Wakefield in the Great War, page 4
Wakefield’s League of Frontiersmen on a charabanc outing.
It was not only the export trade that would suffer. Within two days the effects of the war were being ‘seriously felt in the majority of trades in Leeds’, according to the Yorkshire Evening News, adding that similar problems were being reported across the West Riding. Pre-existing plans had put the railways under government control immediately war was declared and now priority went to military transport, leaving civilian freight at depots and unable to move. With no way to move stock, many businesses went on to short working and some were forced to close altogether. Elsewhere, workers met with employers and agreed cuts to wages in an effort to keep companies afloat. The Wakefield Express even warned that paper would soon be in short supply as its manufacture was dependent on pulp shipped from Norway and Sweden and the North Sea had now become a battleground. The holiday trade, reliant on income generated over the summer months, abruptly found its livelihood threatened. The Post Office had lost so many staff that mail deliveries were seriously disrupted, again affecting businesses and the requisitioning of horses and vehicles caused severe problems for all types of transport. It was not all bad news, though. Although the Express predicted that the worsted and cloth mills would be hard hit, excited manufacturers looked forward to receiving government orders for cloth to make uniforms with Colbeck Brothers & Co. at Alverthorpe, expecting to be working flat out to meet orders for serge and khaki, although ironically the dye used to make khaki had previously been imported from Germany and other sources were now needed, leaving many new recruits starting their military career proudly wearing surplus blue post office uniforms. By early January 1915, Mr. R. Tonge, Secretary of the Ossett Chamber of Commerce, was able to report to the Annual General Meeting that the town was experiencing the greatest boom it had ever known, a sentiment echoed in many mill towns regenerated by government contracts.
Within the first week, though, the situation seemed far more bleak and the immediate impact of war on trade meant that thousands of military-age men found themselves suddenly out of work. Unemployment rose sharply across the country, almost doubling from a prewar average of 3.5 per cent to a high of 6.2 per cent in August before falling again to 5.4 per cent in September and 4.2 per cent in October, but still remained a serious problem. Early in August, Wakefield Council began looking for schemes to provide work and planned projects to strengthen the foundations of Dewsbury Road, make improvements to Sugar Lane and to widen parts of Barnsley Road, Castle Road, and Flanshaw Lane. Meanwhile, a letter from the West Riding Rivers Board urged the Council to implement sewerage and sewage-disposal schemes in an attempt to alleviate the worst effects of unemployment. As it had for generations before, the army offered some the only alternative to hunger and in some places the Poor Law Guardians simply stopped any support for able-bodied men, advising them to join up immediately. There was concern that the spate of voluntary work in garment-making for example, might aggravate the unemployment situation and pleas were made for people not to undertake work for free that could be done as paid employment. If hospitals were to be established, it was argued, the work of fitting them out should be done by local firms, not by VAD volunteers.
In response to the emergency, on 8 August the Wakefield Express carried a letter from the Prince of Wales announcing the establishment of his National Relief Fund to assist both the families of soldiers and sailors and those thrown out of work by the war, and this was supported by a further letter from Queen Alexandra expressing her own support for the scheme of her ‘dear son for the relief of the inevitable distress which must be bravely dealt with in the coming days’. Wakefield’s Mayor, John William Saville, took charge of local fundraising and donations came in quickly with most of the money being forwarded to the national fund, but part was retained for the relief of local distress. Concerts were organized at the Grand Electric Cinema in support of the appeal and the Playhouse, already helping the VAD, put on additional shows in an effort to help. Employees of the Diamond Coal Cutting Company decided to give up 5 per cent of their wages to the Prince of Wales Fund and to let the Mayor have a monthly payment whilst workers of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway gave up 1.25 per cent of their wages for the War Relief Fund. Within a fortnight of war being declared, Wakefield people had subscribed £205 to support the Voluntary Aid Detachment and £2,445 for the National Relief Fund with a house-to-house collection at the end of August by staff from the Prudential Insurance Company, bringing in a further £135. Wakefield already had a Citizens Guild of Help which had been founded in 1910 as a voluntary organization supported by subscriptions to provide immediate assistance to those in financial distress from its premises in Almshouse Lane. For ease of management of the fund, Wakefield had been divided into districts each with its own dedicated team who would investigate every application for aid. As soon as members realised that the War Relief Fund would be fulfilling the same role, the Guild offered their premises and volunteers to manage the payments.
