Hello. Welcome to the October edition. Unfortunately, our stalwart author, Keith, is under the weather so there is no material from him. However, there two articles from Caroline on a Welsh medic and on the Women’s Institute. There is also an article from me on a Welsh colonel buried in an unusual location in Dublin. As ever, I am grateful for the “day by day” material that Jim Morris produces and which he lets us use for the Facebook page.
Trevor
The Programme for 2015
Oct 3rd: Andrew Tonge – 1914 Race to the Sea
Nov 7th: Marietta Crichton-Stuart – Alice in Wonderland and her Lost Boys
Dec 5th: Branch Social
Last month’s speaker
Michael Steadman came to talk to us about the Manchester Pals battalions. Unlike its near neighbour, working-class Salford, Manchester proved able to raise eight Pals battalions. Initially, these battalions were composed of middle-class men whose experience before the war years was within the commercial, financial and manufacturing interests which formed the foundations of Edwardian Manchester’s life and prosperity. Manchester was undeniably proud of the Pals battalions which the area was capable of raising. Seven months after their arrival in France the battle of the Somme was launched, on the fateful 1st July, 1916. On the right of the British Army’s extraordinary efforts that day, the Manchester Pals were part of one of the few successful actions, taking the villages of Montauban and Mametz and making a deep incursion into the German defences north of the River Somme.
Sir Thomas John Carey Evans MC – A Welsh Doctor At Gallipoli
Although he served in the Indian Medical Service for most of his military career, Thomas John Carey Evans was a Welshman. He was born on 6th June, 1884 in Blaenau Festiniog, second son of Dr R D Evans, GP and later High Sheriff of Meirionnydd. He spoke only Welsh until, aged 14, he was sent at short notice to Brighton College to take the place of his elder brother who had absconded from the school and refused to return. Despite this unpropitious start, he did well and he progressed to university in Cardiff, Glasgow and Brussels, qualifying as a doctor at the age of 21. He chose to qualify in Brussels as he could do so at a younger age than in Britain. In 1907, he returned to Blaenau Festiniog to work alongside his father. Further study at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, and in Vienna led to him becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1910, age 24.
As GP in Blaenau Festiniog, Tom saw a lot of illness associated with poverty and malnutrition but he also worked at the Oakley Hospital which served some of the quarries in the Festiniog area. Here he dealt with the often serious trauma from quarrying accidents. He decided to seek new challenges, however, and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1908. Following two of his uncles, he then applied for a commission in the Indian Medical Service and was appointed Surgical Specialist to the 8th Lucknow Division in July 1909. He was promoted to Captain in 1912. He took part in the Abor Expedition on the North East Frontier and the Mishin Expedition on the Tibetan Frontier.
With the outbreak of war in 1914, Tom was posted to Egypt as Captain of the Field Ambulance attached to the 21st and 26th Mauler Batteries of the 7th Mountain Artillery Brigade of the Indian Army. There they underwent training until being sent to Gallipoli in June 1915. Some years later, after attending a commemoration service at St Clement Danes, he wrote an account of their arrival at Mudros and Gallipoli. Their training continued at Mudros on the island of Lemnos, where, he explained, the Indian troops were taught ‘to become seamen’. For them, it was a new skill to embark and disembark via a rope ladder and it was practised first barefoot, then in boots and finally perfected with boots and full equipment.
On the night before departure from Mudros, Tom visited a small Greek church where, like many of his colleagues, he paid for the priest to light a candle in his name. Although in retrospect he suspected that the same candle was sold many times over that night, at the time it gave him ‘a feeling of relief and contentment.’
Tom sailed for Gallipoli on the transport ship, the SS Pera. In addition to the 21st and 26th Indian Mauler Batteries with their guns, mules and Field Ambulance, there was also a company of Indian Mule Transport with 30 animals, and a large supply of ammunition. In the event of disaster, he considered her more likely to blow up than to sink. After boarding, Tom joined the discussion with General Parker, a veteran of 30 years on the North West Frontier of India who ‘gave one the feeling that he knew his job and could face it with a confidence that comes by hard experience.’ Then, in pitch dark, the ship glided slowly through the still night, few on board able to sleep, until just before dawn it dropped anchor about 400 yards opposite Brighton Beach. In the dark, they could hear the shouts of Australians landing and when dawn broke they could see them, many already ashore and rushing up Queensland Ridge. An occasional flash of dawn light on their bayonets showed their progress as they disappeared into what would later be known as Shrapnel Valley, the sound of their ‘Hurrahs’ becoming feebler the further they advanced.
