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Class Conflict and Village War Memorials, 1914–24.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Nick Mansfield
Nick Mansfield
Affiliation:
National Museum of Labour History, Manchester, UK.
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Extract

‘I am persuaded that the Memorial Crosses, in the Churchyards, on the village greens, where the roads meet, will for many years to come cry eloquent but silent protest against all that divides and degrades village life.’ The Bishop of Hereford, 1920.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , April 1995 , pp. 67 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Notes

1. The Bishop of Hereford, writing in 1920, quoted in Howkins, Alun, Reshaping Rural England: A social history 1850–1925 (London, 1991), p. 289.Google Scholar

2. Examples vary from the oral histories of Evans, George Evvart, Spoken History (London, 1988), pp. 51 and 52.Google Scholar, through social anthropology, e.g. Strathern, Marilyn, ‘The Village as an idea: constructs of village-ness in Elmdon, Essex’, in Cohen, A. (ed.) Belonging (Manchester, 1982), p. 255Google Scholar, and local studies, Burkitt, Caroline, Men with Splendid Hearts (Granchester; 1993), p. vi.Google Scholar, to LP sleeve notes, Collins, Shirley, ‘Anthems in Eden’, 1976.Google Scholar

3. There has been a growth in interest in war memonals, partly as a result of this initiative. Two recent books, Boorman, Derek, At the Going Down of the Sun (York, 1988)Google Scholar, and McIntyre, Colin, Monuments of War (London, 1991)Google Scholar, explore them from the military historian's viewpoint.

4. York City Archive. Correspondence of Walter Brierley, Architect. Ace. 109. Letter dated 1414/20. I am grateful to Alex King for this reference.

5. Mansfield, Nick, ‘Volunteers and Recruiting’, in Gliddon, Gerald (ed.), Norfolk and Suffolk in the Great War (Norwich, 1988), p. 20.Google Scholar

6. Norfolk News, 22/8/14, 1219/14, 26/9/14.

7. Eastern Weekly Press, 25/3115. See also Grieves, Keith, ‘Lowther's Lambs: Rural Paternalism and Voluntary Recruitment in the First World War’, Rural History 4, 1 (1993), 55–75,CrossRefGoogle Scholar for the different approach of Lonsdale's relation raising ‘Southdown’ battalions of the Sussex Regiment.

8. Horn, Pamela, Rural Life in England in the First World War (London, 1984), p. 80.Google Scholar Many, however, later joined up, over half the names on the Ruthin war memorial are from the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

9. Strange, Keith, Wales and the First World War (Cardiff, 1989), p. 4.Google Scholar

10. Horn, , Rural Life, p. 81.Google Scholar (Information from Clive Hughes). Horn also suggests that farmers discouraged yearly hired servants from enlisting in Lincolnshire, Lancashire and Cumberland.

11. Shropshire Chronicle, 16/4/15, 23/4/15.

12. Shropshire Chronicle 26/3/15.

13. Mansfield, , ‘Volunteers’, p. 27.Google Scholar

14. James, Brigadier E.A., British Regiments 1914–18 (London 1978)Google Scholar, lists every battalion of the British army, and is a useful guide to untangling these complexities. As a general guide, the 1st., and 2nd., battalions of a regiment were regulars, the 3rd. was a special reserve, usually a depot or training battalion, and the 4th., 5th., and possibly 6th., battalions were the territorials. Higher numbers were allocated to the ‘Service’, or ‘Kitchener’, battalions.

