Each month an article appears in The Graphic to publicise the Lest We Forget book, to pay respects to those that paid the ultimate sacrifice to their country and to show the impact a small geographical area had on the world stage.
AUGUST 1914:
Four years prior, Newton Burgoland born Arthur Compton had moved to work on his Uncle’s farm in New Zealand in what must have been exciting times. In August 1914 he would have read the news that Britain had declared war on the German Empire in support of her allies. Within weeks he had enlisted in the armed forces along with many in New Zealand, ready to come to the aid of the motherland. Depending on the author’s point of view you will either get the ‘Lions led by Donkey’s’ view that was popular in the day or that Haig and the Army top brass were hamstrung by politicians and from their allies – which sounds reminiscent of modern day conflicts. I’m not making a judgement on either side but it has to be said that the tactics employed in the latter years of the war were more profound and more effective than those of the early years, even though the majority of the casualties were sustained in these later years but then the previously static war of sporadic engagements gradually became more fluid. They say that two in every three families were impacted by the war in one way or another. The memorials in St Christopher’s and St Denys churches bare testament to the large numbers of families that suffered the devastation of losing fathers, sons, brothers, cousins, neighbours and friends. Even smaller settlements such as Odstone, Newton Burgoland or Swepstone were not spared the losses. Wherever the headlines were being made, men from this little corner of Leicestershire were there doing they’re part. It didn’t matter if you were the Director of the Ibstock Colliery or one of the men working the coal face, you would suffer the same fate if your time was up.
SEPTEMBER 1914:
At the beginning of the Great War, men enlisted in their droves, keen to see a bit of excitement for what was thought would be over by Christmas. Later, when the number of enlistments weren’t sufficient for the losses being endured, first the selection criteria was relaxed, later the Derby Scheme was introduced registering all able bodied men yet to enlist as well as the unofficial means of encouraging enlistment – the infamous white feathers. A hundred years ago this month saw a rush of eager men enlisting – The three Wright brothers of Ibstock, John Pepper from Heather, Edward Orton from Kendal Road in Ellistown and Walter Pettitt a short walk away on Ibstock Road plus Edgar Butler another lad from Ellistown who had emigrated to Australia a number of years before only to die on the beaches of Galipoli just months later. The local newspapers were filled with pictures of mass parades, stories portraying the glamour and excitement that lay ahead and the pictures of happy smiling men waiting in the station platforms for their transport to arrive, our area was no different. The area suffered its first casualty this month when on the 21st September Bagworth resident Private George Paston of the Kings Liverpool Regiment was killed as the two sides raced to the coast after the initial engagements, in an attempt to outflank each other. George was part of the small professional standing army that Britain already had, men who had already been trained in what to expect in combat and who would encounter as much of a surprise in the change in tactics as those that would follow on later, men of the British Expeditionary Force. These men may have been outnumbered by an enemy that had time to prepare beforehand, but could still out shoot and out fight the forces ranged against them.
OCTOBER 1914:
Where as September had seen the first tentative engagements between units of the Allies and the Central powers, October saw these sporadic engagements grow both in intensity and size. October saw the first units of British Royal Naval Division arrive at Antwerp to support their Belgian comrades in the stand against overwhelming German numbers. With too few ships to accommodate all the volunteers Churchill came up with the idea of establishing land based fighting units who insisted on maintaining naval protocol. Amongst their number was Arthur Griffin of Chapel Street in Ibstock. October also saw the first contingents set sail for England from Canadian and Newfoundland Expeditionary Forces (Newfoundland wouldn't join the Canadian confederation until 1949) plus the first units from New Zealand and Australian. Numerous local men served with the Leicestershire Regiment and the 1st Bn added two new honours to the already long list on their colours in September 1914 at La Bassee and Armentiers. Many units of the British standing army were recalled from the furthest corners of the empire. This included the 2nd Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment which had been stationed in India at the declaration of war and landed at Marseilles on the 12th October 1914. September and October saw a rush of volunteers to enlist at the Coalville and Leicester recruiting offices. At the age of 20, Heather resident William Pearson enlisted in Coalville only to be discharged 39 days later for having flat feet. It seems in 1914 the army could afford to be picky with the men they took on and William would have to wait until 1915 when the criteria for enlistment was relaxed to serve his country. Far from being a young mans game, Josiah Cooper of 70 Leicester Road in Ibstock, enlisted at Coalville at the tender age of 49 years and 99 days. Having spent his youth climbing to the rank of Corporal 30 years before in the fledgling Leicestershire Regiment, Jesse as he was called, re-enlisted within weeks of war being declared, around the time his son Arthur was enlisting in Kitcheners New Army.
NOVEMBER 1914:
This month saw the first WW1 casualties for Heather, Ravenstone and would lead to Ibstock's first loss. All three men were already serving in the British Army before war broke out. Heather's Sydney Sharpe was killed in action during the First Battle of Ypres which would ultimately claim the life of Kenneth Thomson, one the two Thomson brothers remembered on the Memorial in Central Avenue - but more about him next month. Sydney Sharpe was serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards when war broke out and therefore was one of the first soldiers to set foot on Belgian soil. Ypres was a strategic position but before reaching Mons they were stopped in their tracks. The War Diary records 'The inhabitants welcomed the battalion with enthusiasm and with enormous quantities of coffee and new bread, which more than counteracted the fatigue of the march and the somewhat depressing effect of rather heavy rain; the usual cheeriness and optimism of the men were soon restored, and most of them spent the time singing with some impartiality selections from the music halls and hymns Ancient and Modern'. Ravenstones Jacob Andrews was serving with the 1st Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment was killed in action at Armentieres in Northern France.
DECEMBER 1914:
Many people will remember the stories of the Christmas day football match in No Man's Land between the Allies and the Central Powers. Reports suggest it wasn't a one off either and a number of incidents of fraternization along the 400 plus miles of the trench system. Sadly what Christmas joy there was in the Thomson household would be short lived as they would receive the news that their son/brother Kenneth had died from wounds on the 30th December aged just 22. Along with his brother who you will hear about in a few months time, Kenneth is the highest ranked man commemorated on the memorial on Central Avenue. He was a Lieutenant with the 2nd Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers and as such was expected to lead his men by example by leading from the front and goes someway to explain his injuries during the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914. It might seem strange to commemorate a man in Ibstock born on the outskirts of Glasgow but then so many of the men commemorated were born from all over the country, brought here by the coalmine where the Brick works is now sited. In reality Kenneth was another of those, his father and uncle owned the Colliery at Ibstock, his maternal grandfather was the village doctor and Kenneth spent his youth here before going on to be a boy soldier at Sandhurst.
JANUARY 1915:
This is one of the rare months that I don't have a local casualty to highlight but that does not mean there was plenty going on. Set piece battles weren't possible because of the weather conditions but men still faced danger on a daily basis, either from shells or from snipping activity. In wider arena on the 19th January, England suffered it's first Airship raid by a Zeppelin and on the 24th the Kaiserliche Marine cruiser SMS Blücher was sunk by the Royal Navy off Dogger Bank in revenge for the Blücher taking part in the shelling of Hartlepool and Scarborough late in 1914. In a twist of irony the ship was named after the Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher who was allied with the Duke of Wellington a hundred years earlier to crush Napoleon's French army at Waterloo, approximately 90 miles from stretches of the Western Front. On the 5th January 1915 Ibstock born Albert Preston was queueing up at the Nottingham recruiting office to enlist in 13th Battalion Sherwood Forresters, while the following week on the 11th January Samuel Richards from Orchard Street in Ibstock was setting foot on French soil for the first time with the 2nd Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. Later in the month on the 23rd William Emmerson, the son of the Bagworth colliery manager, Jabez Emmerson, was doing the same with the Kings Liverpool Regiment.
FEBRUARY 1915:
There are two streets in Heather that owe their name to a sad anniversary on the 11th of this month. John Henry HOLYOAKE was born in Sheepy Magna in 1888 and was another member of Britain's standing army when the Great War broke out and was to die from wounds on the 11th February 1915. He had enlisted as early as 1909 and served with the second Battalion Leicestershire Regiment and was probably one of those that were called back from service in India to form the second wave of the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium and France. His name is commemorated at both St John's church plus the former chapel nearby by and when East Midlands Housing (itself staffed by a number of ex-servicemen) built Holyoake Cresent and Holyoake Drive fifty years later, they decided to name the streets in his memory. John was actually wounded in the Battle of Givenchy at the end of December but it was to be another seven weeks before he succumbed to his injuries. John had a brother, William who was also to die in the war but not before distinguishing himself in action and earning the Military Medal.
MARCH 1915:
March 1915 starts the gradual increase in local casualties during the Great War which would reach its peak in September 1918. This month two families would receive the devastating news that they had lost loved ones. John Twigg was born in Nailstone Wood in 1886 and was another serving soldier when war broke out. He enlisted with the 2nd Battalion Leicestershire regiment back in 1904 as an eighteen year old and would have been one of those soldiers shipped back from serving in India to form the second wave of the British Expeditionary Force. His previous ten years service had been as a Private but on briefly landing back on British he received three quick promotions as the ranks were swelled with newer recruits. He was a Sergeant on the 13th March 1915 when he was killed in action during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. Neuve Chapelle was the first large scale battle that the 2nd Battalion had fought in and it was where the Leicestershire Regiment lived up to their nickname of the 'Tigers'. 10 Victoria Crosses were awarded as a result of the Battle including Leicesters William Buckingham from the 2nd Battaion. The second March casualty was Ibstock born James Young and was a veteran of the Boer War in South Africa, as a reservist he was one of the first to be called up within days of the declaration of War back in August 1914. He was serving with the 2nd Battalion Sherwood Forresters at Houplines in France when he was wounded in the arm but having lost a lot of blood he passed away on the 19th March. His son, another James, was just 11 years old when his father died.
APRIL & MAY 1915:
100 years ago two battles began which, along with Passchandaele, would come to epitomise the major loss of life during WW1. 22nd April 1915 was the start of the battle for control of the strategic Belgian town called Ypres - the immediate area would see numerous battles right the way through WW1 until October 1918. Charles Avins was the first casualty from Snarestone when he was killed on the 29th April, he was with the 1st Battalion Leicestershire Regiment and had previously spent 8 years serving with the Tigers in India. During May 1915 the Battle of St Julien; which was part of the Ypres offensive, claimed the lives of two more Snarestone men, Joseph Redfern was serving with the 1st Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment and John Pare was with the 1st Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment.
On the 25th April 1915 the Gallipoli campaign against the Ottoman Empire started in an effort to secure the shipping lanes to Russia's southern coastal fleet, the campaign was mostly fought by forces from Australia and New Zealand and would, in part, lead the two countries to set up a public holiday to commemorate the battle called ANZAC day. Edgar Butler was raised on South Street in Ellistown but immigrated to Australia in 1912, within a month of war being declared he was in the enlistment queue signing up with the 15th Battalion of the Australian Infantry. Within a day of the battle starting Edgar was killed in action on the 26th April. Cedric Johnson, although raised in Swannington, was born in Ellistown and was another who immigrated and served with the Australian Infantry, in his case the 8th Battalion. Cedric and Ibstock born Edward Pepper would die as a result of the Gallipoli campaign in May 1915. Cedric, like Edgar was killed in action on the beachhead, Edward was a gunner aboard the battleship HMS Goliath and went down with the ship when it was sunk. Unlike his later 'historical' films, the 1981 movie Gallipoli which featured Mel Gibson has been widely credited by critics for its accurate portrayal and gives a good re-enactment of what the Anzac forces faced on that narrow strip of beach. It should also be added that Bagworth was to suffer it's second loss of the war during April 1915 when Alfred Heathcote died on wounds on the 23rd, sustained at Spanbroekmolen. He too served with the Leicesters, in the 1/5th Battalion.
JUNE 1915:
Dardanelles: William Pearson of Swepstone Road Heather had first enlisted with the Leicestershire Regiment at Coalville within weeks of the outbreak of the War on 17th August 1914 but within a month he had been discharged with Flat Feet. He seemed determined to serve his country so he bided his time until the following year when the enlistment criteria was more relaxed and went to Loughborough and enlisted with the Kings Own Scottish Borders who were less concerned with his feet. He made his way from the Balkans to the Dardanelles, where just over a month later on 28th June he was killed in action at Gallipoli along with seven comrades, shot while his Battalion were charging a Turkish trench. On the Western Front at Maple Copse near Ypres Salient William Barney of Cumberland Road Ellistown was killed in action on the 30th June, he'd enlisted way back in 1911 and had made his way up to the rank of Lance Corporal. Amongst the letters received by William’s parents were two from Alfred Burton and William Cave, both of Ellistown and whose families would receive similar correspondence later in 1917. The latter was a neighbour of William Barney's and it's thought they had grown up together. In his letter he reassured William Barney’s parents that he’d tended to their son after his death, going on to explain that he’d been given the task of burying his friend.
JULY 1915:
July 1915 saw two local men die serving their country. Snarestones James Watts was one of the many that turned up at the recruiting office in August 1914. He would end up being one of the thousands who paid the ultimate sacrifice at Ypres on the 23rd July. The Allies had just used the new technique of tunnelling under no mans land to lay mines under the enemy trench system. After the ear shattering explosion Jim chose the wrong moment to look over the edge of the trench to see what damage had been caused. Unfortunately this was just what the enemy snippers were on the look out for.
The Coldstream Guards had been one of the first units sent to France when the British Expeditionary Force had been established and Cyril Briers was among the first to be plucked from the reserves to reinforce units that had first met and held their opposite numbers advance. Before the war Cyril had been raised by his uncle Benjamin Baxter on Leicester Road close to the colliery where he worked. He had sustained wounds during the Battle of Aubers Ridge and died from those wounds on the 29th July.
AUGUST 1915:
August saw perhaps one of the saddest tales told in the Ibstock Historical Societies book 'LEST WE FORGET' but it was by no means an isolated incident. The number of volunteers turning up at the recruiting offices in 1914 meant that the various Regiments could pick from the best volunteers. Age, Height and Physical ability were all used to weed out men that didn't meet the exacting requirements. Harry Badcock would have been aware of these restrictions, particularly the age limit, when he made the trip on the16th November 1914 to the Drill Hall on Ashby Road in Coalville. He had to be 19 to enlist and his short service attestation form shows his age as 18 years and 353 days. Being a 5 foot 9 physically strong lad meant that the recruiting staff had no concerns signing him up. At the time they didn't ask for documentary proof of age which would have shown that Harry was a little economical with the truth - at the time he was actually 16. He had added two and half years to his age, documents show he was born in 1898. During basic training Harry had his seventeenth birthday and afterwards was allocated to the 1/5th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment, landing in France in late June 1915. On the 1st August 1915 the 1/5th were based at the Ypres Salient when Harry was killed in action - he had been in France just 37 days. Harry and his brothers, Charles and William lived at 32 Leicester Road in Ibstock.
SEPTEMBER 1915:
This month saw three separate villages affected by the conflict within a matter of days. Snarestone born Frederick Pare was the first to die on the 21st September 1915, he had only enlisted five months earlier but was to die in Leicester Hospital after contracting Tuberculosis during basic training. Two days later John Pepper from Newton Burgoland was killed while serving with the 9th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment near Bienvillers. Another two days after that, on the 25th September Albert Dolman of the 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers was killed in action during the Battle of Loos. Albert was originally born in Shrewsbury in 1887 and, like so many of that generation, moved into the area to work at one of the many collieries - in Albert's case it was Nailstone colliery where he was employed as a Hewer, working the coalface with little more than a pick and chisels.
OCTOBER 1915:
May and July 1915 had seen quite a number of local men added to the casualty list but October would see the largest number to date in a single battle. Hohenzollern Redoubt is near Loos and was where the German forces had learned the lessons that Wellington had handed out to Napoleon's forces during the Peninsular War a hundred years earlier, making use of the landscape to establish a strong defensive position. Units of the Allied 9th Division carried out a concentrated attack on the Redoubt between 13th to the 19th October 1915. They managed to capture the redoubt but then lost it to a determined German counter-attack. The final assault on the 13th resulted in 3,643 casualties, mostly in the first few minutes. Ibstock born John Wainwright of the 1/5th Bn Sherwood Foresters had been killed during the build up. But the fighting itself claimed the lives of George Fletcher and George Gadsby both of Ellistown, James Wileman and George Colver both of Measham and Snarestone's William Turner would eventually die from his wounds sustained during the battle. All five served with the 1/5th Bn Leicestershire. Joseph Emmerson's father was the Manager of Bagworth colliery and Joseph had spent his formative years growing up in the village. He had left the ranks on the 8th October 1915 to take up a Commission as an officer as a 2nd Lieutenant and was mentioned in despatches in no time. However he was killed in action on the just five days later on the 13th October 1915 as he was leading a bayonet charge on the second line trenches during the afternoon. His medals, memorial plaque and various documents are in the Leicester City Museums Service collection. At the time Joseph was also serving in the Leicestershire Regiment, in the 4th Battalion.
