in which they died; Joseph Tomlinson was the first Casualty of War from Scarthin and John A Pidcock the last.

The memorial committee responsible for erecting the memorial was chaired by Mr. Frederic Charles Arkwright of Willersley, who was Vice-Lieutenant of the County. His supporters included the local M.P. Charles Frederick White, whose home was in Scarthin for some years, and Edward Sims Roworth. Scarthin's ex-servicemen were invited to attend the Ceremony. During the service the lesson was read by T. H. Ward and at the end the last post was played by H. Holmes.

It was originally thought that this programme was the only source of information about the unveiling. According to several sources, the unveiling was not reported properly in the press because of a newspaper printers strike in Manchester which also seems to have affected some Derbyshire papers^[2]. However, a report has been found (2015) in another local newspaper^[3].

References:

^[1] See the Toplis family in the 1891 census (before James Herbert was born) and the 1901 census.
James Green Toplis had married Lydia Hannah Wheeldon (nee Haynes) in 1888 at Bakewell's Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. Lydia Hannah died in 1906 and James in 1926. Their son, James Herbert Toplis, was born in 1892 and died in 1945.

^[2] "The Times", 28 Aug 1920. Report of conference to consider a national settlement in the wages of the printing trade. The secretaries of both the Manchester and Liverpool branches of the Typographical Union did not agree. There was to be a further conference. There are four issues missing of "The High Peak News" for this period, discovered by Glynn whilst he was working on his book about the Matlock Cable Tramway. The unveiling would have been reported in this paper if the issues had been published.

^[3] "Derbyshire Courier", 11 September, 1920. See About the Five War Memorials.