21st Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps

[Guest Peter Braithwaite]

Calling all family members of men who served in the 21st Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps. 15th September marks the centenary of the death of Earl Feversham at Flers. On 17th September there will be a Commemorative Service and gathering at Duncombe Park Helmsley which will be attended by the Archbishop of York and to which all family members are invited. If you are able to come to Helmsley on Saturday 17th September for 11am please contact me at pab37@btinternet.com.

Peter Braithwaite(Grandson of Sgt Tom Dale)

[Liz in Eastbourne]

Peter

I am very interested to hear this and that you are the grandson of Sgt Tom Dale, who went with Anthony Eden to bury the Earl after Flers. I hope you've seen this thread - five and a half years old now, with many contributions from descendants and other forum members.

Liz

[Michaeljohn]

I attended on Saturday. I am the son of Rifleman F J Kneeshaw pictured on the 'Countess' photo. He was born in Farndale in 1887 and died when I was 2 in 1951. I know nothing of his military service other than he was one of very few to survive the Somme.

[Liz in Eastbourne]

So did I, Michaeljohn - i am sorry we didn't meet, but wasn't it an excellent occasion?  I was very pleased to meet Peter beforehand, on Friday, and there was a lot to discuss.  

I think some of our other 21/KRRC followers might like to know a little more about it.

 

I shall never forget the service in All Saints Church Helmsley on that beautiful sunny morning with the hymns and readings very carefully chosen for their significance ('Lead Kindly Light' because Feversham asked his men to sing it again the night before they went into battle),  with descendants, family members and also a Colonel from The Rifles, the KRRC's successor regiment, reading them. When the buglers played the Last Post and Reveille I shouldn't think there was a dry eye in the large congregation. The Lord Lieutenant was there and the Archbishop of York gave a short sermon, just as the then Archbishop did at Lord Feversham's memorial service at Helmsley in September 1916. I thought the Vicar of Helmsley spoke more in the spirit of the occasion though, I must admit.

 

Afterwards we went to Duncombe Park at the invitation of Lady Clarissa Collin, Lord Feversham's granddaughter, for a very good buffet lunch and talk by Martin Vander Weyer, who is a Spectator journalist, Telegraph obituary writer and author and lives locally. Being an obsessive on the subject I had one or two niggles but overall he gave a superb picture of Feversham as a man, as a politician before the war and as the commanding officer who raised the battalion, and of the Yeoman Rifles in the context of the war. Naturally, he drew a lot on Eden and other sources we are familiar with.

 

I went with two cousins by marriage whose grandfather, from Wass, was a YR and also survived the Somme, and they were immensely grateful to be he there.  Thank you for letting us know, Peter.

 

Michaeljohn, I haven't got anything on your father but will see what I can find out if you would mention him on the thread I linked to above, and if you have his service number (probably starting C/12 *** but it could be something else, if he'd served before or was a reservist) that would help.  

EDIT Found him on the medal roll, C/12514, but it doesn't look as if his record survives. We could make some deductions, though.

 

Liz

Edited 19 September , 2016 by Liz in Eastbourne

[Michaeljohn]

I think we were possibly sat at the same table Liz!! I found the service very moving and my emotions stretched from tears to laughter and back again. I was christened in Helmsley church but moved away from Helmsley when my father died. So consequently I never had the "what did you do in the war" conversation. According to the 1911 census he worked on a farm in Pockley ( a small village a couple of miles to the east of Helmsley). As he was born in 1887 he would have been 29 when he enlisted so I imagine he was older than most of the other men in his unit. Can you recommend any reading material that will fill the very large gaps in my knowledge of KRRC in WW1.

 

 

Michael Kneeshaw.

 

[Liz in Eastbourne]

In that case I'm very sorry I missed the chance to say hello!

If you have a look on the other thread, you'll see that the two main sources are Eden's 'Another World' and Dennis's 'A Kitchener Man's Bit'. The latter is hard to find now, but the KRRC Association are going to reissue it, I think.  Both of them were in C Company, though Dennis, who was a signaller, transferred to D after Flers.  So you tend to get less on A and B Companies.

 

Liz

[Michaeljohn]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02b5nny

Hope this link works and you find it interesting.

 

Michaeljohn