Your Towns and Cities in the Great War

Barking and Dagenham in the Great War

Your Towns and Cities in the Great War

Barking and Dagenham in the Great War

Stephen Wynn

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by

Pen & Sword Military

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire – Philadelphia

Copyright © Stephen Wynn, 2019

ISBN 978 1 47383 415 6

eISBN 978 1 47386 538 9

Mobi ISBN 978 1 47386 537 2

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Foreword

Stephen is a happily retired police officer having served with Essex Police as a constable for thirty years between 1983 and 2013. He is married to Tanya who is also his best friend.

Both his sons, Luke and Ross, were members of the armed forces, collectively serving five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013. Both were injured on their first tour. This led to Stephen’s first book; Two Sons in a Warzone – Afghanistan: The True Story of a Father’s Conflict, which was published in October 2010.

His teenage daughter, Aimee, currently attends one of the district’s secondary schools. Both of his grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Mercantile Navy, whilst his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.

Stephen collaborated with one of his writing partners, Ken Porter, on a previous book published in August 2012, German POW Camp 266 – Langdon Hills, which spent six weeks as the number one best-selling book in Waterstones, Basildon between March and April 2013. Steve and Ken collaborated on a further four books in the Towns & Cities in the Great War series by Pen and Sword. Stephen has also written other titles in the same series of books, and in February 2017 his book, The Surrender of Singapore – Three Years of Hell 1942-45, was published. In March 2018, this was followed by Against All Odds: Walter Tull the Black Lieutenant.

Stephen has also co-written three crime thrillers, which were published between 2010 and 2012, and centre round a fictional detective named Terry Danvers.

Introduction

In writing about Barking and Dagenham in the Great War, I have tried to draw a balance between the war as a whole, on the world stage, in the form of a year by year snapshot of the major events or battles of the war, and then compare those events with everyday life in the towns of Barking and Dagenham.

I believe that for me to provide those two distinctions is important for the book to work. It wouldn’t be right just to write about the two towns in isolation without looking at the war as a whole, because the two are connected on so many different levels.

Life in both Barking and Dagenham at the beginning of the First World War was much the same as it was for many of the nation’s towns and villages. Although war had begun and the nation was fighting for its very survival, everyday life on the home front was still going on as normal as it was possible to in the circumstances. People were still going to work, children to school, and many of the men, especially the younger ones, were going off to fight in the war. Hospitals were springing up all over the place, to deal with the influx of wounded Allied soldiers, who had been returned to the UK to have their injuries treated.

The nearest census to the outbreak of the war was taken in 1911 and records that the population of Barking in its entirety, was 37,590, and that of Dagenham, was much lower, at just 9,641.

Both towns at the time were mainly rural areas, with labourer related jobs being the biggest employers for men looking for work. The work was hard and the days were long, with men usually toiling from dawn to dusk, which meant longer days in the spring and summer than it did throughout the rest of the year.

Here are a few examples of the type of work undertaken by people living in Barking and Dagenham at the time of the 1911 census. These roles wouldn’t have changed much by the start of the First World War.

I will start with the residents of Dagenham, men first. There were a total of 711 men who were engaged as labourers, but this covered different types of work ranging from farm work to building work, as both required general labourers. There were 157 men who were clerks, which, among others, included registration clerks, bank clerks, a civil servant assistant clerk and insurance clerks. Seventy-one were gardeners of different types. Forty-nine were bookkeepers. There were thirty men who were farmers, with a further twenty-three men working as butchers. Six were teachers. Three men were serving soldiers, one of whom was Harry Roseland Rodman, living at the Chequers Inn, Ripple Road, Dagenham. He was one of the first local men to be sent overseas and arrived in France on 17 August 1914. One man, Charles Samuel Cottrell, was a tailor who specialised in coat-making. Arthur Deeks, who was 46 years old was employed as a butler.

The census lists 157 of the women who worked as being in domestic service, as cooks, chambermaids and nannies. There were twenty-three women employed as nurses, many of whom worked at the Isolation Hospital at Rush Green. There were also a few who were what were termed as ‘Monthly Nurses,’ nurses who looked after a mother and her baby, in the weeks following the birth of the child, the postnatal period. The teaching profession employed fifteen women from the town.

Moving on to Barking and the type of work the men and women of the town undertook.

A large number of men (2,355) were recorded as labourers. There were 539 men who worked as clerks of some description, 97 men who worked as butchers, 53 who were employed as gardeners, 33 who worked as teachers, 27 men who were farmers, and 11 who were already serving soldiers.

There were 454 women of all ages, employed as domestic servants. Ninety-eight women worked as teachers, but this category included piano teachers as well those teaching in schools. Fifty women were employed as nurses.

Of course this isn’t the whole picture. As well as those mentioned, the majority of the working-age population followed some occupation, working hard in a diverse range of roles.

The arrival of the war brought changes to both towns. The War Office became the largest employer of men as those of fighting age enlisted in the army and other services and the number of women in the workplace continued to increase as they stepped forward to fill the vacancies left by men, work in munitions, train as nurses or work as volunteers for the cause.

With both towns having close-knit communities the war affected everybody in one way or another. When the men and women of Barking and Dagenham were called upon to do their duty they were not found wanting.

CHAPTER 1

1914: Starting Out

The first five months of the war saw 1914 draw to a close, but sadly the end to the war had not materialised as many had expected. When the war had begun in August, many thought that it was going to be a case of ‘jolly old hockey sticks,’ a few ‘fisty-cuffs’ and everybody back home in time to enjoy their Christmas dinner.

Although there had been rumblings about a war for a few years prior to the actual fighting, nobody really thought it would continue for so long, or come at such a cost in human lives. The period between August and December 1914 had really come as a shock to many. British forces had already lost 33,828 men, whilst India had already lost 7,303. Next was South Africa who had lost 217, Australia 99, Canada 84, and New Zealand had lost 15 of its men. Add to these figures those who were wounded, and all of a sudden the war had become very real indeed.

The first major battle of the war for the British Expeditionary Force was the Battle of Mons, which took place on 23 August 1914. In essence, it was a rearguard action by British forces as they attempted to make good their escape from a much larger, advancing German 1st Army. It had begun when they tried to hold the line at the Mons-Conde Canal, but were let down by the French 5th Army, who were positioned on the right flank of the defensive line but suddenly retreated without communicating their intentions to the British forces, who then found themselves dangerously exposed. Such was the strength and speed of the German advance, the British retreat, or tactical withdrawal as it was also referred to, from Mons, continued for two weeks, and resulted in the British being forced all the way back to the ‘gates’ of Paris, before they enacted a counter attack, with the by now regrouped French forces. This in turn became the Battle of the Marne, and lasted between 6 and 10 September 1914.

Even though this was very early in the war, the counter-attack by the British and French forces on the outskirts of Paris was a pivotal moment of the war. It could have ended up as the equivalent of the evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940, during the Second World War.

If the Battle of the Marne hadn’t taken place, that could have been the war over, there and then. If the British and French hadn’t counter attacked when they did, the First World War could easily have ended on the beaches of the French coast, where the Allied forces would have either had to surrender or been annihilated.

The intentions of both sides were made very clear at the Battle of the Marne, the desire to obtain a quick and decisive victory and end the war as early as they could. Official figures show that both sides committed more than one million men into the battle, out of which the Germans are estimated to have had nearly 70,000 men killed, whilst the French lost 80,000 men and the British lost 1,700, with six times that number wounded.

Both sides hardly had time to dust themselves down, have a rest and something to eat, than they were back fighting again. This time it was the Battle of the Aisne which took place between 12 and 15 September 1914. This ended up as a bit of a stalemate. The Germans held the high ground between Compiegne and Berryau-Bac, north of the river Aisne. On the night of 13 September, elements of the British Expeditionary Force crossed over the river Aisne, under the cover of a heavy fog, which once it disappeared the following morning, left them in a somewhat exposed position.

With neither side willing to retreat, the situation quickly became a stalemate. Sir John French, the man in charge of the British Expeditionary Force, ordered his men to entrench, despite the fact that his men did not readily have to hand the equipment needed to do this. Nearby farms and villages were visited to beg, steal and borrow any tools that could be effectively used to dig. The initial idea was for shallow slit trenches to be dug, so that the men at least had some kind of cover from the expected German artillery bombardments. In no time at all the British had dug trenches some seven feet deep. This certainly wasn’t what the Germans had planned for. Their forces were all about speed, mobility and surprise, with the intention of achieving a victory and a quick end to the war within six weeks. A blitzkrieg approach to war if ever there was one.

With manpower sapping, direct frontal assault attacks now a thing of the past and trench warfare the way it was going to be on the Western Front for the rest of the war, there then followed what history has recorded as the Race to the Sea stage of the war, where both sides attempted to outflank the other. This lasted between 17 September and 19 October 1914 and came to an end when Belgian forces managed to occupy the area between Diksmuide, in Belgium and the North Sea. But this wasn’t the end of the matter. There were still more battles, and trench warfare became the norm on the Western Front.

The Battle of Yser lasted between 16 and 31 October 1914, and saw a heroic defence by Belgian forces halt the German advance between the towns of Nieuwpoort and Diksmuide, over a 22 mile stretch of the Yser River. Despite this victory by Belgian forces, Germany still had control of 95 per cent of Belgian territory.

The First Battle of Ypres, which was in fact made up of five smaller battles, at Langemarck, La Bassée, Armentières, Gheluvelt, and Nonne Bosschen, took place between 19 October and 19 November 1914 and saw the combined strength of the Belgian, French and British forces up against the might of the German Army. It was an epic encounter. The Allies had a combined strength of 4,400,000 men against an even larger German force of 5,500,000. By the time the fighting had ended the combined casualties for both sides (including dead, wounded and missing) numbered more than 100,000 men.

According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, there were seventeen men who were either from Barking or who had connections with the town who were killed or died between the outbreak of the war and 31 December 1914.

The same website records that the first man from Barking to be killed-in-action, on 20 September 1914, was Edward Bridges, who was 25-years-old, and a gunner (45692) in the 44th Battery, Royal Field Artillery. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the La Ferté-sous-Jouarre Memorial, situated in the Seine-et-Marne region of France.

The youngest man from Barking to be killed during the course of the war was William Richard Pinborough, who was 19-years-old when he died on 1 November 1914. He was an ordinary seaman (SS/4667) and serving with the Royal Navy as part of the crew of HMS Monmouth, when it was sunk during the Battle of Coronel off the coast of Chile.

During the battle, which started at 7.04 pm when the Monmouth was engaged by the German armoured cruiser, Gneisenau, the German fire was extremely accurate, and because her bigger guns were more powerful she was able to open fire from over 12,000 yards away, whilst still outside of the maximum range that Monmouth’s guns could reach. The Germans struck first causing a fire to break out on the Monmouth. Despite the obvious danger, the Royal Navy vessels, which were under the overall command of Rear Admiral Christopher Craddock, knew that they had to get closer if they were to have any chance whatsoever of defeating their German counterparts.

At 7.23 pm, a shell fired from the Gneisenau blew the roof off Monmouth’s forward turret, starting yet another fire, which in turn caused a large amount of ammunition to explode with such force that it blew the turret completely off the ship. By 8 pm the Monmouth was listing badly. Within just half an hour, her list had increased to such a degree that none of her guns on the port side were of any use. She was dead in the water. The German light cruiser Nurnberg had come across the stricken Monmouth, and in an effort to get her to strike her colours and surrender, she illuminated her own flag. By 9.20 pm the Monmouth had still not responded, so the Nurnberg fired a warning shot over the top of the Monmouth, but still she made no response. This time she fired a torpedo, but it missed. The Monmouth then mustered up all of her energy, and despite her precarious condition, managed to manoeuvre herself, pick up some speed and direct herself towards the Nurnberg. This left the German vessel with no choice but to open fire again. Once again her guns were accurate, and at 9.58 pm, the Monmouth capsized and sank beneath the waves, taking her entire complement of 735 officers and men, which included William Richard Pinborough, to the bottom of the sea and a watery grave. William was the son of Edward and Mary Ann Bridges, of 25 George Street, Barking.

In the same five-month period, Dagenham only lost three of its young men, with the first to lose his life being John Joseph Peer, who was killed in action on Wednesday, 21 October. He was 24-yearsold and a private (8926) in the 1st Battalion, Kings Shropshire Light Infantry, which was part of the British Expeditionary Force. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial in the Hainaut region of Belgium. John was the eldest of four sons born to John and Sarah Elizabeth Peer, of 28 Glebe Road, Dagenham, the other three being William, Arthur and George. As soon as he turned eighteen, Arthur enlisted in the Royal Navy on 11 February 1918, as an ordinary seaman (K49297). He was discharged on 9 June 1919.

The youngest man from Dagenham to die was Donald Campbell, who was killed in action on Sunday, 1 November. He was only twenty years old and a private (1891) in the 1st/4th Battalion, London Regiment (London Scottish). He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, in Ypres. He was the son of Donald Campbell, of 5 Gulf Villas, Gulf Cottages, Dagenham Docks, one of six children being brought up by Donald senior.

Job Henry Charles Drain was born in Barking on 15 October 1895. In 1911, Job was 15-years-old, had left school and was working as a factory hand. He lived at 9 York Street, Barking, with his parents, Job and Emily Drain, his elder sister, May, and his four younger brothers, Charles, John, Fred and Peter. His father, also Job, worked at a local chemical works. When he was 18-years-old he enlisted in the army, becoming a driver (69960) in the 37th Battery, Royal Field Artillery, 8th Brigade, arriving in France on 19 August 1914. It wouldn’t take him long to make his mark, an act which remained with him for the rest of his life.

Job Henry Charles Drain.

For his actions, along with two colleagues, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, for an incident which took place on 26 August 1914, at Le Cateau, in France.

The 37th Battery, consisting of six 4.5 howitzer artillery pieces, came under attack from a large group of German infantry, who had moved to less than 200 yards away from their position, which not only put the men of the Battery in imminent danger, as they could now be easily shot by well-aimed fire, there was also a real risk that if their position was overrun, all six of their howitzers would fall into enemy hands.

Captain Douglas Reynolds, who was in charge of Drain’s Battery, instructed his men to make ready to move their position to a safer location, which they did, managing to secure four of the weapons in the process. He then asked for volunteers to help him recover the remaining two guns, of which there was no shortage of volunteers. Drain, and another driver, Frederick Luke, volunteered and were selected to help Captain Reynolds with one of the guns, whilst three other men made for the other. The second group of three were all hit as they raced forward, whilst Captain Reynolds, Drain and Luke, reached their gun, wheeled round, and brought it out of harm’s way, with Luke being wounded in the process.

Drain received his Victoria Cross from King George V on 1 December 1914, in France.

Both Drain and Luke survived the war and both reached the rank of sergeant, whilst Reynolds, who had been promoted to the rank of major, was killed in action on the Western Front on 23 February 1916. Drain was also mentioned in despatches, a record of which was printed in the London Gazette newspaper dated 20 October 1914. The relevant entry appears on page 8381.

Commemorative Paving Stone for Driver Job Drain.

An interesting fact about Drain is that on the British Army’s Medal Rolls Index Cards, his name is shown as John, and not Job, Henry Charles Drain. Job married Emily L. Anderson at the end of 1916, in Barking.

In August 2009, ninety-five years after he had been awarded his Victoria Cross, a statue of Drain was finally erected outside the Broadway Theatre in Barking. His last address in the town was at Greatfields Road. A blue heritage plaque has been placed on the front of the building to commemorate this fact.

Job’s father, also Job, took what some might describe, at the age of 45, as the slightly unusual step of enlisting in the army. On 15 April 1915, at East Ham, he became Private 153505 of the Royal Engineers, although initially he had been allocated to serve with the

Army Service Corps. At the time, his home address was 59 Abbey Road, Barking. He served with his unit in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force between 20 July 1915 and 12 July 1916, and during this time he had a brief hospital stay between 26 June and 2 July 1916, due to feeling slightly unwell, after which time he was returned to his unit. But just five days later he was back in hospital, having reported sick again on 7 July. He told the medical staff who treated him that he had been aware that he had respiratory trouble in September 1915, after he had inhaled a small amount of poisonous gas during a gas attack on the position he was serving at the time, although there is no mention of this or any subsequent treatment he received on his army pension record. Since then, he had suffered a continuous cough and expectoration, he had also lost a noticeable amount of weight, and had a general feeling of malaise. He was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and on 15 August 1916 he was medically discharged from the Army for being no longer physically fit enough for wartime military service. At the time of his discharge he was living at 103 St Paul’s Road, Barking.

Memorial statue of Driver Job Henry Charles Drain VC.

Plaque in memory of the sons and daughters of Barking and Dagenham who were lost during the Great War. The plaque details how Driver Job Drain received the Victoria Cross on 26 August 1914.

With the beginning of the war just over the horizon, a new and enlarged Drill Hall for use by the Dagenham Territorials, better known as ‘H’ Company, 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, was opened by Lord O’Hagan, on Friday, 29 May 1914. The building had been erected by the County Territorial Force Association. The man in charge of proceedings was Major H. H. Slade.

Mr H. A. Khone told those in attendance at the opening that the County Association was in the process of providing thirty buildings of different kinds, and for different uses, for the Territorial Forces of Essex. The total cost of the expenditure for these new buildings was in the region of £90,000, with individual costs ranging from £700 to £7,000 for each one.

Lord O’Hagan said that he was glad to think of himself as a neighbour of the detachment of the Territorials who would be using the new building, and he hoped that the detachment would continue to increase in size and that more men would look to sign up with them. His wish was for them to go on to become not only the pride of the battalion, but the regiment which they had the honour to serve with.

It was interesting to note that despite nobody actually knowing at that time when the First World War would begin, it had long since been a case of when rather than if. With that in mind, and with such building work being expediently carried out, the preparation for war was well under way during the spring and summer months of 1914. This was a massive commitment, ultimately being paid for out of government funds, as £90,000 in 1914 has a value today of somewhere in the region of £5,753,419.

On Saturday, 15 August 1914, Mr Arthur Maltster, of Chequers Lane, Dagenham, was cycling down the hill, when he collided with a Territorial soldier. Both men were knocked to the ground and sustained injuries that required treatment, which necessitated them being taken to the Red Cross Hospital at Brentwood.

At a meeting of the Romford Rural Council on Tuesday, 13 October 1914 the proposed improvements to Chequers Lane, Dagenham were discussed. The clerk and surveyor reported at the meeting in reference to a letter which had been received from the county surveyor at Chelmsford, concerning repairs and widening of the road leading from Dagenham Dock railway station, all the way up to the main road. The letter from the county surveyor stated that Chequers Lane was a road which led from Ripple Road to Dagenham Dock that allowed access to the dock area, which included several factories, some fifty-five cottages and the Dagenham Dock railway station. In the circumstances, and with the contents of the letter in mind, the clerk and surveyor suggested that in view of the growing importance of the road, which would only increase as the war continued, it might be prudent if steps were taken to make Chequers Lane a highway, which would then provide an element of control over it by the council, whilst still leaving the costs or any repairs with the owners, provided that they agreed to certain conditions, which were:

(1) To lay an adequate surface water drain, and fill up the marsh ditches.

(2) To widen the road to a width of fifty feet.

(3) To construct a carriageway and footways in a substantial manner to the council’s satisfaction.

(4) To give up strips of land to enable the council to make one portion of the road fifty foot wide.

The clerk and surveyor’s suggestions were agree by the council members, and written copies of the same were forwarded to solicitors, S. Williams and Sons Ltd, as well as Essex County Council.

Mr J. Page, who worked in the surveyors’ department, had enlisted with the Territorials at Romford on 22 September 1914, but had been working in the surveyors’ office in his spare time. It was agreed by the members of the Romford Rural Council, that Mr Page would still be paid his full salary whilst he continued to assist the surveyor.

A letter dated 27 October 1914 was received by the acting chairman of the Poplar Hospital for Accidents, Mr J. G. Broadbank,

JP. It had been sent to him by Mr H. Bailey, the Honorary Secretary of the Works Committee of Dagenham Dock.

Owing to the War there has been no Carnival held at Dagenham this year, so there is not any money to send to your hospital from that source. We have therefore made a collection each Saturday for the last four weeks instead, and have pleasure in sending you a cheque for £59 12s, the amount collected, because Poplar has always treated well any of us who, having been injured, have had to go there.

The letter was well-received by the hospital’s committee, which like other hospitals across the country was under no misconception about how greatly reduced their income was going to be from charitable donations because of the war. This wasn’t because people had stopped making such donations or had suddenly become uncaring, but because of the numerous wartime charities that were asking the same people for much needed monies for their particular charities. The bottom line, there was only so much money people could sensibly donate to charitable causes, and the difficult and unenviable task they had was to decide which charity they deemed to be the most deserving of their hard-earned money.

‘D’ Company, 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, was a Territorial Force, which in part was comprised of men who were either born or lived in Barking. Men from Dagenham were mainly to be found in the battalion’s ‘H’ Company, along with men from Harold Wood, Hornchurch and Rainham. At the outbreak of the war, the men of ‘D’ Company were stationed at Warley Barracks, near Brentwood, and were part of the Essex Brigade, which in turn was part of the East Anglian Division, but before the end of the year, they had moved from Warley to Norwich, where they remained until April 1915, at which time the battalion moved back to Essex, where their new home became the barracks at Colchester.

As the regiment’s pre-deployment training intensified and their departure for service overseas drew nearer and nearer, after less than a month the men found themselves on the move again. This time it was to St Albans in Hertfordshire, as they became part of the 54th (East Anglian) Division.

The day that they had been anticipating and I dare say a few had been dreading, finally arrived. They reached Devonport on 21 July 1915, and boarded a ship waiting to take them to Gallipoli. After a journey which took twenty-two days they finally arrived at Suvla Bay on Gallipoli, on 12 August 1915, where they remained until they were evacuated on 4 December 1915, ending up at Alexandria, Egypt on 17 December, where they remained for the rest of the war.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website shows that during their stay at Gallipoli, the Essex Regiment lost a total of 370 men. This included seventeen from the 1st Battalion, who were all buried at the Azmak Cemetery at Suvla Bay, a further 331 who are commemorated on the Helles Memorial and 22 who died of their wounds and were then buried at the Chatby Military and War Memorial Cemetery in Alexandria.

Whilst the war was raging across the English Channel and hundreds of men were dying every day of the week, the normality of life, or what passed for it, was still going on in the towns of Barking and Dagenham and the people who lived in those communities.

On Saturday, 8 August 1914, with the war less than a week old, five men from Barking appeared before the court at Stratford, charged with the burglary of a shop in Heath Street, Barking.

The five men, labourers William and John Lewis, who were 20 and 19 years old respectively, and lived at Howards Road, Barking, coal porter James Mitchell, who was 19 years old and lived at Abbey Road, Barking, glass blower Dennis Sullivan, aged 21, and who lived at St Ann’s Road, Barking, and 20-year-old Ernest Stone, a labourer of Suffolk Place, Barking, were all charged with stealing a quantity of provisions valued at £2 10s, belonging to Mrs Hannah Heat, of Heath Street, where she carried on a business as a fruiterer and provision merchant. She lived above the shop, and on 4 August, she locked her premises when she finished trading for the day and returned to her flat. The next morning she found that one of the shop’s windows had been smashed and entry gained. Having searched her shop, she discovered that certain items were missing, including tea, sauce, mineral waters, and chocolates.

Detective Kent informed the court that on arresting Mitchell the man replied, ‘All right guv’nor. I might as well tell you the truth. I was with Ernest Stone and the others just before two o’clock on Wednesday morning outside Mrs Heat’s shop. Stone said, “What do you say, boys, about old Mrs Heat’s window?” Stone broke the window with his elbow. I only had a few chocolates. All the lads had something.’ John Lewis said, ‘My brother and me wasn’t the only ones.’ Detective Kent also told the court that the Lewis brothers had threatened to give a good hiding to the man who had given them away. Stone gave himself up and Sullivan was also arrested. Sullivan said, ‘I was dragged into this by others.’ All five men were committed for trial to the Essex Quarter Sessions.

Despite the fact that all five of the young men were old enough to have enlisted in the army, none of them had chosen to do so. So rather than fight for their country, they all preferred to be the equivalent of barnacles on its backside.

The related Essex Quarter Sessions took place on Wednesday, 16 September 1914, at the Shire Hall, Chelmsford. The jury was congratulated by the Chairman of the Quarter Sessions, Mr E North Buxton, for coming together, in what could only be described as difficult times for the entire nation. Mr Herbert Edward Ingle, of Merrilands, Dagenham, was one of the new justices of the peace for Essex who were sworn in.

