The Great Wyrley Area (Cheslyn Hay) in the Great War: 1916 (Part 2)

1916: Total War – Part Two

Joining the Fight: Perceptions on Soldiers and Shirkers

The local perception of serving soldiers, it will be argued here, changed more over 1916 than at any other time; this, again argued here, was in part due to the fact that the National Registration Act and the Derby scheme had put significant pressure onto individuals to join-up, whether they were really suited to it or not, and with conscription men were now being forced to go. This local change in the perception of soldiers was possibly not only driven by the tragedy of Silas Sargent the year before, but a couple of other tragedies that occurred locally – and which will be examined here – as well as the scale of death from the Somme. The thought offered here is that there was a grey area between the polar opposites of good and bad eggs, where forgiveness was offered to those that struggled to start with but came through in the end, and sympathy extended to those that tried but could not see it through.

Everyone still loved a hero: those that did their bit, maybe got a wound or won a medal. The case of army veteran William Brian perhaps epitomises the feeling, and was reported in the Courier on 8 July: ‘Last week Sapper William Brian returned home [Cheslyn Hay] having received his discharge… although considerably over 50 years of age he re-enlisted with the tunnellers a little over nine months ago. He was making good progress until he got wounded, and gassed… Needless to add his friends and family were pleased to welcome his return, and each night he has had old acquaintances to visit him to hear news of the war, and how he fared. Sapper Brian repeats some thrilling but interesting incidents, for he has been in the trenches close to the Germans…the enemy will take a lot of conquering, but we can do it.’

As the dead mounted, the hero was to be immortalised; communities, and sub-communities (church, clubs, businesses, charitable organisations, for example) felt the need to compile lists of those that had gone to serve their country. Locally, the Cheslyn Hay Cricket Club, based at the New Inns, may have led the way with a player Roll of Honour in the pub. Bridgtown had a list of over 200 written-up and mounted in North Street by October. Cheslyn Hay were beginning to collect funds for such a Roll by December. Great Wyrley lagged behind.

The Hawkins family used the grounds of Glenthorne House to hold a public memorial service in the August. A service where hymns and patriotic songs were sung, and biblical and other readings given, was cemented with the names of the then 22 fallen men from the township being read out; what is interesting here is that there was no distinction given between any of the fallen: the name of Silas Sargent was read out, as was Harry Griffiths (Harry’s unfortunate fate is covered in the next chapter), along with any killed in action.

There remained little tolerance, however, towards those that were seen as complete shirkers – those avoiding any responsibility – both at the front and at home. At home, when the Rosemary Tileries appealed the call-ups of some tile setters, the genuine nature of the appeal was thought to be shown by pointing out to the Tribunal that Mr Knox, Managing Director, had sons at the front and was ‘opposed to any shirkers whatever.’ The appeal still failed.

A letter from the front, from Private Hassall (1^st South Staffordshire Regiment), printed in the Courier in May concludes: ‘there’s one thing I’ve got to say to shirkers, I went thank God, I went. I did not wait for Mr Derby to fetch me… If we can do without them we will. We are going to try as we want to be home for Christmas… Heaps of love and kisses to shirkers.’ He then signed it off ‘Your shirker hater.’ Nationally, the need to distinguish the shirker from those who had been discharged honourably from the armed forces, or for being physically or mentally adjudged no longer fit for service, saw the silver war badge constituted in July.

Then there were those that got into khaki, but were perceived to have disgraced the uniform – without redemption. The Lycett affair is a good example of where the Cannock magistrates spotted a ‘bad apple.’ Being a Sergeant at the turn of 1916, one could be forgiven for thinking that Lycett had been a regular prior to the war or had signed-up early, and was therefore a man trusted by the officers – and a man of character. He wasn’t.

At 8.45pm on Sunday 4 March, P.S. Collins was on duty in Stafford Road when he heard Sergeant Lycett’s obscene language. Lycett had been on escort duty and was, according to the police, ‘mad drunk.’ Lycett was approaching Cannock shouting: ‘If I meet a policeman I will kill the … dog,’ which prompted Collins to approach him. Lycett drew his bayonet and threatened to cut off Collins’ head. As they passed Cemetery Road, Collins was joined by Special Constable Orton. Orton was a member of the VTC and, usefully, had his rifle with him. He was also able to supply Collins with a truncheon. Lycett entered a field by Dulce Domum (opposite Cardinal Griffin School). He was followed by the policemen and Lycett warned them to: ‘Go back you Germans or I will do you in.’ He made a lunge at Collins with his bayonet, which pinged-off a metal button on his uniform. Orton stated that at this stage he was prepared to fire at Lycett’s legs if necessary. Collins succeeded, however, in stunning Lycett and they took him to the station.

