In Remembrance of
- Private Walker Wilson Kitchen
- Private Arthur Oldridge
- Second Lieutenant Ernest Horsley
- Second Lieutenant Edward Thomas Rines
- Private Edwin Jones Wood
Whilst the fighting on the Western Front had continued to grind onwards, life in Britain during 1917 had gone on virtually as it had always done. Admittedly there had been a distinct lack of young men to be seen in the streets, the British government had even taken the previously unheard of step of allowing women to take men’s places in some areas of work, and there had been some shortages in the shops, especially sugar, due to the continuing success of the German ‘U’ Boat campaign, however despite these changes little had altered.
At the beginning of August 1917, in Scarborough, despite a limitation of excursion trains, which had been imposed by the North Eastern Railway Company, the town’s hoteliers and shopkeepers had been looking forward to yet another successful and rewarding August Bank Holiday. On Friday the third, the town’s newspaper had reported
'The outlook for the August month in Scarborough is excellent and promises to well eclipse the business done during the principal season month last year. The South Cliff will benefit to the greatest extent by the revival, which has unmistakably set in this summer in Scarborough. We find that important hotels and boarding establishments are already fully booked for the whole of August. At the Prince of Wales it has been so for the last fortnight, and now for September the bookings are coming in with most gratifying regularity…the evidence of the return to favour of Scarborough is found in the letting of furnished housing. We are informed by a firm of house agents that specialise in this class of business that almost all the furnished residences on the South Cliff have been taken…It has also been noted that in the existing inflated condition of the provision market, visitors cannot be boarded on the same terms as hitherto and that they realise the fact and are ready to agree to the somewhat increased tariff recognising the reasonableness of the demand’
Continuing, the newspaper’s article had outlined the provisioning of the expected influx of visitors…
’No fears are entertained locally of any difficulty in the matter of provisions. The only trouble that might arise as a possibility would be in the matter of sugar, but as buoyant manager remarked, ‘If the worst comes to the worst, we can always live on a little less sugar’
The town had also had no intentions of skimping the entertainments available to its visitors’
There will be a full programme of entertainments, so that, although it may be hoped that the sun will shine on the holiday makers, there will be plenty to interest and amuse should it be otherwise. The brilliance of the Spa will be maintained, and the three daily performances of the excellent orchestra under Mr. Alick MacLean will be supplemented by the presence of vocalists, Miss Florence Fielden, and Miss Annie Coxen…At the Arcadia Mr. Will Catlin’s well known, and popular pierrots will give performances of their ever changing repertoire. The concert party at the Floral Hall, Alexandra Gardens, for the third week of the season there, is well calculated to appeal to the public, and judging from the two opening weeks there it should be a success.
Special arrangements for the week have been made at the luxurious picture houses, where the almost continuous performances put the Londesborough Theatre, and the Palladium in a class by themselves’ [1]
A world away, for the soldiers in Belgium there had been no such thoughts of entertainments, no one could have cared less who had been playing on the Spa or at the Arcadia, as for a shortage of sugar, that had been the customary lot of the soldier, whose only preoccupations at the time had been trying to stay alive, and contending with the incessant rain and ever pervading mud. Conditions in Flanders at the beginning of August had been so bad that even the ‘Official History’ had been moved to comment about the appalling state of affairs.
‘The rain which had set in on the evening of the 31ST July continued three days and nights almost without cessation. For the time being it converted the shelled areas near the front into a barrier of swamp, four thousand yards wide, and this had to be crossed in order to reach new front line. The margins of the overflowing streams were transformed into long stretches of bog, passable only by a few well-defined tracks, which became targets for the enemy’s artillery; and to leave the tracks was to risk death by drowning. The mud covered roads, practically unrecognisable, though constantly repaired, were pitted with shell holes three or four feet deep’ [2]
Despite these terrible conditions Haig had insisted that the offensive against the Gheluvelt Plateau should be continued by Fifth Army on the second of August, however, heavy rain had caused this operation to be cancelled. Two days later the rain had stopped and on the following day, although the weather had remained stormy and unsettled, with no sun or drying wind, and with more rain forecast, Fifth Army Headquarters had fixed the ninth for the resumption of Second Corps operations at Gheluvelt, and the thirteenth for the restart of the main offensive towards Passchendaele.
During the evening of the eighth it had begun to rain again, soon a violent thunderstorm had developed accompanied by a torrential downpour, which had turned the already sodden battlefield into a swamp. Consequently both of these operations had once again been postponed for twenty-four hours, ‘Zero Hour’ now being fixed for 4-35am on Friday the tenth of August.
Regardless of the poor weather the Germans had managed to maintain a heavy day and night artillery barrage on the British positions since the beginning of the offensive. Their primary objective had been the suppression of the British batteries facing them, which had been achieved, at high cost to the British artillery. The Official History says;
‘Artillery casualties were severe both in men and in guns, and as early as the 4TH of august many batteries were reduced to half strength; and some brigade had to be reorganised from four into two batteries. The recurring wastage of artillery firepower, due to the German counter battery work was a severe handicap to the artillery programme. The ground in this period was so sodden that digging was not practicable and battery detachments lived in shell holes, covered by sheets of corrugated iron'[2]
Following a largely ineffective forty-five minute preliminary bombardment the advance by 2ND Corps, with the objective of capturing the remains of the village of Westhoek at the prescribed hour of 4-45am on the tenth. The attacking force, spearheaded by one battalion of 54TH and two from 55TH Brigades of the 18TH [Eastern] Division, in conjunction with four battalions from the 74TH Brigade of 25TH Division, had incurred heavy casualties owing to a devastating enemy artillery and machine gun barrage before they had even set foot out of their assembly trenches.
Nonetheless, the attack had continued.
On the extreme right, or southern end, of the assault had been the single battalion from Brigadier General G.D. Price’s 55TH Brigade, the 7TH [Service] Battalion of the Queen’s [Royal West Surrey Regiment]. A typical battalion of infantry composed of around a thousand officers and men, the ‘Official History’ has this to say of the Battalion’s fate in the attack; ‘The 7/Queen’s, covering the 400-yard frontage of the 55TH Brigade along the eastern edge of Inverness Copse, had it’s southern flank exposed owing to the failure of it’s right company, which should have formed a defensive flank along the southern edged of the wood.
