Diary Dates The newsletter of the Friends of Shropshire Archives, Saturday 20 October 2018 Saturday 17 November 2018 ARCHIVES First World War Showcase Day Much Wenlock Charter Celebrations SHROPSHIRE gateway to the history of Shropshire and Telford 10.00am - 4.00pm Shirehall, Abbey Foregate, Contact Much Wenlock Town Council Shrewsbury SY2 6ND www.muchwenlock-tc.gov.uk Free event! Saturday 27 October 2018 Saturday 24 November 2018 Arthur Allwood, Victoria County History Annual lecture Friends Annual Lecture Shropshire RHA and Horses in Early Modern Shropshire: for Dr Kate Croft - “Healthy and Expedient”: Childcare and KSLI, 1912-1919 Charity at the Shrewsbury Foundling Hospital 1759-1772 Service, for Pleasure, for Power? Page 2 Professor Peter Edwards 10.30am, £5 Shropshire Archives, Shrewsbury, SY1 2AQ 2.00pm, £5 donation requested For further details see www. Reasearching Central, Shrewsbury Baptist Church, 4 Claremont friendsofshropshirearchives.org.uk Street, Shrewsbury Myndtown Church Page 5 Tuesday 6 November 2018 Tuesdays, 22 January – 26 February 2019 Discover the Stories Behind the Stones House History Course Shrewsbury at work The Beautiful Burial Ground project is offering a FREE Contact [email protected] for training session at Shropshire Archives for those further details interested in the stories told by our burial grounds. Page 8 This session will cover an introduction to the archive as well as how to use the archive to investigate the lives and stories in your local burial ground. To book your free place please get in touch with George at [email protected] or 01588 673041 10.30am - 12.30pm ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The newsletter of the Friends of News Extra... Shropshire Archives is edited by Andrew Pattison and designed by Nat Stevenson, Shropshire Archives’ Image Services. Do you have any stories to tell about There are three issues per year, paid for by the Friends. The Shropshire’s history or have any news contents are provided by friends and well-wishers. If you about Shropshire Archives? If you have, would like to join the contributors, please contact the editor at the editor is waiting to hear from you [email protected] now. The contact details are below and DISCLAIMER: We have made every effort to ensure that the information in this publication is correct at the time of printing. photographs are always welcome. We cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Managers and Directors outside the Sentinel Works, Contact... For further details or to pass on your comments, please contact: Shrewsbury. Shropshire Archives ref: PH/S/13/S/21/2 Shropshire Archives, Castle Gates, Shrewsbury, SY1 2AQ • Tel: 0345 6789096 Email: [email protected] • Website: www.shropshirearchives.org.uk Number 92 . Autumn 2018 Price £2.00 (free to Members) Mobilisation be rushed up to aid Field Batteries in distress. The Feature Arthur received his call-up papers on 5 August Mortar Emplacements of the Medium Batteries were 1914 and was promoted to Bombardier in the RHA. usually only a few yards to the rear of the Infantry front Delaine Haynes Arthur Allwood Then began a campaign of commandeering horses line trenches. from farms in Shropshire. ‘Over 200 horses were Shropshire RHA and KSLI 1912 – 1919 commandeered from farmers and tradesmen. Most of the Arthur remembers the exploits of Gunner Tom Finch officers’ chargers came from the stud of Mr Frank Bibby of Rushbury. On one occasion (early in 1917) ‘our section of Hardwick Hall’. Later Mr Bibby provided beer and was occupying a deep dugout immediately behind the As we are nearing the centenary of the ending of the First refreshments as the troops travelled towards Eccleston Infantry front line trenches. Owing to enemy action it World War it is particularly interesting to hear the story of Park in Chester, where they joined other regiments. ‘On became very difficult to get our rations through. Tom Finch an occasion when the Battery marched on to the home of volunteered to go through to HQ for them. Sometime after those like Arthur Allwood who experienced it. Frank Bibby at Hardwick, when we reached Ditherington he had gone, the Germans put up a heavy bombardment (Shrewsbury), Captain Jones sent me back with the two on our trenches. I began to fear for Finch’s safety. Before the war opened in 1913. ‘Horses were lead horses and their drivers from each of the four wagon Suddenly Finch, calmly smoking his pipe, crawled into Arthur Allwood enlisted in the hired for each training camp and teams to help the Ammunition Column over the hump of the dugout, rations and all. “I see’d a few owd wagons go Territorial Shropshire Royal Horse Messrs Cave, a firm of Birmingham the old English Bridge,’ Arthur explained. (The English up in the air and I had to crawl over the rubble where the