Cheltenham in the Great War E-Book

Neela Mann

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 342

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Cheltenham in the Great War is the first book to portray the town, its people and the impact of the 'war to end all wars' from the declaration of war in 1914 to Armistice Day in 1918. Almost 1,000 Cheltenham women left by train every day for munitions work, hundreds made airplanes in the Winter Gardens, many were nurses and most former suffragettes joined the WVR. Why did two schools do double shifts and for what did the townspeople raise £186,000 in one week in 1918? How did Cheltenham cope with 7,250 soldiers billeted in the town and 'khaki fever'? This book gives an insight into the lives of different social classes in Cheltenham – including stories of remarkable women – and how their war was fought on the Home Front. The Great War story of Cheltenham is told through considerable new research and is vividly illustrated throughout with evocative, informative images, many of which have not been published previously.

Leseprobe

This book is dedicated to

Alfred Mann (1855–1929),

Cheltenham Town Councillor for Middle Ward 1908–1928,

Alderman 1928–1929, known as ‘the working man’s

Conservative’; and to his great-great-grandsons

Henry Mann, born 22 August 2015, and Jason

Mann, born 10 March 2010, who have a history to

be proud of and a future to look forward to.

Acknowledgements

Firstly, thanks to Sir Henry Elwes of Colesbourne Park, a member of Cheltenham Local History Society, who contributed the foreword to this book. Sir Henry’s grandparents gave Leckhampton Court to the Red Cross to be used as a hospital during the war.

The research for this book was carried out with the help of knowledgeable experts. One such was Christopher Rainey from Cheltenham Local and Family History Centre. Christopher’s help was invaluable in answering a multitude of diverse queries and discovering material such as a dusty volume of newspaper cuttings, entitled Food 1917 – a resource that may not have seen the light of day for nigh on 100 years. Dr Steven Blake gave much help and unearthed important material at The Wilson. Vicky Thorpe at Gloucestershire Archives and Jimmy James of www.remembering.org.uk provided important background information. David Read of the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum supplied regimental information and images and David Drinkwater gave willingly of his important research on Cheltenham’s soldiers – some of David’s research can be read on the county archive website. Thanks also go to Albert Hands, whose love of Cheltenham and prolific contributions on the Facebook forum ‘Days Gone By In Cheltenham’, have been a source of such fascinating information.

Members of Cheltenham Local History Society contributed initial research for the exhibition, which provided the basis for this book. In particular thanks go to Sue Robbins, whose extracted information from letters in the Gloucestershire Echo has been so important for the book, Kath Boothman for information on Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Heather Atkinson for the use of her notes on food rationing. Joyce Cummings and Vic Cole were both a mine of information and thanks must go to the committee of Cheltenham Local History Society, chairman David Scriven and, in particular, Gwyneth Rattle for supporting the project.

Particular thanks to my wonderful sister-in-law and good friend Julia Manning who read the draft of the book and gave solid, constructive advice and encouragement, as has Jill Waller who, with her vast knowledge of local history, was also the verifier of obscure information.

Thanks to the caring nursing staff of Bay C, Ward B3, Gloucester Royal Hospital who made it possible for me to finish the book when I broke my ankle two weeks before the deadline.

Last, but certainly not least, my heartfelt thanks to my husband Nicholas Mann, whom I have taken within a whisker of total exasperation and without whose patience and sufferance this book could not have come to fruition.

Thanks also go to:

Bob Allard; Barry Attoe, Post Office Museum London; Norman Baker of Prestbury Local History Society; Adrian Barlow; Jill Barlow of Cheltenham College; Derek Benson; Chris Bentall; Dr Robert Billings; James Brazier; Alwyn Burton; Paul Evans and John Putley of Gloucestershire Archives; Wayne Finch; David Hanks (‘Cheltenham Past and Present’ on Facebook); Ann-Rachael Harwood at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum; Marion Hearfield of Stroud Local History Society; Helene Hewlett of The Suffolk Anthology Independent Book Shop, No. 17 Suffolk Parade, Cheltenham; Jerry Holmes and Rebecca Sillence (Cheltenham Local and Family History Centre); the late Jerry Jenkinson and Caroline Meller of Gloucester Local History Society; Anne Jones; Dr Anthea Jones; Richard King (Billings family); Mick Kippin; Eric Miller of Leckhampton Local History Society; Geoff North; Karen Radford, Cheltenham Borough Council; Rachel Roberts of Cheltenham Ladies’ College Archive; Sue Rowbotham; Professor Peter Simkins; John Whitaker; Bob Wilson.

