Sunday, 12 October 2014
Chelmsford School of Science and Arts
Watch this space - we are working on the beautifully restored Chelmsford School of Science and Arts war memorial, which will be re-dedicated at Anglia Ruskin University on the 4th November.
Friday, 26 September 2014
"Guns in Flanders heard and felt"
Special Constable Herbert Gripper made this comment in his logbook following his night patrol on New London Road on Tuesday 27th June 1916.
Mr. Miller Christy, of Chignal St James, was invited to the Royal Meteorological Society in London on the 22nd June, where he delivered a talk about repeatedly hearing gunfire from Flanders since early in the war. He pointed out that his house was at an elevation of 155ft, and that there was no higher ground between his house and the front line in Flanders, some 125 miles to the south east. He was able to describe the sound of British warships shelling German positions on the Belgian coast, as well as artillery fire ranging from four or five shots per minute to more than one hundred. He also confirmed Gripper's observation, that the gunfire was more of a "dull and distant thud which was felt rather than heard".
Christy had kept a diary of the nights on which gunfire could be heard. In May the previous year he had heard a large calibre German gun shelling Dunkirk. Bombardments were heard in July and August, and on October 6th 1915 "a loud explosion greatly excited the pheasants in the woods". Further gunfire was recorded in November, and in January and February 1916.
Gripper and Christy were not alone in hearing the guns. Reports had come in from the Temple, in London, and from Cricklewood, Hampstead, Lewisham, Wimbledon, Loughton, Eastbourne and Broadstairs, and from people such as Lloyd George and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Mr William Marriott, the assistant clerk to the RMetS, provided the meteorological explanation that sound travelled better in cloud, rather than in a clear sky.
This story was picked up by the press and was widely reported around the country, and even as far afield as New Zealand. But the newspapers got it wrong: they simply assumed that Christy was making an immediate report to the RMetS, and most of them provided a one sentence news item that "Gunfire was heard in Chelmsford on the 20th June", with some suggesting that it was the guns in Ypres, Dixmude or Arras. But there was no gunfire heard in the town that night, because the Ypres sector was quiet, as the Army shifted its attention further south.
The Battle of the Somme began on the 1st July 1916 and was preceded by one of the heaviest artillery bombardments of the war up to that time. The Somme barrage started on the 24th June, and for five days British guns pounded the German barbed wire, trenches and communications, along a 25 km front. There is no doubt that this is what Gripper heard - and felt - later that week.
Mr. Miller Christy, of Chignal St James, was invited to the Royal Meteorological Society in London on the 22nd June, where he delivered a talk about repeatedly hearing gunfire from Flanders since early in the war. He pointed out that his house was at an elevation of 155ft, and that there was no higher ground between his house and the front line in Flanders, some 125 miles to the south east. He was able to describe the sound of British warships shelling German positions on the Belgian coast, as well as artillery fire ranging from four or five shots per minute to more than one hundred. He also confirmed Gripper's observation, that the gunfire was more of a "dull and distant thud which was felt rather than heard".
Christy had kept a diary of the nights on which gunfire could be heard. In May the previous year he had heard a large calibre German gun shelling Dunkirk. Bombardments were heard in July and August, and on October 6th 1915 "a loud explosion greatly excited the pheasants in the woods". Further gunfire was recorded in November, and in January and February 1916.
Gripper and Christy were not alone in hearing the guns. Reports had come in from the Temple, in London, and from Cricklewood, Hampstead, Lewisham, Wimbledon, Loughton, Eastbourne and Broadstairs, and from people such as Lloyd George and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Mr William Marriott, the assistant clerk to the RMetS, provided the meteorological explanation that sound travelled better in cloud, rather than in a clear sky.
This story was picked up by the press and was widely reported around the country, and even as far afield as New Zealand. But the newspapers got it wrong: they simply assumed that Christy was making an immediate report to the RMetS, and most of them provided a one sentence news item that "Gunfire was heard in Chelmsford on the 20th June", with some suggesting that it was the guns in Ypres, Dixmude or Arras. But there was no gunfire heard in the town that night, because the Ypres sector was quiet, as the Army shifted its attention further south.