Unemployment was not the only financial concern. Many local miners had already been members of the Territorials, with five of the ambulance men from the West Riding Colliery at Altofts leaving to serve with the Royal Army Medical Corps and around 150 men from Henry Briggs Son and Company’s collieries at Whitwood, among those who had immediately been embodied into the KOYLI. For the miners, though, leaving for the army was a serious matter given that army pay of a shilling a day meant an enormous pay cut that few could afford. The local branch of the Soldiers and Sailors Families Association advised those who were dependants of serving soldiers, sailors and ambulance men to register for assistance if required at the office of the National Relief Fund in the Town Hall but having to apply for charitable handouts in order to serve their country did not sit well with the men. Like many employers, Briggs encouraged other men to enlist by promising to give the wives of any employees willing to enlist 10s a week with a further 2s a week for each child while they were away. Low Laithes Colliery Company, operating at Wrenthorpe and Gawber, and with forty-eight men already embodied, were prepared to provide 10s a week to the wives of servicemen but asked their employees to support the children themselves. At Newmarket Colliery the union branch devised a scheme where miners still at work would contribute to a fund to give 5s a week to the wives of those who joined up and an additional 2s-6d for each child whilst the owners of the Victoria Coal and Coke Company at Park Hill Colliery and St John’s Colliery at Normanton offered £3 to every man who joined up plus 5s a week saved for him until his return. Wakefield Council followed suit, promising all fifty-two employees already planning to enlist that their jobs would be kept open for them.
Britain had gone to war with a small, highly professional army but the newly appointed Secretary of State for War, Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener, immediately recognised that the army that had coped well against third world adversaries across the world was now facing a large, well equipped European enemy. If Britain were to play any significant role, it would need to expand and quickly. Recruiting began for the first 100,000 men of what would become known as the ‘New Army’ or, as the serving troops called it, ‘Kitchener’s Mob’. On 15 August, Saville’s appeal appeared in the Wakefield Express, reminding readers of the city’s excellent track record in supplying volunteers for the army in time of need:
Volunteers swear allegiance before being given the King’s shilling. The first step to becoming a soldier.
As Mayor and Chief Magistrate of the City, I appeal to eligible men to respond to the call of the King in this hour of national trial.
In the year 1900 when the country required Volunteers for South Africa the response from the Wakefield district was remarkable and at the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry supplied more Volunteers than any other battalion in England.
In the fateful emergency that now confronts our Empire the need is manifestly greater. MEN OF WAKEFIELD! AGAIN LEAD THE WAY!
The appeal is to both old soldiers and new men. The terms of service are as follows:
1. General service for 3 years or until the end of the war;
2. Age for old soldiers 19–42. Age for recruits 19–30;
3. The families of married men who join will receive separation allowance.
This was followed by the first of several recruitment rallies as crowds filled Wood Street to hear Colonel Christopher R.I. Brooke, who was to head Kitchener’s newly formed 8th Battalion of the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and Major Simpson, who was in overall charge of army recruitment in Yorkshire, address them from the balcony of the Town Hall. Immediately, 146 men volunteered with more coming forward in the following week. So successful was it that a second and more ambitious rally was held a week later. This time a screen was rigged up outside the Court House onto which were projected lantern slides of admirals and generals. The principal speaker this time was George William Coventry, Viscount Deerhurst, a veteran of the wars in South Africa and Matabele, who was followed by the Yorkshire cricketer-turned soldier, Francis Stanley Jackson, now a Colonel in the West Yorkshire Regiment, and lastly by Wakefield’s Liberal Member of Parliament, Arthur Marshall. A week later, the Sheffield Independent reported ‘exceedingly lively’ recruiting at Wakefield, with 900 men accepted for service, 600 of them from that single rally. In a widely reported speech to a recruiting drive near Barnsley, former Admiral Lord Charles Beresford told a large crowd that ‘a pair of Yorkshire eyes behind a British bayonet – they cannot stand bayonets you know – will put more fear into the hearts of the Germans than anything else. Roll on all you lads who can and I wish you good luck. Cheer up Yorkshire!’