NOVEMBER 1915:
Each month since September 2014 I've been reporting people who appear in the Historical Societies Lest We Forget book. This month is one of those rare months when a death isn't commemorated, thankfully this month sees the launch of our follow up book, Left to Grow Old. We've been compiling details of people we've found who served in the Great War and rather than leave it there, we've published that detail plus some family stories that we've managed to unearth. One of those stories involves Private Bert Vickers 16604 of the 2nd Battalion Leicestershire Regiment. His service number indicates he enlisted early in 1915 and we know from his medal card that he landed in France on the 3rd October 1915 before that he married Elsie Jackson from Stanton under Bardon. He hadn't been there that long before the 2nd Battalion were on the move and on the 11th November he was bound for Marseille to board a ship and 5 days later he landed in Alexandria in Egypt and from there onwards to Iraq and the mouth of the Tigris river. Bert was a stretcher bearer which saved him from the worst of the fighting but the conditions the men of Leicestershire faced were certainly not what they expected – extreme temperatures, arid desert that regularly flooded, flies, mosquitoes and other nasties leading to appalling levels of sickness and death through disease. Around the same time Bert was landing in Egypt another 'local' man was on the move. When I say local, Arnold Bunting was actually born in Great Barlow in Derbyshire but his parents were school teachers and Arnold spent his formative years in Congerstone where his parents ran the village school. Arnold served with the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry and he too was sent to the Mediterranean Theater headquartered in Alexandria. While out there the Ox and Bucks were involved in repulsing an invasion of Greece by Bulgarian forces allied to Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Arnold had the good fortune to be talent spotted as officer material and would end the war as a 2nd Lieutenant with the Sherwood Foresters.
DECEMBER 1915:
We have three men to remember this month who paid the ultimate sacrifice this month, the first two were from Bagworth. Leonard Ward was born in Stoney Stanton but was raised on Barlestone Road and served with the 5th Battalion Connaught Rangers. The Rangers – referred to as the Devil’s Own – were raised as far back as 1793 and had an illustrious history especially with the ‘Iron Duke’ during Wellington’s campaign against the French during the Peninsula War. The Rangers had been serving at Gallipoli in 1915 but were withdrawn in September 1915 to Mudros, moving on to Salonika. On the 7th and 8th December they were in action at Kosturino in the retreat from Serbia, and it was during this retreat that Leonard died of his wounds on the 14th December 1915. The second casualty was John Bowley, a driver with the 40th Battery Royal Horse Artillery. He was another economic migrant drawn to the area thanks to the colliery at Bagworth. He was born 1892 just outside of Barnsley. Although there were motorised vehicles used at the front in WW1, the vast majority of transport was carried out by horse power. As an Artillery Driver, John was one of two men driving a team of six horses. The advantage that the horse had over mechanised transport was their ability to travel through deep mud and over rough terrain. Horses were used for reconnaissance and for carrying messengers, as well as pulling artillery, ambulances, and supply wagons. It’s been said that the presence of horses often increased morale among the soldiers at the front.
The finally man to be remembered this month is Robert Ashby as with the others he was born outside of the immediate area, in Robert’s case Childe Okeford in Dorset in 1879. He worked at the Nailstone colliery alongside George Chamberlain on the mine rescue team. The coalminers from this area were in high demand with the Royal Engineers, Robert served with the 178th Tunnelling Company. Small scale tunnelling has been started by the French and Germans carried out by men used to working underground in the collieries. Major John Norton-Griffiths, was a confident of Lord Kitchener, and he put forward plans to industrialise the tunnelling process using men he already employed to dig sewers in Manchester. Robert was one of the older volunteers and his years of experience warranted his special enlistment on the highest rate of pay – six times the amount of an ordinary infantryman. An ever present hazard to the tunnellers was an alert enemy doing just the same and deploying counter measures of their own. So it was that on 21st December 1915, just a few days before Christmas, the Germans exploded two mines of their own, wrecking a section of trench plus 178th shafts and galleries, killing 17 of its men including Robert. Robert’s pal and fellow Sapper from Ibstock was W Barrs who wrote to Roberts widow. ‘Died the death of a hero‘ was the expression used by him, explaining that he served with Robert and that he had been killed while trying to save others – perhaps mirroring what he had been trained for at Nailstone colliery.
JANUARY 1916:
We remember three men featured in the ‘Lest We Forget’ book from the Ibstock Historical Society that details the 173 men from 10 villages who paid the ultimate sacrifice in service of their country during the Great War. John Flaherty was an economic migrant to the area having been born in Normacot in Staffordshire and proved to be a very good footballer, captaining the Ibstock Excelsior’s team. John served with the 2nd Royal Marine Battalion Light Infantry and arrived at Gallipoli on the 23rd October 1915 to reinforce the units already fighting on the western shore of the Dardanelles, a naval expedition started in February in an attempt to knock the Turks out of the war during the deadlock of fighting on the western front. John was killed on the 7th January 1916 the penultimate day of a three week evacuation to extract the surviving forces.
Four days previously Ellistown’s Archibald Lee was another victim of the disastrous Somme campaign when he died of his wounds on the 3rd January, he was serving with 15th Field Coy. Royal Engineers at the time. Joseph Gardner originally from Bagworth died on the 23rd January, we don’t know the circumstances apart from it was in the Acton area of London, Joseph worked as a wheelwright all his life and was serving with the Horse Transport Division of the Army Service Corps, doing the same job, Joseph is notable for being the oldest victim from the area to have died during the First World War he was 62 which means he would have been 60 when war broke out.
January 1916 meant the beginning of the war for Thomas Eggington of Ibstock. Tommy, as he was known, attended a recruiting rally held at the Palace Picture House on the High Street along with his friend and eventual brother-in-law Tom Smith and both were at the Recruiting Office on Ashby Road in Coalville a couple of days later on the 17th January 1916 signing up with the Leicestershire Regiment. Tommy entered his occupation as a Collier which proved crucial as he was placed on Reserve and sent back to Ibstock colliery as his skills at working the seams extracting the black stuff were in greater demand by the empire than his fighting abilities. Tommy would be called up from Reserve but not until May 1917.
Tom Smith’s story took a different path although we have no specific dates. We know from his medal card that Tom served in France with the 1/4th Battalion Leicester Regiment and during his time in France, he pulled sentry duty with a close comrade. The standing instruction was that if anything was heard, the sentries were to shout a challenge and if no reply was given, they were to shoot in the direction of the sound. On one particularly foggy night Tom shouted the challenge and on hearing no reply, egged on by his comrade, fired into the fog. In the cold light of day it turned out the sound was an officer returning from a sortie into No Man’s Land and Tom was put on trial which, if lost could have found him shot, thankfully his comrade backed him at every stage of the enquiry and Tom was acquitted of all charges. On a later occasion Tom was badly gassed with affected him until the day he died and people remember him with a persistent bad cough and his breathing being particularly bad so that you could hear him approaching before they saw him. Tom’s is one of many stories of men suffering with respiratory problems featured in ‘Left to Grow Old’
FEBRUARY 1916:
February marks the centenary of the death of another Ibstock soldier featured in the Historical Societies ‘Lest We Forget’ book. Joseph Satchwell, known to his army buddies as 'Jumbo', was born and raised on High Street in Ibstock, the family lived at No.38 and before the war Joseph worked alongside his father Thomas and his four older brothers at Ellistown pit along Pretoria Road and the bridleway.
He enlisted with the 8th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment as early as November 1914. The Regiments war diary for the 6th February 1916 mentions that one man was killed along with four others injured, that man was Joseph (the ordinary Private rarely got a mention in the Regimental War Diaries - although Ibstock's George Bott proved an exception to that rule, more about him in 2018). Joseph's parents received two letters breaking the news of his death. The first from LCpl George Riley of Leicester Road in Ibstock, stating he had known Joseph practically all of their lives. The second came from Captain Bransley who had served with Joseph for 18 months where he supplied more detail about the circumstances of his death, Joseph had been on sentry duty the previous night and had gone to his bunk after his stint was over when he was killed by shrapnel while asleep.
February 1916 marked the beginning of the war for Tom Jessop of 13 Ibstock Road in Ellistown. His story comes from the second of the Historical Societies Great War books - Left to Grow Old - while containing details of the war service of those featured, the book tries to focus on their lives after the war. As we saw last month with Tommy Eggington, after enlisting Tom Jessop was sent back to the pit - in his case South Leicester - and wasn't called up until 22nd April 1918. Tom had enlisted with the Coldstream Guards and his family think his service led directly to his career choice after the war, he moved to Birmingham and joined the Police. The suspicion is that he was recruited directly, it was while living in Birmingham that he met his wife Ettie and they would go on to have a son and a daughter, his son David would go on to serve with the RAF in WW2. Tom went on to serve 28 years with the police and probably would have gone on longer except for the arthritis that plagued him until his death in 1958.
MARCH 1916
March warrants a mention in both of the WW1 books from the Ibstock Historical Society. Lest We Forget remembers the fallen from 10 villages in the area and specifically mentions Corporal John Martin who is remembered in both Heather and Ravenstone.
John was born in nearby Coleorton but the family lived on Ravenstone Road in Heather where John worked as a Farm Labourer before the war. He was one of the many to pass through the doors of the Recruiting Hall on Ashby Road in Coalville when he enlisted on the 16th March 1915. As with Joseph Satchwell last month the Regimental War Diaries provide details of where his Battalion were and a clue to the circumstances of John's death on the 16th March 1916 - exactly a year from enlisting. The 1st Battalion Leicesters were in the right hand sector at Wieltje to the west of the strategically important town of Ypres in Western Belgium. The entry records “Very intensive bombardment by Howitzers, the northern 100 yards of trench being completely destroyed". John was one of 8 killed and 30 wounded that day. The diary went on to explain that "Very great difficulty was experienced in moving the wounded" whether this impacted John's passing is not known.
The follow up book, Left to Grow, details some of the stories of those that came back from their time in uniform and provides an insight into the career of Ibstock born Alfred Eggington, Alfred is stood on the back row second from the right on the Ibstock Free Church 1909 Cricket team. Before the war Alfred had already started out on a teaching career, he was the Science and Mathematical master and Senior House Master at Sir William Borlase School in Marlow Buckinghamshire as early as 1911. Alfred initially enlisted with the 21st Battalion Royal Fusiliers in Epsom but after completing basic training was transferred to the Special Pioneer Coy of the Royal Engineers. A promotion to Corporal followed and he was attached to the Canadian Division as a member of the special section working on gas bombs for defensive measures, ideal for someone who had gained a first in Chemistry at the Imperial College of Science and Technology as well as a B.Sc. with Honours at the University of London.
Another promotion followed to Sergeant but on the 11th March 1916 he leaves France and is discharged ‘for the benefit of the public by appointee of commission in the Royal Engineers’ which was how the miltary phrased that Alfred had left the ranks to accept an officers commission as a Captain. It wasn't long before Alfred returned to France and was soon after awarded the Military Cross ‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when in charge of mortars. Though wounded and badly gassed, he remained at his post successfully directing a smoke barrage, which was to protect part of our assault. Shortly afterwards he was completely overcome by gas and had to be evacuated, having set an example of tenacity and devotion which inspired all ranks, and very largely contributed towards the success of the operations. He has on numerous occasions displayed the utmost courage and resource.’ After his recovery Alfred remained in France although thankfully the remainder of his time was less eventful and after the war Alfred returned to teaching where he was eventually appointed headmaster of the Loughborough Junior Day Technical School, later known as Loughborough Junior College, a post he would hold for 33 years. In 1961 and 62 Alfred was appointed Mayor of Loughborough, a bronze bust of him depicting a decorated soldier, town mayor and headmaster was commissioned by Loughborough College and now resides at the Charnwood Museum.
APRIL 1916
This month remembers the centenary of the death of Arthur Elverson during the Great War. Arthur was born in Swesptone where the family lived on Main Street but following the death of his father in 1904 he and his mother moved to Aylestone Park in Leicester, where Arthur is listed as an Engineers Pattern Maker. He enlisted with the Leicestershire Regiment and was placed with the 2nd Battalion who were serving in Kut in Mesopotamia, now modern day Iraq. The Turkish Army had made full use of the terrain around a loop in the River Tigris to bottle up British Troops of the 6th Division. Over the course of a couple of months a succession of attempts were made to relive the Allied forces who were rapidly running out of food. It was during the third attempted relief at Sannaiyat on the 6th April 1916 that Arthur sustained the wounds from which he would die the following day. 1,200 British casualties were incurred alone during the operation. April 1916 also saw the death of William Brooks of Ravenstone while serving with 1st Bn Leicestershire Regiment.
The 12th April 1916 saw Arthur Everett of Ellistown enlisting in Leicester. He was born in Redbourn, Hertfordshire, but moved north to find work. He is first recorded at Pickering Grange Cottages not far from St Christophers church, later he moved to South Street and finally number 11 Ibstock Road where his occupation was recorded as Assurance Agent. He was allocated to the South Staffordshire Regiment and sent to France to reinforce the British Expeditionary Force on the 26th July 1916.He arrived while the South Staffs were involved in the Battle of Delville Wood on the Somme which had begun on the 15th August but on the 31st, just over a month from landing on French soil, he was reported missing and was a Prisoner of War. An article appeared in the Coalville Times a few weeks after his repatriation following the armistice and provides a valuable insight into the life of a WW1 prisoner behind German lines.
The prisoners were sent to work on a clay bank about 20 Km from Cambrai where they found themselves billeted in some old farm buildings but the state they were in left a lot to be desired with poor sanitation with the men sleeping in a long grass rack that was infested with insects. On the first night the French civilians were allowed to give the prisoners bread and apples but they were given little water, a reoccuring theme. The prisoners were made to work long hard shifts and the rations provided were insufficient and poor quality. After the first night their guards prevented the French civilians, who sympathised with the prisoners and tried their best for them, from providing any more food. Any food reaching them had to be smuggled in. Arthur told of an incident where a young French boy of about 15 or so gave Arthur some cigarettes, but received a ‘brutal kicking’ for his troubles.
Not being able to wash and keep themselves clean was perhaps the worst situation. Eventually they were taken inland to Germany and he described the railway journey where forty men packed into an enclosed cattle truck and were too packed in to lie or even sit down comfortably and the only sanitary provision was the tub in the middle of the truck. A small ration of bread and four small tins of meat had to suffice for 40 men, the second’s day ration proved even worse and was a single loaf for all forty men. While they were in German Stations, the prisoners found the local people adopted a threatening attitude and shook their fists at the prisoners.
After about seven weeks in the camp they were sent to Oberhaussen and then had to walk about 8 km to work in the coalmines at Osterfeld. The men initially refused but were ordered to descend the mine at the point of a bayonet. The one thing that kept many of the prisonsers going was the parcels that were sent to them from England which were received fairly regularly. Arthur recalled one awful day in November 1917 when 1,100 British prisoners were brought into the camp looking starved and in rags many of them suffering from unattended wounds. They had been working behind German lines when a barrage of shells from their own side landed among them. Many were killed at the time and another fifteen of the newly arrived prisoners died on that first day. Arthur and his comrades knew the armistice had been signed before the Germans told them through a Swiss paper that was brought into the camp, in total he spent two years and three months as a captive. After the war Arthur returned to his job as an Insurance Agent and in 1920 Arthur married Bertha Lane, they would go on to have five children. Arthur died in 24th August 1961 aged 78.
MAY 1916
I'm pleased to say that this month we don't have any casualties from the Great War to commemorate, however May 1916 proved eventful for four local servicemen in different ways and all four feature in the Ibstock Historical Societies 'Left to Grow Old' book detailing 150 or so stories of local men and women who served their country in one form or another. William Gowdridge of Whitehill Road in Ellistown made his way to the Leicester Recruiting Office and enlisted on the 12th May 1916 with the Leicestershire Regiment. His Attestation lists his occupation as Student Teacher but was transferred to the Training Reserve Battalion to make best use of his pre-war teaching skills on the recruits passing through basic training.
William Emmerson was the son of Ellistown Colliery Manager, Alfred Emmerson, and along with his younger brother Jabez, who you'll hear more about later in the year, were two of the first fifty from the area to form the first of the Leicestershire Regiments Pals Battalions. April 1916 had seen him transferred to the Royal Defence Corps, it's thought because of injury, and on the 20th May 1916 he received a promotion to Acting Quartermaster Sergeant with the 468th Protection Coy who were used in Ireland to guard the Docks, Prison duties plus body guards for Crown subjects sent to Ireland, such as Judges and in one case an Executioner.
Edward Tyler of High Street in Ibstock served on the HMS Shannon and on the 31st May 1916 saw the decisive naval battle at Jutland. Thankfully the Shannon was on the unengaged side of the fleet but spent a number of days after the battle searching the waters for survivors from her sister ship HMS Defence which had been hit. Edward is pictured with his family including his brother John seen in the uniform of the Coldstream Guards a regiment that their father had served in his younger days.
The one man who felt the most profound impact was Ted Turner of Bagworth. He had received a leg injury early in the war but had lain in a shell hole for nine days before being rescued. At the time his would be rescuers considered his injuries too severe and were going to leave him for dead but a determined plea from Ted led to his rescue. Because of the delay in recovery Ted would lose his leg and May 1916 marked
his award of the Silver War Badge exempting him from further service in the future. The loss of his leg certainly didn't hold him back, he married his wife Lily in March 1919 and they would go on to have four daughters. Ted spent his working life at Bagworth colliery although because of his injury he was confined to working above ground. Unlike some of the amptees who favoured a crutch or stick, Ted preferred a peg leg which only presented problems in his much loved garden. Ted used to enlist the help of his daughters, Ted used to mark out the run for his seed potatoes but his daughters sometimes struggled to work out if a hole was made by his dibber or his peg. The result wasn't found until the plants grew and instead of the neat lines that could be found in the rest of his garden, his potatoes grew in a zig-zag pattern. Ted is pictured with Lily on their Golden Wedding anniversary.
JUNE 1916
June remembers the centenary of the death of two local soldiers in the Great War. The first is Noel Lane of High Street in Ibstock. Noel was just 19 when he travelled to Leicester to enlist with the 7th Kings Own Scottsh Borderers, landing in France on 15th October 1915. By the beginning of June 1916 his battalion was in the Hohenzollern sector and up to the 20th June there was a lot of mining and counter-mining, stretching nerves of the soldiers stationed above them in the trench system with the ever present threat of being blown to eternity, in addition the Battalion was plagued by trench mortar fire and rifle grenades and it was on this day that Noel is killed in action..