The Battle of the Somme began on the 1st July 1916 and was preceded by one of the heaviest artillery bombardments of the war up to that time. The Somme barrage started on the 24th June, and for five days British guns pounded the German barbed wire, trenches and communications, along a 25 km front. There is no doubt that this is what Gripper heard - and felt - later that week.
Thursday, 11 September 2014
Charles Jarvis - the "Chelmsford" VC
Charles Alfred Jarvis was born in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, on 29th March 1881, the son of a coastguard. He spent his early life in Carnoustie, in Angus. He trained as a plumber on leaving school but left Scotland at the age of 16 and in 1898 at the outbreak of the Boer War he joined the Royal Engineers. Instead of seeing action in South Africa, however, he was sent to Singapore at the time of the Boxer Crisis in China. He served for seven years and transferred to the reserves in 1907, returning to civilian life as a telegraphist in London. Some time after that he moved to Chelmsford and became a metal worker at Hoffmann's Manufacturing Company.
He was a well-known figure in our town, known as "Scotty" or "Mac", and he was a founder member and secretary of the Chelmsford Sea Angling Society, organising trips and competitions to Tollesbury, Brightlingsea, and out in the Blackwater and the Crouch. He was also an active trades unionist, and a member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.
He had actually left Hoffmann's in early 1914 and had moved to London. As a reservist he was called up at the outbreak of the First World War as 3976 L/Cpl C. A. Jarvis. He first reported to Chatham, from where he was sent to join the 57th Field Company, Royal Engineers, which was assembling at Bulford in Wiltshire. This unit was sent to France on 16th August, and by the Saturday 22nd it had arrived at the front in Mons, after a twenty mile march.
The first task of the engineers was to assist the infantry in setting up a defensive line on the Mons Canal. Early the next morning Jarvis was ordered to demolish one of the bridges over the canal, near the village of Jemappes. He obtained a rowing boat, and with a Colchester lad named Sapper Neary made his way into a lock and under the bridge. With the help of two Royal Scottish Fusiliers to steady the boat, he attached an explosive charge to the underside of the bridge. Unfortunately he did not have the detonators or leads required to finish the job, so he sent Neary back to the RE toolcart to obtain them. They had been under sniper fire since early in the morning, but a machine gun opened up on the bridge from a nearby chateau, and artillery was brought into action, with a hail of "shrapnel, bullets and splinters".
After an hour the Scots losses mounted and Jarvis' own officer was wounded, and there was still no sign of Neary. Jarvis decided to search for the detonators himself and, under fire, made his way into Jemappes town square. Amid scenes of chaos as the civilian population and the wounded were being evacuated, he found his adjutant, Captain Theodore Wright, RE, who was bleeding profusely from a head wound. He ordered Jarvis back to the bridge and to wait for him to bring the leads and detonators. Shortly afterwards Wright appeared with the equipment and, despite his wounds, made two attempts to fix the leads into the charges, and eventually fell into the canal, from which he was rescued. The two engineers then blew the bridge and escaped to safety. This was the only bridge on the Mons Canal that was successfully destroyed that day.
Jarvis and his unit were involved in the heavy fighting which followed the early German advance, and in the subsequent British and French counter-offensive from the 6th September. On the 30th October it was announced that he had been Mentioned in Despatches. By November he was exhausted, and was evacuated back to the Cambridge Ward of the London Hospital. On 16th November the London Gazette carried the following citation for the award of the Victoria Cross:
Jarvis became an instant hero and the news was greeted with great enthusiasm in Chelmsford. It was also celebrated at Carnoustie, with some surprise too - it was reported that it had been over six years since he had last been heard of by his family, and he had been long given up for dead!
Despite the Chelmsford claim, Jarvis visited Carnoustie on discharge from hospital in December. On Wednesday 13th January 1915 he was received at Buckingham Palace and had his Victoria Cross pinned to his breast by the King himself.