The junction of Stafford Road/Cemetery Road, Cannock, and the White Lion pub, close to Lycett’s charge of February 1916! 2017.

He appeared in front of the Bench the next day. Lycett’s defence of whiskey, and his sorrow for making a fool of himself, fell on deaf ears and he was he sentenced to six months. The Bench summed-up with a strong statement, paraphrased by the Cannock Courier: ‘The Bench were of the opinion that it wasn’t just the drink, but there was something wrong in the head. They could not see what good a man like that was in the Army.’ Some will think this harsh, but a weapon was involved and the Magistrate was party to private information.

Lycett was born in Armitage, near Lichfield, in 1882, and was sent to a reformatory school at some stage around 1897 as ‘nothing could be done with him.’ Then, on 15 May 1897, he attested into the Highland Light Infantry as a ‘boy’. Initially passed fit for a 12-year period of service, by 3 July he was formally discharged as no ‘longer being required.’ He left Scotland but on 6 December that year he was in front of the Bench at Cannock for theft. He was sent to a reform ship, possibly in Liverpool, from which he absconded and his pathway of opportunist petty crime and frequent short jail visits had started.

He was to serve 3 years from January 1905 for theft, but things turned nasty when in December 1908 when he violently assaulted, wounded and robbed a Thomas Tiplady and Lycett was sent down for 5 years. On 22 November 1915, he had signed-up in the 3/5 Battalion, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and he was relocated to the Chase camps. His attestation appears to be a fabrication: he does not seem to have been asked if he had spent time in a prison, and claimed he had served a full term in the 3rd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. If he had, it is not clear when he could have fitted the service in between prison sentences.

Possibly in light of what they saw as prior service, he was promoted to a corporal on 27 November, then acting lance-sergeant the same day (just a week into his service), then a full sergeant on 12 February 1916; yet, within a few weeks, he was leading the solo bayonet charge against Collins and Orton. The Bench were aware of his past – which is why he was sentenced to time – and he was busted to private. As for the comments, Lycett’s continual pilfering, aggression, and just as importantly, being continually caught, is suggestive of a deeper problem – and one that the Bench recognised, just using the parlance of the time.

Lycett, on release, was transferred to the 4th Reserve Battalion. He ended-up being sent to France as a part of the 1/5 Battalion on 18 October 1916. He had a bunion problem prior to service, and the water in the trenches exacerbated this – so he could hardly get his boots on. He never returned to the front after he received a slight wound to the hand, and was repatriated on 22 November, before being medically discharged in June 1917.

The story of Luther Whitehouse is one where a soldier struggled with anxiety, but ultimately went to do his bit. A second story, which sees community forgiveness, and one more extreme than Luther, was that of Tom. Tom remains un-named out of respect to him, and the fact that his war record does not survive in order to present a full case – indeed, I can find no military reference to him at all. Tom, according to a report in the Courier, had no quibbles over attesting – he did so into the 5^th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment (Territorial), before the war. When asked, Tom elected to stay on home service rather than serve abroad, however, at some stage he absented himself. He was finally arrested at his home in Landywood in early 1916 and had, apparently, been working – right under the noses of the law – at the Great Wyrley Colliery since absconding. He was returned to the military, but cannot be traced. Forgiveness reigns again however: Tom, along with his father and brother, appears with those that served on the Great Wyrley memorial gates.

Two men that the people of Great Wyrley, Cheslyn Hay and Newtown would have heard of, although their names were not read out at the Hawkins’ memorial service, were William Greenwood and William Usher Parnaby. William Greenwood, already a veteran by 1914, died at Newtown, while William Usher Parnaby, who had joined-up under the Derby scheme, died in Cheslyn Hay. The reason they were not read aloud was that these men were not locals, but Yorkshiremen undergoing training on the Chase when they took their own lives.

The two men, Parnaby especially, not only left a mark locally but also with the Army – for due to a high number of ‘incidents’ occurring since the Chase camps were opened, a question was raised in the House of Commons, in August 1916, regarding possible bullying at the two sites; this question, as so often with politics, would ultimately be brushed under that carpet – as it is likely that nobody really wanted to know the truth.

