To put in you the festive mood, each day from now until Christmas, my blog will be publishing images from postcards sent during the First World War. Click on the picture to be taken to an external website which will be of interest to historians of English history or local history or family history. Each day, the link will take you to a different website and, hopefully, help you discover resources new to you. Â Just like a traditional advent calendar, you’ll not know what you’ve got until you’ve opened (or clicked) the door.
My Advent Calendar is my Christmas gift to you. Happy Christmas!
What’s behind the door?… Click on the picture above to be taken to an external website of interest to historians. Â When you’ve finished viewing the external website, come back to my blog and, in the comments, tell me what you think of the website you’ve just visited.
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If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe by using the Subscribe via Email button.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the “Like” button or Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
To put in you the festive mood, each day from now until Christmas, my blog will be publishing images from postcards sent during the First World War. Click on the picture to be taken to an external website which will be of interest to historians of English history or local history or family history. Each day, the link will take you to a different website and, hopefully, help you discover resources new to you. Â Just like a traditional advent calendar, you’ll not know what you’ve got until you’ve opened (or clicked) the door.
My Advent Calendar is my Christmas gift to you. Happy Christmas!
What’s behind the door?… Click on the picture above to be taken to an external website of interest to historians. Â When you’ve finished viewing the external website, come back to my blog and, in the comments, tell me what you think of the website you’ve just visited.
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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe by using the Subscribe via Email button.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the “Like” button or Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
I hope that your preparations are going well for Christmas 2014. Â There always seems to be so much to do and so much preparation in the run-up to the “Big Day”. Reading blogs and carrying out any form of historical research is probably the last thing on most people’s minds!
So, to help ease your mood, each day from now until Christmas, my blog will be publishing images from postcards sent during the First World War. Click on the picture to be taken to an external website which will be of interest to historians of English history or local history or family history. Each day, the link will take you to a different website and, hopefully, help you discover resources or blogs new to you. Â Just like a traditional advent calendar, you’ll not know what you’ve got until you’ve opened (or clicked) the door.
My Advent Calendar is my Christmas gift to you. Happy Christmas!
What’s behind the door?… Click on the picture above to be taken to an external website of interest to historians. Â When you’ve finished viewing the external website, come back to my blog and, in the comments, tell me what you think of the website you’ve just visited.
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If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe by using the Subscribe via Email button.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the “Like” button or Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
I am delighted to be able to tell you that fellow local historian of Great Dunmow, Austin Reeve, has just published his book Remembrance: The World War One Memorials of Great Dunmow.
Austin has meticulously researched some of the men commemorated on the war memorials in and around Great Dunmow and recounted some of their tragic stories.  He has also gathered together a unique collection of photographs and memorabilia (such as postcards, medals, certificates and – most extraordinary – a battlefield will) from the families of the town’s fallen and combined it all into a compelling book.
If you are interested in the local history of Great Dunmow (a small town in North West Essex), or indeed, the fallen of the First World War, I would highly recommend this book to you.
I must admit to getting goose-bumps when I saw the front cover as I know my granddad and my grandmother were likely to have been in the crowd, and also possibly my great-grandparents – the two Kemp brothers commemorated on the memorial being my granddad’s cousins (my great-grandmother’s nephews).
If you wish to purchase this book for the highly reasonable price of £5 (inc p&p to the UK), please email Austin Reeve directly at ashble55[at}yahoo.com.  Austin’s book is proving to be very popular and he is currently just about to go into his third print run.  He asked me to tell potential buyers that he wouldn’t be able send out books immediately until his next print run is confirmed.
Please do get in contact with him, if you wish to purchase.