"Chelmsford's VC" finally returned to the town on Wednesday 21st July 1915. He stayed with Edwin Temple, at 194 Moulsham Street, and in the evening they went to see "Merry Miss Madcap" at the Empire Theatre. He was recognised by some in the audience, and the manager, Mr Lionel Holding, invited him on to the stage, which brought a great ovation. On the Friday there was a public demonstration in his honour which began at outside St John's Church on Moulsham Street. The band of the the 5th Battalion, Essex Regiment led the way, with a guard of honour from the 3/5th Battalion, Essex Regiment, and the Borough Fire Brigade. Jarvis himself, wearing his VC, was driven in Col. Tufnell's motor car in the company of the Mayor, George Taylor, Alderman J O Thompson, and Mr Ewell McAllen, of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee. They passed through the streets to the gun platform (now gone) in front of the Shire Hall. Following a speech by Col Tufnell, the Mayor presented Jarvis with a walrus-hide purse containing £30 (about £3,000 today), Following some words from the Mayor, Jarvis made a patriotic speech to one of the largest crowds ever assembled.
After his Chelmsford speech Jarvis returned to the RE depot in Chatham and shortly afterwards was assigned to recruiting duties in Essex, and he did not return to active service, In 1916 there was a call for skilled volunteers from the Royal Engineers to transfer to munitions work and Jarvis was sent to work in the Portsmouth Dockyards. He appeared in the newspapers again the following year: by this time he had accumulated 17 years' service in the Colours, and was looking forward to the military pension and lump sum to which he would be entitled on reaching the eighteen year point. But he was given a discharge from the Army within only months to go. This was a full discharge, which meant that if he left his protected munitions job he would be subject to conscription under the Military Service Act.The case attracted some attention but the outcome is unknown. Jarvis next appears working in the Napier aircraft factory at Acton Vale, where he was recognised by the King during a visit in November 1917.
Jarvis was in the news again in May 1919, when it was reported that he had been unemployed since the end of the war. Despite being a "superior plumber and gas fitter" he had no luck finding work, and threatened to buy a barrel organ and play it outside Buckingham Palace! The subsequent publicity helped him find a government post in Southampton. He eventually returned to Scotland, where he died in 1948.
Men from Chelmsford received many medals and awards during the Great War, but none of them merited the Victoria Cross. Jarvis had, at best, a limited and temporary association with our town, but he was happy to acknowledge it and I think we can be proud of our "Chelmsford VC".
He was a well-known figure in our town, known as "Scotty" or "Mac", and he was a founder member and secretary of the Chelmsford Sea Angling Society, organising trips and competitions to Tollesbury, Brightlingsea, and out in the Blackwater and the Crouch. He was also an active trades unionist, and a member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.
He had actually left Hoffmann's in early 1914 and had moved to London. As a reservist he was called up at the outbreak of the First World War as 3976 L/Cpl C. A. Jarvis. He first reported to Chatham, from where he was sent to join the 57th Field Company, Royal Engineers, which was assembling at Bulford in Wiltshire. This unit was sent to France on 16th August, and by the Saturday 22nd it had arrived at the front in Mons, after a twenty mile march.
The first task of the engineers was to assist the infantry in setting up a defensive line on the Mons Canal. Early the next morning Jarvis was ordered to demolish one of the bridges over the canal, near the village of Jemappes. He obtained a rowing boat, and with a Colchester lad named Sapper Neary made his way into a lock and under the bridge. With the help of two Royal Scottish Fusiliers to steady the boat, he attached an explosive charge to the underside of the bridge. Unfortunately he did not have the detonators or leads required to finish the job, so he sent Neary back to the RE toolcart to obtain them. They had been under sniper fire since early in the morning, but a machine gun opened up on the bridge from a nearby chateau, and artillery was brought into action, with a hail of "shrapnel, bullets and splinters".
