The marble slab covering a mass grave in an east London cemetery marks some of the saddest civilian casualties of the first world war: 15 of the 18 children who died in their classroom in June 1917, when a German bomb crashed through the roof of their school. The grave marker, paid for by public subscription, is among the memorials being Grade II listed on Saturday by Historic England.

The group of eight memorials is unusual because all were erected during the war, while most of the thousands across the country were built in the decade after the fighting ended, as towns and villages mourned their dead.

The memorials being listed include a tall cross in the Cheshire village of Burton built not to commemorate named casualties, but as a plea for peace.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The cross in Winsford, Cheshire. Photograph: Historic England

A granite obelisk at Barton on Sea in Hampshire was a tribute to the living, the 25,000 sick and injured Indian soldiers cared for at a convalescent hospital there. The monument, with inscriptions in Urdu and English, was paid for by the medical staff who cared for them.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The English inscription on the obelisk in Barton. Photograph: CE Moreton 2013/Historic England

The London children, mostly aged five, died in the first German squadron air raid on the capital. One of the bombs fell on Upper North Street school in Poplar, crashed down through the roof and upper floors, and exploded in the classroom, killing 18 and injuring 37. The dead included the son of the school caretaker, who died a few months later and was buried near their mass grave.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The children’s grave at East London Cemetery. Photograph: Katy Whitaker/Historic England

Hundreds of wreaths were sent from all over the country, including one with a personal message from the king and queen. Crowds lined the streets of the East End to watch the funeral procession to the East London Cemetery, with eight flower-covered hearses followed by scores of vehicles, before a group of sailors carried the coffins to the grave.



In the public outcry that followed, the bishop of London in his funeral address called for military reprisals, while the pacifist George Lansbury, a local councillor, called for an end to war. Almost £1,500 was donated by the public for a memorial, enough to pay for the grave marker, a mourning angel in a nearby park – already listed Grade II* – and to support many hospital beds.