Grimsby's Own: The Story of The Chums Part 1

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First World War - centenary commemorations: Grimsby’s Own – THE FIRST MEN: One of the very first photographs of the battalion in the making – the Chums, in civvies all, with seven company markers holding flags and seated cross-legged in front of Clee Fields pavilion in late August 1914.

First published in 1991 and written by the Grimsby Telegraph’s Odd Man’s Week columnist Peter Chapman, here we begin the full serialisation of his book, Grimsby’s Own: The Story of The Chums.

Foreword by the late Earl of Yarborough: THIS book is the story of the 10th Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment “The Chums” from their formation in August 1914 in answer to Kitchener’s appeal for volunteers until their disbandment in May 1918.

The author recaptures the heady atmosphere which prevailed at the outset of World War One. The British Empire flourished, Britain ruled the waves and much else besides.

The response from the people of Grimsby was whole hearted and immediate, from all walks of life. They flocked to the colours in their hundreds eager to get into action before it was all over.

Alas the reality fell far short of expectation. After a period of training they found themselves in Europe bogged down in trench warfare and there followed the slogging match of the Somme and other battles in all of which the Chums took part and performed with conspicuous gallantry but suffered fearful casualties in the process. Peter Chapman has provided a highly readable account of these momentous years fully illustrated with many of the leading personalities involved.

At last Grimsby has in print a permanent record of these times before memories fade. It is a period upon which Grimbarians can look back with pride, albeit tinged with sadness for so many families. I commend it to the modern generation, lest we forget the magnificent contribution the people of Grimsby made on land to their country when the call came.

GETTING READY: The first 30 on Clee Fields on August 1914.

Captain Stream can be glimpsed far right. In front, corporal’s stripes sewn on to his civilian jacket, is Raymond Eason, later 2nd lieutenant.

To the men of Grimsby IT was to be a short war.

It would last only for weeks, maybe for a few months, would almost certainly be over by Christmas.

Fortunately this uninformed and entirely populist view was not held by Britain’s most famous solider, Field Marshall Lord Kitchener of Khartoum.

His appointment, on August 6, 1914, as Secretary of State for War – an appointment incidentally which dispelled the nation’s apprehensive anxiety about its eventual outcome, indeed the world, faced a war of perhaps three year’s duration.

Despite this unpalatable vision, the nation and its political leaders could not escape from the previous infallibility of Kitchener’s formulas, attitudes and methods which had proved endlessly successful throughout his long and illustrious career and accepted, once again, his oracular view of the future and in the notable absence of any other.

Chapter 1: Prelude To War In August 1914, the British Army, 450,000 strong and effectively reduced by at least 118,000 serving India and other stations of empire, needed vast expansion to bring it up to the levels of manpower enjoyed by the principal European armies of both the Allied and the Central powers.

Although it had a small reserve and the semi-trained support of the Territorial Army – then roughly 250,000 strong – Kitchener had in mind millions in khaki and, on August 7, appealed initially for his famous First Hundred Thousand.

Kitchener was doubtful about the capabilities of the Territorial Army, a largely amateur organisation in his opinion, whose role was essentially that of Home Defence.

Although allowing its recruiting to go on in tandem, Kitchener’s 100,000 were not intended for the supplementation of reinforcement of the TA. His appeal was

to civilians, to enlist for three years or for the duration of the war (as long as that might be), in an army of Service Battalions bearing the names of their geographically parent units.

The response to his appeal was not merely amazing but overwhelming.

By August 9, volunteers were enlisting at the rate of 3,000 a day.

By the end of the month they were joining up at 30,000 a day, a figure equivalent to the average army intake per year.

By September 7, 1914, 439,000 had come forward, exclusive of Territorial Army enlistments. By the end of the year the volunteers numbered 1,186,337.

Despite the unqualified success of Kitchener’s recruiting programme, a programme much assisted by Alfred Leete’s famous poster – which prompted Mrs Asquith’s famous remark that “if Kitchener was not a great man he was at least a great poster” – it was not uncriticised.

As early as September the poisonous General Sir Henry Wilson referred to the emerging civilian armies-in-embryo as “mobs” labelling them “ridiculous and preposterous”, describing then as “shadow armies for shadow campaigns”.

But his voice did nothing to stem the flow of either men or enthusiasm.

Britain was ill prepared to deal with armies of civilians. There were not the facilities to cope. There were no uniforms. Within days of the first call to arms, chaos threatened at drill halls and recruiting centres throughout the land.

