Scarborough 1914-18

Scarborough through the First World War remembered

You are here: Home / Archives for Dean Road Cemetery

Brackenbury, Albert V

by Leave a Comment

Name: Albert Victor Brackenbury

Rank: Deck Hand

Service No: 940/DA

Date of Death: 25/11/1918

Age: 24

Regiment/Service: Royal Naval Reserve H M Trawler “Principal.”

Grave Reference: E. 27. 33. Cemetery: Scarborough (Dean Road) Cemetery

Additional Information: husband of Lizzie Priscilla Brackenbury, of 8, Friar’s Entry, Scarborough.

CWGC reference

 

Paul Allen writes:

For many years after her husband Alan’s death Emily Mary Barraclough lived with her 2 children Joseph Mickman and Rene, at 33 Friargate, a house they had shared with Emily’s younger sister, Lizzie Priscilla Brackenbury (formerly Cape), who was also a ‘war widow’.

Lizzie was the wife of 940/DA Deck Hand Albert Victor Brackenbury, Royal Naval Reserve, who had died whilst serving in HM Trawler ‘Principal’ from the effects of bronchopneumonia, at the Rosyth Naval Hospital, aged 24, on 25 November 1918.

Albert was subsequently interred in Scarborough’s Dean Road Cemetery; his grave is located in Section E, Row 27, Grave 33.

Lizzie Brackenbury passed away at the age of 69 on Tuesday, 3 April 1962, and was buried in the grave at Manor Road following a service at the Bethel Mission, which was located at the time in Sandside.

Paul Allen

 

Editor’s note: it is not yet clear why Albert Brackenbury’s name is not listed on the Oliver’s Mount memorial.

Lawrence, Henry

by Leave a Comment

Name: Henry Lawrence

Rank: Second Lieutenant

Date of Death: 17/01/1917

Age: 26

Regiment/Service:Yorkshire Regiment 5th Bn. attd. 6th Bn.

Commemorated: Pier and Face 3 A and 3 D. Memorial: Thiepval Memorial

Additional Information: son of the late James and Adeline Lawrence, of 71 Manor Rd, Scarborough.

CWGC reference

Image: © IWM (HU 123929)

Further information by Paul Allen:

Following their heroic attack and subsequent defence on the ‘Stuff Redoubt’ and ‘Hessian Trench’ at Thiepval Ridge the shattered remnants of 6th Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment (on 29 September 1916 the battalion had suffered nearly 400 casualties) were relieved during the night of 30 September by troops from the 25th Division. Shortly afterwards the battle-weary unit had made their way to the rear, to a rest camp at Bouzincourt a village 2 miles to the east of Albert, where the valiant band of survivors (including Captain Archie White who would eventually receive the Victoria Cross for his actions at Hessian Trench) had been afforded some rest.

The battalion eventually moved to the village of Beaumetz where it had received ‘drips and drabs’ of reinforcements throughout October 1916, and by the end of the month the unit had received 19 officers and 427 ‘other ranks’ from the BEF’s base camp at Etaples. Amongst the officers who had joined the battalion had been a 26-year-old who had been seconded to the 6th from the Yorkshire Regiment’s 5th (Territorial) battalion: Second Lieutenant Henry Lawrence.

Born in Scarborough at ‘Somerset Cottage’, No 6 Somerset Terrace, on 22nd November 1890 (baptised at St Mary’s Parish Church on 17 December) Henry was the youngest son of Adeline (formally Turner) and nurseryman James Sidney Lawrence, a widower by 1917 who was the proprietor of ‘Crescent Nurseries’ in Manor Road, and a florists shop in Valley Bridge Parade. [1]

Motherless from the age of 5, Henry was a pupil of Gladstone Road Board School at the time his mother died at the age of 43 on Wednesday, 1 May 1895. At the age of 13 Henry, popularly known as Harry, had been fortunate enough to secure a place at the town’s Municipal School (the equivalent of today’s comprehensive school) that was situated in Westwood. Arriving there in 1903, Harry remained at the ‘Muni’ until 1907 when he left the school to travel to Canada to study at Toronto’s Wycliffe College with a view to being ordained and becoming a missionary. During the summer of 1913 Lawrence travelled to the wilds of the Western Canadian Province of Saskatchewan to assist with missionary work amongst the 300 inhabitants of the small, and curiously-named, town of ‘Eyebrow’ He remained at the settlement until the outbreak of war.

During September 1914 Harry Lawrence enlisted at Montreal as a private into the Universities Company of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. The brainchild of wealthy Montreal businessman Hamilton Gault, the Patricias, named after Princess Patricia of Connaught, the Governor General of Canada’s daughter, was an extraordinary battalion of infantry which recruited mostly from the thousands of ex-British Army and Navy personnel who had settled in Canada in the years before the war.

By the time the battalion had completed its formation only 1 in 10 of the 1,100 recruits was born in Canada. 65 per cent of the recruits were English, 15 per cent Scottish, and 10 per cent were Irishmen. In addition 1,049 of the Patricias had served in the British Army or Royal Navy, and almost half of those had seen war service; between them they wore the ribbons of 721 campaign and service medals. By the time the formation was ready to leave Canadian shores it consisted of 2 sections of ex-Guardsmen, 2 of ex-Riflemen, and 2 of ex-public school boys.

With the minimum of training, Harry Lawrence and the remainder of the Patricias [even in official documents the unit was always referred to as ‘The Patricias’] with their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Buller DSO sailed from Quebec on 27 September 1914 to become the first of Britain’s Empire forces to land in the UK. The Battalion was eventually been sent to the Winchester area during November where it was considered good enough to be incorporated into 83 Brigade of the then forming 27th Division, a formation composed of 12 Regular Army infantry battalions recently arrived in Britain following service in India, Hong Kong, and China. The Division had crossed to France shortly before Christmas 1914 and was eventually sent to the waterlogged St Eloi sector of Flanders during February 1915, where they had existed in appalling trench conditions.

The Patricias subsequently took part in the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April – 24 May 1915) where they had faced repeated frenzied German attacks and suffered terrible losses during the most critical day of the Battle of Frezenberg Ridge on 8 May, when all that stood between the Germans and the capture of the town of Ypres had been a thin line of battle-weary troops drawn from their own 27 Division and the 28th Division (between 23 April and 8 May, 83 Brigade lost 128 officers and 4,379 men). The British line at Ypres was held together by the superhuman efforts of the defenders and shortly after the fighting at Frezenberg, the battle of Second Ypres fizzled out.

