Scarborough 1914-18

Scarborough through the First World War remembered

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Pottage, John

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Name: John Pottage

Rank: Private (assumed, to be verified)

Service No: SE 11204

Regiment/Service: Royal Army Veterinary Corps (att Royal Field Artillery)

 

Paul Allen writes:

Despite being aged over 50 at the outbreak of war, Tom Pottage’s father, John Pottage, enlisted into the army soon after the outbreak of war and served with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps (Regimental Number SE 11204) in France on attachment to 280 Brigade, the Royal Field Artillery.

Unlike his son, John survived to return to Scarborough following his demobilisation in 1919.

John Pottage was a well-known Scarborough cab driver who, by 1918, resided in the town at 59 Seaton Terrace, Hibernia Street.

John Pottage and Clara Fox were married in Scarborough’s St Mary’s Parish Church on 16 January 1895. At the time of the 1901 Census the family were still living at 6 Wrea Lane and consisted of John, aged 34 years, cab driver, Clara, 29 years, Tom (recorded as ‘Harry’) (5), Emma (‘Minnie’?) (aged 4). All were Scarborough born. The family was later augmented by Clara (1902), John (popularly known as ‘Jack’, born 1905, died 1969), George (born 1909, died 1983), and Frederick Albert (born 1910, died 1992), and Frances (1914). Jack Pottage served in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War, when he was torpedoed twice whilst on convoy duty.

Paul Allen

Ward, Robert W

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Name: Robert William Ward

Rank: Gunner

Service No: 761223

Date of Death: 28/01/1917

Regiment/Service: Royal Field Artillery “C” Bty. 317th Bde.

Grave Reference: I. H. 11. Cemetery: Varennes Military Cemetery

CWGC reference

 

Paul Allen writes:

On Sunday, 28 January 1917 Scarborough lost 761223 Gunner Robert William Ward.

Born in Scarborough during 1889 at 5 William Street, ‘William’ was the eldest son of Rachel (formerly Dixon) and ‘Shipwright/Carpenter’ Thomas Ward. Living in Scarborough in 1911 at 19 William Street with his widowed mother and sisters Carrie (born 1885), Jessie (1894), and brother Sam (1895), by the time of the Census, Sunday, 2 April, 21-year-old William was employed as a ‘Gardener’s Assistant’.

Robert William Ward enlisted into the Territorial Force 2nd Line Royal Field Artillery (RFA) at Scarborough’s St John’s Road Barracks during 1915 where he was initially issued with the Regimental No of 1284. Eventually attached to ‘C’ Battery of 317 Brigade of the RFA, William served in France in the Somme Sector with this unit until 25 January 1917 when he was badly injured in an accident. He was evacuated to the 47th Casualty Clearing Station located near the village of Varennes where, 3 days later, he died from the effects of his injuries.

(317 Brigade of the RFA was stationed at Scarborough’s St John’s Road Barracks before the war and went abroad with the 2nd (Northumbrian) Division during April 1915, when it took part in the Second Battle of Ypres that was fought between 22 April and 25 May 1915. The brigade was subsequently attached to the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division and served on the Western Front with this famous formation until the Armistice).

The news of Robert William’s death was published in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 9 February 1917:

‘Pick strikes buried bomb’
‘Soldier’s death from wounds’…

‘The sad news was received by his mother at 19 William Street, that Gunner R.W. Ward, R.F.A., has died in France from wounds caused by his pick striking a buried bomb. A letter from his officer, Major Watson, states that he had been one of a party digging a dugout on 25 January, when his pick struck a buried bomb and he was badly injured. The letter states he had died on January 28, and tenders the deepest sympathy of the officer. Sergeant Broadrick, in a letter, gives the date of the accident as the 26 January. He says every possible aid and attention was given at the time of the accident and he was quickly removed in a motor ambulance to the hospital. ‘We can ill afford to lose such a valuable man’. Gunner Ward was 24 years of age, and had been in France about seven months. He was formerly with Messrs Lawrence*, florists, Valley Bridge Parade’…

*The family business of Lieutenant Harry Lawrence.

Following his demise on 28 January 1917, the remains of Robert Ward were interred into a burial ground used by the various Casualty Clearing Stations located at Varennes during the war and located on the outskirts of the village. It is today known as ‘Varennes Military Cemetery’, and contains the graves of 1,218 casualties of the Great War. Robert’s final resting place is located in Section 1, Row H, Grave 11.

In addition to the Oliver’s Mount War Memorial, elsewhere in Scarborough Robert William Ward is commemorated on the large stone ‘Roll of Honour’ located on the north interior wall of St Mary’s Parish Church that contains the names of 156 former members of the Parish of St Mary’s who lost their lives whilst on active service during the Great War of 1914-1919.

Paul Allen

Stonehouse, Herbert

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Name: Herbert Stonehouse

Rank: Private

Service No: 28092

Date of Death: 21/03/1918

Regiment/Service: West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own) 1st Bn

Panel Reference: Bay 4. Memorial: Arras Memorial

CWGC reference

 

Paul Allen writes:

During the dry, fine, moonlit night of 20 March 1918 the area immediately behind the German lines came alive as over 1 million men along with over 10,000 guns and mortars began to assemble in their assault positions. The first to move was the artillery, many of the guns having not yet been moved into their battery positions. Each gun with its already prepared stock pile of ammunition was heaved into position manually by the gunners who, following their labours, had settled down to grab what sleep they could before the beginning of the bombardment at 4.20 am.

For 50 miles, from the village of Cherisy down to La Fere, the German front line trenches were crammed with storm troopers and infantrymen, trench mortar men, machine gunners, and men armed with flamethrowers. Behind the front stood the main force of the artillery, along with the various pioneer and medical units that were to accompany the assault teams. Behind these were the second wave units awaiting their turn to go into action in ruined villages and farms and, behind, these a massive 77 reserve divisions stood in readiness.

On the British side of the wire life went on pretty much the same as usual depending on how seriously local commanders viewed the situation. A number of patrols were, however, sent out find if anything was happening. Some came back to report having not seen or heard anything untoward, whilst others told of finding gaps in the wire and of hearing the rumble of moving vehicles and guns. Nevertheless, 2 miles to the north of St Quentin, a patrol from the Royal Warwick’s was sent out on reconnaissance into the German trenches and had returned with a machine gun and around 13 men from various German units. These men freely told the assembled group of British officers that they were assault troops and were due to take part in a large operation scheduled to begin in a few hours time, and that the artillery bombardment would begin at 0400 hours. The prisoners also pleaded to be taken to the rear of the British lines with all speed– please!

Despite the warnings the British did not order ‘Man Battle Stations’, and did little apart from opening a desultory artillery fire on the German lines. Apart from the occasional explosion of a British artillery shell the night remained quiet. There had been, of course, not a sound from the German side of the wire and many survivors would later recall the lack of flares throughout the night, which the Germans usually made much use of. However, despite no outward signs of trouble brewing, most of the British troops spent an uneasy night waiting for whatever the morrow might bring.

A dense fog developed soon after midnight of 20/21 March compounding the eeriness of the night. At 3.30 am on Thursday, 21 March 1918, British artillery opened fire on likely enemy troop concentration areas. However, 60 minutes later, soon after 4.30 am, the roar of the British guns was engulfed by the tumultuous thunder of the largest bombardment of the war, as over 6,000 enemy artillery pieces began to saturate the fronts of Third and Fifth Armies with gas and high explosives.

‘So intense was the bombardment that the earth around us trembled. It was a dark night, but the tongues of flame from the guns – 2,500 British guns replied to the German bombardment – lit up the night sky to daylight brightness. Mixed up with the high explosive shells crashing on our trenches were the less noisy but deadly gas shells. Trenches collapsed, infantry in front line positions, groping about in their gas masks, were stunned by the sudden terrific onslaught … Machine gun posts were blown sky-high – along with human limbs. Men were coughing and vomiting from the effects of gas, and men were blinded…’ [1]

The enemy bombardment was scheduled to last for 5 terrible hours, and designed, by its sheer weight and ferocity, to stun the defenders, destroy communications and silence artillery. The first 2 hours of the German artillery fire had concentrated mainly on the saturation of the British artillery positions in the ‘Battle Zone’ with gas. This was followed by a 3 hour bombardment with a mixture of gas and high explosives on the positions in the Forward and Battle Zones, focussing on the infantry stationed in the front positions. The situation in these positions at the end of the bombardment was one of total chaos. Underground cables were severed causing a loss of communications between the front and the various divisional headquarters, and also between the front and the artillery positions. This poor state of affairs was exacerbated by the fog, which prevented any visual communication by SOS flare, and also by air observation.