Contents

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Sir Henry Elwes KCVO

Introduction

Chapter 1      Fêtes and Fate

Chapter 2      The Boys Leave: Kitchener to Conscription

Chapter 3      Shaming Shirkers and Shoppers

Chapter 4      Belgians, Bullets and Jam – A Plum Role for Cheltenham

Chapter 5      Cheltenham Hospitality

Chapter 6      What Did Cheltenham – and the Ladies – Do?

Chapter 7      ‘We Are But Warriors for the Working Day’: Women, Work and Warnings

Chapter 8      Khaki Everywhere Again: Pilots, the PO and POWs

Chapter 9      Meeting Trains, Meeting Needs and Municipal Matters

Chapter 10    Pigs and Protests: Trench Warfare on the Home Front

Chapter 11    The End?

Postscript

Bibliography

Copyright

Foreword

Little has formally been recorded about life in Cheltenham during the First World War and indeed one writer, Simona Pakenham, even recorded that ‘Cheltenham in the 20th century marked time until 1919’! I am sure this view was not shared by the many hundreds of families who made a significant contribution to the war effort both on the various fronts and at home.

The Promenade war memorial is testament to the enormous sacrifices made by so many Cheltenham families and this has been brought into true perspective throughout 2014, the 100th anniversary of the start of the war. We must also not forget the many hundreds of families who kept the war effort going from home by building aeroplanes, billeting troops, running hospitals for the wounded, knitting warm clothes for the soldiers and even collecting chestnuts for the manufacture of explosives. Few, if any, families were untouched by the Great War.

Many of these family experiences, never mentioned on war memorials, are now recorded in Neela Mann’s well-researched work and demonstrate that Cheltenham has as proud a record of service as any other town in England. How good that it is now here for all to see.

Sir Henry Elwes KCVO

Former Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire and Pro-Chancellor

of the University of Gloucestershire

August 2015

Introduction

Published material on Cheltenham has neglected the town’s history during the First World War. Simona Pakenham in Cheltenham: A Biography writes ‘… the twentieth (century) does not really start till the end of the First World War. In the first nineteen years Cheltenham marked time …’ This book shows that Cheltenham and its people did much more than mark time during 1914–18. In fact, the town contributed richly to the war effort. It tells of a town coping with enormous and unprecedented change. Many of the stories have never been told before – it is a book that had to be written. But it is just a glimpse of life during the Great War in Cheltenham – a walk through what Cheltenham was like for those left behind.

The book came to fruition from research into the subject for Cheltenham Local History Society’s biennial history day exhibition on 19 July 2014. The main part of the research was carried out by piecing together information from the local newspapers of the day, scouring the town council minutes, searching the Gloucestershire Archives and the Cheltenham Local and Family History Centre. An enthusiastic team of researchers from Cheltenham Local History Society gathered information for the exhibition.

There was one exceptional resource from the Gloucestershire Archives – the letters of Maynard Colchester-Wemyss to the young King of Siam, Rama VI. Quotes from the letters appear throughout the book. During the war Colchester-Wemyss wrote 221 handwritten letters, which provided a unique weekly snapshot of current events, political comment and opinion through the eyes of a remarkable man. Maynard Colchester-Wemyss was, amongst some of his wartime duties, Chairman of Gloucestershire County Council, Chairman of the War Agricultural Committee and, for a short while during 1917, based in Cheltenham as the Honorary Acting Chief Constable of Gloucestershire. As he wrote: ‘… perhaps, 100 years hence, someone will unearth them and read them with interest.’ They did!

What was Cheltenham like in August 1914? Pakenham describes it thus:

… a retiring place for Army, Navy and Indian Civil Servants, the prosperous to the genteelly poor … Outward respectability concealed an area of distress, poverty and unemployment in slums that had arisen in Victorian times, and a degree of prostitution that would alarm visitors … By the time the war came the place was in a state of incipient decay, described as a ‘Town to Let’.

Two of these factors – the ex-colonial, retired military population and the number of large, empty houses – became plus factors for Cheltenham. The first factor gave Cheltenham a leisured class who had time on their hands, were used to looking after their ‘troops’ and a class to whom voluntarism was part of their culture. The second factor was vital to Cheltenham, making it an ideal town to billet large numbers of troops and house Red Cross hospitals. In A Century of Cheltenham Robin Brooks claims that in 1901 there were 800 houses in Cheltenham either to let or empty. The following decade saw little change. Nationally, the state of Britain pre-1914 was that of industrial unrest, agitation by the women’s suffrage movement and the problem of Ireland and the Ulster Unionists, from which some thought the country was approaching the threshold of a civil war.

