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 […]
In August 1914, as the German army advanced, and the Belgian army prepared a defensive line, 20 year old Marie Van Eylen escaped her small village near Louvain in Belgium. With her mother and stepfather, with only the belongings they could carry, she travelled to Antwerp, and from there to London. After a few weeks […]
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 […]
The family were tanners in Kingsland, Shrewsbury. Adeline and James Cock had three daughters and two sons spread over seventeen years. They were affluent with four female servants; cook, kitchen-maid, parlour-maid and housemaid. When they named the last child, a son, had they anticipated that he would have to live up to that name? Geoffrey […]