Held up at the start by machine gun fire from an intact strongpoint at the southwestern corner of the copse, it could make no progress. Both this company and its support company had been seen by German sentries crossing the crest of the Stirling Castle Ridge in bright moonlight, about 1-30am, to their starting line; and they had suffered heavy losses, including most of their officers, from artillery and heavy machine gun fire before zero hour. Threatenened by envelopment, the companies of the Queen’s fell back through the northern sector of the copse, followed by the Germans, who reoccupied the western edge, including the machine gun nest at the northwest corner. Renewed efforts by the Queen’s to advance were in vain’.
The Official History goes on to say that the Battalion’s casualties for this futile operation had been ten officers and two hundred and seventy two ‘other ranks’ killed, wounded and missing. Amongst the wounded had been a twenty-three years old belonging to ‘B’ Company; T/206956 Private Walker Wilson Kitchen.
Born in Scarborough on Thursday the 5TH of October 1893 at No 4 Mill Street, North Marine Road, Walker had been the second of three sons of Jane and John Wilson Kitchen, who had been employed at the time as a general labourer [John Kitchen and Jane Cammish had married in Scarborough at St Mary’s Parish Church on the 27TH of December 1890]. A pupil of the Infant and Junior Departments of Scarborough’s Central Board School, Kitchen had left the institution at the age of thirteen at the end of the summer term of 1907, to become an apprentice to Scarborough plumber, David Maynard, with whom he had worked until his enlistment into the army [at Scarborough] during June 1916.
Kitchen’s military career had begun in the ranks of the 1ST/1ST Northern Cyclist Battalion. Issued with the Regimental Number of 365999, he had trained and eventually had served with the unit in Newcastle and the north of England area until April 1917, when he had been posted overseas to Northern France where he had endured fourteen days of intensive training at one of the many base camps located at Etaples, a town some twenty seven miles to the south of Boulogne.
Life in at Etaples had been unlike anything Kitchen had experienced in ‘Blighty’, and had been far from ‘cushy’. Breakfast had been at 5-45am without variation, by 7am thousands of men had been in their allotted training areas known as ‘Bull Rings’, where they had remained until 5-30pm practising platoon drill and unarmed combat with boots, teeth, and knees, neither of which had been taught much back in ‘Blighty’. There had also been bayonet training, and uphill running amongst the sand dunes, sometimes carrying filled sand bags in addition to full kit and rifle.
The harsh regime notwithstanding, the men had also to suffer the humiliations meted out by the loathed ‘Canaries’, foul mouthed Instructor Non Commissioned Officers wearing equally abhorred yellow armbands…’The purple, pompous, strutting dugout officers and the brazen-voiced NCO’s clinging to their safe jobs and yellow armbands seemed to take pleasure in insulting the fighting men. All places were out of bounds, all authority jumped on undone greatcoat collar hooks’
At the end of his two weeks of hell Kitchen had been considered fit enough to join a battalion at the front. By 1917 soldiers had lost the right to be posted to a regiment of their choice and had been sent to whichever battalion had suffered the most casualties at the time. This is how a born and bredYorkshireman had ended up in a Surrey Regiment.
[Formed at Guilford during September 1914, the 7TH Battalion of the Queen’s [Royal West Surrey Regiment] had served on the Western Front since 1915 and had served in most of the major operations in the ensuing two years, including the Somme Offensive of 1916, operations along the Ancre River during early 1917, and the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line between the 14TH and 20TH of March. By the spring of 1917 very few of the original members of the battalion had remained, the ranks of the battalion being filled with conscripts and replacements from other regiments].
Kitchen had joined the ‘reorganising’ 7TH Queen’s near the village of Neuville Vitasse, in the Arras Sector of Northern France during late May with a large draft of replacements for casualties, which the battalion had suffered on the third of the month during a disastrous operation at the Hinderburg Line. On that day the 18TH [Eastern] Division, considered one of the finest on the Western Front, had received a ‘definite and substantial check’, [in layman’s terms, severe thrashing] during an attack on the German held village of Cherisy due to uncut barbed wire, and the inevitable hail of machine gun fire and artillery fire, which had inflicted over two thousand casualties on the Division.
Although the Eighteenth Division had suffered almost one thousand casualties on the opening day of ‘Third Wipers’, the 7TH Queen’s had taken no part in the operations and had been held in Divisional Reserve some miles south of Ypres, near to the village of Dickebusch. The battalion had eventually received it’s orders to move towards the front preparatory to the assault of the tenth, during the evening of the eighth of August, the officers and men leaving early the following day for the front.
Wounded by shellfire during his first and last major operation, the mortally injured Private Kitchen had been amongst the thousands of wounded who had been evacuated in packed Hospital trains to the many Allied hospitals located around the small town of Wimereux, located about five kilometres north of Boulogne, where he had been admitted into the British 32ND Stationary Hospital. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the surgeons of Royal Army Medical Corps, the young soldier had succumbed to his injuries during Saturday the 18TH of August 1917.
A widow by 1917 [Hutton Cranswick born John Kitchen had died following ‘a long and painful illness’ at the age of fifty six years on the 26TH of November 1909], and residing at No 4 Clark Street, Jane Kitchen had initially been informed by the War Office that her son had been badly wounded, the facts being relayed in the ‘Scarborough Evening News’ of Tuesday the fifteenth of August. The following week’s’ Mercury’, which had appeared on Scarborough’s streets on Friday August the 24TH, had regretfully reported;
Local Private’s death in French Hospital - A letter from the Matron of Number 32nd Stationary Hospital, France, has been received by Mrs.Kitching, 4, Clark Street, stating that her son, Private Walker Kitching, passed away there on Friday evening. As we reported on Tuesday, Private Kitching was badly wounded in both legs, and the right arm, it being found necessary to amputate the right leg below the knee. The Matron states that it was hoped that he would pull through, but he got a change for the worse on Friday evening and never rallied. He was only 23 years of age, and joined up in June 1916. Mrs Kitching, who is a widow, has two other sons [Arthur and George] serving’
Following his death the remains of Private Kitchen had been taken to the Communal Cemetery at Wimereux where they had been interred in Section 2, Row H, Grave14A. At the end of the war the upkeep of the Cemetery had been taken over by the then Imperial War Graves Commission which, owing to the unstable sand based sub soil, had taken the unusual step of laying their familiar white Portland Gravestones flat onto the graves.