Lest we forget
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Remember the men of this place who died for freedom and honour A.D. 1914-1918
Percy Charles Archer: died 15 July 1917
John Lewis Pasteur Armstrong: died 22 June 1916
Frederick Attridge: died 9 October 1916 Frank William Bacon: died 4 December 1918
Amos Alfred Barrick: died 31 December 1916
George Henry Barrick: died 11 June 1918
Frederick John Bartley: died 26 March 1917
George Henry Beard: died 7 September 1916
Albert Brand: died 8 October 1915
Frederick J Burchell: died unknown
Alfred Richard Burton: died 5 April 1917
Harold Vincent Burton: died 22 December 1916
Thomas F Burton: died 29 November 1918
Edwyn (Edwin) Bush: died 24 April 1917 David William Button: died 8 December 1918
William Henry Carter: died 24 July 1918
Alfred Thomas Caton: died 13 April 1918
Frederick Chapman: died 6 December 1918
Frederick George Clarke: died 30 July 1916
Alfred Coates: died 21 May 1918
Stanley Richard Coates: died 2 September 1918
George Cock: died 4 January 1918
William Coppin: died unknown
Sydney Cox: died 13 August 1918
Albert Crow: died 1 November 1914
William Frederick Crow: died 5 October 1917
Benjamin Thomas De Voil: died 1 July 1916
Ernest Cecil Freshwater: died 8 May 1915
Arthur Edwin Greenleaf: died 3 August 1916
George Frederick Gunn: died 18 July 1917
Arthur Gypps: died 16 October 1917
Harry Hines Halls: died 26 March 1917
Ernest Edward Harris: died 8 August 1918
Frank Harris: died 21 November 1916
Leonard Melsome Hasler: died 21 September 1917
Stanley Howland: died 21 October 1916
Thomas David Jarvis: died 16 July 1916 Gordon Parnall Kemp: died 26 September 1917 Harold James Nelson Kemp: died 28 May 1916
George Henry Ledgerton: died 2 November 1917
Frederick James Watson Lines: died 12 December 1915
Frank J Lodge: died 26 March 1917
Arthur Thomas Lorkin: died 26 March 1917
Hayden Lyle: died 6 November 1918
Llewellyn Malcomson: died 5 October 1916
Leonard Frederick Mason: died 12 September 1918
Ralph Milbank: died 23 March 1918
George Nelson: died 3 November 1917
George William Perry: died 17 November 1916
Francis Louis Pitts: died 15 June 1915
Bertram James Porter: died 2 September 1918
George Rawlings: died unknown
Arthur T Reed: died unknown
Harry Charles Edwin Robinson: died 28 March 1918
Henry Alfred Robson: died 28 April 1917
Frederick Isaac Rootkin: died 22 August 1915
Frank Edward Sams: died 1 November 1914
William George Saunders: died 26 March 1918
William Sayer(s): died 29 March 1915
Harold Mackenzie Scarfe: died 3 May 1917
Charles Edwin Sewell: died 24 March 1915
Frank Sewell: died 18 May 1917
Sidney Sharp: died 1 October 1918
Walter Sharp: died 9 April 1915
Arthur Smith: died unknown
Sidney J Smith,unknown Victor Spurgeon: died 8 October 1918
Percy A Stock: died 9 December 1917
Arthur George Stokes: died 26 October 1914
Ernest Archibald Stokes: died 19 February 1919
Edward Charles Stone: died 23 August 1918
William Matthew Stovold: died 6 November 1914
Montague Beavan Tench: died 10 August 1916
Harry Turbard: died 12 November 1915
Joseph A Turner: died unknwon
John S Wackrill: died 12 October 1918
William Waite: died 11 July 1917
John Joseph Walsh: died 19 November 1917
Edward Warner: died 21 March 1918
Hubert John Welch: died 29 September 1918 Arthur Albert Willett: died 25 February 1916 Frank Willett: died 23 October 1916
James Wilson: died 10 September 1915
A Edgar Yeldham: died 10 November 1917
Arthur William Young: died 21 November 1915
Not on the town’s war memorial but commemorated
on the Congregational Church’s memorial Walter Vosper Jakins: died 10 July 1917
Buried in St Mary’s Churchyard but not
commemorated on the town’s War Memorial Charles Henry Parham: died 30 June 1918
C Spiers: died 7 November 1918
They whom this tablet commemorates, at the call of King and country left all that was dear to them to endure hardships and face dangers. And then passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice giving up their lives that others might life in freedom.
Let those who come after see to it that their names be not forgotten
(War Memorial in St Mary’s Church, Dunmow)
100 years on from the start of the Great War, the moat of the ancient Tower of London contains a sea of blood-red poppies – some of which represent the dead of this small north Essex parish.
Lest we forget
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Yesterday was a very emotional day for me when I visited my granddad’s old school, Emanuel School, in Wandsworth, South London, and heard about his life as a school-boy on the eve of the Great War. Â As Emanuel’s school historian comments on the board displaying my granddad’s photo.
