Mess staff

[Moonraker]

I've a couple of postcards showing officers' mess staff. One is for the Royal Artillery at Bulford in 1911 and shows nine smartly-dressed young men who are obviously waiters. Dare I say that they look superior to the average British private of that time, and several would not be out of place in a photo of public school prefects. Others in the photo are wearing aprons and must be kitchen staff, and one is in what may be a chef's hat.

The other shows eight men in smart civilian attire before a well-decorated table at Windmill Hill Camp in 1909. One might cast them as waiters in an up-market hotel.

Outside caterers provided messing arrangements at many summer camps before the war, and indeed during it. Harrods did so for the First Canadian Contingent in 1914-15 but had to cater for far more officers than they had been told and the company was left with unpaid bills when the Contingent left for France. (In the diary of the 2nd Canadian General Hospital Lieutenant-Colonel J W Bridges noted on December 21, 1914:"Last day of Messing with Harrods – thank Heavens".)

So the question is: to what extent did officers' messes rely on soldiers for staff? Perhaps they brought in civilian contractors for special occasions - guest nights, for example? I'm thinking mainly in the context of units based in Britain, but what about units out of the Front Line and resting in towns and villages - did they commission French caterers.

Moonraker

[Ron Clifton]

Hello Moonraker

One hesitates to use words like always or never in a Great War context, but I would be very surprised to hear of combat units having civilian mess caterers in a theatre of operations. There was the safety of the individuals to consider, and the various questions of security and discipline which might arise. All civilians accompanying the army needed some form of pass, and in most cases they were subject to military law as soldiers.

This is not to say that permanent camps at home, or such institutions as general hospitals at the bases in France, might not have used civilian, or at any rate non-unit, caterers, but since every unit would need to have the food for its other ranks cooked as well, and military cooks did this, there seems little point in employing civilians to look after the officers, especially in a British unit where the concept of the officers living in conditions at least approximating to those of the men was fairly axiomatic.

There wouldd of course be certain hotels and restaurants run by civilians in places from Paris to Poperinghe which were effectively reserved for officers.

Ron

[Old Tom]

I would hazard a guess that many chaps who had been footmen, and the like, before the war would have been selected as mess waiters.

Old Tom

[Ron Clifton]

On the other hand, anecdotes suggest that a lot of men who had worked as waiters in London before the war were actually serving in the German Army!

Ron

[Moonraker]

In December 1914 a Daily Express reporter visited the George Hotel in Amesbury, which catered for many officers based in the locality. 'I am told you have a German chef here,' the reporter said to the manager, who replied 'quite right, he cooked your lunch'. It transpired that the chef, Peter Kohler, had come to England as a boy and had three brothers fighting for England; he had been interned but released on the surety of the hotel manager, who nevertheless said he thought all Germans should be interned (unless, presumably, they were good chefs).

Moonraker

[George Armstrong Custer]

At the outbreak of the Great War Sir Douglas Haig was C-in-C of the Aldershot Command, meaning that in the event of overseas war service he took command of I Corps of the BEF. Shaddock, the butler at Government House, the commandant's residence at Aldershot, was a civilian. He was keen to go to war with his employer, and Haig was happy to facilitate this by getting him into khaki as quickly as possible. This suggests that civilians were not taken out as mess staff. John Charteris, a member of Haig's staff and soon to become his chief intelligence officer, takes up the story as the Aldershot command mobilised for war at the start of August 1914:

