Battle of Poelcapelle, 9 October 1917

For the last month I have been attempting to Tweet links to the Imperial War Museum's website, the Lives of the First World War along with appropriate photos of the men or of memorials where they are Remembered, for each of the 221 Barnsley men who lost their lives in the Battles of Third Ypres. I am hoping to Tweet most of the names on the 100th anniversary of the day the individual man fell. Although the whole campaign is now often called Passchendaele that name actually specifically refers to two battles towards the end of the period covered. For more information I suggest you go to the Long, Long Trail website's very comprehensive page on the Battles.
 

Community Page on Lives of The First World War

I have created a Community on Lives to gather together all these men's stories. As a past volunteer for the Barnsley War Memorials Project I have access to their constantly updated master spreadsheet, which will be the basis for the forthcoming WW1 Roll of Honour. This provided me with the names, regiments and service numbers of the 221 men who fell or were assumed to have fallen between 31 July 1917 and 10 November 1917. 

The Barnsley War Memorials Project are also very fortunate to have been given privileged access to the Barnsley Chronicle from August 1914 to the end of 1918 as part of their mini-project to index all mentions of soldiers in the newspapers. This project has now been completed thanks to the efforts of over a dozen volunteers from all over South Yorkshire. The resulting index is available at Barnsley Archives, in both paper format and as a series of searchable spreadsheets. Permission was also given for photos of the men from the Barnsley Chronicle and the other local newspapers with Barnsley coverage to be used in the Roll of Honour project and on Lives of the First World War. Transcripts of some obituaries and death notices can also be found on Lives, but if you want the images of those for your ancestors you will need to visit Barnsley Archives yourself (please do, they need our support to keep operating the hours they are currently open) and search the index for the reference before printing out your own image from the digital copies of the Barnsley Chronicle. Only 55p an A4 sheet last time I visited, a bargain!  

The Barnsley Independent and South Yorkshire Times are also available, on microfilm and un-indexed I'm afraid, but if you know the date of death of your WW1 ancestor it is relatively easy to go to the right part of the newspapers to do a search. If you check the Chronicle index first you may get an idea of when news of your ancestor's death reached Barnsley. It could sometimes takes months for the families to be informed that a man was now officially presumed dead, rather than missing. Copies of articles from these newspapers can also be printed out.

Map of front line approaching Poelcapelle
on 26 Sept 1917 (from the FFFAIF blog)

The Battle of Poelcapelle

I has shocked to find that out of the 221 Barnsley connected men who fell during the Battles of Third Ypres 46 of them were lost on one day, 9 October 1917.  This was the Battle of Poelcapelle. You can find a detailed description on Wikipedia. It was the classic attack through heavy mud, with too little artillery support to create an effective creeping barrage which in any case soon became too fast for the advancing soldiers to keep up with.

The majority of Barnsley's soldiers in this Battle were from the 1st/4th, 1st/5th and 6th Battalions of the York and Lancaster Regiment, who were in the 49th (West Riding) Division, II Anzac Corps and the 11th (Northern) Division, XVIII Corps. In the map above you can see these two Corps are in the centre of the advance. Ten of the fallen were in the 1st/5th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment who were also in the 49th (West Riding) Division.

Tyne Cot Memorial from the CWGC

All but three of the 46 of the Barnsley men lost on 9 October 1917 are remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial. This means that they have no known grave. Two of the exceptions, who were each buried in cemeteries behind the British lines, are noted as having died of wounds, suggesting they had been injured prior to the 9th and did not take part in this particular battle. The remains of the third man, John Costello, were found after the war, identified by his disc, and reburied in Cement House Cemetery near Langemarck along with a number of unidentified men found nearby.

The OH and I visited Tyne Cot in 2009. The long memorial wall sweeps around the top of the site and commemorates nearly 35,000 men who fell in the Ypres salient after 17 August 1917. Men who fell prior to this date are remembered on the Menin Gate.

I hope I will at least be able to add some family detail, plus photos and transcriptions from the Barnsley Chronicle where available, to each of these 46 men before the centenary of their deaths in October. However it is unlikely that I will be able to Tweet them all individually on the day as I would have wished, there are just too many. But I will share my list and with the information on that anyone can look up their stories on Lives of the First World War and their commemorative information on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.

The IWM website - Lives of the First World War

Did your WW1 ancestor serve in any of the Battalions I have mentioned? Why not look them up on Lives of the First World War and add your family stories and photos to the site. It is absolutely free to use to add this kind of thing, the paywall only comes into play if you want to search the records they have made available, and if you have a subscription to Ancestry or Find My Past you probably have access to these already or you could access them for free in Barnsley (Ancestry) and Sheffield (Find My Past) libraries. It is not just men who were killed who are Remembered on Lives, anyone who was affected by the war may already be included. If your soldier, sailor, airman, nurse, munitions worker or civilian casualty or other WW1 ancestor is not yet named on the site you can ask for them to be added by submitting a request to the Support Forum.

Lest We Forget.

WW1 Soldier's Story - Harold Peart and the Thorpe Hesley War Memorials

On Saturday I was double checking the last few 'Orphans' on the huge list of WW1 casualties the Barnsley War Memorials Project (BWMP) have accumulated over the past three and a bit years against my particular interest, the Imperial War Museum's Lives of the First World War website.  I am no longer on the Committee of the Project but I couldn't possibly stop researching the men (and women) just yet and I fully support the Project's current campaign to develop and print a Roll of Honour naming all the men by November 2018.  Many of the Project volunteers are currently working on trying to solve mystery names on the various war memorials and on other aspects of data checking before compiling the final version of the Roll of Honour.

Orphan names are those of men who were killed in WW1 who were either born in Barnsley or who demonstrably lived here at the time of their enlistment into the armed services but who are not named on any of the 649 war memorials found in the borough.  