A shortage of uniforms meant that new recruits began training still wearing civilian clothes and often commuted to training from home.
Despite the initial enthusiasm, especially from those who would not be joining themselves, across the country the fact remained that only a very small portion of the men eligible to enlist had done so. News from France in late August and early September that the British Expeditionary Force was in full retreat sent recruitment figures soaring to a high of 462,901, but within weeks, the number had fallen to less than a third of that and would continue to fall for the rest of the war. Some chose not to join because only a year earlier the army had been deployed on to the streets during strikes and were still seen as the enemy. Others could simply not afford the loss of income enlisting would bring. Still more saw that after the initial blow to business, the clothing, engineering and munitions manufacturers were bouncing back and there were ample jobs for all. For some, it was pure prejudice. In class conscious Edwardian society the ordinary British ‘Tommy’ was still regarded with suspicion and as late as 1913 soldiers in uniform had been regularly barred from theatres and music halls. Recognising that many potential recruits were put off by the idea of serving alongside the ‘wrong sort’, Kitchener’s ‘New Army’ created a new sort of battalion. Following a scheme developed by Lord Derby, battalions would be formed of ‘Pals’, men from similar backgrounds who would serve in special units where social standards could be maintained. Among the first questions asked of an applicant to the Leeds Pals, for example, was to ask what his father did for a living, and only those from the University and the professional classes would be accepted. So stringent could these rules be that Hull had to create separate battalions for its commercial sector, tradesmen and sportsmen, before allowing ordinary recruits into a ragtag battalion known as ‘t’others’. In many cases these special battalions were raised and funded by the local council until they could be handed over to the War Office as a fully formed unit. In Wakefield, attempts to have the recruiters for the Leeds Pals visit the town failed, so J. Charles McGrath, Clerk to the West Riding County Council, suggested in early September the formation of a Heavy Woollen District Battalion made up of professional men with ‘educational advantages’ such as those working for the County or Borough Councils, as businessmen or as clerks in some other sphere. By late September it had become clear that there was little hope of raising the estimated £7,000 needed to clothe the unit, let alone the money needed to train it, and so by mid-October the first batch of his volunteers went to the Earl of Yarborough’s estate at Brocklesby House, near Immingham, to join the Lincolnshire Chums instead.
Raising a local battalion was an expensive business. Among the groups attempting to raise their own battalion were the West Yorkshire Coal Owners Association (WYCOA), who put aside £22,000 for the purpose and began recruiting at pits across Yorkshire, but struggled to find enough men willing to join what was already being referred to as the ‘Pontefract Battalion’. Many miners had already enlisted but many more fell foul of the new regulations raising the minimum height requirement from 5ft 2ins to 5ft 6ins. Given the difficulties, the WYCOA considered simply donating £10,000 to the War Office instead, but when they approached them, the War Office agreed to waive the rules and to draft in extra numbers from among the other KOYLI volunteers, provided they would be treated the same as their former miner comrades. It also offered to provide £7-5s per man for equipment and 2s a day for food. Thus encouraged, the WYCOA went back to recruiting what was now being referred to as the 12th (Service) Battalion (Yorkshire Miner’s) of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry or, more simply, 12 KOYLI. On Monday, 14 September, 250 new recruits formed up outside the Town Hall and were wished God-speed by the Deputy Mayor before marching through crowded streets to the station to catch the train to the KOYLI depot at Pontefract, their final destination as yet unknown.
Early volunteers for Kitchener’s ‘New Army’.
