Scraps from December 1918

In early December, both Trevor and Douglas Webster were back in the village on leave. Douglas was expecting to be summoned to the Palace to receive his Military Cross from the King. There was news of another local lad who had fought with the Canadians, Pte Albert Edward Watts, son of Mr Watts of the White Horse, Frampton Mansell:

Pte Watts experienced a glorious time on the Canadians’ entry into Mons last month. He and others were relieved of everything they were carrying by the delighted inhabitants, who could not do too much for the Canadians…

There was more consciousness-raising about V.D., which was obviously a major public health concern, as men returned from service overseas:

Those who ‘wait and see’ may well see terrible things…False shame is sheer folly. The doctor is not there to blame but to cure. Do not be frightened of going to the doctor, be frightened of the disease…

The General Election was held on Saturday December 14th, the first in which most men and many women could vote. The Stroud seat was contested by Sir Aston Lister, a Liberal, on behalf of the Lloyd George/Bonar Law Coalition, and Captain C.W. Kendall, for the Labour Party. Enthusiasm for the poll was not marked – the election was felt to have been called too soon after the end of the fighting, when much was still not settled; the influenza epidemic was still raging; most servicemen were still away. In Chalford, the electorate was listed as 1483, absent voters numbered 285. According to the Journal, reporting on the election in the whole district:

A heavy poll was not anticipated, and the first few hours were deadly dull, so dull that apathy seemed to have taken hold of the electorate. As the morning wore on, however, activity became more marked, and at noon, when the mills and factories closed, the presiding officers…were given a more busy time, the ladies making things hum to some tune, in more senses than one. In the agricultural districts, polling was leisurely but continuous throughout…The weather was disappointing…Many old ladies displayed a fine example of zeal for country by voting…

‘Jonathan’ commented: ‘It was interesting to watch married couples sallying forth together to record their Parliamentary vote…’

The results were not announced until 28th December, a whole fortnight later: a victory for the Coalition – Lister won by 4912 votes.

The Stroud News anticipated a ‘frugal Christmas’, ‘the scarcity and high prices of the usual Christmas fare’, and the ‘cost of children’s toys will also limit the range of selection in many homes’:

…Nevertheless, now that the dark cloud has lifted, Christmas should be a joyous and happy festival…

 

Summer 1917

This was the summer that marked three years of war. The conflict and privations seemed endless. There were huge anxieties concerning the coal supplies for the following winter- ‘there was practically a coal famine in Chalford’. Presumably initial production was lower, because fewer men were working in the pits (despite its being a reserved occupation), but locally the concerns were all about transport, the ‘enforced idleness of the barges’ because so many bargees had been conscripted (their profession was not protected). Chalford Parish Council discussed the matter at a meeting in late July. James Smart, as Chairman, ‘being a coal merchant was able to place the council in full possession of the facts’. Mrs Couldrey, it seemed, had had two boats, but now there was only one, and that laid up at Brimscombe ‘in consequence of the mate being drafted into the Army’. Mr Smart, the owner of six barges, was reduced to two working, and the mate of one of those had just been called up.

Smart’s Wharf just after the war, 1922

The only solution the Parish Council could suggest was somehow ‘reclaiming expert boatmen from the Army’ – how this was to be done is not vouchsafed! The Government was also proposing to ration coal, though the Stroud News was unclear how much this would affect areas outside London.

20-7-1917 coal rationing details

The rationing of sugar was also becoming inevitable. Plans were set out by the Food Controller, Lord Rhondda, to issue ‘sugar cards’ to all householders, with supplies calculated according to number, age, sex and occupation of the inhabitants. It was thought that controls could not be instituted before December 30th. Bread and meat rationing would follow. The official announcement also stated that ‘central kitchens are commended as a valuable means of economy in food and fuel’.

Various local men were home on leave at various points over July and August – Reginald Lee, son of the Hinton Jones’ gardener, is mentioned again, awaiting a commission in the Army Service Corps, having spent ten months in France. Jesse Webb, son of Richard Webb, a hero of Vimy Ridge, where he had seen battle with the Canadians, was back, as was Trevor Webster. Major Wallace J Sharpe, another emigre to Canada, where he had settled in Pincher Creek, Alberta (described by the paper as an ‘assembly place of many Chalfordians’) was noted as  the first Canadian officer to win the Croix de Guerre.