In Scarborough, apart from the town’s War Memorial, Walker Wilson Kitchen’s name is commemorated on the Parish Roll of Honour located on the north interior wall of St Mary’s Parish Church, and on a gravestone in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery [Section M, Row 11, Grave 39] which also bears the names of his father, and Scarborough born mother Jane Kitchen, who had died at her home in Clark Street on Tuesday the fourth of October 1932 at the age of seventy years. Her two other serving sons, 235140 Private George Cammish Kitchen [born Scarborough 1892], serving with the King’s Own [Yorkshire Light Infantry], and L/12169 Gunner Arthur Kitchen [born 1896], Royal Field Artillery, had thankfully survived the war.
Second Corps attack had eventually been called off that same night, the 18TH and 24TH Divisions having suffered over two thousand casualties for the capture of a pile of rubble, which had once been the village of Westhoek, and the gain of around four hundred and fifty yards of swamp.
No further major operations had been possible due to the continuing bad weather until the 16TH of August, however, during the night of Tuesday the 14TH of August some ‘localised operations’ had taken place. Amongst the unit’s taking part had been the 6TH Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, belonging to the 32ND Brigade of the 11TH [Northern] Division, which in turn had been a part of 12TH Corps of the Fifth Army. The Battalion’s History says of these operations;’ At 3am on the 14TH the battalion outposts were withdrawn to the left bank of the Steenbeek and the companies formed up there preparatory to an advance, ‘A’ Company attacking on the right with two and a half platoons of ‘B’ Company immediately in rear to occupy the old line of posts; two platoons of ‘B' Company immediately in rear to occupy a prepared position on the west bank of the Steenbeek; and one in support to occupy the old line of posts. The barrage came down at 4 o’clock and the advance commenced; ‘C’ Company gained its objective on the left, but ‘A’ Company was held up on the right by hostile machine gun fire from certain dugouts which had been uninjured by our guns, and was several times attacked during the day, but these attacks were easily beaten back by rifle fire.’ [3]
Subjected to heavy shellfire throughout the remainder of the fourteenth, the remains of the two companies had been relieved that night. Taking their wounded with them the weary and shell-shocked survivors had made their way over to the east bank of the Steenbeek Canal where they had found shelter in dugouts there. The following day the customary post battle roll call had found that the unit had suffered twenty men killed and two officers and sixty-three other ranks wounded, whilst a further twenty-six men had been listed as missing.
Amongst the wounded had been a former greengrocer and fruiterer from Scarborough, who, on the same day that he had been injured had turned thirty-three years of age; 28386 Private Arthur Oldridge.
Born in the town at No.34 Cross Street on the 14TH of August 1888, Arthur had been the second of three sons of Eliza and Lewis Oldridge, a ‘Jet worker’ by trade [Lewis Oldridge and Eliza Tate had been married at Scarborough’s St Mary’s Parish Church on the 30TH of June 1877]. A pupil of Friarage Board School from the age of four, Arthur had left the school during 1902, at the age of fourteen, to become indentured to local builder Abraham Moore as a bricklayer’s apprentice.
By the beginning of the 1900’s Arthur’s father, had been the Tenant of the popular local hostelry known as the ‘Shakespeare Tavern’, which had [and still is] been located in Scarborough’s St Helen’s Square Whilst residing there, on Tuesday the 16TH of June 1908 Arthur had married Ethel Crawford, the twenty three years old Scarborough born daughter of fisherman, Thomas, and Mary Jane Crawford of No 7 Nesfield’s Yard, Quay Street. The couple had eventually moved into a cottage located at No 3 East Sandgate, where their only daughter, Annie had been born during June of the following year.
A popular and well known Scarborough footballer during his younger years, by the outbreak of war Oldridge had ‘hung up his boots’, and forsaken the building trade to become the proprietor of a greengrocery business, which had first operated from the Oldridge’s home in East Sandgate, and later at No52 Aberdeen Walk.
Arthur had enlisted into the Army at Scarborough during March 1915, and had initially served in the Territorial Force’s 2ND/5TH Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, which had been formed for Home Service during late September1914, and had been located in Scarborough in the town’s Grand Hotel until November 1914, when the unit had moved to Darlington, where Oldridge had joined the battalion after completing a twelve weeks course of basic infantry training at the Yorkshire Regiment’s Depot at Richmond, North Yorkshire. Oldridge had remained with the 2ND/5TH until April 1916, when all the men considered ‘A1’ had been earmarked for transfer to the active battalions of the Yorkshire Regiment. During July 1916 Oldridge had found himself included in a draft of replacements destined for the veteran 6TH Battalion which had recently arrived [1ST July] in France after service at Gallipoli and Egypt with the 11TH [Northern] Division, which, by the time he had caught up with the battalion had been serving in the Arras Sector of Northern France, in trenches to the south of the village of Agny.
Oldridge had served in this sector of the Western Front until early September 1916 having taken no part in the Somme Offensive during this period. The situation had changed on the eighth of the month when the Battalion had received orders to proceed to ‘Crucifix Corner’, near to the village of Authuille, where the unit had taken over a collection of dugouts preparatory to the battalion moving into the front line the following day. By then attached to 2ND Corps of General Sir Hubert Gough’s Reserve [later renamed Fifth] Army during the night of the 14TH of September the 32ND Brigade of the 11TH Division had been detailed to carry out an assault on formidable enemy position known as ‘Turk Street’, and the equally notorious ‘Wonderwork’ complex of trenches.
The assault had been undertaken by the 8TH Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s [West Riding Regiment], the 9TH west Yorkshire Regiment and Oldridge’s 6TH Yorkshire’s, which had been ordered to make a bombing attack. The attack, with an all too familiar ring about it, had begun at 6-30pm on the 14TH when.
’A very heavy artillery barrage from every gun that could be brought to bear was opened on Turk Street, and three minutes later the front attacking wave of ‘D’ Company of the 6TH left its assembly trench and assailed the enemy trenches…. These had some how remained untouched by our artillery and the attacking force was met by heavy rifle and grenade fire, but nevertheless some of them at least reached the objective and, assisted by a platoon from the West Yorkshire which arrived as a reinforcement, Trenches 91-69 were gained by a bombing attack about midnight; a bombing block was then established at about seventy yards from 91 post’
The enemy had soon counterattacked the Yorkshiremen ‘violently with bombs’; throughout that night the remains of the unit had beaten off at least three such bombing attacks. During the following day the Battalion had been relieved, the men making their way back into reserve where a roll call had revealed that the unit had suffered over a hundred and thirty casualties in it’s first action on the Western Front, including the Battalion’s Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel C.G. Forsyth, D.S.O..