Harold Peart's SDWG index entry from Ancestry

Many men enlisted in Barnsley from other parts of the county, travelling from Sheffield and Wakefield and even further afield to do so. Soldiers Died in the Great War (SDGW) includes a line to tell you where men enlisted but that doesn't mean that I can take it for granted they actually lived in the borough at the time. Sometimes a line for Residence is included, but for Corporal Harold Peart, above, this has not been shown. Other problems around the SDGW dataset include mis-spelling of Barnsley and the surrounding villages, inclusion of areas such as Woolley and Wath in Barnsley (they were part of Barnsley in the early 1900s but are not any more) and especially for officers, the total lack of useful information!  

A report on Harold Peart's death from the Barnsley Chronicle 23 November 1918
with thanks to Barnsley Archives

A search of the local newspapers for mentions of the man can often help.  The BWMP have recently completed an index to the Barnsley Chronicle from August 1914 to March 1919 which is available at Barnsley Archives. It makes looking up a name very easy and you can often find multiple mentions of a man and trace their war time career through the newspaper reports.  Other local newspapers, the Barnsley Independent and the South Yorkshire Times, are also available at Barnsley Archives on microfilm and other Yorkshire newspapers can be found on the British Newspaper Archive or on Find My Past.  Harold Peart's death was reported in the Barnsley Chronicle in late November 1918 and the article helpfully states that the family lived at 3 Newton Street, Barnsley and that Harold had worked locally before his enlistment. As he was only 22 and unmarried I think it is fairly safe to assume that he still lived at home with his parents when he enlisted.  The article also gives confirmation of Harold's Military Medal which was noted in the SDGW entry although I could see no reference to this in the Chronicle index for the previous year.

A further check is provided by the 1918 Absent Voters' List, also transcribed by the BWMP and available on the open shelves at Barnsley Archives.  

Ward    PD    No    Surname    Forenames    Street    House     No    Service No    Rank    Battalion    Regiment  
West    13P    4010    Peart    Harold        Newton Street    3                   2333        Pte    1/5        Y & L    

This confirms that Harold's last known address was the family home at 3 Newton Street.

Newton Street runs off Summer Lane onto Farrar Street and is on the same side of the town centre as Cranbrook Street where I found the Peart family in the 1911 census. At that time Harold's mother Mary Elizabeth was still alive having had eight children, three of whom had died before the census was taken.  I can find burials for two of these children in Barnsley Cemetery, Colin in 1910 aged 4 months and Elsie aged 8 months in 1912, both from 48 Cranbrook Street but their mother is not buried with them. The index to burials in Barnsley Cemetery is also available at Barnsley Archives - it is a great place to visit if you are doing your family history, with so many more local resources than are available online! Sadly the grave plots mentioned in the two children's burials appear to be 'pauper graves' as all the burials are around the same dates. FreeBMD tells us that Mary Elizabeth died in 1913 aged just 36. So where is she buried?  Harold's father Wilfred did not pass away until 1960 and he is not buried in Barnsley Cemetery either. With a family of young children to support I was not surprised to find him remarrying in 1918, somewhere in the Barnsley area.  His second wife, Mary Ann is buried in Barnsley Cemetery in 1937 from 3 Newton Street, aged 70.

When I see a man is not remembered on a Barnsley memorial my next thought is to search the place where he was born.  In the case of Harold Peart I was lucky to find a list of names on the Thorpe Hesley war memorial on the Genuki website. A H Peart is included on the list which could be Harold. In an attempt to find some good pictures of the war memorial at the Holy Trinity church in Thorpe Hesley I came across the church's own Flickr account.  What a wonderful resource!  There were pictures of all kinds of social and religious event in the area going back a number of years including several Remembrance Sunday services.  I was intrigued to see that the congregation, including Scouts, Guides and Brownies all paraded through the village on these occasions to another memorial for a second wreath laying.  So much so that I got the OH to take me up to Thorpe Hesley yesterday to have a look at the two memorials.

Holy Trinity

The soldier on top of the memorial outside the church reminds me of the one at Dodworth in Barnsley, the detail of his uniform and rifle are quite amazing.  And those look like shell cases surrounding the base!  H Peart is named on the right hand side of the pillar.  

It looks well cared for, although the soldier could do with a little cleaning as he is a bit greenish.

Flanders Court

The second memorial is at Flanders Court, a little housing development higher up in the village.  It consists of two stone plaques laid down in a brick paving frame, it is set at a slight incline but sadly the names are already weathering.  According to the entry for this memorial on the War Memorial Register there are 212 names listed of men from the village who served in WW1.  H Peart MM is named near the foot of the middle column of names. This is a rare and special kind of memorial as most list only the men who lost their lives. A passing resident was able to tell us that the plaques had been saved from the nearby Mechanics' Institute, which, to my surprise, was still standing.  She told us that the building could not be demolished as it was listed (which was not substantiated by a search of Rotherham Council's website; the cottages beside it are but not the old Institute) but that the new owners had not wanted the enormous Roll of Honour. (Click on the OH's pictures to see them enlarged.)

Former Mechanics' Institute Thorpe Hesley

In the picture above taken from Thorpe Street, you can see a large centrally positioned stone frame which we guessed had been the original position of the Roll of Honour. It now contains an advertisement for the occupiers of the building. To the left is a gennel (alleyway) leading to the Housing Association development Flanders Court (built in 1988) where the Roll of Honour now lies.

I think that the inclusion of a Military Medal citation on the Roll of Honour strongly suggests that the H Peart listed on this and the church war memorial are the same Harold who lived in Barnsley. There was another H Peart who was awarded the Military Medal, but he survived the war.

The Peart family appear to move from Thorpe Hesley to Barnsley between the the birth of the youngest child shown on the 1911 census, Miriam b.1907 and the birth of Colin in Barnsley in 1909. The three children already lost by 1911 are Eva, b.1904 in Thorpe Hesley, Josiah b.1905 in Thorpe Hesley (both buried in Thorpe Hesley) and Colin b.1909 in Barnsley. Subsequently Elsie b.1911 dies in Barnsley in 1912 and a further child Arthur John is born in 1913 who survives.  It could be this last child who contributes to his mother's death. She bore ten children in total between 1896 and 1913.