However, there were sad tidings of others.

Mr and Mrs Pearce, of Belle View terrace, Chalford, have heard that their son, Reginald, a member of the Worcestershire Yeomanry, stationed in Egypt, is in a dangerous condition. He received twelve months’ training with the Yeomanry and was then sent to the East, where he was put to follow his trade [he was a mechanic]. Apparently the climate had disagreed with him and he has undergone a series of operations.

There was also official notification of the death of Arthur Whitmore, who had been serving with the Canadian contingent. His parents lived in Chalford Hill. His attestation papers describe him as five foot seven and a half inches tall, dark complexioned, with grey eyes and dark brown hair. He had been working as a waiter. He died of wounds, having arrived at the casualty clearing station conscious, and able to send a message to his family and friends. However, ‘subsequently he sank rapidly and died at twelve mid-night the same day’.

The son of Mr WM Weare, of France Lynch, ‘who has been in the thick of it and wounded seriously, is now home to recuperate. He bears traces of his terrible experience,and his friends hope for his speedy recovery…’

Albert Goodfield, from Frampton Mansell was reported killed.

There was a special service at the Baptist Tabernacle at the end of July, which those home on leave, including several  natives of Chalford who now lived far away, were able to attend. Douglas Webster was there, as was the aforementioned Jesse Webb, both from Canada, and Ernest Smart, who had emigrated to Australia. From slightly nearer home (Charfield, in fact) there was Quartermaster Rowland Young, from whose letters I have quoted in the past:

Young, who has seen 13 years’ service, was in the great push in March, and is suffering from shell shock  and now on leave for a month. Asked if he had any desire to return to France, the gallant Quartermaster said he hoped to be there when the final victory was won; that as a soldier it was his duty to go. He had no desire to remain at home.

Ernest Kirby, whose mother had fostered Jim Hunt, dead at the very outset of war, was himself killed by a shell on the Western Front, on 24th July. A friend of Fred Couldrey and Charles Herbert, he too had joined the Grenadier Guards in 1916. In fact it was Fred who took the responsibility for writing the heart-breaking letter to Ernest’s wife ‘briefly giving particulars of Kirby’s death’. Ernest had worked at Hind’s nursery in Brimscombe before enlisting. He and his wife had one child.

Barely a week later, it was Fred’s turn to die. The Stroud News covered the story thus:

One of Chalford’s best, namely Pte Fred Couldrey, Grenadier Guards, son of the late Mr Jasper Couldrey, coal merchant, and of Mrs Couldrey, Chalford Hill, has made the supreme sacrifice for his country. The sad intelligence was officially communicated to the deceased’s widow on Tuesday afternoon [14th August] and this showed that he was killed in action on July 31st. Naturally the news came as a great shock to her, though it was perhaps not unexpected, for only that morning a letter, tactfully worded, arrived from Pte Charles Herbert (“Whack”), also of the Grenadier Guards, signifying that his chum Fred was missing. Herbert, it appears, had been in  hospital, and could glean no tidings of the deceased. It will be remembered that to the deceased fell the melancholy duty of communicating to Mr Samuel Kirby the death of his son Ernest. Mrs Couldrey, who is left with one child, had not heard from her husband for three weeks, and the period of waiting was an extremely anxious one.

The newspaper continued its tribute with some biographical information about his work running the family coal merchant business (which his wife had taken over, doing ‘nobly’), and his sporting prowess on the football and cricket fields- ‘played a rattling forward game, and was a good sport in every way, one of the best of chums and popular with everybody’. He had been Hon Sec of the Chalford Football Club. ‘What Herbert’s feelings are now may be left to the imagination’. Indeed, one’s heart aches for poor  Charles Herbert, newly released from hospital to find two of his dearest and most familiar friends wiped out. How people coped with so much loss is difficult to comprehend.