The largest proportion of Cheltenham’s 55,000 population was working class, mostly of the service industry which kept the people of the Regency terraces and the visitors for the spa waters functioning. There was not much of an industrial base in Cheltenham other than the Cheltenham Original Brewery and H.H. Martyn of Sunningend works. The latter company was to become significant during the war, increasing its workforce from 200 to over 800. The country’s pre-war unemployment had also hit Cheltenham. The shipping lines advertised passages to Canada, Australia and South Africa in local newspapers, as did agencies offering work in these countries. Many Cheltenham men returned to England or joined the armies of their adopted nations to fight for their country. Sixty-five of these emigrant Cheltonian men died for their homeland – 4 per cent of the total from the Cheltenham area who died.

The class and political allegiances of the local newspapers were clear. Cheltenham’s daily newspaper was the Conservative-leaning Gloucestershire Echo (referred to as the Echo), which claimed to ‘reach all classes’. The Echo’s weekly compendium, the Cheltenham Chronicle (the Chronicle), had a separate weekly supplement, full of photographs, the Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic (the C&G) – the source of a majority of the photographs in this book. The weekly magazine, the Cheltenham Looker On (the CLO) described itself as ‘the organ of society circles in town’.

Cheltenham experienced three distinct phases on the home front during the war. For the first few months there was a mix of panic and excitement or, as Robin Brooks described it ‘jingoistic euphoria’ – the young men leaving in droves each day. Out of nowhere, the spirit of voluntarism mushroomed when groups of middle- and upper-class women came to the fore. They rattled tins and sold flags for the numerous ‘fund days’, packed parcels and manned soldiers’ welcomes, knitted and sewed together in workrooms to provide war necessities and donned aprons in the eight hospitals for wounded soldiers in Cheltenham. This was followed in 1915 and 1916 by the second phase which afforded new freedoms for women as the employment opportunities opened up – women in men’s jobs for the first time, especially when conscription stripped the town of more of its male workforce. During the third phase, the last two years of the war, the battle was focussed on combating food shortages and the food economy campaigns. It was an issue that further drove a wedge in the division of the classes in Cheltenham. The food rationing and increasingly rigid state control which followed then levelled the divide, affecting as it did all classes equally.

And then the Armistice was signed, which came almost as unexpectedly fast as had the declaration of war. Cheltenham was to mourn the loss of over 1,600 dead from the 7,000 or so men, and some women, of Cheltenham who had gone to war.

What happened next? The aftermath of the war and its effects on Cheltenham were so far-reaching that it would need another book to tell that tale!

Neela Mann,

March 2016

CHAPTER 1

Fêtes and Fate

Baker Street Institute Sisterhood, out for a summer outing, went in charabancs to Evesham. (Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic, 1 August 1914)

July 1914 started blazing hot but finished as ‘one of the chilliest Julys in the memory of most of us’. The Cheltenham Chronicle’s (the Chronicle) ‘Nature Notes’ of 18 July typified the drowsy peace of a summer’s day. Amongst talk of loganberries it read, ‘The Summer Calm! How good it is to be able to enjoy the summer heat and stillness, lie beneath a hedge and listen to the birds …’ Then there were thunderstorms, lightning and torrential rain. At the new showroom of the ladies’ outfitters, Vanderplank, a sales assistant reported that lightning struck a mirror. Seven years’ bad luck?

July brought the usual summer activities. Cheltenham Middle Ward Conservative Committee’s annual outing, this year from Birdlip to Miserden, passed through on their way, ‘… the much-discussed Whiteway Colony where Russian Anarchists plant the humble potato rather than the bomb.’ At tea, Councillor Alfred Mann reported that after his recent trip to Ireland in the company of other local politicians, they all agreed Home Rule for Ireland would be a tragedy. Ireland and the question of Home Rule was to take a back seat for a while. Baker Street Institute Sisterhood went in charabancs to Evesham, not forgetting parasols and wide-brimmed hats. Cavendish House held its Sports Day – the ladies ran their races in long cotton dresses.