“In the summer of 1914 Emanuel boys went about the normal lives. Â They played cricket on the field, they sang in a School concert in Battersea Town Hall and they attended prize giving…We broke up in July [1914] under the shadow of Armageddon and reassembled [in September] to find it a reality.“
Emanuel at War Exhibition, November 2014
Visiting Emanuel school was intensely moving for me. Â Not least, because I never knew my granddad, as I was two when he died. Â A man who I’ve spent a great deal of time researching his family history and a man I would have loved to have known. A man I’m proud to call my granddad. Â He joined the York and Lancaster Regiment one day short of his 18th birthday in 1917 and returned home, injured, after the Great War to his loving parents and child-hood sweetheart, never to mention those terrible times again to another living soul.
My granddad, as a 15 year school boy, outside Clapham Junction on the eve of Armageddon, in the school uniform of Emanuel
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The whole day was incredible moving for me because on my way through to South London from North Essex, I stopped by the ceramic poppy display at the Tower of London.
I had heard a lot of negative comments about these beautiful poppies before I went, and also heard plenty more negative remarks whilst I spent 2 hours walking and contemplating the exhibition. Â Directly behind me, a man commented (clearly aimed at me) “90% of the people here don’t know what it’s about and have come to gawp.” Â Well, sir, leaving aside that your comment aimed at me was incorrect because I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life researching my own local war memorial in Great Dunmow (long before it was “fashionable”), Â you totally missed the point about the remaining 89.999% of visitors.
It doesn’t matter that previously 90% showed no interest in the past. Â The fact that they are showing interest today, and have stopped during their busy 21st century lives to take photographs, comment, ponder and wonder, means that all those 888,246 lost lives have not been forgotten. Â 100 years after the start of Armageddon, hundreds of thousands of people have flooded to see this incredible display of lives and families destroyed.
I saw young heavily fake-tanned women taking “selfies”, along with old veterans displaying their medals. Â I saw fully kilted uniformed Scottish soldiers, along with twenty-somethings wiping tears away. Â Veterans, pensioners, London workers, tourists, young people and children all stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Â The fact is, Paul Cummins’ remarkable Sea of Blood is for absolutely everyone to pause in their lives and to reflect back to that terrible time 100 years ago.
The Great War affected all our families 100 years ago, and is now touching their descendants hearts today.
The controversy of the display at the Tower reminds me back to the days even whilst the Great War was still raging when the question of War Memorials started to be hotly debated all over towns and villages of a devastated Britain. Â The building of War Memorials were highly emotional with bereaved communities totally unable to decide what was the best way to commemorate their dead. Â My own North Essex town of Great Dunmow has a war memorial – but reading the meeting minutes regarding its building shows that in 1918 this was a deeply divided and grieving community. Â These are cold-hard meeting minutes reporting facts, but even now, they show unwitting testimony of highly charged and emotional council meetings. No-one being able to decide anything: a community torn apart in their grief and frozen in their clerical indecisiveness.
Back to today, and yes, the Tower of London Poppy display is controversial, and the motives of some of its visitors questionable. Â But it is a very visual display of a shattered nation, and a shattered world.
If you have a chance to see the Tower of London’s “Blood swept Lands and Seas of red” before it is dismantled after 11th November 2014, do go.  Take photos.  Put them on Facebook, tweet them, publish them. By doing so those  888,246 lost souls – indeed the world’s lost souls from all the combatant nations – will always remain in our hearts.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
The walls of the ancient Tower of London hemorrhaging the nation’s blood
In among the poppies, a poignant reminder from a bereaved family
The poppies and London’s iconic Victorian landmark – Tower Bridge
The old and new icons of London – with the blood of the nation
Somewhere in this sea of blood lies poppies representing 4 lost lives from my family.
The ghostly images of Emanuel’s 1913 XV projected onto the school building. Eight of those boys never returned from the Great War. Â They were my granddad’s schoolmates and later, his comrades in arms. Â Among the 888,246 poppies at the Tower of London, 8 poppies represent the lost lives of these boys.
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Exactly 100 years ago today, the war to end all wars started when Great Britain declared war on Germany because of the latter’s invasion of neutral Belgium. Â A tiny country whom Britain was bound to by the 1839 Treaty of London.
Over the coming days, much will be written and said about this important centenary and how this terrible war affected almost the entire world. Â For my contribution, I am re-publishing a story from the First World War which I first wrote on my blog two years ago Postcard from the Front – From your loving son.Â
But first, before my story…
If you are in the UK, then at 10pm BST on 4th August 2014, for one hour, please turn off all your lights except one single light (or candle). This is a mark of shared respect for those who suffered in that terrible war and its aftermath. Â The Lights Out event has been supported by the likes of the British Government and the Royal British Legion – with Westminster Abbey leading the way in this nationwide vigil.
