Tatton Park Memorial Book
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Tatton Park Memorial Book Copyright Title book: Tatton Park Memorial Book Author book: Tatton Park Education Department © 2018, Tatton Park Self publishing [email protected] ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher This book is dedicated to all the brave soldiers who lost their lives during World War One. With special thanks to: The Tatton Park Volunteers, without whom this project would not have been possible The Heritage Lottery Fund and Cheshire East Council for their kind funding and support Table of Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 Samuel Wright Baker ................................................................................. 5 John Belsham ............................................................................................. 6 William Belsham ......................................................................................... 7 Robert Talbot Butt ..................................................................................... 8 Charles Frederick Clinch .......................................................................... 9 Bertie Corby .............................................................................................. 11 Charles Arthur Corby ............................................................................. 12 John Edward Corby ................................................................................ 13 Robert Corby ............................................................................................ 14 Sidney Davies ............................................................................................ 15 Maurice Egerton ...................................................................................... 16 Noel Thompson Flood .......................................................................... 18 Benjamin Gathercole .............................................................................. 19 Thomas Victor Gathercole ................................................................... 20 Henry (Harry) Hope ............................................................................... 21 Percy Harold Jones.................................................................................. 22 Samuel Pownall ........................................................................................ 24 Jack Rushton ............................................................................................. 25 Llewellyn Rushton ................................................................................... 26 Arthur John (Jack) Russell..................................................................... 27 Herbert Sant .............................................................................................. 28 Percival Sleigh ........................................................................................... 30 John Ambrose-Smith .............................................................................. 32 Alfred Taylor ............................................................................................. 36 Arthur Tomlinson ................................................................................... 37 Walter Tomlinson .................................................................................... 38 Wilfred Tomlinson .................................................................................. 39 William Henry Tomlinson ..................................................................... 40 Stanley Victor Walley .............................................................................. 41 Memorial Roll ..................................................................................................... 41 THE EGERTON OF TATTON COUSINS WHO DIED IN THE GREAT WAR ............................................................................................ 47 1/ Second Lieutenant John Frederick Egerton.................................. 49 2/ Captain Louis Edwin William Egerton ............................................ 54 3/ Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur George Edward Egerton................ 57 4/ Captain Edward Brassey Egerton ..................................................... 61 THE EGERTON OF TATTON COUSINS: AN ESTATE MEMORIAL? Preface The purpose of this book is to commemorate the employees of the Tatton Park Estate, who served during World War One (1914-18). It is the culmination of two projects taking place at Tatton Park between 2014 and 2018 and is intended as an informative, accessible volume for our visitors. It can also be used in conjunction with our resource pack ‘Tatton to the Trenches’ (available at www.tattonpark.org.uk via the Learn tab) by teachers hoping to deliver this topic in the classroom. ‘We Will See It Through’ This project officially started in 2013, when a team of volunteers came together with the aim of identifying those who lived in and/or worked for the Tatton Park Estate and had served during World War One. The intention was to find and list all the men to create a Memorial Role, before going on to develop detailed listings for each one. The listings would give an insight to their lives before, during and after the war. An exhibition was planned for 2014 to display their findings. Very few documents from the period survive at Tatton, so the research team relied heavily on newspaper articles – including the local paper ‘The Knutsford Guardian.’ The archives provided: letters home from soldiers in France, tales of the receipt of bad news, notices for feats of bravery and the activities of those left serving on the Home Front. From consultation of these documents, as well as exploring wider archive and Internet research, the volunteers built up a comprehensive list of soldiers with a Tatton connection, as well as a selection of detailed war stories for some. Unfortunately, there were more stories to develop than there was time and space for in terms of the exhibition, so some entries remain fairly sparse. The exhibition itself proved very popular and some visitors were even able to contribute to the soldier’s profiles, having identified a relative or family friend amongst the Memorial Book entries. A Soldier’s Story: In 2018, an opportunity was identified to make use of the research conducted back in 2014, which had lain dormant ever since. The Education Department applied for support from the Heritage Lottery Fund under their ‘Then and Now’ project. £10,000 was donated to support the delivery of two free, large scale family education events and the printing /binding of the Memorial Book - created under the ‘We Will See It Through’ project. In May and August 2018, the Education Department successfully delivered the two events and welcomed approximately 500 visitors collectively. The events had activities suitable for every member of the family group, who were brought together to trace the history of a soldier. The soldiers chosen were selected from the Memorial Book and subsequently had a historical link with Tatton Park and the local area. The event also included: creative writing, storytelling, crafts, artefact handling, informative displays and drama performances. The concept was that through participating in these events, families would gather snippets of information about the soldier they were researching and complete their ‘fact file’, having only had their name and service number at the beginning of the day. They would have the opportunity to verify the information gathered once they ‘met’ the soldier, in an interactive storytelling performance at the end of the event. This book is the final part of the project and is very important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it formally recognizes the hard work of the volunteers who have given so much time to the project over the past 5 years. Secondly, it allows us to share this research with our visitors in an accessible and usable format. And finally, this book pays tribute to the men detailed in the volume and recognizes the sacrifices they made for our country. To them, we are eternally grateful and of them, we are very proud. Laura Armitage, Learning and Visitor Services Manager (October 2018) Introduction The Memorial Book currently contains over 100 entries of people whom have been identified as having been employed on the Tatton Estate, or who had connections to it through their family, living arrangements and and/or farming. The Tatton Estate was far wider than Tatton Park itself. In fact, the overall size is estimated to have been approximately 40,000 acres – 8000 of which being Tatton Park itself. At the time, it was said that it was possible to walk from Tatton Park to Manchester without leaving estate land. The estate included over 80 tenanted farms and a vast array of houses, shops and nurseries. Tatton Park was the centre of the estate and the home of the prestigious Egerton family. This volume contains a selection 30 of the 100 entries. Soldiers have been selected based on the fullness of their ‘fact files’, as well as identifying those with particularly interesting stories to tell. In the fullness