At Zero Hour (9.40 am) the bombardment was replaced by a ‘creeping barrage’, which heralded the advance of the infantry, spearheaded by stormtroopers. Equipped with sub-machine guns and flamethrowers, the storm troopers found the front line garrison virtually annihilated. The survivors, blinded by the fog and forced to wear gas masks for hours on end, first became aware of the infantry assault at the point where their positions were engulfed by the leading waves of what many would later call the ‘grey avalanche’: hordes of field grey-clad German infantry. Despite the apparent hopelessness of trying to hold out in the face of such overwhelming odds some units in the Forward Zone tried to make a stand but these were soon crushed and few men made it back into the Battle Zone.

Amongst the units which took part in that dreadful first day of the onslaught of the German Spring Offensive was 1st Battalion, the Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment). Attached to Fourth Corps of Sir Julian Byng’s Third Army, the battalion belonged to 18 Brigade of 6th Division which held over 4,000 yards of the front line near the village of Morchies.

Positioned close to the extreme left flank of the German 18th Army’s assault, the battalion, along with the remainder of 18 Brigade (2nd Durham Light Infantry and 11th Essex Regiment) nonetheless put up a stiff defence of the 2,000 yard perimeter until the late afternoon of the 21st, by which time the Brigade had virtually ceased to exist. Almost out of bombs and ammunitio,n the surviving members of the Brigade was ordered to make a fighting retreat to Fourth Corps’ ‘Defence Line’, which was to the east of Morchies. Scant records were – understandably – made at battalion level that day and, as a consequence, very little is known of what actually happened to the 1st West Yorkshires during that momentous day.

However, it is known that at around 10 am that day, the battalion’s Commanding Officer (Lieutenant Colonel A M Boyall) had reported that the enemy was advancing towards his positions in ‘masses’, and by midday he sent another more urgent message asking for more small arms ammunition. Unknown to him, by this time the enemy had almost surrounded 18 Brigade’s position and the ammunition was never sent. At 3 pm Boyall again telephoned stating this time, ‘… if no reinforcements were forthcoming the remains of the Brigade would fight it out to the last in the reserve line, for the situation was hopeless and retirement impossible …’ [2]

For 3 more desperate hours the tattered brigade held out against overwhelming odds. By 6.50 pm all of the formation’s bombs and most of the ammunition was used up; at this point Boyall ordered all the surviving men to make a fighting retreat to the Corps Reserve Line which was situated to the east of Morchies. Thankfully shrouded in a thick fog, the soldiers began their fight through the enemy’s line, stating afterwards that ‘… directly the withdrawal began the enemy, in great numbers, followed in rear, while violent machine gun fire from both flanks, swept the ground over which the intrepid troops of 18 Brigade were retiring, thus giving no chance for an organised retirement …’ [2]

In other words, a rout had taken place, and it became a case of every man for himself as the handful of survivors fought their way towards the flimsy British line of resistance. By 7.30 pm during the evening of 21 March the Brigade’s survivors made it to the Corps Line where they were ‘very badly handled’ by enemy fire until the evening of 22 March when the gallant band, numbering around 50 men by this time, were finally driven out of their positions to retreat through Morchies to a line which was tenuously held behind the village.

During the evening of 22/23 March the remnants of 18 Brigade were relieved in the line, the men marching back to the relative safety of Achiet le Petit, where the pitiful remains of the once proud battalion assembled for the customary post battle calling of the roll. This revealed that of the 30 officers and 639 men of the 2nd DLI who went into action a couple of days earlier, only 2 officers and 22 other ranks answered to their names being called. The 11th Essex consisted of 5 officers and 70 other ranks out of 25 officers and 501 men. The situation was little different with 1st West Yorkshire which had gone into battle on the morning of 21 March with a complement of 24 officers and 639 other ranks. By the end only 1 officer and 18 other ranks remained.

531 officers and men of 1st Battalion The West Yorkshire Regiment, including Lt Col Boyall, were reported as missing in action. Amongst them was 30-year-old 28092 Private Herbert Stonehouse.

Born in Scarborough on 6 June 1888, at 74 Trafalgar Street West (known locally as ‘Penny Black Lane’), Herbert was the eldest son of Sarah and Johnson Stonehouse, a ‘general labourer’, who was still living in Trafalgar Street West during 1918. [3]

A pupil of the Central Board School between 1892 and 1902, Herbert left the school at the customary age of 13 to become an errand boy in the Gladstone Road shop of local ‘grocer, provision dealer and Italian warehouseman’ William Vasey and remained in his employ until 1910 when Herbert began work in the Westborough shop of ‘family grocer, tea dealer, and provision dealer’, John Rowntree & Sons. However, by the outbreak of war, Stonehouse was employed in the grocery trade in the City of York, where he enlisted into the West Yorkshire Regiment during September 1915.

Initially stationed at York’s Fulford Barracks with the regiment’s 13th (Reserve) Battalion, Stonehouse remained in England until December 1916. During this time he was married by special licence on 27 June 1916 at Scarborough’s Bar Church to Clara, the 25-year-old eldest daughter of Elizabeth and Frederick William Nundy, who were residing at the time at 23 Roseberry Avenue.

During late December Stonehouse was placed amongst a draft of replacements for battle casualties sustained by the 16 battalions of the West Yorkshire Regiment which were serving in France and Belgium at that time, and he eventually joined 1st Battalion (one of two pre-war regular army formation belonging to the West Yorkshire Regiment) in Northern France, near to the town of Béthune, where the battalion manned the front-line trenches in the ‘relatively quiet’ Cambrin Sector of the Western Front.

Stationed at Lichfield at the outbreak of war, the 1st West Yorkshire’s landed at St Nazaire on 10 September 1914 with the 6th (Regular Army) Division in time to assist the hard pressed British Expeditionary Force in the fierce fighting on the Aisne. Soon moved up to the Ypres Sector, the battalion took part in many of the operations on the Western Front subsequently, including the recently shut down (November) Somme Offensive of 1916, where 1st West York’s had been involved in the Battles of Flers/Courcelette (15 – 22 September), Morval (25 – 28 September], and Transloy Ridges (1 – 18 October), where on 12 October the battalion sustained heavy casualties in a futile attack on 2 German-held positions known as ‘Misty’ and ‘Cloudy’ Trenches. This resulted in the sorely depleted battalion being forced to move from the Somme to the relative quietness of the Béthune area to recuperate.

The next 6 months of Herbert Stonehouse’s life were spent in the positions near Cambrin. Although described as a ‘comparatively quiet part of the line’, life there for Private Stonehouse and his comrades was far from tranquil. The battalion’s historian describes it as follows:

‘Months of trench warfare, at times of a very strenuous nature, now lay before the West Yorkshiremen, and from the Battalion Diaries it is evident that in 1917, despite the fact that the enemy was kept busy in other sectors of the line along the British front, he was nonetheless aggressive, and raids and counter-raids were frequent, whilst constant vigilance was necessary; bomb actions, heavy artillery bombardments, sniping and machine gunning took place at all times, while the repair of trenches and improvements of the defences occupied the troops during the brief periods when they were not otherwise engaged.’ [2]

Spared from the bloodbaths of the Arras Offensive (March – May 1917) and the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) (July – November 1917), the 1st West Yorkshire’s next large-scale operation was the Cambrai ‘affair’ which began on 20 November 1917. During the night of 19/20 of November, 18 Brigade assembled to the south-west of the village of Beaucamp from where at Zero Hour the following day the formation launched its attack on the Brigade’s allotted objectives, namely: the capture of the ‘Hindenburg Front line system’; secondly, the ‘Blue Line’ (a line running between the Hindenburg Main and Support Lines), including the village of Ribecourt; and, thirdly, the Hindenburg Support Line.

