This week, we have a blog post from Mel Brown who has been uploading the research of John B, one of the Cowshill history group, to Durham at War.
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| St John’s Chapel War Memorial © Durham County Council, Keys to the Past |
The First World War is so well documented that many of us know a great deal about the lives of soldiers, especially those on the Western Front. When I edited and recorded the stories of a group of soldiers whose names are recorded on the Saint John’s Chapel war memorial, provided by a local researcher, many of the details were no different from other accounts I had studied over the years.
But as I worked through the stories of these men, seventeen in all, I found that, yet again, the experiences of those caught up in that war, can still make us amazed or moved by what happened to them. Perhaps it was the experience of reading about local men from a very close-knit community, whose families would almost certainly have known each other, through work, or schools, or chapels and churches.
These young soldiers, whose ages ranged from 18 to early 30s, were the sons of railway workers, farmers, lead miners, quarrymen – one or two had fathers who were schoolmasters or shopkeepers, so these were essentially working-class families. Many were still living in the family home when they joined up and most of them had attended either Wearhead School or Saint John’s Chapel School.
Not all the service records for these men have survived but quite a few do still exist and these have revealed a number of details. Most of these men served as in the ranks as privates in the Durham Light Infantry, but also the Loyal Lancashires, Royal Field Artillery, Northumberland Fusiliers, and even the Essex and Dorset Regiments.
One or two had emigrated to Australia and so returned to Europe to fight with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). The service record of Isaac Thompson, for example, reveals how a young working-class Weardale man travelled so far from England, fought with the Australian army in the Gallipoli campaign and then was transferred to the Western Front in France. He was promoted and decorated for his bravery in the field, but was killed and buried in France. Isaac may have started life in the small village of Saint John’s Chapel in the late 19th century but, like several other local men, the war took him to places he would never have expected to see.
A large number of British soldiers were, at some point during their military service, disciplined by officers, and some of the Weardale men also had this experience. Many were charged with being absent without leave, sometimes for a day, sometimes for only a few hours. This wasn’t in any way regarded as desertion and the punishments reflect that, for the men would lose a day’s pay or be confined to barracks. Most of them were probably enjoying a drinking spree and a chance to escape the boredom of life in their barracks. Wilfred Race, aged only 22 and originally from the Stanhope area, was disciplined for such an offence in Cape Town, as he travelled back to Europe with the AIF, having emigrated to Australia three years earlier. Since he, and many other young British troops, died not long after their offence, I must confess to a certain sympathy for them. They were escaping for a few hours and they weren’t stupid, they knew what awaited them in France and Belgium. In many cases, they were right.
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| British War Cemetery, Jerusalem, where Robert William Hodgson is buried, taken by Arielinson, Commons Wikimedia, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) License |
Virtually all the men in this group were killed during the war. Some have no known graves but their names are recorded on the great memorials such as Tyne Cot or the Menin Gate, both in Ypres, Belgium. Others are buried in France or Belgium though the graves of some are further away. Thomas Smith’s grave is in Berlin and Robert William Hodgson is buried in the Jerusalem War Cemetery. Only one of this group, Joseph Jackson from Stanhope, died from his wounds in England and was attended by his family, a rare event indeed.
Once a soldier had been killed, efforts were made to return their belongings to families. It is very poignant to see the signature of a mother or father, acknowledging the delivery of such items as wallets, cigarette cards, photos and letters, belts and razors. The family of Thomas Hodgson received only one photo, all that remained.
The family would eventually receive modest sums of money from the men’s accounts. The brothers and sisters of Thomas Watson received just over £1 each in 1919.
All these men were awarded the British War Medal and the Victory medals posthumously, and one or two, such as Private Thomas Heatherington, received the 1914/15 Star if they served with the Expeditionary Force in France in those years.
The men’s names are also recorded on various local memorials as well as those overseas, including the war memorial at Saint John’s Chapel. In Australia, Isaac Thompson's name is located in the Commemorative Area at the Australian War Memorial and in 2018 his name will be projected onto the exterior of the memorial’s Hall of Memory on three occasions.
A few of the Weardale men were married, and any records of the widows seem to indicate that these women did not remarry, since they retain their married surname. One or two survived into the 1970s, for example, Robert Magden’s widow, Margaretta, and one lady died in the 1990s, a stark reminder of the youth of these soldiers when they died.
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