It seems that despite the move the family still retained ties to Thorpe Hesley as I found the burial of Mary Elizabeth Peart aged 36 recorded in the church there on 1 July 1913. This is undoubtedly Harold's mother. It would be nice to think that she rejoined her two little lost babies there.   

Harold, meanwhile, is buried in York Cemetery, Haspres, Northern France in plot D.4. His headstone bears no family citation but probably does record his Military Medal.

Harold Peart's Lives of the First World War page

From the WW1 Barnsley Chronicle - "Barnsley Man's Escape From Internment in Holland - A Daring Exploit"

Nearly three years ago I wrote the story of the OH's great, great uncle, Thomas Croft who was interned in Holland during the First World War.  It was pieced together from his service records and family history with a few small snippits I discovered in the local newspapers. Then a few days ago I came across a very long piece in the Barnsley Chronicle which I had not seen before describing his escape in his own words.  It was published on 24 July 1915 and I have transcribed it in full below.

Barnsley Chronicle 24 July 1915 (Barnsley Archives)

With grateful thanks to Barnsley Archives for the use of the war years Chronicle as part of the Barnsley War Memorials Project's indexing mini-project to provide a full reference to all mentions of WW1 servicemen and women in the newspapers during WW1.  The Barnsley Chronicle from 1858 to almost the present day has been digitised and is available on two dedicated computers in the Archives, free to browse. The text has been OCR'd (Optical Character Recognition by computer) and can be searched for specific words on a month by month basis. Copies of articles can be printed off for a small charge. 

Digitisation of a newspaper is not infallible, when there is smudging, creases or damage to a page the OCR will not pick up the words clearly.  The Barnsley War Memorials Project aim to collate a Roll of Honour of every Fallen serviceman and woman from Barnsley and the only way to be sure of picking out every mention in the Barnsley Chronicle is to read each issue of the newpaper from beginning to end. It occurred to us that whilst we were doing this we could create a resource which would be useful for all visitors to the Archives.

A index of cuttings from the Chronicle, August 1914 to March 1917, has been available for many years in Barnsley Archives. The current project aims to complete the run up to the end of the war and into 1919, to improve the coverage of the existing index to include Death Notices and In Memoriam notices, and to make the index available online when it is complete. Volunteers with the Indexing mini-project are supplied via email with a .pdf copy of a single issue of the newspaper and an Excel spreadsheet on which to enter the details of every mention of a soldier, sailor, airman, nurse, conscientious objector, munitions worker or civilian casualty (and so on) of the war.  So far the project has completed a detailed index from April 1917 to September 1918 and it has been made available on the open shelves in Barnsley Archives alongside the cuttings index for all visitors to use to help them find their WW1 ancestors.  If you would like to help with this work please contact bwmp2015@gmail.com

Meanwhile, back to Thomas Croft's exciting story ...

BARNSLEY MAN'S ESCAPE FROM INTERNMENT IN HOLLAND
A DARING EXPLOIT
EXCITING EXPERIENCES

A Barnsley man, Thomas Croft, A.B., of the 1st Royal Naval Brigade, has succeeded in escaping from internment at Groningen, Holland, and he arrived at his home in Waltham Street on Monday night, safe and sound, to the delight of his family and friends, who displayed flags and bunting in the street to welcome the daring A.B.'s unexpected return. The story which Able Seaman Croft relates abounds with exciting incidents, and shows that he must possess more than the average man's share of daring and resource.

He was formerly a soldier in the 2nd Batt. York and Lancaster Regiment, but after the outbreak of war was transferred to the 1st Royal Naval Brigade, and took part in the now famous defence of Antwerp. As history records, a number of the Royal Naval Brigade were driven over the Dutch frontier and were interned. Croft was one of them. He was interned at Groningen early in October, and was there until last Friday, when he made his daring escap in company with Joe Lumb, of Doncaster, who was a naval reserve man. Croft had once before tried to escape, but on that occasion he did not succeed.
 
Last Friday Croft and his companion managed to elude their custodians and the Dutch sentries, and were successful in getting civilian clothing.  Their objective was to get to Rotterdam, a somewhat formidable task considering that neither of the men could speak the Dutch language and that their supply of money was very limited. They walked hard the first night, but the ground was strange, and of course they were handicapped in not being able to make the necessary enquiries.  Imagine their dismay and disappointment therefore, upon finding at daybreak that they had been walking in a circle and had arrived back at Groningen. Their difficulties had by this time greatly increased, for their escape had been discovered, and people were on the lookout for them. However, even in the face of this set back Croft and his companion did not despair, and they boldly walked to Groningen railway station, passing policemen en route without raising any suspicion. Their prospect at the station did not at first seem very bright, but the two men got into an empty train which was drawn up. There they waited and rested awhile, though they experienced anxious moments when two parties of carriage cleaners came upon the scene and wished them the Dutch equivalent for "good morning." The two Englishmen, however decided they would pretend to be deaf mutes in order to avoid awkward and tell-tale conversations. The cheery carriage cleaners had thus to be content with grunts for a reply, but the situation was temporarily saved.

It was then early morning, but at last a train for the Hague ran into the station. Croft then took a risky, but as events proved a successful, step. He boldly went into the booking office (which fortunately was only in charge of a young girl) and took two tickets for the Hague, the Dutch pronunciation of which he had previously mastered. He and his companion boarded the train, which was a corridor one, but fate decreed that they should not be left alone. A Dutchman, his wife, and some children got into their compartment and the well-meaning lady after a short time addressed the Englishmen in the casual conversational style common amongst travellers.  But Croft and Lumb being "deaf and dumb" the good lady's efforts failed, and no suspicions were aroused. At Utrecht, which is a big railway junction, the two men had an anxious time, for the train was searched for them. Fortune favoured them however, for their Dutch friends in the carriage left the train, and Croft and his companion, being alone, were able to hide under the carriage seat and escape being discovered.