For me, when my lights are out, I will be remembering my grandfather, George Parnall Cole, who joined up the day before his 18th birthday in April 1918. Â He survived, and came home to marry his childhood sweetheart. Â His cousins, Gordon Parnall Kemp and Harold James Parnall Kemp were not so lucky. Â Gordon was killed in action September 1917 in the mud and horror of the 3rd Battle of Ypres (forever known as Passchendaele) and his older brother, Harold, killed in action in German East Africa the May of the previous year.
I will also be remembering my grandmother’s adored big brother, Sergeant F. A. H., a long serving (pre-First World War) regular in the British army, who, for whatever reason (and we cannot possibly judge his actions from our modern-day lens) committed suicide by putting a gun to his head, just days after the Battle of the Somme, from the relative safety of the Somme’s HQ, which was well behind the front lines. Â An act which had been covered up for nearly 100 years by the powers that be, and his father (also a long-serving army man), until an internet correspondent read the war diaries and emailed me the truth of his fate a couple of years ago. Â We cannot possibly know what went through Frank’s mind when he realised the horror and tragedy that was the battle of the Somme. I have absolutely no idea if he directly sent men to their death at the Somme, or if he was just a pen-pushing high-ranking clerk who couldn’t cope with the unrivalled horror and endless slaughter.
His reasons are not for me to ever discover or even try to investigate. Â His reasons died with him.
And so, I will respect his reasons and so will never investigate his “story”. Â But so very very sad that his death became a secret that “the powers that be” kept to themselves for nearly 100 years until the internet finally yielded up my family’s darkest and longest kept secret.
I will also be remembering the combatants on the other side. Â In particular, my son’s paternal great-grandfather and his family who were all members of the Austro-Hungarian army in 1914. Â They lived in that most troubled and much-fought over area within the Hapsburg empire which became known as Poland during the course of the 2nd World War, then the USSR post-Second World War, and is now known as the Ukraine. Today one of the most deeply troubled areas on this planet.
To the members of my family who fought for Great Britain, and to my son’s family who fought for the Austro-Hungarian army, to you all I salute you.
 Who will you remembering on today’s anniversary?
Please tell me about your family in the comments box below.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
Remembering Harold James Parnall Kemp, died May 1916; F.A.H, died July 1916; and Gordon Parnall Kemp, died September 1917
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Postcards from the front – from your loving son…
I have long been a collector of old postcards – those evocative images conjuring up a bygone era. Originally, I was only interested in the pictures and scenes depicted on the front of the cards. But over the years my interest has switched to the messages on the back. Who are all those faceless people with their messages of ‘I’ll be home for tea’ and ‘I will be catching the 2pm train’?
Many many years ago, I bought a collection of First World War silk post cards. Within that collection are 12 cards all from the same man and are addressed to either his mother or his father. Each postcard is signed, ‘Your loving son, Fred’ and were sent to 101 Manor Road, Leyton, Essex in 1916.
It is interesting how Fred’s tone is different to his father than it is to his mother. Â To his mother, he writes of the weather in France and his sister, Winnie. Â To his father, he writes of ‘the line’, peace and Zeppelin raids (in 1916, there were several Zeppelin raids over Essex). Â The postcards cover the period from May to December 1916 during Fred’s time in France. Â So they cover the period of the Battle of Somme which started on 1 July 1916. Â I do not know if Fred took part in the battle – his postcards do not reveal this or any information on the trenches or the battles he took part in or the terrible conditions he lived through.
Read Fred’s cards and wonder at the sacrifice his generation made.
5/5/16 Dear Mother Just a card to let you know I’m all OK. Hope you are the same. We are having lovely weather, today sweltering hot. Will write and tell you all the news soon. Heaps of love & kisses.                                        Your loving son, Fred In the top left corner is written: Just this minute received parcel thanks very much
France, 17/6/16 Dear Mother Just a card to let you know I’m still around & well. Have you been getting my letter safely of late? Have just heard from Nancy that she hasn’t had a letter for about 10 days. I rather think the mail has been held up somewhere. Haven’t any news so thought you’d like a card.
