Do you believe in coincidences and synchronicity? Or do you believe that strange forces are sometimes at work and might bring together events, people and stories in an unbelievable way that can’t only be mere chance?  Are some things are just meant to be?…

I’ve written several local history books based around the towns and villages of the East of England. During my research into these books, I’ve often had strange coincidences which have led me to piecing together the jigsaw puzzles of my research. However, none have been more strange then my discovery and research into two incredible women, Clara Emily Mary Woolnough and Gertrude Unwin. These two young women from Suffolk volunteered as nurses with the British Red Cross and were sent to a large British military hospital to nurse the wounded of the Battles of the Somme during the First World War in 1916. (Note the plural “Battles” – there were many many battles and attacks which comprise the British Army’s participation in the fighting in the Somme region exactly one hundred years ago in 1916. Some still say “Battle of the Somme” whereas other call it “Battles of the Somme”).

Clara and Gertrude’s story is two of many such stories I have written about in my new book Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919. My book recounts the stories of men and women from Britain who served in the First World War through their eye-witness accounts detailed in their messages sent home.

The nurses’ story is so incredible that I was able to devote an entire chapter to them. I was able to use hospital War Diaries, the British Matron-in-Chief’s War Diary, and other contemporary resources, along with Clara’s own postcards she sent back to Britain, to tell the story of these two unsung heroines.

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What became so extraordinary was the strange sequence of events which led me to be able to tell their story.  There was not room to detail the discovery of Clara’s postcards in my book, so please indulge me whilst I tell you on my blog about how I came into the possession of Clara’s postcards. And how Clara herself finally stepped out of the shadows.

At the tail-end of 2013, I was commissioned by Amberley Publishing to write a book called “Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919”.  I always had the title, and I always had the rough content: the messages written on postcards sent from the battlefields of the First World War. My book idea (and title) was very loosely based on a blog-post I had written in 2012 about the postcards that a soldier from Leyton (East London) had sent home to his mother and father – Postcards from the Front: from your loving son.  I thought, and fortunately Amberley Publishing agreed, that I could turn this type of story into a full-scale book which would interest readers.

There I had it.  A complete book title.  A rough idea based on one blog-post.  But nothing else.  Certainly not enough to fill a book.

After panicking for a few months, I decided I needed more material for my book. I already had a large postcard collection from the First World War in my own personal collection; but a quick glance through it told me that I really did not have enough to turn it into a coherent book.  I started to sift through eBay to see if there was anything of interest on there. There was. But still not enough material to fill a book!

I started to pour over catalogues from various auction-houses who specialise in postcards, stamps, postal history and paper ephemera. I have often bought items from Lockdales in Ipswich and I turned to their catalogue.  Just before the tail-end of 2013, I placed a bid on one of their lots which was described as “Small white shoebox housing a small bundle of WW1 Censor Marks on postcards” . That was it! No other description and certainly no pictures. A total shot in the dark on my part.  I couldn’t even make it in person to the auction. It was a postal bid.  Sold unseen!

To my utter surprise, I won my lot for the princely sum of £20. The auction-house had estimated that it was worth between £20-£25 – I had bid the absolute minimum price. There was no other bidders so my tiny bid of just £20 meant that this unseen shoe-box was now mine…

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Once I received my box of postcards (which by now was about £27 by the time commission plus postage had been added on), I was totally underwhelmed.  It was exactly as described.  A box of postcards and envelopes which appeared to have been collected together because they had all been posted in France and so all had census marks/postmarks from, mainly, the First World War. It was a box of discarded and unwanted stock from an unknown postcard dealer.

It didn’t look at all interesting.  I put the box away and forgot about it.  And got on with my life.

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Some months later, I knew I had to knuckle down and concentrate on my book and start working on it.  By this time, I’d bought quite a few postcards from eBay – but I still didn’t know where my book was going.  The endless blank pages and my deadline loomed ever large…

I got out my shoe-box of postcards and started to sort them.  Over the span of an entire weekend, I sorted them all on my living-room floor into piles of postcards, with each pile consisting of all the postcards sent to one address.  I had about 10 to 15 piles of postcards – some were single-postcard piles; others were 10-20 postcard high. It would appear that within that job-lot were several collections from several different people; all from the Western Front.

Two piles puzzled me considerably. The handwriting appeared to be different and the signature/name was different on each pile of postcards.  But on the front of the majority of the postcards were pretty pictures of the same French village, and many postcards in both piles had messages referring to someone called “Unwin”.  I then had the first (of many) eureka moments, and I realised that the sender was the same person on each pile of postcards, but with a different signature/name.  This person was writing to a woman in Levington (Suffolk) and another woman in Plumstead (London).  The language in all the postcards was strange; slightly personal and, as such, implied a close personal relationship to both women. For a few wild moments, I thought I was reading the postcards of a soldier with two sweethearts!  But then it dawned on me that I was reading the postcards from a female writer; the personal language I’d detected in the messages was that of a woman.

I also realised that there were many postcards missing from the collection.  My unknown writer had obviously been a prolific sender of postcards.  But there were large gaps of weeks and months in the collection.  I can only assume that when the collection was in the unknown postcard dealer’s hands, s/he had sold some of the postcards which had more interesting pictures.

A couple of the postcards had the text “No 6” and “25th General”.  Another postcard had the abbreviation “N.S.” in the text of its message.  The penny dropped.  I was looking at the postcards from a female nurse.

I now knew that I had a collection of 21 postcards sent by a female nurse working in France.  A quick google on the “25th General” quickly led me to a British military hospital which was based in Hardelot, Pas des Calais. This was the same town whose pretty street and seaside photographs were on the majority of the postcards. I had found “my” nurse’s hospital.  From the dates on the postcards, I also knew that this nurse was probably nursing casualties from the Battles of the Somme.

But where to go from here?  An unnamed nurse.  Qualified nurse? Unqualified nurse? British?