Harry Lawrence eventually served with the Patricia’s for 9 months. During that time he was promoted to corporal and he had experienced one or two close calls. On one occasion whilst in the trenches at St Eloi a shell had exploded nearby killing and wounding 5 soldiers who were standing nearby. Lawrence received but a few scratches from the shattered glass of a periscope lens.

Lawrence was promoted ‘in the field’ to Second Lieutenant during early 1916 and shortly afterwards asked for, and received, a transfer to the 5th Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, which contained many men from Scarborough, including Lawrence’s great friend, 37-year-old solicitor’s son, William Andrew Turnbull, who was serving as a Second Lieutenant with the battalion. The two officers served together until 17 July 1916 when Turnbull was killed in action in the Locre Sector of Flanders.

The 5th Battalion was eventually sent to the Somme Sector where they took part in the Battle of Flers/Courcelette (15-22 September 1916) and the capture of the village of Martinpuich on 16 September. Shortly after these engagements Harry took a short leave in Scarborough before returning to France during October where he eventually joined the 6th Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment.

Lawrence joined the 6th Yorkshires on the Somme near to the village of Beaucourt where, during the night of Wednesday, 17 January 1917, the young officer went out into no mans land with 2 others on patrol. One of this party shortly arrived back in the British lines. Badly wounded, the officer reported that Lawrence and his companion had also been injured. Search parties were duly sent into no man’s land to look for the 2 officers but failed to find the injured men. However, a few days later the remains of Harry Lawrence and his companion were located in a water-filled shell hole where their remains had been buried. Although marked on a trench map, by the end of the war Lawrence’s burial site had been lost and his remains have never been recovered from the battlefield.

Harry’s name was eventually added to the Pier and Face 3A and 3D of the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. In Scarborough the missing lieutenant’s name was included on a now (2003) fallen down and broken gravestone in the town’s Dean Road Cemetery (Section A, Row 8, Grave 2), which also bears the names of his Norfolk-born mother Adeline, and Scarborough-born father James Sidney Lawrence, who later died at his home at 71 Manor Road on 22 October 1922 at the age of 78 years.

Henry Lawrence was also commemorated in his old school in Gladstone Road on the ‘Roll of Honour’ that bears the names of 71 ‘old boys’ and 2 women who had lost their lives during the war. The memorial can be found in the hall of the present day Junior School. He was also commemorated on the ‘Roll of Honour’ at the Municipal School, which carries the names of 63 former pupils. Their memorial is now (2003) located in Graham Comprehensive School, in Woodlands Drive. and bears the inscription:

‘To the honoured memory of the old boys who fell in the Great War’
‘Erected by the Old Scholars Club’…

Harry was also a member of the congregation of the now defunct Holy Trinity Church in Scarborough’s Trinity Road, thus Harry Lawrence’s name (and that of his dear friend William Andrew Turnbull) was included on the church ‘Roll of Honour’ which was situated on the south interior wall and window of the church. (At the time of writing, 2003, the church is in the process of being converted into a unit of flats, and the whereabouts of the ‘Roll of Honour’ is not known.) The Inscription on this Memorial had read:

‘To the glory of God and in undying memory of the men from this church and parish who gave their lives in the Great War 1914—1919. This window and tablet have been placed here by their friends and fellow parishioners’…

Henry Lawrence’s is also commemorated in Canada on page 578 of the First World War Book of Remembrance, which is located in a memorial chamber in The Peace Tower, on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, which is maintained by Veteran Affairs Canada.

[1] At the time of the 1891 Census of the population of Scarborough, the Lawrence family resided at ‘Somerset Cottage’ and consisted of: James, aged 37, born at Scarborough; Adeline, aged 39, born Pulham, Norfolk; Arthur, aged 15, Ernest, aged 14, Frank, aged 11, and Agnes, aged 7, (all born at Doncaster); Flora, aged 3, and Henry, aged 4 months, both of whom had been born at Scarborough. Arthur Lawrence, a florist in the family business died at the age of 40 on 26 February 1916. Following a ‘heated argument’ with his father, Arthur had returned to his home at 138 Moorland Road where he committed suicide by hanging. His body was found by his wife, Minnie Theresa Lawrence. Arthur was subsequently buried in Scarborough’s Manor Road Cemetery (Section O. Row 2. Grave O.) with first wife Jessie Lawrence (Arthur had married Jessie Plows at St Mary’s on 6 May 1899 and she had died on 25 April 1910 at the age of 36). Minnie Theresa Lawrence died on 10 April 1933 at the age of 63. This lady’s grave is located on the border of Section W, Grave 75. Henry’s eldest brother Ernest Lawrence died in Scarborough at the age of 93 on 3 August 1970, and he was buried in Manor Road Cemetery with his wife Elizabeth (formerly Alden) who died on 10 January 1958, at the age of 80.

Paul Allen

Graham H C

by Leave a Comment

2nd Battalion, attached 9th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. Son of Christopher Colborne Graham and Mary Johnstone Graham, of Oriel House, Scarborough. Died 1 October 1917. Aged 29.

Commemorated Panel 52 to 54 and 162A, on the Tyne Cot Memorial.

2nd Lieutenant Hugh Colborne Graham was educated at Winchester College. The following information on 2nd Lieutenant Graham appears on the Winchester College website, winchestercollegeatwar. Suzanne Foster, the College Archivist, has kindly allowed this information to be used by The Yorkshire Regiment, the First World War.

Hugh Colborne Graham was the younger son of Christopher Colborne Graham and Mary Johnstone Graham, of Oriel House, Scarborough (formerly of Highmoor, Ilkley). His father was the Mayor of Scarborough. Winchester College lost track of Graham for many years; the Register printed in 1956 recorded only that he was dead with no further details. At some point, however, his name was added to War Cloister. It seems that he left Winchester to go to Giggleswick School, nearer his Scarborough home. Graham attended Leeds University, where he took a BSc, and was described by The Times as ‘an ardent Socialist’.