Artillery (RHA) on 3 February 1912, auctioneers, were contracted to Bridge was rebuilt with a lower gradient in 1927). trenches were blown in, but I knowed he could ‘na get me,” shortly after his 18th birthday. He supply them. Bank Farm, about a Tom explained. He was the bravest man I ever knew. died in March 1993 aged 99 years. mile from the Drill Hall at Coleham, As men were mobilised and horses commandeered, A former Wem Grammar School was used by the Shrewsbury section,’ ‘the road between Coleham and the Bank Farm quickly Another time ‘Gunners Gerald Davies and Tom pupil (1905–1908), he served in Arthur later wrote. ‘Early in 1912 the became the training ground and, instead of the present Finch were the two men at the Mortar…. Jerry gave both World Wars and wrote many Territorial Association purchased day motor cars and lorries, the streets were occupied by us everything he had, his whole bag of tricks. The booklets and articles on military 12 horses for use in Shrewsbury. prancing horses, guns and wagons. In a few days, stabling Infantry front line trench began to crumble. [However] history and his family life. He When not used in training they were at The Castle, The Unicorn and the Lion and Pheasant I could see our bombs in flight and bursting with great farmed in Shropshire and Australia loaned to tradesmen in the town. (Wyle Cop) became inadequate, so the horses were moved accuracy on the target. When two ammunition carriers and he also wrote poetry about the Engine cleaners, firemen, bricklayers, to a field near Sutton Mill where they were tied on picket reported that they could not get through and [that] our Shropshire he knew and loved. printers, clerks and townsmen were lines,’ Arthur recalls. ‘My horse was among those taken emplacement [had gone] up in the air, I ordered that no all trained at nightly sessions to to picket lines in a field on the banks of the Rea Brook more ammunition was to be sent up and everyone was The Shropshire RHA was become first class military horsemen.’ at Sutton. I was billeted at my own home, on a farm at to take cover in our dug-out about 200 yards back. I then formed in 1908 from the First Cantlop’. tried to find out what had happened [and] I crawled on Above: Ivy and Arthur Allwood on their wedding Shropshire Artillery Volunteers and In June 1914, King George V my knees in the direction of the Mortar – when… the day, 8 September 1917. comprised a Battery with sections visited the Royal Agricultural Later, with the 1/1 Shropshire RHA, they were billeted Mortar began to fire again. Then I discerned, amidst the Shropshire Archives ref: SHYHA/0245 at Shrewsbury and Wellington. The Showground at Monkmoor. Arthur at Beccles, Suffolk. Arthur recalls ‘Our spare wagons smoke and debris, a man on his hands and knees coming Ammunition Column was stationed writes ‘together with the Shropshire were stored in the local cattle sale yard with a tall sentry towards me. It was Finch. ‘Eh, Corp, what about some Opposite page: Will Rowson and Arthur Allwood, at Shrewsbury and Church Stretton. Yeomanry and 4th KSLI we lined the box stood in the middle. I was visiting my sentry when he more ammo, we’ve run out’, he said... He then explained 1914. Shropshire Archives ref: SHYHA/0245 The RHA together with the main streets’ of the route from the greeted me with ‘Arthur, there’s a naked bloke messing that the delay in Ammunition Column were then Railway Station to Monkmoor. His about over there’. ‘Rubbish’, says I, ‘You’ve got nerves’. firing had been Shropshire RHA Wagon Team in charge of units of the Welsh Border Mounted unit was situated on Wyle Cop and Then to my astonishment, I too saw the naked man. I while they were Bombardier A. Allwood. 1914. Brigade. At that time, men his section was opposite the Lion went forward, rifle at the ready, to be greeted by a grunt. A clearing the Shropshire Archives ref: SHYHA/0245 reported for duty at the new Riding Hotel. ‘At the time there was a scare large pig had been left overnight in the sale yard after the debris from their School near the Coleham Drill Hall, about suffragettes so we had strict auction’. emplacement – Shrewsbury – which was officially orders that no one should break they had nearly through our ranks’ In December 1916, Shropshire RHA men Gunner Tom been buried Finch of Rushbury, Gunner Gerald Davies of Dawley alive. I told and Corporal Arthur Allwood, lined up in the Medium them that they Trench Mortar Brigade (TMB) Y58th Battery. ‘The must both come crossing was made from Southampton to Le Havre early out of it - but in January 1917, where the TMBs were immediately sent to before I could the Trench Mortar School.’ The main work of the TMBs say any more was to cut, methodically, a road through the enemy’s he returned to barbed wire, preparatory to the infantry attack.