Mrs Anne Balfour

[Anne Balfour]

Wonder if anyone can help. The CWGC is proposing an information panel on the RND at Ancre (1916), including AP Herbert's poem Beaucourt Revisited. Three men from the Hawke Battalion are named. We have plenty of details about and photographs of Vere Harmsworth and William Ker. Some of us have been trying to accumulate information about the third man, James Archibald Cook. We have a certain amount of biographical info but no photograph. Does anyone know where we might find one, please? (He originally enlisted as a private in the Royal Fusiliers.) Thanks.

[ss002d6252]

19 minutes ago, Anne Balfour said:

Wonder if anyone can help. The CWGC is proposing an information panel on the RND at Ancre (1916), including AP Herbert's poem Beaucourt Revisited. Three men from the Hawke Battalion are named. We have plenty of details about and photographs of Vere Harmsworth and William Ker. Some of us have been trying to accumulate information about the third man, James Archibald Cook. We have a certain amount of biographical info but no photograph. Does anyone know where we might find one, please? (He originally enlisted as a private in the Royal Fusiliers.) Thanks.

Are you able to post what you information do have on James Archibald Cook  ?

Craig

[michaeldr]

J A Cook appears in a large group photograph on pages 37 & 38 of 'With the Royal Naval Division on board HMS Crystal Palace & Elsewhere' published by W H Smith & Sons (the Arden Press) 53/5 Fetter lane, London E C
It was reproduced as an A4 double page spread on pages 1136/7 by Len Sellers in his magazine RND, issue No.12, March 2000. Page 1138 in the same publication gives a complete key naming the 185 individuals shown. A disc with the full run of Len's magazines can be bought from the shop at the Crystal Palace which is on line - http://www.crystalpalacefoundation.org.uk/shop/world-war-one-two/royal-naval-division

 

I reproduce a part of the photograph below and indicate Cook, but I regret that I have neither the technical expertize nor the programme to provide anything of a better quality. 

 

 

 

Good Luck

Michael

Edited 8 January , 2018 by michaeldr

[michaeldr]

Craig,

There's some background to the poem in this old thread

 

[Anne Balfour]

VERY many thanks, Michael. This represents something of a breakthrough. Like you, I don't have skills to enhance this image but, having spent nearly 40 years in journalism, I know those steeped in the dark arts of photo manipulation, who could probably help. Better, I suspect, would be to get hold of the publication from which it was copied. I'm willing to bet that either the British Library or the Imperial Museum could cough up a copy of  'With the Royal Naval Division on board HMS Crystal Palace & Elsewhere'. I take it that there's no publication date given? Funnily enough, I found your 2004 thread but it only occurred to me this week that I should register on the forum and make my appeal directly, in the hope that you or another RND expert might come forward. Thanks again.

 

Craig, you ask for what details I have: James Archibald Cook was probably born on July 17 1887 to the Revd Donald Cook and Gertrude J Cook. His grandfather, James Ramsay, was a Dundee-based Jute broker. Parents' address during WW1 is given as 27 Dalhousie Terrace, Edinburgh, though Donald had been minister at the Wellgate Free Church in Dundee. James was in Chile when war broke out and returned in order to enlist. He began as a private in the 23rd (S) Battalion Royal Fusiliers before gaining his commission. He trained at Blandford in Dorset before joining the RND's Hawke Battalion as a Temp Sub-Lieut. According to The Scotsman (6 Dec 1916), he served in "Egypt and the Levant", before being sent to the Western Front in 1916. He was reported wounded and missing and was later reported to have died of wounds "on or about 13.11.16". His body was retrieved and buried near Y Ravine, Beaumont Hamel. His CWGC headstone in Y Ravine Cemetery bears the inscription "I WILL LIFT MINE EYES UNTO THE HILLS GRANT HIM LORD ETERNAL REST". 