After an hour the Scots losses mounted and Jarvis' own officer was wounded, and there was still no sign of Neary. Jarvis decided to search for the detonators himself and, under fire, made his way into Jemappes town square. Amid scenes of chaos as the civilian population and the wounded were being evacuated, he found his adjutant, Captain Theodore Wright, RE, who was bleeding profusely from a head wound. He ordered Jarvis back to the bridge and to wait for him to bring the leads and detonators. Shortly afterwards Wright appeared with the equipment and, despite his wounds, made two attempts to fix the leads into the charges, and eventually fell into the canal, from which he was rescued. The two engineers then blew the bridge and escaped to safety. This was the only bridge on the Mons Canal that was successfully destroyed that day.
Jarvis and his unit were involved in the heavy fighting which followed the early German advance, and in the subsequent British and French counter-offensive from the 6th September. On the 30th October it was announced that he had been Mentioned in Despatches. By November he was exhausted, and was evacuated back to the Cambridge Ward of the London Hospital. On 16th November the London Gazette carried the following citation for the award of the Victoria Cross:
For great gallantry at Jemappes on August 23rd in working for 1 ½ hours under heavy fire in full view of the enemy, and in successfully firing charges for the demolition of a bridge.Nine VCs were announced that day, including Captain Wright, who unfortunately had been killed in September, and four of the awards were for action on the 23rd August.
Jarvis became an instant hero and the news was greeted with great enthusiasm in Chelmsford. It was also celebrated at Carnoustie, with some surprise too - it was reported that it had been over six years since he had last been heard of by his family, and he had been long given up for dead!
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| L/Cpl Jarvis VC |
Despite the Chelmsford claim, Jarvis visited Carnoustie on discharge from hospital in December. On Wednesday 13th January 1915 he was received at Buckingham Palace and had his Victoria Cross pinned to his breast by the King himself.
"Chelmsford's VC" finally returned to the town on Wednesday 21st July 1915. He stayed with Edwin Temple, at 194 Moulsham Street, and in the evening they went to see "Merry Miss Madcap" at the Empire Theatre. He was recognised by some in the audience, and the manager, Mr Lionel Holding, invited him on to the stage, which brought a great ovation. On the Friday there was a public demonstration in his honour which began at outside St John's Church on Moulsham Street. The band of the the 5th Battalion, Essex Regiment led the way, with a guard of honour from the 3/5th Battalion, Essex Regiment, and the Borough Fire Brigade. Jarvis himself, wearing his VC, was driven in Col. Tufnell's motor car in the company of the Mayor, George Taylor, Alderman J O Thompson, and Mr Ewell McAllen, of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee. They passed through the streets to the gun platform (now gone) in front of the Shire Hall. Following a speech by Col Tufnell, the Mayor presented Jarvis with a walrus-hide purse containing £30 (about £3,000 today), Following some words from the Mayor, Jarvis made a patriotic speech to one of the largest crowds ever assembled.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am very proud to be among you all in Chelmsford again. When I left here twelve months ago I went with the feeling that I would like to come back, and I used to come back occasionally just to do a little fishing. But I have been fishing for other things since (laughter) and I just want to say a few words on behalf of the men at the Front, to those young men who have not yet come forward. While their fathers are doing their bit, they are still walking about here with their trousers turned up, their hair parted in the middle, and wearing fancy socks (laughter and cheers). Let them remember that we have 843,000 married men in the Services doing their duty. Why are not the young fellows coming forward and doing theirs? Why are they not in khaki?"
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| L/Cpl Jarvis under the bridge at Jemappes |
After his Chelmsford speech Jarvis returned to the RE depot in Chatham and shortly afterwards was assigned to recruiting duties in Essex, and he did not return to active service, In 1916 there was a call for skilled volunteers from the Royal Engineers to transfer to munitions work and Jarvis was sent to work in the Portsmouth Dockyards. He appeared in the newspapers again the following year: by this time he had accumulated 17 years' service in the Colours, and was looking forward to the military pension and lump sum to which he would be entitled on reaching the eighteen year point. But he was given a discharge from the Army within only months to go. This was a full discharge, which meant that if he left his protected munitions job he would be subject to conscription under the Military Service Act.The case attracted some attention but the outcome is unknown. Jarvis next appears working in the Napier aircraft factory at Acton Vale, where he was recognised by the King during a visit in November 1917.