National Portrait Gallery 1943
On board the SS Pera, Tom and his colleagues waited. The derricks and unloading equipment were ready, but no orders arrived. ‘It was now a question of whether it was safe for the guns to be landed in this unknown adventure.’ On shore, the beach was becoming confusion, with stores being landed and wounded streaming back. On board, they were under fire, first by field guns firing shrapnel but later heavy shells. One landed ‘with a sickening crash’ on a destroyer unloading stores from the Pera, which sat there ‘like rats in a trap expecting the next shell to…. Blow our stores of ammunition and missiles sky high.’ Not everyone was concerned, though. A stretcher bearer who had been at the battle for the Takin Forts in China commented to Tom, ‘These shells are rotten. They don’t go phut like the shells at the taking of the Takin Forts. You should have seen that fight. Those shells went phut phut the whole time.’ Fortunately, his confidence was well placed and the Pera was finally ordered to move down the coast towards Helles to a safer site. From there they could see men of the South Wales Borderers landing and ‘attacking, in a thin khaki line – line after line – men falling – being raked by machine gun and rifle fire. ….. It appeared like a charnel house with no hope of surviving in such a torrent of bullets.’ At dusk, the Pera returned to Anzac Cove and stores, ammunition, guns, animals and the field hospital disembarked over the next two days.
Tom’s handwritten account ends at this point, but his work at Gallipoli was only just beginning. Until the evacuation of the Commonwealth troops, Tom’s field hospital worked tirelessly, often in horrendous conditions, often short of even basic supplies to treat dysentery and other illnesses that caused almost as many casualties as wounds. Tom knew Pte John Simpson, famous for his courage on repeated trips down the Monash Valley transporting wounded soldiers by donkey. He was travelling with Simpson when he was killed, the only incident that, according to his wife, caused Tom to weep.
Tom’s own courage was recognised by three ‘mentioned in despatches’ and the award of the Military Cross. His recommendation for this reads:
‘At the landing, this Officer displayed conspicuous bravery, repeatedly dressing and removing wounded Indians and Australians under heavy fire, and by his example he very greatly assisted his Battery during the very trying period of the early occupation. His devotion to duty during the entire period of our occupation was very marked and difficult owing to the division of the Indian Mountain Battery. He was of very great assistance to me, giving special advice in reference to Indians as he was the only Medical officer of Indian experience at ANZAC until August 5.’
After leaving Gallipoli, Tom served in Egypt and Mesopotamia. As well as his military duties, he was civil medical officer for Baghdad, a responsibility that he took very seriously, establishing three hospitals and various dispensaries. An article in ‘The Cornhill’ magazine in 1918 describes a visit by the author to an Arab Clinic where he watched Tom at work, effectively relating to his patients despite their language and cultural differences. ‘Indeed, I believe that by his wonderful understanding and handling of the people, Evans is doing work of the utmost value and importance; yet he goes on quietly with all his ordinary military duties, and modestly carries on his clinic as a little side-show.’
As well as receiving the Military Cross, Tom was awarded Chevalier, Legion d’ Honeur. After the war he returned to India as a Senior Surgeon in the Indian Medical Service. Again, in addition to his military duties, he took a great interest in developing the civil medical facilities, working with a number of charitable funds and societies and helping to inaugurate National Baby Week for India. He ended his military career in the post of Surgeon to the Viceroy of India, for which he received a knighthood.
In 1926, Tom returned to civilian medical life in England and during the Second World War, as Medical Superintendent, he organised Hammersmith Hospital under air-raid conditions and served in the hospital’s Home Guard detachment.
In 1917, Tom married Olwen, second daughter of David Lloyd George. On his retirement in 1945, they returned to Wales, to Eisteddfor, Criccieth, where he modernised the house, gardens and farm and indulged his interest in the Welsh language, literature and history. He died suddenly in 1947, a Welshman despite his travels.
References:
Australian War Memorial: Private Record: PRO4121
Australian War Memorial: People and Roll Records
Australian War Memorial: Unit War Diaries
Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows, Royal College of Surgeons
Dr E T Jones, Lecture to HOMSW, 2014
The Cornhill January, 1918
Buried in the wrong place? Lt Col Charles Harold Blackburne DSO
In looking at material for a talk on the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, I came across three Sherwood Foresters buried in the “other ranks” section at the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham in Dublin (and also three casualties from Irish regiments who also died in the Rising). The Royal Hospital was at one time a home for old soldiers in the same way that the Royal Hospital at Chelsea still is. You can understand that some casualties would have been treated there during the course of the Rising, especially during the futile attack by the Sherwoods on the Mount Street bridge, an example of WWI crassness if there ever was one. It is, however, a little odd that the casualties are still in Kilmainham and were not moved – see further below.