The commemoration of Dr Edward Wilson was in the news with the unveiling on 9 July 1914 of the familiar bronze statue in the Promenade, sculpted by Lady Katherine Scott, widow of Captain Scott, leader of the Antarctic expedition. One of the initial suggestions to commemorate the explorer was for two bronze medallions to be cast and placed in the entrance lobby to the Town Hall; one to Scott and the other to Wilson. Wilson’s widow, Oriana, objected. Her husband had a horror of being closed up indoors and would have wanted an outdoor memorial. The 400 subscribers to the memorial had been invited onto the cordoned-off area around the statue. The Promenade was thronged with people one hour before the ceremony and the band of the 5th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment played patriotic airs.

Unveiling of the memorial to Dr Edward Wilson on 9 July 1914 by Sir Clements Markham, President of the Royal Geographical Society. (Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic, 11 July 1914)

Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June, less than two weeks before the unveiling. Was there, amongst this worldly-wise group, a sense of what might be unfolding in Europe, beyond the imminent possibility of civil war in Ireland? Was there an understanding of the implications of the assassination and a foreboding that a war was a dreaded possibility? The drama in a faraway place called Bosnia remained distant until it was all too late.

One month later, on 28 July, the War Office ordered Special Service Sections of the Territorial Force units, as a precautionary measure for a period of time, to proceed to their stations on the coast – probably the east coast – of England. Three days later the Echo asked the question: with Belgrade in flames and chances of peace perceptibly dwindled, will Europe be dragged in?

THE GREAT UNIONIST AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY FÊTE

On the first day of August, in Leckhampton Road, a runaway cart ran into the back of tramcar 16 at 5.30 p.m. opposite Moorend Road. The driver told the passengers to jump and then jumped from the tram himself, but the conductor stayed on board and stopped the tram. He described it as ‘… an unusual and thrilling experience’. Readers more interested in the international situation would have read – and would have been right to be alarmed – ‘At the present moment all Europe is an armed camp … As we go to press, news comes that Germany has been declared under martial law.’

In Dover on 3 August, Field-Marshal Earl Horatio Kitchener of Khartoum, formerly Commander-in-Chief in India but presently Consul General in Egypt, having been home on leave, was preparing to return to Egypt. Herbert Asquith, the Prime Minister of England, recalled Kitchener from Dover, not wanting him to be out of reach. Great Britain, on the eve of war, needed a dedicated Secretary of State for War.

Bank Holiday Monday, 3 August, the major event of the weekend which had been billed as the biggest, brightest and best fête ever held in Cheltenham, was the Great Unionist August Bank Holiday Fête at Stonewall Fields – three adjoining fields on the south side of Prestbury Road. The turnout certainly exceeded whatever had been seen before as 15,000 people attended the event. Was it because train excursions had been cancelled suddenly, due to troop movements, or was it the need to have one last bit of fun before God knows what would happen?

The cost for the day was sixpence (6d) for adults or thruppence (3d) for children. The weather was perfect. The day, planned with military precision by Major Percy Shewell, who was later to become the recruiting officer for Cheltenham, consisted of ‘… a programme that was one continual round of merriment’.

At 11.15 a.m. the Cabinet was meeting in London. At The Oval Cricket Ground, Surrey was playing Nottinghamshire and at noon Jack Hobbs went in to bat.

In Cheltenham, crowds were gathering for the procession that commenced at midday. Tradesmen’s turnouts, decorated cars and costumed competitors flowed through the town from Imperial Square, via the Promenade, High Street, Winchcombe Street and thence to Prestbury Road. At Stonewall Fields there were morris dancers, aerial gymnasts, hand balancers, comedy boxers, sports races – including the 100-yard handicap race for married women. The confetti battle was hotly waged all over the field. There were equestrian competitions for jumping, trotting and driving. Or for those who favoured more static equines, there were painted horse rides at Mr Marshall Hill’s funfair.

Four o’clock and time for cooling bottles of beer for the crowd in Cheltenham. At the same time, Gloucestershire Yeomanry officers at the Agricultural Show in Monmouth were recalled by telegram and left at once. Jack Hobbs was still batting at The Oval, having notched up his second century. In London, Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, rose to deliver his statement to the House of Commons and afterwards admitted that this would be the war that might shatter civilisation as we knew it. ‘I hate war,’ he said. Hobbs was out on 226 runs at 5.30 p.m. just when the trotting competition was starting at Stonewall Fields.