They safely reached the Hague, whence they journeyed by steam train to Delph, Croft being under the impression that they could travel by tram from there to Rotterdam.  In this he was mistaken, but undaunted, the two men set off to walk to Rotterdam, a distance of twenty-five miles.  During the whole of this time the only food that the two escaped sailors had had was a small bun each, given them by the Dutch woman in the train. They possessed a little money, but did not dare make any purchases lest their identity should be discovered.  Upon arriving at Rotterdam the two friends made their way to the docks, and after a cautious look round, saw a notice board indicating the way to the Hull boats. This looked more like home, and Croft and his companion at last spotted an English trading shop, "Kirkall Abbey," which was taking in cargo. They at once boarded her, but were met by the mate who called out "Are you Belgians, Germans, Dutchmen or Frenchmen?" Croft replied, "We are Englishmen, escaping from Groningen." They laid their case befor the mate and appealed for a journey to England. The mate, however, referred the to the captain, who said he dared not risk taking them on board as the ship would be searched by the Dutch authorities before she left Rotterdam.

Still not despairing the Englishmen hunted up ______, who in a short space of time secured them places on a Great Eastern boat. The captain gave them a cordial reception and fed them right royally.  At Harwich, the boat's destination, the escaped sailors were discovered by the Customs officers, and the story of their flight had to be again told. Their identity proved, one of the officers made them each a gift of five shillings to pay their fare to the Crystal Palace, where they arrived between 11 o'clock and 12 o'clock on Sunday night. On Monday Croft was allowed to come to his wife and family at Barnsley on a seven days' leave.

He says there are a number of Barnsley men interned at Groningen, and copies of the "Barnsley Chronicle," which arrive there weekly are eagerly perused. The men get fairly well looked after, but time hangs rather heavily on their hands. "It would be better if only they had some work to do," he adds. 
......................................................................

That was the end of the article, but not the end of the story, for, if you have read my earlier piece you will know that Thomas was returned to Holland on 8th October 1915.  Interned men were not actually supposed to escape! He was later allowed some official leaves of absence and managed to visit Barnsley each time. He finally returned to England in November 1918 and was demobilised in February 1919.

Imagine if you found a story like this about one of your WW1 ancestors!  With the digitisation of the Barnsley Chronicle and the easily accessible indices to names for the war years it is not difficult to search from 1914 to 1918 in a very short amount of time. Why not give it a go next time you are passing the Town Hall and have a hour to spare?

Thomas and John Edward Davies - Two Brothers Who Lose Their Lives in Very Different Ways in WW1

I've had this post in 'draft' with just a title for nearly a month now.  I think I saw a good story and thought I'd write it up then something happened (I was probably taken ill and had a couple of those 'couldn't bear to even turn on the laptop' days!).

So what was it about the Davies brothers that interested me?  John Edward Davies is one of the men who was named on St John's Church war memorial plaque, now sadly lost after the church was demolished in the 1960s. I have been researching the 140 names listed in a newspaper cutting from the Barnsley Chronicle reporting the dedication of the plaque in 1921 - you can see a copy of the cutting on the webpage linked above.
 

Barnsley Chronicle 28 April 1917
(thanks to Barnsley Archives)

According to his Commonwealth War Graves Commission entry John Edward Davies was in the 2nd Barnsley Pals, the 14th battalion York and Lancaster Regiment, and had died on 9 April 1917 and is buried in Chocques Military Cemetery in France. No family information is given on the entry so I had to search a bit more to find out who he actually was.  The extra documents you now get at the bottom of the page gave me a name and address, although no inscription had been requested for John's CWGC gravestone.

Mrs P Allenby, 64 Copper Street, Barnsley

So who was she?  His widow remarried?  His married sister?  His mother under another married name?

His obituary in the Barnsley Chronicle (available to search digitally at Barnsley Archives) confirmed 64 Copper Street as his home address, but stated that he was a widower with one child.  So not his wife then ... I additionally learnt that he had joined up in January 1915, which fits nicely with the known timeline for recruitment to the 2nd Barnsley Pals.  He had previously worked at Barrow Colliery and had been 27 years old when he was killed in action - making him born around 1890.  A death notice in the same issue of the Barnsley Chronicle was from "his daughter and mother-in-law" so maybe Mrs P Allenby was his deceased wife's mother, who was caring for his little girl for him?  However I could not find a marriage in Barnsley for Davies and Allenby on FreeBMD even with imaginative use of wild cards in the two surnames.  A second death notice was from "his loving brother and sister, James and Gertrude".  I noted this just in case it was a vital clue!

During searches of the census on Ancestry I discovered that Allenby was actually Allemby - there is no-one in Barnsley by the former name during the period covered.  Eventually, in the 1911 census, I found a Mrs Phoebe Allemby living at 31 Brittania Street which is very near Copper Street.  Neither of these streets still exist - they were in the vicinity of Joseph Locke House off Sheffield Road in Barnsley - although there are a Copper and Britannia Close nearby. No sign of a daughter, married or otherwise, although Phoebe does declare that she has been married for twenty-one years, having six out of seven children still living and yet there were only three sons at home, the youngest being Joseph Wilkinson Allemby aged just 3 years old.  All the family listed were born in Barnsley.  I also found an Ann Allemby, aged 19, born in Barnsley, in service at a farm in Flockton, near Wakefield. 
 

The Old Royal Oak, Peel Square (from the Tasker Trust website)

Nipping back 10 years to the 1901 census I found Phoebe, together with husband Arthur and four children, including Ann aged 8, living in the Old Royal Oak, Peel Square!  I do like a pub connection! Arthur Allemby is listed as the Innkeeper, working on his own account.  He was born in Clayton West, but the rest of the family were from Barnsley.  He must have been away from home on census night 1911.