All five of the men, having had time to reflect on what they had done, had pleaded guilty to the offence of burglary, with which they were collectively charged. The Lewis brothers, Mitchell and Stone all had previous convictions. Sullivan on the other hand, was previously of good character and noted to be a good workman. His father had died not long before the incident and he was the one who helped support his mother who had ten other children to look after. The Lewis brothers and Mitchell were sentenced to three years’ Borstal treatment; Stone, who had already undergone Borstal treatment, was sentenced to nine months’ hard labour; and Sullivan was bound over to come up for judgement if called upon, which basically meant that as long as he didn’t commit any other offences, he would stay out of trouble with the courts. If he did reoffend he would not only be dealt with for that offence but also face a sentence for the burglary of Mrs Heat’s premises in Barking.

What was surprising about the sentences for the four who were given custodial sentences, was the lack of opportunity, as means of an alternative punishment, to enlist in the army for the duration of the war.

On Saturday, 28 September 1914, Mr Elias Shoesmith, a labourer of Factory Road, Barking, appeared before the Stratford Police Court, charged with a violent assault upon the police. He was found guilty and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment with hard labour. One of the constables who Shoesmith assaulted was so badly injured that it was anticipated that he would more than likely be off sick for two weeks before he was deemed fit enough to be able to return to work.

There is an interesting aspect to this story, because it doesn’t tell us how old, or what Elias Shoesmith did for a living. The reason I point this out is there were two Elias Shoesmiths.

The 1911 census records the Shoesmith family residing at 54 Abbey Road, Barking. There was Elias Shoesmith senior, who was a labourer, and in 1911 was 36-years-old, or there was Elias Shoesmith junior, who was a coal porter and who was 17-yearsold. So the 64 thousand dollar question is, which Elias Shoesmith was sent to prison for assault? Well, on the basis that the Shoesmith who was sent to prison was a labourer, I may assume that it was Shoesmith senior who was sent to prison.

The slight sting in the tail to this particular story is that Shoesmith junior enlisted in the army during the course of the First World War, becoming a gunner (2873) (297626) in the 2nd/1st (North Midland) Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery. He died of his wounds on 26 June 1917, and was buried at Duhallow ADS Cemetery, in the West-Vlaanderen region of Belgium.

In the years immediately after the end of the First World War, Elias and Alice Shoesmith were back living at 6 Factory Road, Barking.

On Saturday, 3 October 1914, labourer Thomas White, who was 40-years-old and who lived in Highbridge Road, Barking was charged with attempting to commit suicide. On the morning of 17 September, a doctor had been called to his home and found him bleeding from a wound to his throat. The wound was serious enough for the doctor to call for an ambulance and he was taken to the local hospital.

How the case came to be before the courts and how it was known that Mr White had attempted to take his own life, is unclear. It could have possibly been because of information provided by the doctor who initially treated his wound, or as a result of information passed on by his wife, or it could have been as a result of an admission by Mr White himself.

At an earlier hearing of the case, his wife had given evidence to the court that he had been acting somewhat strangely for a period of time, and on the strength of that he was remanded in custody, so that further enquiries into the matter could be made. Those enquiries having been completed led in part to the second hearing, where the local medical authorities informed the court that Mr White was suffering with melancholia, a mental condition characterised by great depression and forebodings of personal doom.

Attempting to commit suicide remained an offence in England and Wales until the Suicide Act 1961, which received Royal Assent on 3 August 1961, decriminalised it. This meant that somebody who tried to commit suicide, but failed in the attempt, would no longer be prosecuted. Part of the reason why attempting to kill oneself had been classed as an offence, was connected to religion. The belief being that only God had the right to give and take life, and that by committing suicide, an individual was placing their own salvation at risk, which in turn meant that elements of the Christian Church viewed suicide as a sin, although by the early 1960s they had started to re-evaluate their opinion on the subject.

On Monday, 12 October 1914, an army recruiting drive took place at the Barking swimming baths. Colonel Langdon was the man in charge of events, ably supported by Sir John H. Bethell, Bart. MP, Mr James Rowlands MP, Lieutenant-Colonel F. Taylor, and Mr Alderman Griggs. The meeting was well-attended by many of the town’s fit and healthy young men, many of whom took the decision to enlist prior to leaving the meeting.

The laying of the foundation stone of St Paul’s Church took place on Saturday, 24 October 1914, the ceremony being performed by Miss Nutter, of Wanstead, in the presence of the Bishop of Barking, and a large gathering of other local clergy and local parishioners.

Work on St Paul’s church had actually begun in 1893, when the chancel and the existing two bays and nave were erected from the designs of the late Sir Arthur Bloomfield. The church was being completed by the addition of two remaining bays of the nave and the aisles. A semi-octagonal apse that formed a baptistry at the west end, was also included. The additional work conformed to what had previously been built, which was Early English of what was known as the decorative period of Gothic architecture. The extension practically doubled the original seating capacity of the church, meaning that the new capacity, including the choir, was for 707.

After the laying of the stone, the Bishop of Barking gave an address, in which he said that it was a great thing that in a time of national crisis, trial and tribulation the church should be putting on its ‘armour of righteousness’, and that the nation’s people should be rallying round the Cross of Christ in such a great cause. The Bishop said that he believed that God, who moved in mysterious ways, out of evil brought good, and that out of the troubles and trials of the First World War, and the anxieties that might beset them, he was working for the highest of purposes.

When the church was originally consecrated, Barking had about 14,000 inhabitants. By 1914, that number had increased to more than 34,000, and that increase was likely to continue with even greater rapidity in the coming years. More than £3,000 had been raised by public contributions and donations for the completion of the church. It was estimated at the time that a further £300 was required.

The First World War was a time where the church played a massive part in everybody’s life. It was where people went to pray as a family for a better tomorrow. They prayed because they believed that God was on their side in a war that they saw as being unjust, which had been orchestrated by a German desire to rule the world well, Europe in any case.

On Thursday, 17 December 1914, there was a sitting of the Romford Petty Sessions. One of the cases before the bench that day involved Arthur James Farrow, a horseman from Dagenham, who was charged with stealing about two bushels of onions, valued at 8s, from Samuel Thorogood and Sons, market gardeners of Newton’s Farm, South Hornchurch.

Mr Herbert Thorogood told the court that Farrow had been in his employ, that the onions had gone missing, and he had informed the police.

Police Constable Reynolds gave evidence that having been informed of the theft of the onions, he had concealed himself at Newton’s Farm, but in full view of the loft where the onions were stored. Whilst carrying out his observations, Reynolds saw Farrow enter the stable and feed his horse ready for the journey to market. He later threw an empty bag on top of the load he was carrying, climbed up on to the back of his wagon, which was high enough for him to open the door which lead directly into the onion loft, and climbed in. Reynolds was close enough to hear Farrow moving onions around inside the loft before jumping back down on to the back of his wagon, with a bag of onions which he then hid amongst the load. He repeated the exercise, and was about leave the farm, when Reynolds stopped him. Farrow immediately admitted the theft, but having been seen committing the theft, he could hardly do anything else. His sorrow appeared genuine, as he burst into tears once the gravity of his actions had sunk in, repeating that he was sorry for what he had done and saying that it would not happen again.

The Chairman of the Bench, Mr Henry Joslin, was not so impressed by Mr Farrow’s contriteness, saying instead, that offenders were invariably sorry once they had been found out. Theft of any item belonging to another person was viewed as being a very serious offence, and in finding Farrow guilty, he fined him the sum of 10s with an additional 14s for costs.

A check of the 1911 census shows just one person by the name of Arthur James Farrow living in Dagenham. He was lodging, along with his mother, Johanna, and a John Farrow, possibly an uncle, with the Rivett family who lived at 4 Vicarage Road. The reason why he might have cried when he was arrested by Police Constable Reynolds, was that in 1914, Farrow would have only been 16-yearsold. This is not where the story finishes however.

It would appear that John Farrow moved to Australia sometime after 1911, and on 13 August 1917 enlisted in the 18th (Sportsmen’s) Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, in Sydney, as Private 7059, and survived the war.

On 1 November 1916, Arthur James Farrow enlisted in the Royal Navy as an ordinary seaman (J/61495) when he was 19-years-old. On Friday, 23 March 1917, he was serving as a crew member on board HMS Laforey when it struck a mine in the English Channel and eventually sank. Sadly, fifty-six out of the crew of seventy-six officers and ratings, including Arthur James Farrow, were killed.

Arthur James Farrow has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial. His is a story which says so much. It starts with him being arrested for the theft of the onions, put before the courts and found guilty of theft. But despite this, he didn’t hide away feeling sorry for himself, he displayed a positive attitude, and a couple of years later enlisted in the Royal Navy. Although a very brave young man, who was always going to do his bit for his king and country in their hour of need, but I pose the question, that by joining the Royal Navy, was there a part of him that was also seeking redemption for his earlier mistake? We will never know for sure.

December 1914 saw the remarkable story of 18-year-old James Sidney Kemp, of 98 St Margaret’s Road, Barking, who was a private serving with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment. Despite his age, and with the war less than five months old, he had already been involved in no fewer than eight engagements, which included the Battle of Mons and the Battle of the Aisne, where he was wounded by being shot in the knee. Remarkably, he quickly recovered from his wounds and was sent back to his unit on the Western Front, where he was wounded again at the Battle of Ypres, when he was caught in the blast of an exploding shell, and a piece of shrapnel injured his foot and leg. He also received a gunshot wound to the forefinger of the right hand which damaged the middle joint of that finger. Although the wound healed, the bone of the finger had not reset itself sufficiently for the finger to be used as it had been prior to the wound. With this also being the finger a soldier used to pull the trigger of his rifle, it was extremely important that its movement was unhindered. He was returned to England for further treatment at St Mark’s College Hospital, in Chelsea. Besides being an impressive young soldier, he was also a keen sportsman, who held regimental prizes in swimming, running and boxing.

The 1911 census showed James lived at 98 St Margaret’s Road, Barking, with his parents, Edward and Annie Kemp, his four brothers, Edward, Joseph, Alfred and Cecil and his four sisters, Ethel, Caroline, Violet, and Florence.

James had worked as a messenger before he enlisted in the army on 5 July 1913, becoming Private 9418 in the 2nd Battalion, Princess Charlotte of Wales, Royal Berkshire Regiment. The injuries he sustained in those first few months of the war proved too much for him to continue serving as a soldier, so at just 19 years old, he was medically discharged from the Army for no longer being physically fit enough for wartime military service. He had served for a total of 1 year and 143 days.

CHAPTER 2

1915: Deepening Conflict

The New Year had arrived and the war wasn’t over, like many had predicted it would be. With the situation between the two sides literally having become entrenched, it was clear that the conflict wasn’t going to be concluded quickly. The question now was how many more were going to die before it came to an end?

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website records that British and other Commonwealth countries lost a combined number of 151,527 men during the course of 1915, which equates to 415 men every single day of that year. It also shows that some eighty-five of these men were either from Barking or had a strong connection with the town. I thought in this section it would be useful to take a look at some of the different Regiments, Corps and other units that men from Barking served in. These included:

Royal Army Medical Corps.

Rifle Brigade.

The Queens (Royal West Surrey Regiment).

Royal Field Artillery.

Essex Regiment.

Suffolk Regiment.

Royal Berkshire Regiment.

Royal Marine Light Infantry.

London Regiment (The Rangers).

Yorkshire Regiment.

Dorchester Regiment.

4th Dragoon Guards (Royal Irish).

London Regiment (City of London Regiment).

The Buffs (East Kent Regiment).

Kings Royal Rifle Corps.

Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry.

Mercantile Marine Reserve.

Canadian Infantry.

Dorsetshire Regiment.

East Yorkshire Regiment.

Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

Leinster Regiment.

Northumberland Fusiliers.

Royal Naval Reserve.

Hampshire Regiment.

The Kings (Liverpool Regiment).

London Regiment (City of London Rifles).

Leicestershire Regiment.

Middlesex Regiment.

Army Service Corps.

Auckland Regiment (NZEF).

Queens Own (Royal West Kent Regiment). Royal Scots.

West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales Own).

Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.

Canterbury Regiment (NZEF).

York and Lancaster Regiment. Middlesex Regiment.

Royal Fusiliers. Coldstream Guards.

Australian Infantry (Australian Imperial Force).

It is truly remarkable to note that just one town had produced so many men who had served with so many different regiments, corps, guards, brigades and naval units, from around the country.

The youngest man from Barking to die during 1915 was 17-year-old Henry William John Mackley, who was a Boy 1st Class (J/29553) serving on HMS Formidable, when he was killed in action on 1 January 1915.

At the start of the First World War, HMS Formidable was part of the 5th Battle Squadron, stationed at Sheerness. Their role was to patrol the English Channel to guard against the possible attack by the German navy.

Formidable was struck by two torpedoes in the early hours of 1 January 1915, whilst she was on patrol. Having taken part in gunnery exercises on the previous day, off the Isle of Portland, and despite being aware of German submarine activity in the area, the commanding officer of the Channel Fleet, Vice-Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, decided that the fleet, which included Formidable, would remain on patrol in the area. It is quite possible that in spite of the information concerning German submarine activity, Bayly had determined any such threat of attack was negligible because of the inclement weather conditions of rough seas and high winds, which existed that night in the English Channel.

HMS Formidable.

The two torpedoes that struck the Formidable were fired by the German submarine, U-24. The first struck her number one boiler on her port side, at 2.20 am, and within the space of twenty minutes, she had taken a noticeable list. It was at this time that her captain, Noel Loxley, had given the order to abandon ship, but with the weather being as bad as it was, this was not a straight-forward procedure. The second torpedo struck the Formidable on her starboard side at 3.05 am.

Captain Loxley had remained on the Formidable’s bridge, doing his best to ensure that the remainder of his crew got off safely. He was accompanied by his faithful fox terrier, Bruce, who also died. Loxley’s body was found washed ashore on the south coast of England. He was buried in a marked grave in the Dorset village of Abbotsbury Gardens.

Despite attempts by different vessels to pick up survivors from the choppy waters, 35 officers and 512 ratings were killed out of a total crew of 780, including Henry William John Mackley. Like many of his colleagues who perished that night, he has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial. Henry’s parents, Henry and Alice Mackley, lived at 9 St John’s Retreat, North Street, Barking.

The same website (Commonwealth War Graves Commission) records six men from Dagenham who had been serving in the British armed forces also died during the course of 1915, although there may have well have been more whose home address was not noted.

One of the six was 31-year-old, Dagenham born, Thomas George Bird, who was a private (8996) in ‘E’ Company, 3rd Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, who died of his wounds (the result of a gas attack whilst serving in France) on Thursday, 27 May 1915. He was buried in the churchyard of St Mary the Less, Chigwell.

The youngest of the six was 18-year-old George Isaac Playle, who was an ordinary seaman (J/27063) when he was killed in action on Thursday, 13 May 1915, whilst serving on board HMS Goliath. He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial in Kent. His parents, George and Alice Playle, lived at 27 Vicarage Road, Dagenham.

By the outbreak of the war, Goliath, a pre-dreadnought battleship, was already a comparatively old ship, having first been launched in 1898. In fact, she had already been decommissioned and ‘mothballed’ in 1913 and had to be quickly re-commissioned and allocated to the 8th Battalion Squadron. In March 1915, she found herself part of the Dardanelles campaign, and during the landings at Gallipoli in April of that year, she acted as a support vessel. On 13 May 1915, she was moored in Morto Bay, an inlet in the southwest tip of Cape Helles, along with the battleship, Cornwallis. Each night, two battleships of the British Royal Navy remained in the bay, in support of the Allied troops who were entrenched on the peninsula, and to protect them from Ottoman naval bombardments. Also protecting the Cornwallis and the Goliath from attack by torpedoes were five Royal Navy destroyers who patrolled the bay. In the early hours of 13 May 1915, something went wrong and the Ottoman destroyer, the Muavenet-I Milliye, managed to find her way through the British defences before successfully attacking the Goliath and then making good her escape, unscathed.

HMS Goliath.

The Goliath was struck by three torpedoes. The first two torpedoes caused a large explosion on the Goliath which began to capsize almost immediately. The third torpedo struck her while she was actually lying on her side. Her sinking caused the death of 570 of the crew of 750 officers and men, including George Playle.

But whilst the war raged across the Western Front and other theatres of war, including Gallipoli, the normality of everyday life was still going on in the towns of Barking and Dagenham. People were still getting up and going to work, as well as undertaking voluntary work, which was their way of doing their bit for the war effort. Children were still going to school. There were some noticeable differences, especially where hospitals were concerned. Throughout 1915, more and more wounded soldiers were returning from across the English Channel, and were admitted to hospitals across the country. Some of these were newly opened military hospitals, whilst others were existing medical facilities which gave a number of their wards for military use.

A regular Essex Roll of Honour of the men who had died was published in many of the county’s newspapers. The following are men of Barking who perished throughout January 1915:

Stoker 1st Class W.G. Hollingsworth, HMS Bulwark.

1st Class Boy H.W.J. Mackley, HMS Formidable.

RMLI, H. Pascall HMS Formidable.

Able Seaman Thatcher, HMS Bulwark.

Acting Leading Stoker W.J.E. Watson, HMS Bulwark.

Leading Stoker E. Watson, HMS Bulwark.

Bomber Ella, Royal Field Artillery.

Private A. Delaney, Bedfordshire Regiment.

Private S.W. Hollick, London Territorials.

Private T.E. Fitzgerald, 2nd Battalion, Border Regiment. Private H.J. Guy, Essex Regiment.

Private E.S. White, Essex Regiment.

Lance Corporal J.A. Parker, 2nd Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment.

Gunner E. Bridges, Royal Field Artillery.

Underneath each set of casualties was a request from the editor of the particular newspaper concerned.

It read as follows.

We shall be much obliged if the parents or nearest relative of any Essex man in whatever Regiment or on whatever Ship, who loses his life for England in this Great War, will send the name with Regiment or Ship, for inclusion in this roll of honour of the County’s noble sons.

It showed the attitudes of the time with the reference to the ‘Great War’. For many in society saw fighting for their country as a duty and an honour, even if it wasn’t they who had to do the fighting. A man was expected to fight well, and if he was to die, then he should do it honourably. For those who died, or who lost loved ones in the war, there was nothing great, or even necessarily honourable about it, only sadness, pain and a feeling of loneliness.

As can be seen from the above list of names, fourteen men from Barking had died in the war throughout January 1915. Fourteen men who would never return to their loved ones. As a result of their deaths, parents lost sons, wives lost husbands, and children lost their fathers.

Tuesday, 26 January 1915, saw the tragic death of 26-year-old Second Lieutenant Douglas James Septimus Dawson, of the 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, who was discovered at Yarmouth with a gunshot wound to his chest, which had been caused by a revolver. He died later the same day in hospital. His father, Mr C. J. Dawson, was an architect from Barking.

At the inquest, which was held at Yarmouth the day after his death, the coroner, Mr J. T. Waters, said that Lieutenant Dawson’s death was a very sad case. He was with others from his regiment, who like him had been quartered at the Garibaldi Hotel. At 8.40 am on Tuesday, 26 January, a colour-sergeant was called to Second Lieutenant Dawson’s room, as it was believed he was ill, having been found sprawled across his bed. It was thought he had fainted. Some brandy and water was brought to him, and it was then that blood was noticed on his chest. A wound was discovered, apparently caused by a bullet fired from his Webley revolver, which was discovered under his bedstead and contained two spent cartridges.

Second Lieutenant Dawson was always considered to be a bright and cheerful character, and nobody knew of any reason why he would even contemplate suicide, let alone go ahead and do it.

Mr Charles James Dawson, of Wykeham House, Barking, confirmed to the coroner that Second Lieutenant Dawson was his son, and that he had received a letter from him on the afternoon of Tuesday, 26 January, the day of his death. In the letter he said he would be returning home that day and hoped to arrive in time for tea. It was a cheerful letter and there was nothing in it which hinted or suggested that his mind was anything other than it should be. Mr Dawson outlined to the inquest that his son had been mobilised almost immediately war had been declared and had left home in December 1914 to undergo his basic training. Since then there had been a steady stream of letters between them. In this last letter, Second Lieutenant Dawson had also told his father he would be leaving Barking the day after he arrived, as he had to go to Hythe to undergo his musketry training. Mr Dawson said his son was of a most cheerful and contented disposition, and he could not for a moment believe that he had committed suicide.

Colour Sergeant Booth of ‘E’ Company, 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment gave evidence that Second Lieutenant Dawson had always appeared to him as being bright and breezy, and that he was wellthought of by his men, with whom he took every opportunity to engage. Just twenty minutes before he died, Dawson had asked Colour Sergeant Booth if he would get better, and added, ‘I am so sorry this has happened; I have always done my duty.’ Booth commented that Dawson appeared somewhat anxious to recover.

Colour Sergeant F. L. Blake, ‘C’ Company, gave evidence to the effect that he had been on parade with Dawson between 7.15am and 7.45am on the Tuesday morning, at which time he was quite cheerful, but he had only known him since Christmas Eve the previous year, when he was posted to his company. The two men got on well, despite their difference in rank.

After the early parade there was to be an inspection of each company by the regiment’s commanding officer, which prompted Second Lieutenant Dawson to go and change his boots, as he wanted to be at his very best, for himself as well as all of the men in his company.

Captain Walter R. Barlow of ‘E’ Company, 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, said the deceased was a true gentleman in every sense of the word. He was one of the keenest officers in the battalion, and he had never known of any friction between him and any of his fellow officers. He commented that it was evident that they all got on with each other very well indeed. Though of a quiet disposition, Second Lieutenant Dawson was always a very cheerful character and not unduly reserved. Captain Barlow said that he could not express any opinion as to what he was doing with the revolver, and he found the whole thing inconceivable. The revolver actually belonged to Captain Barlow, who had borrowed it from his brother-in-law. What state the revolver was in, he could not say as he knew nothing of revolvers and had never fired one. His only observation on the matter was that maybe Dawson had been examining the weapon and it went off.

The coroner expressed his sympathy with Second Lieutenant Dawson’s father, adding that the highest opinion of his son had been expressed by many, and that he should hold on to those comments and observations. The jury, having considered the evidence they had heard, decided it was insufficient for them to return a verdict as to the cause of death.

The incident raises some queries. Although in giving his evidence Captain Barlow had said he could not express any opinion as to what Second Lieutenant Dawson was doing with the revolver he had also conjectured that it was possible that he was examining the weapon. It is therefore interesting that Captain Barlow does not appear to have been pushed by the coroner on the point of how a revolver, which had been in his possession, had come to be in Dawson’s hands. Nor was the ambiguity surrounding Second Lieutenant Dawson having sustained only one bullet wound to his chest, whilst two bullets from the revolver had been fired, explored by the coroner. Perhaps it was just poorly reported in newspapers.

Second Lieutenant Dawson was buried in the Rippleside Cemetery at Barking.

One thing that the war didn’t stop, was crime. That just seemed to go on as usual.

February 1915 saw a Barking man charged with obtaining monies by false pretences. Frederick John Huggett of 77 Boundary Road, Barking, obtained from Charles Bates of Budbrooke Poultry Farm, in Warwickshire, a banker’s cheque and order to the value of 17s 3d.

Seeing an advertisement for the sale of poultry food in an issue of a farming magazine, Feathered World, Charles Bates wrote to the manager of Hope Poultry Farm, Barking. He asked for and received a sample of the poultry food. Suitably impressed he ordered 2 cwt of poultry mixture and 1 cwt of meal and posted a cheque for 17s 3d to the manager on 20 January 1915. Not receiving a reply, he contacted Scotland Yard and made an official complaint about the matter.

A Mr Ernest Chadwick, a poultry breeder from Barford, Wimborne, Dorset, had the exact same experience with Hope Poultry Farm, having sent a cheque for 11s, which was also cashed. Mr John Henry Wilson, of Nuneaton, and Mr Eli Osbert Smith of Sowmill, Wyken in Coventry, gave similar evidence to the court.

Detective Sergeant Elsam, of the Metropolitan Police, told the court that on 11 February 1915 he arrested Frederick John Huggett at Barking, on a warrant that had been received from Warwick Police. Having arrested Huggett, he took him to Barking police station, where he was detained and the accompanying warrant was read to him.

Huggett lived in a small cottage, situated in a thickly populated area. There was a small yard at the rear of the cottage, but by no stretch of the imagination could it possibly be called a poultry farm. Sergeant Elsam saw a few chickens in the yard, but there was no meal nor any animal food of any description, mainly because there was nowhere for it to be stored. When Huggett was charged he replied, ‘What are you making a fuss about? He can have his money back if he likes. I don’t care to deal with such people.’ He continued, ‘I’ve had some trouble with the Post Office authorities and they decline to deliver any letters at my address unless I show them that it is the Hope Poultry Farm, so I’ve had a board printed and stuck up on the house.’ Such a board had in fact been placed on the house on 2 February 1915.

