WILLS of ten First World War soldiers buried alongside each other in the Belgian town of Ypres have been published online.

The last wishes of the British servicemen have been made available to commemorate the centenary of the global conflict.

They ranged in age from 18 to 34, were members of different regiments and came from different parts of the country - with four from the North-East and Yorkshire. Records show they died in different places, at different times.

Now their wills form part of a unique UK archive of 278,000 digitised First World War documents, preserved, scanned and placed online by information management company Iron Mountain and HM Courts and Tribunals Service as part of a modernisation programme.

The wills of two men who served with Durham Light Infantry - Privates Joseph Marchbanks and Jacob Conroy - who both died on September, 25, 1915, are included.

Pte Marchbanks, 18, left half of his belongings to his father in Sunderland and the rest to a woman in Fence Houses, near Chester-le-Street.

Twenty-eight-year-old Pte Conroy’s will was never found after his death, but witness statements from his sister and brother to the War Office carefully explain that when he was home on compassionate leave he stated his intention to leave everything to his sister Elizabeth, in New York on North Tyneside.

Courts Minister Shailesh Vara said: “In the year of the hundredth anniversary of the First World War, it is important to remember those who laid down their lives for this country.

“This will be an invaluable tool for historians, genealogists and anyone who wants to add detail to their family tree.”

The wills, which were carried around by soldiers at all times in a pocket book tucked into their uniform, represent the soldiers' last ever personally written record.

Other solders from the region on the archive include Cecil Christopher Iley, 28, who served with the Army Cyclist Corps, and was from Gateshead, and William Burns from York.

Phil Greenwood, commercial director at Iron Mountain, said: “Many of the records are simple hand-written bequests, in the case of these ten soldiers, often to a mother.

“Some of the pocket books include personal notes and letters. Now, thanks to the latest digital scanning technology and document storage, the fragile paper wills, letters and notes left behind by these fallen soldiers are preserved forever, and tell the stories they couldn’t come home to tell themselves.

“The war wills are a legacy to the ordinary men who lived and died at an extraordinary time.”

Members of the public can order scanned copies of the wills for a fee of £10 from www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance/searching-for-probate-records.