Fred Couldrey

Although July had been a pleasant month, the weather turned dramatically in August, and the rain poured down, right across northern Europe. This was the summer of Passchendale, of men and horses drowning in mud.

In mid-August, the local paper carried news that the Gloucesters had been once again in action in Flanders, after a period out of the main fighting, and there were fears of higher casualty rates.

In its edition of 24th August, the Stroud News reported:

a goodly number of Chalfordians who are serving their King and Country have been home on leave during the past week, and whilst their relatives and friends have shown delight at the re-union, others, alas, are experiencing great anxiety in view of the fact that many who belong to them have been in the thick of the furious fighting which has taken place on the Western Front during the last few days…

Among those at home was Augustus Browning, serving with the Canadians, another veteran of Vimy Ridge,  recovering from wounds – for the second time. He had been hit behind the ear on the Somme, and had now suffered shrapnel wounds to the head and shell shock. Frank Beard, ASC, ‘gave his wife a pleasant surprise recently when he arrived home from the Front off the mail at two o’clock in the morning’. He had walked from the station in Stroud. The 48 year old had ‘volunteered early’ and been sent initially to Avonmouth, but had been in France about two years, ‘a shining example to younger fry who keep their skins whole by skulking’. Before the war he had worked for James Smart, as had Pte Percy Creed, who was evidently at the opposite end of the age scale, the paper commenting that he was ‘hardly old enough to be in the army, yet he has done well…’ He was on leave after a year in France. Petty Officer George Pearce, son of Mr Walter Pearce of Chalford, had three weeks’ holiday from his ship in the North Sea. Apparently, he was on a ship ‘whose Commander is closely connected with Lord Derby, and the crew are in clover so to speak. Pearce is A1. He came home on Sunday. Had to wait at Hereford almost twelve hours for a train, and unsuccessfully tried to obtain a motor car’.

The rain had still not let up at the end of August, and there were anxieties about the potato crop, which had looked so promising. In contrast, the fruit crop looked likely to be heavy, plums were especially plentiful, despite the recent  gale force winds.

 

 

News of local men

In May, Mr Webster welcomed two of his sons home – neither in perfect state, Trevor had been shot in the ankle and Cyril was suffering from shell shock. Both were described as ‘convalescent’. Augustus Browning, son of Mr George Browning, who was serving with the Canadians, was also injured, and reported to be in hospital in Bristol. This was his second wounding, and it had happened like this:
“He relates that he and others were asleep in the trenches when the officer tapped him on the shoulder and intimated that in three minutes they were to go over the parapet. This order, he says, was speedily obeyed, and the whole of the first German trench system was smashed to smithereens. Subsequently a big German shell exploded and a piece of the metal took a piece clean out of the side of his hip. He scrambled back into the shell hole, in which there were three or four other men. All had an exciting time, as the Germans had the range. Browning had to go three miles before reaching a dressing station.”

Meanwhile, Mr George Cooke, who kept the Company’s Arms, ‘has had the pleasure of welcoming home his son Harry, of the Canadian RAMC’. Harry had emigrated several years before, but had joined up early on and ‘seen considerable service’, including at Ypres: ‘his experiences have been very exciting, and on one occasion he and four others were thrown by the concussion caused by the bursting of a German shell against a brick wall’ (he sustained bruises only). Later, in a separate incident, he had been hit in the thigh by a shell, and had received ‘treatment at various hospitals’.

Pte Bert Morse, Royal Fusiliers, had had the most Biblical of escapes from death. Hit in the head at Vimy Ridge on Good Friday, he had lain unconscious for three days. He was now in hospital in Exeter, having had pieces of bone removed from his skull, and ‘hopes to be able to avenge the smack he has received at no distant date’. Bert was the son of William Morse, the old soldier who had died in August. One of his brothers, Tom, was a driver with the Royal Field Artillery, another, William, was working in a munitions factory in London.