Best love & kisses to all. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Your loving son, Fred France, 27/6/16 Hello Mother Still another card for your collection. Do you like these? We are still having rotten weather, showery all the time. Hope all are well. Best love & kisses. Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Your loving son, Fred
France, 12/7/16 Dear Mother Received Winnie’s letter safely yesterday. How’s everything at Leyton. Was very glad Nance managed to get down on Saturday. Would not have minded if I could have strolled in during the afternoon. Was too bad though. Winnie was disappointed at not seeing her beau. Hope everyone is well. Best love to all                                            Your loving son, Fred France, 21/7/16 Hello Dad Thought you might like a card from this side. Are you keeping well? Markers are beginning to look quite cheerful all along the line aren’t they? Guess they’re going to rob you of August Bank Holiday this year. Never mind. I expect everyone will make up for it when peace is declared. Please thank Winnie for her letter. Will write her later. Weather here is still rotten but am getting used to that now. Best love & kisses to all.                                              Yrs etc, Fred France, 23/7/16 Hello Mother, Just a card to let you know I’m all OK. Weather a little better for a change. Did John manage a visit to Winnie this week? Hope all are well. Best love & kisses to all                                             Yrs etc, Fred
France, 5/8/16 Hello Dad Hope you are keeping well. Did you get a glimpse of the Zepps during this last Raid? Am still keeping OK but wouldn’t mind a few days holiday. Guess you’ll miss Winnie for the next week or so. Best love to Mother & yourself                                     Yours etc, Fred
France 10/8/16 Dear Mother Hope you & Dada are well. Do you miss Winnie very much? I had a letter from her the other day & seems to be having a good time apart from a few mosquito bites. Have been having some lovely weather lately the best this year. Best love & kisses                                                       Yrs Fred France, 3/11/16 Dearest Mother, Just another card to put in the album & to let you know I’m OK. The weather here is fierce nothing but rain. I wonder whether its any better over home. Will be writing you soon. Best love to all, hoping everyone is well.                          Yr loving son, Fred France, 4/11/16 Hello Dad Hope this card will find you in the best of health. The weather here is nothing but rain all the time. I haven’t had very much time lately for writing so must forgive me for keeping you so long without a card. Best love & kisses to all at home                                 Yr loving son, Fred France, 6/11/16 Dearest Mother This card is going to bring you good news for I am leaving for the Base today. I may have some better event than that a little later. Don’t write again till you hear from me. Hope all are well. Have been enjoying contents of Winnie’s parcel. Best love & kisses to all                                          Yr loving son, Fred Hastings, 22/12/16 Hello Mother, A card to wish you all a pleasant Xmas. Its too bad I could not get home but still cheer up. I shall be with you very soon now. Expect to be spending the day with some residents in town so won’t be so badly off. Best love & heaps of kisses                                   Your loving son, Fred
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I have not been able to track Fred in the records of the  Commonwealth War Graves Commission Debt of Honour, so hopefully Fred survived the Great War and returned home to his loving mother, father, and sister Winnie.  A Frederick H Sargeant married  Annie F Page, West Ham, September quarter 1917 – is this our Fred?  In the death indices, the only Frederick Sargeant with (nearly) the correct age and location died in March quarter 1954 aged 63 in Romford.  Is he our ‘loving son, Fred’?  I wonder why he was in Hastings at Christmas 1916 – perhaps this a convalescent home – had our Fred been wounded?
1891 Census – 31, London Lane, Hackney Alfred Sargeant, Head, aged 43, born 1848 Shoreditch, occupation Fancy Cabinet Maker
Amelia Sargeant, Wife, aged 37, born 1854 Marylebone
Alfred J Sargeant, Son, aged 5, born 1886 Westbourne Park
Frederick H Sargeant, Son, aged 2, 1889 Hackney
1901 Census – 101 Manor Road, Leyton, Essex
Alfred Sargeant, Head, aged 50, born 1851 Shoreditch, occupation Cabinet Maker
Amelia Sargeant, Wife, aged 43, born 1858, Marylebone
Alfred Sargeant, Son, aged 16, born 1885 Kensington, occupation Printer Compositor
Frederick Sargeant, Son, aged 12, born 1889 Hackney
Winifred Sargeant, Daughter, aged 6, born 1895Â Â Hackney
1911 Census – 101 Manor Road, Leyton, Essex
Alfred Robt Arthur Sargeant, Head, Married, aged 62, born 1849, occupation Carpenter
Amelia Elizabeth Sargeant, Wife, Married, aged 57, born 1854
Winifred Sargeant, Daughter, Single, aged 16, occupation dressmaker
Marriage Records Frederick H Sargeant to Annie F Page, West Ham, September quarter 1917
Death Records Alfred Joseph Sargeant, aged 22, died  September quarter 1908 (West Ham)
Amelia Elizabeth Sargeant died in 1926 (West Ham) Alfred R A Sargeant died in 1927 (West Ham)
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Who will you remembering on today’s anniversary?