He was quick to volunteer at the outbreak of the First World War, at first trying to enlist in a New Army battalion forming in Hull, but failed the medical: “His physique was exceptionally good, but he was rejected, much to his disappointment, on account of sight.” He was accepted, however, into the RAMC, and spent two years attached to the Northumberland Fusiliers.

When, at the end of 1916, there was a need for more infantry officers, he volunteered to be trained and was sent on a course at Bristol University. In the summer of 1917 he returned to the front to serve with 9th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, in the Ypres Salient.

He was killed, after hard fighting on 28 September, on 1 October 1917, during the advance on the Menin Road, during the Third Battle of Ypres. He was 29. With no known grave, he is commemorated in panels 52-54 and 162A of the Tyne Cot Memorial.

Further details of Lt Graham’s family and his background can be found on the Scarborough Maritime Heritage website.

Lt Graham is also commemorated on the Leeds University OTC Roll of Honour and on the family grave in Dean Road Cemetery, Scarborough.

CWGC record.

Goodrick, William H

by Leave a Comment

Name: William Herbert Goodrick

Rank: Private

Service No: 46295

Date of Death: 22/03/1918

Age: 19

Regiment/Service: Leicestershire Regiment 6th Bn

Panel Reference:Panel 29 and 30.Memorial: Pozieres Memorial

Additional Information: son of Richard and Jessie Goodrick, of 38 Murchison St, Scarborough.

CWGC reference

 

Paul Allen writes:

By the onset of darkness of the first day of their ‘Kaiserschlacht’, although they had not achieved all of their objectives, the Germans had good reason to be reasonably pleased with themselves. On the British Fifth Army’s front the German infantry had overrun the Forward Zone, and in many places were across, or well inside the Battle Zone. In the south, from La Fere to the Somme Canal, the Battle Zone was already in their hands, and III Corps was making plans to withdraw overnight to a line some 2 miles behind the Battle Zone, located at the Crozat Canal, in the area known as the Rear Zone. The cost of the first day had been high. The Germans had suffered over 40,000 casualties and had inflicted nearly as many on the British who had lost over 38,000 men, of which 28,000 had been made prisoners of war by nightfall.

At 10.50 pm that night British General Headquarters had released a communiqué to the British Press. The ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 22 March 1918 reported:
‘Great German offensive
‘Biggest operations of the war
‘At about 8 this morning after an intense bombardment of both high explosive and gas shells on forward positions and back areas a powerful infantry attack was launched by the enemy by the enemy on a front of over fifty miles, extending from the River Oise, in the neighbourhood of Le Fere, to the Sensee, about Croiselles.

‘Hostile artillery demonstrations have taken place on a wide front north of La Bassée Canal and in the Ypres Sector. The attack, which for some time past was known to be in course of preparation, has been pressed with the greatest vigour and determination throughout the day.

‘In the course of the fighting the enemy broke through our outpost positions and succeeded in penetrating into our battle positions in certain parts of the front.

‘The attack was delivered in large masses, and have been extremely costly to the hostile troops engaged, whose losses have been exceptionally heavy.

‘Severe fighting continues along the whole front … ’

In some places, especially around the village of Epehy, the Germans had indeed come up against some stout resistance, and whilst those back home were reading the largely distorted accounts of the battle in their newspapers that evening a number of men were still waging a ferocious war of attrition against their opponents.

Immediately to the south of 6th Division, the defence of the British line was taken over by VII Corps of Sir Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army. Beginning at the southern end of the so-called ‘Flesquières Salient’, this sector of the front was held by (from north to south) 9th (Scottish), 21st, and 16th (Irish) Divisions. On the first day of the offensive it was the men of the South African Infantry Brigade who had borne the brunt of the German Second Army’s attack on 9th Scottish. Holding Gauche Wood, the men of the 2 South Africans held on to their positions until about mid-day when the 40 surviving members of the unit which had gone into action with a strength of around 130 officers and men, were finally been pushed out of the wood.

South of the South Africans the line was held by Major General D ‘Soarer’ Campbell’s 21st Division, which was responsible for the defence of ‘Chapel Hill’ on the left, ‘Vaucelette Farm’ in the middle, and the village of Epehy on the right. The capture of this sector was considered of vital importance to the Germans because it was through there that they intended to drive the southern arm of the Flesquières Salient.

At Chapel Hill, 1st Battalion, the Lincolnshire Regiment also put up a fierce resistance to the German hordes, and with the help of reinforcements from the neighbouring South Africans managed to hold on to the majority of their most important hill. At Vaucelette Farm, however, standing in a valley between Chapel Hill and Epehy, it was a different tale, and although the farm’s garrison from the 12th/13th Battalion the Northumberland Fusiliers had managed to hold on to their positions for 2 hours, until they were finally ejected by the Germans, also at around mid-day, with the assistance of trench mortars.

Standing between Cambrai and Peronne, and some 15 kilometres to the north of St Quentin, the defence of the tiny village of Epehy was the responsibility of 21st Division’s 110 (Leicestershire) Brigade, which consisted of three battalions: the 6th, 7th, and 8th of the Leicestershire Regiment.

On the morning of the attack, the left hand section of 110 Brigade’s sector (Pezieres to Epehy village) of the line was held by 7th Battalion, and on the right by 8th Battalion, whilst 6th Battalion was held in reserve to the west of Ephey in positions known as the ‘Yellow Line’. An hour before dawn the Leicesters’ front line positions were evacuated as planned thus minimising the risk of the defenders being surrounded and cut off and the number of casualties suffered in the preliminary bombardment. The two front line battalions then took up positions in the ‘Red Line’, a series of concrete blockhouses which had been dotted round the village, where they awaited the arrival of the enemy. They hadn’t long to wait. Lance Corporal Sydney North (7th Leicesters) tells:

‘The fog became less dense; the sun broke through and almost at once the fog cleared, revealing an amazing sight. The foremost of the enemy infantry, completely disorganised by the fog, were trying to get sorted out. Not far behind them came several platoons of infantry moving in solid blocks, four men abreast. Behind them were groups of cavalry coming on at walking pace and further behind, about 600 yards away, were horse-drawn general service wagons and horse-drawn ambulances. It was like a panorama on a huge canvas and we simply could not believe it….

