Chedworth and The Great War – The people who went to war and the village they left behind by Mike Tovey

Slide 1 - Introduction Chedworth is one of the larger Cotswold Parishes (1935 ha.) in Gloucestershire being 10km NNE of Cirencester. It has three Roman villas and is recorded in the Domesday Book. This photograph shows the Chedworth Post Office with an advertisement to join the British cavalry on the wall. Slide 2 - Population In 2013 we decided to commemorate the centenary of the Great War and thus a five-year study of the Great War period started culminating in a book. It remains an ongoing project. Chedworth population was in slow decline. The 1911 census shows that 157 males would be of military age during the Great War. It is a testament to the level of Chedworth male fitness that 129 men joined the forces. This was considerably higher than the national average (about 40% of recruits were rejected as unfit). In November 1915 49 men presented themselves at the Northleach prison for examination and attestation but only 17 were accepted – the remainder being rejected as medically unsuitable.

Slide 3 – Prime Sources of Information The bedrock of the research was the roll of honour in the church porch listing the men who had served and survived and the two war memorials. Slide 4 – Invalides and Fatalities Of the 129 men and two women of Chedworth who served with the colours 16 were awarded silver war badges (invalided out of the forces) and 14 died whilst serving (two of them after the end of the war) so Chedworth paid a high patriotic price. Slide 5 – Medals for Bravery Four Chedworth men were awarded medals for bravery. Harry Smith of the Lincolnshire Regiment was awarded both a Croix de Guerre and a DCM in 1916. Slide 6 - Volunteers and Conscripts By the end of August 1914 at least twenty Chedworth men were serving in the forces. By September 1914 the rush had become a trickle and only one man came forward at a village recruitment drive. The diary of Albert Broad gives a vivid first-hand account of three friends agreeing to join up together in December 1914. They cycled to the Cheltenham recruiting office and were persuaded to join the newly formed 9th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment. When the recruiters learnt that these lads all played musical instruments the deal was done and they agreed to take their instruments with them which they played at various venues in Cheltenham in-between infantry training and then took them to France. In October 1915 a recruiting effort known as the “Derby Scheme” informed men between 18 and 40 that they could enlist voluntarily or attest with an obligation to report for duty if called up later and that voluntary enlistment was to cease after 15 December 1915. Several Chedworth men applied under this scheme and were duly allowed to return home and carry on their trade until later. The Military Service Act of 27 January 1916, made every British single male between 19 and 41 years of age liable to military service unless they could claim exemption. One Chedworth man avoided conscription until September 1918 and was forcibly taken by army escort to Horsfield Barracks in Bristol. He served as a bandsman in the Tank Corps until February 1919. Slide 7 - A War Grave in Chedworth We discovered that the mortal remains of Captain George Reginald Ellis of the RAMC (cousin of the vicar) are interred in the St. Andrews churchyard. Ellis died at the vicarage of tuberculosis. His body could not be moved to his home in Bishop Auckland so he was buried here. Captain Ellis is now honoured each year on Remembrance Sunday. Slide 8 – The Vicar and Family George Mackie was appointed vicar of Chedworth in 1907 after a successful career as a teacher in several public schools. He was a national examiner in Scripture History and a noted fly-fisherman. The new vicar probably expected a comfortable country living but the Great War changed everything, and George Mackie rose to the occasion becoming a central pillar of the village’s wartime community. Within days of the outbreak of war many Chedworth families were left behind to fend as best they could without the support of their main breadwinner. From then onwards the Chedworth community pulled together in mutual support through many organisations including the Parish Council, the Nursing Association, the National School and the churches. It is clear from news articles and local records that George Mackie took a leadership role in these, and many other activities throughout the war. Mrs. Helen Mackie and their three daughters also played a prominent role in activities such as fetes and dances to raise funds for the Red Cross and soldiers’ charities. The vicarage was often used as a venue and the Mackies invited all the adult villagers to join them when their daughter Elizabeth married Henry Cookson of the RAMC in October 1915. George Mackie considerably helped his parishioners during times of personal stress giving comfort when death, injury or men missing in action reports were received. A small hint of his personal interest in the Chedworth men’s welfare was his gift of a Pocket Book to Francis Fry which later saved the man’s life when he was bayoneted by a Prussian Guard. George maintained a close interest in the local school and often visited during term and provided small presents at Christmas time. In 1917 George exhorted his congregation to eat less, especially wheaten bread and wrote to The Times calling for recipes to make bread out of oats, barley, maize, rice, and potatoes. It is not recorded how successful he was in this endeavour. Against this background it is, perhaps, easy to forget that there were similar pressures on his own family. George and Helen Mackie nursed cousin George Ellis before his death in June 1917 and tragically, Helen Mackie died that October. By early 1918 three of his four sons and his two unmarried daughters were in uniform. Middle son Lewis was initially reported missing in action with the KRRC but survived as a prisoner of war and his capture is documented