The acrobatic platform was cleared at 6.30 p.m. for the speeches – speech making that was very different in subject and tone from that which had been contemplated when planning the fête. At the start, an announcement, loaded with foreboding, was made. ‘Owing to an urgent summons to Parliament, the Borough Member [MP Mr Agg-Gardner] is unable to be present.’ Cheltenham’s political parties agreed that, in view of the national crisis, party politics were wholly taboo in their speeches today. It was just as well; within the month, the party agents for the two principal parties – Mr Tom Packer of the Conservatives and Mr John Allcott of the Liberals – had to collaborate as the town’s joint army recruiting agents. The principal guest speaker, Will Dyson, otherwise known as ‘Will Workman – the popular voice of the people’, spoke as one who was aware of the gravity of the hour, having two sons in the regular army and two sons in the Territorial Force: ‘… we are meeting on the eve of what would probably be the most momentous crisis in the world’s history.’

At the Foreign Office in London, telegrams were sent out at 9 p.m. warning every British diplomatic and consular mission throughout the world that war was imminent.

The grand illumination of the Stonewall Fields commenced at 9.45 p.m. – a magnificent bonfire and display of fireworks concluding with the huge fire portrait of the absent local MP. The fête closed with thousands of voices singing rousing patriotic anthems – ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘God Save The King’.

In London, at 10 p.m. 20,000 people gathered outside Buckingham Palace were rewarded with an appearance on the balcony of the palace of the King and Queen, accompanied by the Prince of Wales.

Were the revellers a little subdued, but at the same time a little excited, wending their way home, as country and town waited for the impending result of the ultimatum issued to the Kaiser? The Kaiser’s reply had been requested by midnight that day. What would the next day, 4 August 1918, bring? If there was to be a war, everyone said it would be over by Christmas.

‘THE LAMPS ARE GOING OUT’

Whilst the merriment continued at Stonewall Fields, E and F companies of the 5th Battalion of the Gloucestershire Territorial Regiment were away on their annual summer camp. Having left on Sunday, they had only been away twenty-four hours when an order was received from the government: break up the summer camps and entrain for destinations, not divulged at the time. Eighteen hours before war was declared, Territorial Force platoons were in place guarding vital railway lines on which the British Expeditionary Force would travel to France. Army manoeuvres, which were fixed to take place in parts of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire during the latter part of August and the beginning of September, comprising over 50,000 troops, were abandoned.

Page 6 of the Echo of 3 August included headlines such as ‘Hands off Belgium – Reply Requested by Midnight – Our ultimatum to Germany’. Sir Edward Grey, in his speech to Cabinet the day before, insisted that this country had a duty to Belgium and that if Germany attacked Belgium a full-scale war was inevitable. That evening, on the eve of the First World War, Grey, on looking out of his window at the Foreign Office, spoke the words: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.’

CHELTENHAM IS AT WAR

The day after the fête, Tuesday, 4 August, was a day like no other. Headlines on the front page of the Echo said it all: ‘An important statement by Sir Edward Grey – The Peace of Europe Could Not Be Preserved.’ War had come to Great Britain, Gloucestershire and Cheltenham. As Jeremy Paxman in his book Great Britain’s Great War wrote, ‘… a decent man had failed.’

On page 2 of the Echo there was a detailed report of the Bank Holiday Fête. On page 5, Mr Harry Jones’s ball at Oddfellows Hall the day before was declared a great success amongst the 150 who danced from 9 p.m. until 2.30 a.m. Alongside was a report that the Territorials were to be embodied and the government had mobilised the entire British Army. The Reserves were to be called out and the Territorials would be summoned to undergo six months’ training to prepare them for active service. And at cricket, Gloucestershire had won their first victory in the County Championship after an exciting finish, defeating Somerset by 1 wicket on the county ground in Bristol. Our local county cricketer, Alfred Dipper, was caught out on 5 runs. Six weeks later Dipper left Cheltenham, having enlisted for the Gloucestershire Yeomanry, and survived the war. At The Oval, during the last day of the Surrey vs Nottinghamshire cricket match, signs appeared on the gates. The Oval was to be commandeered for military purposes at the close of the match. Jack Hobbs, who had scored 226 runs the day before at The Oval, later served with the Royal Flying Corps.

Throughout Tuesday, 4 August, the Cheltenham headquarters of E and F companies of the 5th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment at the Drill Hall in North Street had been besieged with enquirers wanting to know when the men were likely to be called away. Just before 7 p.m. the notification of the embodiment was posted on the Drill Hall’s double doors. The police posted similar notices in different parts of town and in all post offices. Messages were flashed onto cinema screens. The Territorials were told they must assemble at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 5 August. At 9 p.m. Tuesday night, Major J. Frederick Tarrant, Secretary to the Council of Cheltenham Ladies’ College, but now in command of the Cheltenham Territorials, had been called to Gloucester. Tarrant travelled there on his motorcycle, to receive orders. He assured his troops that he would meet up with them soon. There was no indication then of their destination.