15. The Worcestershire Regiment also recruited from the neighbouring Birmingham conurbation, and was one of the few county regiments to have four regular battalions. See James, , British Regiments, p. 73.Google Scholar

16. Mansfield, , ‘Volunteers’, p. 23.Google Scholar

17. James, , British Regiments, p. 95.Google Scholar

18. Rye, Walter, Th Great War: Statistics of Recruiting in East and North Norfolk, amoung tenant, farmers and their sons (Norwich, 1917), p. 26.Google Scholar

19. Mansfield, , ‘Volunteers’, p. 25.Google Scholar See also Dallas, Gloden and Gill, Douglas, The Unknown Army: Mutinies in the British Army in World War 1 (London 1985).Google Scholar

20. Davies, Russell, ‘Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night. Women and Suicide in Carmarthenshire, c. 1860–1920’, in John, Angela V. (ed.), Our Mothers’ Land (Cardiff 1991), p. 102.Google Scholar

21. Annual Report 1914., quoted in Newby, Howard, The Deferential Worker (London 1977); p. 216.Google Scholar

22. Interview with author, 1983. Tape in Norfolk Rural Life Museum Collection.

23. Zamaysha, Betha, The Burston Rebellion (London 1985), p. 97.Google Scholar

24. For this see Howkins, Alun, Poor Labouring Men: Rural Radicalism in Norfolk 1872–1923 (London 1985), p. 117.Google Scholar

25. Interview with author, 1983. Tape in Norfolk Rural Life Museum Collection.

26. A paid up contribution card for 1918, belonging to Charles Holmes of Crostwick, Norfolk, but serving with the Army Labour Corps in Yorkshire, is in the collection of the Norfolk Rural Life Museum, Gressenhall.

27. Photograph in the collection of the Modern Records Centre, Warwick University, used on the cover of ‘The Consolidated Guide’.

28. Shrewsbury Chronicle 22/10/15.

29. Wootton, Graham, History of the British Legion (London, 1956), p. 2,Google Scholar and Howkins, , Poor Labouring Men, p. 128.Google Scholar

30. Cambridge Daily News 2/2/17, Shrewsbury Chronicle 2/1/20.

31. Interview with author, 1983. Tape in collection of Norfolk Rural Life Museum.

32. Evans, George Ewart, Where Beards Wag All (London, 1971), p. 105.Google Scholar

33. Cambridge Daily News, 4/12/18, 14/12/18, Shrewsbury Chronicle, 16/5/19.

34. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 3/10/19.

35. Interview with author, 1983. Tape in collection of Norfolk Rural Life Museum.

36. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 7/11/19, 14/11/19.

37. Crofts, Connie, Church of St. Mark: 80th, Anniversary (Leicester, 1950), p. 13.Google Scholar

38. Shropshire Record Office ( SRO ), 2997/8/212–240, War memorial correspondence.

39. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 25/10/18, 31/5/18, 30/8/18.

40. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 30/5/19. Drinking fountains and village pumps were occasionally adopted as memorials, see Boorman, , Going Down, pp. 72–3.Google Scholar

41. In letter to Vicar of Baschurch, SRO 44221 ch. 38–42.

42. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 28/11/19.

43. Border Counties Advertiser, 30/6/20

44. SRO, Church Stretton War Memorial file DA/134/11/6, and Shrewsbury Chronicle 12/9/19.

45. SRO, 3540/WM 1–7, Shrewsbury Chronicle, 28/3/19, 11/7/19, 22/11/19.

46. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 28/2/19, 7/3/19, 14/3/19.

47. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 4/4/19.

48. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 28/3/19.

49. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 28/2/19, 14/3/19.

50. Cambridge Daily News, 20/1/19.

51. Graves, Robert, Goodbye to all That (London, 1960) p. 51.Google Scholar

52. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 23/1/20.

53. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 11/7/19, 6/12/19, 8/8/19, Boorman, , Going Down, p. 68Google Scholar, Information from Dennis Walters of Edgton.

54. York City Archive, correspondence of Walter Brierley, Ace.109, Letter dated 4/10/19. I am grateful to Alex King for this reference.

55. Denbighshire Free Press, 12/3/21.

56. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 2/5/19, 31/1/19.

57. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 7/3/19.

58. Marwick, Arthur, The Deluge (London, 1965), pp. 324–5.Google Scholar, Newby, , Deferential Worker, p. 63.Google Scholar

59. Cambridge Daily News, 26/1/21. The vicar also gave a billiard table!

60. Boorman, , Going Down, pp. 58 and 76.Google Scholar

61. SRO. Cleobury North, Minutes of war memorial committee, 3963/2, letter, 3963/3.

62. SRO. Clee St. Margaret, Notebook of subscriptions for memorial window, 4367/ch. 6, Moreton Corbett, War Memorial bank book, 1919–20, 2960/5/138.