‘The Germans were moving forward as if they expected no opposition. We opened fire. The Lewis Guns got busy and the enemy groups scattered. They had very little cover and no chance of survival … after a while nothing was moving throughout the whole visible front except for a few riderless horses, terrified by the shooting. We could here the screams of stricken horses; I was glad when they eventually galloped away from the scene. We watched, but there was no sign of any further attack and we wondered what had been going on on our right flank.

‘Looking to our right, we could see Jerry troops steadily making their way into territory we had been told was held by the 16th (Irish) Division. About half a mile to our right, we could see the Germans moving forward in single file and many were already well behind us. It was not yet midday. Jerry was moving as if there was no opposition and we reckoned we were in real trouble on the flank …’ [1]

The Leicesters were indeed ‘in real trouble’, and by mid-day they were embroiled in a ferocious fight for life which had lasted throughout the remainder of the day. The War Diary of the 7th Leicesters reports:

‘During the whole of the day the enemy made many futile attacks from NE of Fir Tree Support and Red Line, attempting to bomb down the latter from Squash Trench which he had entered early in the attack. The defence of Fir Support was conducted by 2nd Lieut (William Samuel) Wright with about 20 men against numerous bombing attacks in one of which flamethrowers were used but these were stopped on our wire by rifle fire and the cylinders, catching alight, the enemy were burnt with their own weapons. Good work was done by the whole of this platoon and particularly by Private (Thomas) Hickin who on 2 or 3 occasions walked along the parapet firing a Lewis Gun from his hip at the enemy concentrating in the trenches in the flanks. Private Hickin was eventually killed in making one of these attack … ’ [2]

Soon after the start of the battle Lt Col William Norman Stewart’s 6th Battalion of the Leicesters moved forward in support of their comrades in 7th and 8th Battalions, the three formations holding onto their positions until the afternoon of 21 March when the Germans finally secured possession of the ‘Red Line’, and broke through the 7th Leicesters’ positions in the village of the Pezieres, only to be driven out again by the Battalion’s reserve company aided by 2 tanks, which had both done sterling service until they ran out of petrol, at which point they were disabled by artillery fire.

By dusk the battle at Epehy had descended into a vicious street fight, the ruined houses and lanes lined with trenches providing cover for snipers of friend and foe alike. With the approach of night the enemy’s infantry attacks had slackened whereas the enemy’s artillery bombardment of the village was intensified to prevent the pushing forward of urgently needed reinforcements and supplies to the, by now, beleaguered garrison.

The second day of the ‘Kaiserschlacht’ dawned much the same as the previous day, with a thick fog. Ever watchful for the appearance of an enemy attack, there had been little sleep for the meagre garrison of the trenches in and around Ephey during the night 21 March, consisting of a mixed bag of cooks, typists, bandsmen, and anyone else who could hold a rifle now amongst those preparing for a last-ditch stand in a partially completed line of trenches known as the ‘Brown Line’. Hopelessly outnumbered the ‘Tommies’ must have realised that the end was almost upon them as they once again awaited the arrival of the enemy. Soon after dawn the enemy began a heavy bombardment of the Leicesters’ positions, which was inevitably followed by a series of infantry attacks, once again driven off. However, at 9 am the enemy captured three of the Leicester’s posts on the south-eastern edge of Epehy from where they had advanced through the ruined village.

The gallant stand at Epehy went on until around mid-day on 22 March, when the surviving members of the three battalions of Leicesters were ordered to make a fighting withdrawal to Longavesnes, the 6th and 8th Battalions slipping away through the village of Saulcourt, whilst Captain Vanner and the remnants of 7th Battalion blew up two bridges over a railway cutting just north of Peiziere in the hope of further delaying their pursuing foe.

Having delayed the German advance for over 36 hours the Leicesters’ gallant action at Epehy had obviously been a thorn in the side of the German advance and was described in one German history as a ‘flood breaker’. The 3 battalions of the Leicestershire Regiment had acquitted themselves admirably during 21 (and 22) March 1918. Middlebrook says of their action at Epehy, ‘Few regiments had upheld their reputations so well on this day … ’ [1]

Although the 3 battalions of the Leicestershire Regiment lived to fight another day, the price paid for their indomitable stand had been expensive, and by 30 March it was found that the Leicestershire Brigade had lost 31 officers and 1,200 men, killed, wounded, and missing. Many of the latter were subsequently found to have been taken prisoner during this period; nevertheless, a great many of them were to remain ‘missing’ forever. Amongst them was 19-year-old 46295 Private William Herbert Goodrick.

Belonging to ‘B’ Company of 6th Battalion, the Leicestershire Regiment, William was born during 1898 in the ‘bottom end’ of Scarborough at 69 Eastborough, and was the eighth of 9 children of Jessie and Richard Goodrick, who was employed as a postman. A pupil of St Mary’s Parish School and Friarage Council School, by the outbreak of war William was employed as an errand boy in the South Street shop of local grocers and wine merchants William C Land & Co., still only aged 15 and obviously considered too young for military service. However, by the autumn of 1917, shortly before celebrating his 19th birthday, William Goodrick enlisted into the army at Scarborough’s Castle Road Court House. [3]

Although one would have expected a Yorkshireman to serve in a local regiment, by late 1917 heavy casualties and an acute shortage of recruits had dictated that men like Goodrick, and the throngs of young men (many underage) who joined the army at this stage in the war had little say in the matter of which unit they had served with, thus, by the onset of winter, Goodrick found himself posted to the Leicestershire Regimental Depot at Wigston Barracks (also known as ‘Glen Parva Barracks’), which had been located in Saffron Road, South Wigston*.

Whilst William Goodrick underwent (with the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion) his basic course of infantry training at Leicester, the remnants of the 6th (Service) Battalion were moving from the Ypres Sector (having recently suffered heavy casualties in the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele) to the Cambrai sector where they were intended as reinforcements to help stem the German counter attack of 30 December 1917. Nevertheless, by the time that the division’s various units were in place, the repeated German attacks had petered out and the Battalion spent the remainder of what many would recall as the worst winter in living memory improving the defences of the Epehy district. This was a task which involved digging new emplacements and trenches in front of the village and assisting the Royal Engineers within the village itself with the construction of a series of concrete blockhouses, emplacements, and observation posts which, unknowingly, were to play a very important part in the battle of 21 – 22 March 1918.