Please tell me about your family in the comments box below.
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Not long after my post, I was looking through an on-line catalogue of an auction-house, and saw that a set of cards from Great Dunmow were coming up for auction. The image of the cards in the auction-house’s catalogue was extremely poor and none of the cards were clearly visible. Â But, they were too irresistible for me – I just had to bid on them! So I bid on them blind and, because there are many collectors of postcards from Great Dunmow, won them at great cost. Imagine my shock and surprise when they arrived in the post and I saw that one of the cards was of Great Dunmow’s Military Funeral but not the postcard I already had. Â
Arthur Willett, photographer of Great Dunmow, had taken at least two photographs of Private Gibson’s Military Funeral.  This second card shows the funeral cortège with Gibson’s Union Jack covered coffin very clear in the photograph. Behind the carriage with the coffin, there is a group of people walking – including a hatted woman and some children. Is this Sarah Gibson, William’s wife, and their children? Behind this group, there is a large gun-carriage. Through the lens of Great Dunmow’s photographer, a tiny piece of First World War social history has been captured for posterity.
If anyone has anymore postcards of Great Dunmow’s military funeral, please do let me know – I would love to publish them on my blog. My recent auction purchase has given me some more great social-history postcards of this small East Anglian town through the lens of Arthur Willett – I’ll be publishing them on my blog over the next few months.
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If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them.
Remember the men of this place who died for freedom and honour A.D. 1914-1918
Percy Charles Archer: died 15 July 1917
John Lewis Pasteur Armstrong: died 22 June 1916
Frederick Attridge: died 9 October 1916 Frank William Bacon: died 4 December 1918
Amos Alfred Barrick: died 31 December 1916
George Henry Barrick: died 11 June 1918
Frederick John Bartley: died 26 March 1917
George Henry Beard: died 7 September 1916
Albert Brand: died 8 October 1915
Frederick J Burchell: died unknown
Alfred Richard Burton: died 5 April 1917
Harold Vincent Burton: died 22 December 1916
Thomas F Burton: died 29 November 1918
Edwyn (Edwin) Bush: died 24 April 1917 David William Button: died 8 December 1918
William Henry Carter: died 24 July 1918
Alfred Thomas Caton: died 13 April 1918
Frederick Chapman: died 6 December 1918
Frederick George Clarke: died 30 July 1916
Alfred Coates: died 21 May 1918
Stanley Richard Coates: died 2 September 1918
George Cock: died 4 January 1918
William Coppin: died unknown
Sydney Cox: died 13 August 1918
Albert Crow: died 1 November 1914
William Frederick Crow: died 5 October 1917
Benjamin Thomas De Voil: died 1 July 1916
Ernest Cecil Freshwater: died 8 May 1915
Arthur Edwin Greenleaf: died 3 August 1916
George Frederick Gunn: died 18 July 1917
Arthur Gypps: died 16 October 1917
Harry Hines Halls: died 26 March 1917
Ernest Edward Harris: died 8 August 1918
Frank Harris: died 21 November 1916
Leonard Melsome Hasler: died 21 September 1917
Stanley Howland: died 21 October 1916
Thomas David Jarvis: died 16 July 1916 Gordon Parnall Kemp: died 26 September 1917 Harold James Nelson Kemp: died 28 May 1916
George Henry Ledgerton: died 2 November 1917
Frederick James Watson Lines: died 12 December 1915
Frank J Lodge: died 26 March 1917
Arthur Thomas Lorkin: died 26 March 1917
Hayden Lyle: died 6 November 1918
Llewellyn Malcomson: died 5 October 1916
Leonard Frederick Mason: died 12 September 1918
Ralph Milbank: died 23 March 1918
George Nelson: died 3 November 1917
George William Perry: died 17 November 1916
Francis Louis Pitts: died 15 June 1915
Bertram James Porter: died 2 September 1918
George Rawlings: died unknown
Arthur T Reed: died unknown
Harry Charles Edwin Robinson: died 28 March 1918
Henry Alfred Robson: died 28 April 1917
Frederick Isaac Rootkin: died 22 August 1915
Frank Edward Sams: died 1 November 1914
William George Saunders: died 26 March 1918
William Sayer(s): died 29 March 1915
Harold Mackenzie Scarfe: died 3 May 1917
Charles Edwin Sewell: died 24 March 1915
Frank Sewell: died 18 May 1917
Sidney Sharp: died 1 October 1918
Walter Sharp: died 9 April 1915
Arthur Smith: died unknown
Sidney J Smith,unknown Victor Spurgeon: died 8 October 1918
