Agnes Tiarks War Diaries 1914 to 1918 Agnes Tiarks War Diaries Foxbury from the west This short booklet includes edited contents of the private diaries of Agnes Tiarks (1840-1923). Thank you to Anne Page, who gave me access to the diaries, and to the Chislehurst Society Ribbons Collection for the images on pages 9, 10, and 12. Other images are from the Tiarks family collection. Tony Allen The Chislehurst Society History Group, Chislehurst, Kent January 2015 2 Agnes Tiarks War Diaries Contents Images/subject 2 Foxbury from the west 3 Contents 4 Introduction 5 The outbreak of war 5 First things first 6 Baron SchrÖder (centre) at his house with guests, 7 Foxbury - war economy 8 One of the prize heifers at Foxbury Farm 9 War comes to Chislehurst 9 Horses being collected in Chislehurst, 1914. 10 Ambulances queueing on the High Street 11 Helping the wounded 12 Injured soldiers at Holbrook Hospital. 13 Frank goes to war 14 Lovely Naval Uniform 15 For King and Country 17 The Servant situation 17 An earlier photograph of some of Foxbury staff 18 Agnes keeps it together 19 Peace at last 20 Foxbury farm buildings 20 Two sisters, Aggie and Sophie. The Chislehurst Society is a local community charity. Its activities include supporting research into a range of heritage matters In addition to supporting talks and publications, the Society runs its own history and heritage group, which undertakes its own research. You can contact us on [email protected] Our website is www.chislehurst-society.org.uk 3 Agnes Tiarks War Diaries Introduction Agnes Tiarks was 74 years old when war was declared in August 1914. Her husband had died three years before, and had left her a life interest in Foxbury, the large house in Kemnal Road, Chislehurst, Kent, which had been built for her family in 1877. Three of her ten surviving children still lived with her at Foxbury. She had 20 indoor servants and roughly the same number of ‘outside’ servants, looking after the extensive grounds, covering 57 acres, which were given over to a mixture of pleasure gardens, farmland, and rough countryside for shooting. Her husband had left Agnes well provided for, she was in reasonable good health, and had regular visits from most of her very wide family. As late at June 1914, there appeared to be little to trouble her privileged life style. However, she had more reason than most to be fearful as the war threat grew. Her fortune was based entirely on her husband’s income earned as a partner in J.H. Schröder & Co, a London based Merchant Bank, which had extensive business connections with Germany. Her eldest son, Frank, was now a partner in that firm, and he and she had a network of family relationships with German nationals. Agnes had kept a daily diary ever since 1860, and she maintained this throughout the war years. Her diary entries can be extremely brief, even cryptic and difficult to understand, but they have an immediacy that is attractive, with plenty of occasional nonsense and fun. I have used these entries to piece together a unique glimpse into the domestic lives of Agnes and her family at Foxbury during the Great War. I have not attempted to correlate these entries with official or independent accounts of these events, nor to expand into details that are not referred to in her diary. For a fuller analysis of life at Foxbury, and biographical details of the family, please refer to www.kemnal-road.org.uk, and to my forthcoming biography of Frank Tiarks. Tony Allen Chislehurst, January 2015. 4 Agnes Tiarks War Diaries The outbreak of war On 29 June 1914, Agnes wrote in her diary “The assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and his Wife”, but along with most in England, she didn’t think much more of it. It wasn’t until 30 July that she wrote of “war anxieties”, after her son Frank had come home that evening from the City. Only three days later, on Sunday 2 August she wrote, “Germany declares war” and that she “felt bewildered - went early to bed”. On 5 August: “England declares war on Germany”. The Times was one of her regular newspapers, but with Frank working in the City, and a Director of the Bank of England, she would have been kept up to date with the latest news by him, and for the next few months, she makes almost daily reference to the war news: 1 September 1914 “Indian Troops arrived in France”; 7 September “Germans neglecting Paris”; 29 November “News from Russia promises great things…”. But as the news become worse, her references to specific war news steadily dropped off. Events in the Dardanelles in May 1915 were the last regular reference she