When Sergeant Elsam searched Huggett he found letters, a cheque and four postal orders in his pockets. He also found more letters back at Huggett’s home, all of which related to the supply of meal and feed, and all of which were addressed to The Manager of the Hope Poultry Farm. Elsam had known Huggett for about four years, and at no time during that period had he carried on a legitimate business as a poultry farmer, but despite this he had continued to advertise in various publications all over the country, which had led to many similar complaints about him. Elsam had never known him to be employed as a dock labourer.

Police Sergeant Parker told the court that on 8 February 1915, he had received a warrant for the arrest of Huggett, and on 12 February he saw him at Barking police station. He subsequently visited the man’s home address at 77 Boundary Road, Barking, along with Detective Sergeant Elsam. Whilst there he took possession of some 200 letters, all of which were addressed to ‘The Manager, Hope Poultry Farm, Barking’. Sergeant Parker subsequently found some forty-two of these letters had contained postal orders or cheques, which had amounted to more than £25. He had found that sixteen of the letters had been complaints from people in various parts of the country asking why the goods that they had paid for had not been sent to them.

Huggett told the court that if he hadn’t been arrested and held in custody for the previous few days, he would have sent out orders for several tons of meal, and he had placed orders in the hands of millers, but there was only one correspondence that Sergeant Parker had found from any millers, and that was from a man by the name of Bentley. Huggett said that he had been unable to purchase sufficient amounts of meal to fulfil all of the orders so far, but he had letters from numerous millers, but he would reserve his defence.

The Bench committed Huggett for trial at the Warwick Assizes.

The 1911 census showed Huggett living at 4 Bath Cottage, West Bank, Barking. He was 36 years old and a married man who worked as a dock labourer. He and his wife Sarah, had five children living at home, three daughters and two sons. Frederick, who was 20 years old, was the oldest by four years, and Joseph, both did the same work, which in the circumstances had a certain irony attached to it. They were both employed as police helmet makers.

Frederick John Huggett junior had enlisted in the army on his 18th birthday on 3 August 1908 in London, when he became Private 9506, 5th Battalion, The Rifle Brigade, which was a Territorial unit. With the outbreak of war, he was mobilised on 8 August 1914. He served in France with the British Expeditionary Force between 3 December 1914 and 10 October 1915, when he returned to England and was discharged on the termination of the period of his engagement, having served for seven years and nine days. I could not find any such military records for Joseph.

On Wednesday, 3 March 1915 a sadly ironic case came before the magistrates at Stratford. The British Animal Products Company had been charged with having carried on offensive trading without the consent of the Barking Urban Council.

The company had been formed under the charitable pretences of preventing the continental traffic in old horses. But that’s not what happened. There was not to be any grazing in the fields for these old horses, to see their days out in the peace and quiet of the countryside. Instead they were slaughtered. In essence The British Animal Products Company was a knacker’s yard.

Mr J.A. Hawke, King’s Council, who was representing the company, told the court that before the business had been purchased for the sum of £14,000, the new owners were told that the business had been legally established and registered. Despite Mr Hawke’s protestations it would appear that checks had not been made by the new owners to establish this claim, and I have no idea what the ‘charitable intention’ was behind the company being formed in the first place.

This was extremely sad when looked at in light of the number of horses that were being used and dying in the war. It appears that being a horse during the years of the First World War didn’t come with any advantages at all. For young and fit horses, it was the uncertainty of life on the battlefields of the Western Front, and for older ones who had outlived their usefulness, it was the certainty of the knacker’s yard.

Barking Urban Council subsequently refused the British Animal Products Company a licence to use and occupy a slaughterhouse, including a knacker’s yard, anywhere in the Barking district under their authority. However, on Saturday, 10 April 1915, lawyers for the British Animal Products Company went before the Essex Quarter Sessions to appeal against this decision.

In his opening address to the court Mr H.F. Dickens, KC said that the British Animal Product Company was started for the very humane purpose of preventing the exportation of diseased and decrepit horses, and to ensure they were slaughtered in the most humane manner possible. Their carcases would then be utilised in such products as manure, and cat food.

The British Animal Product Company had purchased the premises in question from the Midland Cattle Products Ltd in August 1914. That company had been allowed a knacker’s licence since 1908. When a transfer of the licence to the new owners was requested, the clerk at Barking Urban Council, Mr Hargreaves, informed them that the council had no power to transfer the licence, and that a new one would have to be applied for. This is what the British Animal Product Company did, only to have their application for a knacker’s licence at the same premises refused.

Mr Dickens, KC, contended that the council was wrong in making such a refusal, as it had no justification to do so. He added, the council could control an offensive trade and take proceedings in case of nuisances, but when it came to refusing an ordinary knackers yard licence, which had been granted year on year for many years previously, it had no grounds to refuse its renewal. He asked how it could suddenly be, as the council was stating, that it would be prejudicial to the interests of the district to issue such a licence, when it hadn’t been so previously. It was obvious that the council’s intention was to get rid of what was deemed to be an offensive trade and he suggested the council’s conduct in this matter was grossly and monstrously unjust, especially when other companies were permitted to conduct similar trades in the same district.

Mr Colam, KC, representing Barking Urban Council, submitted that as the powers relating to such licences had been transferred from Quarter Sessions to the local authority, there could be no appeal from the discretion of the local authority.

After a brief deliberation, the bench deemed that the British Animal Product Company could make an appeal at the next Quarter Sessions.

Saturday, 1 May 1915, saw round three, and the culmination of the ongoing matter.

This time the British Animal Product Company produced a very useful witness to assist their appeal. Mr Archibald Johnson, a wholesale meat salesman who worked on Smithfield Market in central London told the court that he had previously been employed by the company who originally built the works, and it had been the wish of Barking Urban Council that the company he worked for build its premises in Barking rather than nearby Greenwich. The cost of the build as best he remembered was between £15,000 and £20,000.

Mr Colam, KC, for the council repeated what he had said at the previous hearing, that it was down to the local authority, which in this case was the Barking Urban Council and not the Quarter Sessions, to determine who could issue such licences. He added that the only reason that the council had rejected the application was because their medical officer had advised them to do so, purely on health grounds.

The British Animal Product Company won the day, and was awarded a licence to use the premises as a knacker’s yard. The only caveat was that they could not have more than fifty horses on the premises in any one week.

On Wednesday, 24 March 1915, a Mr Harry Varnes of Barking was charged at Southend police court with house-breaking, having broken into the property of widow Mrs Nellie Burrill and stolen 5s 6d. She had left home at four o’clock in the afternoon, leaving the key in the lock. Returning an hour later she found her front door was open and the handle had been pulled off. When she went inside her home, she found the money had been taken from a teapot she kept on her mantelpiece. Fortunately, Police Constable Chapman had seen the suspect, Varnes, leave via the front gate of Mrs Burrill’s home. Varnes was arrested later that day, and before being searched, he produced a purse which contained 5s 6d. His story, which sounded very truthful, and was certainly very honest, was that he was looking for work and was getting ‘very dry’ so he called at the lady’s house, but nobody answered. He tried the door and found that it was unlocked. In the kitchen, tea was laid and there was a piece of pie on the table which he ate. He then saw a silver teapot on the mantelpiece, lifted up the lid and removed the contents, which he stated was 4s 6d. He was committed for trial at the next Quarter Sessions.

The 1911 census records a likely match for this character. Harry Charles Varnes, who was 29 years old, a married man who lived with his wife, Jane, and their one-and-a-half-year-old son, Frederick, at 41 Grange Road, Leyton, Essex. Harry worked as a street hawker.

On the evening of Friday, 26 June 1915, a fire broke out at a new factory situated on the river banks of Barking Wharf, in Barking Road. The business was involved in the manufacture of cork lifebelts, which owing to the continued threat of German submarine attacks on British and Allied shipping, was a product that was in great demand.

It is not known how the fire started, but the flames were so fierce that almost the entire building was destroyed, along with all of its contents, including the machinery needed to make the lifebelts. By the time fire appliances arrived from East and West Ham, Plaistow, Barking, and other East End stations, the premises were already well ablaze from end to end, leaving the firemen with little chance of saving the building or its contents.

There was a second unrelated fire in a town in the north of the county on the same evening, the combined estimated damage caused by both fires was in the region of £12,000. How that figure was split between the two locations isn’t known. Thankfully nobody was injured or killed at either of the premises.

On the evening of Thursday, 1 July 1915, a meeting took place at Limehouse Hall on the subject of recruitment in relation to both the army and the local Volunteer Training Corps. It was extremely well supported by both dignitaries and ordinary local people. There were local councillors, the mayor, members of parliament, senior military personnel, London county councillors, and senior members of the Voluntary Training Corps. Although the meeting had nothing to do with either Barking or Dagenham, Mr A.W. Yeo, the MP for Poplar, made reference to a recruiting meeting he had attended at Barking Park, where there had been somewhere in the region of 5,000 people in attendance and a large number of the men had enlisted before leaving the park. Mr Yeo repeated part of what he had said at Barking.

Our little island never stood in greater need than it did today. We never needed our men to be men more than was the case now, and we never needed recruits for the Army, more urgently than we do now.

On the evening of Saturday, 17 July 1915, Barking gave an official welcome home to Job Drain, a local man serving as a driver in the Royal Field Artillery who had been awarded the highest award for gallantry that a soldier from the Commonwealth could win, the Victoria Cross.

It was a truly amazing sight, as the whole town had turned out to join the celebrations, displaying an unbounding enthusiasm. The evening for Driver Drain, his friends and family began with a civic reception that took place at the town’s municipal buildings. The chairman of the council began proceedings with an illuminating speech that praised the bravery that was required to be awarded such an honour, and how proud the people of the town were that one of their very own had been deemed worthy and brave enough to have been awarded such an honour. In response, Driver Drain thanked the chairman for his kind and gracious words, but in response, he went to great lengths to modestly emphasise that as far as he was concerned, he was doing no more than his duty required him to do so, which although he did to the best of his ability, he added that this was no different to what many other men were doing every single day of the war. He finished by saying that he looked forward to returning to the front to continue doing his duty.

Following the reception, a procession slowly wound its way through the town’s streets, with crowds spilling over on both sides as people tried their best to get a glimpse of their local hero. One woman stepped out of the crowd and presented Driver Drain with a wrist watch. The procession finally came to an end in the town’s park, where Sir John Bethell, the MP for the neighbouring town of Romford presented the hero with a purse of gold on behalf of the town.

Just two months after this grand and happy occasion, on 25 September 1915 Sir John Bethell was affected by another warrelated incident. This time it was concerning the sad announcement concerning the death of his eldest son, Frank Harry Bethel, who was only 19 years old, and serving as a second lieutenant with the 3rd Battalion, the Connaught Rangers, with whom he had gone out to France in March 1915 as part of the British Expeditionary Force. He was killed on the first day of the Battle of Loos, also remembered for being the first time during the course of the war that the British Army used poison gas.

On Saturday, 14 August 1915, five men and two women from Shadwell appeared at Stratford Petty Sessions for the offence of damaging wheat, which was the property of Coulson Parrish, the farmer at Frizlands Farm in Dagenham.

On the August Bank Holiday the seven defendants were seen to go on to the farmer’s land, a field of wheat off Ripple Road, Dagenham. Some of the group sat down among the wheat, and two of the men trampled other wheat down, and then picked some of the ears. The defendants said they didn’t think that they had done anything wrong. The Chairman of the Bench, Mr W. Varco Williams, was not at all impressed with their languid explanation.

You are out enjoying yourselves on a Bank Holiday whilst men are fighting for you in the trenches, and at the same time you are destroying the people’s food.

Five of the defendants were fined 10s each, whilst the other two, which quite possibly included the man who came up with the lame excuse of explaining they didn’t realise that they had done anything wrong, were both fined £1 each.

A death took place at Dagenham on the evening of Saturday,11 September 1915. The person who died was 38-year-old married man, Walter James Mills of 9 Manor Place, Bedfont Lane, Dagenham. He and his wife, Ellen, had five children, sons Walter, Sidney, Edward, and daughters Edith and Ellen. Walter senior, was a night-watchman who worked for Messrs Pritchetts and Gold, a company for whom he had worked for many years, not just at their current location, but where they were previously located, at Feltham. Prior to that he had been a lamp-lighter in Feltham.

At 7.30 pm on the evening of Saturday, 11 September, he was at work at the company’s factory when some horses broke loose in the area. It would appear that in an effort to see what all the commotion was about, he had climbed up onto a trestle with the intention of looking over the fence that surrounded the factory, when he suddenly slipped backwards and fell to the ground. Although the distance from the trestle to the ground was only about 3 feet, he hit the back of his head and fractured his skull. At the subsequent inquest a verdict of accidental death was returned by the jury. His funeral took place in Dagenham on Saturday, 18 September.

On Thursday, 14 October 1915, the Labour MP, Mr William Anderson, asked the Minister of Munitions, David Lloyd George, whether the Sterling Telegraph Company was making fuses and field telephones for the government, and was it also correct that adult women were paid two-and-a-half pence an hour, and a 1s 6d war bonus. He also asked whether in recent times the company had worked women on a government project in relation to field telephones, on a thirty-hour, continuous shift.

Dr Addison, who answered on behalf of David Lloyd George, said that ‘it is not in the public interest to state what munitions are manufactured by particular firms.’

Mr Anderson said in response, ‘the government ought to be ashamed to hide the iniquitous sweating by government contractors under the cloak of public interest. It is not in the public interest that such sweating should go on, and the government should stop the practice immediately.’

Mystery surrounded the death, on the morning of Sunday, 17 October 1915, of Margaret Emma Turp, who was 32-years-old and a widow. Mrs Turp, who was a nurse who worked at the North Eastern Fever Hospital at Homerton, was found lying in an unconscious condition on the railway line between Barking and Dagenham on the Sunday morning. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where sadly she died a few hours after she had been admitted.

The inquest was held at Poplar on Tuesday, 19 October 1915 in front of the coroner, Mr Wynne Baxter. Ethel Edwards, also a nurse who worked at the same hospital, told the inquest that on the afternoon of Saturday she and Margaret Turp had gone up to the West End in London to go shopping. At the end of their trip they went their separate ways at around 6 pm at Liverpool Street railway station. Further evidence revealed that Margaret Turp had purchased a single ticket to Hornchurch.

Dr Feldman, the house physician at the London Hospital, said he had examined Margaret Turp’s body and had discovered that her skull was fractured, and there were a number of marks on her head and face, which appear to have been caused by some kind of blunt instrument. Three fingers on her right hand had also been crushed.

The coroner said the case was a peculiar one and it was unclear what had actually happened to Margaret Turp, adding that members of the Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Department were unable to explain with any degree of certainty as to how the deceased had met her death. The jury returned an open verdict.

Mr Wynne Baxter was right in calling it a peculiar case. Quite clearly Mrs Turp had not been hit by a train, because if she had the injuries to her body would have been extremely severe. If she hadn’t been hit by a train that only left three possibilities. She was either taken to the location by an attacker and dumped by the railway line, or she was attacked on the train and thrown out of the carriage, or she was attacked on the train and jumped fearing for her life.

Margaret Turp had been working as a nurse at the Eastern Hospital, Metropolitan Asylums Board, Homerton Grove, Homerton, London, at the time of the 1911 census, which also showed that she had been born at Fobbing, Essex.

On 5 November 1915, Mr Herbert Crozier, the youngest son of three sons of John and Elizabeth Crozier, of 68 Park Avenue, Barking, was commissioned into the 4th Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders. Before the war he had worked as a wine merchant’s clerk. Initially he had enlisted as a private (2017) with the same regiment, and first arrived in France on 7 November 1914, and contracted neuritis whilst deployed in the trenches on the Western Front, but was later promoted to the rank of quartermaster.

Poster Lord Derby Scheme.

Sometime after having been commissioned he was attached to the Machine Gun Corps. He finished the war at the rank of lieutenant. An interesting point from Herbert’s British Army’s medal rolls index cards system, is that it shows he was sent his 1914 Star on 3 May 1919, but his Victory and British War Medals weren’t posted to him until 22 February 1921.

On Herbert’s card it shows two addresses. The first was his parents’ address at 68 Park Avenue, and the second was at 31 Pulleyns Avenue, East Ham, which I am assuming was his address sometime after the war.

The Derby Scheme was introduced throughout Britain in the autumn of 1915 by the Director General of Recruiting, Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby. London had its day on Saturday, 11 December 1915

The Derby Scheme required each eligible man aged between 18 and 41, who was not in an essential occupation, to make a public declaration that they would attest to join the army. It was an enormous logistical exercise covering the entire nation, such was the push to make sure that there were enough men to carry on fighting.

Each Parliamentary Constituency had its own recruiting committee, whose job it was to send canvassers to go door-to-door and speak face-to-face with the individual concerned to establish if he would attest to enlist in the nation’s armed forces. The canvassers were all men who themselves were not liable for service. Discharged veterans and fathers of serving men proved to be the most effective in this particular role. Each man was handed a letter from Lord Derby, which explained the scheme under which they were committing to join up.

The canvassers did not knock on every door in the street at random. Throughout November and into the first week of December, possibly with such a scheme in mind, there had been a National Registration scheme, where the details of every man and where he lived, had been recorded. All the local recruiting committees had to do was cross off their list, the names of those eligible men who had already enlisted in a branch of the armed forces, and those who were left on the list, were the ones who they would visit. The scheme produced over 300,000 single men who were deemed to be fit enough for wartime military service. Although the scheme was deemed to be a success in some quarters, overall it was a failure. By the time all available men had been seen, 38 per cent of single men and 54 per cent of married men had refused to enlist for a plethora of different reasons. The following year conscription was brought in as part of the Military Service Act 1916.

Punch Derby Day.

Those men who had attested under the scheme had 48 hours to go to their local recruiting office and enlist. If they were deemed fit enough for the army, they were paid a bonus of 2s 9d, and the following day they were transferred to the army reserve, where they were allocated to a particular group, which in effect determined when they would eventually be called up, which was affected by both age and marital status. There were 46 such groups.

Barking and Dagenham were both part of the London Derby day, on Saturday, 11 December 1915, as were East and West Ham, with large numbers of men turning up at all of the towns’ recruiting offices. So many turned up at East Ham a large number of them had to be sent to Dagenham to enlist.

The last man with a Dagenham connection to have died during the course of 1915, was 32-year-old Private 11128 Arthur Humphrey, who served with the 10th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment. This link might actually be a bit tenuous, as it was his wife, who after Arthur’s death, remarried, becoming Mrs E. Newman. Her home address was shown as 33 Rowdowns Road, Dagenham, but I have not been able to establish if she and Arthur were living in Dagenham before he enlisted in the army.

The last man from Barking to become a fatality of the war in 1915, was 33-year-old Private 1917 Charles Podd, of the 11th Battalion, Essex Regiment, who was killed in action on 19 December 1915. He is buried at the Poperinghe New Military Cemetery, in the West- Vlaanderen region of Belgium.

Before enlisting in the army, Charles had been employed as a ‘Manure Wheeler’ and lived with his parents, Charles and Phoebe Podd, at 24 Creeksmouth, Barking.

CHAPTER 3

1916: The Realisation

The big event of 1916 was, without doubt, the Battle of the Somme. It was a battle that not only defined the war, but a generation as well.

It took place along a stretch of the Western Front, between 1 July and 18 November, and resulted in more than one million casualties. Britain and France sustained an estimated 656,000, whilst German casualties were put at between 434,000 and 500,000. I do of course accept that these figures will vary depending on which source one uses.

The battle actually took place in three phases of thirteen, smaller battles. The first day alone saw British forces sustain 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 who were killed. In relation to overall casualties sustained in a single day, it was and remains the worst day in the history of the British Army.

When Haig was informed by one of his staff officers about the number of casualties that had been sustained on that first day, his response was absolutely staggering and showed, I believe, his utter disdain for the British ‘Tommy’. In essence, taking into consideration the width of the front they had attacked across and the strength and depth of the German defenders, he concluded that in the circumstances such losses weren’t that bad. To have just been informed that nearly 20,000 of his men had been killed, based on the tactics of his battle plan, and respond in those terms, simply beggars belief.

At least four Dagenham men died during the fighting at the Battle of the Somme. The first to be killed was 25-year-old George Thomas Bailey, a private (5636) in the 8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment, who was killed in action on 7 July 1916. He was buried in the Heilly Station Cemetery, at Mericourt-L’Abbe, in the Somme region. His parents, Henry and Mary Bailey, lived at 3 Ripple Villas, Ripple Road, Dagenham.

Gunner 49399 Charles Band of ‘B’ Battery, 60th Brigade, the Royal Field Artillery was 28 years old when he was killed in action on Saturday, 9 September 1916. He had enlisted in the army at Stratford prior to the war, and was serving with the Royal Field Artillery in India at the time of the 1911 census. He was buried at the Pozieres British Cemetery, at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, also in the Somme region. His parents, Charles and Emily Band, lived at ‘Cedars’, Church Elm Lane, Dagenham.

Charles Murdoch Coleman was 30-years-old and a private (11100) in the 9th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, when he was killed in action on Saturday, 7 October 1916. Coleman was a married man, who before the war had lived with his wife Ada, at 61 Arnold Road, Dagenham.

He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

The Thiepval Memorial is the largest Commonwealth monument to the missing in the world. It commemorates the lives of more than 72,000 men of the British and South African armies, who died or were killed in the Somme region before 20 March 1918, and whose bodies were never found. The monument was designed by the English architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens soars some 135 ft above the ground, but the foundations for it were built to a depth of 30 ft. It was unveiled on 1 August 1932 by Edward, Prince of Wales, with the ceremony being in both French and English.

The last man to be killed during the Battle of the Somme was 27-years-old, Patrick Crowley, a rifleman (S/19838) of the 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade, who was killed in action on 23 October 1916, by which time the fighting had brought about the Battle of Transloy, and the Battle of Ancre Heights, which both raged between 1 October and 11 November. He had enlisted on 10 December 1915 at Whitehall, London. Crowley has no known grave and his name is also commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

He was a married man, who before the war had worked as a compositor and lived with his wife, Cecilia, at 5 Norfolk House, Caston Road, London, NW, but after the war Cecilia was shown as living at 114 Heathway, Dagenham, with their three children, daughter, Margaret and sons. Patrick and Henry. Patrick and Cecilia had married on 23 July 1912 at Eastern Bridge.

Patrick’s army service record survived and it shows that he first arrived in France on 14 September 1916 as part of the 3rd Battalion, Rifle Brigade, but on 29 September he was transferred to the 2nd Battalion. Initially he was reported as missing in action, sometime between 22 and 24 October. When a soldier was reported as missing, it could mean many things. He could have been wounded and simply not found, it could mean that he had been captured by the enemy and they hadn’t confirmed he was a prisoner of war at that time, or it could have meant that he drowned in a water filled shell hole, or that he had been blown to pieces by an exploding shell.

The next entry on Patrick’s army service record is dated 7 August 1917, and records the following.

Death accepted for official purposes as having occurred on or since 23/10/16. A.F.B 2090 C completed and forwarded to W.O and Paymaster on the 18/8/17.

Despite the above paragraph concerning the date of his death being officially recorded as 23 October 1916, his wife Cecilia is awarded a pension of 26s 3d per week for her and her three children, payable, not as it might be imagined, from 23 October 1916 but 25 June 1917 and was not back dated. How Cecilia coped financially for those eight months is not known.

I must admit that having read through Patrick’s army service record and considered all of the other available information, it is quite possible that his only connection with Dagenham, could be that his wife Cecelia is shown as having lived there after the end of the First World War.

During the same time frame, as many as 125 men from Barking either died of their wounds or were killed in action whilst fighting on the Western Front. These include two men who are buried at the Rippleside Cemetery in Barking.

Lance Corporal (350029) Alfred Willis was 49-years-old and serving with the 15th Battalion, Essex Regiment, when he died on 7 December 1917. He was a married man who lived with his wife, Jane, and their two sons, Alfred and George, at 38 St Ann’s Road, Barking. Both sons were old enough to have served in the army during the First World War, although I could find no exact match for either of them.

Private (27710) P. Cole was 38-years-old, and had initially enlisted in the Essex Regiment before being transferred to the 100th Battalion, Training Reserve as Private TR/10/44993.

His father, William Cole, lived at 53 Cecil Road, Barking.