Fred Gardiner of the Gloucesters, son of Mr William Gardiner of the Ducks Nest, Hyde Hill, had been wounded at Salonika, that largely forgotten outpost of the war, and was now in hospital. His parents had received a letter dated the same day as the wounding, saying that ‘he was just about to go into the trenches’. Also lying wounded in hospital in Salonika, was Frank Ball, whose parents had kept the Valley Inn (though they were now the hosts of the King’s Head in Huntley). He had worked in James and Owen, then at Copeland Chatterson Company at Dudbridge, before joining up in Hampshire in March 1916. Six months later he arrived in Salonika, where it happened ‘in action at midnight on April 25th that he was bowled out, being wounded in both legs’. Apparently, he was coping well, described as ‘merry and bright’.

RAMC hospital, Salonika

(There are some fascinating photographs of service in Salonika here:

http://www.kingsownmuseum.plus.com/ko1853f.htm )

In a rare glimpse of the consequences of what was presumably a disabling wound, Rifleman Fred Creed of the King’s Royal Rifles (son of Mr William Creed of Chalford Hill) had gained a first class award at the Northumberland Handicrafts Guild classes for soldiers in the Royal Victorian Institute and the Armstrong College Hospital, ‘for a splendidly worked table centre’. Two of his brothers were also in the Army. One had gone to France at the beginning of the war, been wounded, then returned to the fighting, and was currently in Mesopotamia . The other, Percy, was in France.

Amongst these accounts of injury come the reports of death. Living or dying in the barrage was sheerly a matter of luck, or the lack of it. Mrs Wear of France Lynch had received notification of the death of her son, Pte Frank Wear, ‘who fell about the middle of April’ (in fact, the 16th). He left a widow and four children, the oldest eight years old. Before joining up, he had worked at Selwyn’s Flock and Shoddy Mills, in Toadsmoor.

By early summer 1917, casualty rates were rising so fast, men of over 41 were  being called up (there were jokes that the qualifying age would soon take in centenarians!). Tribunals were getting stricter. Women, as we have seen, were increasingly filling the gaps in the work force, as were clergymen – who, in addition to their normal duties, were stepping in to fill some of the vacancies caused by this conscription of greater and greater numbers of men.

January and February 1917

The winter of 1917 was notable for its black ice and freezing temperatures. The Arctic conditions set in before Christmas 1916 and endured through to the spring. On a positive note, there was skating on Toadsmoor lake and that in Stratford Park. Here, someone had spotted a good fund-raising activity:

“The skating at Stratford Park was made pleasant through the enterprise of Mrs Reginald Green, of Stratford Lawn. She saw money in it for the fund she has long nurtured as hon. secretary of the organisation for providing fresh fruit and vegetables for the men of the Royal Navy. Therefore with helpers galore she arranged for the ice to be kept clean on the surface so that the skaters were able to glide with ease and comfort in the pale moonlight, and also she took good care that the nimble pence were extracted from the pockets of those who availed themselves of the pleasure.”

Less enjoyably, by February the local paper was reporting persistent problems with frozen water pipes. On the 16th, it mentioned that ‘in several districts no fresh water has been available to houses for nearly a month, and water has to be carried in utensils for long distances in the less accessible areas’. ‘Those who have kept the old wells in working order,’ it continued, ‘are able to discount the inconvenience of frozen water pipes’.

In January, Revd Carter and his wife presented two large frames, each with room for thirty photographs, to display  portraits of members of the Baptist Tabernacle serving in the forces. If need arose, they would supply further frames. These items lasted until they were wantonly destroyed by a pastor in the 1960s – that great bonfire of the past.

Frank Aldridge was confirmed dead at the beginning of the year – ‘after sixteen months of anxious waiting and enquiry Mr Charles Aldridge, of Eastcombe, has received official notice of the death of his oldest son, Frank’. He had been missing since August 5th, 1915, when he was caught up in the attack on Chunuk Bair, during the Gallipoli campaign. The ‘Stroud News’ described him as a ‘smart and promising fellow’, who had joined the 7th Gloucesters in September 1914, one of the first from the village to enlist. He had been employed previously by Messrs G Walker and Co, at Phoenix Ironworks, in Thrupp. He left his family and a fiancee, Miss Celia Mayo, of Chalford.