commits to her diaries, with reports of British Prisoners being massacred (20 May), and the loss of HMS Triumph and HMS Majestic (26 and 28 May). By that time was Agnes, like many others, becoming inured to the bad news, and was just getting on with her life, which we will see was extremely busy, or was it simply that it was deeply depressing to keep on writing down bad news? She did continue to report some major events, including the news that stunned most of England on 6 June 1916: “Lord Kitchener and his staff lost off the Orkneys in the cruiser Hampshire - can it be true?”, and on 4 April 1917, that “America joins in against Germany” - then “American Troops arrived in France” in late June. But the Somme offensive gets no mention, and there is little reference to the outcomes of important battles such as Vimy Ridge or Passchendale. Only when the tide turned in 1918 did Agnes once again start to report on war events. First things first! Frank was in partnership with Baron Bruno Schröder, a German national, in the firm of J.H. Schröder & Co. On the declaration of 5 Agnes Tiarks War Diaries Baron Bruno SchrÖder before the war war the Baron was liable to be arrested and his assets confiscated. Schröders was one of the largest Merchant Banks, and this would have had a significant impact on the City, which was already reeling from the collapse of international liquidity. It would also of course have been ruinous for Frank Tiarks. Within days, Frank, acting with the Bank of England, and the Government, had obtained both naturalisation for the Baron, and protection of the partnership assets. Not everyone thought this was a good thing, and Schröders became the target of criticism in newspapers, with questions in Parliament. It also resulted in discrimination against the firm, which effectively became dormant for the next four years. Agnes did not understand all the implications of these events, but enough to make comment on them in her diary: 4 November 1914 “Frank’s attack by the Evening News”, and 28 November “The name of Schröder - Lloyd George”, when he defended the naturalisation decision in Parliament. It was clear that Bruno was not as grateful as he perhaps should have been: 16 November ”Bruno hopelessly showing his sympathies [towards Germany]”. More alarmingly, as Frank became more concerned that Schröders would be permanently shunned in the City, there was “talk of the liquidation of the firm”, and “the future becomes serious”, just after 6 Agnes Tiarks War Diaries the national outrage at the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915. And in October that year “The good old firm done for by the war - and how about the future?”. Foxbury - war economy But just because Frank had managed to save the firm, at least for the time being, this did not mean that things could go on at Foxbury unchanged. Within days of the declaration of war, Agnes records that “Frank on telephone advising strict economy”. The head gardener, John Lyne, was “quite eloquent and willing” about further economy measures in June 1915, and on 22 July, Agnes noted that she had prepared “plans for reducing show of silver”, possibly because she was concerned about the Artillery on the nearby common. Henry Tiarks had introduced a farm at Foxbury after he had retired from the City, but now, in the midst of war, even more of the estate was given over to growing food. All the fields were “treated with basic slag - chicken runs ploughed on” in February 1915. In July, Agnes noted “plain signs of war economy on our land - cabbages, potatoes, turnips, instead of flowers”, and loam was brought in from New Eltham that month as the tennis lawn was dug up, with more “manure from Woolwich” arriving in August 1916. Frank now made regular visits to oversee the running of the farm activities, and Agnes herself often went: “in my pony chair to poultry and pigs and new calf” (November 1915). They produced their own milk and eggs: 36 eggs reported on 18 December, with 10 chickens in a new incubator in February 1916. Because of shortage of staff, as men left to fight in France, Agnes’ daughters did some of the work: 20 January 1916 “Aggie chain harrowing Homefield with pony and Peter Pugh”. Drainage had to be seen to in April 1916, a new pedigree bull was purchased in May that year, and Aggie continued to work on the land “Mowing with pony machine” in July 1917. Further animals, heifers pigs and sheep, were purchased over the next two years. Some were moved on “Sold our 19 sheep”, 19 February 1918, and some were slaughtered for food “Own Sheep killed”, 28 June 1917.