in a thrilling account submitted to the army. His daughter Marjorie was also seriously ill on at least two occasions. On his death in 1925 after 17 years of service to the village a fulsome obituary headed “A beloved vicar”, included this reference to his wartime role: “Chedworth will long remember the Vicar it has just lost and he will be sorely missed for his solicitude for the welfare of all his parishioners knew no bounds. His was a sympathetic ear for all troubles and his kindliness of heart made him self- sacrificing in his efforts to help the sick and the needy. During the war he personally wrote a Christmas letter to every Chedworth man who was serving with the colours. His, too, was the guiding hand that helped many a soldier and many a wife to secure a due and proper pension.” Slide 9 - The Home Front Prior to the Great War Chedworth was a predominantly agricultural community, with many men working as labourers on small farms or on the Eldon Estate. The Estate also provided work for many skilled artisans and owned most of the cottages in which they lived. Living conditions were very basic. Women and girls carried the greatest burden of domestic responsibilities, increased when they were widowed, or when the men were away at the front. An intimate account of daily life in Chedworth details the arduous household routine that existed before, and was exacerbated by, the War. Collecting wood to supplement expensive coal, the only means of cooking and heating the home, regularly took women around the parish. Washing was done by hand with hope of a rainless, windy day to dry it on the washing line. The wells were often empty by the end of August, and the only water available was from butt or stream. Cleaning outside lavatories and cesspits, chimney sweeping and cooking were recurrent jobs. Winter was a particularly challenging time, and keeping warm, day and night, a major preoccupation. Sacks stopped up the wind from under the door, and flat irons and bricks warmed the beds. Although many villagers were poor, Chedworth was a vibrant and self-reliant community with trades and services that we do not have today. The village boasted two post offices, a police constable, three stores, three bakeries, two butchers, two fishmongers, boot makers, blacksmiths, a corn and coal merchant, a tailor, and several carpenters, stonemasons, and carriers. The railway that ran through the village was busy with troop trains and enabled an easy journey to nearby towns. Whilst men’s occupations are documented in the 1911 Census, the economic contribution of married women to farming is scarcely registered. Some single girls and young women, one as young as 13 years, worked as domestic servants in the bigger houses. Older single women, several of them born outside Chedworth, occupied roles as housekeepers. The Census does point us to the role that Chedworth women played in inn keeping and beer retailing. Five establishments had a woman at the helm. Local shops depended heavily on women, who often carried these responsibilities into later life. Mary Ann Broad, a widow and a shopkeeper ran the business at 82 years of age and Elizabeth Hicks, aged 81, had been married to her shopkeeper husband John for 54 years, while also raising nine children. At least two Chedworth women went to work at the Gloucester National Shell Filling Factory at Quedgeley when it opened in 1915. The work was dirty and dangerous but well paid. In 1911, the average age at marriage for women was 25 years. Babies were born at home, mostly delivered by a village midwife. Adelaide Greenwood, a widow and the mother of thirteen children was one of these midwives. The average number of children among women who had finished childbearing was almost seven. Ellen Morse holds the record, with seventeen children. The outbreak of War also encouraged early marriages. Amy Preston married William John Peachey in January 1916, a few weeks after he had joined up, aged just 20 years and Gertrude Preston married Jack Lawrence just three weeks before he deployed to France. Health School Logs record frequent child illness, including outbreaks of measles, mumps, chicken pox, and influenza. Overcrowded living conditions facilitated the spread of head lice, ring worm, and skin eruptions. More serious illnesses - diphtheria, small pox and scarlet fever - led to children’s exclusion from school, and treatment in Northleach hospital. Families often experienced the trauma of child death. More than a fifth of all the children born to women by the 1911 Census did not survive, with the children of women with ten or more live births accounting for almost a third of these deaths. Nurse Gemmell, employed by Chedworth Nursing Association, gave invaluable service. In one year, she carried out 2,347 visits and attended 107 cases (62 surgical, 36 medical and 9 midwifery). Her services were especially welcomed by villagers who could not afford the doctor. Several Chedworth men returned from the War sick and wounded, some with life-shortening illness and disabilities. Their women found themselves nursing a wounded husband or son as well as doing their other chores. Slide 10 - Conclusion About half of the men who left Chedworth to go to war returned and settled down. The remainder moved to towns and cities. Two men and a lady emigrated, three soldiers were promoted to become professional officers in the army. At least four returned to Chedworth to be with friends and family in their twilight years. The “old contemptables” maintained their comradeship through membership of the Cricket Club, British Legion and Silver Band, all still functioning in 2020 and in the “Red Triangle Hut” (the first village hall). We owe them a great deal.

https://chedworth.org.uk/chedworth-remembers-the-great-war/

Mike Tovey is a retired civil servant who moved to Chedworth in 1992. He lives with his wife Gill and dog Isla with whom he shares daily walks in the Cotswold countryside. His main hobbies are local history, family history, trying to beat the stock market and visiting old pubs.