Amidst the grim news from the various fronts, there were cheerful homecomings ( presumably these were rather complicated emotionally – being composed of relief and joy, but also dread for the future). ‘Chalford people have had the pleasure of welcoming home one of their Canadian boys’, reported the paper on 26th January. Harry Phipps, of the 27th Winnipeg Rifles, had emigrated to Canada several years before. He had seen Douglas Webster just before he came back, in the Somme. Trevor Webster was also home briefly, wounded. Also in Chalford after a long period in France was Pte Reggie Lee, son of the Hinton-Jones’ gardener, ‘looking extremely well’. In February, Charles Herbert (apparently nicknamed “Whack” – a cricket reference?) and Fred Couldrey were also back, on pre-embarkation leave – ‘they appeared remarkably fit, their training as footballers having stood them in good stead  during their period of training’.

Meanwhile, Bernie Gardiner, son of Mr Charles Gardiner of Chalford Hill, re-enlisted on 13th January, finally being of proper age. The paper comments that he ‘belonged to the plucky brigade and he enlisted in the Gloucesters a considerable time back. He had spent  a couple of months on the Somme and was then discharged’ – underage.

The VTC had been in action again, guarding a plane – it had come down over the ‘Downs’ (the large house belonging to the prominent Baptist Mr Clark in Frampton Mansell), suffering from engine trouble, at around midday on Sunday 28th January. PC Wellington  ‘witnessed the descent, hastened to the spot, and met an officer, who enquired whether there were any Volunteers in the area to act as guard’. Luckily, the policeman knew exactly where to find some – being a Sunday, he simply rushed straight to the Tabernacle where he found four, at a Brotherhood meeting, including Mr F Smart…The plane left on Monday morning, after repairs.

A Lieutenant Scull, of the 6th Gloucesters, who was ‘recuperating in the district’, had been to Chalford Hill School to give a talk entitled ‘Twenty-four Hours in the Trenches’. He was also presented with a box of cigarettes to thank him for his work with the VTC, before he left the area in February 1917.

 

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

 

Lighting orders…and the dangers of darkness.

Lighting order as published in ‘Stroud News’, February 1916

 

On January 31st, 1916, several towns in the Midlands, hitherto complacent about the danger from Zeppelins (which up until then had attacked only the east coast of Britain and London), came under sustained bombardment from the air. In Wednesbury and Tipton, 35 people were killed. It seems that the Black Country was mistaken for Liverpool, in thick fog. The threat from the skies could no longer be dismissed – and although the ‘Stroud News’ remained reassuring about the safety of the Stroud area, it had to admit that the pattern of lights along the valleys, especially because of the number of factories, was very distinctive geographically. The Urban District Council discussed the Government’s Defence of the Realm lighting order at its meeting on 8th February, imposing restrictions from 16th February as required. External lights should be reduced to the minimum needed for safety, internal lights should be ‘obscured or shaded so that only dull, subdued light is visible outside’. ‘Train blinds must be lowered and the lights of tramcars and omnibuses reduced.’

Several local shops, including JH Wilkes, the ‘Artistic House Furnisher’ of Sheraton House, King St, Stroud, weren’t slow to spot an opportunity, as the following advertisement, which appeared in the ‘Stroud News’ on 18th February, proves!

As it was February, and therefore the days were still short, there was some concern on the part of local churches, at least. Revd Addenbrooke, writing in the Christ Church parish magazine, hoped that there would be no need to alter services, but was glad that the church already had blinds for its windows.

On a more domestic front, it was reported that Mr F A Webster, headmaster of Chalford Hill school “was agreeably surprised on Saturday afternoon at the unexpected arrival home of his son Douglas, who is a member of the Canadian forces in France. Another son, Trevor, who is also in the Canadians, had arrived home from the battlefield on Friday. Two other sons are also in the Army, Cyril, a member of the Canadian contingent, and Heber, in Kitchener’s Army.” It’s  pleasant to think of the family welcoming its sons proudly home, though the image is a poignant one, as – from the future –  we cannot forget how much they would suffer later on.

Chalford Orchestral Society did its bit, putting on a concert in the VAD hospital in the Trinity Rooms. The ‘Stroud News’ verdict (breezy as usual): ‘a splendid musical treat for the wounded Tommies’.

