Listed amongst the names on Hanwood’s War Memorial is Lieutenant Walter Atherton K.S.L.I. In addition, there is another touching memorial in Hanwood Church, the stone pulpit that was erected in his memory by his parents. Walter Atherton was only son of Mr Sam Atherton of Nobold, Shrewsbury. He got his commission in August 1914, and […]
As one of the informal group known as the Hanwood Boys, Sergeant Stafford Northcote of the King’s African Rifles Signals was a regular correspondent with Rev. Chitty of Hanwood. His letters give little information about the war but detail life in East Africa and his leisure activities. The following extracts also reveal British attitudes […]
Meg Pybus: review of Wilfred Owen’s Shrewsbury; from the Severn to Poetry and War, by Helen McPhail A book to treasure to read and re-read. The cover deserves special mention. Helen’s title trumpets the long-overlooked association between Owen and Shrewsbury. A smiling Owen (so unusual in a military portrait) stand to attention, behind him is […]
Arthur Allwood enlisted in the Territorial Shropshire Royal Horse Artillery on 3rd February 1912, shortly after his 18th birthday. He died in March 1993 aged 99 years. A former Wem Grammar School pupil [1905–08], he served in both World Wars and wrote many booklets and articles on military history and his family life. He farmed […]
It didn’t take long for Admiral Charles Penrose Fitzgerald to blot his copybook. In the month the War broke out, he founded the Order of the White Feather. The idea was based on traditional cock-fighting lore that a cockerel with a white feather in its tail was a coward. The Order encouraged women to give […]
When John Alexander McCrea was born in Wolverhampton in 1874 his parents, a travelling salesman and a washer woman, would not have expected him to become a highly respected member of the community of Wellington in Shropshire. John McCrea, the eldest of two sons, followed his father in becoming a traveling salesman. Although it is […]
Percy William Micklewright was born in Myddle on 25 September 1890. He joined up, along with his younger brother Dick, and both men left for the Western Front in December 1915* as members of the Royal Army Medical Corps. The brothers were able to be together throughout the war, which must have been a great […]
A stunning sculpture has been unveiled at St Chad’s Church, Shrewsbury. The Royal British Legion’s Shropshire Poppy Appeal and St Chad’s Church have been working with two local artists, Lyn Evans and Nik Burns to mark the centenary of the First World War. The collaboration also included Martin Phillips of Heritage Schools and children […]
“Wiry and energetic with a well-chiselled nose, pale piercing eyes, slight and graceful and a love for everything militaire.” Katherine ‘Katie’ Mary Harley, nee French, sister of Sir John French, leader of the British army at the outbreak of World War 1 and of Charlotte Despard, was born on May 3rd 1855 less than three months after the […]
The First World War conspired for men to produce many heroic deeds but it was intriguing to read what prompted such hyperbole in the Wellington Journal, in October 1918. The article goes on to explain that he gave one and a quarter pints of blood. This gallant soldier, who stands over six feet, is of […]