Patriotic demonstrations took place around Cheltenham that Tuesday night of 4 August. At the Conservative Club at midnight, the assembled members ‘… lustily rendered “God Save The King” and other songs’. In the streets of Cheltenham could be heard singing. ‘The Lads in Navy Blue’ and ‘Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue’ alternated with the national anthem and ‘Rule Britannia’. At 10.30 p.m. a special edition of the Echo was issued containing a report announcing the loss of a navy minelayer. The Echo paperboys found themselves pocketing halfpennies faster than they could hand out the copies of the paper. Headlines read: ‘Five Nations at War – Invasion of France – Demolition of Belgrade.’

On 5 August 1914 the Echo’s leader ran with these words:

WAR! The die is cast. Great Britain having heard that the reply to her demand for the preservation of the neutrality of Belgium was the declaration of war by Germany on Belgium, replied last evening by throwing down the gauntlet to Germany … What is needed is a heaven-born organiser of our home forces … All England calls with one voice for Lord Kitchener’s appointment as Secretary of State for War.

How right it was – Kitchener was appointed that evening. Not entirely enthusiastic to have appointed Kitchener, the prime minister said, ‘It is a hazardous experiment, but the best in the circumstances, I think.’ Kitchener was one of the few to foresee a long war and said, ‘The conflict will plumb the depths of manpower to the last million.’

The front page of the Wednesday, 5 August newspaper was dominated by an explanation of the meaning of ‘embodiment of the Territorials’. Territorials were, strictly speaking, a home-based defence force and were not obliged to serve abroad. However, Lord Kitchener had asked the men of the Territorials nationally to volunteer for overseas service. Whilst the national uptake had been around 50 per cent, in Cheltenham it was far higher at 86 per cent. Once their numbers had been made up to full strength, these units would fight alongside regular army battalions as the second line in the battle. Then reserve units would be used to release those on the front line.

The Yeomanry and the National Reservists were the next to be called up. Thirty of the Cheltenham Corps of Reservists left for Horfield Barracks, Bristol, on 6 August – most of these thirty were engineers. The National Reserve was a pool of men who had previously served in some capacity in the army and who had registered their names as willing to re-enlist in an emergency. That emergency was now.

For the first time, a new column appeared in the Echo – ‘War Items’, all too soon to be followed in the days to come by ‘List of Casualties’.

CHELTENHAM’S TERRITORIALS LEAVE

The news that the Territorials, our citizen soldiers, were to leave Cheltenham for the second time within three days, spread like wildfire through the town. By 9 a.m. Wednesday, 5 August people were congregating in great masses at the junction of North Street and the High Street and surrounding the Drill Hall. The Echo stated: ‘There were many anxious faces in the great crowd. Fathers and mothers, big, strong brothers and sweethearts, not to mention little brothers and sisters assembled in the great crowd to watch their boys and daddies march out to the aid of Britain in her hour of need.’ News had leaked out, somehow, that after meeting up in Gloucester with the other companies of the battalion from all parts of the county, the Territorials would be heading for the Isle of Wight.

In the absence of the Territorial’s commanding officer, Major J.F. Tarrant, who had travelled ahead to Gloucester the night before to take orders, it fell to Captain Noel Huxley Waller, son of Gloucester Cathedral’s architect and himself an architect, to be in command of the combined E and F companies, numbering around 200 soldiers. The companies also included six out of seventeen members of the Cyclist section and the Band. Inside the Drill Hall, the reporter recounts that he saw, ‘a sturdy sergeant, obviously moved as he kissed his mother “Goodbye”’. The report continues: ‘In spite of the popular enthusiasm there is something extremely touching in the departure of these citizen soldiers, even if they never leave our shores and never get under fire.’ However, these Territorials, 1/5th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment, did leave our shores, arriving in France on 29 March 1915 and serving in France, Belgium and Italy, including battles at the Somme, Ypres and Cambrai.

The two Maxim guns and the baggage, loaded onto drays, had been sent on ahead of the men. The crowd had built up as the time to leave approached. Captain Waller addressed his men at the last minute: ‘All we ask you to do is to go forward with your work quietly, work in the same manner as you did Monday morning.’