Further to all of that, there is a very odd casualty in the Royal Hospital – Lt Col Charles Harold Blackburne of 5th Dragoon Guards (Princess Charlotte of Wales’) who drowned when the mailboat SS Leinster was torpedoed off Dublin in October 1918, with the loss of 526 lives. Now, there is a plot in the military cemetery at Grangegorman in Dublin, near Phoenix Park, for the victims of the Leinster, or at least those who were recovered, so why isn’t he there? I thought this merited further research and it turned out the colonel had Welsh connections.
The family lived at “Tyddyn”, a house on the Wrexham Road, outside Mold. This was convenient for his business interests in Liverpool, as at the outbreak of WWI he had left the army after service in the Boer War and then being in charge of the Transvaal Government Stud Farm in South Africa. He was awarded a DSO and three mentioned in despatches during the Boer War. He was recalled to the army at the outbreak of WWI on 5th August 1914, and was at Mons, Le Cateau, the Battle of the Marne, the Battle of the Aisne and first Ypres. He was wounded at second Ypres in 1915 and declared medically unfit for active service as his left arm was disabled, so he was assigned to a staff position.
From April 1916, he was a staff officer at the Curragh and then in Dublin serving on the staff of Generals Lowe, Maxwell, Mahon and Shaw. He was promoted to GSO (First grade) in April 1918 and was on his way to a staff course in England with his family when the tragedy occurred.
His funeral service was held in the chapel of the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham, which at the time was the residence of the GOC, Irish command, with the Primate of all Ireland officiating and the choir of St Patrick’s cathedral present. The interment was in the officers’ plot of the burial ground at the Royal Hospital which was opened for this purpose by special order of the Viceroy of Ireland and the GOC.
So, this explains why he is buried in the Royal Hospital burial ground, and nobody else from the Leinster is (apart from his young son who is buried with him), or indeed any other officer of the WWI era. The body of his daughter and the French governess were never recovered but Mrs Blackburne was rescued. There is a memorial to the children in Mold parish church.
He has a family headstone with an inscription that reads:
To the Glory of God
and the beloved memory of
Lt Col Charles Harold Blackburne DSO
3/5 Dragoon Guards
Born 20 May 1876
Also Charles Bertram (Peter)
His son born 3 Sept 1911
Who are both buried here
Also
Beatrice Audry born 24 June 1907.
All of whom lost their lives in the sinking of RMS Leinster by a German submarine 10th October 1918
When thou passeth through the waters I will be with thee.
Clearly, he was a man held in high regard by his contemporaries.
Footnote on the Easter Rising military casualties: aside from the six in the Royal Hospital other ranks burial ground, there are five in the grounds of Dr Steevens hospital in central Dublin in a communal grave – three Royal Irish Regiment, one from the 5th Lancers and one from the Sherwood Foresters. All the other military casualties in Dublin from the Easter Rising are in Grangegorman military cemetery, including five officers who were moved there from Dublin castle in the 1960s, which begs the question of why the five in the grounds of Dr Steevens hospital and those in the Royal Hospital are still where they are. Some of the military casualties are buried elsewhere in Ireland. Don’t forget that the bulk of the troops used in the early phase of the Easter Rising were local Irish troops – Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Royal Irish Regiment, 5th Lancers and the odd Inniskilling Fusilier.
References
www.flintshirewarmemorials.com
http://tonbridgeatwar.daisy.websds.net
Women’s Institute Centenary
On 16th September, 1915, the first UK branch of the WI opened in Llanfair PG. Its aim was to encourage and support women in the production and preserving of food as they increasingly took over the running and labour of the nation’s farms.
An early meeting of the Llanfair PG Women’s Institute
The WI had originated in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada in 1899 as a branch of the Farmer’s Institute. In the UK, the Agricultural Organisation Society appointed a Canadian, Madge Watt, to set up WI branches across the country to help with the war effort.
Madge Robertson Watt was a graduate of the University of Toronto and worked as a writer, editor and reviewer. After the death of her husband in 1913, she brought her two sons to England to continue their education. Having been an enthusiastic member of the WI in British Columbia, she recognised the need for a similar organisation to educate and support the women who took over farming as the men started to leave for war in 1914. Her campaigning led to the Agricultural Organisation Society providing funds for that purpose.
From the first beginnings in Anglesey in 1915, numbers rapidly increased to 199 branches by the end of 1918 and the WI is recognised to have been a significant factor in increasing food production from 35% to 60% of the nation’s requirements by the end of the war.
Trevor Adams trevormcmadams@gmail.com