William Cooper was a coffin maker from Barking, and was a member of the Plymouth Brethren. His religious beliefs made him totally opposed to enlisting for military service and his case was heard before a military tribunal on 16 June 1916, whereby his father, for whom he worked, appealed on his behalf, telling the hearing that his son was indispensable to the family-run business. After a suitable discussion amongst the members of the tribunal, the reason provided by his father proved to be a powerful one, as its legitimacy was accepted, and William Cooper was exempted from having to undertake military service. The reasoning behind this decision was no doubt connected with the tribunal having decided that his work as an undertaker was of national importance.

Cooper’s case seems pretty straightforward, but it was far from that, and for him, there was to be a sting in the tail ending to the matter. I can only assume that there was an appeal by the military representative (there was one in attendance at every tribunal) because in October later that same year, his case came back before the tribunal and he was informed that his exemption from having to undergo military service was on the condition that he joined the St John’s Ambulance.

On 21 December 1916, the War Office announced that being an undertaker was no longer classed as being work of a national importance. Despite this ruling, his exemption from military service was initially upheld but the decision was later overturned at a hearing in April 1917. It was then that Cooper informed the tribunal that he was a conscientious objector, one of the grounds under the Military Services Act 1916 that allowed men to be exempt, although it was rarely accepted by the tribunals.

Cooper lost his appeal since the tribunal gave no weight to his claim of being a conscientious objector as he had never mentioned the fact at either his original hearing or at any of the subsequent appeals. Cooper enlisted in the Rifles Brigade, but refused to carry out any orders or instructions. This led him to the guard room and then to prison at Wormwood Scrubs in London. On his release he served in the 1st Eastern Company of the Non-Combatant Corps.

The 1911 census records him as living at 85 East Street, Barking, with his wife, Ethel Lavina Cooper. The couple had been married for less than a year, had no children, and had both been born in Barking, with Ethel being seven years older than William. His occupation was shown as being that of an undertaker. He died in Barking in the early part of 1972, at the age of 85.

William had three brothers, James, George, and Charles, who were all old enough to have served during the First World War.

Regardless of Cooper’s real reason for not wanting to serve in the army, it was the first time that the British Government had ever had to deal with such an issue as conscientious objectors, hence in part, the bringing into law of the Military Service Act 1916.

The whole topic of conscientious objectors has always been an issue of interest to me, because of the discussion that surrounds it. The default position for most who oppose the idea of anybody who was a conscientious objector, is to call them a coward. But, some people did have real and genuine religious beliefs that it was a moral sin to take another human life, remembering of course at the time, the important part religion played in everybody’s life. At that time it was unusual not to go to church on a Sunday and failure to attend was often noticed by other members of the congregation.

Most men who served during the years of the First World War were not professional soldiers, but ordinary men such as labourers, shop or factory workers, gardeners or tailors. Men who had absolutely no desire to kill anybody, no matter what they might have done.

Possibly even more relevant than these last two points is the political aspect to this particular topic. Most young men, especially the vast majority of those who served in the ‘other ranks’, did not have the right to vote, which meant that the very men who were sending them off to fight in the war, hadn’t been elected by them. That must have been a terrible feeling for these young men to know, that they didn’t have the right to vote for anybody, yet here they were being told by these very same people who had been elected by the rich and well-to-do of society, that they had to go and fight in a war.

On Saturday, 29 January 1916, it was reported Sergeant H. Rodman of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), previously from Dagenham, had returned home from Germany where he had been held as a prisoner of war, after having being captured early on in the fighting. He had been captured whilst attending to British wounded and sent to a camp in Wittenburg, in Germany, where not surprisingly, he was delegated to help look after the wounded.

He commented on the rough treatment the British received from the Germans; in some circumstances they were practically knocked out of the carriages with rifle butts. After finally getting off the trains they were marched through the streets of the town en route to their camp, and along the way German civilians struck out at them with sticks, and children threw mud at them. This was after they had already been stripped of all their smoking materials and any money they had in their possession.

An epidemic of typhus and cholera broke out in the camp, and Sergeant Rodman was one of those who was struck down with typhus. The epidemic did bring some relief with it, as all the Germans left the inside of the camp, with even the sentries trying, where they could, to do their patrol duties from outside the perimeter of the camp. This left approximately seventy-five British soldiers to their own devices without German interference. As the disease began to abate, so the Germans started to return to the camp, but this time some of them had fierce-looking dogs, a kind of wolfhound, that were extremely aggressive towards the British prisoners. The guards happily let their dogs go to the full length of their leashes, which allowed them to get quite close to the prisoners, and certainly close enough to tear at their clothing.

One day the camp was visited by the American Ambassador to Germany, this of course was before the Americans came into the war on the side of the British and her Allies. The main thing about the visit was that afterwards, there was a marked improvement within the camp and the treatment that the prisoners received from the guards improved, not greatly, but it was better than it had been before.

Food parcels from England arrived at the camp, which was a surprise in itself, but the fact that they hadn’t been tampered with was an even bigger one. These parcels certainly boosted the men’s morale as their usual meals consisted of a watery soup, which occasionally had a small amount of pickled fish and potato in it.

Christmas 1915 had been a pretty enjoyable affair in the camp, with their dinner consisting of tinned roast turkey and plum pudding, all of which had been sent over from England, and much to their delight, hadn’t been stolen by the German guards.

I am not certain if it is the same man, but in the British Army’s medal rolls index cards for those who served in the First World War, I found a H.R.H. Rodman, who was an acting Staff Sergeant (15289) in the RAMC, who was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal on 16 August 1917.

March 1916 saw a slightly unusual case appear before the lord mayor at the Mansion House in the City of London, when an unnamed man was summonsed to answer a charge of travelling by train from Dagenham to Fenchurch Street railway station without a ticket. Whether in mitigation, or hope that he would be let off or treated more leniently, the man happened to mention that whilst he was serving as a purser in the Mercantile Marine, which is today’s Merchant Navy, the ship he was serving on, was torpedoed by a German submarine and sunk. He survived the attack and was captured and taken prisoner by the crew of the German submarine. After having been detained for a period of two months, he was released after agreeing to make a pledge not to take up arms against the Germans. Taking it at face value, it certainly makes for a very interesting story for sure, but what it had to do with failing to purchase a train ticket between Dagenham and Fenchurch Street, I am at a loss to understand. He was found guilty and ordered to pay court costs of 13s 6d.

In April 1916, the town of Dagenham, through no fault of its own, became embroiled in some political intrigue. Mr Lloyd George, who at the time was minister of munitions (it would be another eight months before he became prime minister) was asked a question in the Houses of Parliament by Mr Timothy Michael Healy, the MP for North Louth, as to whether £400,000 had been granted to the Nitrogen Products and Carbide Company, along with a contract to supply the British Government with nitrate of ammonia at the rate of 8,000 tons a year; and whether the company was floated on the Stock Market in 1913 with a nominal capital of £2,000,000, to purchase the Otswald Catalytic process from Scandinavian companies that were financed by Germany, in that the shareholders were largely German and Austrian.

Mr Healy also asked whether, at the time of the flotation of the company on the Stock Market, £1 million of which had come from taxpayers’ money, the Otswald process had been superseded by the Harben process, the same one that was operated by the Baedische Anlin Fabrik. The relevance of this question was whether the company in question had come under the control of the German state. Mr Healy further enquired as to whether under the Harben process, nitrogen products could be turned out at half the price, with no risk to workers’ health. Mr Healy wasn’t finished there, he continued with his probing questions, next wanting to know whether Government money had been used to erect the works at Dagenham for the purpose of treating nitrolin from Norway, which could then be turned in to ammonia nitrate. He was genuinely concerned as he knew there was evidence that showed the commercial process used to do this gave off both dust and fumes which resulted in workers incurring loathsome skin diseases, which were almost impossible to medically cure. It would appear that Mr Healy had certainly done his homework before posing his questions.

Mr Lloyd George understandably didn’t answer the question himself, choosing instead to leave it to Dr Addison to fill in the minute details. Regardless of who answered Mr Healy’s question, it must have been a somewhat uncomfortable one for the government.

The Essex County Appeals in relation to military tribunals took place on Wednesday, 3 May 1916, at Romford, with Mr Collingwood Hope, KC, in the chair.

One of the cases before them concerned a Mr Henry Arthur Abram, a stores record clerk from Dagenham. He was appealing the requirement to have to undertake military service on the ground that he had promised his mother not to join the army, and because it would be against his conscience to do so. Mr Abram told the tribunal that fighting was against all Christian principles and teachings. Up to that point of the proceedings he possibly had an argument, although it must be said, a somewhat weak one. It all started to go downhill for him when in answer to a question from the military representative on the panel, Captain Howard, Mr Abram admitted that he was at the time employed in a munitions factory. So, fighting in a war was against his Christian principles, but helping to make the very weapons that soldiers used to kill each other with, obviously wasn’t. Not surprisingly, Mr Abram’s appeal was dismissed.

On Saturday, 1 July 1916 the body of a man was found washed up on the river bank at South Hornchurch, near the Corporation dust-chute. The body was subsequently identified as that of 40-year-old William Beadell, who lived at 5 Cecil Terrace, New Road, Dagenham.

On Monday, 26 June 1916, Mr Beadell had been working on a barge at Dagenham Dock, when he accidentally fell off the barge into the water and his body was immediately lost.

The inquest was held on Monday, 3 July 1916 at the Bull Inn at Hornchurch, where a verdict of death by accidental drowning was announced.

The 1 July 1916, was of course the first day of the Battle of the Somme, when an estimated 20,000 British soldiers were killed, but the harbinger of death cared not whether a man was a soldier or a civilian, or whether he was on a battlefield or in a town in England.

The August 1916, Romford Rural Military Tribunal, consisted of the Chairman, Mr R. Farrance, Mr E.G. Blatchell, Mr W.J. Gay, Mr T.D. Hollick, Mr E.G. Ketley, Mr E. Lambert, Mr J.R. Parrish, Lieutenant Percy Weston, the military representative, Mr T. Crawford, who was representing the Board of Agriculture, and Mr T.W.A. Greenhaigh, the clerk.

The tribunal heard numerous cases that day, one of them involved two Dagenham men. Farmer Mr Robert Flint was appealing for exemptions for two of his workers, 35-year-old, William Brown, and 29-year-old Harry Livings, who both worked on his farm as horsemen. Mr Flint pointed out that at the start of the war he had fifteen men working for him, but he had subsequently lost seven of them, as one by one they had all been called up for military service. William Brown was granted a three month conditional exemption, whilst the appeal for Livings was refused outright. The 1911 census shows a Harry Livings, whose home was at 2 Fairs Cottages, Becontree Heath, where he was lodging with the Watts family. My only doubt about it being the same person is the age. The Harry Livings shown in the 1911 census was only 22 years old, which moving forward to 1916, means he would have only been 27 and not 29. What interested me even more was a British Army Service record for a Harry Livings, who enlisted as a private (30306) in the Norfolk Regiment, at Warley on 30 November 1916, just four months after Livings’ Military Tribunal. His home address is shown as Five Elms, Dagenham, but his occupation was shown as a carman and not a horseman, and he was 31 years old. He served in France between 1 March 1917 and 27 March 1918. Back in England he went absent without leave between 9 September and 28 October 1918. His District Court Martial took place between 30 October and 3 November at Felixstowe, he was found guilty and sentenced to 112 days’ detention.

I cannot be 100 per cent certain that this is the same man, but I find it hard to believe that there could have been that many men in Dagenham named Harry Livings at the time of the First World War.

Another case that was heard by the tribunal involved another Dagenham man, which highlighted the finite balancing act between the war and the needs of everyday life back home. The army needed men to fight in the war, that was abundantly clear, but everyday life still had to continue and standards needed to be maintained. Fields had to be nurtured and crops harvested. Mechanically propelled vehicles of whatever kind needed mechanics to maintain them. Buildings needed to be erected and repaired, taxis and buses needed to be driven.

Mr William George Earl, a builder of Church Elm Lane, Church Street, Dagenham, was appealing for a certificate of exemption for one of his workers, Mr E.H. Hawkins, a single man and a bricklayer. Mr Earl informed the tribunal that he had already had eight of his men taken for military service, which included two of his own sons. His business had been greatly affected by this continual loss of manpower and he saw Mr Hawkins as being indispensable to his continuing business.

Lieutenant Weston was of the opinion that it was time that Mr Hawkins enlisted into the army, adding that there were plenty of bricklayers about who could do his job, to which Hawkins replied, ‘They won’t do the class of work I have to do.’

The tribunal provided Mr Hawkins with an exemption of two months, although Lieutenant Weston advised his fellow tribunal members that the military authorities would be appealing this decision.

Mr Earl’s two sons were Leonard, who was 26-years-old, and Howard, who was 24. Leonard enlisted in the Territorials on 17 May 1909, becoming Private 744, of ‘H’ Company, 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, with which he served until 25 May 1916, having completed seven years of service. Part of this time was spent overseas with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, which began on 21 July 1915, when he sailed from Devonport. Having arrived at Alexandria, he was subsequently wounded in action during fighting at Gallipoli on 18 August 1915. He was then transported back to Alexandria where he was admitted to the 17th General Hospital to have his wounds treated. Later the same day he was admitted to the Mustapha Convalescent camp, where he spent the next four months, before rejoining his unit on Christmas Eve 1915.

On 28 April 1916, he left Alexandria on board the SS Northland, bound for England, where he arrived on 14 May. He was discharged from the Army on 25 May 1916, before enlisting as an Airman (217309) in the Royal Air Force on 26 June 1916, in which he served for the rest of the war.

Howard Earl enlisted in the Royal Navy on 20 November 1914, originally as a mechanic, before being promoted to the rank of petty officer on 30 April 1917. His last date of service was 31 March 1918.

On Monday, 28 August 1916, Jas Springall, of 165 Abbey Road, Barking died at Tilbury in an unfortunate accident. Mr Springall was a dock labourer, assigned to the SS Mongolia whilst it was at Tilbury Docks, having its cargo of machinery unloaded. During this process, he slipped and fell down into the ship’s hold. Although he was treated by a Dr Earl, a ship’s medical officer soon after, it was too late. Sadly, Mr Springall had already died having sustained a fractured skull. Mr Springall was 50-years-old and married with six children. He had married Emma Matilda Hollow at Barking in 1889. There had been three other children, all of whom had died in infancy.

One of Mr Springall’s sons, Frederick Alexander, served in the Royal Navy during the First World War, initially as a Stoker 2nd Class (K42053) before being promoted to Stoker 1st Class, in January 1918. His first date of service was 23 March 1917, and his last was 10 September 1919. He spent nearly all of his service as part of the crew of HMS Accent.

Another son, Archibald Alfred James Springall, served as a private (1737) in ‘H’ Company, 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, enlisting on 20 January 1914, but was subsequently medically discharged on 28 April 1916 for being no longer physically fit enough for wartime military service. He was issued with a Silver

War Badge, number 5015. These were a one-off issue and could not be replaced no matter what the reason for their loss was. Silver War Badges were issued to men who had served their country during the First World War, but who had then been subsequently medically discharged due to either having being wounded in action or because of sickness. The badges let other members of the public know who saw them walking round in civilian clothes that they weren’t cowards, but were men who had in fact already done their bit for king and country.

Wednesday, 6 September 1916 saw yet another interesting case heard before the Romford Rural Military Tribunal, whereby both a mother, Mrs Mary Ann Bales, and her son George Bales, applied for a certificate of exemption for George Bales on the grounds of national interest and serious hardship grounds, as he was a stockman, a cartage contractor and a farmer. In his application Mr Bales asked for an absolute exemption.

Mrs Bales informed the tribunal that she had four sons, none of whom were married, and who all ran separate businesses, but all lived at home with her. George, at 39 years old, was her eldest. She added that although there was not a soldier among them, she considered they were doing their bit for their country in the way of supplying food. Lieutenant Percy Weston told Mrs Bales that the army did not consider her sons were doing their duty in not becoming soldiers. George Bales said that he was working from daylight to dark in looking after his mother’s business and his own.

The tribunal dismissed George Bales’ application for an absolute exemption, but provided him with a conditional exemption for a period of three months on Mrs Bales’ application.

The 1911 census recorded that George Bales’ occupation was that of a carman. There was no mention of him being a stockman, a cartage contractor or a farmer. Harry and William Bales were both shown as being cartage contractors, whilst youngest son Leonard was a carpenter. Also living with Mrs Bales at her home in Crown Street, Dagenham, were two daughters. Her husband, also George, had died on 26 April 1908.

In early October 1916, a musical concert took place at the Dagenham Drill Hall. Its purpose was to raise funds for Christmas presents to send to the soldiers and sailors from Dagenham who were serving overseas. Sir Peter Griggs, the MP for Ilford, along with the mayor, Mr Ewing, both gave rousing speeches, whilst Sir John Bethell, the MP for Romford, addressed the audience at the start of the concert, explaining that at that time there were some 300 men from the town, who because of the war, found themselves serving and fighting on foreign soil, for the benefit of their nation.

On Sunday, 29 October 1916, a demonstration organised by the Barking Workers’ Suffrage Federation and Trades Council, was held in the Baths Hall at Barking, where the following two resolutions were unanimously carried.

That the meeting demanded that all people should be enfranchised in time for the next General Election, and called upon the Government to introduce a Bill to enfranchise every adult woman, and to postpone the Special Register Bill, along with the Ballot Act Amendment Bill, until the enactment of adult suffrage.

That the Government should control the nation’s food supply, so that everybody, regardless of their social class or status, should have access to exactly the same food, rather than leave it to be distributed dependent on an individual’s financial standing and place in society.

Introducing the guest speakers, one of whom was Sylvia Pankhurst, Mr Drake emphasised the importance of both of the proposed resolutions, especially in the times of hardship that everybody found themselves in. With the war removing many liberties for both men and women, they collectively and individually faced hardship and tragedy.

Mrs Boyce, in a most eloquent speech, spoke of the claim of women to the franchise. As a widow herself, she had managed to bring up her four children, and although it had not been easy, she had taken on the challenge that she had been given, and come out on top. Now, like lots of mothers up and down the country, she had to deal with the real pressure of seeing her sons go off to war and fight, and for her this involved not just one son but three. She had received word that one of her sons had been wounded in action, a serious injury by all accounts. He had been struck in the throat which had resulted in him being unconscious for four days. She hoped that he would be better soon. She was honest enough to admit that when she received the letter that brought her the news of her wounded son, the thought flashed through her mind, ‘Thank God it’s not a limb,’ for the Government, she said, refused to make itself responsible for providing artificial limbs for its soldiers who had lost arms and legs. This wasn’t in fact correct, as artificial limbs were provided to war veterans for free, as a reward for their service. The limbs that were provided by the Government were considered by many of the wounded soldiers to be somewhat cumbersome, which left some preferring to use crutches or peg legs.

Mrs Boyce appealed to the workers to band themselves together to secure a vote in order that they might control the Government and get their same spirit and drive into the management of the nation’s affairs. It could be argued that her rhetoric wasn’t entirely helpful or fair, if the words she used and the claims she made were not entirely correct. Hopefully this was due to nothing more sinister on her part than having made an honest mistake in what she said.

Mr E.C. Fairchild, who also spoke at the meeting, expressed his desire for the enfranchisement of every adult man and woman. He then made the somewhat back-handed comment, which could also be described as being a tad condescending, that British workers had shown great pluck in fighting the Germans, but that they had never shown the same desire when it came to fighting against the British capitalists. He continued by saying that if a military basis were introduced for the franchise, then a hundred ways of disenfranchising a fighting trade unionist would be found. He said the vote was a symbol of power, and was also a means by which the people could establish themselves in their own rights.

Mr Fairchild finished off his address by speaking in glowing terms of the work which had been carried out by the Barking Trades and Labour Council.

It appeared the speeches which both Mrs Boyce and Mr Fairchild made were very one-sided affairs, with very little in the way of a balanced approach being provided. It was more a case of pushing their own agendas, regardless of whether their words were factual, correct or even helpful.

Miss Sylvia Pankhurst’s speech came across as being about the people, rather than herself. She started by making reference to Mr Runciman’s statement, which he had previously made on behalf of the Government, on the subject of establishing a minimum wage, that businesses would have to pay to their staff. She said that every section of society should be given the power to enforce their own claims, and that women urgently needed the power to ensure equal pay for men and women which was the only safe course to adopt in the interests of both women and men.

Soldiers’ widows, she said, needed the vote to secure pensions for themselves and their children, after the war was over, just as much as they needed the power to secure an increase in pensions and allowances at that moment in time.

Miss Pankhurst pointed out that in America, widows of civilians had been granted pensions to support themselves and their children, a process which she said ‘should be done here’. As far as she was concerned, it was important that everybody should have a voice in the ‘Peace Settlement’, and not just the elite of society.

In early November 1916, the Romford Rural Military Tribunal sat to consider a number of further cases presented to them. One of those cases involved another conditional exemption being requested by Mr George Bales, of Dagenham, not for himself this time, but on behalf of 29-year-old Mr Ernest Fox, again of Crown Street, Dagenham, who worked as a horseman, carman and farm labourer. He had already been passed fit for general military service. After considering the appeal, it was unequivocally dismissed by the Bench.

The 1911 census showed Ernest Fox living at Becontree Heath, Romford Dagenham, along with his parents Henry and Margaret, his three sisters, Ida, Florence and Elizabeth, and his two brothers, Frederick and William, who both worked for the Great Eastern Railway as carmen. Like Ernest, neither of them appear to have undertaken any wartime military service.

CHAPTER 4

1917: Seeing it Through

British and Commonwealth forces lost a total of 278,361 men throughout 1917, with three times that many wounded. The drain on manpower was simply enormous, and sadly, because of the outdated attitude of senior officers, when it came to both tactics and their apparent acceptance that the common soldier was an expendable commodity, and a reasonable price to pay if it meant an overall victory. That certainly wasn’t a view shared by the common soldier.

Fifteen men with Dagenham connections were killed or died of illness or wounds whilst serving their country during 1917.

The youngest of these was 18-year-old Arthur James Farrow, whose mother, Mrs Johanna Farrow, lived at 4 Vicarage Road, Dagenham. Arthur was an ordinary seaman (J/61495) and a member of the crew of HMS Laforey when he was killed in action on Friday, 23 March 1917.

The Laforey, along with her sister ships, Laertes, Lark and the destroyer, HMS Melpomene, was escorting a convoy across the English Channel to France, on the Folkestone to Dieppe route. The journey was quite routine and uneventful, with all of the convoy and escort vessels arriving safely at their destination. However, after a short break the convoy vessels began the return journey to England. At about 4.30 pm, and without any warning, there was a large powerful explosion which immediately broke the Laforey in half. The ship sank within a matter of minutes and out of her crew of seventy-six officers and men, there were only eighteen survivors.

Crew of HMS Laforey.

Arthur Farrow has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial in Kent.

Barking didn’t fare as well as Dagenham when it came to casualties, with somewhere in the region of 170 of her young men dying throughout the year, and one or two older ones as well.

One of the older men was Charles Joseph Hamilton, who was 52 years old, and lived with his wife at 3 Albert Yard, Grimsby. He was a native of Barking, and a mercantile marine deck hand on the steam trawler Yeovil, when he was killed by enemy gunfire on 22 April 1917. He is buried at the Lerwick New Cemetery in the Shetland Islands.

The Yeovil was stopped along with the steam trawler Jedburgh by a German submarine, UC-33, which was under the command of Kapitänleutnant Martin Schelle, some 35 miles north of Foula Island. Both vessels were captured, their crews removed, and both vessels sunk with bombs that were placed on them by the German submarine’s crew. It was during the initial contact that Charles Hamilton was shot and killed. He was the only casualty from either of the two vessels.

The capturing and subsequent sinking of these non-military, mainly fishing vessels, by either bomb or machine-gun fire, became a regular tactic of the German submarines, especially in the northern waters throughout the early months of 1917. Between the period of 8 February 1917 and 14 July 1918, Schelle and the crew of UC-33 were responsible for the sinking of forty other similar vessels, and damaging a further six.

Bryan Douglas Fyffe was 18 years old and a private (225327) in the 1st Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, when he died of his wounds on 11 August 1917. At the time of his death, Private Fyffe’s battalion was involved in some heavy fighting, which came about as a result of a German counter attack, east of Ypres. This was initially repulsed, but the British line was eventually pushed back by dogged German determination at Glencorse Wood. Fyffe is buried at the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery in the West Vlaanderen region of Belgium. Although born in Scotland, before the war he was living with his parents, David and Helen Fyffe, at 12 Abbey Road, Barking.

In early January 1917, it was announced that Captain Horace James Gee, who was serving with the Royal Garrison Artillery, and the son of Mr H. E. Gee, of 54 St Awdry’s Road, Barking, had been awarded the Military Cross. Horace first arrived in France on 7 August 1915 as a second lieutenant when he was part of an Ammunition Train detail. By the end of the war he had reached the rank of major.