Oldridge had survived service ‘on the Somme’ until February 1917, when the 6TH Battalion had finally left the god forsaken sector after seeing nine months of the worst slaughter of the war thus far, for service with the Second Army in the equally infamous Ypres Sector of Flanders.
Apart from taking part in a number of reconnaissance raids on enemy positions in the Messines sector the 6TH Yorkshire’s had taken little part in the Battle of Messines Ridge during June 1917, and at the open of Third Wipers the unit had been occupied in training. However, on the first of August the 11TH Division had relieved the sorely mauled 51ST [Highland] Division, which had taken part in the disappointing, and costly operations, which had begun the previous day. At this stage of the operation the 6TH Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment had moved into the British front line near to the Yser Canal, from where the unit had begun their assault on the fourteenth of August.
Ethel Oldridge had learnt of her husbands wounding on Wednesday the twenty second of August. On Friday the 24TH Arthur’s name had appeared in the’Scarborough Mercury’, in the same casualty list which had announced the death of Private Kitchen;
‘Former footballer seriously injured - Private A. Oldridge, West Yorks, 8, East Sandgate, has been seriously wounded. News has reached Scarborough from three sources, an officer having written, and also a comrade, while later, news came through a Chaplain. Private Oldridge’s comrade thought that he would recover, and that view was taken by the officer.
The Chaplain expressed no opinion, but described the wound in the head, caused by a sniper’s bullet as serious. He added that Private Oldridge was unconscious.
Private Oldridge had just taken part in an attack over ground swept by machine gun fire when he was hit by the sniper. Some comrades carried him a considerable distance. Some parcels arrived for him after he was wounded and the contents were divided amongst his close companions.
Private Oldridge is well known in football circles, having played for local teams, a brother, [William] in the Royal Flying Corps, is in Scarborough now, his mother being ill’….
Following his wounding, the grievously injured Oldridge had been evacuated to the 64TH Casualty Clearing Station located near to the town of Poperinge, where, despite the best efforts of the surgeons of the Royal Army Medical Corps, he had died during Monday the 20TH of August 1917. The news of his death had subsequently appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 31ST of August;
‘The death of Private Oldridge - Private A. Oldridge, 8 East Sandgate, whose death from wounds was announced on Monday, was shot on his birthday. He was in the trenches for a day after, it being impossible to remove him. He lingered five days in Hospital. Private Oldridge was the son of Mr. And Mrs Oldridge, Shakespeare Hotel. He formerly kept a fruit and green grocer’s shop in Aberdeen Walk. Having been a well-known footballer he had a large circle of friends and there will be much sympathy with his widow, parents, and other relatives’
Shortly after his death the remains of Private Oldridge had been interred in a Military Cemetery near to the Casualty Clearing Station which had been named ‘Mendinghem Military Cemetery’, the name originally coined by the soldiers of the Great War, remains, and Private Oldridge’s final resting place is located amongst the graves of over two thousand World War One casualties, in Section Four, Row F, Grave twenty five, of the Cemetery.
In Scarborough, apart from the town’s Oliver’s Mount War Memorial, Arthur Oldridge’s name is commemorated on a memorial in St Mary’s Parish Church which had once belonged to St Thomas’s Church, and on a gravestone [which incorrectly states that he had died of wounds at Ypres, France], in Dean Road Cemetery [Section B, Border, Grave 1/C], which also contains the names of his Scarborough born wife, Ethel Oldridge, who had passed away on the 18TH of December 1956, at the age of 70years, and his daughter, the ‘beloved wife’ of George Dill, who had died a short time before her mother, on the 2ND of November 1956 at the age of forty seven years.
Arthur’s name can also be found on a grave marker in Manor Road Cemetery [Section F, Row 23, Grave 11], which carries the name of his elder brother William. A former
Tailor in the town, he had been the husband of Elizabeth Oldridge, and had died on the 14TH of November 1914 at the age of thirty years.
The stone also bears the names of Arthur’s Thornton Le Dale born father, Lewis Oldridge, who had passed away at Scarborough on the 29TH of May 1929 at the age of seventy two years, and Scarborough born mother, Eliza Oldridge who had passed away a month later at the age of seventy one years, on the 13TH of June 1929.
During the afternoon of the 14TH of August the Flanders battlefield had been bludgeoned by a terrific thunderstorm accompanied by torrential rain, which had turned the already sodden into a veritable quagmire. Even this sorry state of affairs had not prevented the death of another of Scarborough’s soldier sons; Temporary Second Lieutenant Ernest Horsley.
Born in the town at No21 West Square, on Monday the 18TH of June 1894, Ernest had been the only son and child of Ellen and Henry Horsley, a tailor by trade. A pupil of Gladstone Road Infant and Junior Schools, at the age of twelve Horsley had gained a scholarship to the town’s Municipal School and had remained at the institution until 1911, when he had won a place at Leeds University. Horsley had eventually gained a B.A. with Honours in English Literature and Language during the spring of 1915, by which time he had been a member of the University’s ‘Senior Division’ of it’s Officer Cadet Company. Horsley had evenually received a temporary commission during December 1915. Posted to the 10TH [Reserve] Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment, the twenty two years old had served for six months in Ireland and had seen active service during the Uprising of Easter 1916.
Lieutenant Horsley had eventually been transferred during December 1916 to the 10TH [Service] Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, which had been serving with the 59TH Brigade of the 20TH [Light] Division, a veteran unit which had served throughout the recently ended [November] Somme Offensive, notably at Delville Wood [21August-3 September], and the subsequent fighting for the village of Guillemont, where Sergeant David Jones of the 12TH King’s Liverpool Regiment had gained a Victoria Cross for the Division.
Later involved in the Battle of Flers [15TH of September 1916], the men of the Division had been the first to serve with in action with the new fangled tank. During the early months of 1917 Horsley [and the remainder of 20TH Division] had taken part in the British advance [11TH January-13TH of March], and subsequent German retreat towards the Hindenburg Line [14TH March-5TH Arpil], where he had taken part in a number of minor operations between the 26TH of May and 16TH of June. At the opening of Third Wipers the Twentieth Division had been attached to the Fourteenth Corps of Gough’s Fifth Army and had been concentrated to the north of the ruined village of St Julien.