However, appositely (though obviously unconnected with the blackout just about to be imposed) the paper of 11th February also carries the sad story of Samuel Fowles, aged 75, whose body had been found the previous Thursday in the canal behind Messrs WF Drew and Sons’ building yard. He had lodged in the High Street, with Mrs Mountford, for four and a half years, and was rather ricketty, being blind in the right eye and paralysed on the right side; however this didn’t seem to affect his daily habits, as he had on Wednesday evening gone out to the Clothiers Arms (afterwards the Valley Inn) for a couple of pints. The landlady, Florence Selby, giving evidence at the inquest, said that Mr Fowles had left the pub at about 6 o’clock, ‘being quite sober’. The next sighting of him seems to be at 8 o’clock, when Archibald Smith, cabinet maker, spoke to him on Cowcombe Hill ‘directing him to Chalford. It was very dark’.

Mrs Mountford had been worried about her lodger, and contacted the local policeman, Pc McKnight, at about 5.30pm. He failed to find Mr Fowles, and it wasn’t until 7.30 on Thursday morning that the body was spotted in the canal by a local postman, (oddly)Albert George Fowles, on his rounds. The water in the canal at that point was between 3 and 4 feet deep.

Pc McKnight said that “the place where deceased was found was very dangerous, especially on a dark night, and the road branching to the left at Springfield might easily be mistaken for the main road…” The jury in the inquest “recommended that the danger of the place where the deceased was found should be brought to the notice of the authorities concerned with a view to action being taken.”

There already existed a high level of concern about this dark and dangerous area, which unfortunately fell at the edges of several juristictions. Responsibility for this part of the bottom of Cowcombe Hill lay with the GWR and Minchinhampton Parish Council. Chalford Parish Council had repeatedly asked that lamps should be placed on the canal bridge there.The GWR had put a lamp on their side, but Minchinhampton didn’t seem to be concerned. To complicate matters still further, there had been a private lamp outside the Primrose League Hall (Hallidays Mill), funded by public subscription, but the man who had organised this had moved…

Bell Bridge at the foot of Cowcombe Hill, in 1932

More about the Baptists

The Baptist church was a powerful presence in late 19th and early 20th century Chalford. It attracted a large congregation, both from the immediate village and from further along the valley, in Frampton Mansell, where Charles Clark, JP, a great benefactor to the Baptist cause, lived in a fine house called the Downs.

I decide to pay a visit to the Archives in Gloucester, where I know there to be a  deposit of Baptist records, to see whether  anything throws any light on the individual men from the Tabernacle who left the security of their life here for the violent and unpredictable field of war. The Archive catalogue can be searched online these days, which is handy. What has also changed since my last visit to Alvin St many years ago is the system for requesting documents, which can only be done once an hour now. I arrive, typically, five minutes after the magic moment. Still, gives me time to absorb the atmosphere (determined concentration).

The minutes of meetings during the relevant period would be of huge interest to anyone studying the form and content of non-conformist services during the early 20th century. I, however, find my eyes skidding unaccountably across the formulaic accounts of texts preached on and hymns sung, ending with thanks to the members who sang or played music (usually Beryl Smart, LRAM, on the pianoforte). I have obviously misunderstood the nature of the Baptist minutes book!  Every now and again, however,  the outside world does intrude. On October 4th 1914: “It was decided to have a Roll of Honour so as to inscribe the names of our members upon it who have gone to the war”. On July 16th 1916: “A vote of sympathy and condolence was proposed by the Secretary and seconded by Mr TC Richens for the loss which he had sustained in the death of his youngest son Private Eber (sic) Webster who was killed in France.” Another such vote was passed on November 12th that year, to Mr Frank Griffin on the death of his son David “who was killed at the Front” and on December 17th to Mr and Mrs JW Workman of Cowley near Cheltenham, whose son Willie, formerly of France Lynch and a member of the church, had been killed in action. Possibly these formal recognitions of loss were comforting, though (to me with my modern sensibilities) they seem rather distant. In March 1917,  JH Legg Esq (Military Representative of Cirencester and District) visited to give “a very able and instructive address on his visit to France and the trenches”. On October 14th 1917, sympathy is being expressed to Mr Charles Pearce “in the sad news he had received” about the wounding in the head and face of his son Harold (Harold does not appear among the dead, one can only hope that he made a decent recovery and wasn’t too disfigured). On September 8th, 1918, “the Secretary announced the death of Pte Albert King a former member and voiced the sympathy of the members”. That is it – the only references in four and a bit years to the cataclysmic events shaking the world outside the Tabernacle. What makes this seem stranger is that quite a few of their active members were lost during these years.