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I started to go through census returns and other records on Findmypast for the two recipients of the postcards – an Evie Cripps of Plumstead and a Peg Woolnough of Levington.  I quickly found both women and as able to establish that Evie had a connection to Levington as it would appear that her mother had been born in this tiny Suffolk village.  Better still, Evie herself had very kindly and thoughtfully (for my research purposes) been staying with her Grandmother in Levington’s almshouses for the 1911 census. Also in the almshouses was Peg Woolnough’s grandmother. So there was my connection between the two recipients.  But who was the sender?

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Exactly a year ago, I posted a question on the Great War Forum originally requesting information about Number 25 General Hospital.  As the thread progressed, I quickly started to exchange messages with First World War nursing expert, Sue Light of Scarlet Finders.  To my absolute shock, within minutes she and I had managed to identify the sender of “my” postcards.  The sender was Clara Emily Mary Woolnough.  A mixture of her unusual combination of Christian names, along with her equally rare surname meant that there was absolutely no doubt what so ever that I had in my hands the postcards from British Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse Clara Emily Mary Woolnough from Levington Suffolk!

It was a total eureka moment.  I now had a name.  I also had the name of her hospital and also the hunch that she was nursing the injured from the Battles of the Somme.  I had gone from a “small white shoebox” with a dozen of so of her anonymous postcards to finally knowing her name.

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My next stop was Kew and The National Archives to consult the War Diaries of Number 25 General Hospital.  Last year, these diaries were not online and could only be consulted at Kew; they were only placed online earlier this year.  So I had an enjoyable day out at Kew, spent researching hard, but also meeting up with my fellow historians from my Open University days and eating cake with them.  Who said research has to be boring and relentless!

I had been warned by Sue Light that I was unlikely to find “my” VAD explicitly named in the War Diaries and that I might find very little detail.  However, what I did find thrilled me.  Clara was not named anywhere, but the Colonel in charge of the hospital had written extensive entries about the running of his hospital.  The entries were incredibly detailed and, as I read them, it became increasingly obvious that the hospital was taking vast numbers of casualties from the Battles of the Somme.

I knew I finally had the start of my book. And Clara and Gertrude’s story could be a chapter in it.  I started writing my chapter.  Unfortunately at this time, both women’s service records were not online on the website of the British Red Cross.  I had to piece together their story from a mixture of Clara’s postcards and the hospital’s War Diaries.  I thought I had a reasonable and interesting chapter…

How wrong was I!

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In June of last year, I was in the area of Levington and was at a loose end. I decided to pay a visit to Clara’s village of Levington.  I visited with my husband on a gloriously hot summer’s day and we pottered around her village and, of course, had a lovely lunch in the local pub.  The hot summer’s day, set in a beautiful quintessential English village overlooking the River Orwell, was in stark contrast to the horrific war I had been reading about in the war diaries of Number 25 General Hospital.  Clara, a country girl, had left this rural beauty of Suffolk, to nurse seriously injured men in a war zone

I took many photographs, and saw the name of Clara’s brother, George, on the village’s War Memorial.

I also went into the Church to take some more photographs where I found, to my great surprise, a beautiful stained glass window commemorating Clara’s family.

On my way out, almost as a last minute thought, I decided to write in the Church’s Visitors’ Book.  I wrote a fairly cryptic and short comment about Clara Woolnough being a VAD and left the church…

Unknown to me, Clara’s great-great nephew also visited the church at roughly the same time as me, in his search for his great-grandfather, George…

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Are you still with me? No-one ever said that historical research is easy or quick! Same for this blog post! But the story of Clara and her postcards just has to be recounted in full.

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About six weeks after I visited the church, I received an email from Levington’s Village Recorder, Louise.  She had seen my cryptic comment in the church’s visitor’s book and tracked me down using some remarkable detective work on the internet (which just goes to prove that no-one has anonymity and everyone leaves a foot-print on the internet!)

We arranged to meet-up in Levington, although the meeting didn’t take place until a very wet, wild and windy November morning.  We met in the local pub (where else!).  And during the course of a very interesting morning, I learnt about the Woolnoughs of Levington.

The family had been the village’s postmaster/postmistresses since the 1840s and Peg Levington (who Clara’s postcards were sent to) carried on the family tradition and was the postmistress throughout the first half of the twentieth century.  Louise indicated to me that George’s descendants had been in touch with her (I now know that Clara’s great-great nephew had visited the church just weeks after I did and on seeing my comment in the visitor’s book, decided to write his comment underneath!).  Louise passed my details on to them.

All I  could do was sit and wait for their email…. Although, at this stage, I still thought I had completed my chapter on Clara, and the rest of my book was slowly rolling into place…

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Still with me?

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In November, Clara’s great-great niece, contacted me.  A flurry of extremely excited emails passed backwards and forwards between us.  Her family, the Eversons, also had more postcards from/to Clara including a postcard to Clara from “Dick” and a postcard of a soldier in a uniform.  The family and Louise had already worked out that the soldier in the picture was wearing the cap badge of the Machine Gun Corp – which George Woolnough had not served in.  But, by this time I had researched Evie Cripps family and discovered that her brother Richard (also known as Dick) had been in the Machine Gun Corp at the time he was killed in action in 1916.  Everything fitted that this was a photograph of Richard.

It was incredible to all of us, that this unnamed soldier in the Everson family’s collection had finally been given a name.  Between us all, we had brought life back to a young man who had been killed in action a hundred years ago in 1916.  He is not forgotten.

The Everson also had in their possession a postcard from Richard “Dick” Cripps to Clara where he had cheekily asked if her fellow nurses looked like the nurse on the postcard.

Things were slowly starting to slot into place.

Clara was stepping more and more out of the shadows.

The Everson family also had her war service record from the British Red Cross; which they had requested back in the early 2000s. Up to this stage, I had been unable to gain access to her service record as her surname was at the end of the alphabet and the British Red Cross Society were slowly putting records online in alphabetical order.

Having her service records from the Everson family was another eureka moment because I could now piece together even more of her story and also had some more postcards – including the photograph of Richard Cripps to interweave with my story.