Attached to the 59TH Trench Mortar Battery, Horsley had been a member of a team which had been equipped with ‘Stokes Mortars’, an infantry support weapon, which had basically consisted of a metal firing tube attached to a base plate into which a bomb was dropped which upon impact with a spike at the base had been fired into the air, hopefully in the direction of the enemy. In trained hands these weapons could launch around twenty-two missiles per minute, eight of which could be in the air at one time. Given extra rations and special privileges, one would imagine that life as a trench mortar man would be fairly ‘cushy’, unfortunately usually known by the enemy to be sited in support trenches, mortars had been prime targets for their artillery, not for nothing had the crews been dubbed ‘the suicide club’.
The Horsley’s had received the news of their son’s death in a letter from a fellow officer on Monday the 20TH of August 1917, the tidings had subsequently been broadcast in a lengthy report that had appeared in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the twenty fourth of August;
‘Scarborough Officer killed - The sad news reached Mr, and Mrs. Henry Horsley, 21 West Square, on Monday, in a letter from a brother officer, Captain S.A. Smith, that their only son, Lieut. Ernest Horsley, Kings Royal Rifle Corps, was killed in action on Tuesday August 14TH. Captain Smith briefly conveys the sad news, stating his heart was too full to write more at present, and adding that he tried in vain to recover Lieut. Horsley’s body the same evening, but would do so on the following day.
Lieut. Horsley was educated at the Municipal School and Leeds University, and gave promise of a brilliant career. H secured his B.A. with first class honours in English language and literature at Leeds in the spring of 1915 and was also awarded the University Scholarship, which had only twice before been won. Subsequently he joined the University O.T.C. and on Christmas Day the same year received his commission, being gazetted to the East Surrey Regiment, with which he had spent six months in Ireland and had some rough experiences of the rebellion. He then transferred to the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and proceeded almost immediately to France, where he took part in some of the hottest fighting on the Somme, and in this year’s offensive being attached to a trench mortar battery. He was very fond of tennis and in the latter connection will be much missed by a large cicle of friends at the Cricket Ground. He also took a great interest in certain musical literary pursuits and found time, even in France in his favourite occupation. Lieut. Horsley, who was only in his 24TH year, had been twice on leave, the last occasion being as recent as last month’…
Whether Captain Smith had indeed rescued the remains of Lieutenant Horsley is not known. His body had, however, eventually been recovered and taken to a military cemetery named ‘Bard Cottage’ at Boezinge [pronounced boosinger], a village located on the outskirts of Ypres, where they had been interred in Section 4, Row D, Grave 2 of the cemetery.
At the end of the war, during the afternoon of Saturday the 24TH of April 1920, a War Memorial had been unveiled at Scarborough’s Cricket Ground in the presence of a number of invited friends and relatives of sixteen former members of the club who had lost their lives during the recently ended war, whose names had been included on the commemorative tablet. Amongst those sixteen names had been Lieutenant Ernest Horsley. Ernest’s name had also been included on memorials at Scarborough’s Gladstone Road, and Municipal Schools [The Gladstone Road Memorial is still located in the hall of the Junior School, whilst a refurbished Municipal School Memorial is now [2005] located at Graham Comprehensive School].
The Lieutenant’s name is also included on a memorial in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery [Section U, Row 9, Grave 18] which marks the final resting place of his parents, Sherburn born Henry Horsley, who had died at the age of 85 years on the 18TH of February 1940, and Whitby born Ellen Horsley, who had passed away at Goole over thirty years after the death of her son, on the 24TH of September 1949 at the age of eighty seven years.
The family gravestone [which incorrectly states that Ernest Horsley had been killed in France] also bears the inscription; ‘Reunited’
Two days after the death of Lieutenant Horsley Fifth Army had launched another offensive. Later dubbed the Battle of Langemarck, the operation had begun at 4-45am on Thursday the 16TH of August with the customary resounding bombardment of the enemy’s positions in, and around the shattered village of Langemarck. By the end of the day’s fighting French forces, operating on the left of the front, along with the adjoining British 14TH Corps [20TH and 29TH Divisions], and the left of 19TH Corps [48TH, and 11TH Divisions] had achieved most of their objectives, including the capture of a number of heaps of rubble that had once been the village of Langemarck, albeit with heavy casualties [Horsley’s 20TH Division had suffered seventy per cent casualties to machine guns in the village]. Counted as a successful operation the cost of the two days fighting at Langemarck had indeed been tremendous.
By midday on the 16TH the Territorials of the 48TH [South Midland] Division had barely managed to advance a hundred yards due to heavy shellfire and of course the mud. To the right of 48th Division, the 16TH [Irish] and 36TH [Ulster] Divisions had been decimated amongst the numerous fortified farms, which had stood on the bare slopes of the Zonnebeke Ridge [from the time that these two formations had entered the line to the time that the battle had ended two days later they had sustained 7,800 casualties, more than half their full complement].
By the end of the battle Fifth Army had suffered over fifteen thousand casualties for a very meagre gain of around a thousand yards of Belgian real estate. Gough, the Commander of Fifth Army, despite the sacrifices made by his men, had blamed them for the failure to produce a total victory rather himself for choosing to attack in bad weather and without effective artillery support. At a conference with his corps commanders on the 17TH he had gone so far as to complain about the troops apparent inability to hold onto the ground that they had gained, and speculated that it might be necessary to court martial some ‘glaring instances’ of this type of behaviour by officers or N.C.O.’s. He had also reached the remarkable conclusion that his divisions were being relieved in the line too soon, thus causing an unnecessary waste of fresh divisions. This practice must stop he had announced, ‘or we should run short of troops’.
Although Scarborough had experienced some of the bad weather, which plagued the men on the Western Front throughout the summer of 1917, it had been nothing in comparison, and besides, when it had rained the visitors to the town had always been able to find their amusement inside the town’s various picture houses and theatres. For the men at the front there had been little respite, and nowhere to shelter from the incessant rain except for a brief period when it stopped from the 16TH to the 23RD of August.
Sporadic fighting had continued throughout the remainder of that very wet August.
On Wednesday the 22ND Scarborough had lost another of it’s sons to enemy action; Second Lieutenant Edward Thomas Rines.