William Bradford of Station Terrace in Heather is our second casualty this month. Before the war William worked as a Machine Brick Presser at the nearby brick works and enlisted at the recruiting office on Ashby Road in Coalville the previous year on the 5th June 1915 with the 2nd Battalion Leicestershire Regiment. In 1914 Britain relied heavily on oil to keep its dominant Navy at sea. It came to the realisation very quickly that on the outbreak of the war with Germany it needed to protect its interests by occupying the oilfields and pipeline near Basra in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq. It was here that the men of Leicestershire encountered extreme temperatures, desert that regularly flooded, flies, mosquitoes and other nastiees leading to appalling levels of sickness and death through disease. The exact circumstances of , contributed to high casualty rates. The circumstances of William’s death on the 26th June 1916 are not known but as no major action was underway at the time it's believed he was one of the victims of the conditions.
The follow up book 'Left to Grow Old' details some of the stories of local men who survived their time in uniform in the Great War. During April we highlighted part of the story of Arthur Everett of Ellistown who features in the Ibstock Historical Societies Left to Grow Old book. Arthur had been taken prisoner during the Battle of Delville Wood and June 1916 marked a similar story for William, or Wilf, Emmerson of Bagworth whose older brothers Joseph and Albert Emmerson both feature in Lest We Forget. The three were cousins to William and Jabez Emmerson, William featured last month. Wilf was living and working in Anfield and where he was employed by the Royal Liver Friendly Society. He had landed in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force on the 23rd January 1915 and The King’s Liverpool Regiment who he was serving with were at Hooge in Belgium on the 16th June 1916 when Wilf was taken prisoner by the Germans who sent him to work in a salt mine, not being free Eventually being freed until 26th December 1918. After the war Wilf returned to Liverpool and restarted his career in Insurance. In June 1919 he married Catherine Thérèse Jensen at Holy Trinity Walton Brook in Liverpool and they had a daughter Jean two years later. Despite his treatment during the war William almost made it to his 100th birthday, dying just ays short in November 1987 in Sheffield.
JULY 1916
July marks the centenary of one of the darkest times for our area during the Great War, not until September 1918 would the area suffer more casualties in a single month - it was of course the time of the Somme offensive which came to epitomise the slaughter during WW1.
Ellistown born Harry Smith was the first victim on the 1st July at Gommecourt while serving with the 1/5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters. Two days later it was the turn of William Grewcock who was originally born in Normanton-le- Heath, he was killed in action while serving with the 9th Battalion Essex regiment at Albert. Two men were to die on the 14th July 1916, Nailstone born Arthur Price who lived on Battram Road and Leonard Lovatt of 129 Chapel Street in Ibstock were both serving with the 7th Battalion Leicestershire regiment at Benzentin. The following day Lester Green of Leicester Road in Ibstock was also killed in action at Benzentin, he served with the 16th Kings Royal Rifle Corps. Towards the end of the month Albert Woodman of Station Road Heather was killed in action at Pozieres on the 29th and three days later John Partner of the 1/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment marked the second casualty in the month from Nailstone, the village suffered a total of three losses in all.
July 1916 is also significant for a number of men in the Historical Societies ‘Left to Grow Old’ which contains a number of stories of local men and women who also served in WW1 but returned to their families. The 11th July 1916 saw John Tyler hospitalised for psoriasis while undergoing basic training with the Coldstream Guards. The condition would ultimately lead to John’s discharge from the army, the Tyler’s lived at 50 High Street in Ibstock and featured in May’s article. The 16th July 1916 saw Fred Sewell of Congerstone receive a gunshot wound while serving in France with the 11th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment.
Another former Congerstone resident was Harry Bunting whose parents ran the school in the village, by the time of the outbreak of war he was living in Canada working as an Engineer. On the 20th July 1916 he enlisted in Winnipeg as a Lieutenant with the 90th Winnipeg Rifles. Long after the war Harry would play a part in a record breaking flight. He was the Deputy Borough Engineer and Surveyor of Southport responsible for making sure the beach at Ainsdale Sands in Southport that Dick Merill and Jack Lambie used was properly prepared on the 15th May 1937 for their successful crossing of the Atlantic in a day.
The final mention goes to former Ibstock Junior School Headmaster Horace Harratt. More details of him will follow in later years but on the 16th July 1916 he was commissioned from an Officer Cadet Unit, having previously served in the ranks in France, choosing to join the Leicestershire Regiment as he wished to serve with local men and went on to be awarded the Military Cross in June 1918 for his actions on Hill 60 near Ypres.
August 1916
Richard Hughes of Newton Burgoland is the first of three Great War casualties remembered this month. Richard enlisted with 1/6th Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in Nuneaton where he worked for the Coventry Corporation. Richard landed in France in July 1916 and was killed in action on the 17th August 1916 age 28 at the Battle of Pozières Ridge. The service held at St Bartholomew’s church reflected the attitude that existed during the early years of the conflict “he was killed as a soldier should be, in action, charging the German lines and that he was just the right sort for a soldier: full of grit and no grumbler.” The Hughes family would suffer a second loss during WW1 when Richards younger brother Thomas was killed in March 1918.
Last month we mentioned that Lester Green of Ibstock had been killed in action while serving with the 16th Battalion Kings Royal Rifles. August also marks the death of another Ibstock volunteer, Ernest Overton of 13 Curzon Street in Ibstock who also served with the 16th KRRC. Ernest moves to the front to re-inforce the 16th Battalion on the Somme as it rebuilds and reorganises after the costly attack on “High Wood” where Lester was killed. Shortly afterwards they move to Montauban Alley in August and on the afternoon of the 24th August the forward three companies attack on the enemy’s “Tea Trench.”. The objective is taken and the war dairy notes that: “The attack was carried out with surprisingly few casualties”. One feature of the Brigade assault was the new system of friendly barrage adopted by the artillery allowing the troops to keep close up under it and reach their objectives without suffering from enemy rifle or machine gun fire. After just four weeks in France, and during his first offensive, Ernest was to sustain wounds from which he would die on the 25th August 1916 while attacking ‘Tea Trench’.
John Lovett was born in Bagworth where the family lived on Station Road although eventually John moved to Barnsley where he married his wife Jemima, the two had a daughter and two sons. John served the 14th Battalion of the York & Lancaster Regiment, the 13th and 14th Battalions were known as the Barnsley Pals as they were raised in and around Barnsley. John was killed in action on the 28th August 1916 while at the Somme, he was hit by a piece of shell while trying to free a comrade who had been buried from an earlier shell burst close to the trench they were in.
The British Legion also receive half the sale proceeds from the Historical Societies second book, ‘Left to Grow Old’ featuring a selection of stories who served their country in the Great War but came to their families. The contains details of (Albert) Victor Lander who was raised at No 10 Grange Road in Ibstock. He enlisted on the 10th September 1914 with the Leicestershire Regiment, a matter of weeks after war had been declared Victor’s service papers haven’t survived but the lack of a date on his medal card indicates that he didn’t land in France until after December 1915 and therefore it’s safe to assume that because he was a coalminer Victor wasn’t called up as soon as he enlisted.
One record that did survive the WW2 blitz was his Army Pension records and it shows that he was badly wounded on the 26th August 1916, receiving multiple Gunshot wounds to the head, back and throat, which were almost certainly injuries caused by a machine gun. After a long convalescence Victor returns to duty but is transferred to the Military Foot Police on the 28th September 1917. The MFP operated within the Divisional Command ensuring lines of communication remained open. Their duties included traffic control, escorting wounded to and from aid stations, close protection for headquarters plus the obvious role of general troop discipline to name a few.
The MFP regularly drew their number from serving soldiers with exemplary records and they were immediately given the minimum rank of Lance Corporal in Victor’s case he was also a qualified Machine Gunner. After the war Victor marries Lucy Webster and they have two sons. Victor died on the 31st August 1947 at the Royal Infirmary in Leicester during an operation for gastric ulcer, he was also suffering with Asthma and the anaesthetic could have reacted with his condition.
September 1916
We mentioned a couple of months ago that July 1916 had claimed the most casualties from the area in a single month during fighting in World War 1. September 1916 would run it close with six casualties but was to be marked as the most casualties in a single battle - Flers-Courcelette.
The Battle of Flers-Courcelette ran for just 7 days between the 15th and 22nd September and formed part of the wider Somme Offensive that ran from July to November 1916. Of the four Ibstock lads Alfred Sleath (spelt Sleith on the Central Avenue memorial) was originally born in Burton-on-Trent but grew up at 38 Chapel Street, Alfred Dale on the other hand was born on Leicester Road but later moved to Coalville, William Timmins born and raised on Pretoria Road would eventually move to Stockingford Warwickshire but Cyril Partner moved further still – born at 35 Orchard Street but immigrated to Canada.
Cyril’s story also bares similarities to Arthur Compton of Newton Burgoland although Cyril’s crossing of the Atlantic was a minor trip compared to Arthur’s immigration to New Zealand. As with Sleath’s family, Arthur Prior’s family were industrial migrants into the area, settling at 69 Ibstock Road in Ellistown.
More detail on the six stories can be found in the ‘Lest We Forget’ book from the Ibstock Historical Society which details each of the 173 from 10 villages that paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country during the Great War. Flers-Courcelette would not only affect these six local families though, the book forms a set of five detailing the entire North West Leicestershire and the book for Ashby/Breedon/Measham features a further three men from Measham who died during the savage seven day battle - John Wileman, James Turnball and Francis Veasey.
The number of casualties from a single geographical area could have been put down to them serving in the same units but the nine men served in six different units. Like many of the local casualties a number served with the Leicestershire Regiment, Prior and Dale with the 1st Regiment and Sleath and Veasey with the 8th Battalion. Timmins and Turnbull were with the Coldstream Guards while Wileman served the Machine Gun Corps. As you’d expect from the places they settled Partner served with the Canadian Infantry and Compton with the Canterbury Regiment of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
The Society decided to produce a follow up book called ‘Left to Grow Old’ which included a selection of stories of men who returned to their families but also included the villages of Congerstone and Shackerstone and the book mentions the 12 casualties from these two villages and Frank Hough from Congerstone, a former gardener at Gopsall Hall, is remembered in the list for September 1916.
OCTOBER 1916
The Somme Offensive had already been raging for three and a half months when on the 15th October Ibstock's Albert Dunnicliffe and Henry Holland were killed in action, the day afterwards William Boobyer who lived in Heather suffered the same fate. A week later on the 23rd saw the deaths of Alfred Spurr, who was born in Normanton-le-Heath, Ellistown's Edward Orton and Robert Hollard of Ibstock. Robert's rough life had started in 1892 when he was born in the Wandsworth Workhouse with no knowledge of his father. It was common in workhouses for the children to be separated from the parents and in time was taught a trade, in Roberts case at North Surrey District School in Penge. A number of young men at Penge were found work in the areas collieries and Robert was recorded as a Labourer at the brick works although he would later move to Bagworth Colliery.
When he enlisted in December 1915 he gave his address as 124 High Street in Ibstock. After the war families were able to claim a casualties medals and each was presented with a bronze plaque inscribed with their name but you had to be family to claim them. Although his Enlistment papers recorded Roberts next of kin as his mother, Ellen Holland, he added 'address unknown'. In fact, Robert’s universal legatee was his landlady, Mrs Polly Iliffe of 124 High Street and it was she who completed the necessary Army form W5080 in order to receive Robert’s plaque and scroll. For relationship she wrote "Landlady” but added the words “the only home he knew”. The final indignity for Robert was his headstone at Quarry Cemetery in Montuaban, France has been mis-spelt with the name of Robert Holland a name that also features on the Central Avenue Memorial, more on him will follow in later years.
The Historical Society have released a second book about local people who served their country in WW1 but those included in Left to Grow Old and October 1916 proved pivotal for three local men. Ibstock born Charles Wyman was in Queensland Australia on the 10th October enlisting with the 5th Machine Gun Battalion of the Australian Expeditionary Force. Another Ibstock resident, Jesse Cooper, was discharged from the Leicestershire Regiment on the 27th October 1916, we highlighted Jesse back in September 2014 as he was in the enlistment queue re-signing with the Leicesters at the aged of 49.
Jabez Emmerson had been raised in Ellistown where his father Alfred was the Colliery Manager and on the 24th October 1916 was granted a Commission as an Officer. Jabez and his older brother William were two of the Famous Fifty of Territorial Pals Battalions dispatched to France in early 1915 to bolster the ranks of the standing British Army already fighting in France. While in the ranks Jabez received successive promotions and was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for uncharging an enemy bomb in tunnels under No Man's Land saving countless lives of those below and above ground so his commission as an officer was part of his natural progression ending the war as a Captain.
It is perhaps Jabez's achievements after the war that warrant mention here. He was appionted Colliery Manager at Snibston, later taking over his father's role at Ellistown and eventually being responsible for four of the area's major collieries employing over 4,000 men. He was instrumental in getting Pit head baths built, along with a number of Miners Welfares with accompanying facilities for Football, Cricket - and his own love - Bowling greens. He had a passion for providing educational opportunities in younger generations, serving as first Governor and then Chairman of Coalville Technical College for 39 years. In addition he sat on numerous other school boars and was a Magistrate at Coalville for 10 years.
NOVEMBER 1916
November 1916 marked the death of three more servicemen from this area. All three are remembered in the Ibstock Historical Societies book, Lest We Forget, fell victim during the infamous Somme offensive Ibstock's Benjamin Wright on the 7th November 1916, Snarestone born Joseph Glover died from wounds on the 10th and George P Sharpe also originally from Ibstock on the 14th.
Glover and Sharpe had immigrated to Canada before the war but were among the many ex-pats who enlisted at the outbreak of war, Glover with the Machine Gun section of the 7th Battalion British Colombian Canadian Infantry, Sharpe with the 2nd Brigade Canadian Field Artillery. Artillery Gunners didn't suffer the same deprivations as the infantrymen in the trenches but they were regularly targetted by their opposite units and probably accounts for Sharpe's death.
We can tell from their service numbers that Benjamin Wright signed up the same day - initially with the Royal Army Medical Corps (as evidenced by Benjamin’s cap badge) D Coy 16th Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps as his two brothers – William and Harry – in September of 1914 as Stretcher Bearers, later they all transferred to the 16th Kings Royal Rifle Corps which had recruited heavily from the ranks of Ibstocks Church Lads Bragade.Benjamin landed in France on the 24th February 1915.
When attacks were launched out of the Allied trenches advancing troops were not allowed to stop and care for wounded comrades. All men carried an emergency field-dressing allowing them to attempt to treat their own wounds. The casualty would then have to wait until the stretcher-bearers arrived. There were only four stretcher-bearers per company and so it was often sometime before they received medical help. Some dragged themselves into a shell-hole for protection, but this was dangerous as many sank into the mud
and drowned. In good conditions two men could carry a wounded man on a stretcher. However, after heavy rain it took four men to lift a stretcher. As Harold Chapin pointed out in a letter to his family in May 1915: “It took six of us to carry one man. You have no idea of the physical fatigue entailed in carrying a twelve stone man a thousand yards across muddy fields.”
“Stretcher-bearers were wonderful people. Ours had been the bandsmen of earlier training days. They were always called to the most dangerous places, where casualties had already taken place, yet there were always men ready to volunteer for the job, at any rate in the early days of the war. The men were not bloodthirsty. Stretcher-bearers were unarmed and though they were not required to do manual labour or sentry-go, this I am sure was not the over-riding reason for their readiness to volunteer.”
The stretcher bearers not only had the problem of dragging their feet out of the mud after every step, they also had to make sure not to rock the stretcher as this would increase the pain of the wounded man. The pain of shattered bone ends grating together was so intense that the wounded man was likely to die of shock. On the 5th November the battalion had attacked Hazy Trench in the Les Boeufs area. The attack was very successful, but some casualties were taken. Benjamin, like his older brother William, was a stretcher bearer
for his company and on the 7th November was out in No Mans Land attending another casualty when he was shot by an enemy sniper.
November 1916 was also an impact for two other local servicemen from Ellistown. The stories for both of these can be found in the Historical Societies follow up to Lest We Forget, Left to Grow Old. James Sleigh, whose brother Walter features in Lest We Forget, enlisted in the Royal Navy on the 10th November 1916. Among the ships he served on was HMS Hardinge which was involved in transporting troops during the Arab Revolt made famous by T. E. Lawrence of Arabia. After the war Fred ran the Garage on Whitehill Road near the Junior School.
Sydney Hemsley, also of Ellistown, also served in the Royal Navy and the 17th November 1916 marked the date of his Engagement after basic training In later years Syd became Secretary to the National Coal Board and was a prominent member of the Hugglescote Baptist Church where he held the posts of Secretary and Deacon for many years, playing the flute and sang with wife Kathie in the Sheringham Singers, a choir formed by his sister, Nora. This latter pastime rubbing off on Syd's son Tom who become an acclaimed Baritone.
DECEMBER 1916
December 1916 is one of only six months during the whole of World War 1 that we don’t have a local casualty to feature in the Ibstock Historical Societies 'Lest We Forget' book. Conditions that front line soldiers had to endured in the trenches in good conditions defied description but in the wet or frozen conditions of the Western Front have rarely come to light.
