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Naval and Aerial Bombardment on the North-East Coast of England During the First World War

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Naval and Aerial Bombardment on the North-East Coast of England During the First World War Securing Public Safety in the ‘Danger Zone’: Naval and Aerial Bombardment on the North-East Coast of England during the First World War Michael Reeve BA (Leeds Beckett), MA (Leeds) May 2019 Doctor of Philosophy Department of History, University of Hull 1 Abstract The First World War was ‘total’ in scope, in that it involved the mobilisation of the entire belligerent societies, turning civilian men into soldiers for the battlefront, and endangering the lives of those remaining on the ‘home front’. While historians have dealt with the military aspects of the war from many angles, including the social and cultural lives of ‘citizen soldiers’, in addition to the movements of troops, decisive battles and military strategy, there remain omissions in the study of the home front. In particular, the experiences of non- combatants in the direct line of fire has received scant attention. This is surprising, given the degree to which civilian spaces were militarised in response to the threat of invasion and bombardment, initially from naval vessels and then from Zeppelin airships and aeroplanes. In Britain, the north-east coast of England was particularly badly affected by naval and aerial attacks, but historians have not reflected in detail on the specificities of coastal community experience in the war context. This thesis provides a multi-faceted analysis of the phenomenon of bombardment, with a distinct focus on beleaguered coastal-urban towns and cities. Taking a social and cultural approach to an array of written sources and material culture, multiple levels and voices are explored, from that of Whitehall politicians and civil servants, to local councillors, borough engineers, special constables and civilians. Beginning with pre-war and wartime narratives related to the threat of invasion and bombardment, the thesis moves on to the social and cultural resonance of bomb damage to the coastal-urban environment. This is then followed by analysis of varying levels of government policy pertaining to defence, both military and civil, including state policy-makers, local government officials, military leaders and police forces. The thesis concludes with a long view of the legacies of bombardment, beginning during the war and ending with the recent centenary period (2014-18). This thesis makes the case for a unique coastal-urban experience of war on the home front, underpinned not only by the shocking record of attacks upon the north-east coast, but by the reflection of prevalent fears about invasion and bombing in pre-war and wartime planning perspectives and policing strategies. By exploring the development of nascent civil defence as a guard against civilian bombardment, the thesis also puts forward a perspective on the endurance and resilience of civilians in coastal communities. Notions of public safety and defence, including the repulsion of enemy actions and the defence of family, community and ‘home’, undergirded both official and popular narratives. As such, this work presents a view of the coastal-urban environment at war that can enrich historical perspectives on the First World War home front, in addition to state-society and central-local relations. These phenomena are seen through the lens of the manifold activities governments and civilians themselves devised to steel resolve in the face of attack. 2 Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................................. 2 List of abbreviations ......................................................................................................................... 4 List of figures and tables .................................................................................................................. 5 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 8 CHAPTER 2: Constructing fear of invasion and bombardment ............................................... 52 CHAPTER 3: Representing war damage and destruction following bombardment ............... 84 CHAPTER 4: Public safety and home defence: the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) and central government policy ............................................................................................................ 126 CHAPTER 5: Local interpretation and implementation of central government policy on home and civil defence .................................................................................................................. 155 CHAPTER 6: Agents of implementation and enforcement: policing DORA .......................... 195 CHAPTER 7: The wartime and post-war legacies of civilian bombardment ......................... 248 CHAPTER 8: Conclusion: towards a history of the coastal-urban environment at war ....... 293 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................. 311 The word count of this thesis is 98,370. 3 List of abbreviations AA Anti-aircraft ACMA Authorised Competent Military Authority ADM Admiralty AIR Air Ministry BL British Library CAB Cabinet Office CID Committee for Imperial Defence DORA Defence of the Realm Act DRR Defence of the Realm Regulations ERYA East Riding of Yorkshire Archives HAPMG Hartlepool Museums & Galleries HBM Heugh Battery Museum HCL Hartlepool Central Library HHC Hull History Centre HO Home Office IWM Imperial War Museum LC Liddle Collection, Special Collections, Leeds University Library NYCRO North Yorkshire County Record Office SL Scarborough Library SMT Scarborough Museums Trust TA Teesside Archives TNA The National Archives WO War Office 4 List of figures and tables Figures 1.1 The United Kingdom, with the north-east coast shaded (left) and in focus (right). ......... 34 2.1 Hull Brewery Co. advertisement, 1914.............................................................................. 58 3.1 Map depicting the 16 December 1914 bombardment of Scarborough, Whitby and ‘the Hartlepools’............................................................................................................................ 101 3.2 A family pictured among the rubble at Girvan Terrace, West Hartlepool, 1914 ............. 103 3.3 Children pose outside a damaged church, Hartlepool, 1914. .......................................... 104 3.4 Postcard marked ‘Sussex Street’ (bottom right, outside of frame). ................................. 104 3.5 ‘Before and after’ postcards depicting bomb damage and Ypres and Whitby. ............... 107 3.6 The embattled British bulldog postcard, c. 1914. ............................................................ 111 3.7 ‘Away lads the Germans are coming again’. Postcard, c. 1914. ..................................... 111 3.8 West Hartlepool man pictured holding shell fragments. ................................................. 115 3.9 Three men pictured with an unexploded shell in Hartlepool. .......................................... 116 3.10 Display in Thomas Rutherford’s antique shop, West Hartlepool, c. 1914. ................... 122 3.11 Civilian ‘trench art’ utilising shell fragments and other ephemera to deliver anti-German messages. ............................................................................................................................... 123 3.12 A mounted piece of German shell, used as a stand for sweets and chocolates, c. 1915. ................................................................................................................................................ 123 4.1 An approximate map of Northern Command (War Office, February 1915). .................. 135 5.1 Map depicting military defences of Scarborough, c. 1914. ............................................. 169 5.2 Barricades and barbed wire entanglements at Eastborough and Bland’s Cliff, Scarborough (c. 1915). ................................................................................................................................ 170 5.3 A diagram of a German incendiary bomb (left) and a photograph of a special constable holding an unexploded incendiary in 1915. ........................................................................... 179 5.4 A man has breakfast in his ‘subterranean stronghold’, 1914. .......................................... 184 5.5 A garden ‘funk-hole’, 1914.............................................................................................. 185 6.1 British Commercial Gas Association advertisement, 1915. ............................................ 202 6.2 Partial map depicting the position and movement of the enemy vessels.. ....................... 213 6.3 Partial map of Hartlepool and West Hartlepool, 1923. .................................................... 214 6.4 Primary site of ‘vulnerable points’ targeted at Hartlepool and West Hartlepool ............ 215 6.5 Map of areas where DORA offences were committed (sample) (1930s map). ............... 230 6.6 Map of Hull with identifiable night patrols and sites of serious bomb damage, death and injury following the 6 June 1915 Zeppelin raid (1920s map). ............................................... 244 7.1 Peace Day celebrations in Estcourt Street, Hull. ............................................................. 262 7.2 'The scene outside a Hartlepool Baptist
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