William Greenwood was born in Leeds, on 24 October 1866. He left school and became an engine fitter. Before his 19th birthday he signed into the militia, and then into the regulars in January 1886 (West Yorkshire Regiment). He was posted to India in 1887, where he suffered from an ulcer and often gained then lost his good conduct pay. He returned to England and, in December 1893, he was transferred to the Army Reserve for a further 6 years. He was formally discharged in 1897. William returned to being a mechanic. On 5 July 1898, William re-enlisted into the militia where, despite being declared fit, he was invalided out a year later; no reason was given for this, but we do know that he was on the books of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, so the two maybe connected.

William was down the recruitment office on 22 September 1914 to enlist into the 9th West Riding Regiment. Despite being discharged from the militia on health grounds, he was accepted and landed in France on 15 July 1915. It appears that William was invalided back to England on 3 October 1915, suffering with a hernia. He was operated on at the Lincoln War Hospital. He was then transferred to the 11th (Reserve) Battalion at Brocton Camp around Christmas. At Brocton, he worked in the cookhouse; after a few weeks his demeanour changed and he sought an appointment with his Commanding Officer in order to make a complaint. The complaint, it was claimed, was investigated and proved to be baseless. It was, so reported at his inquest, just tittle-tattle and Greenwood was told to put up with it. The Company Sergeant Major, Edgar Maitland Ward, saw William just after the interview and stated how ‘very much downcast’ he was.

Greenwood was reported absent at 9.30pm on 3 January 1916. He likely walked to Newtown, stopping where the road crossed the canal near the Ivy House (and the Hawkins fishing pool). Dressed in his uniform and great coat, his despair was such that he tied his own hands with a khaki handkerchief and his feet with a boot-lace before entering the water. He was found on 24 January. William was taken from the canal to Bloxwich Mortuary, where he was formally identified and the inquest – that had a feel of a conspiracy of silence about it – took place. A verdict of suicide recorded and he was buried in Field Road Cemetery.

There are three ways of looking at this case: either his operation had affected him, he was disturbed through being bullied, or possibly both. The military had their view, that William was paranoid – as the written statements in the inquest file seem to have been embellished when the testimony was presented at the court (and reported in the newspaper). In his statement, Private Hudson said he had known William for several months and he had always appeared ‘to be of a cheerful disposition until he came to Brocton.’ At the inquest, and what was printed in the Walsall Observer, this became ‘when he came out of hospital.’ Similarly, there being ‘no foundation’ for his claims becomes ‘pure fancy’ in the newspaper. It is also interesting to note that Ward’s observation that Greenwood was ‘very much downcast,’ becomes ‘sullen, morose and seemed to be suffering very strongly from mental depression’ at the inquest. Whatever the truth, Greenwood was given no support for either ‘mental depression’ or his ‘bullying complaint,’ but the people of Wyrley, Landywood and Newton must have been aware of the case.

William Usher Parnaby was born in 1878; his family lived in the lodge of the York Lunatic Asylum, as William Parnaby senior was later the head gardener for that institution. At his son’s inquest, William Parnaby placed two significant events somewhere prior to 1901; William gave the impression that these followed on from each other, but this is not clear. The most important was that William Usher had been committed to the asylum for a period of 12 months, likely the asylum that his father was gardener for, although we do not yet know why. After, William Usher ran a ‘commercial hotel, but that proved a failure.’ We have no further knowledge of the hotel but it was quite a responsibility, especially if he had no real expertise in it, and he was only in his early 20s around this time – which could be why it failed.

In 1901, William Usher Parnaby can be found working as a draper’s assistant in London. He may well have moved jobs, got promotion, or set up on his own by 1911, as on that census he is in Dublin, and being described as being a ‘Commercial Traveller.’ He is still in London in 1912, as he marries Hannah Peacock in Westminster in the early part of that year, and the following year their first daughter, Mary, was born.

William didn’t sign-up when the war arrived in 1914, but attested in York on 10 December 1915 as the Derby scheme neared its end. As such a question isn’t on the attestation form, his previous mental health history was not recorded. His age and marital status saw him placed into group 43, which meant that his call-up would be in mid-June 1916. William Parnaby stated that William Usher presented himself on 22 June, but he had become very depressed since he had received notification. He was posted to the 14th Reserve Battalion, Prince of Wales’ Own (West Yorkshire Regiment), and sent for training to Brocton.

Captain Croxford, Parnaby’s company commander, said that when Parnaby arrived he was ‘very depressed, and did not seem able to pick up his drill.’ Croxford would have no way of knowing that William Usher had spent time in an institution, and the same was true for Sergeant Cundall, who was in charge William’s hut, who noted how ‘Parnaby did not seem to understand anything. He would go for a walk across the common and lose his way.’ Clearly, he should have been under observation, but was placed in the guardhouse as a result of his actions as a punishment. On 7 July, a week into the Somme, he absented himself and headed through Cannock, Bridgtown and into Cheslyn Hay; here, he drowned himself in the Hatherton Reservoir. His body was retrieved by Constables Attwood and Neaverson on Sunday 23 July – he had been in the water for some time. William was conveyed to the Red Lion Inn, which was opposite the Collier’s Arms, in Cheslyn Hay.

