Ken Porter - Castle Point in the Great War

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
PEN & SWORD MILITARY
an imprint of
Pen and Sword Books Ltd
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Copyright Ken Porter and Stephen Wynn, 2015

ISBN: 978 1 47382 311 2
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47385 509 0
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47385 513 7

The right of Ken Porter and Stephen Wynn to be identified as the
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Contents

Author Biographies

Ken Porter was born in Laindon in 1944; his passions have always been sport and history. At school he took an active part in athletics and football, then in his early teens cricket took over and became his lifes passion.

Ken is a leading enthusiast in the Basildon Heritage Group and Laindon and District Community Archive and he gives talks to local societies, which are always well attended. His enthusiasm for history inspires others to get involved and share their memories. Kens interest in the 1914-1918 period stems from the discovery of his maternal grandfather James Frederick Pitts involvement in the Great War.

Stephen Wynn has just retired from the Police Force, having served with Essex Police as a Constable for thirty years. His interest in history has been fuelled by the fact that both his grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, (one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Merchant Navy), and his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.

His sons, Luke and Ross, were also members of the armed forces, serving five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013. Both were injured and this experience led to his first book, Two Sons in a War Zone Afghanistan: The True Story of a Fathers Conflict, which was published in 2010. He has also written three crime thrillers.

Ken and Stephen have collaborated on a previous book, published in 2012, German P.O.W. Camp 266 Langdon Hills, which became a number one bestseller in Basildon Waterstones.

Acknowledgements

Writing a book of this nature requires a considerable amount of research, and we could not have completed it without the help and cooperation of a large number of people and interested groups. We would like to express our appreciation to those who helped us to verify information that we sourced, including: members of the Basildon Heritage, Laindon and District Community Archive; Canvey Island Community Archive; Benfleet Community Archive; Hadleigh Community Archive; Canvey Bay Museum.

Then there are the individuals who have provided information and made photographs available: Phil Coley, Ronnie Pigram, Graham Cook, Janet Penn, Val Jackson, Len Hawkins, Jo Cullen, Sue Ranford, Denise Rowling, John and Ann Rugg and Martin Stibbard.

Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of the images and documents we have used in compiling this book. We would appreciate any additional information, which can be passed on to us through the publisher.

Ken Porter and Stephen Wynn, 2014

Introduction

The Borough of Castle Point includes the old ecclesiastical parishes of South Benfleet, Canvey Island, Hadleigh and Thundersley, but back in 1914, on the outbreak of the First World War, Castle Point did not exist.

From Saxon times up until 1834, the manors of Thundersley and South Benfleet were part of the Barstable Hundred. Canvey Island was also part of the Barstable Hundred, although responsibility for it was split between a number of the nearby parishes. Hadleigh was part of the Rochford Hundred. A hundred is a term derived from Saxon land holdings, in which a hide was an area of land considered capable of supporting up to fifty people. The hundred was a larger administrative area of one hundred hides, which possessed the authority to settle its own local disputes. In time it became a subdivision of a county or shire.

In 1926 Canvey Island gained its own local authority, the Canvey Island Urban District. Three years later, when the Benfleet Urban District Council was formed, it included the parishes of Hadleigh, Thundersley and South Benfleet. A district guide produced at the time stated that:

The formation of these urban areas west of Southend-on-Sea was due to the very rapid development following the Great War, a development which is bound to continue and which rightly directed, with due regard to the preservation of the wonderful natural amenities in the area, will make Benfleet a beautiful residential area and an invigorating holiday resort.

The prediction of growth proved correct and it has continued, spurred on by the expansion of the seaside resort of Southend-on-Sea, the close proximity of London and the far-reaching effects of the Second World War, which resulted in unprecedented growth in the south-east of Essex. In consequence, the year 1974 saw the merger of the Benfleet Urban District and Canvey Island Urban District Councils, forming the Castle Point Urban District Council, and then in 1992 the authority received borough status.

Hadleigh Castle. (Photograph by Ken Porter 2013)

The names given to the various hundreds in Saxon times were normally derived from the central local meeting place, and later on administrative areas usually retained the same names or adopted similar ones. However, Castle Point broke with tradition by deriving its name from two major landmarks, Hadleigh Castle and Canvey Point.

But where did the names of the original parishes come from?

Benfleet: In Old English beam means wood and fleote is the term for stretch of water. Over time, the spelling has varied from Beamfleote, to Beamflet and Benfleota etc., but it seems to have been standardised by the coming of the railway to Benfleet in 1855. There is another small rural area called North Benfleet, but this is part of the Borough of Basildon.

Canvey Island: Although it is commonly believed that the name of Canvey Island is derived from an old Saxon tribe, as the Island of Canas people, in fact the Romans used it. An early map-maker, Claudius Ptolemaeus Ptolemy (90168AD), a geographer of Alexandria, also showed the area as a series of islands and named it Cnossos.