Jarvis was in the news again in May 1919, when it was reported that he had been unemployed since the end of the war. Despite being a "superior plumber and gas fitter" he had no luck finding work, and threatened to buy a barrel organ and play it outside Buckingham Palace! The subsequent publicity helped him find a government post in Southampton. He eventually returned to Scotland, where he died in 1948.
Men from Chelmsford received many medals and awards during the Great War, but none of them merited the Victoria Cross. Jarvis had, at best, a limited and temporary association with our town, but he was happy to acknowledge it and I think we can be proud of our "Chelmsford VC".
Sunday, 24 August 2014
The Great Escaper
The aristocratic and ambitious Leutnant Otto Thelen had
joined the German Army Flying Corps before the war. In late 1914 he served as an
observer in Flieger Abteilung 5 but his flying career came to an early end on
22nd November when his Albatross aircraft was forced down by
Lieutenants L A Strange and F G Small of No. 5 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps,
using an experimental and unauthorised Lewis gun mounting. In an incident
recorded in the Official History of the War in the Air Vol I, Thelen
crash-landed near Neuve Eglise with 20 bullet holes in his aircraft. The
British officers landed nearby to claim their prisoners and saw that
“the German observer… took little notice of them; as soon as his machine had landed he jumped out of it, and dragging the partner of his dangers and triumphs out of the pilot’s seat, knocked him down, and began to kick him heavily about the body.”
The frustrated Thelen was sent to a
prisoner-of-war camp in Donington Hall in Lincolnshire, where he met a naval
officer, Leutnant Hans Keilback. Escape featured regularly in their
conversations, and soon they had got into the cellars under the library and dug
an eight foot tunnel under the foundations of the walls using an old poker and
a garden trowel, which they stole while undertaking voluntary renovation work
on a private chapel in the grounds of the Hall. The excavated earth was dumped
in the many rooms in the cellar complex. In the early morning of September 18th
1915 they escaped and the military authorities offered a reward of £100 for their capture. The two men managed to get to Chatham in Kent and actually board a
ship bound for the continent before they were discovered and arrested. .
Subsequently they were sent to Holyport Prison Camp outside
Maidenhead but again attempted escape, this time tunnelling 34 feet from the
prison bathroom. They were caught when a guard saw one of them sawing up
floorboards while the other played the harmonica “vigorously” to deaden the
sound. As punishment the pair were sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment at
the Military Detention Barracks at Chelmsford Prison and driven there with an armed
escort.
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| Chelmsford Military Detention Centre |
Chelmsford held both British and German servicemen who had been convicted in the military courts. The wooden huts and wire fences of the run-of-the-mill camps
elsewhere were here replaced by solid buildings and high walls, with the county
police headquarters and an Army training ground across Sandford Road and a former military airfield behind. But on Whit Sunday, 27th May 1917, Thelen,
with a new accomplice, Leutnant Emil Lehmann, managed to escape again. This
caused immense excitement in Chelmsford and the district, with military,
regular and special police, and even boy scouts forming search parties. Richard
Godfrey’s father was a special constable and he remembers him being called out
to hunt for the escaped Germans and returning home late that night, “with his
thick boots worn right through with the tramping around the district”. Special Constable Herbert Gripper was also called out and spent the day searching for the prisoners. The two
men were recaptured by soldiers of the Army Cyclist Corps near Billericay at around 5
am the following morning.
The ingenuity of the escape attempt drew grudging respect
from the press and public. Thelen, described as 5’ 9” in height, clean-shaven,
dressed in a German Army uniform with dark brown boots, and Lehmann, 5’ 7”,
slight dark moustache, dressed in a German Navy uniform with brass buttons and
heavy boots, had spent some time preparing for the escape. It was believed that
they had at some point obtained a key which appeared to be able to open several
doors in the prison. They were kept in separate cells in the same corridor but
removed the locks on their cell doors and substituted them with imitation locks
made from blackened cardboard. They had also constructed dummies, complete with
hair removed from their mattresses, and arranged them in their beds in a way
that satisfied the inspection of the guards viewing them through the peephole
in the cell door. The escape took place late at night, passing from the cells
into a corridor and through an iron gate, and two further locked gates, all of
which were presumably opened by the stolen key. They made their exit from the
prison through a small gate which led to the garden of the Chaplain’s house on
Sandford Road. From here they made their way around the back of the prison, and
down Hill Road towards the Gas Works and the footbridge across the Chelmer.