But still no photograph of Clara. The family didn’t have any photographs of her or her brother, George.

I rewrote my chapter and thought that was it.

Wrong!

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Shortly after New Year, I was in the final stages of my book and everything was practically ready to go off to the publisher.  I received another email from the Everson family.    This email nearly made me fall off my chair in absolute jaw-dropping amazement at the attachments.  The Everson family had found a photograph of Clara nursing at her hospital in Ipswich during the Christmas of 1915!!!

The Eversons didn’t realise at first that it was Clara, but her writing on the back – demonstrating that this was a Christmas card sent to her mother back in Levington – absolutely shows beyond reasonable doubt that Clara herself was in the photograph.

Here she is, VAD Clara Emily Mary Woolnough, when she was nursing at a tiny 40 bed hospital in Ipswich just months before she was sent to France and the Battles of the Somme.

I wrote my chapter once again and at last, could tell the full story of one of the many unsung heroines of the Battles of the Somme who had nursed wounded men throughout the battles; Clara Emily Mary Woolnough.  Known as “Babs” to her family in Levington, and “Darl” to her best friend in Plumstead; Clara had finally stepped out of the shadows..

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This time a year ago, I was sat at my desk, staring at “my” postcards saying to them – “Who are you”. This time this year, the story of a brave VAD who looked after men wounded during the Battles of the Somme can finally be told.

Do you believe that strange forces are sometimes at work and might bring together events, people and stories in an unbelievable way that can’t only be mere chance? I do.

Lest we forget

Postscript 1:  May 2016
On Saturday 28 May 2016, almost exactly a hundred years since Clara sent her first postcard home to her family in Levington in early June 1916, I will be meeting the Everson family in the village of Levington to give them a copy of my book with the story of their courageous aunt, Clara Emily Mary Woolnough and her nursing friend Gertrude Unwin.

Postscript 2: January 2017.
Sadly First World War nursing expert, Sue Light, passed away in July 2016. I will always be grateful to her for helping me to identify my postcards from Clara Woolnough. Thank you, Sue, RIP.

My dad, John Cole, who my book is dedicated to, also died last year – he died on 25 August 2016. He was very ill in the final year of his life and confined to bed in a nursing home. Despite his increasing frailty, he spent a great deal of my visits to him discussing the First World War and the postcards I was using in my books. Without him, my book (and my love for vintage postcards) would never have happened. Rest easy dad.

You may also be interested in
– Great Dunmow’s Military Funeral: A follow-up
– War and Remembrance: It’s a long way to Tipperary
– War and Remembrance: Great Dunmow’s Emergency Committee
– War and Remembrance: Great Dunmow’s Military Funeral 1914
– Postcard home from the front – The Camera never lies
– Postcards from the Front – from your loving son
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour
– For the Fallan
– Aftermath

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2016.

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.  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.  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.  Not least, because I never knew my granddad, as I was two when he died.  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.  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.

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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.  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.”  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”),  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.  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.  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.  I saw fully kilted uniformed Scottish soldiers, along with twenty-somethings wiping tears away.  Veterans, pensioners, London workers, tourists, young people and children all stood shoulder-to-shoulder.  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.  The building of War Memorials were highly emotional with bereaved communities totally unable to decide what was the best way to commemorate their dead.  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.  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.  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 ghostly images of Emanuel’s 1913 XV projected onto the school building. Eight of those boys never returned from the Great War.  They were my granddad’s schoolmates and later, his comrades in arms.  Among the 888,246 poppies at the Tower of London, 8 poppies represent the lost lives of these boys.

 

Lest we forget

 

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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.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in
– The war to end all wars
– Christmas Greetings from the Trenches
– Great Dunmow’s Military Funeral: A follow-up
– War and Remembrance: It’s a long way to Tipperary
– War and Remembrance: Great Dunmow’s Emergency Committee
– War and Remembrance: Great Dunmow’s Military Funeral 1914
– Postcard home from the front – The Camera never lies
– Postcards from the Front – from your loving son
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour
– For the Fallen
– Aftermath

© Essex Voices Past 2014.

A month ago, during the run-up to Remembrance Sunday, I retold the story of the December 1914 funeral of Boer War hero, Private William Gibson of the First Grenadier Regiment of the Foot Guards – Great Dunmow’s first military funeral.

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.  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.  

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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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.

Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in
– War and Remembrance: It’s a long way to Tipperary
– War and Remembrance: Great Dunmow’s Emergency Committee
– War and Remembrance: Great Dunmow’s Military Funeral 1914
– Postcard home from the front – The Camera never lies
– Postcards from the Front – from your loving son
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour
– For the Fallan
– Aftermath

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

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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Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in
– War and Remembrance: It’s a long way to Tipperary
– War and Remembrance: Military Funeral 1914
– War and Remembrance: Great Dunmow’s Emergency Committee
– Postcard home from the front – The Camera never lies
– Postcards from the Front – from your loving son
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour
– For the Fallan
– Aftermath

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Within my collection of postcards dating from the First World War is this very poignant card from a father to his young daughter.  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 A soldier of the Great War – 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.  These type of postcards were, no doubt, designed to boost the morale of the population.

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Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in
– War and Remembrance: Military Funeral 1914
– War and Remembrance: Great Dunmow’s Emergency Committee
– Postcard home from the front – The Camera never lies
– Postcards from the Front – from your loving son
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour
– For the Fallan
– Aftermath

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

A year ago, I told the story of the Willett family of Great Dunmow, and how local photographer and newsagent, Arthur Willett, often took photographs of the town’s happenings, including the photo below, which he captioned as “Military Funeral 1/12/14”

At the time of my post, I puzzled over whose funeral it was, as it appeared to be a funeral of a soldier from the First World War, but the date of the funeral did not match any man on the Commonwealth War Graves’ Debt of Honour for 1914.  An eagle-eyed reader of my blog spotted the answer in a book written by Great Dunmow’s local historian from the 1970s, Dorothy Dowsett.   In her book Through all the changing seasons, hidden amongst Miss Dowsett’s considerable writings about the town and its inhabitants, is the answer to my conundrum.