Born in the town during 1887 at No.17 Cromwell Road in a house named ‘Normanhurst’ [in 2005 the house is divided into two flats, 17, and 17A], Edward had been the eldest son of Ada and John William Rines, the head of a butchery business named ‘J.W. Rines & Sons, which had been located at No 81 Castle Road. A pupil of Mr Matthew Wheater’s ‘Grammar School’ in Albemarle Crescent from the age of seven, Rines had left the School at the age of fourteen to become a trainee cashier for the Scarborough branch of the Yorkshire Penny Bank which had been [and still is in 2005] located in Huntriss Row, where he had eventually been promoted to cashier, and by the out break of war, the sub manager of the Bank’s Malton Branch where he had remained until April 1916, when he had enlisted into the army. [1]
Rines had initially served as a Private [Regimental Number B 23685] in the 26TH[Service] Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, which had been composed for the most part of former bank employees. A part of the 124TH Brigade of the 41ST Division, Rines’s unit had landed in France during May 1916 and had shortly been moved to Flanders where the battalion had been concentrated near Steenwerck where the unit had gone into the nearby trenches at Ploegsteert [Plugstreet] for the customary period of ‘trench acclimatisation’ before being moved to trenches in the Douve Valley, south of Ypres where Rines had remained until August 1916.
A veteran of the Somme Offensive, notably the Battles of Flers/ Courcelette [15 –17 September], and the Transloy Ridges [4-10 October]. Following these actions Rines had been recommended for Officer training and had been sent to England where he had joined the 20TH Officer Training Battalion, which had been based at Crookham, near Aldershot.
Whilst at Crookham he had undergone four months of training to become a Subaltern, or Second Lieutenant, the lowest officers rank which had carried with it the privilege of leading men into battle from the front, a task that had given the invariably youthful officer a life expectancy of around three months if destined for the Western Front. During January 1917 Rines had been gazetted to Prince Albert’s [Somerset Light Infantry], and had initially served with the regiment’s 4TH [Reserve] Battalion before being seconded to the 6TH [Service] Battalion, which had been serving in France with the 43RD Infantry Brigade of the 14TH[Light] Division. [5]
During the early months of 1917 Rines had been involved in the British Advance [11 January-13 March], and the subsequent [14March-5 April] German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line, where he had taken part in numerous actions during the subsequent British operations around Arras. On the day that he had been killed, Rines had been taking part in a ‘minor operation’ at Inverness Copse, which had almost annihilated the Sixth Battalion.
Amongst the Battalion’s eighteen officers, and three hundred and thirty one ‘other rank’s’ that had become casualties during the operation, Mrs. Rines, a widow by 1917[John William Rines had died at the age of 60 years on March 12TH 1912], had received the telegram reporting Edward’s death during Friday the thirty first of August 1917. The news had subsequently been reported in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 7TH of September;
‘Scarborough officer killed - Mrs. Rines, of Normanhurst, The Valley, widow of the late Mr. J.W. Rines butcher, who was so well known in the town, has received intimation on Friday night that her eldest son, Second Lieutenant Edward Thomas Rines, had been killed in action on August 22ND. A single man, Second Lieut. Rines who would have been 31 years of age in November, was known to many townspeople. For years he was employed at the Yorkshire Penny Bank at Scarborough, and before enlisting a year ago last April he was the sub manager of the Malton branch of the Bank. He joined the Somerset Light Infantry as a private, and later received a commission. His three brothers are also serving with the forces’.
Despite numerous searches during, and after the war no identifiable remains of Lieutenant Rines had ever been found. During the post war years the Imperial War Graves Commission had opened four memorials to the missing of the various Allied operations in Flanders. At Zonnebeke, during July 1927 the Commission had unveiled the ‘Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing’. Designed by Sir Herbert Baker with sculptures by Joseph Armitage the memorial bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men from the United Kingdom and New Zealand who had lost their lives in the Flanders fighting after the 16TH of August 1917 [before this date the missing of Flanders are commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres] and for whom there is no known grave. Lieutenant Rines name is included amongst the Somerset Light Infantry missing who are commemorated on Panels 41 to 42, and 163A, of the Memorial.
A former member of South Cliff Wesleyan [Methodist] Church, Thomas Edward Rines’s name is commemorated on the Church brass plate ‘Roll of Honour’, which is located on the north interior wall of the present day church. The memorial commemorates the names of sixteen men of the church who had lost their lives on active service during the 1914-1919 war, and in addition celebrates the names of seventy eight members of the church who had survived.
Edward’s name can also be found on a gravestone in Scarborough’s Manor Road Cemetery [North/ Terrace/Grave 4], which also bears the name of the missing officer’s Lincolnshire born [April 9TH 1852] father, John William Rines, a popular and well respected tradesman of the town who had died at ‘Normanhurst’ on Tuesday the twelfth of March 1912 at the age of sixty. Edward’s Nottingham born [May 20TH 1855] mother, Ada Rines, had passed away at the age of seventy three years on Sunday the 16TH of September 1928. The memorial also bears the name of the Rines’s only daughter, Ruth, who had died on the 6th of June 1891 at ‘Normanhurst’ at the age of sixteen months.
At the end of the war Edward’s three younger brothers, John Ernest, Norman Barlow, and Kenneth Rines, all of whom had served in the Army Service Corps, had returned to Scarborough, where the three had gone into partnership in the running of six businesses in the town. Crown Garage, South Cliff, Arcade Garage, St Thomas Street, West End Garage, Seamer Road, Tranmer Wireless, Victoria Road, and Rines South Cliff Bus Service. The partners had also been the owners of ‘Rines Radio’. Situated in Castle Road this shop had been the first radio dealers to open its doors to the public in Scarborough. Norman Rines had died at the age of sixty nine on the 27TH of October 1961.
John Ernest had subsequently passed away on the 7th of March 1972 at the age of 83years. Edward’s youngest brother, Kenneth Rines, who for forty eight years had been the proprietor of ‘Rines Radio’, in St Thomas Street, had died at the Belvedere Nursing Home on Saturday the 11TH of December 1979 at the age of eighty one years. Formerly of No.97 Peasholm Drive, Scarborough, Ken had been the husband of ‘Mick’ [Edith Alice], and father of Pat and Michael Rines.