The Brigade’s operation was very successful, all units taking their objectives for very little loss, with the 1st West Yorkshire’s by the end of the day being ensconced in positions on ‘Premy Chapel Ridge’ for the loss of just 1 man killed [57928 Private Henry Govens] and 2 officers and 11 men wounded. As a whole, the 1st West Yorkshire’s played no further part in the Cambrai Offensive, the unit remaining in their positions on the ridge above Premy Chapel until the evening of 24 November, when Stonehouse and the remainder of the battalion moved back to billets at Ribecourt.

The men of the 1st West Yorkshire’s spent the winter of 1917 either digging new trenches or repairing old ones. On 12 December the men of the battalion boarded buses, which transported them to billets at Blaireville. 3 days were spent in relative comfort there; however, on 16 December the battalion took over a sector of the front line opposite the German-held village of Riencourt, where the men had been set to work digging a new trench system.

Christmas was spent in Blaireville, where the unit received Christmas greetings from the regiment’s Commander in Chief, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales (who was in Italy at the time). Soon afterwards, on 27 December, the battalion moved to the Moeuvres sector where, until 17 January 1918, the men ‘enjoyed a well-earned rest’. This rest period was followed by a spell in the front line at Moeuvres ‘ … where several days of quietude were spent. The enemy appears to have been inactive though both sides were vigilant … ’

The battalion remained in the front line at Moeuvres until 13 March 1918, when the formation moved up into the right sub-sector of the front at Morchies, and where the unit remained in relative peace until the start of the German Offensive 8 days later (during the night of 20 March the Battalion’s War Diarist had recorded ‘ … quiet day and night … ’).

Having already lost a brother to the war, Clara Stonehouse [4] was no stranger to the shock of hearing that a loved one was missing. Nevertheless, one can barely begin to imagine her reaction on the terrible day in April when she received word that her husband had reportedly been lost in fighting to the south of Pronville, probably on 21 March. The terrible tidings were later included in a lengthy casualty list that appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 26 April 1918:

‘Missing’

‘Official news has been received by his parents, 74, Trafalgar Street West, that Private H. Stonehouse, West Yorks, who is married, has been missing since March 21st. He has been in France for about two years’

No further news of Herbert’s fate was received until the beginning of July when Clara Stonehouse received information from the War Office telling her that her husband had been killed in action on Thursday, 21 March. Once again the news was featured in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ (Friday, 5 July 1918).

‘Missing man now reported killed’.

‘Mrs. Stonehouse, of 25 Roseberry Avenue, has received official news that her husband Private H. Stonehouse, of the West Yorkshire Regiment, who was reported missing on the 21st of March, is now reported to have been killed on that date. He has been in France for two years and was over on leave in February. He joined from York, where he was in the employ of a firm of grocers. Previous to which he was employed at Messrs. Rowntrees, grocers, Scarborough’…

Despite numerous post war searches of the Arras battlefield undertaken by the then Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, no remains of a soldier, identifiable as those of Herbert Stonehouse, have ever been found. To the present day still ‘missing in action’, Herbert’s name can be found on Panel 5 of the Arras Memorial. Located in the Faubourg-d’Amiens Cemetery in the western part of the city of Arras, the Memorial commemorates the names of almost 35,000 British, New Zealand, and South African servicemen who, like Private Stonehouse, lost their lives in the Arras Sector between Spring 1916 and 7 August 1918 (excluding casualties of the Battle of Cambrai) and for whom there exists no known grave.

A year after the death of her husband Clara Stonehouse placed an epitaph in the ‘In Memoriam’ section of the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 21 March 1919;

‘In loving memory of Private H. Stonehouse, West Yorkshire Regiment, the beloved husband of Clara Stonehouse, 25 Roseberry Avenue, who fell in action March 21st 1918. People think that that we forgot them when they see us smile. But they little know the sorrow the smile hides all the while. —From his loving wife’…

As well as the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, in Scarborough Herbert’s name is commemorated on a gravestone in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery (Section L, Row 19, Grave 28), which also commemorates the name of his younger brother, Francis Richard Stonehouse. Born in Scarborough during 1893, Frank also served during the war, as a Private (Regimental Number 205713) in the Labour Corps. Gassed during 1917 he died prematurely at the age of 31, from the effects of mustard gas, at the family’s home at 74 Trafalgar Street West on Monday, 11 August 1924 (interred on 14 August).

Herbert’s father, Johnson Stonehouse passed away (also at 74 Trafalgar Street West) aged 78, on Sunday, 5 September 1937 (interred on 8 September); his mother, Sarah Stonehouse, also died in the house in Trafalgar Street West on Thursday, 26 April 1945 (interred 30 April), at the age of 82. Both of their names are also featured on the gravestone.

Despite extensive research the fate of Clara Stonehouse is not known. Whether she remarried or moved away from the town is uncertain, as her name does not appear in any of Scarborough’s post-war electoral rolls. One can only hope that she found happiness at some stage in her later life.

[1] Machine Gunner 1914-18; C E Crutchley (editor) Bailey Bros & Swinfen; Folkestone; 1975.

[2] The West Yorkshire Regiment in the Great War 1914-18; Volume 2 1917-18; Everard Wyrall; The Bodley Head Ltd. London.

[3] Johnson Stonehouse and Sarah Horner married at St Mary’s Parish Church on 17 April 1886. At the time of the 1901 Census they lived in Scarborough at 74 Trafalgar Street West, the family by this time consisting of Johnson, aged 40, employed as a ‘general labourer’ born Scarborough, Sarah, aged 38, born Scalby, Annie E, daughter (14), Herbert, son (12), Francis R son (7); all the children were born in Scarborough. (At the time the family was recorded as living with Johnson’s father, Samuel Stonehouse, a widower aged 74, occupation also listed as ‘general labourer’.)

[4] Clara’s 19-year-old brother, 241315 Private Harold William Nundy, was also killed in action.

Paul Allen

Sails, Joseph H

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Name: Joseph Henry Sails

Rank: Private

Service No: 23967

Date of Death: 20/01/1917

Age: 35

Regiment/Service: Yorkshire Regiment 12th Bn.

Grave Reference: C. 19. Cemetery: Rancourt Military Cemetery

CWGC Reference

Paul Allen writes:

Raised at Middlesborough, North Yorkshire, during January 1915 the 12th (Service) Battalion [Teesside] of the Yorkshire Regiment was unofficially a ‘Pals’ battalion. Possessing at the time only two officers (the Commanding Officer, Major (temporary Lt Colonel) H W Becher and Quartermaster, Honorary Lieutenant J W Best) orders were eventually received for the new battalion to be organised and trained as a Pioneer Battalion. Consequently those recruited for the unit were a mixture of men experienced with picks and shovels, miners, road men, and labourers, plus skilled artisans, such as fitters, carpenters, blacksmiths, engine drivers, tinsmiths, bricklayers, and masons.

According to the History of the Battalion:

‘The training quarters were especially comfortably established at Marton Hall Camp (on the outskirts of Middlesborough) and the battalion was in a measure fortunate in having come into existence somewhat later than the majority of the battalions of which the New Armies were composed, for by this time practically everything was forthcoming that was needed for the large numbers of soldiers that had been recruited’…[1]

After a few weeks at Middlesborough the battalion was moved to Gosforth, in Northumberland, where the unit was accommodated in billets. The battalion eventually numbered a 140 ‘all ranks’, and since recruits were still arriving it had been authorised to form a depot company that would eventually supply the parent battalion with reinforcements once they had ‘gone abroad’. On 13 August 1916 the battalion received orders to move to Cannock Chase, in Staffordshire, where they made camp on Penkridge Bank.