At the beginning of January 1918 Private Goodrick was included in a draft of 18- and 19-year-old replacements destined for France to fill the ranks of the depleted 3 battalions of Leicesters.

In the same draft as Goodrick was 18-years-old 41367 Private Frank Pothecary, who would later recall his impressions of their first few days of life at the front:

‘The [6th] battalion was in the line at Epehy and we was at Saulcourt and we had to go up each evening as carrying parties and go out to repair the barbed wire which was very frightening at first. Our officer said ‘don’t worry, if you are going to get it, you wont know anything about it’ and that took some of the fear away … we lived in a deep dugout with two entrances (about thirty steps down). We had to pass through a gas prevention chamber half way down. The beds were wire netting racks, three tiers high, and the only light was a few candles. It was always hot and stuffy. At the top of the steps there was always a gas guard who would beat on a hanging shell case when there was gas about. He would also use a spinning rattle.

‘We had to go down to the front line every day and repair damage and do anything which needed doing, digging latrines etc (never a dull moment). We had three days of this and then the front line. Here we lived in slits cut in the front [beneath] the parapet, and covered with a groundsheet. Food came up in big containers from the field kitchens carried on stretcher type wooden frames, ‘no fires in the line’. At dusk, we had ‘stand to’ and then it was ‘two hours on, four hours off’ to stand on the fire step all night, which was a cold and dreary job. Sometimes great rats run just in front of you and put the wind up you. At dawn everyone ‘stands to’ after which we would have a foot inspection and whale oil would be issued to rub on the feet to prevent frostbite … ’ [4]

(Unlike Private Goodrick, Frank Pothecary survived the German Spring Offensive and the remainder of the war).

Due to the immense disruption caused during the Spring Offensive little is known of the fate of many of the Leicesters who went missing during the initial stages of the operation, whether their remains were buried by the Germans and the graves lost during the remainder of the war, or whether they simply were blown to bits by shellfire is not known. The Goodricks, like most families during the war, never found out what had really happened to their son and had only been told by the War Office, many weeks after the event, that he had been reported as missing in action, a report which had eventually been amended to ‘missing believed killed in action’, probably on the 22ND of March 1918.

Another Scarborough casualty possessing no known grave, the name of Private William Herbert Goodrick (incorrectly recorded by the CWGC as Herbert William) like those of many comrades who were reported missing during the Spring of 1918 was included on the Pozieres Memorial to the Missing along with the names of over 14,000 fellow missing casualties who had fallen in the Somme sector of France from 21 March to 7 August 1918. William’s name can be found amongst the names of the missing of the Leicestershire Regiment who are commemorated on Panels 29 and 30 of the Memorial, along with that of the gallant 25264 Private Thomas Hickin.

As well as the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Private Goodrick’s name is commemorated in Scarborough’s Dean Road Cemetery (Section B, Row 18, Grave 3), on a gravestone which also includes the names of his parents: Jessie Goodrick, who died at her home at 5 Henrietta Court, St Thomas Street, on Sunday, 16 August 1931 at the age of 67 years; and a Scarborough postman for over 30 years, Richard Goodrick, who passed away at 38 Murchison Street on Wednesday, 22 October 1941.

William’s elder brother, Arthur Edward Goodrick, served during the war with the Royal Field Artillery and survived, together with his sister Edith Mary Goodrick who served as a Sister and Staff Nurse.

[1] The Kaiser’s Battle; Martin Middlebrook; Penguin, 1978.

[2] War Diary of the 7th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment; Leicestershire Records Office; 21/318, Wigston. Quoted from page 217 of Matthew Richardson’s ‘The Tigers’; Pen & Sword Books, 2000.

[3] At the time of the 1901 Census of Scarborough’s population the Goodricks resided at 69 Eastborough, the family consisting of Richard, 38 years of age, employed as a postman, Jessie, 37 years, Edith Mary (18), Jane Beatrice (16), Alfred (14), Thomas (12), John Richard (10), Alice (7), Robert Edward (4), William (2), and Jessie, aged 5 months. All were born in Scarborough.

[4] Manuscript recollections, F E Pothecary; Liddle Collections, University of Leeds; courtesy of Richardson’s ‘The Tigers’.

Paul Allen

* Editor’s note: by this stage of the war, with conscription, new locally-recruited men were not placed in local regiments. The growth of the New Army Pals battalions had meant, when they suffered severe losses in action (such as on the Somme), that there was a significant impact on small localities in terms of bereavements. Recruiting was subsequently altered and new enlistments could find themselves in any regiment including, for example, Scots units.

Bielby, Thomas C

by Leave a Comment

Name: Thomas Crawford Bielby

Rank: Corporal

Service No: 241075

Date of Death: 18/01/1918

Age:26

Regiment/Service: Yorkshire Regiment “B” Coy. 13th Bn

Grave Reference:II. D. 12. Cemetery: Mory Abbey Military Cemetery, Mory

Additional Information:Son of John William and Maria Bielby, of Scarborough; husband of Elsie Cordiner Bielby, of 17 New St, Pateley Bridge, Harrogate.

CWGC reference

 

Paul Allen writes:

13 days after the death of Lance Corporal Barraclough, Scarborough also lost: 241075 Corporal Thomas Crawford Bielby.

A member of ‘B’ Company of the 13th (Service) Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, ‘Tommy’ Bielby was born in the town during 1892 at 16a Castlegate, and was the 26-year-old eldest of 6 children of Maria (formerly Crawford) and John William Bielby, a bricklayer by trade, who was living in Scarborough at 31 Norwood Street at the time of their son’s death.

A pupil of Gladstone Road Infant and Junior Schools between 1896 and 1904, at the age of 12 Bielby left ‘Glaggo’ Road to become an errand boy for local grocer Charles Edwards, operating from his shop in Seamer Road. Still employed by Mr Edwards at the time of the 1911 Census, Tommy resided with the rest of his family at 77 Norwood Street. The family consisted of ‘bricklayer’ John William (born 1869), Maria (b1870), John William ‘bricklayer’ (b1894), ‘waitress’ Sarah Jane (b1895), Rebecca, ‘cash desk’ (b1897), Ethel Maria (b1901), and Doris Irene (b1906); all had been born at Scarborough.