"The butler at Government House was determined that he too would see war at close quarters. Sir Douglas Haig decided to take him as mess servant to the Corps HQ mess. The trouble was to get him into khaki. Regulations were not then relaxed. To enlist, attest and enrol, takes time in normal circumstances. For all we knew the war might be over before his recruit training was finished. I appealed to my friends of the RE at Aldershot for their benevolent assistance in short-circuiting the process. All things are possible when a Commander-in-Chief wants things done. After breakfast one morning I took the butler, immaculate in morning coat and bowler, to the RE officer, saw him enter the Quartermaster's stores and waited in the car to take him back. In an incredibly short time, less than half an hour, he emerged, in khaki puttees neatly tied, a full-fledged driver of HM Royal Engineers; he gave a somewhat amateurish salute and then lapsed again into the butler and said, "I beg your pardon, sir, but have you such a thing as half a crown on you?" I asked him why he wanted it, to which came the rephy, "Well, sir, that Quartermaster-Sergeant has been very good to me, and I would like to give him something." This was too good to be missed. I climbed out of my car and followed him at a safe distance to see the driver recruit of ten minutes' seniority tip a Quartermaster-Sergeant grown grey in service, for civility. And the Quartermaster-Sergeant, to his credit be it related, did not hurt the recruit's feelings by declining the solatium."

And Shaddock the former Aldershot butler it was who features in the anecdote regarding Joffre's mortification at an alcohol free luncheon with King George V, which Haig relates in his diary for 12 August 1916:

"We had 15 at lunch and by the King's desire, only water of various kinds was served. Many of us will long remember General Joffre's look of abhorrence, or annoyance, when Shaddock (my butler) handed him a jug of lemonade and a bottle of ginger beer, and asked him which he preferred."

Haig's batman, Thomas Secrett, noted of the same occasion that when Joffre had given a little cough and raised his eyebrows at Shaddock whilst glancing at the still empty wine glasses on the table, Haig had mischievously said "I think Marshal Joffre wants the bread!" When a short time later Joffre had again tried to indicate the wine glasses to Shaddock, Haig had again said "I think Marshal Joffre wants some more bread!" According to Secrett, Joffre took the bread looking as if he'd like to have used it as a missile.

Secrett also left another anecdote of Shaddock - though reminiscing after Haig's death, he mistakenly describes him as having joined up from one of Haig's London clubs at the outbreak of war, rather than as a civillian employee from Government House at Aldershot:

"In charge of the actual food arrangements at Headquarters we had the head waiter from a famous London club of which Haig was a member. Haig brought him out, put three stripes on his arm, and had him run the food arrangements as a sort of butler.

Now this man was a very decent sort of chap. I always got on very well with him, but he was a really out-and-out Cockney in his speech; he simply couldn't say his "r's" to save his life. He would say "wope" for rope!

His pronunciation was a source of constant delight to Haig. One night this head waiter got rather flurried and started to serve the wine the wrong way round the table.

Haig spotted it in a second.

"Hey!" he called. "Where do you fink you're going to, eh? Going to the Norf Pole? What?"

The head waiter immediately corrected himself and soon afterwards came running out to me:

"Blimey!" he exclaimed, "What do you fink he's just arst me? Arst me if I was goin to the Norf Pole, he did!"

I am perfectly certain he did not see the joke, and I certainly did not disillusion him!"

George

[David B]

The Australian navy used to run civilian canteen staff on its larger ships, don't think there were any casualities on the great war but certainly

in the loss of the Sydney a civilian was among the dead.

[bill24chev]

Yes civilians manned the canteen on warshipos and were still doing so at the time of the Falklands (82 not 14)and probably still manage the NAAFI on HM ships.

Did the CWGC commemerate the civvilian casualties in WW1.

[Ian Riley]

Yes civilians manned the canteen on warshipos and were still doing so at the time of the Falklands (82 not 14)and probably still manage the NAAFI on HM ships.

Did the CWGC commemerate the civvilian casualties in WW1.

Yes, at least in some cases though I doubt the casualties of the East Coast shellings are listed in the way that the blitz victims of WW2 are.

At risk of going 'off topic', my great uncle, Charlie Prior, went down with the No 1 Liverpool Pilot Boat "Alfred H. Read" exactly 94 years ago to this day as a 'boat hand' (effectively the first step in the training to become a pilot via apprenticeship according to his sister, my grandmother) at the age of 17 (although I would need to check the age) http://www.cwgc.org/...asualty=2973608 The boat struck a mine at the Mersey Bar quick click to Forum Thread

He is listed as a civilian by the CWGC rather than 'Merchant Navy' although commemorated on Tower Hill Memorial.

Ian