The Military Funeral shown in the postcard was not that of a First World War casualty, but the funeral of a war veteran from the Second Boer War (1899-1902),  Private William Gibson of the First Grenadier Regiment of the Foot Guards.

Private William Gibson, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, was the first soldier to be give a funeral with military honours in the town.  He died at the age of forty-six in 1914, and was buried at the parish church.  During his service he gained the Khartoum Medal, the South African Medal (1901), the Transvaal/Cape Colony Medal and the Sudan Medal.  William Gibson served in the London expedition of 1898 under Major-General Lord Kitchener.

Dorothy Dowsett, Through all the changing seasons, p171

Harry Payne’s postcard of the Grenadier Guards

1911 Census – Star Lane, Great Dunmow
William Gibson, Head, Married, aged 39, born 1872 Essex Stebbing, occupation Gas Stoker.
Sarah Gibson, Wife, Married, aged 42, born 1869 Essex Dunmow.
Charles Chevallier, Stepson, Single, aged 15, born 1896 Essex Dunmow
Ivy Chevallier, Stepdaughter, aged 11, born 1900 London Lambeth.

Sarah Gibson (nee Sarah Mead, b1871-d1955) married William Gibson in 1910.  Prior to her marriage, she had been married to a man with the wonderful name of Temple Edgecombe Chevaillier, who according to this website about the Mead family of Great Dunmow, either divorced or abandoned her by 1899/1901.  If you are interested in seeing a picture of Sarah Gibson, wife of the Boer War hero, the first man to be given a military funeral with full honours in the Essex town of Great Dunmow, do take a look at the Mead family website.

Star Lane, Great Dunmow.  Home of William and Sarah Gibson.  If you know Great Dunmow, you will know that the lane is very much the same as it was in the early 1900s.  The houses on the left are still there, but the tree has long since been cut down.

Follow-up December 2013:  Shortly after publishing this post, I bought at auction a series of postcards of Great Dunmow.  Amongst the postcards was another (different) photo of the 1914 Military Funeral.  My post Great Dunmow’s 1914 Military Funeral – A follow-up tells the story.

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Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in
– War and Remembrance: Great Dunmow’s Emergency Committee
– Postcard home from the front – The Camera never lies
– Postcards from the Front – from your loving son
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour
– For the Fallan
– Aftermath

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

It is a well known that during the Second World War (1939-1945), Britain prepared itself for the potential invasion of the country by Nazi Germany. However, not so well known is that during the First World War (1914-1918), with German Zeppelins flying over head in the skies above East Anglia and London, invasion by the Germans was also feared. Across rural East Anglia, various towns and villages set up Emergency Committees to inform and advise the population what to do in case of invasion.

Below is a leaflet written by Great Dunmow’s Emergency Committee informing the town what to do if the threat became reality and Germany invaded. The leaflet is dated January 1915, showing that fears of invasion had already been felt to be very real threat within the first 6 months of the Great War, and an evacuation plan had been drawn up.

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Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in
– Postcard home from the front – The Camera never lies
– Postcards from the Front – from your loving son
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour
– For the Fallan
– Aftermath

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

When I first starting writing this post, I thought I was writing about how three postcards showing Great Dunmow’s High Street, depict that the town did not change in a 25 year period between 1908 and 1932.  However, as I was writing my story, a mystery started to emerge, and, in unravelling this mystery, I realised that my postcards held the key to poignant story.  Instead of writing about an unchanging High Street, I was, to my great surprise, writing the story of an unknown soldier who had carried into the carnage of the Great War, a treasured photo of his home-town.

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Original post
Below are three postcards of Great Dunmow’s High Street – photos all taken from the location of roughly where the War Memorial is today.  Because the photos are so similar  you would be forgiven for thinking that these 3 photos were all taken at roughly the same time.

High Street, Great Dunmow, 1908.

High Street, Great Dunmow, 1918.

High Street, Great Dunmow, 1932.

Look again.  There are horse drawn carriages in the first two, but cars in the last.  These three postcards show Great Dunmow’s unchanging High Street over a 25 year period – 1908 to 1932. Fortunately, all these cards have been postally used or dates written on the back so this information can be used to date them.

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Stop! The camera never lies! My rewritten post…
Can postmarks or dates on backs of postcards be used to date a photograph?  Look closely at the first two postcards – the first was postally used in 1908 and the second was written on the back in 1918.  They are almost identical – including the street sign left of the centre of the card and the extent to which the foilage has grown on all the trees and bushes.  Modern technology has meant that by digitally scanning both these postcards the sign has been revealed and it reads

Staceys Noted Home Grown Tomatoes ? per lb

Stacey’s sign from 1918 postcard

Stacey’s sign from 1908 postcard

Whilst the 1908 photo is very fuzzy and almost undecipherable, it can (just) be made out that the sign has five lines (as does the 1918 sign) and the width of each line of text exactly matches each line on the 1918 sign. The fourth line down could quite easily be “TOMATOES”. It is possible that Great Dunmow’s nurseryman, Stacey, had the same sign in the same location 10 years apart.  But identical foliage and vegetation? Is this too much of a coincidence?  In all respects, the two postcards seem almost identical but supposedly photographed 10 years apart.   This seemed very curious and so I investigated further…

The 1918 postcard was from the lens of Willett of Great Dunmow and is numbered 511.  The military photos on my post here, were clearly taken by Willett during the Great War and dated 1914, but have higher numbers – 830 & 853.  Our street scene postcard, written on in 1918, has a much lower number.  Therefore, our 1918 postcard certainly pre-dates the Great War and must have been written on some years after the photo taken.  This intrigued me, so, for the first time since I purchased this card, I read the back of the 1918 card:

Back of 1918 postcard

France June 10/6/18
This places [sic] is where Mrs L?y?e lives.
Please take care of these for me, all is well at present.
Much love to all
From Robert
By the time you receive this we shall be in action again.