The idea of Ann living away from home as a servant suggested I widen my search for an Allemby Davies marriage.  It turned up in Sheffield in the September quarter of 1911.  Ann Allemby married John E Davies.  Good - that's sorted then. As John was a widower by the time of his death I looked for Ann's burial in Barnsley cemetery.  Sure enough, Ann Davies aged 22 (oh, dear) was buried in March 1915 from 58 Britannia Street.  So this was after John joined up, but while the Pals were still in training in Barnsley, how sad for him.  In the same grave plot was Lily Wilkinson Davies aged 3, of 66 Copper Street, who died in December 1915 aged 3 years.  Could this be his daughter?  But his daughter was alive when the death notice was posted - so Ann and John must have had at least two daughters.  Just to confirm matters Phobe Locke Allemby aged 77 is buried in the same plot in 1944 from 5 Dobie Street.  The family seem to move around a fair amount, maybe from one rented property to another depending on needs and income. 

Oddly there was no sign of husband Arthur Allemby in Barnsley Cemetery and a general search on FreeBMD did not turn up any likely candidates. A chap dying in Hyde in Cheshire in 1942 was the closest match.  I wonder what happened to him?  

So the Mrs P Allenby mentioned in John's CWGC record was his mother in law.  Why was she his next of kin - and who were James and Gertrude?  Not Allembys, neither name appears in Phoebe and Arthur's family.  So Davies then ... I had not yet identified any census returns showing John Edward Davies - I had a couple of possibilities but nothing certain.  Maybe James and Gertrude were going to be a clue after all.  

1901 census snip showing the Davis family at 32 Shaw Street, Barnsley (from Ancestry)

After finding a James Davies (b.1883 in Barnsley) married to a Gertrude living in Wombwell in 1911 with their three children I tracked them back and discovered that William and Ellen Davies of Shaw Street, Barnsley (see above) had sons James and John who were the correct ages to fit the other known facts.  
 

1911 census snip showing the Davis family at 46 Grafton Street (from Ancestry)

I went forward to the same family in 1911 - lo and behold - John is now listed as John Ed confirming that I've found the right family.  Thank you James and Gertrude!  The Davis family are now living at 46 Grafton Street (I had to look that one up on Google maps!) which is off Racecommon Road and not very far from Shaw Street.  Nice little terraced houses with new doors and windows not long before the Google camera went around from the looks of it.  William and Ellen had not been very lucky with their children - on this census return they declare they have had ten children and that six of them have already died.  They have two adult male boarders living in, probably for some extra income - but that must have made the house very crowded, it only had five rooms.

As John Edward's brothers, James, Harry and Thomas were in the right age range for conscription in the First World War I tried looking them up on the Absent Voters' List for 1918 (full alphabetically sorted transcription now available in Barnsley Archives) but there was no sign of them.  Of course if James had remained in Wombwell he would not have been on this list as it only covers the central wards and the neighbouring townships.

Next I tried Barnsley Cemetery to see if I could find poor William and Ellen's lost six children.  Ellen dies in April 1914 aged 58 at 46 Grafton Street and William joins her in the same plot in December the following year.  Ah, ha!  That is why John Edward's parents are not his next of kin - they had both predeceased him.  There are no other Davies burials from Grafton Street and none from Shaw Street, but there are two from 7 Longcar Street, which was William and Ellen's address in 1891.  One is a child, Esther, aged 16 months, who could be one of their lost children.  The other is a 26 year old, Ernest Davies - maybe William's brother?  

Thomas Davies CWGC stone in Barnsley Cemetery
(photo by Pete Schofield)

However I did spot the burial of a Thomas Davies the right age to be John Edward's brother in a CWGC grave.  Place of death ... drowned in the canal!

We have a good collection of photos from Barnsley Cemetery now, thanks to the Barnsley War Memorial's Project's Information Officer Pete Schofield, so I was quickly able to find the image on the left.  This confirmed what I'd seen in the burial transcription - Thomas died in December 1914, very, very early on in the war - and obviously at home as he was buried in our local cemetery.

A search of the Barnsley Chronicle gave me the answer.  On 19 December 1914 it was reported that Thomas Davies, a colliery trammer, who had enlisted in the 5th battalion of the York and Lancaster regiment disappeared the day after his enlistment.  His body was found four weeks later in a badly decomposed state floating near Craik's bleach works (this is at Old Mill).

He was identified by a knife and fork found on him which his wife, Mrs Annie Davies, said he had taken with him when he went to report to the Drill Hall after his enlistment.  She also noted that he had been in ill health for some time and another witness, Robert Atherton, brother-in-law of the deceased, said that he had noticed Thomas getting very depressed recently.  The coroner's verdict was that he had, "Drowned himself whilst of unsound mind through illness and being unable to do the duties as a soldier which he had undertaken."

1911 marriage entry for Thomas Davies and Annie Hobson at St George's Church, Barnsley (from Ancestry)

The connection between this man and John Edward Davies was proved when I found Thomas' marriage certificate on Ancestry.  Note that address of bride and groom is 46 Grafton Street - William and Ellen's address in 1911.  The bride is called Annie - the name given in the newspaper cutting and her maiden name is Hobson.  The witnesses are John Edward Davies and his wife Ann Davies.  In 1905 Robert Atherton - mentioned in the newspaper report as Thomas' brother-in-law - had married Annie's sister Elizabeth Hobson at St John's Church in Barnsley.

So there we have it - two brothers, both remembered on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, but who lost their lives in such completely different ways in the First World War.  Thomas enlisted first in November 1914, but due to ill health and other pressures upon him felt he just couldn't cope with being in the army and ended his life in Barnsley canal - I think it was good of the military authorities to recognise that his death was in service and possibly exacerbated by worries about training and combat and permit him to have a CWGC commemoration.  However he is not remembered on any war memorial in the Barnsley area that we are aware of.  The following January his younger brother John enlists and was wounded in June 1916, not long after arriving in France with the Barnsley Pals.  He misses the first day of the battle of the Somme but returns to France in January 1917 only to be be killed in action in April.  John Edward Davies was remembered on the St John's church memorial - now sadly lost.