On Monday, 8 January 1917 a case involving two men from Barking went before His Honour Judge Tindal, at Ilford County Court.

Thomas Churchill, a fishmonger of the Broadway, Barking, appeared before the court on what was known as a judgment summons. The other party involved was Mr Charles Goody.

This was the third time that a judgment summons had been issued in the case. It began when Mrs Goody, Charles Goody’s wife, handed Mr Churchill, £30 in gold instead of a smaller amount that Churchill had asked Mr Goody to look after for him, while he went to a horse race meeting. Despite two previous court orders against him, Churchill had failed to pay back any of the amount he owed.

His Honour Judge Tindal determined that the monies owed should continue to be paid under the terms of the existing order, of £10 a month.

On Friday, 12 January 1917, four boys aged between 12 and 15, appeared at the Stratford court, charged with one offence of burglary at a shop in Axe Street, Barking. A local detective informed the court that the town had experienced about twenty shop burglaries in the space of just one week leading up to the burglary, and that all of the boys had been connected to the items stolen from those premises. All four boys were found guilty of involvement in all twenty of the burglaries. One of them was remanded in custody, another was fined 10s, and the other two were both ordered six strokes of the birch, which at the time was a form of corporal punishment, similar to what in later years became the cane.

On Saturday, 3 February 1917, it was announced that Private Cecil Woods, who was serving with the Royal Fusiliers, had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Before he had enlisted in the army, he had lived with his father, Frederick Woods, his elder sister May, and his two brothers, Sidney and Douglas, at 99 Sparsholt Road, Barking.

Six months after the pride of seeing Cecil receive his prestigious award, Frederick had to suffer the pain of losing one of his other sons to the war. Sidney Maurice Wood, who arrived in France on 22 July 1915, was serving as a rifleman (S/807) with the 10th Battalion, Rifle Brigade, when he was killed in action on the Western Front in France on 14 August 1917. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres.

In the last week of March 1917, the Romford Rural Military Tribunal heard a number of cases involving teachers. Harry Verney, a 36-year-old married man of Homedene, Dagenham, was the head teacher of the Ford’s Endowed School in Dagenham. He was represented on behalf of the Essex Education Committee by Mr Eley, who informed the tribunal’s members that the Essex County Committee had already seen 146 of its teachers enlisted in the army, leaving only twelve in the county, all of whom were already passed for general military service.

Lieutenant Weston, the tribunal’s military representative, said that having heard Mr Eley’s evidence he would not press for the teachers to be called up at the present time. He was granted a three month conditional exemption from having to enlist for military service.

One of Harry’s brothers, Sidney, was also a teacher, and at the time of the 1911 census, Harry and Sidney lived together at 8 Stanley Road, Ilford, Essex, before Harry married in August later the same year.

One example of how the war, on some occasions, had a direct effect on the lives of ordinary people while they were simply going about their day to day business, occurred on Saturday, 7 April 1917. It shows that sometimes the war in one way or another reached ordinary folk, maybe when they least expected it!

Mr S. H. Parrish of Frizlands, Dagenham was in company with Mr Joseph Currie of Fells Farm, Dagenham, and being driven by Mr Parrish’s chauffeur, Mr Frederick Palmerton, when they were involved in a collision at the cross roads at Rush Green. The other vehicle was being driven by Private 763220 Philip James Cartwright of the Artists’ Rifles, one of the twenty-six volunteer battalions from the London and Middlesex areas that formed the London Regiment (which became the 28th (County of London) Battalion in 1908).

With Private Cartwright were several of his army colleagues from the Artists’ Rifles. The windscreen of Mr Parrish’s vehicle was smashed, whilst the vehicle driven by Private Cartwright came off a lot worse and had to be towed to a nearby garage for repair.

The medal rolls index card for Private Cartwright, shows that he enlisted in the Army on 26 October 1916, and was medically discharged, due to sickness on 21 April 1917, just two weeks after the road accident. He was subsequently issued with a Silver War Badge, the serial number of which was 198902. He had served in the army for just six months. I wonder if the two events are connected.

Saturday, 21 April 1917 saw a man from Barking, and another from neighbouring East Ham facing trial at Ongar police court on a charge of theft.

John Perkins of Abbey Road, Barking, and Frederick Taylor of East Ham, were charged with stealing twenty-five chickens, one goat, and one cart tilt, to the value of £10 10s, from Alfred Freshwater Butcher’s Farm, at Stapleford Abbotts, on 13 April.

Police Constable Drain told the court he received information of the theft and began making enquiries both in the immediate neighbourhood and the adjoining Metropolitan districts. On Friday 20 April, he visited Barking police station to see Perkins and Taylor who had been arrested and detained there. Constable Drain then questioned Perkins, who initially claimed that he had never been to Stapleford Abbotts, but later admitted that he had been there on the night in question. When the other suspect, Taylor, was interviewed, he refused to answer any questions.

Robert Willers of Stapleford Abbots gave evidence that on the evening of 13 April, Perkins and Taylor passed by his premises in a pony and trap. They wanted to do a deal with him in respect of an old cart, which was in his yard, but they could not come to an agreement. He ended up selling them a piece of zinc. When they left his yard, they made their way in the general direction of Butcher’s Farm.

Police Superintendent Smith asked the Bench that the defendants, Perkins and Taylor be remanded to allow the police to complete their enquiries, which was agreed.

Two weeks later the following happened. The case of Mr John Perkins, alias James Crickmore, of Abbey Road, Barking, was heard on Saturday, 5 May 1917, at Ongar Petty Sessions, before Mr H.J.J. Price and Dr G.R. Wilson.

Perkins had been summonsed under the National Registration Act 1915, accused of falsely representing himself to be a person to whom a certificate of registration had been issued.

Elizabeth Perkins told the court that her brother was the owner of the card in question, which she identified by certain distinctive marks that were on it. Her brother had registered at Tottenham. She remembered her brother telling her that his jacket had been stolen, along with his registration and army classification cards. Despite Elizabeth Perkins’ claims, evidence was given to the court that contradicted her claim of being Perkins’ sister. She did have a brother, but he was serving in France in the Royal Flying Corps.

Inspector Brown of Ongar police said that on 20 April 1917, Perkins was brought to Ongar police station, and when being searched the two cards were found in his possession. Perkins confirmed that both cards were his and that his name was as per the name on both of the cards, John Perkins.

On 21 April, Perkins was in court in relation to other charges, when he once again claimed his name was John Perkins. It was only on 28 April that he finally admitted that he was not John Perkins, and that his real name was James Crickmore. He gave the following explanation as to how he became to be in possession of the two cards.

I was in a coffee house in Spitalfields when a man asked me if I wanted a brief. I asked him what he meant. He said, “You are a runner, aren’t you?” meaning an absentee. I said, “Yes, like hundreds of others.” He said, “Well you can have a brief for a few quid,” and showed me the cards which I bought.

Crickmore pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to two months’ hard labour.

Just to clear up any confusion, Crickmore was Perkins in both the above cases. In the first one he was remanded, to allow the police to make further enquiries. These having been carried out, Perkins and Frederick Taylor appeared at Ongar police court in the morning of Saturday, 5 May, when Superintendent Smith informed the court that no further evidence against the men had been discovered. In the circumstances he requested to be allowed to withdraw the case, to which the Bench consented, and Perkins (Crickmore) was then proceeded against in relation to the National Registration and army classification cards.

Friday, 18 May 1917 saw the announcement of the death of 25-year-old Herbert Hewett, a private (3/26093) in the Durham Light infantry, who had been killed in action on 9 April 1917. He is buried at the Tilloy British Cemetery, in the Pas de Calais region of France.

Prior to enlisting in the army, he was employed at the Barking Rubber Works as a machine hand and was the honorary secretary of the Barking Crusaders football club.

After the war Herbert’s widow, Alice, re-married, becoming Mrs Benson, and lived at 1 Perth Road, Barking.

The 1911 census showed Herbert living at 36 Thorpe Road, Barking with his parents, Herbert and Louisa Hewett, his sister, Mabel, and his three brothers, Thomas, Ephriam and Ernest.

Thomas Henry Hewett also enlisted in the British Army at Barking on 1 September 1914, becoming a private (18297) in the 3rd Battalion, Norfolk Regiment, but he was medically discharged less than a year later on 1 August 1915, for being no longer physically fit for wartime military service.

On the evening of Friday, 15 June 1917, an accident turned into tragedy when Frederick Dawson, a 33-year-old munitions worker from 28 Heath Road, Chadwell Heath, died at Dagenham Infirmary, after being involved in a cycling accident in Dagenham.

At the subsequent inquest, evidence showed that Dawson was a single man and had been in ‘delicate’ health for most of his life. Although from Brentwood, he had been living in Chadwell Heath since about the end of April 1917.

On the evening of 15 June, Dawson had been cycling down the slope at Dagenham railway bridge, when he collided with Mrs Elizabeth Rand, of 4 Elm Terrace, Dagenham. In the collision, Mrs Rand was only slightly struck, a blow that was not even strong enough to knock her to the ground. Mr Dawson, on the other hand was thrown off his bike, striking his head on the road with great force. He was carried to Dagenham police station, before being taken on to Dagenham Infirmary in an ambulance. He never regained consciousness, and died a couple of hours after he had been admitted. The cause of death was a fracture at the base of the skull. The jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

July 1917 saw a somewhat humorous article appear in the press. It had been reported in some quarters that 25-year-old Charles Tungate Worboys, a rifleman (15673) in the Rifle Brigade, had been killed. To put the record straight, Worboys took the unusual step of writing to his local newspaper to let people know that he wasn’t in fact dead, but was back in England regaining his fitness after having been wounded during the fighting at the Battle of the Somme the previous year. However, the injury must have been reasonably serious as he later had to transfer to the Labour Corps and became Private 354996.

He was reasonably well-known by some from Barking as he had previously played for the town’s football team. Prior to enlisting he had worked as a labourer at the Barking Rubber Works, and lived with his parents, Arthur and Adelaide Worboys, at 28 Abbey Road, Barking, along with his three sisters, Adelaide, May and Annie, and brothers, Arthur, George and Peter.

George Pretoria Worboys enlisted in the Army on 18 June 1918, at Bishopsgate, London, when he was 18 years old, becoming a private (137842) in the 51st (Graduated) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers. His military service ended eighty-five days later, on 10 September 1918, when he was discharged from the Army for being no longer physically fit enough for wartime military service (para 391xvi, Kings Regulations).

The decision to discharge him from the army came about as the result of a medical board hearing which took place at Newmarket in Suffolk, over 29 and 30 July 1918. The reason given was that George was ‘Pigeon-Breasted’. The condition is described as an:

[I]llness that results in deformity of a person’s body, especially the front-facing parts. It is a disorder that causes the chest to protrude in a convex fashion.

One of the restrictions this caused was to prevent George from even been able to wear a backpack, due to the severity of his congenital disability. On his discharge his family address was shown as 66 Crambourne Road, Barking.

Some areas, districts and towns are different today to what they were back in the years of the First World War, so sometimes, I end up having a bit of a debate with myself as to whether or not to include a particular story, especially when I simply stumble across it whilst researching the book I am writing at the time. This next story comes into this particular category.

At about 6 pm on the evening of Thursday, 9 August 1917, an explosion took place at the Ajax Chemical Works, at Hertford Road in Barking, killing thirteen women. The factory was used for the manufacture of munitions, under contract to the War Office.

Wartime restrictions that came under the auspices of the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, determined what could and could not be reported on during the war, especially if it were deemed to be information that could be useful to an enemy. In the circumstances, it is pleasantly surprising to find that there were quite a few wartime reports included in both national and local newspapers concerning the incident.

The fire brigade and the St John’s Ambulance were quickly on scene, but for the fire-fighters, there was very little they could do, as the fire quickly took hold, resulting in the building being practically destroyed and leaving only a burnt out shell. Those searching amongst the fire-damaged ruins of the factory discovered thirteen bodies, all women. The bodies were removed to the mortuary. A large number of those who were injured in the fire were taken to Barking police station and other nearby convenient buildings, to have their injuries treated.

The inquest into the deaths of the thirteen women was opened and adjourned at the Barking and Urban District Council offices on Monday, 13 August 1917, with the deputy-coroner stating that he would have something to say later about the heroic conduct of certain individuals, under what he called ‘unendurable circumstances’. He further added that he believed the accident would prove to be one which could not possibly have been prevented in any way, and that it would probably show that a fire preceded the explosion, and that all of the dead were suffocated before it was possible to have rescued them.

This seems an extraordinary way to run an inquest, where before even a single word of evidence has been heard, the coroner opens proceedings by making a speech which strongly suggests he has already made up his mind as to what actually happened, and how it took place. His conduct on this occasion, intentional or otherwise, appears to be, if taken at face value, questionable at the very least.

A medical witness said that when he arrived at the scene, he could see flames coming from the windows and that the whole of the upper floor was on fire. He added that it was impossible to enter the building because of the heat from the flames and thickness of the smoke being emitted.

Once the fire had ceased and he, along with other medical staff and firemen, was able to enter the smouldering wreckage of the building, he could see that all of the victims were calcined [reduced to almost nothing because of the heat], and believed that initially the victims had suffocated before their lifeless bodies were burnt in the flames.

The inquest resumed on Wednesday, 15 August 1917, in somewhat bizarre circumstances. Mr Walter Lloyd on behalf of the company, asked the coroner, Dr Collins, if he would refrain from using the word ‘explosion’ until it was definitely known that there had in fact been one. The coroner replied that as so many people had heard it, he thought there was no doubt that it had in fact been an explosion. Mr Lloyd believed that the coroner and the jury would find differently once they had heard from the company’s chemist. The coroner acquiesced, and said that he would use the word ‘fire’ instead. The company’s chemist, Mr Reed, was in fact unable to say how the fire had begun, so why Mr Lloyd had indicated otherwise, is unclear.

Mr Lloyd said that there had previously been a fire on the premises, despite every possible precaution having been taken. It was customary for the management to search employees when they arrived for work, and in no circumstances were matches allowed to be taken into the factory.

Mr Cox, the assistant manager at Ajax Chemical Works, gave evidence that when the fire broke out there was considerable alarm and commotion, as might be expected in such circumstances. Two members of staff, no doubt fearing for their lives, took the somewhat drastic measures of jumping from a first-floor window, which was a height of about 10 ft.

Mr Cox described the explosion, or rather a soft thud or something that sounded like a box of matches going off. He said that no time was lost in giving the alarm, and most of the workers, including himself, got out of the premises via the front door, although he was overcome by smoke and emotion, and that once he had recovered sufficiently, he helped to get others out of the premises as well.

Answering a question from the coroner, Mr Cox told the inquest that the front door became jammed when there was a rush by a large number of staff trying to get out at the same time, because there were two staircases, one inside and one outside, which both converged on the main doors at the same point.

Mrs Ada Waters, a finisher at the works, had been sitting in the room where the explosion took place, next to Mrs Gurry, one of the victims. She noticed smoke and a slight bang from behind where she was sitting, and also described the explosion being like the sound of a box of matches going off, an indication that there were a number of small simultaneous explosions rather than one big one. Despite this the concussion blast that followed was so strong that it blew her down the staircase, saving her life in the process. A son of Mrs Gurry had been visiting her at the works, and had left just moments before the explosion. How fortunate.

There was a very interesting contradiction in evidence from Mrs Waters who claimed that she had never been searched for matches in the entire time she had worked at the factory, whilst Mr Cox said that all members of staff were regularly searched.

A 15-year-old boy, Charles Panons, who was employed as a chemical carrier, stated that he helped to mix the composition that was manufactured at the works, and that he did the mixing in a shed that was separate from the main building. It was a powder, and he had never thought of it as being dangerous. On the day of the accident a piece caught fire which he believed happened because of friction. The powder was in a wooden tray, and he pulled an iron tray over it as he was separating one tray from the other, although it quickly burnt out, like a match did once it had been struck. The piece that caught fire was no bigger than the size of his finger nail, and it was the only time he had ever seen the powder catch alight.

The boy’s overseer, Mr Pawley, was with him at the time and said, ‘You see how dangerous it is?’The boy then asked Mr Pawley whether he should go and warn the women in room number four that it was dangerous, to which Mr Pawley replied, ‘No, it is alright.’ The boy thought Mr Pawley had put something in the mix that made it safe.

Mr Pawley said in his evidence that he witnessed the burning of the piece that the boy had previously described, agreed with his description of it burning like a match head. He added that he hadn’t thought there was any real danger. At the time of giving his evidence he said that he still didn’t know if the stuff was dangerous or not. He had however reported the incident to the work’s chemist who had reassured him, by saying, ‘If you mix it as I tell you it will be alright.’ Mr Pawley said that he struggled to associate the fire on the night in question, with what he and the boy had witnessed when in the shed.

The coroner was moved to make the observation that the premises was like a rabbit warren, with doors all over the place.

The chief officer of the Barking Fire Brigade, Captain Edward James Abbott, told the court that the water his men was pouring on to the flames had very little effect. Because of this he concluded that he was dealing with a chemical-related fire. Having looked at the layout of the premises, he considered that the means of escape were more than adequate, but the women on the first floor died as a result of suffocation. A group of eight or nine of the women died together, huddled up to each other near the staircase.

On his initial attendance, it had been quite impossible for him and his men to enter the burning building beyond the ground floor. It was so bad that after he had helped to recover five or six of the bodies, he was overcome by a combination of the thick smoke and the heat of the fire.

The coroner warmly commended the conduct of Captain Abbott, and commented that the conditions in the factory were similar to those in a coal mine fire, when the victims were suffocated in a matter of only a few seconds. On Friday, 11 January 1918, it was officially announced that King George V had awarded Mr Abbott the King’s Police Medal, in connection with his efforts on the night of the fire.

Based on the evidence they heard, the jury returned a verdict of ‘Accidental death from suffocation, caused by a fire, the origin of which remains unknown.’The jury recommended that the searching of the employees should be more thorough; that the materials at the works be removed from the premises as soon as they had been ‘finished’, and not stored in the workroom; that work of the nature undertaken at the factory should, if possible be carried out on the ground floor; and that the front door of the premises on the ground floor should open outwards.

Despite the findings of the inquest, one newspaper in a most detailed article, reported that an explosion had occurred causing the subsequent fire, which began in the upstairs room of a small, two-storey building that was situated about 50 yards away from the company’s main building.

A total of sixteen women were working in the room where the fire broke out, and it was thirteen of them who were overcome by the smoke and sadly burnt to death, before any attempt at rescuing them could be made. The three who survived sustained minor injuries that required them to remain in hospital for a few days.

The fire did not cause a large explosion, but a number of smaller ones, although none of these was directly responsible for any of the deaths. All of the thirteen women who were killed, died as a direct result of inhaling the thick dark blue smoke that instantly emanated from the fire, and in which sustaining life was not possible for more than a few seconds. In what would have been the last few seconds of their lives, and despite their best attempts, they would have been left groping blindly for the exit, unable to see because of the denseness of the smoke which had enveloped them and the room that they were working in. Although a number of the women made it the short distance to the top of the stairs before they were fatally overcome by the smoke, the remainder of them didn’t even make it out of the room.

The owner and manager of the works, Mr Rymer, said there was hardly any time for the women to get out. Most of the women who lost their lives had families. He explained that there had been heroic attempts made at trying to rescue the women, but the smoke and flames were so intense, that sadly nothing could be done for them. He added that the Company employed some 130 people, of whom 120 were women and girls, of whom about 100 were working at the factory at the time of the explosion. According to one report in a national newspaper, this had been the third fire at the factory in the previous eight weeks.

Because there was not one large explosion, but a number of smaller ones, the subsequent noises that were emitted, were not clearly heard. Some people in the close vicinity of the premises, even thought they had heard the sound of wartime gun fire, and were not aware of the true seriousness of the situation until they saw the fire engines dashing along the streets.

One member of staff was extremely fortunate not to have been one of victims. Mrs Carr, who had been working in the same room, went downstairs and into the main factory to see her daughter to let her know that she intended to stay behind to do some overtime, just a minute or so before the explosions and fire occurred.

Mrs Carr told reporters:

I shall never forget what I saw. Four women rushed to the windows and jumped through to the ground. The others had no chance.

Many of those who died were actually working overtime, and the death toll could have been a great deal higher, had it not been for the fact that a number of women left the room only moments before to fetch some water to make tea.

Fifteen-year-old Ernest Berry was one of those who was taken to hospital suffering with serious burns, whilst one of the victims, Mrs King, was the wife of a soldier who had arrived home on leave, just half-an-hour after her body had been recovered.

The room where the women died was totally burnt out, but the flames did not spread to the factory’s main building. The women’s names were:

Mrs Maskell – of 4 Cauldfield Road, East Ham

Mrs Rose H. Abbott – who was Mrs Maskell’s sister.

Mrs England – who lived at Washington Road, Upton Park.

Mrs E. Smith – Bartle Avenue, East Ham.

Mrs Foley – Hockley Avenue, Barking Road.

Mrs Martha Gurry – Talbot Road, East Ham.

Mrs King – Arthur Road, East Ham.

Miss Knight – Walton Road, Manor Park.

Miss Clark – Parkhurst Road, Manor Park. Miss Alice Cole – Howard’s Road, Barking.

Mrs Webb – Talbot Road, East Ham.

Miss Ellen Rainbow – 31 Hardwicke Street, Barking.

Mrs Stevens – Napier Road, East Ham.

Mrs Edith Rose Maskell lived with her husband, Henry Edward Maskell, who was an engineer fitter’s assistant, and their three young children, daughters, Edith and Rose, and son, Henry, aged just 12, 11, and 10 years, when she was killed. Husband Henry only survived five more years before he died in June 1922, at 53-years-old.

On Wednesday, 9 January 1918, Mr and Mrs George and Ellen Rainbow, the parents of Miss Ellen Rainbow, who was only 16 years old at the time of her death, were awarded £100 in relation to her death, at Ilford County Court. That would be worth just over £8,000 today (2018). There was no explanation in newspaper reports as to what the reason behind the payment of the money was specifically for, or why only the parents of Ellen Rainbow received it.

At the Romford Rural Military Tribunal, which took place on Wednesday, 5 September 1917, one of the cases considered was that of 28-year-old market gardener. Mr R.H. Farrance, a single man who lived with his parents at The Vineries, Halbut Street, Dagenham. The application had actually been submitted by Mr H. Farrance, the man’s father. The tribunal decided to give Mr Farrance a conditional exemption.

As a market gardener his work most definitely would not have been covered as a ‘scheduled or reserved occupation’. It was only those men who worked as teachers, clergymen, coal miners, doctors, and those who worked in the iron and steel industries, and which helped to produce much needed ammunition and equipment for the war effort, that had such a safety-net. Any man who was exempted from military service was provided with paperwork and a badge to prove he was involved in work of national importance. There was a great social pressure at the time for all men to do what was socially perceived to be their duty to king and country, and animosity from neighbours could easily erupt if they had loved-ones serving in the war, and believed their neighbour to be a malingerer or a coward. Being able to prove that they were not, was very important.

Saturday, 22 September 1917, saw the announcement of not just one, but three men from Barking, who had been awarded the Military Medal: Driver T. Curtis, who was serving with the Royal Field Artillery, Driver O. Hart, also of the Royal Field Artillery, and Sergeant E. Moss of the Middlesex Regiment.

On Saturday, 13 October 1917, a case appeared before the courts at Stratford, when Percy Wilfred Porter, a munitions worker, of Violet Terrace, Clayton Road, Hayes, Middlesex, was summonsed to explain why he should not contribute towards the support of the male child of 19-year-old Cissie Georgina Bourn, a single young woman of 2 The Parade, Church Elm Lane, Dagenham. Miss Bourn informed the court that Porter used to live at Dagenham and had seduced her under promise of marriage. The wedding Banns were displayed, and she went to the registry office to get married, but Porter, somewhat unchivalrously, failed to turn up.

Just before her child was born, Porter wrote to Miss Bourn telling her that he would do all that he could for her. It was established that Porter was earning between £7 and £8 a week as a munitions worker. The Chairman of the Bench enquired of Miss Bourn if Porter was a married man, she explained that he wasn’t when they were seeing each other, but that he had married just the previous Saturday, and that she had attended the ceremony.

The Bench found in Miss Bourn’s case and Porter was ordered to pay her 5s per week for the child’s upbringing, and court costs of £3 1s.

Three unanswerable thoughts come immediately to mind. Having discovered when and where Porter was getting married, did Miss Bourn attend the ceremony to be able to challenge him on his ungentlemanly conduct, when the vicar read out those immortal words, ‘does anybody know of any reason …?’ Secondly, did Porter purposely get married to the other woman in fear of what the result of the court case the following week would be?. Although of course, I fully accept that Porter could have been marrying for no other reason than love. Lastly, I wonder why he was not prosecuted in relation to breach of promise of marriage, taking into account that their marriage Banns had been displayed?. An interesting story.