On the Thursday the inquest was held and a verdict of suicide was recorded. While the verdict was obvious, the casual disregard that William’s time in the asylum was reported in the Cannock Advertiser – after all, surly this was significant evidence which was seemingly not pursued by the Corner – was shocking (to be fair to the Coroner, we only have the newspaper account): William Parnaby was not asked about the nature of William Usher’s illness, neither were any of the military witnesses, and no censure was given to anyone. William Usher Parnaby was let down by a system that had no understanding of his problems, and preferred to punish him rather than treat him for what was a likely case of melancholia.

The thing is that while he was badly treated by the military in life, he wasn’t so in death; Parnaby had a sympathetic send-off from his Battalion and the people of Cheslyn Hay (and undoubtably the people of Great Wyrley and the surrounding area). The question has to arise as whether there was some recognition here of William Usher’s state of mind and the failings towards him, and judging by the report in the Cannock Advertiser it is suggested that, with everyone knowing that William had been fished out of the reservoir, and so likely entered it freely, there was a great deal of sympathy – despite many not being privy to the details that emerged at the inquest. Parnaby lay down to rest in Cheslyn Hay in 1916, he lies there still.

‘Full military honours [were] accorded the funeral, which was witnessed by upwards of 1,000 people. The West Yorkshire Regiment provided a contingent of soldiers, numbering nearly 50, including the Regimental Band, firing party, and bearers, under the command of Captain Croxford. The coffin, covered with the Union Jack, on top of which was the deceased’s belt, cap and bayonet, was conveyed on a gun carriage, and as the procession wended its way from the Red Lion Inn to the cemetery the band played the Dead March from Saul. For some part of the distance, the road was lined with scholars from the Cheslyn Hay Girls’ and Boys’ School. The service in church and at the graveside was conducted by the Rev Lomas (Cannock) and an impressive ceremony terminated with the sounding of the ‘Last Post’ by six trumpeters [and a volley over the grave]. The soldiers afterward returned to the Salem School, where tea was served, and Mrs Seedhouse provided the men with cigarettes.’

Finally, the Volunteer Training Corps would undergo a transformation in 1916. In January, the Cannock section invited those that had attested under the Derby scheme, and were awaiting call-up, to drill with them. In February, they were calling for bayonets to be issued to them. The Corps, however, were nationally calling for more recognition overall – and locally the Cannock Urban District Council had added their voice in support of the Corps in early 1916. While officially it happened on 29 February, the news was printed in the newspapers in early March that the Corps would officially become a part of the British Army, and in April the Cannock company of the Volunteer Training Corps became the Cannock company of the Stafford County Volunteer Regiment. This was not just a semantic issue, the switch now meant that the uniform and equipment were no longer the responsibility of the individual but that of the War Office – and the uniform, now issued to all, was khaki.

Feeling the Pinch

While the 1917 and 1918 would see greater impact on this issue it would, in fact, be 1916 that would see the turning point in food economy, inasmuch as David Lloyd George and others realised that the public would need to endure ‘all kinds of hardships’ in order for the war to be prosecuted more effectively. While the first half year opened in the same way as 1915 finished, tougher measures would be introduced later in the year in order to prepare the country for those predicted hardships. Stronger measures were introduced from the November, with the appointment of a national Food Controller and sweeping powers being allotted to the Board of Trade and Board of Agriculture to prevent waste, regulate prices, commandeer shipping and purchase land, for example. The Cannock Courier printed a stark article on 30 December, spelling out the situation at the end of 1916 – and it is worth quoting.

Britain: ‘at the end of two and a half years of war finds itself far from being starved out. We have seen nothing of bread tickets, meat tickets… [nor] any food riots… [but] we have not escaped scatheless, for our food prices have increased enormously: potatoes from a shilling to 2/6d per fourteen pounds, eggs from eighteen pence to 4/6d [54 pence] per dozen, and meat, jam, bread and butter in proportion. Economy has been urged on the people, and practiced to some extent… An attempt has been made to reduce consumption by cutting down on restaurant dinners… There has been a proposal to turn our commons [common and idle land], even our golf links, into cultivation… but these measures only touch the fringe of the subject… After New Year’s Day [1917] a standard loaf will be obligatory, thus increasing our wheat supplies by 8½% [and] that milk may not be sold at more than sixpence a quart.’