One last thing - a search for Arthur Allemby on the web did not solve the problem of where he vanished to after fathering Joseph Wilkinson Allemby, Phoebe's youngest son, in mid 1906, but it did return a possible solution to the missing daughter of John Edward Davies.  Phoebe Locke Allemby (nee Wilkinson) left a will and it is catalogued on The National Archives website as being held by Barnsley Archives (A/1882/B/1/193).  Among the beneficiaries are Harry Allemby, presumably Ann's brother, and a Laura Davis - surely the missing daughter despite the slightly different spelling?  So next time I'm in the Archives I'll be calling that up from the store!

Thanks for reading - I hope you enjoyed that puzzle as much as I did!

Barnsley's First Health Visitor - Frances Mary Malkin, later Jeffs

This last weekend the OH and I travelled down to London to attend a Great British Beer Festival meeting in Fuller's Brewery, Chiswick.  As it is such a long journey we usually stay overnight in London, but due to the clash of dates with the London Marathon the nearest affordable accommodation we could find was in Borehamwood.  The cost of the room for two nights, parking and train fares to and from London were less than the cheapest room we could find in the centre of London!  Unfortunately it did make for a very long day on Saturday, made worse by both of us falling asleep on the Piccadilly Line from Hammersmith and ending up somewhere called Turnpike Lane instead of getting off at St Pancras!  Oops!

As a result I am very, very tired - I managed the household stuff yesterday and last night the OH took me to the cinema in Barnsley (Monday is £5 night) to see the new Avengers film, but again that made for a long day, so today I gave up and stayed in bed. 

Anyway, to continue from the story I wrote last week about William Malkin, the Barnsley man who left his wife behind when he emigrated to Australia.  

Frances Mary Malkin had contacted the Australian military authorities in August 1916 claiming to be William's next of kin, but she did not show her 'marriage lines' as proof.  It is so easy for us today, a quick search on FreeBMD shows that William Malkin married Frances Mary Bailey in the June Quarter of 1902.  Even more handily the new Yorkshire Marriages on Find My Past include marriages for Worsborough (presumably St Mary's Worsborough) from 1742 to 1912 and I was able to find an image of the actual marriage entry for William and Frances' marriage.
 

Marriage 26 June 1902 Worsborough Parish Church (from Find My Past)

What was surprising when I found this was the age and class difference between William and Frances.  He is the 18 year old Labourer son of a Miner and she is the 30 year old daughter of a Draper - which suggests a solid upper working class, if not middle class background to me.   Now knowing that I needed to look in the Worsborough parish records, which are not on Ancestry, I searched various spreadsheets that I have collected over the years and found a entry for the baptism of William and Frances's only child - Clifton Trevor Malkin - at St Thomas' Church in Worsbro' Dale in December 1903.  This child, listed simply as Trevor Malkin, aged 7, is living with William Malkin snr, his grandfather, in Ward Green in the 1911 census.  So William jnr and Frances may have parted company, but her in-laws were helping Frances by providing care for her son. Clifton Trevor Malkin appears in the Australian service records, confusingly referred to as William's stepson, when Frances is granted a pension after William's death.

I looked back in the census, helped by now knowing Frances' age and father's name.  She appears in the 1911 census, boarding with a family called Wraith on Pontefract Road, Barnsley, her occupation is given as Health Visitor for Barnsley Council and she says she was born in Toxteth Park, Liverpool.  With her birthplace too, I sure I have found the right family in the earlier census returns.
 

1891 Census for the Bailey family, Hoole in Chester (from Ancestry)

I can find neither William nor Frances in 1901, but in 1891 she appears with her family, living in Hoole in Chester.  Father Benjamin Bailey is a Draper and was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire (well, there's a good link) in around 1842, his wife Mary is from Bath.  They have two children born in Liverpool, including Frances Mary and the others are born in Chester.  Ten years previously the family was already in Chester, but ten years before that, in 1871, Benjamin Bailey, a married man was lodging in Toxteth Park, Liverpool and states that he was born in Mapplewell.  His wife is not with him, and I can't positively identify her elsewhere, but FreeBMD shows Benjamin Bailey marrying Mary Williams in Liverpool in the September Quarter of 1870.  Frances' baptism in St Peter's Liverpool (also found on Ancestry) gives her date of birth 25 May 1871 so maybe her mother was staying with friends in her late pregnancy while Benjamin was working and has not been enumerated correctly.  
 

Marriage 14 November 1916 at St Mary's, Barnsley (from Ancestry)

The next thing that was easy to find for Frances was her remarriage in November 1916 to Joseph Henry Jeffs at St Mary's Church in Barnsley in the West Yorkshire records on Ancestry.  Joseph Jeffs was a Police Constable and was also twelve years the junior of Frances Mary - who does not give any occupation on the marriage entry.  She now says her father is deceased and that he was a Silk Mercer and Linen Draper.  We still don't know how she got from Hoole in Chester to Barnsley, but neither of her marriages appear to have members of her family standing as witnesses. 

I did notice - as it was so unusual - that she gives her occupation as Health Visitor in 1911.  So on my next visit to Barnsley Archives I searched the Barnsley Chronicle for mentions of Malkin particularly looking for Frances Malkin or F M Malkin or even Frances Jeffs.  The digital version of the Chronicle can be searched by name, but only one month at a time, so it does take ages to look through just a few years.  However I was very lucky as in 1918 I found a piece that gave me dates to work to and lots of other information.
 

Barnsley Chronicle 4 May 1918 (with thanks to Barnsley Archives)

The article is about the resignation of Mrs Frances M Jeffs of Caxton Street, tallying only the name but also in the address to the information given on William Malkin's Commonwealth War Graves Commission entry.  It seems Frances had worked for Barnsley Council for ten years as a health visitor and supervising midwife and that she had been the first health visitor to be appointed in the borough.  This gave me a suggested date for her taking the post in Barnsley around 1908.  More on that in a moment ... The helpful article also tells us that she trained at Shrewsbury Infirmary and later worked in Staffordshire - maybe that was where she was in 1901?  She held a certificate of the Central Midwives' Board - a bit of Googling showed that midwives only started to be certified in 1902.