Thankfully, the Annual Reports of the Baptist year, 1913-20, provide a little more human interest. Written every January, in review of the events of the past year, they give some insight into the effect of the war on the congregation. The report dated January 1916 refers to 1915 as ‘a year unparalleled in bloodshed and war lust’, but is ‘glad to say that the war has not touched the peace of our churchyard’ – a fact it rather poignantly attributes to the power of prayer. Another paragraph relates that ‘much interest was awakened in our Pastor’s sermon in which was mentioned the alleged appearance of the Angels at Mons’ (a popular and persistent myth at the time, which seems to be traceable to a short story by Arthur Machen).

1917’s report is far more raw:

Sorrow has filled our hearts as the news of one and another snatched from us, lads who have been with us  in our prayers and hopes from their childhood.

On July 23rd, there was a large and well-attended memorial service for Harry Taysum, Frank Arnold and Heber Webster. In November, there was another service to remember Mrs Verrinder, a Sunday school teacher who had recently died, and David Griffin, ‘one of our members who had been killed in action’.

In January 1918, 13 church members are ‘serving with the colours’. The opening paragraphs mention how letters from those at the front ‘tell us that the writers believe that they owe their safety to our prayers. Most of these men are relying on us as a congregation to pray for them.’ Unfortunately, despite these prayers, on October 28th there is another memorial service, this time mourning the deaths at the Front of Charles Pidgeon and Frank Shilham.

Obviously, by the time the next report comes due in January 1919, the war is over. The walls of the Baptist schoolroom ‘are adorned with photographs of some of our old boys. We thank Mrs Carter [the Pastor’s wife] for her loving thought in making this collection. These in time should be cherished and valued as among our most sacred possessions.’ The report continues:

The war robbed us in 1918 of two of our members. Albert Griffin fell in action. He was one of those who had early dedicated his life to our Lord. His was one of those faces thoughtful, bright, frank, fearless that an artist would delight to picture as an ideal typical English Crusader. If any man went to the front impelled by duty, impelled by the sense that he was fighting for righteousness, freedom truth and liberty our brother Albert was one. We grieve for the loss  of one who had such potentialities for service in Christ’s World but we are proud of his record proud that such a man was among our members.

This lovely testimony, so much of its time, is almost the only character sketch we have from this source. None of the others are written of in personal terms at all, and the other lad to die in 1918, Albert King, is described far more concisely: ‘he had by his quiet, consistent life won his way into our hearts.’

Juliet spotted a picture of Chalford Tabernacle senior branch of the International Order of the Good Templars, 1911, in one of Stanley Gardiner’s compilations of old photographs (The Archive Photographs series: Chalford to Sapperton, Chalford Publishing Company, 1995). It shows about forty men and women, many of them resplendent in  arcane-looking sashes, all looking very serious. Roughly half the men sport the remarkable moustaches so fashionable at the time. Everyone in the photograph is identified. Less than eight years later, seven of those young men would be dead, victims of a war none of them could have forseen on that day in 1911. It’s an odd sensation, peering into those faces, all intent on the photo being taken. It’s strange to see the names on the memorial brought to life, in all their ordinariness, their slight vanities (those moustaches!), their neat clothing. They look straight out at you, of course they do – that’s one of the conventions of photographs of the time. They meet your gaze. You feel you have a duty to them. Trevor Webster. William Gardiner. Albert Griffin. Percy Tyler. Charles Herbert. Albert King. Charles Pidgeon.