The Food Controller went on with an ominous warning: ‘at present a great many people are obtaining more than their fair share of commodities. This has to stop, and possibly the only way to stop it is by a system of rationing. The extravagant use of sugar in confectionary and cakes must not be allowed to continue, and there must be a general diminution in the consumption of staple foods.’ He warned the public that unless this was brought about by voluntary abstinence, it might be ‘necessary to make the abstinence compulsory.’

So, what local evidence supports the article above? As early as February the comments on land use would see the Staffordshire County Council Agricultural Committee return to pushing the subject of food economy into the public consciousness by stressing that gardens, allotments and every possible acre should be cultivated. Indeed, during the mid-1916 months, Great Wyrley Parish Council decided to take back possession of a few uncultivated allotments at Landywood – one man having gone off to Dover to work, for example – and redistributed them to other residents, albeit at reduced rates due to the unkempt nature of those allotments at that point.

The increase in prices can be demonstrated easily, but let us take just one example. The South Wales Miners were urging all workers to unite in sending an ultimatum to the Government, that they ‘take steps immediately to reduce food prices.’ As the article – which was actually a letter to the newspaper from the Mid-Staffordshire Miner’s Association – in the Courier on 18 November was under the headline of ‘Miners Threatened Strike Against Food Prices,’ it is assumed the ultimatum would come with the threat of a national strike should nothing be forthcoming. The Mid-Staffordshire Miner’s Association letter added that they had passed a resolution in support of the Welshmen.

There were often lectures given by the local Agricultural Committee on aspects of food production and preparation – as at Cheslyn Hay in the December. The Board of Agriculture, however, went further in seeking to protect what yield there was. A good example of this was when they wrote to the Great Wyrley Parish Council, in January 1916, with a list of 29 varieties of potatoes that would be resistant to wart disease in order to protect the potato yield. It was required by law to report wart disease, as it was a fungus that not only attacked the current planting but can remain in the soil to infect potatoes for years.

The failure to report the disease was a breach of the Wart Disease Order (one of many food control orders), and Arthur Holden of Chadsmoor found, to his cost, that ignorance of the law was no defence. Holden’s ground was visited by a representative of the Board (Midland counties) and the disease found when potatoes were lifted; Holden claimed that he had planted ‘Great Scots,’ which were supposed to be disease resistant so he didn’t know the disease was there. The magistrates ‘thought it was a serious thing for the country that the disease had not been reported and a fine of 20s was inflicted.’

Another way of appreciating the rising cost of articles is to reflect on the illegal activities that surrounded them. The first example, which took place in January, has been used here more as an example of how food retailers would be monitored by the County Council – what would today be thought of as the Weights and Measures Department – than anything more. This misdemeanour was over just two loaves of bread ‘sold other than by weight,’ and so there is some sympathy here, rather than adulterating whole churns of milk as Job Arrowsmith did. Ethel Bushell visited the shop of John Barlow in North Street, Bridgtown, and here, she purchased the loaves and passed them to the Assistant Inspector. He weighed them and found they were 4oz light. John pleaded that he did not sell bread normally, but kept a few loaves for boat people to purchase out of hours. John was duly fined 10s by the Cannock magistrate.

While poaching was a problem, there was always an added threat of violence – especially if the poacher carried a weapon. James Rice, who would eventually be called up himself, was a Great Wyrley man, and a gamekeeper for the Vernon family in Essington. In early 1916, Rice approach a miner from Broad Lane, Essington, with regard to his apparent trespass on Vernon’s land in order to acquire game. Fortunately, the said trespasser’s gun was not loaded but he had cartridges on him, and when Rice confiscated the cartridges he was beaten with the unloaded gun. Fortunate to escape a term in prison, his assailant was fined 40s for the assault, 6s for trespass, and lost his gun licence.

Of course, other commodities other than foodstuffs were stolen and the chief of these was coal. 1916 saw an increase in small thefts of coal, usually opportunist, which were only discovered by the local bobby on his bike. A good example is that of Thomas Wiggin of Norton Canes, who was prosecuted in January 1916, along with his 10-year old son, after PC Wilcox spotted the theft. Wiggin was on the Watling Street canal bridge (now gone, but over the tow path of the Cannock Extension Canal, part of which remains) near the Old Turf Tavern (on the opposite side of the Walsall Road from the current Turf Tavern), with a wheelbarrow, while Wilcox spied his son, on the tow path, helping himself to a shilling worth of coal that belonged to the Birmingham Canal Navigations. Wiggin got a 10s fine.