Although few veterans talked of their experiences, during research for the follow up book, 'Left to Grow Old', the family of Ibstock born Thomas Underwood had the foresight to record Tom’s recollections during a rare candid moment and we can thankfully reproduce some here – the name might sound familiar to customers of his son’s, also called Tom, Electrical Store on the High Street in Ibstock. Tom was born in Ibstock in 1897 on Deacons Lane – modern day Gladstone Street – in Ibstock. As with many of his peers Tom started his working career as a Pony Driver – a typical occupation for lads of his age – working below ground taking the tubs filled with coal from the face to the shaft to be taken above ground. Tom’s big passion was the Silver Prize Band that his grandfather had started and is something that would help him during his time on the battlefields of the Western Front.
Without his parents knowledge an 18 year old Tom traveled to Loughborough in 1915 to enlist. When he was called up Thomas was sent to Belton Park in Lincolnshire for basic training with a number of recruits from the Leicesters. It was here that he was exposed to strange sights and voices, the British Empire was able to recruit troops from all around the globe and many found their way to Belton Park at the same time as Tom. After basic training Tom was sent down to Folkestone but had to spend two nights in a large house
whilst the channel was swept for mines, the men having to sleep on the floor. When they arrived at Boulogne they were sent to Belgium in cattle trucks which seemed to take two or three days with various stops on the way. The scene that they encountered sounded like organised chaos where the new arrivals were place in the correct companies, a process that took some time given the number of new arrivals.
The winter of 1916/17 was the coldest that the soldiers had had to endure and Tom recalled that it was so cold that their bread ration was always frozen when it arrived at the front and that they had to thaw it out using a small brazier - larger fires could not be lit as it was sure to bring down a heavy bombardment from the oppositions artillery. He was certainly kept busy fetching and carrying everything from messages and equipment to food and water up to the lines, the latter was carried in heavy metal petrol cans which many of the soldiers remember making the water taste strange. Thankfully for Tom he was granted some leave when the first Battle of the Somme began in July 1915 and he remembers reading the newspaper headlines back home reporting ‘grave’ events, no doubt the fate of his friends and comrades on his mind. One of the things that helped was his music. Within three months of forming up with ‘A’ Coy of the 1/5th Battalion he’d played a part in setting up a band and they used to play to the troops and officers when they were at rest.
He was never awarded the Silver War Badge but his family remember him being affected during a Chlorine Gas attack. This didn’t however prevent him returning below ground to the dusty atmosphere of the colliery at Ibstock after he was demobbed; there wasn’t a great deal of choice of jobs open to many despite the damage to their lungs. Thomas remained at Ibstock until its closure in 1926 which prompted a moved to Ellistown colliery. The gas thankfully didn’t affect his playing with the Silver Band in Ibstock to which he returned to as soon as he returned from France. Like many of the Great War veterans, when the next generation went to war in 1939 Thomas was determined to serve his country once more and had a stint with the Warwickshire Yeomanry, his age would have precluded active service but his experiences earned on the Western Front would have been put to good use. Thomas passed away in 1988 at the grand age of 91.
Hugglescote born Percy Jarvis was born in 1893. After completing his degree he became a teacher in Peterborough and that is where he enlisted. He was commissioned as a temporary Second Lieutenant in November 1914. Percy initially served with the Northamptonshire Regiment but later transferred to the Hampshire Regiment. December 1916 would see Percy promoted to Lieutenant on the 13th December 1916, a rank he retained until he relinquished his commission on completion of his service on the 31st January 1919.
It was in 1917 that Percy found himself in the Cambrai sector where he unfortunately sustained wounds in his leg while out in No Man’s Land on the 18th May and had to crawl back to the Allies trenches. After being patched up, he was passed along the Casualty Clearing Stations and sent back to Blighty, to Weymouth to convalesce. It was here that he met his future wife Elsie Annie Denman and they married in late summer 1917. After he resigned his commission, Percy returned to teaching, he was appointed headmaster of Ravenstone Primary School in 1922 and in 1930 he was appointed to the same role at Kirby Muxloe where he remained for 28 years until he retired in 1958.
JANUARY 1917
A hundred years ago this month Ibstock was mourning two of its men killed during WW1. George Chamberlain was born in Ruddington but raised on Melbourne Road. When he left school George went to work at Ibstock Colliery alongside his father but later moved to Nailstone colliery alongside Robert Ashby, the pair were part of the collieries mine rescue team, a role that would prove ironic in both their military careers.
Before the war George married Phyllis Wale with whom they had three sons, Richard, George jnr and James in 1917 whom his father would never meet. The skills learnt underground by George, Robert and other Leicestershire coal miners were in high demand by the Military who were using Tunnels under No Mans Land to demoralise enemy troops and destroy trench systems that had taken years to construct. The skills were so highly prized that those serving with the various Royal Engineer companies could expect six times the pay of the infantryman in the trenches.
It’s only in the last decade that the plight faced by the miners and ‘clay-kickers’ who spent their time digging under no man’s land has come to light, although Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong is fiction it gives a hint to the situation that George and Robert must have faced on a daily basis. Both sides undertook tunnelling to undermine the trenches of the other, typically tunnellers worked in teams of four. The ‘clay-kicker’ worked his spade at a section of the tunnel face of clay (at the Messines sector) or chalk (the Somme), all the time working in complete silence. The bagger collected the clay/chalk that had been dug out into a sandbag, again ensuring no sound was made. The third man was known as a trammer, he carried the spoil back to a small trolley mounted on rails ready to be transported to the tunnel mouth for disposal. When they felt close enough to the enemy lines, the tunnelling team would load a chamber of the tunnel with explosives and the fourth member of the team would spend hours listening to the enemy, listening out for the slightest sound of any enemy tunnelling activity of their own waiting for the right moment to set the fuse and retreat – the deadliest game of Cat and Mouse.
George is posted to the 176th Tunnelling Company on 21st July 1915 and within the month he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for conspicuous gallantry. George was working in a mine when he broke into a German gallery, which was either a broken-down one or had been tamped for exploding. Despite the potential of impending danger he remained there, sending back a report. Later he was relieved by two other men and posted further down the gallery.The Germans exploded their mine and George was blown down the gallery, despite the danger from poisonous gas, George’s experience at Nailstone kicked in and proceeded to successfully rescue those further down the tunnel.
A tactic often employed by both sides was to place a second charge to be blown later knowing that other men like George and Robert would be down the opposing tunnels trying to reach their comrades which accounted for Robert Ashby’s death in the winter of 1915/16. Fate has a twisted sense of irony because it finally turned the tables on George on 8th January 1917. His Company were tunnelling at Neuville St Vaast near Vimy where he was to be killed in circumstances that appear to mirror that day back in 1915 when he earned his Distinguished Conduct Medal.
We only know of Arthur Hammersley’s connection to Ibstock through his enlistment papers although it’s fair to assume that originating from Bedworth, another coal mining area, that it was the pit in Ibstock that drew the Hammersley’s here. He was serving in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) with the 7th Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment when he was killed in action during the first day of the Battle of Hai Salient on the 25th January 1917.
Both stories are told in the Ibstock Historical Societies 'Lest We Forget' book which along with it’s sister book 'Left to Grow Old' can be purchased from the Historical Society most Saturday's during the Community mornings between 10am and 12 at the Palace on the High Street. Our friends at Ashby Museum, the Crown Inn at Heather, Ibstock Business Centre on the High Street and Graphic Print in Market Bosworth also carry the books. Alternatively contact the Society via their website www.ibstocklives.wix.com/home, through their Facebook page or by email at ibstocklives@ayhoo.co.uk. Each book costs £10 with half going to the local Royal British Legion and the other half to the Historical Society.
One of the stories from Left to Grow Old is Heather born Sydney Boobyer, January 1917 marked the return to hospital while serving on the Western Front. Before the war Sydney was an accomplished Light Heavyweight boxer in the local area, part of his success could be put down to him being a southpaw typically adopted by left handed fighters. He had stints working at the colliery at Measham and as a Farm Labourer at Normanton-le-Heath before he enlisted at Loughborough on the 4th January 1915. Although there were numerous skirmishes during his time at the front, Sydney managed to survive his first major set piece battle that was the blood bath at Hohenzollern Redoubt in October 1915. During his down time away from the front Sydney would put his Boxing skills to good use, winning two medals during competitions within the 138th (Lincoln and Leicester) Infantry Brigade.
He got his first taste, of what would turn out to be numerous experiences of the medical care offered to the soldiers on the 13th October 1916 for what was simply recorded as Sickness. His family remember Sydney suffering badly from respiratory problems caused by a Poison Gas attack and it’s supposed that this was the ‘Sickness’ entered on his casualty report. On the 5th January 1917 he was hospitalised again, this time with Knee cartilage problems, that kept him out of action until April however it was a problem that would reoccur in May of that year which was followed by a scalded right arm and hand in June which required him to return to England, he is pictured at the back of the picture wearing the ‘hospital blue’ uniform. Serving soldiers while away from their units were required to wear a uniform but to show they were injured the uniforms were light blue with a white collar. In August he was hospitalised again suffering Psoriasis (a painful skin condition) of the knee and ‘no fluid in joint’ echoing back to the continued problem from the beginning of the year. He returned to action and took part in the Battle of the St. Quentin Canal in 1918. It was on the last day of this latter battle on the 2nd October that Sydney received his final scar. One report calls it a Shrapnel wound, another gunshot wound, to his right calf while undertaking Stretcher bearer duties who were regular target practice for opposing snipers.
Sydney returns to life on the farm and married Ibstock girl Mary Storer, they would go on to have five children. Sydney and Mary were inseparable and it was a rare occasion when they were out and about that you’d see one without the other. Sydney had largely turned his back on his boxing until the time he wanted to buy Mary a particular ring but found he couldn’t quite afford the asking price. He then spotted that the Whimsey Inn in Ibstock, were holding an invitation bout for a local unbeaten champion who would take on four or five fighters one after each other. After Sydney stepped into the ring, the champion was no longer unbeaten and Sydney walked away with the prize money which he then bought the ring with and promptly threw his boxing gloves on to the fire, determined that this was to be his last fight. Sydney another of the WW1 veterans keen to contribute during WW2 and was on the Air Raid Patrol. Sydney died in February 1973.
FEBRUARY 1917
Arthur Houghton was an Ibstock lad raised on Melbourne Road and as with so many men of the day worked as a Hewer below ground at Ibstock colliery. He was one of the earlier volunteers in the recruiting queues at Leicester weeks after war declared in August 1914 he is allocated to the 8th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment. On the 14th July 1916 near Bazentin le Petit Wood Arthur is wounded in the same action that Leonard Lovatt and Arthur Price, both of Ibstock, were killed in action. Arthur receives a gunshot wound and is passed down the evacuation chain via 34 Casualty Clearing Station to no.2 Hospital at Harve by the 16th July 1916. He recovers well and returns to his unit on the 30th August 1916. In an incident that is unrecorded in the Battalions war diaries Arthur is killed in action on the 16th February 1917. Winter months saw few set piece battles because of the conditions but the Leicesters were famous for two things, their trench building skills and their tenacity for launching impromptu raids on enemy trenches. Family rumour has it that Arthur died at the point of an enemy bayonet which was received on one such raid.
Ellistown's Thomas Deacon never got to see France. He was a master baker along with his father who's bakery stood next to the Ellistown Hotel facing the junction with Beveridge Lane. Although later census records show it listed as Whitehill Road Ellistown, the 1891 census shows the Roads name prior to 1901, Bagworth Road Whitehill. After leaving school, Thomas junior worked for his father and like him became a Master Baker and was a keen horse rider as well as playing cricket for the Ellistown village team. In 1914 he married Sara May Wade of Shepshed and in 1916 they had a daughter. After enlisting at Leicester on 3rd January 1917, he transferred to Brocton Camp in Staffordshire on 2nd February 1917. Before the end of the month he was to die on 25th February 1917 from Cerebro Spinal fever at a Military Hospital on Cannock Chase which was suffering from a Meningitis epidemic at the time.
Both stories are told in the Ibstock Historical Societies 'Lest We Forget' book which along with it’s sister book 'Left to Grow Old' can be purchased from the Historical Society most Saturday's during the Community mornings between 10am and 12 at the Palace on the High Street. Our friends at Ashby Museum, the Crown Inn at Heather, Ibstock Business Centre on the High Street and Graphic Print in Market Bosworth also carry the books. Alternatively contact the Society via their website www.ibstocklives.wix.com/home, through their Facebook page or by email at ibstocklives@ayhoo.co.uk. Each book costs £10 with half going to the local Royal British Legion and the other half to the Historical Society.
Two of the stories from Left to Grow Old were impacted by February 1917. Ibstock's Arthur Mee pictured on the right with his older brothers had to wait until the 22nd February the enlist, being born in 1899 he was due to 18 a couple of months later, he went on to serve with C Co of the 4th Battalion Manchester Regiment where a lot of local men got allocated after enlisting with the Leicesters. After the war Arthur went to work with his mother and brother Doug at the families bakery at the bottom of Chapel Street. Sadly he was just 44 when he passed away.
The 25th February 1917 marked the date when Ellistown's Josiah Bamkin landed in France, he served with eth 1/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment, his brother James also served with the Leicesters in the 1/5th Battalion. The Bamkins lived on Ellistown Terrace in the old village of Ellistown as it ran from the junction with Victoria Road up towards Wood Road and Bagworth a and the brothers plus father Josiah snr worked at the Ellistown Colliery just across the road. Josiah snr was a Blacksmith, James was a Clerk and Josiah jnr was a Joiner.
Josiah jnr enlisted at Coalville in November 1914 with the Leicestershire Regiment but because of his work at the Colliery was immediately placed in the 5th Reserve Battalion. during German Spring offensive of the spring in 1918 he saw action at the Battle of St. Quentin, the First Battle of Bapaume, the Battle of Bailleul and the First Battle of Kemmel. It was during the battle just south of the village of Ypres that Josiah suffered a close encountered with a nearby shell explosion. Medical examinations the following year list Heart and Nerve damage which led to him being returned to Base and subsequent leave for two weeks, he eventually returned to France in July 1918. After the war both James and Josiah returned to there work at the colliery.
MARCH 1917
The First World War spanned four years and three months, only six of those months did not feature a death from someone born or living in this area. Ibstock features many times, this month the village was associated with all those detailed below. We remember four men who died within just twelve days of each other.
On the 6th March 1917 Ibstock born Charles Heathcote Walker of the 174th Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers was killed. Although he was living at No 22 The Green in Hugglescote at the time of enlisting he was born in Ibstock in 1893. Charles was another local miner recruited to dig tunnels under No Mans Land by the Royal Engineers following events on the 20th December 1914 when the Germans blew ten small mines under the positions held by the Indian Corps at Givenchy, enabling them to capture the ground almost unopposed. Charles landed in France on the 28th November 1915 and in January 1916 had a narrow escape, a party of tunnellers were resting in a house that was hit by a shell, burying many, including Charles. He wasn’t so lucky in March, the 174th had moved north of the Ancre, facing Beaumont-Hamel during October 1916 and Charles was killed in action.
Three days later John Rolleston from Melbourne Road died from wounds probably sustained during one of the 1st Bn Leicestershire Regiment many assaults on the enemies trench system on the Loos front. It is believed that before the war John worked at the colliery in Nailstone. Five days later on the 14th March another Melbourne Road resident, Bertram Redshaw, was also to die from his wounds. Redshaw along with three of his friends, George Cooper, Walter Fowkes and Arthur Allen went to the Leicesters main Recruiting Office in March the previous year to enlist with the North Staffordshire Regiment. Within twelve months all four were killed, the first was Bertram.
During the night of the 13th/14th March the North Staffs force assaulted Bucquoy Graben. Leaving their assembly point at 6pm the battalions slogged 5 miles in pouring rain, through a congested Fonquenvillers that was being shelled, reaching Rossignol Wood by nearly 10pm. The taped jumping off point was about 500 yards from the enemy. A familiar story of a rigid artillery with shells falling short, a delay in zero hour, uncut wire and an enemy ready and waiting prewarned by the shelling. The few who managed to gain a foothold in the enemy trenches were bombed out or overwhelmed. Many failed to get through the third belt of wire and this ill-conceived attack failed at a very high cost to the North and South Staffordshire men. The combined losses of the two Staffordshire Battalions were 21 officers and 300 other ranks including Bertram. He was buried at the small Rossignol Wood cemetery which was beside the Casualty Clearing Station where he was treated.
Four days later Thomas Davies was killed at the HMS Victory shore station of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. Due to naval discipline personnel were always assigned to a vessel even when onshore and therefore was recorded onboard a vessel and that included shore stations which were given names such as the HMS Victory. Thomas was born in Ibstock although at the time of enlisting the family were living on Station Terrace in Bagworth where Thomas snr was a Railway Platelayer and Thomas jnr recorded as a colliery lamp cleaner.
Thomas died as a direct result of enemy action and was buried with full military escort at Holy Rood churchyard inn Bagworth.
All four stories are told in more detail in the Ibstock Historical Societies book, Lest We Forget, proceeds from the sale get split between the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes. March 1917 was also an impact for three local servicemen and their stories can be found in the Societies follow up book, Left to Grow Old, which tells 150+ stories of men and women who served their country during the Great War in various capacities but were able to return to their families.
George Rolleston also of Ibstock George ended the war as an Observer with the 82nd Squadron Royal Air Force but on the 1st March 1917 he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant with the 4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment. The 11th March 1917 marked another promotion to Corporal with the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry, for Arnold Bunting of Congerstone although he would end the war with a commission to 2nd Lieutenant with the Sherwood Foresters Regiment. Another Congerstone born man, Gildroy Murby also received a promotion, on the 16th March, to Gunner 2nd Class with the Royal Navy and served aboard HMS Lord Nelson one of the last pre-dreadnought battleships built by the British in 1908.