Percy A Stock: died 9 December 1917
Arthur George Stokes: died 26 October 1914
Ernest Archibald Stokes: died 19 February 1919
Edward Charles Stone: died 23 August 1918
William Matthew Stovold: died 6 November 1914
Montague Beavan Tench: died 10 August 1916
Harry Turbard: died 12 November 1915
Joseph A Turner: died unknwon
John S Wackrill: died 12 October 1918
William Waite: died 11 July 1917
John Joseph Walsh: died 19 November 1917
Edward Warner: died 21 March 1918
Hubert John Welch: died 29 September 1918 Arthur Albert Willett: died 25 February 1916 Frank Willett: died 23 October 1916
James Wilson: died 10 September 1915
A Edgar Yeldham: died 10 November 1917
Arthur William Young: died 21 November 1915
Not on the town’s war memorial but commemorated
on the Congregational Church’s memorial Walter Vosper Jakins: died 10 July 1917
Buried in St Mary’s Churchyard but not
commemorated on the town’s War Memorial Charles Henry Parham: died 30 June 1918
C Spiers: died 7 November 1918
They whom this tablet commemorates, at the call of King and country left all that was dear to them to endure hardships and face dangers. And then passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice giving up their lives that others might life in freedom.
Let those who come after see to it that their names be not forgotten
(War Memorial in St Mary’s Church, Dunmow)
Their Name Liveth For Evermore
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Within my collection of postcards dating from the First World War is this very poignant card from a father to his young daughter. Â Unfortunately, there are no other identifying marks on the card so it is impossible to trace anything in connection with this card, so the sender of the card must remain AÂ soldier of the Great War –Â Known Unto God.
In my mind’s eye, I see Rhoda’s daddy spotting this postcard being sold by the street vendors near the Western Front, and on seeing the embroidery of the soldier with his rifle, thought this to be a good likeness of himself. And so Rhoda’s daddy sent home to his much loved daughter, a portrait of himself in uniform, pipe in mouth.
It’s a long way to Tipperary was a song written in 1912 and first performed in the music halls prior to the outbreak of the Great War. On the original printed sheet-music, the name of the song had an extra “long” in it – It’s a long, long way to Tipperary. But by the time of the First World War, this extra “long”, had, in the main, been dropped from the title. From the very beginning of the First World War, the song became a very popular song sang by soldiers marching across the Western Front and other theatres of war.
It’s a long way to Tipperary, It’s a long way to go. It’s a long way to Tipperary To the sweetest girl I know! Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square! It’s a long long way to Tipperary,
But my heart’s right there.
The song was so popular that prolific publishers of postcards, Bamforth of Holmfirth, Yorkshire, published in 1914 a series of 4 cards with the lyrics on each card, and It’s a Long Way to Tipperary song-cards became another set of postcards for people to send each other during the First World War. Â These type of postcards were, no doubt, designed to boost the morale of the population.
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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do Like it with the Facebook button and/or leave a comment below.
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What’s behind the door?… Click on the picture above to be taken to an external website of interest to historians. Â When you’ve finished viewing the external website, come back to my blog and, in the comments, tell me what you think of the website you’ve just visited.
100 years on from the start of the Great War, the moat of the ancient Tower of London contains a sea of blood-red poppies – some of which represent the dead of this small north Essex parish.
The ghostly images of Emanuel’s 1913 XV projected onto the school building. Eight of those boys never returned from the Great War. Â They were my granddad’s schoolmates and later, his comrades in arms. Â Among the 888,246 poppies at the Tower of London, 8 poppies represent the lost lives of these boys.
5/5/16
France, 17/6/16
France, 27/6/16
France, 12/7/16
France, 21/7/16
France, 23/7/16
France, 5/8/16
France 10/8/16
France, 3/11/16
France, 4/11/16
France, 6/11/16
Hastings, 22/12/16