Whilst there the battalion built four new rifle ranges which  provided enough accommodation in butts and firing points to enable over 200 men to fire at any one time. From Cannock the ‘Teesside Pioneers’ were sent to Badajos Barracks at Aldershot where they joined the 40th (Bantam) Division as the Divisional Pioneer Battalion. In addition to their Pioneer duties the ‘Teessiders would be expected to fight if the need arose so, during December 1915 the Pioneers were moved to Pirbright, in Surrey, where they underwent musketry training. [2]

By the middle of May 1916 the 40th Division had completed training and were ready to ‘proceed abroad’. On 25 May the formation was inspected on ‘Laffans Plain’ by HM King George V. Two days later the Teesside Pioneers were mobilised, and sailed from Southampton in the Transport SS France during the evening of the 1 June 1916. The battalion arrived at Le Havre early the following morning.

Unlike infantry battalions which, on the whole, remained with their allotted divisions, the pioneer battalions, on account of their skills and expertise, were often transferred temporarily to other divisions from time to time. This was the case with the Teesside Pioneers. Shortly after the battalion arrived in France the 4 companies of the formation were sent to various divisions to work under the orders of the Royal Engineers on the front line trenches, making shelters, clearing the field of fire, making fire steps, etc.

Spared from the carnage of the early operations of the Somme offensive, the Teesside Pioneers arrived in the sector during November 1916. On 14 November the battalion arrived at Bayencourt where they were attached to the 31st Division that was in the Hebuterne sector. However, on the 20th of the same month the unit was again moved via Halloy, Autheulle, and Berneil to Ailly-le-Haut Clocher, where the men were at last afforded some rest.

Of this period the History of the Battalion says:

‘This quiet period only lasted until 8 December, when the battalion moved by rail and road and by Longpre, Pont Remy, Maricourt, and Bray to Maurepas, where it came under the orders of CRE (Commander, Royal Engineers) XV Corps for work and was chiefly employed in repairing the Combles-Fregicourt and the Combles-Rancourt roads, incurring here some few casualties, and on the 25th rejoining the 40th Division and going back to trench repair work, the trenches here being in places waist deep in mud and water.’ [1]

This work continued well into the year 1917, for it was 27 January before the 12th Green Howards went back to a camp about 3 miles from Bray. During this tour in the Bouchavesnes North and Rancourt Sectors the battalion lost 5 other ranks killed and 19 men wounded. Amongst them was 23967 Private Joseph Henry Sails.

Killed in action on Sunday 21 January 1917 at the age of 38, Joe Sails was born in Scarborough on 22 October 1879 (baptised at St Mary’s Parish Church on 3 February 1887) at 3 Wrea Street. He was the third of five children of Sarah (formerly Tindall) and ‘Bricklayer’ Thomas Brooksbanks Sails. [3]

A pupil of Scarborough’s Central Board School in Trafalgar Street West (now Genevieve Court), Sails left the school at the age of 12 to begin a Bricklayer’s apprenticeship with local builder John Jaram, and with whom he was working in 1899 at the time of the outbreak of the war in South Africa. Joe enlisted into the Second Volunteer Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment at their Headquarters in North Street and he volunteered for service in South Africa at the beginning of January 1900, joining the Regiment’s First Battalion at the Cape during April.

Sails served in South Africa until the end of the war in 1902 and eventually arrived back in Scarborough to live with his widowed mother and sisters Sarah and Maud at 6 Sussex Street. For his services in South Africa, Joe received the King’s and Queen’s Medals with the clasps: ‘South Africa 1900-1902’; ‘Pretoria’; and ‘Brandfort’.

Joe was married in Scarborough during 1905 to Miss Ann Gosling, the second daughter of ‘Bricklayers Labourer’ William and Ann Gosling. By the time of the 1911 Census the 31-year-old Joe Sails is described as being employed as a ‘Boarding House Porter’ and lived at 108 Nelson Street with wife Ann and their three children Frances Hannah, born 1906, George Henry, 1908, and Allan, 1910. Joe eventually secured a job with the General Superintendent’s Office of the North Eastern Railway at West Hartlepool, where he used his bricklaying skills to maintain the various railway bridges owned by the NER between Middlesborough and Stockton.

At the outbreak of the Great War Joe was working at Middlesborough where he enlisted into the Teesside Pioneers during 1915.

Ann Sails received the news of her husband’s death on Wednesday, 24 January 1917 in a letter that had been written by Joe’s former Company Commander (Captain A C Mildred), which stated that he had been killed 3 days before by ‘the bursting of a shell in a trench’.

Joe Sail’s name eventually appeared in a casualty list that was published in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 26 January 1917.

Officially recorded as being killed in action on Saturday, 20 January 1917, Joe Sails’ remains were buried in Rancourt Military Cemetery, which is situated in fields on the southern outskirts of the small Somme village of Rancourt, where his final resting place can be found in Section C, Grave 19 of the cemetery.

In addition to the Scarborough War Memorial, Joseph Henry Sails’ name can be found on a gravestone located close to the Columbus Ravine entrance to the town’s Dean Road Cemetery in Section A, Border, Grave 11, which also bears the name of Joe’s eldest daughter, Frances Hannah. Born in Scarborough during 1906, Frances was married in the town during 1928 to Charles H Rumford. However, this marriage was short-lived for Frances died on 29 May 1929 at the age of 23 whilst giving birth to son Charles Henry.

Born in Scarborough on 6 November 1881, Joe’s wife, Ann Sails, eventually remarried in the town during 1942 to Alexander Taylor, and lived for many years at 74 Nelson Street. Ann died on 4 March 1974 at the grand old age of 92; her name is also commemorated on the stone in Dean Road Cemetery.

Joe Sails is also commemorated on the North Eastern Railway’s Memorial located in Station Road in the City of York. Designed in 1921 by the renowned architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, this fine memorial was unveiled in 1923 and commemorates the names of over 2,000 employees of the Company who lost their lives during the First World War. Joe’s name could at one time have also be found in a ‘Book of Remembrance’ in the foyer of the former NER Headquarters across the road. However, this building (in 2012) is now a hotel and the whereabouts of this book is not known to the author.

[1] Once a Howard Twice a Citizen by Colonel Wade Tovey MBE TD and Major Tony Podmore MBE TD

[2] The 40th Division was formed at Aldershot during September 1915 and included units recruited in England, Scotland and Wales. Most of the men of the division were under the regulation height (5 ft 3 in) required for enlistment into the British Army and were thus named ‘Bantams’.

[3] At the time of the 1891 Scarborough Census the Sails family consisted of Thomas B. aged 37, Sarah, also aged 37, John William aged 15, George Tyco Brooksbanks (born 10 September 1876) aged 14, Joseph Henry, aged 11, Sarah Frances Elizabeth (born 1 January 1884), aged 7, and Maud Mary Hannah, aged 2. All were born at Scarborough. (George, Joe, and Sarah were all belatedly baptised at St Mary’s Parish Church on the same day, 3 February 1887). John William died in Scarborough at the age of 18 during 1893.

Paul Allen

Pottage, Thomas H

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Name: Thomas Harry Pottage

Rank: Corporal

Service No: 761213

Date of Death: 19/03/1918

Regiment/Service: Royal Field Artillery “C” Bty. 317th Bde.

Grave Reference: P. VI. D. 2B. Cemetery: St Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen

CWGC reference

 

Paul Allen writes:

By the beginning of another year of an extremely bitter and costly war the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium had quite simply run out of soldiers. Despite the introduction of conscription during 1916 fewer able bodied men had come forward and, by 1918, the army had begun to see the arrival of undernourished, poorly-built 18- and 19-year-olds who would never have been accepted for army service during the preceding years.

At the beginning of the year Haig (British Commander in Chief) asked the British War Cabinet for 334,000 reinforcements to see him through the immediate future. However, by March 1918, he had been sent just over 174,000 troops, most of whom were conscripts. To offset the deficiency in able-bodied troops Haig ordered the disbandment of 115 battalions of infantry and the amalgamation of a further 38 to form 19 full strength units. In addition, 7 more infantry battalions were formed into pioneer battalions to offset another deficit, an acute shortage of labour.