Sorry, this is just a quick run through. I'm spending Thursday at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, where I'll harvest more biographical detail. Once I've put it together, I'll post it on this forum. Thanks for your interest.

 

[michaeldr]

7 hours ago, Anne Balfour said:

I take it that there's no publication date given?

 

Anne,

Alas, there is no publication date mentioned by Len

On re-checking I find that I previously omitted "Souvenir No.2" which should appear immediately after the title "With the Royal Naval Division on board HMS Crystal Palace & Elsewhere".

I hope that this helps

Good luck with your project

Michael

 

 

[Guest]

James Archibald Cook  was born on the 17th of June, 1886, at (I think birth certificate says) 6 Albany Terrace, this address confirmed on 1901 Census.

 

Mike

[Anne Balfour]

Thanks. I think the other date (17 July 1887) comes via the RND Officers Book but came to me third hand and may be wrong at source or incorrectly transcribed. I take it that this Albany Terrace is Edinburgh, rather than Dundee? I'm going to look at all the Cook family documents at the Family History Centre at the Mitchell in Glasgow tomorrow, so this is very handy. Thanks again.

[Anne Balfour]

Thanks Michael. I'll let you know if I track it down

[Anne Balfour]

Michael. Just to let you know: Leeds University has a copy of With the Royal Naval Division on board HMS Crystal Palace and Elsewhere. Souvenir No 2 and I have requested a high resolution copy of the illustration. So fingers crossed. Once again, thanks for your help. Once I've put everything together, I'll post it on this site in case other forum members share an interest in this young officer who is featured in the Herbert poem.

[Guest]

Albany Terrace, Dundee. Link to Scotlands People birth certificate James Archibald Cook

 

Mike

[michaeldr]

1 hour ago, Anne Balfour said:

Once I've put everything together, I'll post it on this site in case other forum members share an interest in this young officer who is featured in the Herbert poem.

 

I very much look forward to seeing that

Good Luck

Michael

[Anne Balfour]

Thanks for James Cook's birth registration, which also gives the date of his parents' marriage and confirms that he was indeed the grandson of James Ramsay, a wealthy Dundee jute broker. (Dundee being the city of "jute, jam and journalism".) Wonder why AP Herbert refers to him as "young James" in Beaucourt Revisited when so many of his fellow officers were younger? William Ker was just 24 and Vere Harmsworth 23. Cook was 30.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, Anne Balfour said:

Wonder why AP Herbert refers to him as "young James" in Beaucourt Revisited when so many of his fellow officers were younger?

 

Probably just fitted the rhythm of the poem, and he was young?

 

Mike

 

[Anne Balfour]

Here's what I've managed to put together on the background of Sub Lieut James Archibald Cook of the Hawke Battaltion RND. Still waiting for possible further information from the High School of Dundee and a high res pic from Leeds University, which holds a copy of "With the Royal Naval Division on board HMS Crsytal Palace & Elsewhere. No. 2".James Archibald Cook.pdfJames Archibald Cook.pdf

[michaeldr]

Anne,

 

Many thanks for adding here your brief biography of 'young James'

May I point out the following - on page two you have:

On 7 February 1916, he joined the Hawke Battalion of the Royal Naval Division (“Churchill’s Little Army”) at Mudros on the Greek island of Lemnos, during the withdrawal from Gallipoli. 

James may well have first landed from the transport at Mudros, however even if that was the case, his stay there would have been very brief indeed, as the Hawke Battalion had already moved across to the island of Imbros where they were the garrison from the end of January.
[see page 111 of Douglas Jerrold's 'The Hawke Battalion']

Good Luck
Michael

[Anne Balfour]

Thanks Michael. Good point. In fact, it's given me another idea. I have access to all of William Ker's letters, including those he wrote during the withdrawal from Gallipoli. I'll have a look to see whether any of these or his final letters from the Western Front contain references to James Cook or Vere Harmsworth.

Thanks again

Anne