Tommy Bielby married his childhood sweetheart Elsie Cordiner Dutchman (the youngest daughter of May and John Henry Dutchman) at St Mary’s Parish Church on Wednesday, 24 March 1915, and 2 months later he enlisted into the Yorkshire Regiment at Scarborough’s Court House, located on the corner of St Thomas Street and Castle Road, (now a Borough Council car park).

As with Alan Barraclough, Tommy Bielby began his army career at the Yorkshire Regiment’s Regimental Depot at Richmond, where he endured the customary 3 months of basic infantry training before being posted to the Territorial Force 2nd/4th Battalion of the regiment, which at the time was part of 189 Brigade of 63rd Division. A pre-war ‘Saturday night’ soldier, Tommy’s previously-acquired military skills soon saw him being promoted to corporal, and he remained in various locations in England with the battalion as an instructor until the end of November 1917, when he was placed amongst a draft of replacements which joined the veteran 13th Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment in France.

Attached to the 121 Brigade of 40th Division, by the time that Bielby joined the battalion’s ‘B’ Company, its remnants had been ‘resting’ near the village of Ervillers, having recently been withdrawn from the operations at Cambrai, where the unit had almost been totally wiped out in the ferocious fighting at Bourlon Wood (of the 24 officers and 450 other ranks who went into the wood on the morning of 23 November 1917, barely 100 all ranks came out 3 days later).

Bielby spent Christmas Day of 1917 in Divisional Reserve at Belfast Camp. 2 days later his battalion returned to the front line near to Ervillers where the men endured the first few days of the new year in conditions which are described by Wylly: ‘During January the weather was very inclement, alternate snow and sudden thaws rendering the communication trenches almost everywhere impassable, and reliefs had to be carried out over the top’. [1]

A soldier who survived barely 3 weeks of active service, Tommy Bielby was amongst the thousands upon thousands of men whose deaths did not warrant a mention in any of the history books. Officially recorded as having been killed in action during Friday, 18 January 1918, the news of Tommy’s demise reached Elsie Bielby [who, by 1918, was residing with their daughter, Elsie (aged 1), at 100 Moorland Road) on Tuesday, 22 January; the tidings were also included in a casualty list that appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 25 January:

‘Killed in action’

‘News has come from the commanding officer that Thomas Crawford Bielby, 100 Moorland Road, was killed on January 19th. He leaves a widow and one child. He was 26, joined up in May 1915, and had been a member of the Territorials. He went to France in December 1917, being Sergeant Instructor prior to going out. He was the son of Mr. Bielby, builder, Norwood Street, and was formerly in the employ of Mr. Edwards, Grocer, who has lost several members of his staff in the war … ‘

The remains of Corporal Bielby were taken some two kilometres to the east of Ervillers, where they were interred in a burial site known as ‘Mory Abbey Military Cemetery’, which was, and still is, located close to the village of Mory (the cemetery is to be found 450m north of the village on the north side of the road to Ecoust-St Mein, opposite a large farm known as L’Abbaye). Tommy’s final resting place is to be found in Section 2, Row D, Grave 12 of the cemetery.

Among the 73 former pupils of Gladstone Road Council School who lost their lives during the war of 1914-1918, Thomas Crawford Bielby’s name was commemorated on the school’s War Memorial, which was unveiled in the Junior Hall on 14 December 1927 by Gladstone Road’s first Headmaster, Mr William Robert Drummond. The memorial takes the form of a large brass plaque bearing the names of the lost pupils (including sisters E W and M M McLaughlin, who died whilst on active service whilst acting as nurses with the Volunteer Aid Detachment), and can still be found in its original place in the Junior Hall of the school.

Tommy’s name can also be found on a gravestone in Scarborough’s Dean Road Cemetery (Section B, Row 15, Grave 34), which also bears the name of his younger sister, Sarah Jane Bielby. More popularly known as ‘Cissie’, Sarah was married in Halifax during 1919 to Alfred J Arnold and passed away on 20 September 1924 at the age of 29 years. The memorial also commemorates Tommy’s mother, Maria Bielby, who passed away at the age of 71 years on 5 June 1942, and his father, John William Bielby, who died at his home at 41 Beechville Avenue on Friday, 30 September 1949 at the age of 81.

The memorial also contains the name of Tommy’s younger brother, John William Bielby, who also served and survived the Great War.

Shortly after Tommy’s death, on Friday, 1 February 1918, Elsie Bielby commemorated her lost husband in the ‘Births, Marriages, and Deaths’ column of that night’s edition of the ‘Scarborough Mercury’;

‘Thomas Crawford Bielby—dearly beloved husband of Elsie C. Bielby, 100 Moorland Road [eldest son of John W. Bielby, Norwood Street], killed in action, January 19th 1918, aged 26 years…

He died unnoticed in the muddy trench—Nay, God was with him, and he did not flinch’

[1] The Green Howards in the War 1914-1918; Colonel H.C. Wylly. (Scarborough Reference Library)

Paul Allen

Barraclough A

by Leave a Comment

Name: Alan Barraclough

Rank: Lance Corporal

Service No: 28388

Date of Death: 05/01/1918

Age: 30

Regiment/Service: Yorkshire Regiment 12th Bn.

Grave Reference: F. 3. Cemetery: St Leger British Cemetery

Additional Information: son of Mr and Mrs Seth Barraclough, of Scarborough; husband of Emily Mary Barraclough, of 8 Friar’s Entry, Scarborough.

CWGC reference

 

Paul Allen writes:

Following the closing down of the ultimately disappointing ‘show’ at Cambrai (20 November – 7 December 1917), the people of the British Isles had very little to celebrate. With feelings running high due to the disastrous outcome of a battle which had started so well, and in the end had cost over 40,000 casualties for precious little gain, the so called ‘season of goodwill’ had found few well wishers amongst a people totally sickened and fed up with a war that had the appearance of having no end. The bad feelings circulating at this point in the conflict were encapsulated in an article entitled ‘New Year’s Eve in Scarboro’ which appeared in the Scarborough Mercury of Friday, 4 January 1918.