To the strains of the band playing ‘Get out and get under’ the men marched out into North Street. Cheer after cheer was raised along the route. At 10 a.m. the platform at St James station was closed to all but those with a valid railway ticket. Those determined to be as close as possible to the men on the platform bought third-class single tickets to Churchdown. People climbed on every available vantage point – on the high walls round the station and the roof of the lamp sheds – anywhere they could to see the departure of the train. Crowds even lined the railway tracks as the troops moved out at 11 a.m. It was reported that ‘The tears of the sweethearts and the wives who are left behind were mingled with the cheering’. That evening the soldiers entrained from Gloucester for the Isle of Wight.

Marching off to war, down Clarence Street, past the Clarence Lamp, soon to be the scene of many recruitment meetings. The first soldiers to leave Cheltenham on 5 August 1914 were E and F companies of the 5th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment. (Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic, 8 August 1914)

WHAT CHELTENHAM’S PAPERS WROTE

‘The Famous’, men’s and boys’ outfitters of the High Street, in its usual front page advertisement on Thursday, 6 August, trumpeted ‘England Expects Every Man To Do His Duty! Peace Prices During War’. The Echo announced that to preserve paper stock it would be reduced to four pages from this date.

Kitchener’s first ‘Call to Arms’ advertisement was sent out to newspapers. Page 4 of the Echo carried the advertisement on Thursday, 13 August. It read ‘Your King and Country Need You’ – and asked for 100,000 men aged 19–30 years. Cheltenham lads were to go to the National Reserve Headquarters next to Alstone Baths, Great Western Road, where the recruiting office had been hastily opened, or any post office or military depot.

On 7 August the Echo reported that the British cruiser HMS Amphion had been sunk by a German mine in the North Sea with the loss of 131 lives. Five Gloucestershire lads were on board; two died. Amongst the survivors was Leading Seaman William Miller of No. 23 Dunalley Parade, Cheltenham. More people from Cheltenham were being involved in the war.

Saturday, 8 August saw the publication of the first issue of the Chronicle since the outbreak of war. The front page showed no indication of war. More prominent were details of the will of Cheltenham’s former borough surveyor, Joseph Hall, designer of the Neptune’s Fountain in the Promenade. He died in Bombay where he had been borough engineer, after moving from Torquay to establish Cheltenham as ‘a garden town’ to rival Royal Leamington Spa. War had been relegated to page 2, alongside the announcement of the notable visitors to the town staying in the more prestigious hotels. Mr and Mrs H. Gordon Selfridge, Miss Selfridge and Madame Selfridge of Selfridges department store, London, were staying at The Queen’s Hotel; Lady Blanche and maid at Tate’s Hotel, the Promenade; and at Malvern View Hotel on Cleeve Hill, General Sir Charles Tucker – veteran of the Boer War.

Page 4 was full of newsy reports from around the county of army movements. Snippets of interest from the country included news that Gwilym Lloyd George, second son of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, had enlisted with the Territorials of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. German spies had been reported on the Isle of Wight, consequently those hanging around military establishments were liable to be shot.

The CLO on the same day rallied its readers:

Local patriotism is on fire … We who are left behind can show our patriotism in as forceful a manner as those who shoulder the rifles … In a few days there will be battles, the like of which have never been seen. The death toll will be enormous … Our time of trial is not yet come …

The paper reinforced the news that had been given out on Monday. Great Western Railway announced that all tourist, excursion, weekend and reduced tickets were suspended. In the very month that people looked forward to trips out during their days off, war intervened. The country urgently needed its trains to move the troops around.

The Revd Dwelly held a Service of Intercession on Sunday, 9 August at St Matthew’s church in Clarence Street. At the service his impassioned prayer included these words: ‘O Cheltenham, the loved home of so many who are today waiting to answer the call. Cheltenham, the adopted home of so many of England’s heroes … England hath need of Cheltenham; Cheltenham hath need of each one of us … Young men, “To the Front” is the call today.’ As Robin Brooks writes of this occasion ‘… a bulging congregation … prayed for victory and, as God was undoubtedly on the allies’ side, expected it sooner, rather than later.’

CHAPTER 2

The Boys Leave:Kitchener to Conscription

RECRUITING

Recruiting seems to have been started in a somewhat disorganised fashion in Cheltenham. The CLO of 22 February 1919 read: ‘The recruiting work of 1914 was hurried and comparatively unorganized … the first 40 days were days of popular hope and alternating despair, of agony and suspense …’ After Kitchener’s initial appeal, notices had been put up around town urging men to enlist. Photos taken on 11 August, outside the new recruiting station at Alstone Baths, were captioned that recruiting had been ‘extraordinarily busy since Lord Kitchener asked for another army. There was a crush to get into the enlisting office.’ The first photos of recruits in this week’s paper included ten drivers from Cheltenham Blue Taxis who had enlisted for motor transport service. The army advertisement appearing in the Echo on Friday, 21 August included the additional line ‘Note:- Old soldiers can enlist for one year or duration of war between the ages of 30 and 43.’