Then opening of the Chase camps not only witnessed enterprising soldiers that were always willing to relieve the Army of its possessions, but unscrupulous civilians that seized on the chance to fence foodstuffs and other commodities from the enterprising soldiers. One such example was brought to light in April 1916, when, again by chance, a policeman stopped a pony and trap driven by a greengrocer from High Town, Hednesford. Noticing a few loaves of camp bread in the trap, and after the greengrocer tried to buy his silence, the home of the greengrocer was visited; here they uncovered items of Army uniform, including boots, blankets, bread and dripping. The greengrocer had a contract with the camp to service some of the camp messes and he clearly appropriated or swapped the items one way or another. As the items were Army property, he and his son were fined £5 each.

Paper remained a sought-after commodity as well, with the Cannock Advertiser switching back to a 4-page version part-way through 1916 (other than for a Christmas edition) and the same paper reported on the government fixing the price of hay and straw in April.

Supporting the War Effort

Supporting the war effort for an individual, excluding actual military service, effectively came in one, or more than one, of three ways: through voluntary supportive work, through national service work, or financially. The first has been covered here: the form of local Red Cross and war relief committees, for example, or the egg collecting of Gertrude Wynn and Annie Snape (the latter even stamping her eggs with her name, for which she got the occasional letter from a wounded Tommy), that had secured, by March 1916, 2000 eggs for wounded servicemen since they started the campaign the previous year.

The funds for which these local committees raised money remained the same: servicemen comforts, prisoners of war, Belgian and other allied countries, the Red Cross, local distress relief (national, too). 1916 would also see the start of fundraising for rolls of honour. It is easy to think, with all going on, that non-war related charitable causes would be swept under the carpet, however, this would not be the case. In the May a fundraising event was held at the Britannia Hall for the Robinson family: the Robinsons lived on the Cheslyn Hay/Great Wyrley border and while young Ernest had gone off to the war – indeed, he would be killed on the opening day of the Somme just a few weeks later – the fund was to help the family after Stephen, father of the family, had been killed after a kick from a horse. Similarly, in the December, a whist drive would be held at the Great Wyrley Institute in aid of the St. Marks’ Church renovation fund.

The methods of fundraising remained fairly consistent. Indoor entertainment came in the form of whist drives and dances for adults, with tea and concerts for families. That, in aid of the Soldiers and Sailors Fund, which took place in the Great Wyrley Institute in the January hosted 200 dependents of servicemen. For the occasion, the room was decked with flags and balloons, and a tea was had that was followed by a mixed entertainment of poetry recitals and songs. The poems were recited by the ‘young folk,’ while the songs were offered by individual and groups from Great Wyrley, Landywood and Cheslyn Hay; and, on a personal note, to have heard Mrs Allan’s Cheslyn Hay Girl’s School choir sing ‘Till the Boys Come Home [Keep the Home Fires Burning],’ must have been quite powerful.

Outdoors, there remained the sports. A great example of this were the football games played amongst each other, with monies going to the local relief committees, between the local collieries (of the Old Coppice, Harrisons and Great Wyrley). Another game, held in the May, was played between Old Coppice and a combined team from Harrisons and the Great Wyrley Colliery. The combined team won 3-2, however, the money raised this time went to Moses Lockett (of Cheslyn Hay) and Thomas Bullock (of Great Wyrley) who had both been ‘badly injured’ during the recent games raising money for the local relief committees!

The second way was to undertake national service work in the form of direct work, or in supportive roles. For those that did so, and were of military age, a war service badge existed in order to distinguish those that were engaged in such – although the badge could be withdrawn, as more and more men were required for the front. If we take a look at some members of the Parish Council, who by being on the Council were helping organise the local war effort, we have Albert Henshall, Stephen Woodhouse and Walter Simkin that were school teachers. Simkin had been in the militia and Territorials, and been to the front as a sergeant in the South Staffordshire Regiment before his term of engagement ran out. George Goodwin, as well as being employed in the mines, a vital industry, was also enrolled as a special constable at the beginning of the year.

As we have seen, women formed the core of many of the voluntary committees and organisations assisting the war effort – take Gertrude Wynn in Cheslyn Hay, Annie Snape in Landywood and Alice Henshall in Great Wyrley. Women were, in 1916, appearing in all kinds roles traditionally seen as male. The Cannock Courier had carried an article the January on the need to get more women into commerce and office work, and in April the Advertiser carried appeals for women to come forward due to the shortage of farm labour. In June, the Courier also covered the fact that ‘owing to a serious shortage of labour at the municipal gas works at Coventry, fifty women have been engaged to do navvy work… They are employed mainly in filling barrows with coke, washing the coke and wheeling it… They are paid 24s a week for a week of fifty-five hours.’