’Since the war broke out a steady lessening has come about in the time honoured custom of letting in the New Year in Scarborough. A similar experience is no doubt the lot of the other places throughout the country. These last two year ends have witnessed an almost total collapse of the pre-war observances. As a year ago, there were no bands last night to enliven the occasion, no carol singers, and indeed but the faintest echo of the scenes that used to be associated with the occasion.

‘By comparison the streets were deserted and there was hardly a trace of that exuberant display of animal spirits which used make Westborough and Newborough like a fair until past midnight…A few stayed out to herald the New Year, just keeping up the continuity with the past ‘till the boys come home’…

Whilst their kinfolk back home in ‘Blighty’ endured their winter of unrest in relative safety and comfort, in France and Belgium for the ordinary Tommies of the severely weakened British Expeditionary Force there had been the usual business of life and death amidst the depravations of trench life on the Western Front. Seven days after the ‘New Years Eve’ article above had appeared in the ‘Mercury’ the newspaper reported the death of yet another local soldier:

‘Ex licence holder killed’

‘The sad news has reached his wife of the death in action of Lance Corporal Alan Barraclough, Yorkshire Regiment, ‘Friar’s House’ Friar’s Entry, who only returned to France from leave as recently as three weeks ago. He formerly held the licence of the Elephant and Castle [located in Cross Street], which his wife continued to hold until recently, and two children are also left. His father, the late Mr. Seth Barraclough, who died a few weeks ago, held the licence of the Dolphin Hotel for some years’…

Born during 1887 in the West Riding of Yorkshire city of Huddersfield, 28388 Lance Corporal Alan Barraclough was the eldest son of Scarborough-born Cecilia, and Seth Barraclough. The Barracloughs arrived in Scarborough at the turn of the century from York where Seth had been employed by the North Eastern Railway Company, as a ‘stationary engine driver’. [1]

The family initially lived in the town at 44 Albion Street; however, by the following summer, the family was resident at the ‘Fleece Inn’, located at 11 St Thomas Street, for which Seth held the licence until 1911. The following year he moved to the ‘Dolphin Hotel’ a well known, and still (2006) open ‘bottom end’ watering hole, located at the bottom of Eastborough, where the 21-year-old Allan was employed by his father as a ‘barman’.

During 1913 Alan Barraclough married Scarborough-born (1890) Emily Mary Cape, the fourth daughter of Sarah Ann, and the late (died 1 October 1910) Thomas Postill Cape, a one time ‘ship’s painter, and house decorator’. Shortly after their marriage the Barraclough’s first child, Joseph Mickman, was born. At the outbreak of war in August 1914 the family were living at 6 Vine Street. By this time Allan was the licensee of the Elephant and Castle, located in Cross Street. However, during November 1915 he relinquished this position shortly after the birth of his second child, Irene Mary, to enlist into the Yorkshire Regiment at Scarborough’s Court House (in those days located in Castle Road; the site in 2006 is the car park at the top of St Thomas Street).

Shortly after his enlistment Barraclough was sent to the Yorkshire Regimental Depot located in the North Yorkshire market town of Richmond, where he was kitted out in the standard khaki uniform of the period and introduced to the pleasures of drill, physical training and the various other aspects of military routine which was the lot of the ‘shilling a day’ ‘Tommy Atkins’ of the Great War.

After a short period of training at Richmond, Allan was posted to Cannock Chase on Salisbury Plain where he joined the 12th (Service) Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment. More commonly known as the ‘Teeside Pioneers’, the battalion was raised as a Pioneer Battalion during December 1914 in Middlesborough by the Mayor and Council of the city and, until, August 1916 had undergone specialised training on the outskirts of Middlesborough at Marton Hall, and at Newcastle. However, on 13 August the battalion headed southwards led by its commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel H W Becher, and camped on Penkridge Bank, where the unit was employed in the construction of 4 new rifle ranges.

Although given basic infantry training, the men of a pioneer battalion were composed of a mixture of men adept with pick and shovel (such as miners and road workers) and artisans such as smiths, carpenters, joiners bricklayers, masons and tinsmiths, who were primarily responsible for the construction of trench works and other fortifications, in addition to the repair and maintenance of roads. One battalion of pioneers, usually consisting of around 1,000 officers and men, was allocated to each of the 60 or so divisions of infantry of the British Expeditionary Force serving on the Western Front and duly, at the end of September 1916, the Teeside Pioneers left Cannock Chase for Aldershot, where the unit was billeted in Badajos Barracks. Here the battalion was allocated as the Pioneer Battalion to the 40th Division.

Formed between September and December 1915, the 40th Division had originally been designated as a ‘Bantam’ (named after the small, hardy and highly aggressive fighting cock) formation, one of two New Army Divisions (the other being the 35th Division) which were formed following a request to the War Office from Birkenhead’s MP Alfred Bigland. Bigland instigated the formation of a battalion of infantry from under size men (those less than the regulation 5 feet 3 inches), many of whom had previously been rejected as unsuitable for war service. Within days over 3,000 men enlisted to form two battalions of infantry, designated as the 1st and 2nd Birkenhead Battalions, and which were integrated into the Cheshire Regiment. The idea of Bantam infantry mushroomed, and soon other towns throughout Britain began to recruit undersized soldiers, these men being formed into a number of battalions of infantry, which were consequently formed into the two Divisions.

However, by the end of 1916, the quality of the men enlisting into the Bantams waned from the magnificent men who had joined at the outset and, as a consequence, no more Bantams were  allowed to join the army, with the 35th and 40th Divisions losing their unique identity. By the time that Barraclough and the remainder of the Teesside Pioneers joined the formation it consisted of a mixture of regular- and bantam-sized soldiers.

Inspected by King George V at Laffan’s Plain on 25 May 1916, shortly afterwards the various units of 40th Division began to make preparations to proceed abroad. Having recently carried out musketry training at Pirbright, on 27 May the Teesside Pioneers received their marching orders, and on 1 June the battalion embarked in the SS France at Southampton, destined for the customary ‘unknown destination’, which was inevitably France and the Western Front.