The final name mentioned is Bill Davies who grew up at the Boot Inn in Ibstock where his father is recorded on the 1881 census as Innkeeper and Butcher. Before the war Bill was Landlord of the Star Inn in Hucknall and Bill enlists in Nottingham on the 13th March 1917 and is placed with the Army Veterinary Corps, his papers include the line ‘Accustomed to the care of horses’ which suggests that he had previous experience with the ponies that carried the tubs below ground at the colliery or his experience stemmed from the stables and wheelwrights located next to the Star Inn.
APRIL 1917
This month we remember 8 local men who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country in the Great War. As per usual Ibstock gets a mention, but with just one casualty this month, Bagworth leads the way with three, Ellistown lost two lads with the remaining two originating from Heather and Nailstone although it could be argued Nailstone suffered two casualties this month.
Bagworth's three casualties would cover the Air, Land and Sea. Alfred Emmerson was the youngest son of the Bagworth Colliery Manager. Alfred had enlisted with his older brother Joseph who was killed in October 1915 while attacking an enemy trench system. Alfred had also originally enlisted with the Leicestershire Regiment and as with Jospeh had been commissioned as an officer, Alfred however had been seconded to the 12th squadron of the Royal Flying Corps as an Artillery spotter. While he and pilot, 2nd Lt Karl Christian Horner, where flying over Arras on the 4th April 1917 they were shot down, both survived the crash but died shortly
after arriving at Hospital.
John Bennett lived on Station Road in Bagworth although after he married they moved to Barlestone Road. He had initially enlisted with the Leicestershire Regiment but after transferred to the 12th Battalion Manchester Regiment. He was to die from wounds on the 16th April 1917 sustained at the First Battle of the Scarpe. Samuel Willett was born in Bagworth and served in the Merchant Marine aboard the S.S. "Jose de Larrinaga" which was on route from Port Galveston in Texas bound for Manchester carrying general cargo. On the 28th April 1917, she was 150 miles WNW of Fastnet in Ireland when she was torpedoed and sunk by submarine U81. U81 was to suffer the same fate just three days later on the 1st May 1917 when she was torpedoed west of Ireland by HM Submarine E54.
Ellistown's Amos Barnes was actually born in Nailstone but was brought up while the family lives at 196 Whitehill Road in Ellistown was serving with the 18th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers near Ancre during the German Withdrawal to the heavily fortified Hindenburg Line when he was killed in action on the 15th April 1917. John Callier was also brought up in Ellistown, at 100 Midland Road, but was also born elsewhere, in Ashby. Before enlisting on the 1st November 1915 he was a shoe maker. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment fighting in Iraq and it was on the 23rd April 1917 that was John was shot by a sniper, one of the 2,228 casualties sustained in the three day successful offensive to take Samarra station seventy miles north of Baghdad.
Thomas Capers lived at 6 Orchard Street in Ibstock before enlisting with the 8th Battalion Rifle Brigade Thomas worked as an insurance agent and was a Sunday School teacher at St Denys church. His unit were south of Wancourt when he was injured and would die from his wounds on the 13th April 1917. Nailstones 'other' casualty this month was sustained during the Second Battle of the Scarpe on the 24th April 1917. Fred Mugglestone lived on Main Street and before enlisting with the 1st Bn Royal Dublin Fusiliers was employed in Ashby as the driver of the Queen’s Head omnibus carrying guests between the hotel and the railway station.
Thomas Sidwell was born in Appleby Magna but raised in Heather on Mill Lane. The brutality of the fighting on Western Front is the focus of many attention during WW1. People are also aware of the Galipoli campaign and occasionally Mesopotamia where John Callier fought. Few are aware of the Macedonian front against Bulgarian Army where the 4th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment fought and it was at the Battle of Doiran that Thomas was killed on the 25th April 1917.
All eight of these stories are told in more detail in the Ibstock Historical Societies book, Lest We Forget, proceeds from the sale get split between the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes. We don't know the exact date but it's believed around this time in 1917 Ibstock's John Eggington had a miraculous escape. This story can be found in the Societies follow up book, Left to Grow Old, which tells 150+ stories of men and women who served their country during the Great War in various capacities but were able to return to their families.
John's little brother Lewis, although too young to serve himself, recorded his families varied involvement in the Great War in great detail from Red Cross Sisters and Munitionettes through the Intelligence Corps interrogation of German officers and it's with thanks to Lewis's granddaughter that we can share John's tale. Many long standing Ibstock residents will remember John as the manager of the Co-op store on Chapel Street. John wanted to support his country but the families strict Methodist upbringing lead many into support roles and John was placed in charge of a mess canteen for the soldiers close to the front lines, no doubt calling on his experience of management of provisions prior to the war. The problem came when there was a move by the soldiers using the canteen for it to stock alcohol which didn’t sit well with John and he asked to be relieved of his command, much to his superiors consternation.
John was sent to carry mail to the front lines in a role that was far more riskier than his previous one, or so people thought until a week later when the canteen he had worked at sustained a direct hit causing a great number of casualties. Devine providence perhaps? John went on to serve his country indirectly during the following conflict when he served on the food committee ensuring scarce rations were shepherded carefully and fairly. Sadly he would lose his son in that confict when the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle was sank in the Mediterranean.
MAY 1917
This month we remember four local lads who died during WW1, all four came from Ellistown
Arthur Quilter lived on Battram Road before he enlisted with the 2/5th Bn Leicestershire Regiment and was killed on the 2nd May 1917. During Mid-March 1917 the Germans began falling back to the Hindenburg Line, a heavily fortified construction behind their existing lines known as Operation Alberich. They destroyed everything on the ground that they left flattening villages, poisoning wells, cutting down trees, blowing craters on roads and crossroads, booby-trapping ruins and dugouts. The withdrawal was to an immensely powerful and shorter line, positioned to take every tactical advantage of ground - obviously someone had been a student of Wellington campaign against Napoleonic forces a hundred years earlier. The construction of this line had been spotted by British and French aviators in late 1916. It was during the pursuit of the German forces that Arthur was killed in action.
William Harper lived at 108 Whitehill Road and worked at Ellistown Colliery at the far end of the village. William died from wounds on the 17th May 1917 while serving with the 5th Battalion Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry probably as a result of the Battle of Arras which took place between the 9th April and 16th May 1917
Ernest Flamson of the 1st Bn Leicestershire was born in Heather but later moved to 47 Ibstock Road in Ellistown where he worked at the nearby South Leicester colliery in Ellistown. The war diaries for the 1st Battalion on the 24th May 1917 tells us “The Battalion were in the Front Line trenches, usual trench routine. Operational Order number 190 received from Brigade re relief on the night of the 26th May. Casualties, other ranks A Company 1 killed and 1 wounded.” Ernest was the other rank soldier killed that day.
The war memorial on Central Avenue in Ibstock bears two lads under the name of Barrs, Jack was the elder of the two and was killed in September 1916. Both Jack and his brother George were employed at the Ellistown colliery alongside their father. George also served with the Leicestershire Regiment but with the 1st/5th Battalion. The Barrs family lived on Richmond Road which at the time was part of the Ellistown parish.
George had joined up on the 25th September 1914 soon after war was declared and had been serving in France for 2 years and 5 months before he died of wounds on the 25th May 1917 sustained at Spanbroekmolen on the Messines Ridge. This was part of the same wider German withdraw to the Hindenburg Line mentioned above for Arthur Quilter. George's parents had received a telegram at the beginning of May to say that George had been wounded in the thigh by a piece of shrapnel.
All four of these stories are told in more detail in the Ibstock Historical Societies book, Lest We Forget, proceeds from the sale get split between the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes. It was around this time in 1917 that Ibstock's Alty Adcock started his time in uniform. This story can be found in the Societies follow up book, Left to Grow Old, which tells 150+ stories of men and women who served their country during the Great War in various capacities but were able to return to their families.
No story of Ibstock would be complete without at least one Adcock. Alfred or Alty as he would become known, was born in Ibstock on the 23rd May, at the time his parents kept the Waggon & Horses pub on Curzon Street. In the summer of 1914 Alty married Elsie Webb of Whitwick and they had one son, Robert, who was born towards the end of 1916. Alty was 27 when war broke out and didn’t get called up until 1917 when the Derby Scheme was introduced.
The Absent Voters List compiled around Easter 1918 recorded Alty with the Labour Corps. This differs from the unit his family believed he had served with - the Leicestershire Regiment - but there were a number of local men who followed the same path of enlisting with the Tigers before being transferred to the Labour Corps. Alty was 30 at the time and a physically strong man used to shifting beer barrels would have come in useful with the Labour Corps.
Before the war Alty played the piano at the Palace to accompany silent movies and would play in both the Waggon and the Ram Inn, one positive side effect was he rarely had to pay for his drinks when out socialising. During his time in uniform, his skill with the piano came in handy when he was asked to entertain in the officers mess. After the war Alty set up a music and second hand furniture shop at number 57 High Street in Ibstock. It seems Alty wasn’t much of a business man, spending most of his profits on his beloved Pigeons, he did however have a significant hand in helping a lot of young couples furnish their first home in Ibstock. His success in Pigeon racing was evident by the amount silverware on show on the Sideboard at home with little room for anything else. Alty died in the winter of 1975 at the grand age of aged 88.
June 1917
This month sees five local men remembered following their deaths a hundred years ago during the First World War. Although Arthur Gamble was born in Rothwell in Northamptonshire we remember him for the time he lived at 192 Whitehill Road in Ellistown. This fact came to life when his enlistment papers were found for the 44th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry when he enlisted in Winnipeg on the 29th February 1916, he listed his occupation as Farmer. Arthur had immigrated back in 1909, sailing from Liverpool to New Brunswick in Canada.
On the 3rd June 1917 Arthur was killed in action. The 44th Battalion were at the Souchez River near to Arras, not too long after the Battle of Vimy Ridge where the Canadian's had showed exemplary courage during April and May of 1917. After losing Vimy Ridge the Germans threw all their reserve forces into an effort to recapture Vimy, their primary line of advance was along the Souchez river valley. The combined Canadian and British forces in this area resisted the German attacks - which included the use of poison gas - intense fighting went on for several days. In the end the Germans were again forced to retreat and the Canadians were able to continue to advance from Vimy as far as the city of Avion.
Harry Arthur Fowkes was born in Ibstock in 1894 and was a Labourer at the brickyard where his father Joseph was Foreman. On the 27th July 1915 the 19 year old Harry enlisted at Loughborough and it is understood that he was part of a large draft sent to France in late 1915. Although he hard progressed to the rank of Lance Corporal with the 1/5th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment, nothing is known of Harry’s war service until the 8th June 1917 when he was killed in action near Marqueffles Farm in Lens while trying to destroying 3 enemy machine guns and 2 trench mortars.
Isaac Lewis was another Ibstock coal miner taken into the ranks of the Royal Engineers to dig tunnels under No Mans Land in order to lay significant mines underneath the enemies trench network - a tactic that proved so effective the previous year at Lochnagar during the Somme offensive.The 1891 and 1901 census’s record Isaac's family at Hugglescote Road in Ibstock which in more modern times is known as Leicester Road, the 1911 census gives further detail - 228 Victoria Terrace, Leicester Road in Ibstock. Isaac worked his way up the mining structure starting at the colliery as Pony Driver progressing to Coal Loader and eventually Hewer working the coal face. In 1914 he married Emily Blakesley from Leicester.
The 254th Tunnelling Corps was formed in England and according to Isaac’s Medal Card deployed to Egypt in 1915, moving to Gallipoli in December 1915. The tunnellers worked in teams of four, the ‘Claykicker’ dug a section of clay or chalk from the face, the 'Bagger' catching the spoil so that no sound was made, the 'Trammer' took the spoil away from the face and all the while the fourth man was listening for any enemy tunnelling activity of their own. The Company was moved to France and relieved 176th Company in northern Givenchy area in the Spring of 1916 and at the time of Isaac’s death on 19th June 1917 they were working in the heavy clay of Ypres Salient when the enemy triggered one of its own tamped mines. Six other men
died alongside Isaac on that day: Spr William Green, Spr Alfred Skillman and Dvr James Thomas were killed in action, LCpl William Austin, Spr Henry Chapman and Spr George Platt died of wounds and two further men were to die of wounds in the next 48 hours: Spr William James Walters and Spr John Barr.
The final two casualties were both from Heather, were both serving with the 1/5th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment, judging by their service numbers must have enlisted around the same time and would both be killed under what modern military term 'Friendly Fire'. Arthur Brooks was born in Heather in 1897, the family lived on Swepstone Road in Heather near the Flamson and Boobyer families where Arthur worked as an apprentice butcher in Heather. As well as living and working Heather, Arthur was also a member of Heather Cricket Club and attended the Wesleyan Chapel there.
Arthur was one of a handful of men from the area to be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in attacking a hostile bombing party single handed, killing two and dispersing the remainder. His bombing party were at the time engaged in dealing with a hostile machine gun and team and he subsequently cleared 150 yards of enemy trench, his citation in the London Gazette read, ‘He is a very fine example of courage to his section.’ His award came through on the 25th August 1917; unfortunately the award came through two months after he and Horace Grewcock died on the 21st June 1917 during an accidental gassing incident by the Royal Engineers. The incident happened during the Arras offensive.
The official Regimental history tells us: “At dusk on the 21st we received a message, and at once warned all ranks, that the Special Brigade Royal Engineers were going to carry out a gas bombardment of the mine buildings of Fosse 3. The wind was satisfactory, and the buildings were at least 150 yards away from our nearest trenches, so there seemed no need of any special precautions. “C” Company, occupying Boot and Brick trenches, heard the familiar explosion as the projectors went off, and waited to hear them fall in the buildings. Instead, they fell in our trenches, several hundred of them; in a few seconds, and before any warning could be shouted, the trenches were full of phosgene, the deadliest of all gasses. Officers and men worked hard to rouse those resting, and, in particular, 2nd Lieut. Banwell taking no heed for his own safety went everywhere, rousing, rescuing and helping the badly gassed. But it was too late, and all through the night and next morning casualties were being carried out to Liévin and down the line. With the exception of Capt. Moore, who was fortunately on leave at the time, “C” Company was wiped out and temporarily ceased to exist. Twenty-four died from the poison.” Arthur and Horace were among that number. Before the war Horace lived on Main Street in Heather he worked at Ibstock Colliery as Assistant Onsetter below ground at the colliery.
These five stories are told in more detail in the Ibstock Historical Societies book, Lest We Forget, proceeds from the sale get split between the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes. June 1917 proved a major turning point for Sydney Richards of the 2nd Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers. His story can be found in the Societies follow up book, Left to Grow Old, which tells 150+ stories of men and women who served their country during the Great War in various capacities but were able to return to their families.
Sidney and wife Julia lived at 21 Orchard Street in Ibstock, Sidney’s occupation was recorded as a Coal miner. Although his service papers didn't survive the WW2 blitz but we do know that he first served overseas in France landing on the 11th January 1915, although family rumour tells that he also served in Mesopotamia which would put him in the 2nd Battalion of the Fusiliers. Sidney was awarded the Silver War Badge on his discharge on the 26th June 1917. The Badge was awarded for Kings Regulation 392xvi which went under the heading as ‘No longer physically fit for war service.’ His family have confirmed that not only was Sidney suffering from Shell Shock and received a Gunshot wound but the probable cause for the award was suffering shrapnel on the lungs. Sidney was evacuated aboard the HMT Nevasa, a troopship that was fitted as a 660 bed hospital ship. Sidney was eventually evacuated home and died in Ibstock within weeks of the armistice in December 1918 from the debilitating effects of the Shell Shock and is buried in St Denys Churchyard.
JULY 1917
Each month I include an article about the local lads who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Every story is different but deserves telling so that their sacrifice does not get forgotten. The first of this months stories has a personal twist for me as it features my Great Uncle and was the reason for getting involved in the North West Leicestershire Heritage Forum project to document each of the WW1 casualties from the District into five books, my contribution was the Lest We Forget book covering in addition to Ibstock, the villages of Bagworth, Ellistown and Battram, Heather, Nailstone, Newton Burgoland, Normanton-le-Heath, Odstone, snarestone and Swepstone. Three of the remaining four books are already available covering Ashby/Breedon/Measham, Castle Donnington/Diseworth/Kegworth and Acresford/Albert Village/Overseal the final book covering Coalville/Thringstone/Whitwick is in production at the moment. All five are/will be available through the Ibstock Historical Society at the Palace.
George Cooper was born in 1890 in Leicester, close to the Newarks and was the third son of Polly and Josiah Cooper. My Great Grandfather moved the family to Chapel Street when he found work at the Ibstock pit and no doubt George would have grown up with tales his fathers time in uniform when he served with the Leicestershire Regiment as a lad. George joined his father and older brother Arthur - my grandfather - as cobblers in their shop on the corner of Pennistone Street and Leicester Road. In March 1915 George traveled to Leicester with three of his friends from Ibstock to enlist with the North Staffordshire Regiment, Bertram Redshaw featured in these pages in March and sadly you'll hear about the other two - Walter Fowkes in September and Arthur Allen in March next year, 12 months after the first of the four friends was killed.
George, Bertram and Arthur were placed with the 1/5th Battalion while Walter was placed in the 1/6th. George was attached to a Lewis gun section, a typical team was made of five men. The Number 1 who was in charge and carried the machine gun – nicknamed the Belgian Rattlesnake - named after the guns original inventor, Colonel Lewis of the US Army who moved to Belgium. The Number 2 carried the spare parts that accompanied the gun. Each man carried in the region of three stones in extra weight as a result – one of the reasons why the Number 1 and 2 in a team didn’t carry the standard issue Lee Enfield Rifle, a Webley revolver was issued instead.
