The newsletter of the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Dawley Baptist Chapel provided a vital link between those serving overseas and the local community at home. As well as letters from men serving in the armed services, it also included details of life on the Home Front. Wartime restrictions impinged of the daily lives of […]
Ryton is little more than a hamlet and does not have a Parish Church therefore it held no record or memorial to the men of Ryton who served during WW1. Despite this, I was aware that several Ryton men had served because my friend, Ann Duddridge had told me of several members of her family […]
In this further instalment of life at sea on HMS Achilles, Sub Lt. Owen reflects on the threat of submarines, the anticipation of going into action and the tedium of daily routine. He continues to make detailed diary entries, however does question whether it may be a waste of time, that they may end up dissolving […]
While having sort out in the Parvis Room, above the porch at St Andrews Church Shifnal, the Rev. Sally Day, found two posters in a cupboard. They were folded in the blank book which had been intended to be a roll of honour but was never completed. The posters list the names of 184 men from the […]
The letters compiled for the newsletter of the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Dawley Baptist Chapel illustrate how much of an international war the First World War was. Inhabitants of this small town in Shropshire were posted across the globe and wrote back of their experiences. Pte W E Powell was a regular contributor, he served […]
Shropshire Archives has a unique collection of newsletters that offer an insight into one small community’s response to the First World War. It was compiled by the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Dawley Baptist Chapel as a means of sharing news from home with local men who were serving overseas. Today it would probably have […]
In 2014 a small group of people got together to raise funds for the refurbishment of the Myddle War Memorial. One of their first tasks was to establish who owned the memorial as the owner’s permission would be needed for the work to be done. Unfortunately, they found no evidence of ownership and so they […]
Geoffrey Dorsett Owen of Plasyn Grove, Dudleston Heath near Ellesmere was commissioned as Sub Lieutenant in His Majesty’s Fleet on 15 Feb 1912. He kept diaries from 1913 – 1920, which are now in the safekeeping of Shropshire Archives. The following are extracts from the diaries show the build up to war. On the outbreak […]
How did Wilfred Owen come to enlist in what Patrick Baty, the regiment’s historian, has described as ‘perhaps the most curious regiment in the British Army’? When the First World War broke out Owen was in Bordeaux. He was a private tutor teaching English and French at the Berlitz. Letter to his mother 10 […]
Many men who enlisted during the First World War must have experienced a culture shock when entering military life. No doubt some found it easier than others. Bombadier Thomas F Chard of the Cheshire Brigade Royal Field Artillery, one of the “Hanwood Boys”, committed his initial impressions to paper. Civil Life v Army Life ‘I feel […]