63. York City Archive, Correspondence Walter Brierley, Ace.109. Letter from Y.B. Yeoman, 16/4/21.

64. Carlilse Journal, 20/5119. I am grateful to Alex King for these references.

65. SRO. Lawley balance sheet, 41051/ch. 9.

66. Clywd Record Office, Ruthin Town Clerk's papers, Memorial to Fallen Soldiers, BD/BI93. I am grateful to Neil Evans for this lead.

67. Cambridge Daily News, 4/2/19.

68. Shreiosbury Chronicle, 18/4/19. Morris was the Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Oswestry.

69. Boorman, , Going Down, p. 58.Google Scholar SRO. Morton War Memorial, 4258/ch./2/3.

70. SRO, Correspondence Market Drayton War Memorial, 22918/212–240.

71. York City Archive, Correspondence of Walter Brierley, Ace. 107, Letters of 3/2/19, and 13/2/19 to Brierley.

72. ibid., Letters of 14/2/19 and 21/1/20.

73. M.J. Petty, ‘Streatham War Memorials’, unpublished paper in Cambridgeshire Collection, Cambridgeshire Libraries. Nonconformity was strong in the Cambridgeshire Fens, there was another church/chapel conflict at Prickwillow, information from Chris Jakes, Cambridgeshire Collection.

74. Shretvsbury Chronicle, 30/15/19.

75. SRO. Ford Minute Book, 1919–24,3540/WM/1, from a meeting held on 21/6/23. My impression is that chapel memorials are rarer than church ones, except in areas, North Wales, for instance, where nonconformity was the major cultural influence. I am grateful for the views of Alun Howkins on this point.

76. Cambridge Daily News, 26/12/19.

77. Boorman, , Going Down, p. 71.Google Scholar He also points out two memorials in Durideer, Dumfriesshire, but the dispute may have been over location, and local rivalries, rather than religious ideology.

78. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 27/6/19.

79. Cambridge Daily News, 12/5/20, 5/1/20, 28/1/20, 14/4/20, 5/1/21, and 21/4/20.

80. Cambridge Daily News, 4/2/20.

81. Boorman, , Going Down, p. 52.Google Scholar

82. SRO. 3253/chy.5. Printed service sheet, Whit Sunday 1922, 3571/Fa/Chyd/6, Order of service.

83. Cambridge Daily News, 17/11/20.

84. Cambridge Daily News, 19/1/20. However the opening of the Trench Primitive Methodist chapel memorial on the Flintshire/Shropshire border, involved the sounding of the last post by ex-Corporal Edwards of the KSLI, Shrewsbury Chronicle, 14/5/20.

85. Boorman, , Going Down, p. 53.Google Scholar

86. Carlilse Journal, 30/15/19, 20/5/19, 20/6/19, and 1/8/19. I am grateful to Alex King for these references.

87. Denbighshire Free Press, 15/4/22.

88. Clwyd Record Office, Ruthin Town Clerk's papers, BD/B/93.

89. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 25/7/19, for Beard see Hyman, Richard, The Workers’ Union (London, 1971), p. 82.Google Scholar

90. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 25/1/20.

91. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 21/3/20.

92. Shretwbury Chronicle, 6/2/20

93. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 27/2/20.

94. Graves, , Goodbye, p. 260.Google Scholar

95. Howkins, , Poor Labouring Men, p. 167.Google Scholar

96. Photographic Collection, Norfolk Rural Life Museum, Gressenhall.

97. Quoted in Groves, Reg, Sharpen the Sickle, pp 186–7.Google Scholar

98. Interview with author, 1983. Tape at Norfolk Rural Life Museum.

99. Howkins, , Poor Labouring Men, p. 168.Google Scholar

100. Interview with author, 1983. Tape at Norfolk Rural Life Museum.

101. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 11/5/23.