The other three men in the crew carried the ammunition that the machine gun needed, each of these three men was expected to carry two hundred rounds of ammunition in panniers. Teams learnt to move frequently as the enemy would quickly establish where a Lewis machine gun was placed and artillery would home in on it. By moving frequently the risk of detection was considerably reduced. During basic training if an infantry soldier who scored over a certain number of points in marksmanship tests were offered the opportunity to become either a sniper or to join a Lewis machine gun team. The badge of crossed rifles, to indicate a marksman, also brought with it an extra 6d a day, they were also not expected to do the traditional work of infantrymen, this was because of their importance to the defense of trench lines and the time taken by the teams to keep their gun and equipment in top condition.
Men who joined a Lewis machine gun team were given a ‘LG’ badge to wear on a sleeve. To those in the trenches the badge was nicknamed the ‘suicide badge’ as it was believed by the infantry that if the Germans captured you, you would be shot out of hand because of the terrible casualties caused by the Lewis gun. On the 1st July 1917 the 1/5th undertook a major attack among the shelled houses of Lens, a mining town north of Arras. It seems that the 1/5th had become adept at street fighting, raiding and limited set-piece attacks and it was the 1st July that George was killed in action.
The second casualty of July 1917 was William Lockwood of Bagworth who was a Farm Labourer before the war. William enlisted in Coalville with the 12th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment and formed part of the re-enforcements of the Lowther Lambs, as the Regiment was called, around September 1916. William was killed in action on the 31st July, the first day of the Battle of Pilckem, while the Battalion were working from Hill Top Farm towards St. Julien. It was the opening attack of the main part of the Third Battle of Ypres that took place in the Ypres Salient area of the Western Front. Heavy rainfall began in the afternoon of 31st, causing many problems for the British who were advancing into the area devastated by artillery fire and which was partly flooded.
Both of these stories feature in the aforementioned Lest We Forget book, proceeds from the sale get split between the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes. July 1917 proved a major turning point for three other local men during WW1 and these stories can be found in the Ibstock Historical Societies follow up book, Left to Grow Old, which tells 150+ stories of men and women who served their country during the Great War in various capacities but were able to return to their families.
Charles Lawrence was born in Ibstock and was sent to London to enlist at Scotland Yard on the 19th November 1915 as a Pioneer with the Royal Engineers. He entered his occupation as Printer living at 80 Melbourne Road. Chas was in the NN Cable Section of the Royal Engineers and sent to the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. He departed Southampton on the 19th June 1917 landing at Alexandria on the 6th July 1917. His service papers note that his Specialist Military Occupation was Telegraph Operator, Sobriety Good and in the additional comments was entered ‘Has done very good work’. After the war Chas taught at National School on the High Street in Ibstock and he married Jessie Ethel Eggington on the 25th December 1920. the Eggington's made a varied contribution to the war effort and Jessie was no exception, working in a munitions factory in Coventry. Chas would go on to teach Woodwork at St Martin’s College in Leicester next door to the Cathedral of the same name. Chas and Jessie retired to Dorset and Chas passed away in December 1965. After Chas's death Jessie moved to Mansfield to be close to her son where she passed away in 1978.
Fred Sleigh kept the garage near the school on Whitehill Road in Ellistown and featured in the November edition. He served aboard the HMS Barham where, on the 21st July 1917, he received a promotion from Ordinary Seaman to Armoury Crew. John Haywood Bacon was another Ellistown born volunteer, before the war he worked alongside his brother and father at the Ellistown colliery as Fitters. On the 24th July 1917 John was transferred to the 2nd North Midland Field Coy as a Corporal with the 19th Coy of the Royal Engineers Inland Waterways & Docks.The work of the Royal Engineers could involve anything from canal banks and barge maintenance, to bridges and dock stonework.
The Inland Waterways section was formed back in 1915 operating barges through the extensive canal network of Belgium and Northern France as well as the large river deltas of Mesopotania, modern day Iraq. Both area’s depended heavily on the waterways for their supply lines but also had a network of barges to transport the wounded as this method was especially suited to transport men suffering from head or chest wounds or fractures of the thigh where less jolting meant less suffering than other methods of transport. After the war John returned to Ellistown and his job at the Colliery. He would eventually work his way up to Engine wright at the colliery whose job it was to look after the winding engine which took the cages of men up and down the shaft to the required seam and winch the mined coal back to the surface. John went on to marry Eunice Woolerton in 1930, they lived at 8 Victoria Road close to the colliery until his death in 1964.
AUGUST 1917
August sees us remember another four young lads from the area that paid the ultimate sacrifice 100 years ago during the Great War. The first two came from Ellistown and served with the 1/5th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment. Walter Pettitt was born in Horningsea, Cambridgeshire but the family moved to 64 Ibstock Road in Ellistown when Harry found work as a Hewer at South Leicester Colliery. Walter would eventually join him below ground, working on the face at Nailstone colliery. Walter enlisted at Coalville on the 23rd September 1914, just weeks after war was declared, and seemed to be leading a charmed life. In early 1915 a bullet hit his belt buckle and he escaped injury, in July of the same year he was hit again, this time in a small tin box in his pocket. The enemy had started small scale tunnelling missions towards the end of 1914 which prompted the Royal Engineers’ to establish a series of Tunnelling Companies but being blessed with so many coal miners in their ranks the Leicesters set up their own Tunnellers under Lieutenant Moore, and for a time Walter was one of 24 men from the 5th Leicesters to perform the underground work.
Eventually Walter returned to front line duties and his Battalion were involved in the fighting at Hohenzollern Redoubt plus the Somme offensive. It was while they were moving into position at St Elie on the 15th August 1917 that an enemy shell landed among the line and killed a number of men including Walter, who died. The Battalion History records ‘On the way, “B” Company had a serious disaster. A shell, intended for one of our batteries West of Vermelles, fell on the Company as they were passing the Mansion House Dump. They were marching in fours and had practically a whole platoon wiped out, for eleven were killed and fourteen wounded.’
The second Ellistown lad was Alfred Burton of 67 Ibstock Road, although he had been born in Ibstock on Gladstone Street in Ibstock. Following his father and older brothers, Alfred worked at the South Leicester colliery. Judging from his service number, Alfred seems to have volunteered in the winter of 1914. The Coalville Times announcement of the death of another Ellistown lad, William Barney in June 1915, includes a letter sent by Alfred to William’s parents which would have placed Alfred on the Ypres Salient at the time. The war diaries for the 1/5th Battalion list their exploits in some of the major Great War actions and Alfred would have seen his friends and comrades fall at the Hohenzollern Redoubt, Vimy Ridge, Gommecourt Salient, the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line and the disastrous Accidental Gassing of C Company that killed Arthur Brooks and Horace Grewcock, both from Heather. Two days after Walter Pettitt's death on the 17th August Alfred is killed in action during an attack on the enemy’s trench.
The following day Ibstock's Arthur Newman was killed. He was a dispatch rider with 4 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps who, along with 6 squadron, shared Abeele aerodrome. A diary entry made by a member of 6 Squadron for the 18th August 1917 states, “Bombed by a couple of Huns at 10:30pm.” None of 6 Squadron’s men were killed or injured that night, but Arthur was carrying a despatch during the night, presumably to report the attack, when he collided with another motorcycle rider and was critically injured. Arthur was the son of one of Ibstock's butchers, William Newman, and older brother of Author Bernard.
The final casualty in August 1917 was John Sharpe of 12 Copson Street in Ibstock. John enlisted at Leicester on the 22nd November 1915, soon after John Callier of Ellistown who was also placed in the 2nd Battalion Leicestershire Regiment featured in the April 1917 article. John embarked from Devonport on the 7th June 1916, arriving at Basra in Mesopotamia, now modern day Iraq. John was involved in the same action on the 22nd April 1917 at Samarra Station that saw Callier shot by a snipper and John Sharpe receives a gunshot wound to his right knee and is admitted to Hospital for treatment.
By the 28th August 1917 John is based at the Advanced Base Depot at Kut, 100 miles south of Baghdad, and is recorded as accidentally drowned. A Court of Enquiry was held to establish the circumstances where Pte W Tabbs of the 2nd Leicesters stated “I went to the bathing place with Pte Sharpe. He went into the water about 5.30pm. He’d been in the water about half an hour before he went out of his depth. Pte Jozzard tried to save him and both went under. I saw him come up again and then Sharpe appeared to let go of Jozaard and sank. Jozzard then asked for a towel but it was too late to be of any use.”
A number of local servicemen had major activities taking place in August 1917 and feature in the Ibstock Historical Societies 'Left to Grow Old' book detailing 150+ stories of men and women who survived in various capacities during the war but were able to return to their families. Back in March we mentioned Arnold Bunting of Congerstone and 15th August saw him promoted to Lance Sergeant, he would end the war as 2nd Lieutenant with the Sherwood Foresters Regiment. The following day on the 16th August, Heathers Sydney Boobyer featured in the January article, was back receiving treatment in hospital for Psoriasis (a painful skin condition) of the knee and ‘no fluid in joint’ possibly as a result of his hospital stay in the January.
August saw four local men mobilised, Thomas Eggington of Ibstock was transferred to the 1st Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment and landed in France at Boulogne on the 19th August. Three days later Billy Newman, older brother of Arthur above, boarded a ship in Portsmouth bound for Alexandria as part of the 423rd Siege Battery Royal Garrison Artillery. After the war Billy would return to the families Butchers shop on the High Street, eventually taking over the running of the business from his father, another Billy.
On the same boat was Augustus Beardall, also with the Royal Garrison Artillery and also bound for Alexandria. Before the war Augustus had kept the Crown Inn at Heather. The 1925 edition of the Kelly’s Trade Directory records him as a fishmonger at 85 High Street in Ibstock as a Fishmonger. The final embarkation also involved a local pub, The Ram Inn on the High Street in Ibstock was run by John Palmer, who again served in the Royal Garrison Artillery, this time the 12th Mountain Battery. On the 23rd August John was at Southampton docks, also bound for Egypt.
SEPTEMBER 1917
saw six local men killed during the Great War that we remember this month. The first was Joseph Allen, a Labourer at the Brickworks before the war, who lived at 13 Station Road in Ibstock. It's thought that Jospeh was invalided home during training with the 12th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers and he died at home on the 6th September 1917 and is buried in Ibstock sadly he was entered on the memorial on Central Avenue as T Allen. Fellow Ibstock boy William Tyers also served with the Northumberland Fusiliers, in William's case it was the 25th Tyneside Bn and was killed on the 10th September. William was born in Measham but raised in Ibstock where he worked at the Worthington's Grocers working his way up from Grocers Assistant up to Area Manager. He married Eleanor Richardson and they lived above Eleanor's fathers shop at 78-80 High Street, known in the modern day as Megan's being William's granddaughter.
William Tyers was nearly thirty when he joined the Army, most likely as a conscript around February 1917 during the Derby scheme which was brought in to recruit men otherwise older than the initial draft's requirements. He landed in France sometime in summer of 1917 when he was transferred to the 25th Tyneside Battalion In the third week of August 1917 the Northumberland Fusiliers were at the Guillemot Farm, near Hargicourt where they repulsed all counter-attacks and it was here during heavy shelling that William was killed in action.
Another Worthington's employee that was killed in September was Albert Mattley of 138 Melbourne Road in Ibstock. He had lost his father at an early age and his widowed mother relied on the wages of her older sons who were all miners with the exception of Albert who worked alongside William. Albert served with the 2/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment and judging from his original army number he too likely enlisted under the Derby Scheme at the beginning of 1916. He first entered France on 25th February 1917 and most likely wounded by shell fire during the Battle of the Menin Road – also known as the Third Battle of Ypres - and died on the 20th September 1917.
Wilfred Mason was born in Thornton but raised at 22 Ellistown Terrace close to the colliery and before the war was a Bread Deliverer. Wilfred served with the 2/5th Batalion Leicestershire Regiment and was killed in action just six days after Albert on the 26th September 1917, the first day of the Battle of Polygon Wood during the Third Battle of Ypres. In a stark change of tactic the British attacks were led by lines of skirmishers, followed by small infantry columns organised in depth with a vastly increased amount of artillery support, the infantry advancing behind five layers of creeping bombardment. Preparations were then made swiftly to defeat the expected German counter-attacks. The attack inflicted a severe blow on the German Fourth Army, capturing a significant portion of Flandern I, which threatened the German hold on Broodseinde ridge. The better weather continued to benefit the British attackers by drying the ground, raising mist which obscured British infantry attacks made around dawn, then clearing to reveal German Eingreif formations to air and ground observation, well in advance of their arrival on the battlefield. On the same day Charles Seekins of 17th Coy. Labour Corps also died and is remembered on Congerstone's memorial at St Peter's churchand buried at the Railway Chateau Cemetery in Belgium.
Walter Fowkes is the final Ibstock casualty to be remember this month. Walter lived at 22 Leicester Road in Ibstock and before enlisting Walter worked as a Stockhand in the second most popular trade in the area, the Boot and Shoe industry. Judging from his service number Walter probably signed up on the 7th March 1916 alongside three of his friends, Bertram Redshaw who died in March 1917, George Cooper who was killed in July and Arthur Allen who you'll hear about in March next year. At the beginning of August 1917 the 46th Division was moved up to the Line to trenches opposite Hulloch, near Loos. There may have been no major engagements, but the attrition of trench warfare continued to take its toll as Walter is killed in action on 30th September 1917 in what appears to be an isolated incident.
Five of the six stories are told in more detail in the Ibstock Historical Societies 'Lest We Forget' book. It's sister book 'Left to Grow Old' included men from Congerstone and Shackerstone and so features the details of Charles Seekins. The sad passing recently of one of the Historical Societies long standing members reminded me of his contribution to the follow up book, Left to Grow Old.
Although Lest We Forget rightly remembers those that paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country, Nine out of every Ten people - and the vast majority of women - involved in the war effort were able to return to their families and Left to Grow Old details a 150 of those people from this area. Geoff Mee's two uncles are featured as Arthur served with C Coy of the 4th Battalion Manchester Regiment while Doug served with the Royal Horse Artillery, after the war both would return to Ibstock and work with their mother at Mee's Bakery at the foot of Chapel Street where many local long standing residents would have bought celebratory cakes.
Those same residents may well have visited George Browns butchers on Melbourne Road, close to the junction with Valley Road. George had served with the cavalry before the static warfare of the Western Front forced the 1/1st Battalion Leicestershire Yeomanry off their horses and into the trenches. Speaking of butchers, the Smith brothers in Ibstocks surviving butchers on the High Street also made their contribution to the book recalling their grandfather George Brown who served in the 8th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment and their two great uncles, Charlie Browne (Coldstream Guards) and Levi Adcock (Royal Army Medical Corps) all feature in the book. The Smiths neighbour on the High Street is the electrical retail business owned by Tom Underwood who provided a lot of invaluable detail of his fathers recollections, also called Tom, featured here in these pages back in December last year and gave an invaluable insight into the life and deprivations endured by the average Private in the trenches.
Still on the butcher theme, last month we mentioned mentioned Billy Newman who succeeded his father in running the family butchers after the war. He had lost one brother, Arthur, also mentioned last month. Oldest brother Fred served with 41st Coy Army Ordnance Corps and youngest brother, Bernard, served with the Army Service Corps putting his linguistic skills to good use. Another local businessman was Frank Lawrence who had a successful drapers and tailors on Whitehill Road in Ellistown, Frank was an ambulance driver with the Motor Transport Division of the Army Service Corps.
Public Houses have been present on our High Streets/Main Roads for many centuries and many feature in Left to Grow Old. Last months article mentioned the Crown Inn in Heather which was run by Augustus Beardall and John Palmer, his equivalent at The Ram Inn on the High Street in Ibstock, both served with the Royal Garrison Artillery. The Boot Inn on Gladstone Street in Ibstock gets a double mention in 'Left to Grow Old'. William Davis of the Army Veterinary Corps grew up there while his father had the License, in turn it was taken over by Alfred Jacques' father, Alfred served with the 2/5th Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment and had to endure 8 months as a prisoner of war in 1918.
May's article mentioned Alty Adcock who was raised at the Waggon and Horses on Curzon Street in Ibstock. After the war the Odd House (or Crown Inn as it was then) at Snarestone was run by Ronald Atkinson who served 1st Battalion Leicestershire Regiment. William Richardson served in the Kings Royal Rifles and would take over from his father-in-law in running the Rising Sun at Shackerstone for a while. and then there is Sydney Black of the 2nd Regiment Life Guards and uncle of Battle of Britain pilot Herbert Black. Sydney was raised at the Hastings Arms in Ibstock, lived for a time at the Ellistown Hotel and ended up running the Square & Compass in Linton.
OCTOBER 1917
This months article from the Great War 100 years ago remembers four Ibstock lads detailed in the Ibstock Historical Society's 'Lest We Forget' book.The first is Joseph Benn who was killed in action on the 1st October 1917 while serving with the 7th Bn Leicestershire at Polygon Wood during the Third Battle of Ypres. Joseph was actually born in Sharnford moving to Ibstock between 1899 and 1902 and after leaving school was another local miner employed as a Hewer on the face. Joseph was a keen footballer and is pictured in the 1909 Ibstock Excelsior’s football team along with the team Captain John Flaherty who also features in 'Lest We Forget' as he died during the Gallipoli campaign.
Joseph volunteered on the 20th September 1915 at the recruiting hall on Ashby Road in Coalville and was posted to the 10th Battalion for training, moving to the 6th Battalion when it was sent to France on 16th May 1916. Early in July they moved by train to Mericourt and from there marched to Fricourt on the 11th preparing for the attack on Bazentin. Joseph is wounded in the hand around the time of the attack and spends several months recovering in the UK, returning to France sometime after October 1916 where he then joins the 7th Battalion who are in the Hohenzollern sector. The 7th Battalion are at Moyeneville in June and Adinfer Wood in July. They spend time out of the line before being moved to the Ypres Salient where the action at Polygon Wood takes place on 1st October.