Fortunately there was a happy ending for Miss Bourn. In November 1924, she married William Joshua Pitts, from Romford.

It was announced in the London Gazette on 11 January 1918. that on Friday, 9 November 1917, Lance-Sergeant Maurice Charles Lisney, of the Scots Guards, had been awarded the Military Medal. In the years before the war and after he had left school Lisney had been a messenger boy and a postman, initially at Grays, before being transferred to Barking. He had also served in the Salvation Army before the war and his father had previously been a sergeant major with the Grays Volunteers.

Maurice had enlisted in the army on 30 November 1915, at Stratford, when he was 20-years-old, and became Guardsman 15171 in the Scots Guards, but he wasn’t mobilised until 27 January 1916. Being 6 ft 1 in tall he was well-suited to being a guardsman.

Prior to enlisting he was living at 42 Westbury Road, Barking, whilst his mother, Florence Ruth Coates, lived at 7 Quarry Hill, Barking. The latter was also the address that was given as where he would be living when he was demobilised after the war.

He arrived in France on 5 October 1916, where he remained until 9 February 1919, before returning to England and being demobilised on 9 March 1919.

He was wounded in action on 24 July 1917, when he was the victim of a gas attack from an exploding shell. He was initially treated by medical staff at a Field Ambulance Unit, before later the same day being transferred to the 64th Casualty Clearing Station, before arriving at the 18th General Hospital at the main medical base at Etaples. Thankfully the effects of the gas were not serious and he returned to his battalion on 1 September 1917. Just two months after he had been promoted to the rank of sergeant, he was wounded for a second time, on 24 August 1918, when he sustained a gunshot wound to the face. He was first treated at the 3rd Field Ambulance. The following day he was sent to the 18th Casualty Clearing Station, and the next day he was transferred to the 22nd General Hospital.

Cecil Douglas Gay was born in Dagenham in 1895, and in 1911, when he was 16-years-old and a pupil at The Congregational School, Caterham, Caterham Valley, Surrey. At the outbreak of the war he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the East Lancashire Regiment, aged only 19. In December 1917 it was announced that he had been awarded the Military Cross. He was one of four brothers serving in the war and by the time of his award one had sadly already been killed in the fighting.

Cecil survived the war by which time he had reached the rank of captain. By 1923, when he received his wartime service medals, he was living at 179 High Street, Manchester.

On Saturday, 22 December 1917 Henry Bingley Arnold, the landlord of the Fishing Smack Inn, Abbey Road, was summonsed for diluting beer and selling beer of an inferior quality, at a price exceeding the maximum provided by the Beer Orders. Mr Arnold pleaded guilty to all offences. Mr Abinger of the Barking Local Food Committee told the court that a food control officer purchased a pint of porter and was charged 8d instead of the correct price of 4d.

The only mitigation Arnold’s solicitor could put forward was that his client had been in the trade for twenty years, and it was the first complaint that had ever been made against him. Of course, that is not to say that was the one and only time Arnold had committed such offences.

The Bench considered Arnold’s offences so serious that they considered a custodial sentence was appropriate. They only held off from taking such action because the Bench felt that to do so would militate against Arnold’s future. Instead they imposed hefty fines of £50 on each summons, or three months in custody for each case. The fines were paid by a very relieved Mr Arnold.

Despite what was happening within the communities of Barking and Dagenham, as 1917 drew to a close, a reminder that there was still a war going on, as if anybody needed one, sadly came in the shape of even more death.

On Sunday, 30 December 1917, 23-year-old Charles Reader, a private (495727) in the 2nd/13th (Kensington) Battalion, London Regiment, was on board HMT Aragon when it was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine, SM UC-34, off Alexandria, Egypt. He was one of the 610 men and women from the Aragon who perished.

The Aragon had been in waters off France, before being told to make her way to Egypt in late December. It was standing room only when she began her journey. There were about 2,500 men, officers and crew along with 160 VADs on board when she left Marseille, with the intention of bolstering the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in the Palestine Campaign against the Ottoman Empire. She had company on her journey in the shape of HMT Nile, and a number of destroyers acting as their escorts.

All the ships safely arrived in Malta on 23 December, where, during a four day break, they celebrated Christmas. From there, the Nile and Aragon travelled under escort to Egypt. When Aragon reached Alexandria she waited about 8 miles outside of Port Said, whilst her escort ship, HMS Attack, approached the entrance to the port looking for any mines which might have been laid there. There was then some confusion about whether she should stay or go, and just after 11 am, whilst still waiting, she was struck by a torpedo. Although other ships came to pick up survivors, within about twenty minutes the Aragon had sunk. One of the ships that had picked up about 400 survivors was the Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Attack, who was herself struck by a torpedo, presumably fired by the same German submarine, and she sank in less than ten minutes.

HMS Aragon.

Private Charles Reader has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Chatby Memorial, in eastern Alexandria. Before the war Charles had been a van guard for the Great Western Railway Company. Charles’ parents, Frank and Charlotte Reader, lived at 106 Morley Road, Barking.

The last man from Dagenham to die during 1917 was killed in action on Sunday, 11 November 1917. He was 35-year-old Private 40665 Joseph Jesse Thompson of the 10th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. He was a married man, having wed Elizabeth Caroline Green at St Paul’s Church, Islington, on 23 July 1911. Prior to going off to war, he lived with Elizabeth at 76 Heathway, Dagenham.

He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium.

CHAPTER 5

1918: The Final Push

Nobody knew that the dawning of 1 January 1918 signalled the final eleven months of the war. People were tired of all the senseless fighting, killing and slaughter that was going on, they just wanted an end to it all, and their loved-ones back home where they belonged.

The issue for a lot of people, as well as the government, was that there was no end in sight, and things had simply gone too far to even consider accepting anything less than the total and absolute defeat of Germany and her allies. Too many British and Commonwealth soldiers had been killed, or died of their wounds, illness and disease, to accept a watered-down conclusion.

There could be no conditional surrender. There could be no agreed stop to the fighting, with everybody laying down their rifles and just returning to their homes. The British government wanted a decisive victory, one that would stop Germany once-and-for-all and prevent her from ever going down a similar road again.

Laurence Calvert was born on 16 February 1892, and during the First World War, he served as a sergeant in the 5th Battalion, Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. He had joined the regiment in 1913, as part of Denaby Company, of the Doncaster Territorials, also known as the 1st/5th Battalion, Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

When the war began, he was in camp at Whitby with his battalion, who were immediately mobilised, and by April 1915, Calvert and his colleagues were already in France as part of the 49th Infantry Division, making them one of the first Territorial units to see active service in France. Soon after his arrival he was involved in the bloody fighting of the Second Battle of Ypres, which raged from 22 April to 25 May 1915, and in which British forces sustained nearly 60,000 casualties.

Laurence Calvert, VC, MM.

In September 1915, he was wounded when shot in the arm and sent back to England for treatment, staying for a period of time in hospital at Brighton. Having recovered from his wounds, he returned to France in the early part of 1916.

He was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Calvert was 26 years old when, on 12 September 1918 during the Battle of Havrincourt, in France, the incident took place which led to his award of the Victoria Cross. The full citation was published in a supplement to the London Gazette of 12 November 1918.

War Office, 15th November, 1918.

His Majesty the KING has been graciously pleased to approve the award of the Victoria Cross to the undermentioned:

No. 240194 Sergeant Laurence Calvert, Military Medal Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty in attack when the success of the operation was rendered doubtful owing to severe enfilade machine-gun fire. Alone and single-handed Sergeant Calvert, rushing forward against the machine-gun team, bayoneted three of them and shot the other four.

His valour and determination in single-handed capturing two machine guns and killing the crews thereof enabled the ultimate objective to be won. His personal gallantry inspired all ranks.

He was also awarded the Military Medal, which was mentioned in a supplement to the London Gazette dated 7 February 1919, and the Belgian Order of Leopold, with palm, in the grade of Chevalier, which was also mentioned in the London Gazette on 4 April 1919, for his actions and bravery whilst serving on the Western Front.

Although I am not certain of the date, his award of the Military Medal came about as a result of fighting at Reims, when he held off a German attack with a machine gun. When the fighting had stopped, Calvert was the only one of the machine-gun crew who had not been killed, and there were countless dead Germans lying on the ground in front of his position. He was presented with his Military Medal ‘in the field’ after he had returned from a period of leave in the UK.

Out of the millions of British servicemen who took part in the First World War, Calvert’s VC was one of only 628 that were awarded. There were doubtless hundreds of similar acts of bravery that could have been deemed worthy of such awards, but for different reasons, they were never awarded.

Laurence Calvert’s Medals.

Laurence Calvert wasn’t born in either Barking or Dagenham. He was a Yorkshireman by birth, having been born in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire but he was living in Dagenham at the time of his death on 6 July 1964, when he was 72-years-old. He was laid to rest at the South Essex Crematorium, in Upminster.

Before the war Calvert had lived with his mother, Beatrice Calvert, a widow, at 19 Beech Hill, in the village of Conisborough, near Doncaster, in South Yorkshire, which had been his home since about 1910. His late father, George Calvert, who had been a tinsmith, had died in 1895, when Laurence was just 3-years-old.

In the years before the war Laurence had been employed as a van boy for the Midland Railway Company, and as a miner at the Maltby Colliery in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. But when war broke out, he was employed as a haulage hand, for a company in Cadeby, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire.

Laurence had an older brother, Walter, who had also served in the war, as an Able Seaman in the Royal Navy, but he had been medically discharged in 1916 due to gastric problems.

On Saturday, 19 January 1918, three flying officers were killed in a training accident whilst flying over Stockbridge, in Hampshire. It was initially reported that two aircraft collided in mid-air and crashed to the ground, killing all three airmen instantly. There is some uncertainty surrounding this account, as a Captain Leask, of No. 92 Squadron, who witnessed the incident, spoke of seeing Second Lieutenant Bailey having done a roll, before his aircraft started to spin before hitting the ground.

The men were all part of No. 93 Squadron, a training squadron located at Chattis Hill Aerodrome, in Hampshire, which flew SE. 5A aircraft.

One of those killed was 19-year-old Lieutenant Charlie Edgar Rowley, who was attached to the Royal Flying Corps from the Royal Engineers. He was buried at the Rippleside Cemetery, Barking.

Grave of Lieutenant Charlie Edgar Rowley.

The 1911 census shows a 12-year-old Charlie living at 110 Park Avenue, Barking, with his parents, Harry, a customs officer, and Alphonsine, his two sisters Eunice and Juliette, a domestic servant and a lodger.

The two other pilots killed in the accident were 37-year-old Lieutenant Lachlan John Macdonald, an Australian who had joined the Royal Flying Corps, and who was one of the training squadron’s instructors, and 24-year-old Second Lieutenant Willie Rhodes Bailey, who hailed from Sheffield.

Lieutenant Macdonald was buried at Stockbridge Cemetery, whilst Second Lieutenant Bailey was buried at Newton-le-Willows Cemetery in Lancashire.

A case of bigamy came before the Stratford court on Saturday,26 January 1918. The accused was William Francis George Collins, who was an acting sergeant, serving with one of the Welsh regiments. Through his own admission he was charged with one case of bigamy. He had married for the first time in 1901 in Barking and he and his wife went on to have nine children. With the outbreak of the First World War, he enlisted in the army in November 1914. In October 1917, he sent a postcard to a Miss Bane, telling her that his wife was dead, and a day or so later he showed her a condolence card that he had allegedly been sent, which was in loving memory of his wife, along with what purported to be a receipt for the cost of the funeral. Believing that Mr Collins wife had died, Miss Bane married him in December 1917 at West Ham. Mr F.A. Stern, the clerk of the court, informed the Bench that the police had information which indicated that Collins had married a third woman. He made no reply when this suggestion was put to him, and he was remanded in custody, to allow the police to make further enquiries into the matter.

The news of the death of Rifleman 592862 John Thomas Fitzgerald of the 1st/18th Battalion, London Regiment (London Irish Rifles) wasn’t announced until late February 1918, but he had actually been killed in action on 30 November 1917. He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Cambrai Memorial at Louveral, in the Nord region of France. Before he had enlisted in the army and gone off to fight in the war, he had been secretary of the Barking Working Men’s Club. Three of his brothers also served in the British Army during the course of the First World War.

In early March 1918, there was an announcement made in relation to three Barking men who had been awarded the Military Medal, all three of which were warranted awards, but maybe it is only right and proper that I begin with Corporal 42131 William Gardner McGill of the Royal Field Artillery, who first arrived in France on 26 August 1915, aged 20 and who in just three years had received a bar to his Military Medal. He survived the war and returned home to his family, to continue where he had left off.

As a young man he was employed as an oatmeal packer whilst living at home with his parents Thomas and Margaret McGill, and his two younger brothers, Thomas and Albert, at 103 Wakering Road, Barking. His father, who was from Scotland, worked as a railway goods porter.

Next there was Private 423232 Frederick Brand, who served with the 10th (County of London) Battalion, London Regiment, which had its headquarters in Mare Street, Hackney. Sadly for Frederick, he was killed in action whilst serving in France on 20 February 1918, before the award of his Military Medal had been announced. By 1911, Frederick’s family was living at 2 Nelson Road, Barking, although he was not living with them. He was one of eight children born to Thomas and Martha Brand, with Thomas earning a living as a bricklayer.

Frederick’s older brother, also Thomas, who was 35-years-old at the time he enlisted in the army on 9 December 1915 at Woolwich, was initially allocated to the 1203rd (Lowland) Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, but was quickly transferred to the 2nd (Reserve) Garrison Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, as Private 37295, despite his initial medical examination showing he had a deformity to the big toe of his right foot. He served in France between 25 March 1917 and 9 March 1919, during which time he was transferred to the 1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment on 14 February 1917. The following month on 15 March, he was once again transferred to the Infantry Labour Company of the Northamptonshire Regiment. He survived the war and was finally demobilised on 8 April 1919, and transferred to Class ‘Z’ of the army reserve.

By the time he had enlisted, Thomas already had four children, three of whom, Henry, George and Edna, were all born in Barking.

Another of Frederick’s brothers, George Brand, also served during the war, as Driver T/4/160645 in the Army Service Corps. He had enlisted on 26 November 1913, when he was 30-years-old and was discharged on 19 November 1915. The next day he enlisted in the regular army at Luton, and after having completed his basic training, he embarked on board the HMT Argyllshire on 31 January 1916, and arrived in Salonika on 14 February 1916.

On 15 October 1916, he transferred to the 483rd Company, 27th Divisional Train, Army Service Corps. He had also served as a Territorial with the 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment. He arrived back in the UK on 21 July 1919 and was eventually demobbed on 12 September 1919, when his home address was shown as being 2 Nelson Street, Barking. His Army Service record showed that his military character was very good.

The third man, Lance Corporal (2065) 325501 Daniel Gray, of the 1st Battalion, Cambridge Regiment, first arrived in France on 14 February 1915, and survived the war. I could not find out any other information about this man.

On Wednesday, 10 April 1918, a General Quarter Sessions for Essex took place at the Shire Hall in Chelmsford. As would be expected there were numerous different individuals and offences that were dealt with on the day. Two of the cases involved burglaries of premises in Barking.

In the first trial, Alfred Shoesmith, a 15-year-old labourer; Harry Smith, a 19-year-old riveter, and Victor Charles Biebuyck, also a labourer, all pleaded guilty to breaking into a schoolhouse, a warehouse and an office premises from which they stole a number of items.

Miss Annie Gentry, who was a 19-year-old married woman was charged with receiving the items that were taken from each of the burglaries, an offence she pleaded not guilty to, claiming that she had absolutely no idea that any of the items were stolen. Despite Gentry’s protestations of innocence, the jury found her guilty as charged.

The court heard how in Biebuyck’s case, he was a deserter from the army, and because he was of such bad character, they didn’t want him back. He was sentenced to nine months’ hard labour, whilst Smith was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. Shoesmith was sentenced to a three year probation order; and Gentry was bound over on good behaviour.

That wasn’t the end of the day for Biebuyck, he was brought back before the court, along with another young man, 14-year-old Alexander Macpherson, charged with a separate burglary of a house in Barking, to which both pleaded guilty. The building in question was unoccupied and when a local police officer entered the premises, he found that a piano had been pushed up against the door of the drawing room in an attempt at stopping others from gaining entry. The police officer managed to gain entry to the drawing room, where he discovered Biebuyck and Macpherson. Biebuyck then threatened to ‘lay him out’ with a poker if the officer came anywhere near him. Despite his age, Macpherson had already been birched twice for stealing. His father, a serving soldier told the court that he had re-enlisted in 1914, but he was worried that his son had become a ‘tool’ for older boys. Macpherson, who was the eldest of ten children, received an admonishment from the court and was placed on probation for two years; whilst Biebuyck was sentenced to six months’ hard labour, which was to run consecutive to his previous punishment.

There were two Biebuyck families living in Barking at the time, Victor Biebuyck’s family who were living at 87 Abbey Road, and Charles Biebuyck’s family who lived at 31 Hart Street. The 1911 census shows that Charles and his wife, Mary Ann Biebuyck, had seven children, one of whom was named Victor, but he was only 8 years old, meaning that in 1918, he still would have only been aged 15, far too young to be a soldier.

Victor and Clara Biebuyck had three children, none of whom were named Victor, so maybe the Victor Biebuyck in question was in fact the 31-year-old, living at 87 Abbey Road, Barking.

Charles Biebuyck enlisted in the Army Service Corps on 13 April 1915, when he was 38-years-old. Victor Biebuyck enlisted as a private (416148) in the Labour Corps on 22 March 1915 and was eventually discharged on 30 September 1919. During this time he served in France between 1 April 1915 and 28 August 1919, and was transferred to the Labour Corps on 25 October 1917.

To put the above incidents into some kind of perspective, on 10 April 1918, British soldiers were being killed and wounded during the Battles of Estaires and Messines.

It was announced on Friday, 10 May 1918, that Rifleman George F. Baxter of the London Regiment, the son of Mr and Mrs Baxter of Barking, who had been reported as being missing in action on 22 March 1918, whilst serving in France, had been captured by the Germans and made a prisoner of war, after being wounded in action.

On the same day, it was also announced that Sergeant 6312 E.W. Stanley, of the 10th Battalion, Essex Regiment, from Barking, having first arrived in France on 11 December 1915, had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal as of 1 May 1918. The citation for his award was as follows.

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in action. Observing that the enemy had broken through the front line, and were endeavouring to envelope both flanks, he quickly collected a party of men, doubled across a road which was under continuous machine gun fire, and managed to hold up the enemy by rifle fire for an hour and a half. This prompt and courageous action had a great effect upon the whole situation.

An inquest into the tragic death of 12-year-old Stanley Horner, the son of the Barking stationmaster, took place at Poplar on Saturday, 11 May 1918.

The boy’s sister wanted some petrol to clean her coat. As the bottle in which a small quantity was usually kept was almost empty, the boy suggested getting some from a two gallon petrol can which was kept in a cupboard. In looking for the petrol can a match was struck to find its exact location. He unfastened the lid of the petrol can and as he was pouring the liquid into a bottle the vessel slipped, splashing petrol up from the can. This led to a sudden and unexpected burst of flame, which set the boy’s sister’s clothes on fire. With great presence of mind, the boy’s sister smothered the flames and ran to fetch a rug to throw round her brother, whose clothes by now were alight. Sadly she couldn’t get anywhere near him because of the heat and the intensity of the flames.

The local fire brigade were called, but by the time they arrived the premises were well ablaze. Once they had extinguished the fire, they discovered the boy’s severely burnt body in a cupboard. Miraculously he was still alive, and he was immediately taken to the Poplar General Hospital, but his burns were too severe, and he died the following day.

The jury in the case returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

On Friday, 24 May 1918, it was announced that Corporal W. Tovey of Barking had been awarded the French Medaille Militaire, the equivalent of the British Military Medal. Corporal Tovey had been in the army the entire war, having fought at the Battle of Mons, the British army’s first real battle of the war. He must have been an extremely tired individual by 1918, having been in the fight for so long.

The summer of 1918 saw the people of both Barking and Dagenham enjoying the seasonal good weather. Despite the war, sport was still a big part of everyday civilian life. Football matches, for both men and women, were common events, especially for the workers at many of the factories involved in the manufacture of essential wartime components. There were even regular horseracing meetings, which took place at Parsloes Park, near Barking. On Saturday, 22 June 1918, the Sterling Athletic Club men’s cricket eleven, from Dagenham, entertained a team representing the Great Eastern Railway. It was a close, but low-scoring game, with the Sterling team winning by a score of 90 runs to 79. Mr A. Mitchell for Sterling, was top scorer for his team with sixteen runs, and when it was the turn of the opposition to bat, the Sterling bowlers showed their worth.

Mr H. Waterhouse returned the impressive statistics of taking six wickets, whilst conceding just twenty-one runs, figures which he was understandably very proud of. But he wasn’t the only one of Sterling’s bowlers who impressed, although Mr Baines’ stint at the crease included the frustration of seeing four of his colleagues drop catches from his impressive bowling.

So impressive were the Sterling’s bowlers that at one stage they had taking four of the Great Eastern Railway’s wickets for the loss of just twenty-five runs. Despite these fine figures, Mr Childs still managed a more than respectable stint with the bat, scoring forty runs before he was bowled out.

The following Saturday it was the turn of Sterling Athletic Club’s ladies’ cricket team to take on a combined Xl of wounded and discharged soldiers, with the monies raised going to the widow, Jane Waite, and the children, of 29-year-old Private 1204 Stephen Ernest Waite of the RAMC, who had died on Saturday 25 May 1918. He was buried at the Rippleside Cemetery in Barking. The family home was at 27 Orchard Road, Barking.

Stephen Waite had enlisted in the army on 23 August 1907 at Ilford, when he was just 18 years old. On 25 August 1908, he was transferred to section B of the Army Reserve. He was then mobilised on 6 August 1914, but just eleven days later, on 17 August 1916, he was discharged on medical grounds, it having been determined that he was no longer physically fit for wartime military service.

Whilst still serving in France, as part of the British Expeditionary Force, he was admitted to hospital on 22 March 1915, with what is believed to have been a mental health issue. On 16 April 1915, he was sent back to England on board the hospital ship, HMS St David, and admitted to the 11th General Hospital, in the village of Bramshot, Hampshire.

He was further admitted to Cambridge Hospital in Aldershot, where he stayed between 4 and 27 March 1916, when he was treated for ‘Melancholies’, [being in a gloomy state of mind, especially when suffering from a prolonged depression]. On 27 March, he was transferred to the County of Middlesex War Hospital, near St Albans, where his Army Pension record states that he was treated for mental instability. Whilst a patient at the hospital, it was noted that he made a fair recovery, but ‘is reported to be mistaken’.

In July 1916, an Army Medical Board reviewed Stephen Waite’s case; the subsequent report of that review board is dated 25 July 1916. It records that the cause of his discharge from the army was ‘Physically unfit – Mental Instability.’ The origins of his illness were not known, but it was noted that his initial admission to hospital was for mental depression, although he recovered from this initial bout. The report further shows that although physically he was in fair health, bodily he appeared somewhat pale in colour, and that his condition was ‘not the result of, but aggravated by active service, and stress of campaign. Probably permanent.’

His army pension record did not record either the date of Stephen’s death, which we know was 25 May 1918, or more importantly, the reason why. I can only assume it was related to what he was being treated for, although it could have also been because of the influenza epidemic of the time.

Stephen’s older brother, Reuben John Waite, also served during the First World War, initially enlisting as a private (21208) with the Essex Regiment, before transferring to the 10th Battalion, Rifle Brigade as Private B/200490. He was killed in action on Friday, 30 November 1917, during the fighting of the Battle of Cambrai, has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Cambrai Memorial at Louveral, in the Nord region of France.

On the Lunacy Patients Admissions Register, which covered the period between 1846 and 1912, there is a Reuben John Waite, recorded as having been admitted to the Essex Asylum on 28 December 1907, and released some eight months later on 17 August 1908, having recovered from his ailment.

In early July 1918, an official report on Thameside Housing and Development was released by a special committee that had been appointed by the Garden Cities and Town Planning Association to consider new construction programmes, with the main focus being on new and improved housing accommodation that would be in keeping with rising standards and in line with new expectations for a better tomorrow. If this vision could not be realised, then the masses would want to know what the war, and the sacrifices that were still being made, had all been for.