AEROPLANE MESSAGES

What must have been more alarming to Cheltenham residents was the notice in the paper on 21 August 1914:

The attention of the public is called to the possibility of messages being dropped from aeroplanes. The messages will be enclosed in a weighted canvas bag, fastened with two spring clips, attached to which are two streamers of blue, red, and yellow cloth, each 4ft long. Any person finding or seeing such a bag dropped from an aeroplane should at once open it and take steps to forward the enclosed message to the person for whom it is intended.

MONS AND A FURTHER 100,000 NEEDED

The disaster, expensive in manpower, that was the Battle of Mons, hit the headlines on 25 August. Peter Simkins, in his book Kitchener’s Army: The Raising of the New Armies 1914–1916, says, ‘Reports of the battle … had an immediate impact on the recruiting figures. The mood of the nation altered perceptibly, and people everywhere were roused to fresh heights of patriotic energy.’ This day at Mons, Albert Butler was the first Cheltonian to be killed in action. On the same day, in his maiden speech as a Minister of the Crown, Kitchener informed the House of Lords that he needed a further 100,000 recruits.

By 27 August Cheltenham recruiting staff had had ‘an exceptionally busy time’. So far, 291 men had enlisted, whilst others were ‘only waiting to settle up their private affairs before joining’. On the same day it was reported that Captain Blythe (Adjutant of the National Reserve) in a speech to 160 Cheltenham National Reservists at the Drill Hall, informed them that he would be raising money to buy a few thousand rounds of ammunition for practise at Seven Springs Rifle Range. He appealed to the townspeople of Cheltenham to give money, lend cars to transport the Reservists to the rifle range and to employers to allow their workers time off for an hour or two during the daytime, in order to practise firing their rifles.

Major Percy Shewell, valuable as an able organiser recruiting for the army in Cheltenham, was appointed as recruiting officer for North East Gloucestershire on 29 August. Shewell, ex-Indian Army Staff Corps, was the ideal person for this post. Here was the man responsible for heading the organisation of the largest Grand Fête ever held in Cheltenham on Bank Holiday Monday: could he rally more troops for King and Country?

CHELTENHAM CRICKETERS

W.G. Grace, Gloucestershire player, was perhaps the most universally known cricketer of all time. It was said, when he played on the Cheltenham College Ground, that he had one eye on the clock in the pavilion when batting one end of the wicket and one eye on the main hospital entrance batting the other end – he was aiming to hit sixes at each. Grace wrote a letter to local papers on 29 August 1914, in response to the high casualties at Mons, calling for the cessation of county cricket owing to the war. He wrote, ‘It is not fitting that able-bodied men should be at play day after day and pleasure seekers look on. I would like to see all first-class cricketers set a good example.’

The same issue of the Echo announced that Gloucestershire County Cricket Club was in ‘grave danger of collapse … a monotonous list of defeats … nothing can save the club from extinction … the professional players have been informed that there would be no winter pay for them at the end of the present season.’ By December 1914, ten players from the Gloucestershire team had enlisted. One of the principal Gloucestershire players of the time, Major Cyril Sewell, was with the 83rd Provisional Battalion of the South Midland Brigade (including some of the 5th Battalion of the Gloucesters) guarding 20 miles of seafront on the south-east coast of England, keeping a look out for Zeppelins. Sewell set up his own cricket team, mainly of Cheltenham men, although he refused to be a playing member! It is said that W.G. Grace used to shake his fist at Zeppelins flying over his house in London, saying, ‘I could see fast bowlers but I can’t see these beggars’.

DEAR DORA, OR THE DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT

This extraordinarily wide-ranging Act, first passed 13 August 1914, was added to throughout the war, as and when necessary. Lord Riddell, influential newspaper proprietor, referred to DORA, as it was known, as ‘A law which wipes out Magna Carta in a few lines.’ It gave the government unprecedented powers to bring in laws without the necessity to go through Parliament. Restrictions included making it illegal to ring church bells, for civilians to buy binoculars, to speak on the phone in any language other than English, whistle under railway bridges, fly kites, keep pigeons, feed flour biscuits to dogs or throw rice at weddings.