Could the unreadable name be ‘Mrs Lyle’? In which case, Robert’s female friend was one of the Lyle’s of Great Dunmow, whose son, Hayden Stratton Lyle M.C. of the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles, although alive and well at the time of this message, was killed in action just 5 days before the Armistice.

Robert’s message, written possibly in the trenches during the slow days before battle, is so tantalising and raises so many questions which can never be answered…  Who was he writing to? What did he want the recipient to ‘take care of’? Why did Robert have a pre-war postcard of Great Dunmow?  The style in which his message is written gives very strong unwitting testimony that Great Dunmow was not his, Robert’s, home town.  If it was his home town, Robert would surely have said something similar to ‘This place is where I live’ – not his message ‘This places is where Mrs L?y?e lives.‘  So who had given him a postcard of Great Dunmow? Was it one of Mrs Lyle’s sons – Hayden, Robert or William – all of whom were in France/Flanders in 1918?

Had this postcard come from another unknown soldier, possibly a Lyle, who
carried a photo of his much-loved home town into battle?

Whoever you were, Robert, and whatever happened to you, I salute you, and want you to know your postcard reached its home.  95 years to the day after you sent this postcard home from the battlefields of France, I am retelling the story of you and your unknown friend from Great Dunmow.

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Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

The transcriptions below are from Great Dunmow Parish Council Minutes held by the Essex Record Office, Chelmsford – SEAX Catalogue D/J 88/2/1 (1894-1936).

Great Dunmow Wednesday 17th April 1918
At a meeting of inhabitants of the Parish of Great Dunmow called by the Rev W J House and W H Pace for the purpose of discussing the desirability of erecting a suitable memorial to Dunmow men who had fallen during the present war and held in the Church Schoolroom this evening there present:-

The Rev W J House, The Rev W H Pace Mr Wm Hasler (Chairmen of the Parish Council) and a large number of ladies and gentlemen, inhabitants of the Parish

On the proposition of J W King it was unanimously carried that Mr William Hasler take the Chair.

Mr Hasler suitably addressed the meeting and asked those present to put forward their views.

The Rev W H Pace spoke at length and moved that a war memorial of some sort be erected by the inhabitants.

The Rev W J House addressed the meeting and supported the Rev W H Pace, and moved that a Committee be formed with a view to providing a temporary institute at once and to take such steps as may be necessary to provide a permanent institute. J W King and many others also spoke and expressed their views, when, after considerable discussion, the proposals of the Rev W H Pace and the Rev W J House were, by consent of the Chairmen withdrawn.

The Rev W J House then moved that a committee be formed to consider what form the proposed shall take. This was seconded by J W King. Before putting this to the meeting J Gibbons and J V Mackenzie spoke on the resolution and L C Mackenzie moved an amendment that the whole question be adjoined until peace was declared.

The Chairman put the amendment to the meeting, which was defeated. The resolution was put to the meeting and was carried by a large majority. Resolved unanimously that a Committee of 25 ladies & gentlemen be appointed, with power to add to their number, the following persons were unanimously appointed:-

Mrs Armstrong
Rumsey
Tench
Serfe
Gibbons

Messers Rev W J House
J V Mackenzie
G Lowe
W H Mills
H W King
F W Baldey
Dr J H Gardiner
J Newman
Major Hasler
R R Smith
F J Nicholls
H Rumsey
L G Saville
A J Mills
J W Beard
P Tyler
H J Sewell
Dr Tench
A R Spurgeon

The Rev W H Pace kindly consented to act as Hon Secretary to this committee and to convene its first meeting.

A note of thanks to the chairmen for presiding <illegible> the meeting

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Thursday 3rd October 1918 – Proposed War Memorial
The Chairman stated that the Committee appointed by a meeting of inhabitants to consider the question of a war memorial for the Parish had requested him to call another meeting of inhabitants and asked those present to fix a date for this purpose. After consideration it was resolved that the meeting be called on Friday 18th October 1918 at 7 o clock pm at the Church Schools, provided this date and time is suitable to the Rev W J House and W H Pace

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Dunmow 18th October 1918 – Proposed War Memorial
At a meeting of the inhabitants of the Parish of Great Dunmow held in the Church Schoolroom on Friday the 18th Day of October 1918, to receive the report of the Committee appointed to deal with the question of War Memorial, there were present

Mr W Hasler J P 
In the Chair
The Rev W J House, M.A. & W H Pace B.D. and many ladies and gentlemen inhabitants of the parish.

The Notice calling the meeting was read

The minutes of the last meeting of inhabitants were read, confirmed & signed

The Report of the Committee was presented by the Rev W H Pace as under:-

The Committee elected, met on May 10th and asked the following to serve as co-opted members of the Committee:- Capt. Bacon, Lieut Col J Gibbons, Messrs E J Bond, A Bovill, A E Floyd, J Gibbons L C Mackenzie, F Robus, W O Sharp, J Smith, R Stacey, C L Suthery, W de Vins Wade & C Welch all of whom consented.

Messers J Bacon J L Livermore, J H Trembath declined.
Miss Lyle & Mr E J Foakes did not reply.

The following offices were chosen:-
Chairman Mr J Hasler JP
Vice-Chairmen Dr J W Gardiner
Treasurer Mrs C S Suthery
Secretary Rev W H Pace

The committee met again on May 24th and listened to the Rev R L Gwynne who pleaded for a cottage hospital as a worthy memorial.

Dr Gardiner proposed the following resolution:-
“That this committee sets before itself the task not only of raising a memorial to the Fallen, but also of commemorating and as far as possible perpetuating the spirit of self-sacrifice and co-operation in the cause of humanity, in which our country undertook, and is carrying on the war, in the hope of making the world a better place for men to live in. This was carried, as was the further resolution, moved by the Rev W H Pace. That an Executive Committee of six, in addition to the officers already elected be appointed to take steps for the building of a Social Club and the erection of a Memorial to the Fallen as the Dunmow War Memorial. The following were elected:- Mrs Armstong (who asked to be excused from serving) The Rev W J House, Messers J W Beard, E J Bond, H Rurnelly & W de Vins Wade.

