Liddle - Captured Memories 1900-1918 Across the Threshold of War

Dedication

This book is dedicated respectfully to the memory of all those whose 1914-18 lives are documented in the Liddle Collection of First World War Archives Materials in Brotherton Library, the University of Leeds

First published in Great Britain in 2010 by
Pen & Sword Military
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Peter Liddle 2010

ISBN 978 1 84884 234 2
Print ISBN: 978-1-84884-234-2
ePub ISBN: 9781844686247

The right of Peter Liddle to be identified as Author of this Work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library

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Contents

- A 1904 Apprenticeship in Sail

- A Northumberland Pit Boy

- Working-Class Life in Sunderland

- Middle-Class Life and Work in London

-The Air Battalion in the Regular Army

-Political Activist and Suffragist

- A Crofter's Boyhood in the Hebrides

- Boer War Trooper and Colonist to Canada

- Training in Balloons

- The Western Front, August 1914-1918

- The Dardanelles and Jutland

- An Intelligence Officer on the Western Front95

- Labour Relations

- Fighter Pilot

- Citizen Soldier at Cambrai

- Front Line Nurse in Belgium, August 1914-1917

- Rigid Airship Designer

- Indian Army, Mesopotamia and Turkish POW

- Jutland

- Lancashire Fusilier at the Gallipoli Landings

- Western Front and German POW

- Indian Army at Gallipoli

- Kings African Rifles in East Africa

- Nurse for the Russians

- Submarine Exploit at the Dardanelles, 1914

- Soldier in France, Ambulance Service in Italy

- Indian Army in France, 1915

- Conscientious Objector, Death Sentence in France

- Grenadier Guards Officer in France

Acknowledgements

My appreciation must first be expressed in relation to all the people mentioned in this book and those who namelessly stand with them in being the subject of my interviews over the last forty years. I have clear memories of so many and I recognize the privilege bound up with my work.

That work involved the building of two archives and I must thank those in institutional responsibility at Sunderland Polytechnic (now Sunderland University) for sanctioning my commitment to rescuing 1914-18 personal experience testimony, then those in management responsibility at the University of Leeds for taking on a new special collection, and finally the Trustees of the Second World War Experience Centre in Leeds for their faith in creating the second archive. In these respects, HWL Miller at Sunderland, David Dilks and Reg Carr at the University of Leeds, Graham Stow and Hugh Cecil of the Centre in Horsforth were the men to whom I remain personally indebted in the laying of foundation stones.

Each stage in the building was facilitated by young people, as well as those in mid-career or more mature. For this volume, I have in mind of the young people Kevin Kelly in Sunderland, so well informed on the Royal Flying Corps, and in Leeds, Adam Smith and Matthew Richardson, laying down the foundation of their successful museum careers. With similar warmth of recall I remember Nick Gander and Andrew Cheney, also in Leeds.

From what might arguably be called middle age, Nobby Clark, Nell Sadler, Maureen Hine, Bill Lawson and Joan Henshaw helped me in the North-East, and of more senior years in Sunderland, Charlie Ward meticulously trawled through Who's Who and other reference sources for 1914-18 men and women while nonagenarian, Bill Weatherall, addressed countless envelopes to establish contact with those found by this research. If I were to have had a sense of mission, it was certainly shared by others. I shall not forget too the generosity of Brigadier Maurice Lush who did so much to fuel with encouragement and resources the development of the archive in Sunderland.

At the University of Leeds, I shall always affectionately remember volunteers Albert Smith, Gerry Godfrey, Braham Myers, all Second World War veterans, as I shall the years of selfless dedication to the rescue cause by Keith and Brenda Clifton. Terry Mumford, whose daughter, Carolyn, transcribed almost all of the interviews chosen for this book, was also dedicated to the cause of the archive transferred to Leeds, her husband, Trevor, generous in support of the electronic preparation of this book.

Retired businessman, Robert Carrington, for many years applied a shrewd mind, as indeed was the case with the veterans mentioned above, to recording the significant cross-references thrown up by the original letters, diaries and tape transcripts, thus facilitating student dissertations and the published work of historians researching in Leeds University's Brotherton Library. This recognition is just the place to express my personal appreciation for the unconditional support and benefaction given me by authorities in Brotherton Library. I thank first Chris Sheppard, Head of Special Collections, then Richard Davies and Kasia Drozdziak in particular for her work specifically in dealing with my requests for information and action when by definition she was helping so many others too. When photographs were needed, further members of staff were uniformly helpful. What a service is provided by this research source!

In my search of illustrations outside the resources of The University of Leeds I have come upon staff in a whole range of photographic archives who have been interested, helpful and friendly as well as professionally efficient. I thank the respective authorities for permission to publish photographs from The National Maritime Museum, The National Army Museum, The Imperial War Musuem, The British Library of Political and Economic Science, The Women's Library, the Museum of the City of Lloydminster, Manitoba, Canada, The Museum of Military Flying, The Guards Museum, The Lancashire Fusiliers Museum, Beamish, The North of England Open Air Museum, and The Tyne and Wear Archive Service (Sunderland).

It is with pleasure that I acknowledge the special helpfulness of the following at their respective institutions: Andrew Choong and Julie Cochrane (NMM), Julian Harrop at Beamish, Andrew Routledge at Sunderland, Keith Male at the Museum of Army Flying, Gail Cameron at the Women's Library, Franklin Foster in Lloydminster, Darren Treadwill at the British Library of Political and Economic Science, Josephine Garnier and Edgar Aromin at the IWM, Colonel C Seymour, Regimental Archivist, The Grenadier Guards, Mike Glover and Tony Sprason at the Lancashire Fusiliers Museum, Emily Peters at The Henry Moore Foundation, and Juliet McConnell, researcher par excellence, at the National Army Museum.

Family archive help came generously from Mrs Margaret Jacob Hyatt (re: Gordon Jacob), from Mrs Mary Stopes-Roe (re: Barnes Wallis), and from The Lady Middleton (re: James Marshall-Cornwall).

This book would have taken so much longer if my beloved wife, Louise, were not to have dragged me to the fringe of modernity by teaching me to use a computer. In this and in so many ways my debt to her is inestimable but unreservedly acknowledged.