So it was that on August 9, Kitchener and the War Office accepted, with relief and alacrity, offers of assistance by local dignitaries, acting in Kitchener’s name, to sort out, to house, to feed and look after the eager host.

More importantly, Kitchener agreed to the creation of “Pals Battalions” to be formed from volunteers with a common background, a background of workplace or of sporting association... or of town.

In all 304 such Pals Battalions were formed. Just one of them decided against calling themselves Pals and opted instead for the word Chums.

The 5th (Territorial) Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment – with whose gallant record we are not concerned in this book – was at annual camp at Bridlington on August 2, 1914, and returned to it Doughty Road Drill Hall, Grimsby headquarters the following day.

The local TA battalion, recruiting principally in Grimsby but also in Gainsborough, Scunthorpe, Louth, Barton-on-Humber, Alford and Spilsby, it was already 24 officers and 780 strong and required few additions to bring it up to its full strength.

It immediately adopted the home defence stance expected of it and supplied guards for Grimsby’s docks, for the Humber Mouth in general and the electricity station in Doughty Road and the wireless station at Waltham in par-

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The Story Of The Chums

WAKE UP GRIMSBY: The first Grimsby recruiting poster, August 1914, which gave birth to the Chums.

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CONFIRMATION OF OFFICE: Ald Capt JH Tate, Mayor of Grimsby 1914 and ‘father’ of the Chums.

help this country ticular. Also at camp in those fateful days of August was the Grimsby Municipal College (later the Wintringham Grammar School) Officer Training Corps.

Under the command of the headmaster, Capt Ernest Stream, and a colleague Lieut William Staples Pratte, they had left town on July 27 for the OTC camp at Hagley Park, near Rugeley, in Staffordshire.

Sharing the site with other contingents from both public and grammar schools, many of the boys were away from home for the first time, a fact which promoted the Grimsby Daily Telegraph “to allay the anxious feelings of Grimsby mothers, we may say that all our boys are in perfect health and enjoying themselves immensely”.

But as war loomed they too abandoned their palliases and tents and returned to Grimsby.

Stream and Pratte arrived at the College to find a delegation of Old Boys awaiting them. Would the headmaster agree to supervise the formation of an infantry, at least a company strong, from former College boys?

Meetings were held, agreement was reached. Enthusiasm carried the day and it was decided to act quickly and

Grimsby Telegraph Monday, July 14, 2014

Just one of them decided against calling themselves Pals and opted instead for the word Chums then offer their services to the 5th Battalion for which a recruiting poster was already on prominent display in the town.

On the first evening, 52 Old Boys enrolled and drilling began the following morning. Within days they were 200 strong.

However, the 5th Battalion was soon up to its strength and the Municipal College offer was declined.

Indeed on August 10, the 5th laid up its colours in St James’ Church and left town by train the following day.

But relief from fear of being ‘left out’, indeed missing the chance to go to war, was at hand.

On August 9, the local dignitary, who by this time was so sorely needed to co-ordinate and organise the frenzied activity all about him, received his offi-

HEADMASTER: Mr Ernest Stream (Captain OTC and Major in the Chums) headmaster of the Grimsby Municipal College.

cial confirmation of office.

Alderman John Herbert Tate, then 50 and with only two months of office as Mayor of Grimsby to run, had already, and without choice in the matter, become deeply involved in Grimsby’s rush to arms. On the 9th he received a telegram from the War Office appointing him to act in Kitchener’s name.

Thus were Capt Stream and Ald Tate brought together and, without delay, had notices posted throughout the town, on hoardings, convenient walls and on the docks.

TO THE MEN OF GRIMSBY: Lord Kitchener has asked for 100,000 men for the Army and a new Battalion of the famous Lincolnshire Regiment is to be raised as part of this number.

These men are wanted immediately to defend our country. I am sure that the men of Grimsby who are so vitally interested in a quick and successful termination of the present struggle will not be appealed to in vain. Every able bodied man has a duty to perform and I ask every man in this town, able to bear arms, to come forward and to help his country in the hour of its need. ● Continued tomorrow.

UNIFORM: Captain WS Pratte, Municipal College OTC, at the Clee Fields pavilion door.

DON’T MISS! Daily coverage to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the First War, including this retelling of The Story Of The Chums and a 32-page special publication in your Telegraph on July 29, including a replica 1914 edition of the Grimsby Telegraph. PLUS, in August, collect your 7-part First World War Day By Day set of booklets.