Part of this plan included an estimation for an immediate need of some 12,000 new homes to be built on farm land at both Barking and Dagenham. It was seen as the beginning of what were being described as ‘Garden Suburbs’. Although the issue of traffic facilities had also been discussed, and not overlooked, there was a practical realisation that considered the issues with train and tram difficulties as they were then, coupled with a perceived petrol shortage for many years after the war, which suggested that such traffic considerations were not something which had to be immediately considered.

It was interesting to note that new housing stock was being discussed and considered with an immediate urgency, suggesting the proposals had already been approved even though the war was still going on and with no immediate end in sight. Where the money for all this new building work was going to be found, with the nation millions of pound in debt because of the war, was anyone’s guess.

On 29 August 1918, Samuel Field, who was 65-years-old and worked for the Port of London Authority as a dock warehouse keeper at the Royal Albert Dock, was knocked down and killed by an army motor vehicle driven by a woman, whilst cycling between his home and his place of work.

He was a married man and lived with his wife, Bertha Johanna Augusta Reeckman Field at Longbridge Road, Whitehall, Barking, and their two children, Victor and Hildegarde Field.

Victor, who was a civil engineer, had emigrated to Australia, leaving for Sydney from Liverpool, on board the White Star Line, SS Suevic, on 9 January 1913. After war broke out he enlisted in the 4th Field Engineers Company, Australian Imperial Force, as Sapper 16786, on 14 August 1916 at Longreach, Queensland, and by April the following year he was in England. On 11 October 1917, he was wounded in action, when he sustained a gunshot wound to his left knee. On 20 October, he was treated by medical staff of the RAMC at the 57th General Hospital, and the next day he was admitted to the 1st Birmingham War Hospital, for further treatment.

The following letter, written by his mother Bertha, and dated 12 March 1920, is attached to Victor Field’s Australian Army Service record. It is headed ‘Repatriation and Demob Dept’ and sent from her home address at ‘Fair Haven’, Longbridge Road, Barking.

Dear Sir,

I desire to claim the discharge of my son Sergt Victor Field (16786 4th Field Coy Engrs) in England on the ground that I am a widow, and that his services as my only son are essential in helping me to manage the property, which is the only source of my income.

Yours faithfully

Bertha Field.

A similar type of letter, also on the topic of Victor being demobbed, was written to the same ‘Repatriation and Demob Dept’ by his wife, Ena G. Field, from their home at Beachley House, The Avenue, Mill Hill Park, London, and was dated 15 April 1920.

Dear Sir,

I hereby consent to my husband, Sergt Victor Field (Australian Engineers) obtaining his discharge in England.

I have no idea why Victor would have needed his wife’s consent to be demobbed from the army. There is no evidence to suggest that they were estranged from each other, but even if they were, why would he require her to provide her consent for his discharge? I am at a loss to understand.

A letter, dated the same day as the one sent by his wife, is also attached to his Army Service record, this one being from solicitors C.J. Mander & Sons, of Lincolns Inn, London. They had for many years represented Mr Samuel Field, who although when he died was a dock warehouse keeper, was also an owner of a considerable number of plots of land and cottages in Grays and Barking, as well as Whitstable in Kent. The essence of the letter was supporting his mother’s claim to be needing her son to help oversee the management of the properties and land which she owned.

He was finally demobilised from the Australian Imperial Force on 10 Jun 1920, which allowed him to remain in England. If a member of the Australian Imperial Force wished to apply for a discharge from the army in a country other than Australia, they were entitled to do so by completing form number 535. He was also issued with a Silver War Badge, number 252161. It could be argued that this was a somewhat strange award as the war had been over for some seventeen months, and the purpose of a Silver War Badge was to let members of the public know that a man in civilian clothing, and apparently fit and young enough to be in military service, had in fact served their country and for whatever reason, could no longer do so.

The Romford Police Court took place on Thursday, 19 September 1918, and one of the cases before the Bench that day, involved a Frederick Albert Howe, sometimes known as Frederick Leonard Howe, a soldier, from Luton, who was facing a charge of alleged cycle fraud.

Mrs Harriet Rowswell, a cycle agent of the High Street, Romford, rented a cycle to Howe, so that he could go to the Sterling Works at Dagenham. He collected the bicycle from Mrs Rowswell, but never returned it. Howe told Mrs Rowswell that he had been wounded at the Battle of Jutland, how or why that came up in conversation is not clear. To compound matters Howe provided a false address of 45 George Street, Dagenham.

In court his defence was that this was a case of mistaken identity, as he was not the man who had hired the bicycle from Mrs Rowswell, despite the fact that she had, without any hesitation, picked him out of a line up just two days before the court case. He was remanded in custody whilst further enquiries were made into the matter by the police.

On Tuesday, 22 October 1918, the Romford Military Tribunal had a number of cases before it, in what would have been one of the last times that it sat. One of the men who appeared before the Bench, with Mr E.G. Bratchell, JP presiding, was Alfred George Mead, a 35-year-old married man who lived at 2 Dewey Road, Dagenham. Mead was an assistant storekeeper at the Sterling Works at Dagenham, and was appealing against having to be called up, on the grounds of serious hardship. His appeal was turned down, and he was given one month to sort out his affairs before having to enlist. Little did the members of the tribunal or Mr Mead know that the fighting would be over and the Armistice signed before his month’s stay of having to enlist was up!

The 1911 census showed a 27-year-old Alfred George Mead living at 18 Church Elm Lane, Dagenham, with his wife Emily and their two daughters, Gladys and Elsie. At this time Alfred was working as a gas fitter’s labourer.

In November 1918 with the war finally over there was time for a football match. The men of the Great Eastern Railway, who played their home matches at Romford, took on the Sterling Men’s Athletic Club, which was the sports section of the Sterling Telephone and Electric Co Ltd, of the Sterling Works at Dagenham. The railwaymen won easily, by three goals to one. They were already two goals ahead by half time with goals from R. Tansley and T. Smith. In the second half, R. Bull added a third. Mr T. Bird, who kept goal for Sterling, pulled off some fine saves to keep them in the game and keep the score somewhat more respectable than it could have been, whilst H. Moron and A. Child defended bravely, but their efforts simply weren’t good enough against a stronger opposition. For the railwaymen C. Turrell on the right wing, S. Wade at right half, and both fullbacks, A. Hunswick and T. Duncombe, all gave a good account of themselves.

After the men’s game came the women, with Sterling Ladies taking on the Great Eastern Railway’s Romford Stores Girls. The visitors won by a score of three goals to one, their scorers being Miss K. Mullett and two from Miss A. Tennison, with Miss Barham replying for the railway women. At half time, Sterling Ladies were leading two goals to one. They could have won by a much bigger margin if their shooting had been of its usual high standard.

Sterling’s manager, Mr David King, who had previously managed the Essex Beagles ladies’ team, with whom he had enjoyed some notable success, had put together a remarkable team, with special mention being reserved for their goalkeeper, Miss Weaver, and Miss Hickliss.

The following week the Sterling ladies took part in a mini competition at their Dagenham ground, which saw them play host to RAF Sutton’s Farm ladies and the Sopwith Ladies, which was followed by a social evening.

It was Thursday, 5 December 1918, the Armistice had been signed, the fighting had stopped at last, and relief was in the air. During the war years, one of the things which had kept morale high amongst the civilian population was sport, but not just for the men, women took part as well. On this particular day two football matches took place, one of which was somewhat unusual, and despite the two games, only three teams took part. Let me explain.

The RAF from Sutton’s Farm at Hornchurch, brought a team to the sports ground of the Sterling Works in Dagenham, to challenge them in a game of football. A hard-fought match followed with the airmen from Sutton’s Farm winning by a score of five goals to two. The Sterling Telephone and Electric Company Works women’s football team was also due to play a game, their opponents being the ladies of Sopwith Aviation Company, from Kingston-upon Thames, in Surrey, but at the last moment they had to cancel.

To ensure that the Sterling ladies were not deprived of their greatly anticipated football match, the men from the RAF agreed to step in and take the place of the Sopwith ladies. But, to give the ladies a chance and make the match a more even affair, they agreed to play with their hands tied behind their backs. The Sterling ladies won the match by four goals to two, but the RAF men were not complaining, especially as every time one of them fell to the ground, they had to be helped to their feet, by not one, but two of the Sterling ladies.

As well as playing friendly fixtures, the Sterling men’s and women’s teams played in the East and South-East London Munition League.

CHAPTER 6

Barking War Memorial

The Barking War Memorial was erected to remember and commemorate the names of those men from Barking, or who were connected to the town, who had been killed or died as a result of their service and involvement in the First World War. It was unveiled on 25 March 1922 by the Reverend Avison Terry Scott, and dedicated by the Bishop of Barking. The Memorial was designed by Mr C.J. Dawson, the consultant architect to Barking Borough Council. He was also the designer of Barking Park, where the War Memorial is situated.

Barking War Memorial. (Sean Connolly)

Originally the names commemorated on the War Memorial were etched into stone tablets which formed part of the actual structure. After just seventy-nine years of existence the passage of time had already taken its toll, and due to weathering the names had become illegible. The decision was taken not only to replace, but to enhance the names of the men who had been the very reason for the memorial’s construction in the first place. In October 2000 an additional plaque was added. On 5 August 2001, fourteen brass plaques were added to replace the original lists of names that had been eroded by the years of inclement weather. The plaques included a further 385 names that had been added to the original list of men.

The centre piece of the memorial includes a carved laurel wreath, underneath of which is an inscription.

IN GRATITUDE TO ALL WHO SERVED, AND IN HONOUR OF THE PEOPLE OF THE BOROUGH WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WARS.

THEY GAVE THEMSELVES FOR FREEDOM’S CAUSE

THEIR MEMORY NEVER DIES.

The fourteen brass plaques are separated by the centrepiece of the memorial, with seven situated either side of it.

CHAPTER 7

Dagenham War Memorial

Sadly, although Dagenham has a small war memorial located on the corner of Church Elm Lane and Heathway, it does not include the names of those men from the town who were killed during the First World War. Although not unique, it is very rare for war memorials of that time not to include the names of the men from the town who paid the ultimate price and never came back home to their loved ones.

Fortunately there is a memorial with the names of the men of Dagenham who fell during the fighting of the First World War inside St Peter and St Paul Church in Dagenham village.

The memorial has the names of the eighty-three officers and men of the parish who died or were killed as a result of their involvement in the war.

The inscription on the memorial says:

THE PARISHIONERS RAISED THIS TABLET TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN HONOURED MEMORY OF THE COMMISSIONED AND NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS AND MEN OF THIS PARISH WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR

I have looked to establish more information about some of the individuals whose names are commemorated on the memorial. Where I am happy that I have found the right individual, I have then included a piece about them below. For many of these individuals, there are many other men with the same name, so trying to establish the exact one that I am looking for, who hailed from Dagenham, is not always possible to achieve.

War memorial outside St Peter’s Church, Dagenham.

St Peter & St Paul Church Memorial Dagenham Village. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Those I have written about, I selected at random, and nothing should be read into those I have not included.

Private 9557 Frederick Ernest Allerton, 1st Battalion, Essex Regiment, was killed in action on Sunday, 30 May 1915. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Helles Memorial in Turkey.

Leading Signaller 215587 Victor Emanuel Axup, of the Royal Navy, whilst serving on HMS Pathfinder, was killed in action on Saturday, 5 September 1914, when the Pathfinder was attacked and sunk by the German submarine, U-21. Out of a crew of 289, only 30 men survived. Victor has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial.

Gunner 49399 Charles H. Band was 28-years-old and serving with ‘B’ Battery, 60th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, when he was killed in action on 9 September 1916. He is buried at the Pozieres British Cemetery, at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, in the Somme region of France.

His parents, Charles and Emily Band, lived at Cedars, Church Elm Lane, Dagenham.

Private 13710 Thomas Beavis was 27 years old and serving with the Essex Regiment, when he died on Tuesday, 7 May 1918. He was buried in the churchyard at St Peter & St Paul Church, in Dagenham.

Private 5748 George Bixby was serving with the 1st/23rd Battalion, London Regiment, when he was killed in action Saturday, 16 September 1916. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

Private 58262 William Charles Bray was aged 28 and serving with the 98th Company, Labour Corps when he died on Saturday, 4 January 1919. He had previously served as Private G/28344 with the 15th Battalion, The Queens (Royal West Surrey Regiment). He was buried at the Mikra British Cemetery, in Kalamaria, Greece.

Private 10902 Percy Bertram Brotherton was serving with the 2nd Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment, when he was killed in action on Thursday, 11 March 1915. He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial, Pas de Calais, France.

Private Edward James Brown. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records show there were 340 men named Edward Brown who died during the First World War, so this a best guess scenario, as when I searched E.J. Brown in Dagenham on the 1911 census, he was the only one with those initials. Edward, who was born 1895, lived at home with his mother, Elizabeth Brown at 2 Laburnum Villas, Becontree Heath, Essex.

Private 11900 George Button enlisted in Barking and was serving with the 1st Battalion, Duke of Edinburgh’s Wiltshire Regiment, when he was killed in action at the age of 24, on Monday, 16 July 1917 in France. Before the war George, the youngest of ten children, lived with his parents, Harry and Hannah Button, at 25 Station Road, Dagenham, and was working as a fitter’s mate. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Belgium.

Private 24479 Edward George Chaplin was 21-years-old, and serving with the 9th Battalion, Essex Regiment, when he was killed in action during the third day of the Battle of the Somme. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. His parents lived at 2 Flints Cottage, Becontree Heath, Romford, Essex.

Private 12713 F. A. Collard was 24-years-old and serving with the 2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards, when he died of his wounds on 29 March 1918. He was buried at the Etaples Military Cemetery in the Pas de Calais region of France. His parents, Henry and Eliza Collard, lived at 6 Kittle Cottages, High Road, Dagenham.

Private 29134 George Thomas Collard was 20-years-old when he enlisted in the army on 23 February 1916, and the following day he was placed on the Army Reserve, before being mobilised on 26 April 1916. He was allocated to the 3rd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. Owing to problems with cataracts in both eyes, he was only passed for fit to undertake labour work on the home front.

His Army Service Record records that he was medically discharged, just four months later on 21 July 1916, for being ‘no longer physically fit for wartime service. Disability, mental degeneration, totally. Primary Dementia.’ In another section included in his Army Pension record, it states the following. ‘Has been in Cliff Hospital since June 23. 1916 for observation for mental demise. He has to be fed and washed as he will not perform these actions for himself. His person and habits are (not good). He shouts and swears when he does not want to do anything. Does not appear to understand what is being said to him, and will not answer any questions. He is not apparently dangerous to himself or others.’ It also mentions that ‘he has appeared to be weak minded since enlistment’.

Reading through George’s Army Service record, it is hard to comprehend how he was ever accepted for military training in the first place, even if it was only for labour work. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Army recruiting officers were paid a sum of money for every man they got to sign on the dotted line. George lived at Grays Cottages, Church Elm Lane, Dagenham. He died in March 1917.

Private 11913 Walter Thomas Collard was serving with the 3rd Battalion, Duke of Edinburgh’s Wiltshire Regiment, when he died in Hospital in Weymouth, on 9 November 1915, either of the wounds he had sustained in the war, or because of illness or disease. He was born in Dagenham and had been living there before he had enlisted in the army. He was buried at Melcombe Regis Cemetery in Dorset.

Lance Corporal C.E. Cook. The best I could find was a Charles Cook, who when the war started would have been 26 years old, and lived at 15 New Road, Dagenham, with his parents, William and Margaret, and his five siblings, Frederick, Elsie, Albert, Elmile and Harold.

Private 40764 Joseph Edward Cope was 24-years-old and serving with ‘C’ Company, 2nd Battalion, South Wales Borderers, when he was killed in action on Thursday, 19 July 1917. He was buried at the Hospital Farm Cemetery in the West-Vlaanderen region of Belgium. His home was in Becontree Heath, Romford.

Sergeant 60315 J.E. Cork was 19-years-old and serving with the 19th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers when he was killed in action on Thursday, 21 March 1918. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, in the Pas de Calais region of France. Prior to enlisting in the army he had lived with his parents, Harry and Mary Cork, at Sylvia Villa, Dagenham.

Rifleman S/4494 E.T. Cosby was 26-years-old and serving with the 13th Battalion, Rifle Brigade when he was killed in action on 11 April 1917. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial. His parents lived at 24 Chequers Lane, Dagenham.

Stoker 2nd Class K/50103 A.T. Cotgrove was 24 years old and serving on board HMS Bacchante when he died on Wednesday, 26 February 1919. He was buried in the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul Church in Dagenham. His parents lived at 26 New Road, Marsh Green, Dagenham.

Private CH/17170 George Cousins, who was serving with the 1st Battalion, Royal Marines Light Infantry, of the Royal Naval Division, was 22 years old when he was killed in action on 13 November 1916, during the fighting of the Battle of the Somme. He is buried at the Ancre British Cemetery, at Beaumont-Hamel, Somme. His sister, Mercy Rebecca Wood, lived at 75 Station Road, Dagenham, although at the time of the 1911 census, the family home was 18 Durham Road, Dagenham, where George lived with his father, Arthur, his older brother Frederick, and his three sisters, Annie, Elizabeth and Mercy.

Flight Cadet 175575 Joseph Edward Currie was 23-years-old and serving with the RAF when he died on Saturday, 26 October 1918, the result of a flying accident. He was buried at Romford Cemetery.

As a boy, he lived with his parents, Joseph and Elizabeth Currie, at Manor Farm, Dagenham, and was studying to be an engineer. He enlisted into the newly formed Royal Air Force on 4 May 1918

Private 31496 Alfred John Dennis of the 90th Company, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), was killed in action on Monday, 10 July 1916, during the fighting of the Battle of the Somme. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

Private 201839 H.E. Ellis was serving with the 13th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, when he was killed in action on Thursday, 21 June 1917. He is buried at the Vlamertinghe New Military Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium.

As mentioned previously, Ordinary Seaman J/61495 Arthur James Farrow was serving on board HMS Laforey, an escort vessel of the 6th Destroyer Flotilla, part of the Dover Patrol, when he was killed in action on 23 March 1917, when the ship struck a mine and sunk. Arthur Farrow was one of the fifty-eight crew members killed, out of the ship’s complement of seventy-six. It later transpired that the mine Laforey had struck, was a British one. The memorial records his name as A. G. Farrow.

Bedford House Cemetery.

Private 11910 F. Matson was killed in action on Friday, 18 June 1915, whilst serving with the 1st Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment. He is buried at the Bedford House Cemetery, in the West-Vlaanderen region of Belgium.

Private 16306 John Charles Mullett was aged 30 and serving with the 1st Battalion, Essex Regiment, when he was killed in action on 6 August 1915 whilst fighting during the Gallipoli Campaign. Interestingly enough, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website shows that he was buried at the Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery in Turkey, however, the Army Registers of Soldiers Effects 1901-1929, states that he had been missing since 6 August 1915, and that he was presumed to be dead. There is also a memorial at the cemetery, where I am assuming his name is commemorated.

After the war, his widow was living at 4 Albion Terrace, Queen Street, Romford.

Private 202705 Herbert Henry Ollington was only 18 years old when he was killed in action on Friday, 4 January 1918, whilst serving with the 2nd Battalion, Essex Regiment. He was buried at the Monchy British Cemetery, at Monchy-le-Preux, in the Pas de Calais region of France. He had initially enlisted in the Gloucestershire Regiment as Private 6044, before later transferring to the Essex Regiment. Before the war he lived with his father, Charles Ollington, a waterman, at 51 Chequers Lane, Dagenham, along with his two older sisters, Florence and Maud.

Private 8926 John Joseph Peer was 24-years-old and serving with 1st Battalion, Shropshire Light Infantry, when he was killed in action on the Western Front on 21 October 1914. He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial, in the Hainaut region of Belgium. His parents, John and Sarah Peer, lived at 28 Glebe Road, in Dagenham.

Private George Ernest Peer. I could find no military details on this man, although there is a George Ernest Peer on the 1911 census, living at 41 Chequers Lane, Dagenham, with his parents, George and Maria Peer, his four sisters and five brothers. Prior to enlisting in the army, he was a single man and worked as a dock labourer.

Private Alfred John Peer was serving with the 9th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, when he was killed in action on 4 November 1918, just a week before the signing of the Armistice. He was George’s younger brother, and as he was only 12-years-old at the time of the 1911 census, would not have been able to enlist until sometime late in 1917.

Ordinary Seaman J/27063 George Isaac Playle was 18-yearsold and serving as part of the crew of HMS Goliath, when he died on Thursday, 13 May 1915. He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial. His parents, George and Alice Playle, lived at 27 Vicarage Road, Dagenham, although the 1911 census shows that to be 21 Vicarage Road, Dagenham. Including George, there were eight children in the family at the time. He was one of three sons, there were also five daughters. George’s older brother, Alfred, also served in the Royal Navy, between 8 November 1911 and 21 March 1917, ending up as a Stoker 1st Class (K.13323), at which time he was aged 24.

Gunner 209681 William James Sorrell was only 20 he was killed in action on Wednesday, 31 October 1917, whilst serving with ‘D’ Battery, 75th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. He is buried at the Canada Farm Cemetery, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. His parents were William and Mary Sorrell, of Becontree Cottages, Whalebone Lane, Becontree Heath, Romford, Essex.

Private A.T. Sparrow. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website shows only one person with the same name, an Alfred Thomas Sparrow who was killed in action on Monday, 23 October 1916. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. This particular man isn’t shown as being a private, but a rifleman (S/25734) who served with the 1st Battalion, Rifle Brigade, although he had initially enlisted and served as a private (R/26016) with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. At the time of the 1911 census, Alfred, was lodging at an address in East Ham, but his parents, George and Caroline Sparrow, were living at 75 Station Road, Dagenham.

Private 7294 Ernest Staff, Distinguished Conduct Medal, was serving with the 2nd Battalion, Essex Regiment, when he was killed in action on 24 May 1915. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial. The citation for the award of his Distinguished Conduct Medal, which appeared in the London Gazette newspaper on 5 August 1915, is as follows:

For conspicuous gallantry and great devotion to duty on 13 May 1915, east of Ypres. As one of the stretcher bearers, he moved about the whole afternoon under a heavy fire picking up wounded, whom he carried in on his back. After the battalion was withdrawn in the evening, Private Staff remained behind until 1.00 am, at which time he had succeeded in getting all the wounded in. He showed an absolute disregard for his own safety.

Sadly, just eleven days later he was killed.

Private G/29686 Sidney Tobyn was 29-years-old and serving with the 4th Battalion, Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex) Regiment, when he was killed in action on Tuesday, 10 April 1917.

He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France. Sidney was a married man, and before he enlisted in the army, lived with his wife, Bessie and their children, at 61 Station Road, Dagenham.

Gunner C.H. Wager was difficult to trace. Only one potential candidate is recorded on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website and he is private (351823) Charles Henry Wager, who was serving with the 1st/7th Battalion, London Regiment, when he was killed in action on 7 June 1917. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial. Another man with a similar name was Charles Alfred Wager, who enlisted at Great Yarmouth on 27 October 1915 when aged 27. He was Gunner 59804, in the Royal Garrison Artillery and his home address was Whalebone Lane, Becontree Heath, Essex, but I was unable to find a date for his death.

This is just one example of how difficult it can be to trace an individual and be completely certain you have the right person.

In September 1940, during the Blitz of the Second World War, many of the Army Service Records were burnt when the War Office Record Store in Arnside Street, London, where they were kept, was badly damaged by an incendiary bomb. Some two thirds of the 6.5 million records of soldiers from the First World War were destroyed. Many of the records that survived were either charred or damaged by water. These records became known as the ‘burnt documents’. In 1996 the task of copying the surviving records to microfilm, began.

The other difficulty in tracing individuals from the First World War, comes in the shape of War Memorials. There are many cases where the names or initials on them have been recorded incorrectly. Some individuals have been missed off all together, mainly by mistake, but some intentionally such as those ‘shot at dawn’ for cowardice. There was no official criteria as to who qualified to be named on war memorials. This was usually a local decision, made by those responsible for raising the funds for the memorial.

CHAPTER 8

‘D’ Company (Barking) 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment

The 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment was part of the 161st Brigade, which took part in the Palestine Campaign. By the time it came to an end on 30 October 1918 it had lasted for 3 years, 9 months and 2 days. It was mainly fought between Allied forces from Australia, Britain, France, Hejaz (now part of Saudi Arabia), India, Italy, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, and New Zealand, and forces from the Ottoman Empire, Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Most of the men of ‘D’ Company who were killed in this conflict, died during the fighting of the First Battle of Gaza, which took place on Monday, 26 March 1917, and the Third Battle of Gaza which lasted between Thursday, 1 and Saturday, 3 November 1917.