It seemed likely that the appointment of a Health Visitor would have been important in Barnsley, so I searched the Council Minutes for 1908 (which are typed up summaries of all the various Council Committees bound into one volume per year).  The Sanitary Committee decided in March 1908 to appoint a Lady Visitor "in consequence of the great infant mortality in the Borough".  Cross checking against the Chronicle again I found a report from the Sanitary Committee which stated that the general death rate in the Borough was 18.46 per thousand compared to an average in England and Wales of 15 per thousand, and that the high death rate in Barnsley, "was principally due to the excessive infantile mortality, which worked out at 155 per thousand". (Barnsley Chronicle 11 April 1908)  One of the councillors had also commented that it was not altogether improper feeding that was to blame, but, "in many cases it was want of any feeding at all", and that he hoped a Lady Visitor would be able to assist in getting help for cases like this from charities which he considered more important than teaching the mothers how to feed the children.  What an assessment of the state of affairs in Barnsley at the time!

Barnsley Chronicle 18 April 1908 (thanks to Barnsley Archives)

This is the advertisement in the following week's edition of the Barnsley Chronicle for the post of Lady Visitor.  Applicants need to have Nursing and Midwife's Certificates and would be paid £65 per year with an extra £5 for uniform. 

The Sanitary Committee minutes for April note that, "Mrs Malkin, of Ward Green" was to be appointed.  This means that Frances Mary Malkin must have obtained her nursing and midwives qualifications before 1908, and her midwife's certificate between 1902 and 1908, as we know there was no certification before that. It seems very unlikely that she continued to work as a nurse after her marriage to William, most women had to resign their positions when they chose to marry in those unenlightened times.  Had she used her nursing skills to work as a midwife after her marriage to supplement the family income? Even if she did not have her certificate to start with it was legal to practice under the supervision of a doctor.  Maybe she took the exams later?  There are midwives' records at TNA but none are available online.  I did find an index entry for Frances Mary Jeffs in the 1920 Midwives Roll on Family Relatives.com, but I would have had to have bought an expensive subscription to see the image.

I can see parallels with my own story in Frances' life.  I did not do well in my exams at school, but later in life, when my first husband was unable to find work on a regular basis, I began to train as a Radiographer in Sheffield.  My then husband did not like being a house husband, so he went back to work whenever he could, his mother looking after our two little children for us.  After the first year of my training he became so aggrieved that he asked me to give it all up and to come home to be a full time wife and mother again.  I refused to waste the time and effort that I'd put in up to that point seeing the chance of a professional career as a good way to better myself and provide for my children so consequently our marriage broke down.  

Did Frances, a trained nurse, regret her possibly hasty marriage to the much younger William, a Coal Miner with few prospects?  Did Frances obtaining a good job as 'Lady Visitor' finally break down their marriage to the extent that William emigrated to Australia to seek his fortune the following year? - if his mother's estimate of when he left is correct (see my previous post).  Frances obviously lived in Ward Green, with or near the older Malkin family in 1908 when she got the job.  But William's last address in Barnsley is given in his 1916 Chronicle obituary as Grove Street - which is near Barnsley football ground and about a mile and a half from Ward Green.  It is, however, just off Pontefract Road, which is where Frances was living in 1911.  If only there were more records of where people lived!  

Part of an article in the Barnsley Chronicle 7 August 1915
(thanks to Barnsley Archives)

I did find a few more mentions of Mrs Malkin in the Chronicle.  In 1915 she is commended by an Inspector of the Local Government Board, who stated that, "Mrs Malkin had not been doing herself justice in that she did not report the total number of visits and revisits actually made."  Her role was described as the supervisor of midwives and investigator of the cases of ophthalmia neonatum.  The same article also mentions that, "she has rendered very special services in this respect since the adoption of the Notification of Births' Act and that such inspection by your lady visitor is very much more efficient than two visits to each midwife that used to be made by the Medical Officer." (Barnsley Chronicle 7 August 1915)

Frances Malkin resigns her post in September 1916, but is obviously re-employed after her marriage to Joseph Jeffs as the item I found first mentions her (second) resignation in early May 1918.  This is probably because she and Joseph are about to have a child themselves, as Joseph Cunningham Jeffs is born on 8 May 1918, according to his father's war time service records.  Joseph snr attests in 1915, but is not mobilised until June 1917 when he is posted to the Royal Garrison Artillery. 

Unhappily Joseph Henry Jeffs returns from the First World War with a good character, but is discharged in November 1918 with 'Mania' caused by his service.  Whatever this entails it affects him very badly as he is granted a pension for 26 weeks due to his 50% disability.  I hope that Frances was working again by then as the 13 shillings and 9d per week he was awarded wouldn't have gone far to support himself and a wife and child.  His name appears on the Barnsley Borough Police Roll of Honour where it is noted that he was Wounded in Action - as I can see no mention of wounds in his service record this is probably a reference to the damage to his mental health.  I hope that he recovered and returned to his job in the police force.  

Frances Mary Jeffs dies in Barnsley in 1946 aged 75 years.  Joseph Henry Jeffs dies in Barnsley in 1953 aged 62. I do not know where they are buried. Clifton Trevor Malkin marries and has two children.  Joseph Cunningham Jeffs marries and has two children.  These children will more than likely still be alive today.  

I imagine Frances to have been a hard working, well respected member of the community.  She managed a job and a family over 100 years ago.  She twice married a much younger man, her second husband was possibly disabled for some time after the war, but with the help of an extended family successfully brought up two children.  What an example to us today! 

I would love to know more about the life and career of Frances Mary Bailey - Malkin - Jeffs, Barnsley's First Health Visitor.

The 'Office Copy' of the 1918 Absent Voters' List for Barnsley

Last week I started to add the handwritten notes in the 'Office Copy' of the 1918 Absent Voters' List for Barnsley to the transcription of the 6127 names which has been completed by 10 volunteers working under the Barnsley War Memorials Project banner.