READY: B Company Clee Fields August 1914.

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DRILLING ON CLEE FIELDS: L/Cpl (later Lieutenant) Raymond Eason has a stripe sewn on his civilian jacket sleeve, right.

‘Dug-outs’ appointed

IN 1914, in Grimsby as in every other corner of the country, young men were conditioned to believe England right in all it did and all it stood for.

MAJOR T MAUDSLEY HOWKINS: Formerly of the 1st Lincs RGA Volunteers.

COMMANDING OFFICER: Lt Col Walter A Vignoles, DSO and Bar, ex-1st Lincs RGA, Chums’ CO 1917.

The British Empire, then at its zenith, was thought of by that legendary luminary, the man-in-the-street, as the apotheosis of correctness.

There had never been so great a power for good in the world. And although it was essentially a power for peace and harmony, on the occasions that the sword was necessary, never was it more worthily wielded.

The propagation of the gospel of empire was ours by some vague, even mystical, divine right, a right not to be entrusted to other nations of the earth for they could never exercise it either with the authority or the same generosity. To serve in however humble a capacity was not merely to serve country, but God himself.

The Empire offered the noble chance to give the heathen – those lesser breeds without the law – the inestimable benefits of being British. No greater gift could possibly be given. And none more thankfully received.

Yet comparatively few could take part in the distribution of this largesse.

Missionaries, for instance, were people distantly supported by chapel collections, vastly removed from day to day experience, rarely if ever, encountered. Their work was laudable beyond comprehension, their devotion against all odds, legendary.

In Grimsby, as elsewhere, missionaries paid fleeting visits, speaking to enraptured throngs, men – and women – back from Africa, India, remote islands, frozen wastes, desert vastnesses, people who had actually met the tribes and strange people of whom only novelists and adventure story writers had brought previous and often spurious glimpses.

Soldiers were an equally rare breed, Grimsby was not, and never had been a garrison town.

Until the 1860s its outlook and mien was purely agricultural. And even when the steam trawler transformed the burgeoning fishing industry, enabling the town to become, in a short space of time, the greatest fishing port in the world, Grimsby merely ceased to look inland to the waving corn, and stared instead, seaward to the equal mix of bounty and cruelty that the sea would share.

Few Grimsby men became soldiers. It was not in the system, not in the blood.

Tales of daring and battles, fought thousands of miles away, were relayed by but a handful who had seen the fuzzy wuzzies fall at Omdurman and ever fewer who had served in the Crimea or in the

We continue the serialisation of Grimsby’s Own: The Story Of The Chums, by Peter Chapman. Today, Chapter 1: Prelude To War continues Mutiny. Soldiering, like missionary work, was but an adventure, read about but never savoured, laudable but never espoused.

The Boy’s Own Paper supplied the words and the pictures, the Boy Scouts supplied a uniformed semblance of duty, the volunteers – of whom there were not a few in Grimsby and its immediate district – the band wherewith to march, the uniforms upon which to gaze in pride, the associations of comradeship bold, but safe, martial yet truly, wholly domestic.

And when in August 1914 the call to duty, to service, to country and county and, above all, Empire, sounded, Grimsby responded with infinite pride.

At last, young men were being offered the privilege of becoming an active part of the machinery of empire, to fight its foes, to emulate all past achievements, and, above all, to belong.

And yet the glee was muted.

Those first eager recruits showed a well mannered restraint and a control that did much to counter the heady appeals being broadcast in some quarters.

The Telegraph reported that there was “no unseemly jocularity and the men realised the gravity of the situation as they stood there waiting for the signal to pass in and sign on”.

Alderman Tate, his endeavours lightened by his committee, appointed an old friend and fellow magistrate George Bennett, a timber merchant who lived at Westlands, off Bargate, the first, acting and temporary commanding officer.

Bennett, a retired Captain and battery commander in the 1st Lincolnshire Royal Garrison Artillery Volunteers, brought with him two fellow RGA officers, the local dentist Capt T Maudsley Howkins and, importantly as events were to prove, the unit’s signalling officer Lieut Walter A Vignoles, the Grimsby Borough electrical engineer and the man who had brought electric power to the town.

Meetings were held in the gymnasium of the Eleanor Street Municipal College and the recently vacated Doughty Road drill hall, manned

by Stream and Pratte (who did the actual signing up), channelled the flow of recruits.

Thus did order appear and, with it, the need for a permanent commanding officer.