Three days later Samuel Preston and Hollis Rose, both of the 1st Bn South Staffordshire, were killed in action during the Battle of Broodseinde, part of the larger Second Battle of Passchendaele. Samuel was also born elsewhere, in Quorn where he grew up but is believed to have moved to Ibstock following his older brothers John, Joseph and George when they all found work at the village colliery - probably with Joseph who lodged with the Hicklin family at 105 High Street or with John and George lodged with the Shepherd family at 119 Melbourne Road. Like Joseph Benn, Samuel enlisted in Coalville, originally with the Leicesters. By the 20th December 1915 he is with the the 1st Battalion South Staffs. The Battle of Broodseinde saw new tactics being employed limiting the objectives to those that could be held against German counterattacks. The British devastated the German defence, which prompted a crisis among the German commanders and caused a severe loss of morale in the German Fourth Army. Preparations were made by the Germans for local withdrawals and planning began for a greater withdrawal which would entail the loss to the Germans of the Belgian coast, one of the strategic aims of the British offensive.
Hollis Hawtin Rose was born further afield, in Swerford Oxfordshire. Although we know who his mother was, Jane Rose, there is no record shows who his father was, but as was the tradition in the day, Hollis's unusual middle name may provide some clues. The 1901 and 1911 census have Hollis living with his mother and uncle, John Rose, the latter census records Hollis as a Farm Labourer. It’s pure conjecture but it's possible that Hollis was named after Hollis Hawtin who would eventually marry Jane’s younger sister, Gertrude in the summer of 1900. Initially they lived on High Street in Ibstock, later moving to 13 Grange Road when Hollis jnr was lodging there. As with Joseph and Samuel, Hollis jnr enlisted at Coalville in the Leicestershire Regiment, judging from his original service number, probably around July of 1917.
The final Ibstock lad was John Wright and he was actually Ibstock born and bred, the family lived at 17 Hinckley Road. John worked on the surface at Ibstock Colliery prior to the war and was a member of the Wesleyan Chapel choir on Melbourne Road. Judging from his service number John was in a group that enlisted in May 1917 that were first assigned to the 1/4th Leicesters, some of which had attested in December 1915, or in early 1916, but were put on reserve - a common practice employed for local coal miners who enlisted despite them working in a protected industry. It’s likely John was sent to France around late August or early September 1917. The Leicesters were back at Ypres at the time that John was killed in action on the 6th October 1917 which followed soon after the Battle of Broodseinde.
All four stories feature in more detail in 'Lest We Forget', proceeds from the sale get split between the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes. October 1917 proved a major turning point for another local soldier during WW1, Tommy Eggington, and his story along with 150 other men and women who served their country but were able to return to their family can be found in the Ibstock Historical Societies follow up book, Left to Grow Old. The corresponding article for January 1916 introduced Thomas Eggington, a member of the large Eggington family from Melbourne Road who were long time supporters of the Methodist Church nearby. Tommy enlisted back in 1916 but as mentioned above was placed on reserve until 24th May 1917 when he is called, landing in France at Boulogne on the 19th August 1917 and was immediately posted to the 1st Battalion South Staffordshire.
County regiments often served with their neighbouring Regiments which would explain the transfer from the Leicesters if the neighbouring unit were under strength. Tommy had been in France less than seven weeks when he was wounded in the neck on the 3rd October 1917 which required a return to England. He rejoins his unit on the 12th December 1917 but in January 1918 a number of South Staffs Battalions were disbanded and Tommy found himself transferred to Italy where, on the 17th August 1918, he gets wounded again, this time in the knee although this is treated in the field. Eventually he is discharged from the army on the 10th February 1919, his occupation guaranteeing him a priority discharge and he returns to his job at Ibstock colliery but after its closure in 1926 had to move to nearby Nailstone where he worked as a Labourer above ground. In 1921 he married Sarah Shepherd, also of Ibstock and they lived on Copson Street. Tommy died on the 5th April 1976 in the Leicester General Hospital aged 84.
NOVEMBER 1917
November 1917 marked the end of another of the infamous battles of World War 1. The Third Battle of Ypres has largely been remembered for the little village that was the center of the action, Passchendale, and two of this months three casualties featured in the Ibstock Historical Societies 'Lest We Forget' book were a result of wounds sustained in the final days of the battle. The infantry attack had begun at the end of July. Constant shelling had churned the clay soil and smashed the drainage systems. The heaviest rain for 30 years had turned the soil into a quagmire, producing thick mud that clogged up rifles and immobilised tanks. It eventually became so deep that men and horses drowned in it.
Alfred Richardson was born in Ellistown and raised at the South Leicester Hotel, later known as the Ellistown Hotel at the junctions of Ibstock Road, Midland Road Whitehill Road, although at the time it was still known as Bagworth Road. After an initial apprenticeship with them Alfred progressed to Printing Compositor with the Coalville Times. In 1913 he married Emma Chiswell and lived at 121 Crescent Road in Hugglescote where they had two daughters. His papers have not survived but it’s thought that he joined up at Coalville in late 1915, initially with the Rifle Brigade, later transferring to the 188th Machine Gun Corps. During the last days of the battle Alfred was seriously wounded in right arm and chest. Initial hopes that he would recover sufficiently to travel to England were forwarded to his family but he passed away on the 11th November and it was the following week that the Coalville Times had to annocunce the death of one of their own.
The following day James Cleaver of the 2/4th Bn East Lancashire was also to die from wounds, his sustained during the Battle of Poelcappelle which was also part of the larger Third Battle of Ypres. James was born in Congerstone but moved to Swepstone the following year in time to be recorded on the 1901 census Evans Farm. James enlisted at Coalville, like many of the local lads originally in the Leicestershire Regiment. The Battle of Poelcappelle was the last of a string of highly successful Allied attacks during the Third Battle of Ypres, a series of “bite and hold” battles launched by General Plumer. The first three such battles (Menin Road Ridge, Polygon Ridge and Broodseinde) had each achieved their objectives, biting chunks out of the German line and then defending those gains against any counterattacks. Each of the attacks had been supported by a well directed artillery bombardment that had isolated the part of the German front line as well as by a creeping barrage that had protected the advancing soldiers. They had also taken place during a patch of dry weather. The attack at Poelcappelle failed to achieve its objectives, although a number of units did manage to advance a short distance, they were forced to pull back later in the day.
The third casualty in November 1917 was John Pickering of 6th Bn Buffs East Kent on the 30th November. John was born in Snarestone and raised in Shackerstone where his father worked as a Signalman. John enlisted in Melton probably during the 1917 Derby scheme and killed in action on the 30th during the Battle of Cambrai. The battle was significant for being the first successful massed use of tanks, they had been brought into service the previous year but unlike previous deployments, it was the success of the attack and the resulting Allied press attention that were unprecedented. It was their effectiveness against the initial barbed wire defences, which had previously been considered a safe bet by the Central Powers to be impregnable.
The initial Allied successes demonstrated that even the most resolute of trench defence could be overcome by this new method of combining the use of infantry, artillery barrarges and tanks with aircraft observation and direction. Ultimately the German shock as a result of the attack would lead to a change in tactics of counter attack and morale but it couldn't deny that they'd had to divert resources to anti-tank weapons and defence, resources that they couldn't afford to tie up until the Russians exited the war on the German Eastern front later.
November 1917 proved pivotal for a number of local servicemen featured in the Ibstock Historical Societies follow up publication 'Left to Grow Old'. On the 1st November Ibstock born Bill Davis was discharged from the Army Veterinary Corps 3rd Reserve Veterinary Hospital. Bill was first mentioned in the March article and was raised at the Boot Inn on Gladstone Street. Wilf Redshaw, also of Ibstock was also discharged, this time on the 4th November 1917, from Hawke Battalion of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Wilf had only enlisted on the 22nd May 1917 but suffered badly from a gas attack and ended up in North Evington Hospital (now the Leicester General Hospital) before being discharged. In the winter of 1922 Wilf married Hilda Hibbert and they had three children. As if to demonstrate that life back at Ibstock colliery was as dangerous, if not more, than life at the Western Front Wilf was only 29 when he was killed at the colliery in Ibstock on the 28th July 1928. He was employed as a boiler fireman when he was caught in a fan engine during a Saturday night shift. At the time the family lived on West Walk, off Central Avenue, in Ibstock.
Happier news was celebrated this month, John Bowler of Newton Burgoland married on the 10th November 1917 while on leave from the 1/8th Bn West Yorkshire Regiment.Walter lived at Jubilee Cottages in Newton, close to the Belper Arms, he left school aged 16 and initially worked for a blacksmith at Snarestone before moving to the Brickyard in Heather while learning shorthand and typing at evening classes in Ibstock run by Frederick Newman, featured in Septembers article. In 1912, aged 21, Walter went to work at Bardon Hill Quarries in the offices where he would remain until he retired in 1961 aged 70. He enlisted in the army on the 22nd February 1916 initially in the Durham Light Infantry after his basic training at Newcastle upon Tyne. Sometime after landing in France he was transferred to 1/8th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. His shorthand and typing skills were quickly spotted and he was quickly promoted to Lance Corporal which meant a move behind lines to do secretarial work and therefore he spent little time in the trenches. Being away from the front line wasn’t without its risks, the building used as an orderly room at Ypres was hit by a shell and Walter’s typewriter was destroyed, thankfully Walter wasn’t around at the time.
The Bowlers were members of the Methodist chapel at Newton Burgoland, another family that attended the church was the Harrisons and it was their daughter Elsie that Walter married on the 10th November at St Peters church in Swepstone. Unlike many of the local men Walter's service didn't come to and end following the Armistice in November 1918, Walter’s Battalion moved to Germany as part of Army of Occupation and he was billeted with a German family. In January 1919 Walter was offered the chance of demobilisation in place of a sergeant who was in hospital at the time and unable to travel. Walter sailed from Boulogne and then travelled by train to a camp at Harrowby near Grantham for 2 days. He then had to catch two further onward trains first to Leicester and then to Coalville, from where he walked to Newton. After being demobbed, Walter returned to Bardon Hill but following his time in France and Germany, Walter never travelled abroad again. He never learnt to drive and always cycled to and from work at Bardon Hill, when the weather was particularly bad he used to lodge with a family in Bardon. Elsie and Walter had two children while they lived at Jubilee Cottages. By the time of the birth of their third child the family were living at 38 The Crescent in Bardon. After Elsie's death 1930 Walter returned to Newton Burgoland to live with his mother at Alwyn cottages. Once he retired he moved one last time to live with his daughter at Market Bosworth where he celebrated his 100th birthday in 1991, he passed away at home on the 6th January 1996 aged 104 and 5 months and is buried with his wife in Swepstone churchyard.
Herbert Andrews of Ibstock enlisted on the 19th November 1917, the Absent Voters List of 1918 records him living at 42 Gladstone Street, with the No2 Balloon School of the Royal Air Force stationed at Lydd in Kent, attached to the Kite Balloon Section as a Balloon Party Labourer, basically one of the ground crew that manhandled the ropes. Military flying was pioneered by the French with their invention of the balloon. The balloon was used for observation early as back as the French Revolutionary War, although Napoleon did not see much use for them. The RAF established its first balloon school in 1878 and Kite balloons with tail fins – to give stability in wind – were developed and saw service in both World Wars. In the summer of 1922 Herbert married Evelyn Hooke going on to have eight children, lining at 2 Church View in Ibstock where Herbert worked initially at Ibstock colliery but latterly at Nailstone, Herbert died on the 5th December 1966.
DECEMBER 1917
Sgt William Neal of the Machine Gun Corps (Infantry) was killed in action on the 2nd December 1917. William was born in Ibstock in 1884, although by the time that the 1891 census was taken the family are recorded on the as living at The Moor in Swannington but following the death of his mother Emma (another of Ibstock's Adcock family) the family moved in with William's sister Amelia and her husband at 19 Havelock Street in Leicester.
Little is known of WIlliam's service record, the actions of the Machine Gun Corp are notoriously hard to research due to a fire in 1920 at the Shorncliffe headquarters near Folkestone. It is known that he enlisted in Castleford initially with the Yorkshire Light Infantry and probably found himself in the Machine Gun Corps through the YLI and the army initially went to war with each infantry battalion containing a machine gun section of just two guns each before they were malgmated under their own Corps.
Joseph Reed of the 1st Battalion Leicestershire Regiment was born in Thornton before moving to No 8 Colliery Row on Station Road in Bagworth before the 1911 census was taken. He and his brothers worked alongside his father working below ground at Bagworth colliery. In 1916 Joseph’s sister, Francis, would marry William Lockwood featured in July's article.
Joseph’s documents have survived and they show he enlisted at Coalville on the 9th November 1914 but wasn’t posted until the 4th November 1916. On the 4th December 1917 Joseph was killed in action while the 1st Battalion were in the Flesquieres Ridge Sector of the front line, the Battalion diary records, ‘Uneventful day on the immediate front, though enemy attacks on either flanks beginning to render the position, especially of units holding the front line of the Brigade sector very precarious. At 9.00pm Operational Order number 261 received advising that withdrawal of Brigade to new position in Hindenburg Support System was to be effected during the night. At 11.25pm 4th/5th December Operational Order 17/65 issued relative to this withdrawal. Casualties, other ranks D. Company 2 killed and 8 wounded.’ Joseph was one of the two soldiers killed.
Sgt William Cave of the 1/5th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment was born in Markfield before the family moved to 12 Cumberland Road in Ellistown where William spent his formative years living two doors away from his friend William Barney. William and his older brother Norman worked with their father below ground at South Leicester Colliery. William enlisted at Coalville in August 1914 soon after war was declared and found himself promoted rapidly. With that promotion came the responsibility of notifying the families of those men under his command that were killed and so it was in June 1915 that William had to write to William Barney's father to inform them he had been killed in action, adding to Mrs Barney that he had been asked to personally see to his friends burial. Sadly the Cave would receive the same type of letter early
in 1918.
Over the course of the preceeding three years the Tigers had repeatedly been pitched into some of the fiercer battles of WW1 and William would have seen action at the Ypres Salient where William Barney fell, Hohenzollern Redoubt where George Fletcher and George Gadsby, also of Ellistown, were killed, Gommecourt Salient where Isaac Wood sustained his fatal injuries, the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line and the disastrous Accidental Gassing of C Company that killed Arthur Brooks and Horace Grewcock. It was rare for a soldier from the ranks to be specifically named in a Battalion's War Diary but William is mentioned in the Battalion history by Captain J.D. Hills MC on the 2nd March 1916 ‘In this bombing work, Serjeants A. Passmore, Cave and Meakin, Cpl. Marshall, and L/Cpls. Dawes and A. Carr all distinguished themselves.’
At the end of 1917 the 1/5th were in the Cambrin Right Sector, just north of Loos, when William died from wounds on the 29th December 1917 sustained from a German sniper. The War diary reporting: ‘Whenever work was possible—it was often too light even at night—we worked at two new trenches, “Cardiff ” and “Currin,” connecting Bart’s Alley with Savile tunnel, as an alternative to Savile Row. These had been dug by the Monmouthshires, and now had to be wired, and here, also, we suffered at the hands of a German sniper. Serjeant W.E. Cave, a very fine N.C.O. of “A” Company, was killed with a wiring party, and one or two others had narrow escapes.’
All three of these stories are told in more detail in Lest We Forget, proceeds from the sale get split between the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes. Additional stories from December 1917 feature in the sister book, Left to Grow Old, which tells 150+ stories of men and women who served their country during the Great War in various capacities but were able to return to their families.
William Emmerson of Victoria Road Ellistown was mentioned in this article back in 2016 as it marked the centenary of his transfer to the Royal Defence Corps. William and his brother Jabez were two of the Famous Fifty of local men who served with the Territorial Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment and were part of the first of the Pals Battalions to be sent to the Western Front. Will was an Acting Quartermaster Sergeant on the 21st December 1917 when he was Mentioned in Dispatches for 'Valuable services anti aircraft service in United Kingdom'. He was eventually demobbed on the 21st March 1919 and William continued his occupation as Mine Surveyor and the family lived at 62 George Street in Ridings, he passed away on the 22nd March 1973 aged 84.
19th December 1917 saw Ibstocks William Brooks enlist as a Driver with the Motor Transport Division of the Royal Air Force, after the war William ran a Drapers store with his wife Elizabeth at 43-45 High Street in Ibstock. The Cricket Team photo of 1927 included a number of other Ibstock men who had previously served in the Great War William's (back row third from left) brother Albert Brooks (back row far right) served with the 189th Labour Corps, the family lived at 62 Copson Street. Edwin Edwards (back row far left) served with the Coldstream Guards, all be it as a coal miner he was placed on reserve until April 1918. Elijah Smith (circled middle row) served with the 2/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment and Tom Simpson (center back row) of 107 Melbourne Road served with the Royal Marine Engineers and was listed in a number of Trade Directories with his own building company.
JANUARY 1918
The weather conditions during winters on the Western Front meant a diminished number of engagement and therefore limited the casualties but January 1918 marked the death of a Heather's Sidney Button. Sidney was born in Barton Bendish near Kings Lynn in Norfolk and following the death of his father before the 1901 census was taken the family were being supported by the Parish and could explain Sidney's presence later in Leicestershire as he his next recorded on the 1911 census as a Butcher’s Apprentice in Snarestone. Five years later on the 5th August 1916 Sidney is recorded as a Station Porter when he marries Dora Fowkes, setting up home at Shelton House in Heather above a Tailors shop and in 1917 they had a son also called Sidney.
