Business as usual ........

[Lawryleslie]

I know it’s a strange title but very relevant. Our village is putting on an exhibition of life in 1918 and also commemorating 13 men who were killed. During our research two of us ventured to the Devon Archives offices in Plymouth to look specifically at the minutes of the Parish Council Meetings that took place regularly throughout The Great War. Meetings were held quarterly and very thoroughly minuted, However, mindful that 96 parishioners went to war, there is not a single mention of anything going on as far as the war  was concerned. Even the 13 parishioners who were killed, including the Vicar of the local church, did not merit any kind of acknowledgement. In fact it seemed like it was "business as usual".  The only brief inclusion was a request, in September 1914, from the  Lord Lieutenant of Devon who made a call to arms in all communities via the various councils but our Chairman of the Parish Council made a conscious decision not to form a committee to deal with this. Even the first meeting after the Armistice fails to mention anything regarding the war. It seems that everyday problems in the Parish such as footpaths, allotments and other parish business held far more importance. Has anybody else come across this seemingly blatant disregard of what was going on in Europe and beyond. 

Edited 20 October , 2018 by Lawryleslie

[rolt968]

It is a bit odd, but in my experience not unusual.  I have read through the minutes of various meetings of kirk sessions, deacons courts and similar meetings of a number of Scottish rural parishes. The minutes (but not necessarily the discussions) stuck very much to the business of the meeting. Interesting things did turn up - restrictions on the use of lighting; most mentioned the first national day of intercession for the war (though few mentioned many more). The mention of men who were killed was very inconsistent.

 

It is worth remembering that a lot of discussion at meetings does not appear in the minutes and exactly what appears apart from the sederunt, what was decided and who was to implement it depended on the individual secretary.

 

I have found equally remarkable a local paper which continues to discuss (not at all disapprovingly) the number of visitors (tourists) to the village for some months after the start of the war, and certainly after men from the village had been killed.

 

RM

[pierssc]

It might be worth seeing if there are any very old school logbooks still available - either at the school or County Archives (this will obviously depend on what the school arrangements were in your village).  I seem to recall that the logbooks for the school in the village in which I grew up contained various incidents which might add a bit of colour.  It was usual for the school to be closed so that the children could help with harvest, even in peacetime, but there was also a drive for the kids to collect "conkers" in aid of the war effort.  Apparently the idea was that they could be used to make Cordite... there's a bit about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/0/ww1/25318729 .

 

Depending on how good the Head was at putting in such things you might find some interesting snippets.

[rolt968]

Do the local churches have any records?

[tootrock]

We are cleaning and refurbishing our village war memorial in preparation for Armistice Day, and while looking into the records of the time found no reference to the War Memorial in either the Parish records, or the Church records. There was however a description of the ceremony and a photograph of the memorial in the local paper.

 

We also have a Methodist Chapel in the village, and they have a wooden memorial plaque with the names of the fallen inscribed in gold paint. It was unveiled on 24 February 1920. Unfortunately the last man in the village to become a casualty died on 30 April 1920. There was no room to include his name on the plaque, so it was painted on the frame at the bottom.

 

Martin

[Cheshire22]

It took up to 1925 for the town of Ellesmere Port and the village of Whitby to unveil their 

memorial

 

but the newspapers showed that in between July 1925 and November 1925 that the local council seemed to had a couple of ideas but there seemed internal fighting between members of the council. 

 

It took the local vicar and church members to gather the names for the memorial and collect money in time for armistice day 1925 in the space of 3 months but they were shamed it to doing something by the local papers on the 10th July 1924 after the unveiling of the Birkenhead memorial (after you have seen the memorial at Hamilton Square, then you will understand why it took until 1925)

 

The Parish Church Council meet on the 24th July 1925 and they decided to go ahead with the memorial.

 

Like in 1925 it has been business as usual for this town and village. 

 

As there has has been no events, no exhibition of how the war effected the area, no trips by the legion to the battlefields.  