On Monday the twenty seventh of August 18TH Corps of Fifth Army had mounted an operation to seize an enemy trench system known as ‘Pheasant Trench’ amongst the units which had taken part in the operation had been the 9TH Battalion of the Prince of Wales’s Own [West Yorkshire Regiment] and the 8TH Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s [West Riding] Regiment, both belonging to the 32ND Infantry Brigade of the 11TH [Northern] Division. Each of the attacking battalions had been ordered to advance with two companies [500 men] ‘C’ and ‘D’, in the front line forming a first wave, whilst the remaining two companies, ‘A’ and ‘B’, were to form a second wave which would follow the first into action.
Zero Hour had been set for 1-55pm on the 27TH, at which hour heavy shrapnel barrage had been ‘put down’ on the enemy’s positions. Under this bombardment the attacking battalions had left their assembly positions and began their advance. The History of the West Yorkshire Regiment has this to say of the ensuing nightmare…’The most appalling conditions met the men as they endeavoured to cross No Man’s Land. Rain was falling heavily, and in many places the ground had become absolutely impassable. Mud and filth and great gaping shell holes, in many places continuous and full of water, forming barriers across which it was impossible to pass’[6]
Three minutes after the West Yorkshiremen had left their trenches the enemy’s artillery had laid on a savage counter barrage which accompanied by heavy machine gun and rifle fire from ‘Pheasant Trench’ had swept through their ranks forcing the survivors to take shelter in half flooded shell holes….’Presently the Divisional barrage lifted and a gallant attempt was made to occupy the enemy’s trenches, but by this time few men had remained, and those that were successful in entering the trenches were unable, being too weak in numbers, to remain there But one house at Vielles Maisons was captured, and a line of posts was formed east of Bulow Farm, running parallel with Pheasant Trench. Here the battalion hung on’…[6]
The surviving members of the 9TH West Yorkshire’s had ‘hung on’ until Wednesday the 29TH of August when they had been relieved and marched back to billets at
Poperinghe, where the customary post battle Roll Call had revealed that the battalion had lost three officers killed and eight wounded, whilst the other ranks had lost sixty two killed, and a hundred and forty four wounded, a further seventeen men had been recorded as missing. Amongst the latter had been; 238020 Private Edwin Jones Wood.
Born in Scarborough on the 11TH of November 1876, at No.14 Low Conduit Street, ‘Ted’ had been the son of Jane [formerly Jones] and Jonathan Shaw Wood, a grocer who had also been well known ‘milk dealer’ in the east, or ‘bottom end of town for many years. A pupil of Friarage Board School, Ted had left the institution at the age of twelve to become an apprentice to local tailor Joseph Bielby, the proprietor of a tailoring business that had been located at No 51 St Thomas Street, Scarborough. [7]
On the twenty ninth of November 1905 at Manor Road Congregational Church the twenty eight years old Edwin had married twenty one years old Janey Louisa Jubb, the daughter of local butcher Frederick Farringdon Jubb, who had resided at No. 7 Friars Gardens. Following his marriage Edwin had been employed by the local printing firm of E.T.W. Dennis, which had been located in Westborough, and had remained with the firm until just before the outbreak of war when he and his wife had forsaken Scarborough for the West Riding of Yorkshire to live at No63 Oswald Street, at Brownroyd, near Bradford, where he had worked in the cities printing industry. [8]
Wood had enlisted into the army at Blackburn, Lancashire, during September 1915 and had initially trained and served as a private [Regimental Number 8772] in the 3RD [Reserve] Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s [West Riding] Regiment at Halifax until November 1916, when he had been transferred to the 9TH West Yorkshire’s amongst the huge influx of replacements which had been sent to the battalion following the Somme Offensive, where the unit had suffered appalling losses, notably at Thiepval Ridge on the 29TH of September 1916, where the formation had been decimated in an assault on a enemy position known as ‘Stuff Trench’[following this action the author’s nineteen years old uncle, 3/10384 Private William Trotter belonging to the 9th West Yorkshire’s, had been reported as ‘missing believed killed in action’, his remains have never been found].
Wood had joined the battalion in the Ancre Sector of the Somme battlefield at Beaumont Hamel, perhaps the most deplorable area of France to have been in during the terrible winter of 1916/17, the conditions that he had experienced whilst there are best summed up by the War Diary of the 2ND Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment…
’The conditions beggar description, the trenches are flooded and have fallen in. There is no cover either in front, support, or reserve lines, and men are being evacuated with frostbite and exhaustion by the hundred. Today four men were dug out of the mud who had been unable to move for three days. The conditions were so bad that we were unable to see the actual trenches’[6]
By the beginning of 1917 conditions had improved sufficiently for a continuation of British operations, and on the 17TH of January the 9TH Battalion had taken part in an operation to secure a section trenches on the Beaumont-Hamel Spur, to the north of the ruined remains of a village which had once been known as Beaucourt.. The attack had been launched at 6-35am on that day.
The Battalion had been supporting the advance made by elements of the 6TH York and Lancaster Regiment, and the 6TH Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment. A seemingly bloodless affair, during which the 9TH Battalion had done no fighting, the unit’s ‘History’ reports…’All objectives were taken and consolidated, no counter attack was made by the Germans…The Battalion, however, did splendid work in supplying carrying parties’…. [6]
The Battalion had eventually been moved to Flanders, where Private Wood had taken part in the operations at Messines Ridge between the ninth and fourteenth of June. Following these his battalion had been moved to a training area near to Houtkerque where the men had remained until the 13TH of July, when they had moved to Bayenghem for a course of ‘intense training’, and practising for the forthcoming offensive. The West Yorkshiremen had remained in reserve throughout the opening operations of Third Wipers. However, on the sixth of August the Battalion had relieved another battalion in the front line in the Yser Canal Sector of Flanders, where the unit had been subjected to intense enemy artillery bombardment from the ninth to the thirteenth of August. Relieved the following day having suffered almost forty casualties, the men of the battalion had moved back to the so called ‘Dirty Bucket Camp’, where they had remained until the night of the 26TH of August when the
Battalion had marched off to take over a portion of the front line north east of St Julien and east of the Steenbeek in readiness for the assault on ‘Pheasant Trench’.
Janey Wood had initially been informed that her husband was ‘missing in action’. The news had been included in an extensive casualty list, which had appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 12TH of October 1917.
‘Missing - Private E.J. Wood, son of Mr. J. Wood, a milk dealer in the East Ward, has been missing since August 27TH. Private Wood, whose wife is now living at Bradford, was for many years with Messrs. E.T.W. Dennis and Sons’….