The Executive Committee has met on four occasions. At the first meeting Mrs C S Suthery reported the receipt of the following generous offers to the fund for providing a Social Club, providing five others gave sums of £500. Messrs Hasler & Clapham £1,000, A Bovill £500, W Hasler £500. An offer for a house for sale in the town was made but not accepted.

Arising out of the question of framing an appeal for funds for the Social Club came a division of opinion as to what restrictions, if any were to be laid down for the running of the Club. The committee found itself unable to agree, and on Friday August 16th, the whole Executive resigned. The General Committee accepted the resignation and reformed the election of the new committee to this meeting.

The Chairmen addressed the meeting

The Rev W J House spoke and moved that the resignation of the Committee be accepted, this was seconded by the Rev W H Pace and carried mem con.

After further discussion it was proposed by the Rev W J House seconded by the Rev W H Pace, that new Committee be formed, with a mandate from this meeting to follow up the proposals of a Social Club, etc. Public Hall and memorial in Stone.

Mr J Trembath then addressed the meeting, and moved as an amendment that the whole question of a memorial be left over until the men now on Active Service return home. The Amendment failed to find a seconder.

The Chairmen put the Resolution to the meeting, which was carried with one dissenter.

After considerable discussion in which many took part, the Resolution appointing a new Committee was by general consent withdrawn, and it was proposed by F J Nicholls, seconded by A Dennis and carried mem con that the original Executive Committee be re-appointed with power to add to this number and that it be an instruction from this meeting that they are to confine their activities to raising the funds necessary for the proposed Social Club etc Public Hall and memorial in Stone and not to discuss questions of management and other details

It was further agreed that the Committee should report to another meeting of inhabitants before spending any money or making any commitments.

A vote of thanks to the Chairman for presiding terminated the proceedings

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Thursday 14th November 1918 – Proposed War Memorial
A letter dated the 1st November 1918 from the Rev W H Pace Hon Secretary of the Executive Committee appointed by the Inhabitants was read and after considerable discussion it was proposed by J Gibbons and seconded by A J Mills that a Committee be formed to issue an appeal for funds to provide a suitable memorial in Stone to be placed in the centre of the town on some other spot that may be agree upon. On being put to the meeting six voted for the Resolution and one (the Chairman) against. Resolved unanimously that the Committee consist of three members of the council. Messrs A Dennis, J Gibbons A J Mill, three inhabitants of the town, The Rev W J House & W H Pace mr E O Davey ex officio membus. C S Suthery as Treasurer and L G Machenziie as Hon Secretary

Thursday 27th March 1919 – Proposed War Memorial Committee appointed
The Chairman then addressed the meeting on the question of the proposed War Memorial Hall & explained the position of affairs up to that date. After considerable discussion it was unanimously resolved that a Committee should now be appointed by this council to carry on.

Proposed by J W Beard seconded A J Mills unanimously carried that the following person constitute the committee and that power be granted them to co-opt

P Andrews
Gardiner J N
Tench A
Southery C as Hon Treasurers
Dennis A
Hasler Wm
Wade w de v
Boyce Serg Major & Perry A as ex-service men
Floyed A
Hasler
Major Welch
Col J M Gibbons
J Stacey
R Turner

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Thursday 25th March 1920 – Proposed War Memorial Committee
This committee reported as under:-

1. That the proposed scheme for a Town Hall and club be abandoned on the grounds that it appears to lack sufficient support both moral & financial having regard to the fact that only 120 houses out of 620 had responded to the appeal.

2. That public notice of this should be given by way of printed bills

3. That this Committee be retained to act & proceed to obtain a sum of at least £1000 for the purpose of erecting a stone memorial to be placed on the Downs near the Doctors Pond or some other suitable suite.

4. That the public also be asked to subscribe towards a fund for the Club.

Proposed by F J Baldry seconded by W G Sell that the report of the Committee be seconded & adopted. Carried.

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Gt Dunmow 7th July 1921
Reports of Committees – War Memorial Committee

Col J Gibbons Chairman of this Committee gave a brief resume of the proceeding of same and a statement of the finances.

Draft Programme of the unveiling by Lord Byng on the 17th inst was submitted and also of the general poster inviting the inhabitants to attend.

Proposed by A Dennis seconded by L G Savill and unanimously carried that the report be received and adopted.

The Clark was instructed to order a suitable laurel wreath in order that the Chairman may place same at the foot of the memorial on behalf of the inhabitants.

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From Essex Chronicle, Friday 22 July 1921

Dunmow Memorial Unveiled by Bishop of Chelmsford and Lord Byng
On Sunday the two war memorials to the 84 Dunmow men who fell in the Great War were publicly unveiled in the presence of large gatherings. In the morning the marble tablet in church was unveiled and dedicated by the Bishop of Chelmsford and in the afternoon the public memorial, a stone column erected in High Street, upon the open space at the bottom of New Street was unveiled by General Lord Byng of Vimy who resided for some years at Newton Hall, Dunmow, before removing to Thorpe Hall, Thorpe-le-Soken. The tablet in church, which is of beautiful design, was provided by the relatives of the fallen soldiers, and the public memorial in High Street was provided at a cost of £760 by subscription in the parish. The subscription totalled £1,073 and it was arranged that the balance should go to the Dunmow Social Club which was founded as a war memorial to be of use to the young men of the parish. Col Tom Gibbons D.S.O was chairman of the Dunmow committee with Mr C.S. Suthery (of Barclays Bank) hon tres., and Mr L C Mackenzie hon sec. The public memorial is a handsome triangular Portland stone column upon a circular granite base and upon each side there is carved in relief a cross. Upon the front panel of the monument is inscribed: “Remember the men of this place who died for freedom and honour A.D. 1914-1918”. The names occupy the sides of the column. Mr. Basil Oliver was architect for the memorial. Union Jacks were flying a half-mast over Dunmow, and half muffled peals were rung upon the church bells.

