“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 […]
Straddling the border, near Whitchurch in Shropshire and Wrexham in Wales, lies one of the biggest and best raised bogs in Britain. Fenn’s, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses were to play a key part in the First World War. Some 1.7m soldiers from the UK were wounded in the course of the First World War. When […]
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 […]
Who would have guessed that barbed wire would prove the inspiration for Shropshire’s own war poet Wilfred Owen? At the opening of Exposure he draws upon those years walking from their home in Cherry Orchard, Shrewsbury along the Severn. Exposure Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us . . . Wearied we keep […]
Wilfred Owen 100 Shropshire-born poet and soldier Wilfred Owen is known throughout the World as one of the greatest World War I poets. He was born at Plas Wilmot near Oswestry in March 1893. His father Thomas worked on the railways and after spells at Birkenhead and Shrewsbury the family moved back to Shropshire’s county […]
To mark the centenary of the Battle of Passchendaele, the Dept for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England has up-graded Shrewsbury War Memorial, from Grade II to Grade II* Due to its scupltural, architectural and historic interest: as an eloquent witness to the tragic impact of world events on the […]
In the town cemetery in Market Drayton there is a civilian grave to a man who died towards the end of the First World War. He is buried here as he met his death in the skies over the town. Cuthbert Everard Brisley was born into the officer class. At public school, Lancing College, he […]
The biggest single influx of refugees in the history of this country was the product of the opening months of the First World War, as Belgian refugees fled their own country (95% occupied by the German armies) via the Channel ports to Britain. For the volunteers scouring contemporary accounts in local newspapers and the resources […]
The 21st May 2017 will mark the Centenary of the Imperial War Graves Commission. Now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) it was created by Royal Charter with the Prince of Wales as its first President. CWGC marks its Centenary with the launch of a series of projects aimed at promoting wider awareness of its […]
It has often been remarked that many young men joined up seeking adventure as an escape from dull lives in crowded homes and the endless drudgery of many jobs, including those in agriculture. This certainly applied to Len Cooke of Grange Farm, Bicton. Len packed his bags and left the family farm at the age of […]