The German Army in France and Belgium on the other hand had been augmented by 33 divisions of first class troops, mostly grizzled veterans of the ferocious fighting on the Eastern Front who had been released to the Western Front following the collapse of the Russian and Rumanian war effort during December 1917. Despite outnumbering the British and French forces on the Western Front by 192 divisions to 156, the Germans were well aware of the arrival in France of the first elements of the massive American army which, by the beginning of December 1917, numbered some 130,000 troops on French soil.

Also knowing full well that the introduction of the convoy system was enabling the British to weather the German U-Boat campaign, the German military leaders resolved to seek a decisive victory in the west sometime during 1918 before the Americans could make their presence felt. Accordingly, Ludendorff (German joint Commander in Chief) had begun to make plans for a last ditch campaign, which eventually became known as the ‘Kaiserschlacht’, or ‘Imperial Battle’.

The ‘Kaiserschlacht’ operations were formulated during a meeting between Ludendorff and the Chiefs of Staff of the Army Groups belonging to the Crown Prince Rupprecht and the German Crown Prince. One idea put forward was for an attack to be made in Flanders, but the need to wait for the all-essential dry weather, perhaps in April, meant an unacceptable delay for this sector. Another offensive was considered for Verdun; Ludendorff, however, considered an attack at Verdun to be unacceptable as he thought it unlikely that the British would come to the aid of the French and he might therefore be faced with a second battle in Flanders.

Stressing that his available forces were only sufficient for one offensive only, Ludendorff suggested an offensive to be mounted further to the south, in the St Quentin area of northern France. Nothing concrete was arranged during this meeting and, over the next few weeks, the Generals mulled over their options. A further meeting between the German Generals took place at the end of December but, once again, nothing definite had been arranged. Nevertheless, during this meeting, the operations at Verdun were abandoned and preparations put in motion for possible offensives near the towns of Armentières (code-named ‘George’), Ypres (‘George 2), Arras (‘Mars’) and, on either side of St Quentin, (‘Michael’).

On 21 January 1918 Ludendorff finally made up his mind to undertake the ‘Michael’ operation as his main spring offensive. Over the next few weeks the detailed plans of ‘Michael’ were drawn up, with 21 March being set as the start date. Ludendorff’s plan of battle called for the Seventeenth Army, on the right wing of the operation and commanded by General Otto Von Below, along with the Second Army, under General Von Der Marwitz (both from Prince Rupprecht’s Army Group), to attack south of Arras, pinching off the salient which the British had occupied at Flesquières, near Cambrai, since November. These two armies were then to advance towards Bapaume, and Peronne, thence across the old Somme battlefield, to a line between Albert and Arras, before swinging north westwards in a gigantic left hook that would envelope Arras in the process.

On the left wing of the attack, General Oskar Von Hutier’s Eighteenth Army from Crown Prince Wilhelm’s Army Group, was given the task of advancing beyond the River Somme and the Crozat Canal to protect the flank of the offensive, defeating any French reserves which might be brought from the south and driving a wedge between the French and British forces. Once a significant success had been achieved south of Arras, the second phase of the operation, ‘Mars’, would be launched. In addition, planning for the ‘George’ operation had also been allowed to go ahead as an alternative operation should the Michael plan fail.

Throughout the winter of 1917-18 the Germans began a huge retraining programme in an effort to bring more units up to the standards set by the special assault battalions, or ‘Storm Troops’. Around a quarter of the old German infantry divisions were redesignated as ‘attack divisions’ and given the pick of new equipment, including the recently introduced light sub-machine guns. The remaining three-quarters of the German forces, mostly containing older men, were designated as ‘trench divisions’, which would chiefly be employed with holding the line during the forthcoming battle. The spearhead of the assault would be the so-called ‘Storm Troopers’. Their task would be to find the weak points in the opposing defences where they were to cause as much disruption and confusion as possible in the rear areas by deep penetration and envelopment tactics.

Probably the most important element of the initial assault would be the artillery. Carefully orchestrated fire plans had been designed around short, sharp ‘hurricane’ bombardments of immense weight and intensity, using predictive shooting. These so called ‘hurricane’ bombardments were to consist of high proportions of gas shells to neutralise, and silence, enemy gunners, whilst also paying particular attention to the disruption of the enemy’s lines of communications and assembly areas far behind the front areas.

Everyone, from Tommy Atkins to Douglas Haig, on the British side of the wire, knew that the Germans were up to something and at some point would attack the British lines during the new year, but the trouble was no one knew when or where. Throughout the first 2 or so months of 1918 there were no major operations and the Western Front had settled into an unusually quiet state. On 16 February Haig met with his army commanders at his HQ in the town of Doullens to discuss the uneasy state of affairs. The general feeling amongst the assembled officers was that they could hold their front. Haig thought that the attack might fall on a large front stretching from Lens to the River Oise. Another conference was held on 2 March where it was revealed that intelligence sources had indicted the attack would be aimed at General Sir Julian Byng’s Third and Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army fronts, which stretched southwards from Arras to the River Oise.

By the beginning of March 1918 the British defences on the Western Front were based on the German system of 1917 involving three zones of defence known as the ‘Forward’, ‘Battle’, and ‘Rear’. The ‘Forward Zone’ was the existing front line whilst the Battle Zone was usually 1 or 2 miles behind the Forward Zone, 2,000 – 3,000 yards in depth and containing two thirds of the artillery. This was the place where, should the Forward Zone be overrun, the enemy’s advance would be brought to a halt using, if necessary, all available reserves. The Rear Zone (sometimes known as the ‘Green Line’) was between 4 – 8 miles behind the Forward Zone and was the final line of resistance should all else fail.

It had become increasingly evident that something big was in the wind. British suspicions were further reinforced on 8 March when the Germans fired a series of test artillery barrages on positions held by the Royal Naval Division upon Flesquières Ridge, which caused many casualties. 4 days later the testing was continued with the Germans subjecting the division’s positions to a daylong bombardment with 200,000 ‘Yellow Cross’ (mustard) gas shells. [1]

The brunt of this attack was borne by the Hawke and Drake Battalions which, between them, lost over 970 officers and men between 12 – 21 March (the total number of casualties suffered, mostly due to gas, by the Royal Naval Division during this period was over 2,300 officers and men).

Also amongst those affected had been members of the RND’s various support units, in particular the gunners of the four attached brigades of artillery (315 – 318). Amongst 317 (2/3 Northumbrian) Brigade’s many casualties was 22-year-old 761213 Bombardier Thomas Harry Pottage of ‘C’ Battery.

Tom was born in Scarborough at 6 Wrea Lane during 1895 (baptised at St Mary’s Parish Church on 17 October], and was the eldest of seven children belonging to Clara and John Pottage, a well-known Scarborough cab driver who, by 1918, resided in the town at 59 Seaton Terrace, Hibernia Street. [2]

A former pupil of St Mary’s Parish, and Friarage Board Schools, at the outbreak of war Tom was working in the Gladstone Lane warehouse of local drapers, John Tonks & Sons, whose store was located in Scarborough at 104-105 Westborough. Also a part-time gunner in the Scarborough-based (St John’s Road Barracks) Territorial 2 (Northumbrian) Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery, Tom was mobilised for war along with the remainder of Britain’s armed forces during August 1914. However, being aged only 18 by this time Tom was considered too young for Foreign Service and was transferred during September 1914 to the newly-formed 2/3 (Northumbrian) Brigade of artillery, which was subsequently attached for coastal defence duties, to the 63rd (2nd Northumbrian) Division.

Pottage remained with this unit, serving in the north-east of England, until July 1916 when the division’s four artillery batteries were transferred to the newly-designated 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, which by this time had seen much bitter fighting in the Gallipoli campaign and on the Western Front. Tom had become a veteran of all of the RND’s operations since his ‘baptism of fire’ during the gruesome operations on the Ancre (Somme) during the winter of 1916.

Pottage, and hundreds of other gas casualties, was evacuated to the large group of allied hospitals which were situated to the south of the city of Rouen, where he was admitted into No 2 British Red Cross Hospital. Little is known regarding the extent of Tom’s ‘wounding’; nonetheless, the degree of suffering he may have endured can be gauged from an account written by a nurse serving in France.