The Church Memorial
The tablet in church which is placed in the south wall near the font is by Mr K Smith of Dunmow Monumental Works. There was a full congregation for the morning service, which was conducted by the Rev. W J House, vicar of Dunmow. The Rev John Evans, vicar of St Mary’s Colchester and formerly vicar of Dunmow, read the opening sentences of the burial service. The Rev B E F Mitchell M.C. curate of Dunmow served as Bishop’s chaplain. The first lesson from Wisdom 3 1-16 was read by Col Tom Gibbons D.S.O who commanded the 5th Essex in Egypt and the second lesson, St John 14 1-16 was read by the Rev R E F Mitchell. Psalms 15 and 121 were chantged. During the singing of the hymn “O valiant hearts” the Bishop and clergy proceeded to the south aisle where the Bishop released the Union Jack covering the tablet, and dedicated the tablet. The hymn “Soldiers who are Christ’s below” was sung during the return to the chancel and the Bishop ascended the pulpit.

The Bishop of Chelmsford said that service would live in their memories when other services were forgotten, because it touched their hearts and souls. The restless world needed re-assuring to-day that Christ was alive. No one who believed in God could be a pessimist, he must be an optimist. Men needed the proper perspective. He had been asked “What have we got out of the war?” and “Was it worth while?” From the point of view of pounds, shillings and pence it was all loss but no nation surely would plunge the world into a gigantic struggle for the sake of getting richer by commerce? All the trade of the world was not worth Dunmow men who had fallen, and there were millions fallen all over the world. We want to war for something higher then financial prosperity – for freedom, liberty, righteousness, justice – the things that counted. And now we had the victory the privilege purchased at so great a loss had to be properly used. Materialism was looming too large in the world. Had it been so in 1914 we should have lost the war. When in 1914 the Kitchener posters announced “Your King and country need you,” the men of Dunmow did not stop to ask if it would pay. The pay was only 1s a day, but the men left their homes without any thought of being paid. The same call was needed in peace as in war. Christ spoke today and said “I am alive; you cannot leave Me out without detriment to the world and yourselves”. The time was coming when Christian men and women would have to confess Him openly. For two thousand years men had been saying “Thy Kingdom come” but they never thought of communication between that prayer and public policy. The Christian would only have one kind of politics – that which would bring in the will of God. They should regard the ballot box with that idea alone. There was much talk in the world about death, but Christ had abolished death, the grave was a corridor into life. If we looked at death from the right point of view we could never be sorry for anyone who had passed beyond the grave. Of course, it was human nature to sorrow, but people should rejoice that their dear ones had gone to the region of growth and development. He believed in the communion of saints, and every Sunday morning when he went out on his work he could not help thinking that his late father was praying. “God bless John” as he did when he was a boy at home. When people got up beyond, they would almost laugh at how much they were worried about small things on earth.

Kipling’s Recessional was sung, and the service concluded with the National Anthem.

The tablet in church bears the following inscription, surrounded by a green laurel wreath, from which hangs a gilded Crusader’s sword, dividing the two columns of names of the fallen. “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.”

The public memorial
Lord and Lady Byng were the guests of Col and Mrs Tom Gibbons at Dunmow, and on walking up to the memorial the General was received by a guard of honour composed of local ex-Service men under Lieut A C Knight, Essex Regt. The 5th Essex Territorials under Lieut Hinton (Braintree) held a hollow square facing the monument and saluted General Bung who inspected both the ex-Service men and the Territorials. The General chatted with all the ex-soldiers, including one who had lost a leg. The children of the Sunday Schools were on the side opposite to the troops and the crowd gathered around. The Dunmow Town Band in Mr Floyd’s garden near the monument accompanied the singing of hymns. Among those present besides Gen and Lady Byng were the Countess of Warwick and the hon Mrs Maynard Greville, the Bishop of Chelmsford, the clergy and ministers, the committee and the Dunmow Parish Council. The service opened with the hymn “For all the Saints”. The Rev W J House, vicar, offered prayer, and the Rev W H Pace B.D (Chelmsford formerly Congregational pastor at Dunmow) read the Scriptures.

The Dunmow Record
Col J M Welch, T.D., D.L. on behalf of the people of Dunmow offered Gen. Lord Byng a hearty welcome to Dunmow and thanked him for his kindness in attending to unveil the memorial. Dumow people knew Lord Byng not only as a great soldier, but also as a former resident and they remembered him as a kind neighbour, for whom they had the greatest respect. (Hear, hear). Out of a population of 2,800 Dunmow contributed 600 men to the fighting forces of the country during the war, and of that number he was glad to say that 418 offered themselves during the early stages of the war, when men were most urgently need, and before any form of compulsory service was introduced. There were 84 Dunmow men who fell in the war. Their names on that monument would serve to remind future generations of the duty nobly done and the sacrifice made, that our people might live in peace and freedom. They would further remind people that they had a duty to perform by their lives and conduct to be worthy of the great sacrifice made. (Hear, hear).

General Lord Byng then released the Union Jack by which the monument was enshrouded. He said they had met to pay a last tribute to the 84 Dunmow men who gave their lives in the great war, and to ensure that those names should be handed down to future generations. He asked the people to remember what the tribute to the fallen should be. They paid lip service by prayers and hymns, but was there not something more to be done in the way of tribute to the men who gave their everything for the nation? Would not the men who had fallen expect that in the future those who remained should try to fulfil what the fallen in the past did so nobly? It was the greatest thing a moral man could do to give his life for his country, yet it was a simple thing to do for it was simply in answering the call of duty that the men lost their lives.

Great and simple
These 84 Dunmow boys did a very grand and a very simple thing, ought not those who had got through the 4½ years of war with their lives to try to carry through what those boys made the sacrifice for – to preserve and continue their country as a prosperous whole? They must not only pay respect to the dead. They must also fulfil the object to attain that for which the boys who had fallen gave up all the blessings of this life. The time was now to consider if the ambition of the boys who gave all to make this country happy and better for the war could not be realised. With those words he would leave the people to consider what was in front of each one to do now and in the future.

