Moving into a Post-war World: late 1918 and early 1919

I can’t imagine how that festive season would have felt, 1918-19. After all, Christmas 1918 fell only just over a month after the Armistice. Most servicemen were still far from home, shops were still experiencing shortages, and many families had lost one or more deeply cherished members. Unsurprisingly, Christmas that year was described as ‘quiet’ and ‘domestic’, with ‘sadness in many homes’.

Deeply aware of the physical legacy of war, people were keen to continue fund-raising. In Bisley:

A Carol League was formed the second week in November and six or seven practices of special music were held. A band of carollers, led by Mr Bloodworth [the school master], paraded Bisley and Eastcombe on Christmas Eve and the evening of Christmas Day and over £10 was collected. The four-part music, very tunefully rendered in the open air to the accompaniment of a portable harmonium, gave much pleasure.

More money was contributed at a variety concert held in the school on New Year’s Day, giving a total of £25 for St Dunstan’s Hostel for Blinded Soldiers and Sailors. Obviously ‘carolling for St Dunstan’s’ was a thing, because a similar  initiative took place in Stroud, where £70 12/4d was raised over ‘fourteen consecutive evenings’. A letter to the ‘Journal’, published on 17th January, compares 1918’s total favourably with that of 1917 (£54 3/5d) and 1916 (£25).

There was yet another ‘flu burial at France Lynch. Reginald E Barrett, a boy of only 17, had died on Christmas Eve. He had worked at Chalford Aerodrome, and also done war work in Birmingham, and the ‘Journal’ commented:

…his death adds to the already long list of boys who from the hamlet of France Lynch have laid down their lives either on active service, or in helping their comrades at the front.

Further mention was made of Douglas Webster’s Military Cross, the ‘Journal’ quoting his local Canadian newspaper (in Regina, Saskatchewan), ‘The Morning Leader’, which gave a summary of his enlistment in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in October 1914, his promotion to Sergeant in the Signallers, and later to Lieutenant. The paper went on to describe how he had won the medal for his actions near Amiens ‘clearing out a machine gun nest’. Mainly, the paper was interested in his pre-war civilian life, as a keen footballer:

Lieut Webster will be best remembered by the soccer fooball fraternity of the city, among whom he was known as the sterling right half of the old United Club. In France he maintained his football reputation as a good defence man in games between the Canadians and Imperials…

His father Frank, the probable source of the Canadian cutting, had been busily engaged writing a poem for the welcome home event held for returned POWs at the Primrose Hall on 17th January:

He compered the evening, congratulating the men ‘on being alive, on having survived a diet of black bread and dirty water, yclept [called] soup,the brutality of the big booted Hun, and that they had not been entirely eaten up by unmentionable creepy-crawlies’. There was sufficient money left over from fund-raising to provide every man with a sovereign and a packet of cigarettes.

Percy Abel, Sam Browning, Percy Creed, G. Davis, E. Gardiner, Bernie Gardiner, Frank Howell (who – the next edition of the paper said – ‘is not given to talking of his experience’) and Claude Mills were all present for the presentation of ‘a handsome travelling clock and umbrella’ to Miss Mabel Grist in gratitude for all her ‘splendid energy’ and hard work in organising the parcels sent to servicemen during the war. Private Smart (whom we have not identified) was still in hospital, and Alfred Harmer, from Toadsmoor, had died – ‘the gathering stood in silence when the chairman called his name’.

Percy Abel ‘spoke his deep appreciation…and believed that very few of them would have been alive now but for the food received from England’. There then followed a little concert.

The Bread Order was still in place, forbidding the sale of bread under 12 hours old, and coal was short.