Many women locally went into national war service as ‘munitionettes,’ as they were often called, and employed in factories in Birmingham, although there were other munitions factories around locally. Being in munitions did not protect you from the law, although her non-attendance at court was excused on that basis, as Lilly Plant of Shareshill found out to her cost; Lily was a munitions worker, employed in Birmingham, who was fined 6s for having no lights on her bike.

Finally, there is the financial support. Various war funds have been covered already, however, 1916 saw the formation of the National Saving Committee and then local War Savings Associations. These Associations raised money by collecting from people within their local area and when an individual’s account reached 15s 6d they purchased a savings certificate that was worth £1 when it matured. Locally, it appears that Great Wyrley (and Landywood) led the way by forming an Association that met for the first time in the first half of September – indeed, the 16 September edition of the Walsall Observer stated that 283 certificates had been sold by this point. Bridgtown formed an Association in late September, and Cheslyn Hay followed in the December.

The formation of the Association in Great Wyrley, and later Cheslyn Hay, saw the scheme being sold to the local parishioners by way of explanatory of meetings in the November. The first, at the Landywood Workingmen’s Club (now Harrisons), was followed by a second at the Lower Landywood Wesleyan Chapel School, and a third at the Great Wyrley Institute. These meetings were addressed by James Parker, an MP for Halifax, who fervently spoke on the need (the overall cost of the war) and workings of the scheme (that the certificates would appreciate in value). By the time these meetings were held, it was reported in the Courier that 1355 certificates had been sold by the Great Wyrley Association.

Business as Usual in Great Wyrley, Landywood and Cheslyn Hay

The year opened with an infrastructure blow for the area, as Landywood halt (along with Birchills Station) was permanently closed. The news appeared in the Walsall Observer in the middle of January, but the indication was that the station had been closed for a little while. Today, Network Rail give a closure date of 1 January, however, this may be an official date – as a possible dig at the London North Western Railway had appeared in the Cannock Courier edition on that day that referred back to Monday 27 December, when the station may not have reopened after the Christmas holiday: ‘there was a great rush at Landywood for the buses. The vehicles were packed and a number could not get on three different buses. There was, it can be imagined, a number of unusual remarks made.’ The station likely closed as a coal saving exercise, mixed with the improving bus service between Walsall and Cannock – however, the bus service remained problematical to those in Great Wyrley.

While we have looked at just how well the local people could understand conditions at the front, there occurred an incident on Friday 14 January that – and this is tongue in cheek – may have brought the war experience a little closer: ground movement and the shaking of buildings would be something we would associate with sells bursting, however, the Great Wyrley area was, at 7.45pm, hit by an earthquake. A Mr. Harrison’s testimony made it into the papers: ‘he had never experienced such a time. The bed in which he lay fairly rocked, he ran downstairs and his wife said the tables and chairs moved.’ The old Landywood Chapel (in Lower Landywood) did not escape ‘insomuch as the caretaker remarked… that the shock had cause some damage to the doors.’ It scared one household in Great Wyrley so as ‘all the occupants were too frightened to go to bed.’

The weather over the early months of the year was dreadful, and can be seen clearly in its effect on local schools. The Zeppelin raid was followed by snow that lasted a month in Walsall, and there was much absenteeism as there was no fuel available to heat Sarah Parker’s Whitehall school – with her laconically pointing out in her log book that it is ‘retarding the progress of the school.’

Landywood School, which had started a school bank in January, mirrored this tale of weather woe: Henshall records in his log that there were only 148 children on 24 February as the snow was 3-4 feet deep, so he closed as the children were wet through; the roads were impassable the following day, so he closed again; 27 February was a half day closure, as the snow turned to slush; the temperature was 45-48 degrees on 1 March as there was no coal, and there was only a 56% attendance. Snow and gales returned later in March, with the Parish Council complaining to the Rural District Council that: ‘It was a disgrace to see the snow lay over a yard deep on the roads for five or six days before a road was cut through.’

Sometime around March, Ernest Neaverson arrived to take over the police station in Great Wyrley. Born in Burton-on-Trent in 1882, the former brewery labourer had entered the service and was working in Handsworth in 1911. He married in 1912, and was, until around the February, working a beat in Hednesford. He stayed in the township until October 1921, when he was promoted to sergeant and transferred to Smethwick. By the end of the year, Neaverson would be on hand to help extricate William Usher Parnaby from the reservoir, and likely would have attended the inquest on Ernest Wollaston; Wollaston was a young lad who had ran after, and the was knocked over and killed by a bus – a bus travelling at just 5mph – on the Walsall Road.