Sidney is one of the rare sailors from the area, serving aboard HMS Narborough an M class destroyer launched in 1916. On the 12th January 1918 she and her sister ship, HMS Opal, ran aground on South Ronaldsay, Orkney. The two ships were escorting the light cruiser HMS Boadicea on patrol against mine layers. A severe blizzard of snow and high winds forced the destroyers to return to their base at Scapa Flow. Unable to see, a navigational error caused the ships to sail straight into the cliff's at Hesta Rock, just to the north of Windwick Bay. There was only one survivor, Able Seaman William Sissons of HMS Opal. He survived by clinging to a cliff ledge for 36 hours before he was rescued. 188 men died that night, they were either killed by the impact, drowned or died of exposure and like Sidney, most of the casualties were never found.
Charles Pare of Snarestone is one of those that feature in Left to Grow Old. He enlisted in Leicester as far back as the 24th June 1916 aged 31 but as we will see with a number of local coal miners, he wasn't called up until 14th January 1918, in Charles case to the 329th Co Royal Engineers Road & Quarry Troop. With the younger men serving abroad a physically fit man would have been ideal working in a quarry and on the 16th March 1918 is entered as a Sapper Quarryman - the equivalent of a Private in and Infantry Regiment.
Charles was one of those to be demobbed early, on the 15th January 1919, and his address is entered as 62 Townsend Lane in Hugglescote. His medal card shows that he was awarded the British and Victory medals which indicates he served abroad at some point in 1918 but with so many service records burnt in the WW2 blitz we'll never know where or when. Before the war he married Lily Cook in December 1911 and they had three children, after his return the couple go on to have another two children.
FEBRUARY 1918
Thankfully February 1918 has no casualties to remember from the Ibstock Historical Societies 'Lest We Forget' book that details 173 of the local lads who paid the ultimate sacrifce for their country in the Great War.
Instead we're highlighting two local lads who feature in the sister book, 'Left to Grow Old', which tells the 150 stories of men and women who served in a wide range of capacities during the First World War. For those that follow the observations of our very own Bird Notes author, Arthur Costello, we're starting with his Uncle, Arthur Griffin, or more properly Thomas Arthur, who was born in Ibstock on the 21st July 1898 while teh family lived at 119 Chapel Street.
Arthur initially enlisted into the 3rd Reserve Battalion of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on the 3rd July 1917 transferring to the Anson Battalion who had formed part of the British Expeditionary Force. The RNVR had been Winston Churchill’s idea while he was Lord of the Admiralty; the Royal Navy didn’t have enough ships for the men who had enlisted, so he created Battalions that would fight on land but maintain the traditions and protocols of the Navy including their ranks.
Arthur received a promotion from Ordinary Seaman to Ableseaman on the 22nd October 1917 just before being shipped off to France. Arthur isn’t in France long before he receives a wound on the 3rd January 1918 while at Rouen, unfortunately he also suffers from frostbite which turns gangrenous and it requires him to be passed along the medical chain of clearing stations and local hospitals. Arthur is repatriated back to England and on the 17th February 1918 where he is admitted to Coventry Hospital registered with a Gunshot wound to right leg. What followed would be two and half years of regular stays in hospital mostly to Victoria Park in Leicester as the damage was so bad, it started with the loss of a couple of toes but the damage was so severe that he would eventually lose his leg and then the follow up care for a prosthetic leg. Arthur wasn't about to let the loss of a limb limit him so learned a trade and became a Cabinet Maker, eventually he found a job in Wellington, Shropshire and in the summer of 1934 he married Florence Evans and he remained there until his death in the spring of 1982.
Five brothers of the the Pare family of Swepstone served in various forms during WW1. The second youngest brother Fred was killed in action in February 1915. Youngest brother Arthur, like Fred, served in the Leicestershire Regiment. Older brother Ernest served with the South Staffordshire Regiment. His older brother Charles served with teh Royal Engineers but it is the eldest brother John we remember this month as it 27 February 1918 that he too is transferred to the Royal Engineers, in John's case it was the No8 Foreway Co who were responsible for the maintenance of Tram and Railway lines that became invaluable to the transportation of men and equipment both home and in France and Belgium.
John had originally enlisted as far back as August 1914 with the Worcestershire Regiment where he was promoted up the ranks from his initial rank of Private up to Lance Corporal and eventually Full Corporal in December 1915. In March 1916 he was wounded sufficiently to need tro be repatriated back to the UK.
MARCH 1918
As a sign of the improving weather, where as November 1917 through to February 1918 saw few local casualties on the Western Front, March shows a dramatic increase, we have 11 to mention this month, 8 of which occurred in a single Battle over four consecutive days.
We start with Arthur Allen who lived at number 34 on Chapel Street and attended the Wesleyan Chapel on Melbourne Road. Before the war Arthur worked at Bagworth Colliery. We can tell from their service numbers that Arthur and three of his friends, George Cooper, Bertram Redshaw and Walter Fowkes, all went off to Leicester together and enlisted on the same day in the North Staffordshire Regiment - Fowkes was later transferred to a different Battalion. Arthur was the last of the four friends to be killed, twelve month after the first of them, Redshaw, was killed in action. It was on March 10th that the Stafford Brigade was relieved by their neighbour Regiment, the Sherwood Brigade, and went into reserve at Mory for eight days, it was at sometime during this relief that Arthur was killed.
The change in weather marked a change in tactics by the German forces, bolstered by seasoned troops freed up from the Eastern Front with the Russian withdrawal from the war following the Bolshevik revolution. Before the newly arrived American troops could be brought to the front, the German forces attacked on masse at a few dedicated places that the history books termed the German Spring Offensive and on the 21st March at the Battle of St Quentin that Thomas Hughes of Newton Burgoland who served with the 2/4th Battalion East Lancashire Regiment and Ibstock's George Riley of the 8th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment were killed in action. Thomas had initially enlisted in the Leicesters back in January 1917.
Thirteen Lancashire battalions took part in the severe fighing to halt 65 divisions on a narrow front against the British Third and Fifth Armies. A large part of this front had recently been taken over from the French, and the Fifth Army, critically short of manpower, had been unable to prepare depth positions in the Battle and Rear Zones. The result was a confused mobile battle in which the British front buckled and was borne back by weight of numbers, fighting a series of bitterly contested rearguard actions, but crucially the line did not break.
George was born in Ibstock and worked at the colliery close to his home at number 18 Leicester Road. George volunteered at Coalville way back on 24th September 1914, on the 26th October 1917, while on leave from the army, George married Alice Warden at Glen Parva Parish Church. Having landed in France on the 29th July 1915 and while at Monidcourt George was wounded in the head on 25th September 1916. The war diary entry for the 31/3/1918 makes for salutary reading: 31st March 1918 “ALLONVILLE. The 2 composite Companies rejoined the Battalion on the afternoon of the 31st March and the Battalion was immediately reorganised and reformed into the 4 Companies. Other ranks, killed 28, wounded 109, gassed 4, missing 260, wounded and missing 14. Total officers 15, other ranks 415”. Amongst the dead, wounded and missing is Lance Corporal George Riley killed in action. The third man to die on the 21st was Albert Marriott of the Royal Garrison Artillery who died as a result of wounds sustained, it was common practice for opposing Artillery units to target each other to give their front line commrades some degree of protection. The Marriotts lived at Sand Pit, close the Royal Oak pub on Melbourne Road in Ibstock and in the winter of 1913 marries Annie Stevens in Leicester and they lived on Main Street in Desford.
The following day saw Ellistown's Samual Richardson of the 11th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment, James Sleigh, also from Ellistown, of the 6th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment, Congerstone's Fred Sewell who also served with the 11th Bn Leicesters plus Frank Gray from Ibstock who was part of the 7th Bn Leicesters, all as a result of continued fighting at St Quentin. Before the war both Samuel and James worked at Ellistown colliery, Samuel was an assistance sawyer and James a Clerk. Fred is recorded as Iron Foundry Labourer on the 1911 census.
During the second day of the offensive, British troops continued to fall back from the first day’s gains, losing their last footholds on the original front line. Thick fog impeded operations and did not disperse until early afternoon. The second day was a collection of many separate, often isolated engagements as the Germans pressed forward and the British held their posts, often not knowing who was to either side of them. It was a day of stubborn and often heroic actions by platoons and even individuals isolated from their comrades by the fragmented nature of the battle and lack of visibility and it was in those conditions that Samuel, James and Frank were killed in action. Frank lived with his uncle William at 3 Reform Road in Ibstock where Frank’s occupation is recorded on the 1911 census as Carters Labourer.
Fighting continued and the following day on the 23rd March Ibstock's Richard Foster of the 6th Bn Leicestershire Regiment was killed in action. Richard had grown up living on Pretoria Road (or Peggs Lane as he would have known it) but later moved to 43 Orchard Street after marrying Mollie Bowler in the spring of 1910 where they had three children. Richard was employed at the Brickworks making Sanitary Pipes. The following day Charles Adcock of 69 Curzon Street in Ibstock was killed in action at the Battle of Bapaume while serving with Anson Bn of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Before enlisting Charles was a shop assistant in the village.
The final casualty is Walford Ball of the 1/8th Bn Durham Light Infantry, although he is remembered on the memorial at the former location of Holy Rood church in Bagworth, Walford was born on Penistone Street in Ibstock, later moving to 60 Barlestone Road in Bagworth where he worked as a Screen Labourer at the colliery. He had enlisted at Coalville on the 16th January 1916 although after initial training, like many miners at the time he wasn’t mobilised until much later, in May 1917. His Battalion were in a wood a mile north of Villers-aux-Erables but suffered heavy losses from shell-fire and direct machine-gun fire.
Among those stories is Sydney Newton, initially from Coalville but settled on St Christopher's Road in Ellistown. Sydney enlisted in the Leicestershire Regiment in Coalville on the 28th September in the 1/5th Battalion who were the first Pals Battalion to land in France, on the 28th February 1915 to reinforce the beleaguered standing army which had been sent to France as the first units making up the British Expeditionary Force. Sydney was in a front line trench in August 1915 when the Central Powers triggered a large underground explosion. Sydney's Battalion was guarding the trench with no inclination of what was about to happen when everything was thrown up in the air and Sydney along with a quite a few others had to be dug out of the debris, unfortunately not all of his comrades were as fortunate. Much later in the war Sydney is more seriously injured ending his participation in the war and was awarded a Silver War Badge on the 7th March 1918. In 1930 Sydney married May Harrison and they had three children, Sydney died in the summer of 1972 aged 77.
On the 21st March 1918 the former headmaster of Ibstock's Junior school, Horace Harratt, was wounded while serving with the 6th Bn Leicestershire Regiment, when he was commissioned into the Officer Ranks in 1916 he'd specifically requested a commission with a Battalion of local men. His citation for the Military Cross for his actions on Hill 60 near Ypres "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. In a raid on the enemy's trenches he led the left party over 1,000 yards to the objective, where he rushed the trench, capturing one of the enemy and killing another. The complete success of the raid was largely due to his cool and efficient handling of his party." On Page 218 of Matthew Richardson's excellent book "The Tigers" it tells us that Horace was wounded at Epéhy on the 21st March 1918, the first day of the German Spring Offensive.
The following day on the 22nd March Frank Black, of 88 Leicester Road Ibstock, was taken Prisoner during that Battle at St Quentin while serving with the 8th Bn Leicesters. He was held at Friedrichsfeld PoW camp near Düsseldorf during his captivity. After nearly four years of conflict, food and conditions in Germany at the time were serious for the people on the street and even less of that filtered down to Prisoners who suffered from no provisions while living in cold and damp conditions. Certainly this would not have helped Frank if he was still suffering from the effects of the gassing, many such as Thomas Brooks from Ellistown didn’t make it to be repatriated. Eventually Frank made it back to England and on the 22nd October 1919 he was awarded the Silver War Badge which exempted him from future military service obviously as a result of his damaged lung function from the gassing. After the war Frank returned to his career below ground at the local coalmine and in 1922 Frank married Florence Morgan, the two went on to have two daughters. The gassing had a long and profound effect on Frank who would repeatedly suffer from respiratory problems, not helped by working underground, which prevented him working for long periods of time and therefore not able to earn a wage – precisely the reason that the British Legion was set up to raise funds to elevate the suffering of families of men who had served their country and suffered adversely as a consequence. Frank died on the 6th November 1938 aged just 41.
The final mention is for Alfred Jacques who was raised at the Boot Inn on Gladstone Street and would eventually take over running the pub later on. On the 31st March Alfred was taken Prisoner while serving withe the 2/5th Bn North Staffordshire Regiment at Bullecourt where he sustained a wound to his left arm. The family story is that when he returned from the war he could not get a license to continue in his trade as a butcher. He did manage to find work at the Gas works in Ibstock but ended up working double shifts to repay his father who said he owed board for the time Alfred was away in the Army. On the 16th July 1924 Alfred married local girl Catherine Fowkes, cousin of Walter Fowkes mentioned above. Shortly afterwards his mother passed away and he took over the running of the Boot Inn from his father. In an effort to help his regular customers Alfred started a payment scheme where people paid in a weekly sum to cover doctors fees in the days before the National Health Service, he died on the 16th April 1957 aged 63.
APRIL 1918
April 1918 sees us remember another eight local casualties sustained during the German Spring Offensive which accounted for most of the casualties last month. The first story is the extraordinary story of John Naylor of the 20th Bn Australian Infantry. John was born in Leicester but spent his formative years growing up on Chapel Street in Ibstock all be it he would eventual immigrate to Wallsend in New South Wales Australia - an area noted for its coalmines.
His battalion embarked from Australia on the 30th January 1916, arriving at Alexandria on the 26th February bound for Marseilles 7 days later. On the 14th November 1916 John was injured in the field receiving a gunshot wound to his left thigh, rejoining his comrades on the 13th January 1917 but by the 7th July he was in medical care again contracting Diphtheria. His actions on the 31st October 1917 were recognised with the awarding of the Military Medal although it did not reach his parents until the summer of 1918. His citation read “This man who is a Bn stretcher bearer did excellent work in carrying wounded under heavy shell fire for a period of 48 hours on the 9th & 10th inst at BROODSEINDE. On three occasions this man volunteered to bring in wounded men from no man’s land. He did gallant work in assisting to bring in Capt M C during the whole operations he showed absolute disregard for his own personal safety.” Sadly John was killed in action on the 8th April 1918 before he could receive his award as the battalion took part in a major engagement at Hangard Wood.
Three days later Charles Nicholls of 29 Kendal Road in Ellistown was killed in action while serving with the 1st Battalion Northhumberland Fusiliers, Charles was born in Gloucestershire but moved here to work in the mines. Two days later saw another mining migrant killed in action at the Battle of Hazebrouck. John Cooper of the 14th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment went the opposite direction. He was born on Hugglescote Road, now Leicester Road, in Ibstock but his father moved the family to 1 John Street Stockingford near Nuneaton when John was still a boy. John would follow his father below ground and is remembered on the memorial erected outside the Haunchwood colliery in Nuneaton site.
The Battle of Lys accounted for the remaining five casualtues this month. On the 14 April Henry Robson of the 29th Bn Machine Gun Corps was killed in by shellfire. Henry was born in Whitwood, Yorkshire before moving to Victoria Road in Ellistown where his father was Engine wright at nearby Ellistown colliery. The following day Ibstock born John Steel of the 9th Battalion Norfolk Regiment was killed in action. The Steels lived at 55-57 High Street in Ibstock where John worked at the colliery before the war. On the 17th April William Wright of "D" Co 16th Battalion King's Royal Rifle Corps was shot by a sniper while out in No Mans Land as a stretcher bearer. The Wright family also lived on High Street and William's death was almost a mirror of his younger Benjamin who also fell victim to a sniper while trying to help an injured comrade two years previous.
The 18th saw Joseph Shepherd of Congerstone killed in action while serving with the 1st Battalion Queens Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment near Nieppe Forest sector. Eight days later George Smith of the 4th Battalion South Staffordshire was killed when the German Fourth Army made a sudden attacked at Kemmelberg, a height commanding the area between Armenitères and Ypres and on the on the 25th and 26th April. The Smiths lived at 105 Melbourne Road in Ibstock where George was worked at the colliery as a Hewer and attended was an active member of the choir at the nearby Wesleyan Reform Church.
Seven of the eight stories are told in more detail in the Ibstock Historical Society's Lest We Forget book, proceeds from the sale go to the Royal British Legion, John Shepherds story features in the Societies follow up book, Left to Grow Old, which tells 150+ stories of men and women who served their country during the Great War in various capacities but were able to return to their families plus the details of the casualties from Congerstone and Shackestone.
One of those featured in Left to Grow Old is Percy Pegg of Nailstone. Percy attended the Dixie Grammar School in Market Bosworth and enlisted in the Hussars of the Line on the 28th May 1908 and served with the Leicestershire Yeomanry in WW1 and won awards for his marksmanship. The Great Wars static nature on the Western Front meant that cavalry such as the Yeomanry had to hand back their horses and fight with the Infantry in the Trenches. 4th April 1918 saw Percy transferred to the 4th Hussars.
In previous months the large Hodgkinson family of Congerstone get a regular mention. On the 11th April 1918 the parents received a letter saying that Albert was missing in action while serving with the 1/7th Bn Duke of Wellingtons (West Riding) Reg’t only for the letter to be contradicted a few days later. On the 17th Thomas Godfrey of Swepstone was called up to serve with the 5th Battalion Grenadier Regiment, similarly Edwin Edwards of Ibstock was mobilsed, in his case with the Coldstream Guards.
MAY 1918