They crossed the King’s Head Meadow where they stole Mr Greenwood’s boat from
the boat house to cross the Can, and then they picked up the Baddow Road and
finally made off towards Galleywood. On recapture they were in a dishevelled
state, and a passing car was commandeered by their captors and they were driven
back to Chelmsford “in a rather dejected condition”. Both men had altered their
uniforms to resemble civilian clothes and wore ordinary cloth caps. They had no
money, and little food but a fair amount of chocolate.
Thelen and Lehmann were moved out of Chelmsford and sent to
Sutton Bonington camp, in Nottinghamshire. In September 1917 after tunnelling
fifty yards in three months, they led twenty two fellow PoWs in a mass escape.
They were all recaptured. Thelen survived the war and was eventually returned to Berlin, via Holland, in 1919.
Friday, 15 August 2014
Some statistics
In the 1911 census the population of the borough of Chelmsford was given as 18,008. Excluding the soldiers billeted or camped around the town, the population during the war was estimated at around 20,000, the increase due largely to the arrival of munitions workers.
But in 1918 an electoral register was drawn up. This provided not just a list of those entitled to vote at the local and general elections, but also a list of absent voters, with the designation "NM" for "Naval or military voter" for those who had been called up.
Across the three wards of the borough there were 1,791 men marked as absent, or nearly 10% of the pre-war population. Figures from the Office of National Statistics suggest that men of military age (between 18 and 41) comprised about 20% of the national population, which suggests that half the eligible men of Chelmsford were away in the services.
South Primrose Hill is probably one of the least changed areas in our city. In 1918 it was less than ten years old; one road in a fine new estate of "working mens' houses" built by a benevolent and paternalistic town council. From two terraces of 83 houses, 41 men were in the Army or Navy. Ernest and Emma Coppen had three sons serving, one of whom, Henry, was killed in the spring offensive of 1918. As Andy Begent notes on his Chelmsford War Memorial website, Henry was one of the "South Primrose Hill Boys", the twenty two men from this quiet, unassuming road who gave their lives in the Great War.
The village of Broomfield had 421 properties listed in the the 1918 electoral register, with 108 men absent on military service.
But in 1918 an electoral register was drawn up. This provided not just a list of those entitled to vote at the local and general elections, but also a list of absent voters, with the designation "NM" for "Naval or military voter" for those who had been called up.
Across the three wards of the borough there were 1,791 men marked as absent, or nearly 10% of the pre-war population. Figures from the Office of National Statistics suggest that men of military age (between 18 and 41) comprised about 20% of the national population, which suggests that half the eligible men of Chelmsford were away in the services.
South Primrose Hill is probably one of the least changed areas in our city. In 1918 it was less than ten years old; one road in a fine new estate of "working mens' houses" built by a benevolent and paternalistic town council. From two terraces of 83 houses, 41 men were in the Army or Navy. Ernest and Emma Coppen had three sons serving, one of whom, Henry, was killed in the spring offensive of 1918. As Andy Begent notes on his Chelmsford War Memorial website, Henry was one of the "South Primrose Hill Boys", the twenty two men from this quiet, unassuming road who gave their lives in the Great War.
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| Rainsford End: Rainsford Road on the left, leading into Chelmsford, and Primrose Hill on the right (Fred Spalding; author's collection) |
Tuesday, 12 August 2014
Monday, 11 August 2014
Chelmsford War Memorials
There are a number of war memorials in and around Chelmsford and a superb resource is Andy Begent's Chelmsford War Memorial website, which has a comprehensive list and biographical information about many - if not all - of the men listed on the Chelmsford, Springfield, Moulsham and Widford war memorials.
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