The Hinton-Joneses were the instigators of another fund-raiser for St Dunstan’s – a  production by the school of  ‘Princess Chrysanthemum’, a popular operetta set in Japan, by C. King Proctor, performed at the Primrose Hall in late January. The ‘pretty oriental dresses’ and stage set with coloured lanterns and butterflies obviously made an attractive sight on a wet January evening, and the local performers were enthusiastically reviewed in the local paper:

…the Baby Butterflies was an improvisation and not actually a part of the operetta. It was a delightful addition to a composition brimming over with brightness and melody…

Bubbling along below the surface were urgent political discussions on the scarcity of housing, and public disquiet about the slow demobilisation of soldiers, sailors and airmen. The columnist ‘Jonathan’, writing on 10th January, refers to the resentment felt by many, going on to say:

At least the men who have broken the bounds of discipline have been handled with care, possibly because Bolshevism is too near to our shores to permit of bureaucratic sternness with Thomas Atkins…

He speculates that the disruption caused by the election, and the promises made during the campaign of ‘speedy demobilisation’ can’t have helped matters, but that ‘anybody with the capacity for thought must have known that a huge Army could not be disbanded by a stroke of the pen, and particularly having regard to the disturbed condition of Central Europe’ – where, after all, the trouble had all started.

A week later, the ‘Journal’ prints a digest of an article in ‘The Daily News’, which describes the ‘fears…in official circles’ that on the contrary, the demobilisation might be too rapid:

A high authority pointed out… that “the war is not yet over,” and that “Great Britain, in proportion to its military strength, must maintain an Army of Occupation on the Rhine for many months to come.

Apparently there is a new factor in the situation, which means that our object must no longer be rapid demobilisation, but the securing of the “fruits of victory”.

The intention seemed to be the creation of a dedicated ‘Army of Occupation’ – with strong discipline and decent pay, using ‘those categories of men who have done least during the war’ (this would not be likely to include those over 35). There was already a military presence in Russia, supporting the White Russians. The logistics of demobilising large numbers of troops was referred to:

Some misunderstanding may be caused by the statement which has been made that within a short time demobilisation may take place at a rate of 50,000 a day. While transport might be available to enable this to be done, it is understood that 40,000 a day is the highest number that can actually be dealt with.

The Death of Mary Webster

On the 2nd December 1916, Mary Webster, wife of Frank Webster, the headmaster of Chalford Hill School, died ‘with tragic suddenness’, at the age of 60 (her gravestone being more likely to be correct than the local paper, which gave her age as 58). The ‘Stroud News’, conveying its sympathy to her husband, related the circumstances of her demise, the little domestic details making it all the more poignant:

“She had been ailing for some years, and had never really recovered from the shock caused by the death in action some two or three months ago of her youngest son, who was in the Gloucesters. Her three other sons, namely, Trevor, Cyril and Douglas are in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces, and the fact that the two former have had to undergo hospital treatment, Trevor by reason of wounds and Cyril on account of shell shock, was also a source of worry to the deceased. The deceased lady was about as usual on Saturday in the performance of her household duties. Shortly after partaking of tea, at about 5 o’clock, she wrapped herself in a rug and rested on a sofa. There she fell asleep. Mr Webster quietly left the room to visit the Post Office a few yards away, and when he returned his wife was still asleep. He resumed reading, but shortly he heard a little noise in his wife’s throat and went to her. Unfortunately it was apparent that Mrs Webster had almost expired. He sent for a doctor, but death had already intervened, and the husband, who has not been in good health for some time, was practically stunned by the blow. The deceased lady, who came from Wales, was formerly a teacher in the old British School. Mr Webster at that time being master of the National School.”

Mary Webster’s death, in the run up to Christmas, echoes that of Harriet Taysum, a year earlier, also at Christmas time. Mary Webster was obviously frail, and Harriet Taysum no longer young, but there seems to be little doubt that the strain of bereavement and anxiety hastened their ends.

Poor Frank Webster had now to adjust to the loss of his wife of 33 years, as well as his youngest son.