 

Only a a couple of the weeks ago, I noticed that the War Memorial was being given a clean up.  But the people were cleaning the memorial put up in the 70’s or 80’s by the legion and not the memorial from 1925, which is another part of the town.

 

When I asked, they knew nothing of the other memorial. 

 

I know were I will standing on the 11th November 2018

Edited 21 October , 2018 by Cheshire22

[Lawryleslie]

On 20/10/2018 at 16:31, pierssc said:

It might be worth seeing if there are any very old school logbooks still available - either at the school or County Archives (this will obviously depend on what the school arrangements were in your village).  I seem to recall that the logbooks for the school in the village in which I grew up contained various incidents which might add a bit of colour.  It was usual for the school to be closed so that the children could help with harvest, even in peacetime, but there was also a drive for the kids to collect "conkers" in aid of the war effort.  Apparently the idea was that they could be used to make Cordite... there's a bit about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/0/ww1/25318729 .

 

Depending on how good the Head was at putting in such things you might find some interesting snippets.

We did find the local Primary School Log Books at Plymouth Archives, very meticulously written by the Head. It refers to many incidents during the war including the sighting of an airship over the village and the flying at half mast of the flag on the church tower to commemorate the death of the Vicar. One very poignant entry brought home the Headmaster's sense of duty and responsibility when he wrote about having to leave school early because of the death of his young daughter from the flu epidemic. He then writes about taking half a day off to attend the funeral the following week. 

Edited 22 October , 2018 by Lawryleslie

[rolt968]

It is worth looking out for Rolls of Honour which were compiled during the war listing the members of the church; former pupils who were serving. To my great surprise I know of at least three which were found at the back of cupboards in the last year or so.

RM

[Lawryleslie]

3 hours ago, rolt968 said:

It is worth looking out for Rolls of Honour which were compiled during the war listing the members of the church; former pupils who were serving. To my great surprise I know of at least three which were found at the back of cupboards in the last year or so.

RM

Our Parish Roll of Honour is displayed in the Church very prominently. It contains 94 men and 2 women who joined the VAD.

[pierssc]

Well it sounds as if you have managed to find out quite a bit, so to come back to your original point, it is maybe worth pointing out that the parish council is a bit of local government with limited and defined powers and responsibilities.  They don’t keep logs, they keep minutes of meetings on council business.  I suppose that as long as the war didn’t impinge on what they had to do, there was not much notice they could take of it as a body because it was outside their remit.    If footpaths, allottments etc was the business of the council, then it would need a Zeppelin to bomb the allotments and damage a footpath before they could take notice of it.  If it didn’t, well it would deal with renewals and arrears and who was failing to weed their plot just as normal.

 

Of course I’m not talking about the impact of the war on the Councillors as individuals, but that’s something else.

[Interested]

On 20/10/2018 at 18:05, tootrock said:

There was however a description of the ceremony and a photograph of the memorial in the local paper.

Hi Tootrock,

Would you be kind enough to see if your Memorial is on the War Memorials website:

www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk

It would be good if you could add the details from the newspaper report on the site.  Every little helps.

Thanks.

[tootrock]

Details of our War Memorial are already on that site. The village is Pett, near Hastings. Since the description was written the memotial has been cleaned, and the surrounds improved. I will see what I can add to the site - a new photograph at least.

 

Martin

[Cheshire22]

Just read on Cheshire Live that the mayor of Ellesmere Port is asking everybody in the town togather at the memorial between the civic hall and the library on Remembrance Sunday. 

 

Nothing said about the original War Memorial from 1925 at the bottom end of the town.  

 

I sent an email to my local MP Justin Madders asking him to contact the rbl and there plans for Remembrance Sunday. 

 

Nothing back from him

[Cheshire22]

First photo is The original Ellesmere Port War Memorial

 

And the second one is the RBL War Memorial. 

 

The local paper has section for the local MP.  He states that in the church service after the parade that the names of 147 men were read out.  

 

The original memorial carried 204 names and today appears 220 names

 

Again nobody decided to check there facts