‘Gas cases are terrible. They cannot breathe lying down or sitting up. They just struggle for breath, but nothing can be done. Their lungs are gone – literally burnt out. Some have their eyes and faces entirely eaten away by gas and their bodies covered with first degree burns. We must try to relieve them by pouring oil on them. They cannot be bandaged or touched. We cover them with a tent of a propped up sheets. Gas burns must be agonising because the other cases do not complain even with the worst wounds but gas cases are invariably beyond endurance and they cannot help crying out. One boy today, screaming to die, the entire top layer of his skin burnt from face to body …’ [3]

It is said that only 2 per cent of gas victims died, usually as a result of secondary complications such as pneumonia, and thus was the case with Thomas Pottage, who passed away during Tuesday, 19 March 1918. The news of her beloved son’s death reached Clara Pottage by Saturday, 23 March; the tidings being featured in a casualty list that appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 28 March:

‘Died from gas poisoning’
‘News was received on Saturday that Gunner Thomas Pottage R.F.A., 59, Seaton Terrace, has died on the 19th inst. from the effects of gas. He was single and prior to joining up worked for Messrs. Tonks and Sons. His father Sergt. John Pottage, A.V.C. is serving in France’. [4]

Shortly after Pottage’s demise, his remains, and those of many more dead gas casualties, were transported to the Hospital’s burial ground known as St Sever Cemetery Extension, located some 3 kilometres to the south of Rouen. Tom’s final resting place is located in Section P 4, D, Grave 25.

A year after Tom’s death an epitaph to a fallen son had appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 21 March 1919;
‘In loving memory of our dear lad, Corporal Thomas Pottage, R.F.A., who was killed in France March 19th 1918.

A devoted son, a faithful brother, One of God’s best towards his mother, He bravely answered duty’s call, He did his best for one and all…From his loving mother, Dad, sisters, and brothers’…

Apart from the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Thomas Pottage is one of a handful of World War One casualties to be commemorated in Scarborough’s Woodlands Cemetery, on a grave marker in Section B, Row 10, Grave 34, which also bears the names of his Scarborough-born (1866) father John Pottage. The eldest son of Tom and Esther Pottage, John had passed ‘peacefully away following a long illness’ at his homage at 31 Oak Road, at the age of 75, on Monday, 13 October 1941. Also included on the stone is the name of Tom’s Scarborough-born mother, Clara Pottage, who died at 31 Oak Road, on Tuesday, 17 January 1950 at the age of 77.

 

[1] Looking like an oily-brown sherry and smelling of onions or garlic (some said radishes), the so-called ‘Yellow Cross’, or more commonly known ‘Mustard Gas’, was introduced by the Germans onto the Western Front during July 1917. It was considered a ‘humane’ form of gas in that its aim was to harass rather than kill. Nevertheless, the gas was the most potent gas to be used during the war. It could lay dormant in the bottom of a trench for many days and 2 hours after exposure to just one part of the gas in 10 million parts of air caused fearful injuries to its victim.

[2] John Pottage and Clara Fox were married in Scarborough’s St Mary’s Parish Church on 16 January 1895. At the time of the 1901 Census the family were still living at 6 Wrea Lane and consisted of John, aged 34 years, cab driver, Clara, 29 years, Tom (recorded as ‘Harry’) (5), Emma (‘Minnie’?) (aged 4). All were Scarborough born. The family was later augmented by Clara (1902), John (popularly known as ‘Jack’, born 1905, died 1969), George (born 1909, died 1983), and Frederick Albert (born 1910, died 1992), and Frances (1914). Jack Pottage served in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War, when he was torpedoed twice whilst on convoy duty.

[3] ‘I saw them die’, Nurse S Millard. Harrap, 1933.

[4] Despite being aged over 50 at the outbreak of war, Tom’s father, John Pottage, enlisted into the army soon after the outbreak of war and served with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps (Regimental Number SE 11204) in France on attachment to 280 Brigade, the Royal Fieled Artillery. Unlike his son, John survived to return to Scarborough following his demobilisation in 1919.

Paul Allen

Johnson, Wiliam

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Name: William Johnson

Rank: Lance Corporal

Service No: 1696

Date of Death: 10/01/1917

Age: 16 (CWGC reference; true age 27 – see below)

Regiment/Service:Yorkshire Regiment 1st/5th Bn.

Grave Reference: II. B. 6. Cemetery: AIF Burial Ground, Flers

Additional Information: son of Mrs Grace Johnson, of 64 William St, Scarborough.

CWGC reference

 

Paul Allen provides further information:

Badly mauled during the Battle of Morval (25-29 September) the sorely depleted ranks of the 1st/5th Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, eventually withdrew ‘to rest’ at the Somme village of Bazieux where the Battalion began to receive the drafts of replacements to replace the over 300 casualties sustained in an assault on enemy trenches at Eaucourt L’Abbaye during the above operations. Remaining at Bazieux throughout the Christmas of 1916, training and repairing roads, the 5th Yorks returned to the front line in the Somme Sector at Mametz Wood on 1 January 1917. One can barely comprehend the miserable conditions facing the Yorkshiremen.

’The battlefield, under torrents of rain, had already assumed that forlorn and desolate appearance which ever after remained, burnt in upon one’s brain – a vision of living torture. The very earth stank of gas and was discoloured by the fumes of bursting gas shells. The countryside (if so it could be named) was a vast mass of shell holes overlapping each other in the tens of thousands; already they were full of noisome water, putrid from the dead bodies of friend or foe for whom a burial had been given. The fetid stench from the rotting carcasses of horses, or the poor remains of Briton or German torn from their hastily dug graves by shell fire and tossed here and there to await the mercy of fresh internment, filling the nostrils as one passed to or from the front line’…[1]

Under almost continual shell and sniper fire whilst in Mametz Wood, on 10 January 1917 the 5th Battalion lost 1696 Lance Corporal William Johnson.

Born in Scarborough at 60 Nelson Street during 1890, William was the 6th of 7 children of ‘tinsmith’ Joseph and Grace Johnson. William worked in Scarborough’s fishing industry as a fish curer and packer prior to the war. Whilst living with his parents at 64 William Street, William enlisted into the 2nd/5th (Territorial) Battalion of The Yorkshire Regiment at Scarborough shortly after the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914. After training. he eventually joined the 1st/5th Battalion in the Ypres Salient during November 1915.

Remaining in Belgium until August 1916 the 1st/5th Battalion left the dreaded ‘Wipers’ Sector to arrive in the equally murderous Somme Sector during September 1916 where, on 10 September the Battalion went first into the line at Mametz Wood. On 15 September, Johnson and the remainder of 2/5 Yorks was involved in an attack on the village of Martinpuich which, although captured with relative ease, cost the Battalion dearly. Relieved during the following day, Johnson and his battle-scarred comrades moved to Bazentin-Petit Wood where they occupied the old German front line there until they eventually took their places for the Battle of Morval later that month.

Killed by enemy shellfire, William Johnson was aged 27 at the time of his demise (the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database for some obscure reason incorrectly records his age as sixteen years) and unmarried. His remains were initially interred in a small battlefield burial ground known as ‘Factory Corner Cemetery’ located near the village of Flers in the Somme Sector. However, after the war, his remains, and those of a further 15 British and 13 Australian casualties were re-interred in the much larger AIF Burial Ground located some two kilometres to the north of the village of Flers. Containing the graves of over 3,000 casualties of the Great War [over 2,000 of which are unidentified] William Johnson’s final resting place is located in Section 2, Row B, Grave 6.

Included in a casualty list that was included in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 26 January 1917, William Johnson’s was subsequently included on Scarborough’s Oliver’s Mount War Memorial. Elsewhere in the town his name can be found on a large ‘Roll of Honour’ located on the north interior wall of St Mary’s Parish Church. [An impressive gravestone located in Scarborough’s Dean Road Cemetery [Section A/ Border/ Grave 31] bears the names of William’s parents: Joseph, who died on 19 April 1928 at the age of 75 years; and Grace Johnson who passed away at the age of 76 years on 2 March 1931. This memorial also contains the name of their second son, James Johnson, who died on 9 March 1920 at the age of 49 years. Sadly, William’s name is not recorded].