I think about Mary Webster, and wonder what brought her so far from her native Llangollen. She maintained strong links with her family in North Wales, the Webster family house in Chalford being named after her childhood home, and Heber, who had been killed on 3rd July 1916, is also commemorated (as we noted in an earlier post) on the war memorial in Llangollen. It’s fatuous to speculate, but I still can’t help wondering whether she would have felt bereft on account of her three oldest sons’ emigration to Canada, and  worried  that Heber would follow them, or whether she would have encouraged their adventurous spirit? She had given up her profession when she had a family, but her husband was devoted to his job (more of a calling, really!) and also extremely active outside home and school, what with his duties at the Baptist Tabernacle, and – more recently – the VTC. I wonder what her life was composed of, once her sons had left home. I have never seen a photo of her – I don’t know whether one even exists.

Webster family gravestone, Baptist Tabernacle

 

The Baptists

In March, I am contacted by the granddaughter of Francis Joseph Webb, who  is eager to share her knowledge of his character and fate. Born in 1883, he was educated at the British School in Chalford Hill, and married in the Baptist Tabernacle in 1908. He and his wife Lily had three children, and he worked for his father at Sevilles Mill. He was musical, played the violin and the clarinet, and was also a member of the village cricket team. Initially rejected for war service on account of his very bad eyesight, he appears to have been accepted for the Glosters in July 1917, served in France and died there on 4th April 1918, at the age of 35. His granddaughter has a photograph of him, his service medal and other memorabilia.

She also provides a list of the names on the Baptists’ own war memorial, a tablet inside the church. It carries 22 names. They all appear on the current village memorial, but only four of them can be found on the original three bronze plaques (rather bearing out Mike Mills’ hypothesis below!). She adds incidental details about some of the men. Victor Sydney Chapman died, aged 26,  in Cashes Green Hospital almost exactly a year after the end of the war, on 7th November 1919. He had suffered from shell shock. He had lived with his wife Milley on Rack Hill, and they had a daughter, Elizabeth. Louis Reginald Pearce, a mechanic in the RAF, died in Netley Hospital on February 5th 1918.

Juliet has gleaned further information from the graveyard which surrounds the church, so I walk over to Coppice Hill with my camera to record what can be found there. According to the Commonwealth War Graves website, there are three Great War graves there.

The Tabernacle graveyard, as you many of you will know, is beautifully set at the edge of the village, overlooking wooded hillsides and sheltered by tall fir trees. Rather overgrown at its margins by nettle and bramble (almost impossible to maintain churchyards these days with declining and aging congregations), it is remarkably peaceful: a complete antithesis to the chaos and danger of war. Here, the conflict seems very far away and long ago, but here also is the evidence of the ruin it left in its wake. I quickly see one of the standard war grave headstones, up toward the back of the main cemetery, in the darkness of the trees.

It belongs to W.G. Boucher, who served with the Lancashire Fusiliers, and died on 30th August 1916 aged 23. He is someone of whom I have no record. He appears on none of the village memorial lists, including the Baptists’ own. He must have died over here to have been buried in this spot, but who was he, and why is he here? I can’t see either of the other graves I expect, those of Louis Pearce and Frank Webster, so I continue to explore. On the western side of the church are other headstones.  A reddish cross has seen better days, but it still clearly marks the last resting place of David Morgan, who had been Pastor here. Though he had retired to Bournemouth, his mortal remains were returned to Chalford when he died in 1900. Several of his dead children are remembered on the monument, including Richard Godfrey Morgan, of the East Yorkshire Regt, killed in action in France November 13th 1916, aged 26, and John Hywel Morgan, of the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry, who died of wounds received in action in Palestine, November 22nd 1917, aged 33.

Nearby, a Webster family headstone pays tribute to Gerald Heber Webster, who fell in action at La Boiselle, July 3rd 1916, aged 21 years, and his elder brother Frank Trevor Webster, who died August 8th 1919, and is buried here, but not beneath the regulation Portland stone gravestone. On a later visit, I find Louis Reginald Pearce, also commemorated on a family headstone.

Though he is buried in the graveyard, and appears on the original plaques (as ‘Reginald L’ – perhaps he found the Louis a bit much?), he actually is not listed on the Baptist memorial inside the Tabernacle.