Lark Hill Camp

[34thdiv]

Good evening all,

Still trying to piece together my grandfather's war service. I have tried before, to establish where he trained as a signaller, my uncle recalls him talking about Lark Hill Camp and I have in my posession one my grandfather's Ordnance Survey maps, sheet 282 published in 1909 of Salisbury Plain, and when it is opened, almost in the middle is Lark Hill Camp, it's about one-and-a-half miles north of Stonehenge. Does anyone know what went on there during WW1, the only thing I've found out was that artillery personnel were stationed there, but surely RA and RE signals would be the same wouldn't they?

Thanks,

Rob.

[auchonvillerssomme]

Larkhill Camp began on 12 August 1914, and completed in early 1915, was designated as the School of Instruction for Royal Horse and Field Artillery (Larkhill).

Towards the end of the war, it would have had a population of approximately 20,000 soldiers as it contained 34 camps each training a battalion of 600-800 men.

Larkhill received large contingents of soldiers from Australia and Canada for training before being sent to France.

This is a site for the Australian Forces

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-confli...1/salisbury.htm

The layout and size would lend itself to signal training. I'm not sure that the RE and RA would have trained together. But its not impossible that a signals school(s) were located there for the RE and Infantry.

[joseph]

Rob,

The only mention I can find about signalling at Larkhill is this, from: "The Infantry cannot do with a gun less".

Another area where schools tried to integrate existing technologies was with aeroplanes. Almost immediately after the fighting began, gunners realized aeroplanes could provide observation and correction for artillery fire, but co-ordination of this activity was sketchy. Many called for the use of wireless telegraphy, but the earliest tests were with simpler methods, such as light signals and pyrotechnics, and took place around Larkhill in early November 1914. (There was also a special artillery-aircraft co-operation school at Netheravon early in the war.) The rapid pace of developments in aeroplanes, wireless equipment, and artillery technique meant that most experimentation took place at the front, but results and methods were frequently circulated to the artillery and the army as a whole. Indeed, over twenty specific pamphlets and notes were issued by the General Staff regarding aerial co-operation in addition to mentions in more general publications. By the end of the war almost all artillery publications dealt with aeroplanes in some fashion.

Regards Charles

[Guest KevinEndon]

This area is still populated by the army its near Bulford, Tidworth and Andover all big military camps and many pubs in the area have photos of the camp during the great war may be worth a trip down to see the area where your great grandfather roamed.

[jhill]

I cannot provide more information specific to Lark Hill (or Larkhill), other than to second these comments that there were many camps in this area which were used for various training purposes at various times.

In case it is of any interest I will point out that 'signaller' training was not just for the Engineers. It was also part of the standard reserve battalion training syllabus. I quote from a description with the Diary of Canadian Headquarters at Bramshott:

"(e) TRAINING OF SIGNALLERS. The personnel for training as

Signallers (vide:- Establishment, H.Q. Canadians R.O. 298

of Jan. 24th. 1917) will be found from partly trained sig-

nallers arriving from Canada, and from rank and file likely

to make good signallers, and who will be earmarked as such. They

will commence training as signallers after completing the

9th week of Recruit training (vide H.Q. Canadians R.O. 345

of 31st. Jan. 1917). They will not be taken for draft after

the 9th. or subsequent weeks of recruit training if other

men are available."

This refers to the standard 14 week basic training programme as of February, 1917. For those who are curious as to what training soldiers actually were supposed to have received before being sent to France, there is a good overview tucked behind the February diary at the Canadian War Diaries site here .

Sorry if I have wandered a bit off topic.

[Moonraker]

I gather any bit of information that I can about Lark Hill during WWI, but checking through my notes signalling is one activity that I can't particularly identify with the camp, though doubtless there were classes in signalling there. Nor does N D G James in Gunners at Larkhill allude to the camp being noted as a signalling base.

Prewar the site was used in the summer for tented camps, but was one of the first such sites to be built on when hostilities commenced.

Thanks to Joseph (aka Charles) for the info re tests there in November 1914; I hadn't come across this before. In fact there were earlier tests in the locality regarding communications between ground and air, and on September 30, 1910 Robert Loraine is said to have made the first successful wireless transmission from an aircraft across a distance of a mile with a 14lb portable transmitter attached to the passenger seat, with aerial wires stretched the breadth and length of the biplane. Loraine tapped out one- and two-word messages using a Morse key strapped to his left knee, with replies being sent from the ground at Lark Hill by hand-held signal lamps. The receiving station on the ground consisted of an improvised mast with aerials stretched across in different directions. Loraine’s tests were sponsored by the Daily Mirror. He had adopted the name "Robert Jones" for his early flying activities, as he wished to keep these separate from his acting career, but the press soon discovered his true identity.

As Private Parts says, there is still a camp at Larkhill, and quite a bit of WWI-related spots to look out for - the trackbed of the camp railway, military cemeteries, balloon hangars at nearby Rollestone, and the Kiwi carved in the hillside at Bulford by New Zealanders in 1919.

Moonraker

[Old Tom]

Hello,

My parents had a sort of autograph book, now lost, which contained amongst many WW1 entries:

Larkhill

There's an isolated, desolated spot I'd like to mention

Where all you hear is 'Squad eyes right, eyes front, attention

Unfortunately thats all that stuck in my mind.

Old Tom

Where all you hear is 'squad eyes right, eyes front, attention

[34thdiv]

Thank you all for your time and trouble in giving me more information, it's much appreciated.

Best regards,

Rob.