Of the regular events, it was announced in March that the Great Wyrley Horticultural Society would abandon their show in 1916 and that Cannock would move theirs to August – this was to avoid affecting the local industries. The annual hospital parade took place in mid-September, raising over £21; it was interesting to see that this procession, which went from the Institute to the Methodist Chapel in Lower Landywood, was headed by the Cannock Salvation Army Band and accompanied by, as well as the usual local people and groups, the Independent Order of Druids. September, too, saw the reopening, after ‘considerable renovations,’ of the Palace Cinema in Cheslyn Hay (it was described as formerly the Britannia). The Wakes did not take place in Cheslyn Hay at the end of October as usual, ‘owing to an order from the Minister of Munitions,’ worried, no doubt, over the loss of production that the event would bring with it.

The Great Wyrley Parish Council’s minor business over the year kicked off in January with a letter to Staffordshire County Council on the ‘deplorable’ state of the Walsall Road, and the following month an undertaking was received from the County Council to look at Walsall Road as soon as possible. A letter to Walsall Tramways, hoping that the bus ‘fares could be a little revised’ for the Wyrley parishioners (specifically the fare from Holly Lane to the Norton Lane Institute and from Bentons Lane to the same), met with a reply that there was little probability in bus fare changes. Complaints over the busses being full, so that ‘they were of little use to Great Wyrley,’ continued.

February raised the question of the condition of Wharwell Lane – where the indomitable Councillor Goodwin had recently plucked a woman from a ditch. Interestingly, the Council were alarmed that school children used the road four times a day and, they recorded, that there had been ‘more cases of fever in the district than had been the case for about eight years.’ How this related to Wharwell Lane, unless referring to stagnant water, is unclear. A tree was cited for being partially responsible for a lack of improvement (it had been widened in 1915), and in the March the Council agreed to pay £4 in order to acquire it and a little piece of land it sat on.

Together with Cheslyn Hay, the Council wrote in the February to the Education Authority, for support, and then the LNWR in order to get a train reinstated that was of ‘great convenience to the children attending Walsall School… as they now had to loiter about Walsall until 5.30pm [now the 4.40pm train had been stopped].’

With food economy becoming more important, the May meeting showed that the township allotments were still operating at a loss – likely due to rents owed. It was also interesting in that the fiery Goodwin reported that he had written to the Board of Agriculture some weeks before, and despite a further letter, and received no reply to his request for a licence to plant the potato seed he had purchased (a licence was now one of the Food Orders). He pointed out that he was not the only allotment holder to be thus treated by the Board. and he was too afraid to plant the seed without it. The Council agreed to write a ‘strong’ letter to the Board to push the ‘injust’ issue.

June and July were predominantly taken up with repairs to footpath styles, allotment fencing repairs, ash pit removal and cheese making classes. The latter was a suggestion from Cheslyn Hay Parish Council, however, it was decided to canvass opinion amongst farmers locally as to the quality, and sufficient quantity of, milk. June also saw the return from active service of Walter John Simkin, Parish Clerk and teacher at Cheslyn Hay School. Simkin, who died in 1937, is an interesting man, and the epitome of someone that not only served militarily, but worked hard for both communities before, during and after the war.

August would see the re-allocation of vacant allotments, despite them being in a poor state, but also an insight into the continued unease over Zeppelin raids. Councillor Goodwin complained that the Zeppelin warnings that went off ‘recently’ – factory hooters, for example – could not be heard; he, himself, had enrolled as a special constable, and, when he heard them, he went ‘to the meeting place, expecting others to be there, but nobody else turned up.’ From the remainder of the year, September focussed on the War Savings Committee discussed earlier, while October’s main discussion fell on the state of the cemetery, and a collection for the Kitchener Memorial Home.

One final story to finish the year, to show a mix of business as usual and how different the world was. PC Neaverson charged the 15-year old John Pinson for negligent driving (with Pinson going on to be fined 7s by the magistrate to cover costs, despite his denial of the charge). The lad was not driving a motor vehicle, of course, but a horse and cart – only when Neaverson stopped the horse and cart as it appeared to be ‘unattended,’ and he was worried as there were pupils coming out of the Great Wyrley School at the time, he found Pinson asleep in the cart. Pinson was roused when the horse stopped and sat-up to bid the beast to move on. Fortunately, as nobody was hurt we can smile about it today.

1917 to follow…