Paul Allen

[1] The Green Howards in the Great War 1914-1919; Colonel H C Wylly.

Harman, Charles A

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Name: Charles Abraham Harman

Rank: Lance Corporal

Service No: 28694

Date of Death: 22/03/1918

Age: 34

Regiment/Service: 18th (Queen Mary’s Own) Hussars

Panel Reference: Panel 5. Memorial: Pozieres Memorial

Additional Information: Husband of Alice Harman, of 41 Elmville Avenue, Scarborough.

 

Paul Allen writes:

It was during Thursday, 22 March 1918 that another resident of Scarborough – and a veteran of the Boer War – also lost his life. Born at 9 Forsyth Street in Rotherhythe, South East London, during 1883, 28694 Lance Corporal Charles Abraham Harman was the 5th of 6 children and son of ‘Shipwright’ Henry and Eliza (formerly Caney) Harman. [1]

Following the death of his father at the age of 48 during 1884, Charlie and the remainder of his family resided in Rotherhythe at 14 Neptune Street with grandparents Luke and Emily Caney; he lived at this address until his enlistment into the army of Queen Victoria at London on 20 September 1898.

Aged 18 years and 8 months by 1898, Harman had already been a soldier in the Militia (the predecessor of the Territorial Army), in 3rd Battalion, the East Surrey Regiment. At his enlistment he described himself as a ‘labourer’. Given a rudimentary medical it was noted that he had measured at 4 feet 4½ inches in height, and possessed a ‘fair’ complexion, ‘blue grey eyes, and ‘red’ hair. Enlisting for ‘short service’ (7 years with the colours and 5 in the Reserve Army), into the East Yorkshire Regiment (The Duke of York’s Own), Charlie duly joined the Regiment at its Regimental Depot, located at Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Consisting of universally moustachioed soldiers (in Harman’s day it was forbidden by military law for men to shave above their upper lip) who drank, brawled, and womanised in every garrison town from Beverley to India, the Regular Army East Yorkshire Regiment (the Duke of York’s Own) had been raised in 1685 as Sir William Clifton’s Regiment of Foot, and nicknamed ‘The Snappers’. At the time that Harman joined the Regiment it consisted of two battalions of infantry, the First and Second, which had alternated between service in the United Kingdom and abroad.

Issued with the Regimental Number of 5900, Charlie began his service at Beverley on 21 September 1898 and he remained in training there until the following year. An inkling of harshness of the conditions Harman endured during that initial period of his army training is described by another recruit of the period;

‘The military vocabulary, minor tactics, knowledge of parts of a rifle, route marches, fatigues, semaphore [signalling], judging distance, shooting lectures on esprit de corps, and on the history of our regiment, spit and polish, drill, saluting drill, physical training, and other, forgotten subjects were rubbed into us for the worst six months of my life … In time we effaced ourselves. Our bodies developed and our backs straightened according to plan … Pride of arms possessed us, and we discovered that our regiment was a regiment, and then some’…(Private John Lucy; ‘Tommy’; Richard Holmes).

Despite the hardships, unlike many others, Charlie Harman survived the course to ‘pass out’ of recruit training on 9 January 1899 when he was posted to the 2nd Battalion, East Yorks. Stationed at Ireland at Templemore and Tipperary until late 1899, by the start of 1900 the 2nd battalion had arrived back in England to be stationed at Aldershot where the men began to hear rumours of the battalion being sent to the ‘troubles in South Africa’. Sure enough, during February 1900, the men of 2 Battalion (commanded at this time by Lt Col W W Ward) had exchanged their customary smart scarlet tunics for khaki ’Service Dress’, their equally impressive blue cloth helmets for khaki drab cork sun helmets and, by 14 March the battalion had arrived at Southampton where it embarked ‘for foreign service’ in the SS Nile.

After coaling at St Vincent, the Nile arrived at Cape Town during the morning of 3 April 1900, and soon the men of the battalion entrained for Kimberley and the start of their war in South Africa.

Charlie Harman remained in South Africa until January 1903 when, by March of that year, he was once again stationed at Tournay Barracks, North Camp, Aldershot. On 26 March he was amongst 14 officers and 170 men of 2nd East Yorks who were presented with the Queen’s South Africa Medal with clasps bearing the Battle Honours of ‘Cape Colony’, ‘Transvaal’, and ‘Wittenburgen’. In addition he also received the King’s South Africa Medal bearing the clasps’1901’, and ‘1902’. Posted back to the Depot at Beverley soon afterwards, Charlie remained there until 1910. During this time he extended the length of his service to 8 years with the colours and, in exchange, he was awarded the Good Conduct Badge. Married in Beverley’s St. John’s Church on 27 June 1908 to Beverley-born (1882) ‘spinster’ Alice Fallowfield, the couple began living in Beverley at 10 Vicar Lane with Alice’s parents, ‘cabinet maker’ Thomas and Emily Ann Fallowfield. Charlie and Alice eventually became the parents of two children: Alice Dorothy, born at Beverley on 28 July 1908; and Harry Charles, born on 25 September 1909.

By the time of the 1911 Census the 28-year-old Charlie was once again serving abroad with ‘F’ Company of 2nd East Yorks at Fyzabad in India. However, by the following year he had served for 12 years with the colours and he was soon making his way back to the Regimental Depot at Beverley where he was discharged from the army on 19 September 1912.

By the outbreak of the ‘Great War’ the Harman family was residing in Scarborough at 41 Elmville Avenue. By this time Charlie was employed as a ‘vanman’ by local confectioners Messrs Stuart & Co. However, upon the outbreak of war in August 1914, Charlie was not amongst the army reservist that called back to the colours hours after Britain’s declaration of war with Germany and he remained a civilian until 5 April 1915 when he enlisted for war service with the 18th Hussars.

Instead of joining his old regiment Harman, by then an experienced handler of horses, elected to serve in the cavalry and he was duly assigned to the 18th (Queen Mary’s Own) Hussars. Initially posted to the Cavalry Depot at Tidworth for training with the 11th Reserve Cavalry Regiment (Regimental Number 28694) Charlie eventually joined the 18th Hussars in France during 1916. He served in the majority of the major actions of the war, albeit on the sidelines whilst awaiting the all-important breakthrough of the German line that never materialised until the final stages of the war.

During the desperate days of March 1918, as had often been the case, the 18th Hussars exchanged their cavalry role for that of the infantryman and were thrown into the line wherever they were most needed at the time, therefore it has proved impossible to ascertain where on the Somme Sector Charlie Harman, and the majority of his cavalrymen, were serving at the time of his demise on 22 March 1918.

Aged 34, and promoted to the rank of corporal at the time of his death, the news of Charlie Harman’s demise was reported in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 12 April 1918:
‘Killed in second war’

Corporal C. Harman, Hussars, 41 Elmville Avenue, has been killed in action. He was twelve years in the East Yorks, and took part in the South African War, for which he had two medals and several bars. He rejoined April 5th 1915 having been a vanman of Messrs. Stuart and Co. for seven years. He was a great lover of horses and many knew him for the care lavished on any animal in his charge. He was thirty five years of age and leaves a widow and two children … ’

No remains identifiable as those of Charlie Harman have ever been located on the Somme battlefield and his name was subsequently included on the Pozieres Memorial to the Missing. Located in the Somme Department of Northern France, the Pozieres Memorial is situated a little to the south of Pozieres, a village 6 kilometres north east of the town of Albert. It consists of a series of name-engraved stone panels set into a rubble stone wall surrounding Pozieres British Cemetery. Designed by W H Cowlishaw with sculptures by Laurence A Turner, the Memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930 and contains the names of over 14,000 British and 300 South African servicemen who died on the Somme during the period from the German Spring Offensive of 21 March 1918 to the beginning of the Advance to Victory, 7 August 1918, and who have no known grave. Charlie’s name can be located on Panel 5 that is dedicated to the officers and men of 18th Hussars who lost their lives during that period.