I had intended to start this the week before, unfortunately, as frequently happens to me I am afraid, I was too ill to leave my bed, let alone travel to Barnsley Archives for a morning's research.  I did try to send my apologies via email and Facebook but I don't think any of the ladies gathered at the Archives checked those facilities during the morning, so I am sorry if I let anyone down.

A snip from my Excel spreadsheet recording the notes

The past two weeks have been eventful and so each of my sessions on this new sub-project have been shortened from my usual 10am to 1pm.  However I have managed to transcribe 9 pages of the handwritten notes so far, each page containing 45 to 50 names.  There are 132 pages in the whole book so at this rate it is going to take me about 30 weeks to complete the task. I am sure that it will take longer, as other more urgent problems and queries are bound to crop up over the next few months.  Unfortunately as the handwritten notes are on a facing page to the typed information which we have already transcribed - and the typed pages also contain amendments written in red ink which I am also noting - it seems unlikely that we would be able to photograph the full two page spread in sufficient detail to enable other home-based volunteers to assist in this. However if anyone wants to have a go in the Archives (just not on a Thursday morning please!) please do, I would be happy to work out some system whereby we can do this co-operatively.

A long time ago, October 2012 according to the create date on the appropriate spreadsheet, I started looking at Prisoners of War from Barnsley in the First World War and in June 2013 I did a quick survey of the Absent Voters' List recording the men listed as 'Pris of War' etc in the handwritten notes.  I found 141 names, with the usual details of rank, regiment and service number.  I now realise that a few of these are actually guards at Prisoner of War camps - not prisoners themselves! My only excuse for this is that notes are quite brief, usually abbrieviated so it takes a little while (and some cross checking) to work out what they actually mean in a number of cases. In the course of that survey I discovered that the handwritten notes do NOT cover the whole book, there are 14 blank pages in three distinct chunks.  So that reduces the total amount of pages I have to transcribe to 118 and saves me a couple of weeks' work - but such a shame that the document is not complete for those 45(ish) x 14 men, around 630 names.

Some people have asked me how the Absent Voters' List can help us identify the men who fell in the war as of course it lists living men.  The list was compiled in the period winter 1917/1918 when names were collected from families in Barnsley who had men (and 4 women) who would have been eligible to vote in the forthcoming December 1918 election.  As the war still had nearly a year to run a number of the men recorded were subsequently discharged through injury, wounds or sickness (there is one in the snip above) or were killed in action or are simply recorded as dead - which may mean they died out of service, or possibly in service, just not killed in action - more checking needed again.  The discharge of a man might indicate wounds or war related sickness which later caused their death AND if they died before 31 August 1921 they would have been eligible for a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) entry ... so each of these names might indicate a casualty too. 

Joseph Ambler's gravestone, Barnsley Cemetery

Last week on 4 pages I found:
Dead                   2
Killed in Action    2
Missing               2
Discharged         4
Prisoner of War   4

This week on 5 pages I found:
Dead                  5
Killed in Action    4
Missing               3
Discharged        9
Prisoner of War  3

I have had time to look more closely at some of the men I identified last week.

One of the men noted as 'Dead" was Joseph Ambler, 188428, Royal Garrison Artillery.  He is buried in Barnsley Cemetery with a CWGC gravestone and listed on Soldiers Died in the Great War (SDGW) on Ancestry as 'Died of Wounds'.  He is remembered on the Oak Plaque at St Peter's Church on Doncaster Road, Barnsley.

Snip from John H Carr's RAF record (Find My Past)

The second man indicated as 'Dead' in my first week of research was John Henry Carr, an Airman in the Royal Air Force.  He appears to have died after his transfer to the reserve in 1919 - there is a note on his RAF records on Find My Past which appears to read deceased (or possibly discharged dead?) on 30 July 1920 (see above).  However I can find no evidence showing him buried in Barnsley or even a death index entry on FreeBMD for a John Henry or a John H Carr in 1919 or 1920 - there are several John Carr entries, but none the right age or in Barnsley.  So he's a mystery!

One of men noted as 'Killed' was John Henry Carr's son Richard, 142754, Machine Gun Corps.  His SDGW entry states that he was killed in action on 29 April 1918, and the CWGC notes that he is remembered on the Tyne Cot memorial.  He does not appear to be remembered on any Barnsley war memorial that has been recorded so far.  The family was from Hunslet, near Leeds, so there is the possibility he is remembered in that area. He was baptised at St Jude's, Hunslet in 1900 (available on Ancestry), unfortunately a Google search shows that this church closed in the 1950s and has been demolished.

The final 'Killed' entry on my first week of transcription was Samuel Musgrave, 40472, Leicestershire Regiment.  He was killed in action on 15 August 1918 and is remembered on the war memorial plaque in St Peter's too.

I also checked the 'Missing' and 'Discharged' men for CWGC entries.  There was only one, Frederick Bassett, 44565, Lincolnshire Regiment, killed in action on 17 April 1918.  He is not remembered on any Barnsley memorial but his CWGC entry notes that his name on the Tyne Cot memorial.  It also tells us that his father, another Frederick Bassett, lived at 22 Grasmere Road, Barnsley, which agrees with the entry on the Absent Voters' List.

So my grand total for just one week's work is two men from Barnsley not remembered on a memorial, two who had already been recorded because they are on a memorial and one more who might be eligible for an entry if we can work out where, when and how he died.

I know the this seems like a lot of work for very little return - but how else would we have discovered that Richard Carr was from Barnsley? He does not appear to be mentioned in the Barnsley Chronicle and his CWGC entry has no additional information to help identify him.  We do need to use every resource we can find to track down these fallen men ... and corroboration of facts we already have is not a waste of time - it does prove that our first identification of the men was correct.


Anyway, it keeps me off the streets!  And I enjoy it to be honest - the transcription exercise in Barnsley Archives is quite soothing and methodical and then I get a week to hunt down the men I have identified using all the genealogical know-how I've built up over the past 20 odd years, and I can do that at home, from my bed even if I'm poorly. *happy smile*