The hymn “O God, our help in ages past” was sung, and the Bishop of Chelmsford, having dedicated the memorial said there was a right and a wrong way to re-make England after the war. Those who had served in the war knew that England could not be put right with cannon and rifle, and did not want to see the horrors of war in France and Flanders brought home to the women and children of England. A better way was by service and sacrifice. The war was not won by dividing class from class, but by all classes working together. England must be rebuilt sanely and soundly to be made worthy of the comrades who had gone. The Bishops asked the boys as the passed the memorial to doff their caps to their fathers and brothers who had fallen. God had carried us through the war and He could bring us the peace to our native land, so that all the loss and sacrifice endured should not be in vein.

Col Gibbons read the deed conveying the memorial to the Dunmow Parish Council, and the Chairman, Mr J W Beard, accepted the memorial on behalf of the parish and hoped that peace would remain among all nationalities. Buglers sounded the “Last Post”. The Bishop of Chelmsford pronounced the Benediction, buglers sounded “Reveille” and the proceedings closed with the singing of the National Anthem.

Relatives then placed floral tributes on the monument. Lieut Lockwood, 5th Essex, in uniform, placed a laurel wreath tied with the Essex Regiment colours, black, blue and yellow from the 5th Essex Comrades’ Association; Mr W R Siggers placed a wreath from the Dunmow branch N.A.D.S.S and Mr A B Perry placed a floral tribute from the Dunmow Priory Lodge, R.A.O.B.

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From Essex and Herts Observer

Dunmow
MEMORIAL TABLET.-A memorial service for the members of the congregation who fell in the War was held at the Dunmow Congregational Church on Sunday morning, when a memorial tablet, bearing the names of the men, was unveiled by the Pastor (the Rev. W.H. Pace). The tablet of green marble, has been erected by subscriptions from members. It bears the inscription: “In ever grateful remembrance of Fredierick Attridge, Alfred T. Caton, Walter V. Jakins, Ralph Milbank, Frank L. Pitts, Arthur T. Reed, William G. Saunders, H. Mackenzie Scarfe, Victor Spurgeon, A.Edgard Yeldham, John S. Wackrill, of this congregation, who yielded up life in the Great War, 1914-1918, for our sakes.” The Paster made felling allusion to the occasion, and the choir sang the anthem, “What are these?”. Kipling’s recessional was also sung.

 

 

You may also be interested in
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour

 

School Trip Friday for the academically challenged
will return next Friday.

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.

Mrs H Spurgeon, The Avenue, Great Dunmow, Essex, England

My dear wife and sonny
Received card this morning, Monday. Please to hear you received order. Thank you very much for it and it is very nice. I have sent you one of the Sherwood Foresters I thought perhaps you would like one. Please to hear you are both quite well. I am also. Have you received my letter about Xmas. We saw the New Year in and enjoyed our selves. Do you remember last year how we all enjoyed our selves. Did you hear from any of them this Xmas. Kindly remember me to them and all of them. Will write later. Wishing you a happy New Year from Harry

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Harry’s younger brother, Lance Corporal Victor Spurgeon, the baby of the Spurgeon family,  of the 11th Battalion of the Essex Regiment died aged 28 in France on 8th October 1918 and is commemorated on the Vis-En-Artois Memorial in Pas de Calais.    The memorial has the names of over 9,000 men who fell in battle from 8 August 1918 to 11 November 1918 who have no known grave.

Victor is commemorated on Great Dunmow’s War Memorial.

Great Dunmow’s War Memorial
Victor’s name is immediately underneath the first join

Their Name Liveth For Evermore

1891 Cenus – High Street, Great Dunmow
Spurgeon, Herbert J, Head, aged 42, born 1849 Stambourne, occupation Corn Factors Assistant
Spurgeon, Ann M, Wife, aged 40, born 1851, Great Dunmow
Spurgeon, Grace A, Daughter, aged 16, born 1875 Warboys, Huntingdonshire
Spurgeon, Kate G, Daughter, aged 14, born 1877 Warboys, occupation Dressmakers Apprentice
Spurgeon, Harry B, Son, aged 12, born 1879 Warboys, occupation Scholar
Spurgeon, Ernest H, Son, aged 10, born 1881 Warboys, occupation Scholar
Spurgeon, Mabel J, Daughter, aged 7, born 1884 Broxted, occupation Scholar
Spurgeon, William G, Son aged 3, born 1888 Great Dunmow
Spurgeon, Victor, Son, aged 0 (9mths), born 1891, Great Dunmow

1901 Census – New Street, Great Dunmow
Spurgeon, Herbt, Head Widower, aged 52, born 1849 Stambourne, occupation Late Coal Agent
Spurgeon, Harry, Son, aged 22, born 1879 Warboys, occupation Printer
Spurgeon, Ernest, Son, aged 20, born 1881 Warboys, occupation Clothier’s Assistant
Spurgeon, Mabel, Daughter, aged 17, born 1884 Broxted, occupation Housekeeper
Spurgeon, Wm, Son, aged 13, born 1888 Great Dunmow, occupation Butcher’s Apprentice
Spurgeon, Victor, Son, aged 11, born 1890 Great Dunmow

1911 census
Household of Herbert Spurgeon is not in the 1911 Census – perhaps he was dead by 1911.

1911 Census – High Street Great Dunmow
Spurgeon, Harry Burton, Head, aged 32, born 1879 Warboys, occupation Printer
Spurgeon, Mary, Wife married 5 years, aged 28, born 1883 Great Dunmow

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You may also be interested in
– Memorial Tablet – I died in hell
– Memorial Tablet – I died of starvation
– Memorial Tablet – I died of wounds
– The Willett family of Great Dunmow
– Postcard from the Front – To my dear wife and sonny
– War and Remembrance – The Making of a War Memorial
– Great Dunmow’s Roll of Honour

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.