In Scarborough, Charlie Harman’s name is commemorated on Oliver’s Mount War Memorial and on the large stone and marble ‘Roll of Honour’ located on the north interior wall of St Mary’s Parish Church that also contains the names of a further 155 former members of the parish who lost their lives whilst on active service during the Great War of 1914-1918.

[1] ‘Widower’ Henry Harman and ‘Spinster’ Eliza Caney were married in Bermondsey at St Mary Magdalene’s Parish Church on 15 July 1873. Although given the name of Abraham Charles Harman by his parents, Harman had always served under the name of Charles Abraham. He is also commemorated in Scarborough, and by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission by this name, and it is, therefore, the name I have used in the text.

Paul Allen

Davison, Albert

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Name: Albert Davison

Rank: Private

Service No: 34486

Date of Death: 22/03/1918

Age: 27

Regiment/Service: Leicestershire Regiment 11th Bn.

Panel Reference: Bay 5. Memorial: Arras Memorial

Additional Information: son of Stephen and Patty Davison, of 27 Nelson St, Scarborough; husband of Eva May Davison, of 11 Victoria Rd, Scarborough.

 

Paul Allen writes:

Another of those killed during the second day of the ‘Kaiserschlacht’ was 27-year-old 34486 Private Albert Davison.

Born in Scarborough at 4 Bedford Street during 1891, Albert, popularly known as ‘Bert’, was the fourth of five children of Martha (‘Pattie’) and Stephen Davison, who was variously employed as a ‘coal porter, labourer’, and by the turn of the century as a ‘greengrocer’, the family living in Scarborough at 54 North Street. [1]

A pupil of Scarborough’s Central Board School between the ages of 4 – 13, Bert left the school during 1904 to work initially in the family greengrocery business, the family living by this time at 109 Prospect Road. By the outbreak of war, however, Bert was working in the grocery trade at Derby; nevertheless, Bert returned to Scarborough during 1916 to be married at Bar Congregational Church on Thursday, 14 December to Eva May Hall, the 26-year-old daughter of Eliza and shoemaker, George Hall. Bert Davison and his bride set up home with elder brother Fred and Frances Caroline Davison, at 108 Moorland Road (where Albert and Eva’s only son, also to be named Albert, would be born on 21 April 1918).

‘Called up’ for war service during June 1916, Davison was enlisted into the army at the Sherwood Foresters Depot in Derby on 21 May 1917 where, despite expressing a preference for service with the Royal Flying Corps, the 27-year-old was recruited into the Leicestershire Regiment. Bert served between 21 May and 25 September 1917 at Leicester’s Wigston Barracks with the Regiment’s 3rd (Reserve) Battalion until he was posted to the 7th (Service) Battalion of the Leicesters. Davison embarked for France at Folkestone on 25 September 1917. Arriving in France the following day, Davison duly joined his new battalion, which was serving on the Western Front with 110 Brigade of 21st Division. Bert remained with the 7th Leicesters until 8 February 1918, when he was posted to the 11th Leicesters.

One of 68 battalions of Pioneers which had been raised during 1915 to provide skilled labour for the newly formed Kitchener’s ‘New Army’ Divisions, by the time that Bert Davison joined the unit, the 11th Leicesters (dubbed the ‘Midland Pioneers’, and commanded by Lt Col Charles Turner) were stationed in France at Fremicourt from where the unit’s four companies were engaged in various work assignments at nearby Lagnicourt, including digging deep dugouts, the construction of a light railway, and scraping and cleaning of roads.

The battalion was still at Fremicourt on the opening day of the ‘Kaiserschlacht’. The battalion’s War Diary of 21 March reports:

‘12.10 am Received orders from Division to ‘Stand to’.

‘In the Vaulx –Morchies Line

‘Companies in position by 5 am ….

‘The enemy attacked heavily after an intense bombardment (which lasted from about 05.00 am) at 08.00 am and established themselves in position in front of the wire of the Vaulx-Morchies Line by the evening … ’[2]

Unfortunately, 11th Battalion’s War Diary records no further details of the action on 21 March except to report that at 5-30 pm Battalion Headquarters had, ‘Received message from Sgt. Barratt, acting Company Sergeant Major of ‘D’ Company, to the effect that all the officers of his company had become casualties and that he was in command of the company…Six officers and about 30 other ranks were sent up from H.Q. to reinforce ‘D’Company’…[2]

During the morning of Thursday, 22 March the surviving Midland Pioneers were ordered to retire to the so-called ‘Army Line’. The move was completed by mid-afternoon. Evidence suggests that during this operation only 1 man, possibly Bert Davison, was killed: ’Transport moved to Pioneer Camp, Logeast Wood, one man of the transport was killed by shellfire … ’ [2]

Like the relatives of all the casualties at this chaotic stage of the war, Eva Davison was initially informed that her husband had been reported as ‘missing in action’ and she lived for some time with the hope, like most of his relatives, that Bert had been taken prisoner. Whilst eagerly awaiting news of her husband, on Sunday, 21 April, Eva gave birth to a son, the happy occasion being marred some days later by the arrival of the official notification of Bert’s death. The tidings were included in an extensive casualty list, which appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 26 April 1918:

‘Private A. Davison killed in action

‘Official news has been received by his wife at 108 Moorland Road, that Private Albert Davison, Leicesters, has been killed in action, March 22nd. He went out last August, and was expected to come on leave this month. He was the son of Mr. Stephen Davison, 27 Nelson Street, and son-in-law of Mr George Hall, bootmaker. Private Davison was married and leaves one child, born on Sunday last. He was aged 28. There are three brothers serving. Private Davison was well-known in local football circles … ’

No further news of Private Davison was ever received. Eva, living by this time in Scarborough at 11 Victoria Road, eventually received a small widow’s pension and two medals (the British War and Victory Medals) in recompense for her lost husband and father of a son that he had never seen. Probably blown to bits on 22 March, no remains of a soldier, identifiable as those of Private Davison, have been found so, to the present day, Albert Davison remains ‘missing, believed killed in action’ on 22 March 1918.

During the post war years Bert Davison’s name was included in Bay 5 of Sir Edward Lutyens’s Arras Memorial. Located in the Faubourg-d’Amiens Cemetery in the western part of the town of Arras, the memorial contains the names of almost 35,000 casualties of the British, New Zealand, and South African armed forces who, like Davison, lost their lives in the Arras Sector between the Spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918 (excluding the casualties of the Cambrai Offensive of 1917), and who have no known grave.

In Scarborough, as well as the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Davison’s name is commemorated in St Mary’s Parish Church on the ‘Roll of Honour’ located on the north interior wall that lists 156 former members of the Parish who lost their lives during the ‘Great War of 1914-19’. Bert’s name can also be found on a memorial in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery (Section N, Row 13, Grave 34), which also bears the names of his mother, ‘Pattie’ Davison, who died in Scarborough Infirmary (69 Dean Road) on Sunday, 4 May 1914, at the age of 52, and father Stephen Davison, who had died at 6 Beechville Avenue on Thursday, 26 November 1942 at the age of 83.

Bert’s three brothers, Fred, Valentine, and Stephen Davison, also served in the army (Royal Engineers, Machine Gun Corps, and Yorkshire Regiment respectively), and all survived to return to Scarborough following their demobilisation in 1919. Eva Davison, and her son, Albert, resided with her parents at 11 Victoria Road until the mid 1930s when her name disappears from Scarborough’s Electoral Rolls. By the 1950s there were two Albert Davisons listed in the town’s ‘Street Directory’. One lived with wife Marjorie at 24 Murchison Street, whilst the second resided with wife Nora at 44 Candler Street.

[1] At the time of the 1901 Census the Davison family were residing in the house in North Street and consisted of Stephen (the eldest son of Rouse and Hannah Davison), aged 42 years, Martha, 39 years, Frederick, 16 years, employed as a ‘joiners apprentice’, Valentine, 15 years, employed as a ‘painters lad’, Amy aged 13, Albert aged 10, and Stephen aged 9. All were born in Scarborough except for Martha Davison, who was born in the Lincolnshire village of Glentworth.

[12] National Archives; WO /95/1601.

Paul Allen

Bielby, Thomas C

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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

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