Shortly after their arrival in France the Teesside Pioneer boarded trains which took them to the town of Rely, where they continued on foot to the nearby town of Fouquieres. Almost straight away the battalion’s ‘W’ and ‘Y’ Companies were detailed for work with the 15th Division, whilst Barraclough’s ‘Z’ Company, commanded by Major Wilkinson, found themselves attached to the 1st Division, where, working under the instructions of the Royal Engineers, the men had been set to work in the front line trenches building shelters, clearing fields of fire and digging fire steps. The had continued with this sort of work throughout the remainder of 1916, and worked in various sectors of the front as a consequence.

By September 1917 the Teesside Pioneers were employed in the repair of roads in the Fins area of northern France. During the middle of the month the battalion was subjected to a heavy gas and high explosives attack, which resulted in the unit losing 18 men. Badly affected by gas fumes during this bombardment, Barraclough had been out of action until the end of November, by which time the 40th Division had taken part in the abortive Cambrai Offensive. The story of the Division’s gallant efforts in the capture of Bourlon Wood has already been told [see ‘Byng’s Bombshell’] and although not so actively involved as the infantry during the affair, the Teesside Pioneers had nonetheless done sterling service during the operation, employed in the wiring of the newly captured enemy positions and the repair of the many shell-torn and vital roads in the area.

Barraclough rejoined his battalion early in December, by which time the unit had moved to the village of St Leger, where the Teesside Pioneers were employed in repairing the road between St Leger-Croisilles, and Fontaine Notre Dame. Winter had set in by this time, and their work was more often than not hampered by severe frosts, followed by a thaw, which in turn was followed by very wet weather. At the beginning of the New Year the Pioneers were repairing the rain-weakened parapet of the front line trenches close to St Leger, where, on Saturday, 5  January 1918, L Cpl Barraclough’s life was snuffed out almost instantly by a single sniper’s bullet.

The only fatality incurred by the Teeside Pioneers during the early part of January 1918, the remains of Alan Barraclough were conveyed to a burial ground near to St Leger which had been used by the various fighting units and Field Ambulances located there at the time. After the war it was named by the then Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission as ‘St Leger British Cemetery’. This Cemetery, located down a track to the north west of the village, now contains the graves of over 150 casualties of the Great War; Alan Barraclough’s grave is located in Grave 3 of Section F.

In addition to the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, as a former member of the congregation of Scarborough’s St Peters Roman Catholic Church, Alan Barraclough’s name was included on the church’s war memorial, a Portland stone, gothic-style crucifix which was originally been set on a 4-sided plinth of Irish limestone, sculpted by a York man named George Walter Milburn (considered one of the greatest sculptors of his era, much of Milburn’s work is to be found in York Minster, he is also responsible for the statues of Queen Victoria in York Art Gallery, William Etty outside the gallery, and that of George Leeman in Station Avenue, York). The St Peter’s memorial contains the names of 31 former members of the church who lost their lives during the First World War. The memorial was unveiled and dedicated by Dr Richard Lacy, the Bishop of Middlesborough, during the morning of Sunday, 26 July 1925.
(At the end of the Second World War the names of another 11 former members of St Peter’s, including one female (ATS Mary Sadler) were added to the memorial. It was built at a cost of £400; however, during 1985, the monument was rebuilt in black marble on its original base, at a cost of £2,400.

Alan’s name can also be found on two gravestones in Scarborough’s Dean Road and Manor Road Cemeteries. The first is located in Dean Road Cemetery (Section G, Row 4, Grave 22), which also commemorates his father, Seth Barraclough, who passed away at the age of 57 at 3 Alma Parade on Friday, 9 November 1917. Commemorated as ‘a flower transplanted’, the stone also bears the name of Alan’s youngest sister, York-born Annie Lake Barraclough, who died, also at 3 Alma Parade, at the age of 19 on 4 October 1920.

This memorial also includes the name of the Barracloughs’ youngest son, Joseph Gregory, also born at York, who passed away at the age of 35 during December 1925. Alan’s mother, Cecilia Barraclough, survived all her family and died ‘peacefully’ at 3 Alma Parade on Friday, 9 January 1948 at the age of 82. She was interred in the grave in Dean Road Cemetery during the morning of Tuesday, 13 January 1948 following a Requiem Mass, which had taken place at St Peters Church prior to the interment.

The second memorial containing Lance Corporal Barraclough’s name is located in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery (Section W, Row 3, Grave 2), and also bears the name of Alan’s only daughter, Irene Mary. Popularly known as ‘Rene’, she was the wife of Joshua Kramer until her death at the age of 25 on Wednesday, 25 July 1941. For many years after her Alan’s death Emily Mary Barraclough lived with her 2 children, Joseph Mickman and ‘Rene’, at 33 Friargate, a house they shared with Emily’s younger sister, Lizzie Pricilla Brackenbury (formerly Cape), who was also been a ‘war widow’. (Lizzie had been the wife of 940/DA Deck Hand Albert Victor Brackenbury, Royal Naval Reserve, who had died whilst serving in HM Trawler ‘Principal’, from the effects of Bronchopneumonia in the Rosyth Naval Hospital, at the age of 24, on 25 November 1918. Albert was subsequently interred in Scarborough’s Dean Road Cemetery; his grave is located in Section E, Row 27, Grave 33).

Lizzie Brackenbury passed away at the age of 69 on Tuesday, 3 April 1962, and was buried in the grave at Manor Road following a service at the Bethel Mission, located at the time in Sandside. Emily Mary had continued to live in the house in Friargate until her death exactly 54 years to the day after that of her beloved husband, on Wednesday, 5 January 1972, at the age of 82. The remains of Emily Barraclough were interred with those of her daughter and sister during the afternoon of Monday, 10 January 1972 following a service at the Bethel Mission in Sandside. The memorial to the devoted husband and wife also contains the inscription: ‘Re-united’.

[1] During the 1901 Census the Barraclough family resided with Cecilia’s parents, 69-years-old, Irish-born plasterer, Joseph, and Liverpool-born wife Bridget Mickman (aged 60). The family consisted of: Seth Barraclough, aged 60, born York (Long Moor), occupation: ‘Stationary Engine Driver’; Cecilia, 35, born Scarborough; Alan, 13 years, born Huddersfield; Joseph, 8 years. and Annie M, age 1 (both born at York).

Paul Allen

Remember Scarborough Partnership

Logo here

News