Nothing more had been heard of the missing soldier, neither had extensive searches of the battlefield after the war turned up any remains which could be identified as those of Private Wood. Like Lieutenant Rines his name had eventually been included on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing at Zonnebeke, in Western Flanders, it can be located on the Panels dedicated to the Missing of the West Yorkshire Regiment [42 to 47, and 162].
Apart from the town’s War Memorial, Edwin Jones Wood’s name is commemorated on a gravestone in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery [Section C, Row 36, Grave18], which bears nothing more than an inscription dedicated to a missing husband;
‘In loving memory of my husband [Ted] Edwin Jones Wood
Presumed killed in action in France, August 27TH 1917 aged 40 years.
When God lent me him he lent me one of the best’
[The reverse of the memorial is inscribed; ‘In loving memory of my dear Grandparents Thomas and Charlotte Holmes...’Till the day break’. Also of Marjorie Taylor, Great Granddaughter of the above, who died September 24TH 1919 aged 14 years. Also of John Percival son of Percy and Dora Hodges, died March 29 1924 aged 9 months’].
Ignored by the ‘Official History’ of the Flanders Offensive, the assault on Pheasant Trench had been amongst the last of the series of fiasco’s, which had been conducted by Gough’s Fifth Army. As early as the 16TH of August Haig had begun to have doubts regarding the abilities of Fifth Army’s impetuous commanding officer. These doubts had been compounded by Gough’s subsequent inability to achieve a resounding victory. By the end of August Haigh had effectively placed the conduct of future operations into the methodical, some would say ‘plodding’ hands of Sir Herbert Plumer and his Second Army.
The human cost of the four weeks of August had been enormous. From the opening day of the Offensive, 31ST of July, to the 28TH of August, the ‘Official History’ reckons that Fifth Army had incurred over sixty eight thousand killed, wounded, and missing [3,424 officers, and 64,586 other ranks].
In Scarborough, by the 28TH of August the season had been drawing to a close. Although the town had experienced some of the bad weather that the men in Belgium had seen it had done nothing to dissuade the holidaymakers from flocking to the town. Subsequent reports in the town’s newspapers had told of the town accepting in general that the season had been marked improvement on the previous year and….’recognises also that it has been the best since before the war’
‘The Spa is probably the best all round index to the character of the Scarborough season [reported the Scarborough Mercury of Friday October 5TH 1917]. There the returns have been a great deal better than last year. The Spa season indeed has exceeded anticipations. Other places of public resort have experienced an appreciable improvement on the year: the [South Bay] bathing pool has increased in popularity [opened in 1915], and other Corporation undertakings invariably sound the same upward note. Taking up to the end of august, and added to that the glorious month of September must have had a highly beneficial effect upon the takings, but only reckoning as from the close of August. Valley Bridge tolls were £120 better than the preceding summer. Parks and Entertainments Committee £626 better, and the Marine Drive had jumped up with a bound from £479 in 1916 to £706 this year’.
On Tuesday the fourth of September, during what had later been described as a ‘charming late summers evening’, the two worlds had finally collided when Scarborough had once again suffered casualties to enemy action. On that occasion an unidentified German submarine had surfaced, probably in the Cayton Bay area, to pour around thirty shells into the unprotected town. The shelling had caused the deaths of three people and had wounded several others including Mrs Hilda Wardman who had been working in her confectionary shop in James Street when a shell had torn through the wall of the upper part of the building, struck an interior wall, and spent itself in a wooden beam, which had dislodged a tin of biscuits in the shop down below which had struck Mrs Wardman. Receiving nothing more than a bump on the head Mrs Wardman’s shop on the hand had been wrecked and her stock destroyed.
A mere scratch in comparison to the horrors of Third Wipers, the ‘visitation’ of the enemy submarine had nonetheless demonstrated to the town that there had indeed been a war taking place, as if anyone had needed reminding after a perusal of the lengthy casualty lists which had appeared in the town’s newspapers each week, each one marking the demise or injury of yet another loved one, relative, or acquaintance.
[1] The Scarborough Mercury Friday August 3RD 1917
[2] Military Operations France and Belgium; Volume 2 1917; J.E. Edmonds HMSO 1948.
[3] P197 The Green Howards in the Great War 1914-18; Wylly.
[4] At the time of the 1891 Census the Rines family had still been residing at
Normanhurst and had consisted of John William, aged 48 years, born at Boston Lincolnshire, Ada, 46years, born at Nottingham, Edward Thomas, aged 4years, John Ernest, 2 years, and Ruth aged 1year, all of whom had been born at Scarborough. By the time of the 1901 Census these had been joined by Norman Barlow, aged 7 years, and Kenneth aged 5years, these had also been born in the town.
[5] Lieutenant Rines is officially listed as having lost his life whilst serving with the 4TH Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry. As this unit had never left England during the war the author surmises that he may have died whist serving with the 6TH Battalion, as it had been the only battalion belonging to the regiment which had taken part in the operations which had been carried out on the 22nd of August. Sadly Thomas Edward Rines’s name is not mentioned in the 6TH Battalion’s War Diary, or that of the 43RD Brigade. Neither does his name appear in, 'The History of the Somerset Light Infantry during the Great War’; Everard Wyrall, Methuen & Co, 1927.
[6] The West Yorkshire Regiment in the War 1914-1918; Everard Wyrill Volume 2; 1917-1918. Many thanks to my friend Mr Ian Hollingsworth for the loan of his copy of the book.
[7] Although Edwin’s mother’s name is recorded on his birth certificate as being Jane Wood, by the time of the 1891 Census of Scarborough the family had consisted of Jonathan Shaw, 40years old, born Scarborough, [second] Wife Martha, aged 38 years, born Pickering, Jonathan Shaw Jnr, 19 years, George 17 years, Edwin 14 years, Sarah A., 12years, Margaret A., 5years, and William, aged 1 year, all of whom had been born at Scarborough.
[8] Opened during July 1898, Manor Road Congregational Church had stood for many years on the corner of Gordon Street and Manor Road [the site in 2005 is occupied by ‘Poplar Court’, a block of flats owned by the ‘Anchor Housing Trust’], and had later [1966] been re-dedicated as ‘Emmanuel Church. The church had eventually been demolished during September 1994.