Following a request by the Mayor, a rally at Wakefield’s Empire Theatre on a Sunday evening towards the end of October was organised by representatives of Wakefield Labour Party, Wakefield Socialist Party and the Trades Council, with the principal speeches coming from leading trades unionists. John H. Thomas, the Member of Parliament for Derby, was the Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen – the largest trades union in the country at the time – who referred to the possible impropriety of holding such a gathering on a Sunday, but argued that the country had never before been engaged in ‘so righteous a cause’, adding that it was neither a party issue nor a government issue, but rather one for the whole nation. J.W. Burrows from Wakefield Trades Council then proposed a two-part motion calling on those eligible to volunteer at once for military service and for the government to improve the pay and make adequate provision for dependants. It was seconded by Councillor Tennant who reminded the gathering that the navy needed men too.
The rallies at the Town Hall had urged men to support their King and country and presented enlisting as a patriotic duty. That, though, was not how miners’ leaders saw it. For them it was a fight for democracy and freedom of speech. Lofthouse miner Harry Robinson initiated a scheme to persuade young single mine workers to enlist and called a meeting of delegates from other local collieries at Newmarket Silkstone, Park Hill, Robin Hood and Wrenthorpe, in the Dolphin Hotel. There they organised a rally at Outwood, to be held on 8 November. Initially the plan was to hold it in the school but the crowds were so large that it had to be held outside, with speakers Herbert Smith, the President of the Yorkshire Miners Association, and county councillor and Assistant Secretary Sam Roebuck standing on a hastily rigged platform. Roebuck spoke about how well miners were suited for work on the front line and that they ‘made the finest fighting material that could be produced because they lived face to face with exceptional danger every minute of their working life’. Harry Robinson argued that young miners had the stamina to endure the rigours of army training and would not contract rheumatism and have to be sent home. He then repeated the proposed two-part motion calling upon those eligible to enlist at once and for the government to increase the allowances for those who were serving, their dependants and to the wounded. It was seconded by a local schoolmaster.
Miners’ leaders then arranged a further recruitment rally, again on a Sunday, on the evening of 28 November at the Wakefield Empire. This time there was a large platform party including both the new mayor and his predecessor, three Members of Parliament, including Wakefield’s own Arthur Marshall and the Labour members Charles Duncan, MP for Barrow in Furness and secretary of the Workers’ Union, and Fred Hall, a former treasurer of the Yorkshire Miners Association, who was the Member of Parliament for Normanton. F. White from Park Hill Colliery proposed another motion similar to the ones at the October meeting and the one at Outwood but specifying £1 a week as the amount the government should pay those whose soldiers became permanently disabled or the widows of those who died for their country. Hall, who seconded the motion, stressed the threat of invasion, referring to the presence of German warships off the Norfolk coast and a great deal was made about reports of sufferings following the German invasion of Belgium, comments reinforced by a Belgian soldier by the name of Dubois who was in Wakefield, briefly, with a group of refugees. The grimness of some speeches was relieved by the comic turn given by Bryan O’Donnell, mocking the Kaiser as ‘sometimes’ mad and the Crown Prince as ‘always’ mad, before advising young men that no self-respecting girl would go out with a lad in a tweed jacket now that khaki was the acceptable colour.
Despite lingering animosity following the struggles of the Great Unrest, the two leading political parties declared a truce. Thomas Clayton, the election agent for the Liberals and Tory agent J.T. Mills wrote a joint letter to the Mayor placing their services at the council’s disposal in whatever sphere they might be needed. Florence Beaumont, the daughter of Herbert Beaumont, a prominent Wakefield solicitor and Clerk to the Board of Guardians, had been a leading organiser for the national suffragette movement’s pilgrimage from Newcastle to London and had carried the Suffragette banner as it passed through Wakefield the year before. Now, as Secretary for the Wakefield group, she announced that they were suspending their political activities until the war had ended and that their members were ready to give whatever help was needed to relief committees of whatever kind.