[Moonraker]

Hello,

My parents had a sort of autograph book, now lost, which contained amongst many WW1 entries:

Larkhill

There's an isolated, desolated spot I'd like to mention

Where all you hear is 'Squad eyes right, eyes front, attention

Unfortunately thats all that stuck in my mind.

Old Tom

I'm fairly sure that I have the entire "poem" from which these lines came; it appears on one of a series of postcards published during WWI, each card having the same verse, with just the name of the camp changed towards the end. Such cards go for £2-4 at fairs, though recently some optimist on eBay had a starting price of £12 for one (s)he was offering. Since the lines are not specific to Lark Hill I won't bother to dig my card out and scan it in.

"Real photographic" postcards of the camp, whether in its tented or hutted forms, are quite easily come by, and several show the atrocious mud covering the roads. By the way, I would love to see an image of the original camp church, made of wood I think, built c1915; I do have an inter-wars card in which the site can just be made out after the building was demolished.

Moonraker

[Moonraker]

Good evening all,

Still trying to piece together my grandfather's war service. I have tried before, to establish where he trained as a signaller, my uncle recalls him talking about Lark Hill Camp

Thanks,

Rob.

Just bought this postcard of a Southern Command signalling school course, with some helpful comments pencilled on the back identifying the various people:

"The men with white bands are instructors. The man in civil clothes is the Electrical Expert Instructor. The rest of them in the front row are officers signals officers [sic]. The men in caps are Tommy NCOs. The men with big hats not turned down are New Zealand NCOs. The men with big hats turned up are Australian NCOs. This is only one class. There are six classes of them in the school."

There is a good chance that the photo was taken at Lark Hill in 1917 or 1918. ANZAC troops outnumbered British troops in Wiltshire then.

Moonraker

[Mike B]

Am responding to Moonraker's comment that he gathers every bit of information he can about Lark Hill..... 

 

I am wondering what you know about the canteen (or canteens) at Lark Hill during 1916?  I have seen a reference in an Australian newspaper article to canteens that were run semi-privately, and am after more info.

 

I am researching the 6 men from my village who died in the WW1.  One of them, who was a butcher before the war, didn't enlist until October 1916.  Given conscription came in on 1st March, he was single and in his thirties, that's a puzzle.  However, I have just got hsi marriage certificate from Sept 1916 where he is listed as Canteen Manager in Durrington (the parish where Lark Hill is located).  I am wondering whether he was part of the Non-Combatant Corps, working in the camp running canteens, or something similar...????

 

In October 1916 he joined the Coldstream Guards, was injured in 1918 and died of his injuries at a military hospital in Leicester in October 1918

[Moonraker]

Canteens at camps were run at army camps by a variety of organisations to provide supplementary comforts over and above the necessities provided by the army. Some were run by large stores such as Lipton's and Harrods (the former was involved in a national  scandal in  early 1914 about "arrangements" and commissions paid on contracts),  others by voluntary organisations such as the YMCA and Salvation Army; these last were "dry", ie did not serve alcohol (those that did were termed "wet").

 

There were also "regimental canteens", organised by the units themselves.  At the New Zealand camp at Codford:

 

"Again, there is the Regimental Institute, which was opened in July 1916, on a capital of £500, which within three months the Institute was on a sufficiently firm footing to repay The Institute answers in most respects to canteens at Trentham and Featherston, except that it is wet as well as dry. But in addition to sales over the counter the dry canteen supplies the officers, hospital nurses, and three flourishing sergeants' messes with provisions. Its accounts are audited annually by a London firm of accountants. Its profits, which are considerable, are devoted partly to providing concert parties and other amusements, and also in defraying the cost of barrack damage and deficiencies. It has also made donations to other units in France to help them to a few luxuries at odd times. Indeed, no less than £700 has it given to sports and entertainments in the camp, so that the men really pay for their own amusements out of the profits they would otherwise be paying to publicans and shopkeepers."

 

You may already have seen this from the Sydney Morning Herald of January 3, 1917:

 

"Lark Hill camp is well supplied with business establishments. The Y.M.C.A. run four or five large canteens, and at night time these places are as busy as any of the Sydney tea rooms. Hundreds of pounds per week must be taken at each of these Y.M.C.A. huts. The Salvation Army canteens are very popular among the boys, and nowhere else at Lark Hill can a more satisfactory and reasonable meal be obtained. There are many business places situated on the main road, which runs through the centre of the camp. At one or the other of these places you can purchase almost any article, paying very often substantial prices. The Tommies complain that since the advent of colonials to these camps prices have increased enormously. They assert that we pay too willingly just what is asked, and believe there is truth in this contention. At any rate, I can say without any doubt at all that many of these places are making quick fortunes."

 

I doubt that a canteen worker would have been a member of the Non-Combatant Corps. He - or she - would have been a paid employee of Lipton's, say (though early in the war there were problems in persuading young men to work in the "isolation" of Salisbury Plain) and I imagine that voluntary organisations paid their managers and perhaps other key staff, with their efforts being supplemented by volunteers.

 

Moonraker

 

 

 

 

[Mike B]

OK.  Thanks Moonraker - all makes sense.  Apart from the question as to how my man was working there after conscription was introduced....

[Moonraker]

The Military Service Act was passed in January 1916, imposing conscription on all single men aged between 18 and 41, and must have taken a couple of months to implement. A second Act passed in May 1916 extended conscription to married men.  

 

Conscription was not popular and in April 1916 more than 200,000 demonstrated against it in Trafalgar Square. Although many men failed to respond to the call-up, in the first year 1.1 million enlisted.  Obviously the processing of so many men could not happen all at once and was staggered. And some men appealed against conscription, often claiming they were in crucial occupations, and this would have further delayed their recruitment.

 

Moonraker