There is a memorial to the men of the Barking Company, 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, who lost their lives during the course of the First World War in St Margaret’s Church, Barking.

It includes the following inscription:

IN ABIDING MEMORY OF THOSE WHOSE NAMES ARE HERE INSCRIBED WHO BEING CALLED UP FOR ACTIVE SERVICE AT THE OUTBREAK OF WAR IN 1914 AS TERRITORIAL SOLDIERS OF D BARKING COMPANY 4TH BATT. ESSEX REGIMENT WERE KILLED IN ACTION

Barking Company of the Essex Regiment Memorial, St Margaret’s Church Barking.

Jerusalem 1917.

There are twenty-seven names on the church’s memorial plaque. I have also included the names of a number of other men who served with the 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, and who had been living in Barking at the time they enlisted in the army.

Private 200560 Victor Ernest Waite was presumed to have been killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917 when he wasn’t missing in action during fighting in Palestine. His body was never recovered, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial.

Victor was the third of six children born to Alfred and Elizabeth Waite, who according to the 1911 census, were living at 4 Harpour Road, Barking.

The 1911 census shows him as a lodger at 38 Morley Road, Barking, which was the family home of Mr and Mrs Brown and their two children. Victor was a carpenter and two of his brothers, Alfred and Charles, also served during the First World War.

Alfred Sidney Waite was a guardsman (11572) in the Scots Guards, having enlisted at Barking on 12 October 1914, when he was 27 years old. At the time of his enlistment he was working as a labourer and was a married man with one child. Alice Metcalfe had married Alfred on 15 January 1911 in Barking, and their first home was at 117 Gascoigne Road, Barking. His military career was destined not to last that long, 130 days to be precise, as on 18 February 1918 he was discharged, with the words, ‘not likely etc.,’ which means, ‘not likely to make a proficient soldier’. Normally the reason for a soldier’s discharge was written in full with the accompanying Kings Regulation next to it. Maybe writing as they had on Alfred’s army service record, they were being kind and trying to do him a favour. Reading further, it would appear that he suffered quite badly with varicose veins in his right leg, particularly in the region of the calf area.

All I could discover about Charles Albert Waite was that he served with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. His army service record survived, but it consists of only one page.

Sergeant 200092 Thomas James Casciani was 24-years-old when he was killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917, and was buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. Interestingly, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website actually records Thomas as having served with ‘C’ Company, rather than ‘D’ Company, 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment. His father, James died in 1910 at the age of 52, and his mother, Florence Casciani, lived at 7 Cooke Street, Barking, with her five children, sons Reginald and Thomas, and daughters Florence, Nellie, and Winifred. Although Reginald was two years older than Thomas, there appears to be no record of him having also served in the army, however, if he did, he survived the war, as he passed away in 1966, aged 75.

Sergeant (1346) 200137 Charles Lambert was aged 22 when he was killed in action on Sunday, 25 November 1917. He was another individual who the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website records as having served with ‘C’ Company, 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment. He is buried at the Ramleh War Cemetery in Israel. He first went overseas on 12 August 1915, when he became involved in the Balkans conflict. His parents, James and Sarah Lambert, had eight other children, five daughters and three sons, and they all lived at 35 Howard Road, Barking.

Sergeant (1563) 200223 Russell George Willis was a seventh son, born 22 February 1893 in Ilford. After leaving school, he became a carriage cleaner on the Great Eastern Railway. He enlisted in the Essex Territorials in 1913 and was immediately mobilised at the outbreak of the war, serving with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in Gallipoli, from July 1915. He was wounded on 26 August and sent to Alexandria for medical treatment. After recovering from his wounds he served with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in Egypt and Palestine, was killed in action at Gaza on Monday, 26 March 1917, and was buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. Two of Russell’s brothers also served in the First World War.

Corporal 200114 John Richard Fernley was killed in action on Saturday, 3 November 1917 and is buried in the Gaza War Cemetery. He is another whose only connection to Barking appears to be the fact that he served with the Barking Company of the 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment. He was a married man whose wife lived at 34A North Avenue, Southend, Essex.

Acting Lance Corporal (1576) 200229 William John Bellamy was killed in action during fighting on Tuesday, 27 March 1917. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. He had first served overseas when he arrived in the Balkans on 12 August 1915. The British Army’s medal rolls index cards for William show that he was either killed in action on 27 March 1917 or died of his wounds. He was born in Barking.

Lieutenant Vivian Haweis Butcher who was 25-years-old, was killed in action on Tuesday, 27 March 1917, whilst fighting in Gaza. He is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. His parents lived in Plymouth, so Vivian is another of the men who served in the Barking battalion who appear to have had no personal connection with the town.

Also listed on the memorial is Mucklestone, N. I was unable to find his details on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website but found the following name on the official listings of all those soldiers who had died of their wounds, or been killed in action whilst serving for the Barking Company of the Essex Regiment:

Corporal 200258 William Thomas Muckleston, aged 32, was killed in action on 26 March 1917, and is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. Although William had been living in Southend with his wife, Lizzie Muckleston, before the war, since he enlisted in Barking I believe this is the same man who is commemorated on the memorial at St Margaret’s Church and that the details were incorrectly recorded.

Acting Lance Corporal 200235 Frederick William Rix was just 20 when he was killed in action on 27 March 1917, whilst serving in Palestine. He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website records his mother, Mrs Emily Virtue Rix, living at 171 Morley Road, Barking, but prior to the war, according to the 1911 census, Frederick, his mother, his sister Lily and his brother Harry, lived at 4 Alma Place, North Street, Barking.

Lance Corporal 200266 Thomas B. Chamberlin was killed in action on 26 March 1917, during fighting in Palestine. However, I could not find an entry for Thomas on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.

Private 201261 James Henry Sims was killed in action on Friday, 26 March 1917, whilst serving in Palestine and buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. I believe that this man was born and enlisted in Grays, Essex, so once again it would appear that his only connection with Barking was that he was serving in the Barking Company of the 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment.

Private 201126 John Marshall was killed in action on 27 March 1917. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial.

Company Sergeant Major 109 Sidney Charles Burridge died of his wounds on Monday, 25 October 1915 at Malta. He is buried at the Pietra Military Cemetery in Malta.

Sergeant 200157 Edward Berry, who was born in Barking, where he enlisted, was killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917, and buried at the Gaza War Cemetery.

Lance Corporal 200108 Horace Tyler was killed in action on 26 March 1917. He is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. His parents lived at Seven Kings, whilst Horace was born at Bethnal Green.

Private 200290 Sydney William Bean was killed in action in Palestine on Monday, 26 March 1917 and is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery.

The memorial plaque shows the name Private Cook, S, but on the list of men from the 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment who were killed during the First World War, there is no such man. I did however find a Private 1914 James Robert Cook who was 23 years old, born in Barking, enlisted in the army in Barking, and his father, Mr F. Cook, lived at 5 Holly Square, North Street, Barking.

Corporal 200453 Frederick Henry Beard was 23 years old when he was killed in action in Palestine on Tuesday, 27 March 1917. He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. His mother, Mary Ann Beard, lived at 34 Harrow Road, Barking. His father, Israel Cresswell Beard, died in 1913. At the time of the 1911 census, the family home was at 125 Kennedy Road, Barking.

Private 200492 William Beesley killed in action in Palestine on Monday, 26 March 1917. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. After leaving school he became an office boy and was living with his parents, Thomas and Ellen Beesley, and his two brothers, Thomas and George, at 116 Linton Road, Barking.

Thomas George William Beesley was only 19 when he enlisted as a private (G/4686) in the 13th Battalion, Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex) Regiment. He was also killed in action, on 28 September 1915 on the Western Front. Like William, he has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, Pas de Calais, France.

Private 201046 George Robert Burton was just 19 when he died of his wounds on Saturday, 21 April 1917, during fighting in Palestine, and was buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. The 1911 census showed George living with his parents, Charles and Edith Burton, his brother Charles and sisters, Connie, and Daisy, at 11 Tanner Street, Barking.

Private 201019 Samuel Cawker was killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917, during fighting in Palestine. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. Before enlisting, Samuel was working as a carpenter, and living at 36 Harpour Road, Barking, with his parents, Samuel and Amelia, his three sisters, May, Alice and Helen, and, his two brothers, William and Arthur.

William Cawker was a private (16369) in the 2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards, when he was killed in action on Friday, 15 September 1916, whilst serving on the Western Front. He is buried at the Guards Cemetery, Lesboeufs, in the Somme region. His youngest brother, Arthur Cawker, born in Barking on 16 June 1896, enlisted the Royal Flying Corps on 10 January 1916, and continued serving with them when they amalgamated with the Royal Naval Air Service and became the Royal Air Force, on 1 April 1918. He continued serving until he was demobilised on 8 August 1919.

Private (3118) 200867 William Aylett was killed in action on Saturday, 3 November 1917 in Palestine, and is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. He had first arrived in the region on 12 August 1915. Before enlisting in the army he lived at 25 Hardwicke Street, Barking, with his parents, William and Martha Aylett, his sister, Florence, and his two brothers, Charles and James.

Private 200497 Harry Charles Clements was 24 years old when he died of his wounds on Sunday, 4 November 1917 in Palestine. He was buried at the Deir El Belay War Cemetery, Israel.

Private 200500 James E Copp was 23 years old when he was killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917 in Palestine, and was buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. Before enlisting in the Army, he was a labourer at a brewery, whilst living with his parents, Thomas and Mary Copp, at 30 Church Road, Barking, along with sisters, Annie, Helen, and Emily, and brothers George and Thomas.

Private 201026 Frederick Cox died of his wounds on Friday, 30 March 1917 in Palestine, and is buried at the Kantara War Memorial Cemetery in Egypt. Before enlisting in the Army, Frederick lived with his parents, Joseph and Louisa Cox, at 1 Town Quay, Barking along with his sister, Ellen, his three brothers, Joseph, George and Daniel, and three stepbrothers, Jack, Bertie and Robert Jack Knowles, who was five years older. Robert also served during the First World War. He enlisted on 23 June 1913, initially as Private 983 in ‘F’ Company, 8th (Cyclist) Battalion, Essex Regiment, which was a Territorial Force. He remained with them until 26 April 1916, when he left and joined the Regular Army the next day, enlisting as a private 32942 in the 58th Battalion, Machine Gun Corps. At that time he was living with his wife Mary, who he’d married on 19 February that year, at 24 Gloucester Road, Manor Park, Essex. Robert first arrived in France on 15 December 1916, but the first entry on his army service record is dated 20 August 1917, which, if I have interpreted the barely legible writing correctly, it states that he was disciplined for refusing to obey an order, and punished with Field Punishment No.1. This form of punishment had been in place since 1881, after flogging had been abolished. A commanding officer could award a field punishment, which could last for up to twenty-one days. It was often abbreviated, especially on army service records, as ‘F.P.No.1’; whether this was to hide what it actually was, is unclear. The punishment consisted of a man being placed in handcuffs, or similar restraints, and attached to a fixed object, such as fencepost or one of the wheels on an artillery piece for up to two hours a day. Roberts’ punishment lasted for two weeks between 30 January and 13 February 1918. He didn’t learn his lesson, because later that year, on 29 October, he was awarded three days of Field Punishment No. 2 for being absent without leave from 7.20 am on 13 October to 10 am on 14 October 1918. This is a situation that could have ended so badly for him. He could have quite easily been disciplined for desertion, for which the ultimate sanction was death by firing squad. It is possible he was treated more leniently as on 24 October 1918, his 2-year-old daughter, Vera had died of influenza. There were at least four other occasions where he was disciplined for some breach or other of army discipline, three of which were dealt with by way of Field Punishments.

By the end of the war Field Punishments had been issued by the British Army on 60,210 occasions.

Robert survived the war and was demobbed on 9 June 1919 at Purfleet in Essex, one of the numerous demobilisation camps. He was placed on the army reserve.

Field Punishment No. 1.

Private 200532 Edward Charles Dawson was 21 years old when he was killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917 in Palestine. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. His parents, Arthur and Mary Dawson, lived at ‘St Helens’, Hulse Avenue, Barking.

Private 200472 James Dinan was 20 when he was killed in action on Saturday, 3 November 1917 in Palestine. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. His father, Jeremiah Dinan, lived at 87 St Paul’s Road, Barking.

Private 200430 John Dumford was killed in action on Saturday, 3 November 1917 in Palestine, and is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. The hand written version of the 1911 census, clearly shows the surname being spelt, ‘Dunford.’

Private 200374 Joseph Folkes was 23 when he was killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917 in Palestine. He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. His parents, William and Emma Folkes, lived at 149 Ripple Road, Barking. Joseph was the eldest of seven children. He had a younger brother, Stanley, and five sisters, Susan, Elizabeth, Florence, Harriett and Maude.

Private 200141 Reginald Horace French was killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917, whilst serving in Palestine. He was buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. Prior to enlisting in the army he lived with his parents, Henry and Edith French, sisters, Florence and Gladys, and older brother, Arthur, at 10 Glenny Road, Barking.

Private 1891 Henry Gillan was killed in action on Friday, 20 August 1915, whilst serving in the Gallipoli Campaign. He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Helles Memorial in Turkey. Henry’s parents, lived at 94 Blake Avenue, Barking.

Corporal 200141 Frederick Thomas Golding was 23 when he was killed in action in Palestine on Saturday, 3 November 1917, and is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. He lived with his parents, Herbert and Ellen Golding, at 65 Abbey Road, Barking along with his sisters, Doris and Gladys, and brothers, Ernest and Edward.

Frederick’s brother, Ernest, enlisted in the Royal Navy on 22 September 1915, aged only 15 as a Boy II Class, and served for nearly seven years, reaching the rank of Able Seaman (J/44451) before being discharged on 12 July 1922 on medical grounds. During his naval career he served on board numerous ships including the Impregnable and the Ganges.

Private 3125 William Charles Goodman was 21 when he died of his wounds at sea, on Monday, 20 September 1915. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Helles Memorial in Turkey. By the end of the war his mother, Martha, had remarried and become Mrs Day, and was living at 107 Wakering Road, Barking.

Private 200902 Stephen Green, was 20 when he was killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917 in Palestine, and is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. Prior to the war he worked as a factory hand and lived with his parents, William and Mary Green, at 13 Bennington Avenue, Barking, along with his three sisters, Ellen, Edith and Ivy, and his older brother, George.

It would appear that the death of Private 1640 Frederick Thomas Greig may well have been an accident whilst he was on board the vessel HT Arcadian, which resulted in him being buried in the East Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday, 31 October 1916. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Chatby Memorial, in Egypt.

His Medal Rolls Index Card, includes the abbreviation ‘accd’. [accident].

Lance Corporal 200436 James Michael Kennedy was 22 years old when he was killed in action on Saturday, 3 November 1917 in Palestine. He is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery.

Prior to enlisting in the army, James lived with his parents, James and Catherine Kennedy, at 22 Thorpe Road, Barking, along with his sisters, Catherine, Beatrice, and Ellen, and brothers, Daniel and John.

Daniel, who had been an office boy before the war, also enlisted in the army, becoming a private (2530) in the 5th (City of London) Battalion (London Rifle Brigade). He too was killed in action, on 10 September 1916, whilst serving on the Western Front.

Private (2150) 200467 Archibald Lawrence was only 19 when he was killed in action on Tuesday, 27 March 1917 in Palestine. He has no known grave but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. Before enlisting in the Army he lived with his parents, Edwin and Louisa Lawrence, at 69 Boundary Road, Barking.

Private 200358 Frederick George Lay was killed in action on Saturday, 3 November 1917 in Palestine. He lived with his parents, Richard and Annie Lay, sisters, Edith, Amy, and Mabel, and brothers, William, Albert and Richard at 46 Glenny Road, Barking. There was another brother, who at the time of the 1911 census was just one week old, and simply referred to as ‘Baby’.

William Lay also saw service during the war, in three different regiments, initially enlisting as a private 46713 in the 7th (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment. He later transferred as a private (141957) to the 13th (Works) Battalion, The Devonshire Regiment, eventually ending up in the Tank Corps as Private 309624. In June 1916, he received a gunshot wound to his back. He was admitted to the Military Hospital at Boscombe in Hampshire on 20 June to undergo an operation on one of his kidneys, and remained there until 19 July 1916. He was finally discharged from the army on 11 May 1919.

Private 200366 Frederick George Layton was 21 when he was killed in action on Tuesday, 27 March 1917 in Palestine. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. His parents lived at 38 Boundary Road, Barking.

Private 200361 George McMasters was initially listed as being missing in action on Tuesday, 27 March 1917, during fighting in Palestine. When he was not reported as having been captured, and taken as a prisoner of war, nor his body found, it was subsequently presumed that his death had taken place on 27 March 1917.

Private 200555 Michael Murphy was 19 when he was killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917 in Palestine, and is buried at the Gaza War Cemetery. Before he enlisted he lived with his parents William and Mary Murphy, four sisters, Florence, Norah, Mary and Kate, and brothers William, and Thomas at 16 Bridge Street, Barking.

Private 201000 Harry Poole was aged 27 when he was killed in action on Tuesday, 27 March 1917 in Palestine. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. Before the war he had worked as a fish porter and was living with Frederick and Clara Watkinson, and their two young daughters, at 68 Ripple Road, Barking. His sister Ethel, and older brother, Frank also lived at the same address.

Lance Corporal 200858 Horace Sargeant was aged 33 when he was initially classified as missing in action on Tuesday, 27 March 1917 in Palestine. When it had been ascertained that he had not been captured and taken as a prisoner of war, and his body was not recovered, his death was presumed to have taken place on the same day that he was reported as being missing. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. Horace was a married man, who before the war was living with his wife Mary, their young children, and his father-inlaw, at 82 Howard Road, Barking.

Private 3123 Charles Steane was 24 when he died of his wounds on Sunday, 5 December 1915 at Gallipoli. Although he served with the 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, he was a member of ‘B’ Company rather than ‘D’ Company. After the war, his parents, Caleb and Agnes Steane, lived at 758 Romford Road, Manor Park, although at the time of the 1911 census, the family home was at 28 Kings Road, Barking. Charles was a single man who worked as a labourer at a local iron founders. He had one sister, Florence, as well as four brothers, John the eldest, followed by Joseph, Harry and Albert.

Joseph served as a driver/gunner (13531) with ‘Y’ Company, 2nd Trench Mortar Battery, in the Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery. He was 23 years old when he was killed in action on Sunday, 8 July 1917, whilst serving on the Western Front in France, and is buried in the Communal Cemetery Extension, at Sailly-Labourse, in the Pas de Calais region.

Private 200227 Samuel Sutton was killed in action on Wednesday, 6 June 1917 whilst serving in Palestine, and is buried at the Jerusalem War Cemetery. Of the four men named Samuel Sutton on the 1911 census, living in Barking, only one would appear to be this man (the others either being too old or too young to serve).

Samuel Sutton of 43 Romford Road, Barking was a 32-year-old married man with six children, who worked as an engine cleaner.

Private 200561 Percy Reginald Westbrook was 20 years old when he was killed in action on 25 November 1917. He is buried at the Ramleh War Cemetery in Israel. His mother, Mrs Harriet Westbrook, lived at 126 North Street, Barking.

Private 200473 Samuel John Wilson was 21 when he died of his wounds on 15 May 1917. He is buried in the Jerusalem War Cemetery in Israel. His parents, James and Martha Wilson, lived at 45 Hardwick Street, Barking.

Private 200538 John James Windust was killed in action on Monday, 26 March 1917. He has no known grave, but his name is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial. John was another of those who was originally recorded as being missing in action, and when no further information came to light as to his whereabouts, was officially presumed to have died on the day he was reported missing.

Essex Regiment Cap Badge.

Aftermath

With the Armistice signed and the fighting finally at an end, villages, towns and cities across the nation had to try and get back to normality. It wasn’t going to be an easy transition for the people of Barking and Dagenham to make. Men from both towns had lost their lives in the war, which had directly affected hundreds of local families. Wives had lost husbands, parents had lost their sons, children had lost fathers, and siblings had lost siblings, besides the pain and suffering felt by other relatives and friends.

For tens of thousands of the towns’ people, it was a difficult time. Their natural instinct was to celebrate, but in truth, the war wasn’t over. The Armistice between Britain, her Allies and Germany, wasn’t ratified until July 1919, at the end of the Paris Peace Conference, which had opened on 18 January 1919. However, it took until the Treaty of Lausanne, signed on 24 July 1923, and effective on 6 August 1924, to officially end hostilities between Turkey and the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan.

The people of both Barking and Dagenham celebrated in line with the victory parade which took place in London on 19 July 1919. Maybe for some this was a better time to celebrate. The eight months since the signing of the Armistice had given them the opportunity to grieve for their loved ones, and although they would never forget them, it was an opportunity to smile and be as happy as they could be, without feeling guilty.

The men of Barking and Dagenham who had done their bit during the Great War and returned home to their loved ones were still unable to just get on with their lives and make a fresh start.

They were placed on the Army reserve, with the knowledge that if the warring nations couldn’t come to an agreement, they might have to do it all over again.

Nor did the death and dying stop just because the fighting had. There were at least three men from Dagenham who died after the signing of the Armistice, and only one of them, Stoker 2nd Class (K/50103) A. T. Cotgrove, Royal Navy, was buried in the town in St Peter and Paul churchyard, Dagenham. As for Barking, there were at least thirty-five men from the town who died after the Armistice had been signed. Of these, eighteen are buried in the town’s Rippleside cemetery.

Those from both Barking and Dagenham who had lost loved ones were in no mood to celebrate. The fighting was over at last, for that they were truly grateful, but the pain of their individual loss, was more than sufficient to quell any desire or need to celebrate. A few of them, whose loved ones had died in England, of wounds, illness, disease or accident, would be able to draw some solace from the graves they could visit, but for most, all they were left with was a name on a war memorial, plaque or roll of honour, and it was a few years after the end of the war before most of these structures came in to being.

Many of the men of Barking and Dagenham had sustained injuries during the war, some of which were life-changing. For others, the horrors of what they had seen, friends and colleagues killed all around them, the desolate existence of trench life, the constant noise and fear of being on the end of artillery bombardments, meant they were never the same again. It is little wonder that many of them never spoke of these events ever again. Instead they lived with their memories and nightmares and took those experiences to their graves.

Regardless of how long each man had served in the armed forces during the First World War, whether it was months, or years, those who had experienced the true horror of war and survived wanted to live their lives, not only for themselves, but for their fallen comrades as well, and with the hope that they would never be called upon to be part of such horrific events, ever again.

With the Armistice having been signed more than a year earlier, a reminder of the war, as if one was needed, took place on Tuesday, 16 December 1919, at Dagenham Dock, when a barge, full of wartime military shells, caught fire and exploded, setting two other barges nearby on fire. The fire brigades of Barking and Ilford attended, but their hoses were unable to reach the blazing barges, but a river fire float was soon on the scene to assist. No sooner had they arrived than the middle of the three barges, which was well ablaze, suddenly exploded, showering shrapnel all over the place. Fortunately, not only were there no deaths, no one was injured either.

A number of fireman who were standing on the shore had a very lucky escape when a large 18lb shell came whistling towards them, fortunately they were all able to make good their escape before it landed. From afar, it must have seemed to some that the war had started up once again.

I hope you have enjoyed my account of the part that the people of Barking and Dagenham played during the days of the First World War. I do not for one second claim that it is an absolute comprehensive account, more a snap shot of those bygone years. When writing a book such as this, it can be as difficult to decide what to leave out as it is to decide what to include. That doesn’t mean for one second that what hasn’t been included doesn’t have an importance, because it does, but there is only so much space in a book such as this.

In closing, if I have omitted an individual you were expecting to read about, if I have recorded any details or facts incorrectly, whether that be a name, location or date, I most sincerely apologise. If such cases have occurred, it has been down to nothing more sinister than an oversight on my part, and lastly, I have credited and made acknowledgements where appropriate to do so.

Barking and Dagenham War Memorial. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Barking and Dagenham War Memorial. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Barking and Dagenham War Memorial. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Barking and Dagenham War Memorial. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Barking and Dagenham War Memorial. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Barking and Dagenham War Memorial. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Barking and Dagenham War Memorial. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Barking and Dagenham War Memorial. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Barking and Dagenham War Memorial. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Barking and Dagenham War Memorial. (Photograph by Sean Connolly)

Sources

www.cwgc.com

www.ancestry.co.uk

www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

Wikipedia

www.historyengland.org.uk

www.barkinghistory.co.uk

www.greatwarlondon.wordpress.com

Royal Navy Registers of Seamen’s Services, 1848-1939.

Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects 1901-1929.

1911 Census of England