A ‘dug-out’ would not have been a description Lt Col the Hon George Edward Heneage would have

DUG-OUT: Lt Col The Hon George Heneage. chosen for himself.

Nevertheless it was one much used in August and September 1914 when the War Office, more or less desperate for both commissioned and non-commissioned officers, trawled extensively through the columns of those retired from the Regular army, the Indian Army and the Militia to fulfil its needs.

‘Dug-outs’, at least one of whom reported for duty in blue patrols and wearing his Crimean war medal ribbons, were to prove an unexpected boon and no battalion was as fortunate as the 10th Lincolns in the man chosen to be at its head.

George Heneage, an Old Etonian, who had just celebrated his 48th birthday, had served as an officer in the old Royal North Lincoln Militia, a unit now renamed the 3rd Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment, from 1890 until 1913, the last four of those years as its commanding officer.

It had not been illuminating soldiering. Indeed the high point of his years in uniform took place in Oxford Terrace, London, when the battalion lined part of Queen Victoria’s funeral route.

However, he willingly came out of retirement, a

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WASH-HOUSE: Come to the wash-house boys, Brocklesby 1914. Standing, left to right, L/Cpl Weaver, H Baumber, ?, ?, A Upsall, F Marshall, W Fyfe, Campling, W Brown, Wilson, Goy and Rainberg.

Kneeling, Johnson and B Wood.

to lead volunteers ... man not only with actual experience of commanding a battalion of soldiers but, maybe, more importantly, a man whose surname was well known and highly respected in a town where his family owned large estates and of which his father, Lord Heneage, had been MP and was still High Steward.

There were no uniforms for the men to wear, no caps, no badges. And there were no modern rifles or other accoutrements.

Nevertheless, the complicated progress of forming, from scratch, an infantry battalion went on.

Regimental orders were posted in the column of the Telegraph and the men were introduced to the essentials of military life, drilling and marching on playing fields and, using the obsolete Lee Metford rifles from the OTC armoury, how to slope arms.

Some of the recruits did not take kindly to the all-embracing strictures of a soldier’s life and Lieut Vignoles, the unit’s first adjutant, had several occasions to reprimand them.

“It has come to the notice of the commanding officer that men posted to billets have left them and taken lodgings. It must be distinctly understood that all men posted to a billet will not move, without the special permission of the CO.” Gradually things took shape. Church parades

were held, men were allocated to Companies and the Municipal College playing fields rang to shouts and orders better known to Caterham and Aldershot.

The flow of recruits continued apace and was fuelled by the headmaster of Clee Grammar School, TR Turnbull, the headmaster of St James’ School, Grimsby, Edward Gisby, and by the vicar, the Rev AA Markham, all of whom appealed to their erstwhile charges.

But the fear that things were going to be over and done with before the unit ever got to France was ever present, a fear exaggerated as the days went by.

On August 29, news reached the town that the 5th Battalion, then in Luton, had formally volunteered for service abroad with the North Midland division. The first casualty lists from France were published on September 4.

The first list of trawlers from Grimsby sunk by enemy action, 10 of them, appeared on September 11. The tempo of affairs was clearly on the increase.

To the boys from Grimsby schools were added numbers from Louth Grammar School and the Nottinghamshire Public School Worksop, perhaps the nearest boys’ boarding school and one with which the district had – and still had – ties.

Officers continued to be appointed including the Municipal College sports and languages master Clayton Branford and one of his former pupils Leslie ‘Cosh’ Cummings.

John Kennington, who was to have a most distinguished four years’ soldiering ahead of him, was gazetted to the 10th Lincolns and, at the same time, Edward Kyme Cordeaux offered his services.

The acquisition of Lt Col Cordeaux was to have lasting importance. He, too, could be classified a ‘dug-out’. Like George Heneage with whom he was well acquainted, he was also 48 and was related by marriage to George Bennett.

He had retired six years previously from the command of the 4th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment. But his service was highlighted between 1899 and 1902, when he served as a regular officer with the 2nd Battalion throughout the South African War during which he was twice mentioned in despatches.

One way or another, the 10th Lincolns were emerging as a unit of which any town could be proud.

Alderman Tate and his recruiting committee now approached the Earl of Yarborough at Brocklesby to seek permission to establish a hutted camp on his estate in order that the new and green battalion should have both proper military quarters and the chance, away from the urban environment to which most belonged, to train.

For just two months after the Mayor’s appeal for volunteers – and on the very day that Ald Tate retired from office – the 10th Lincolns were a thousand strong, four companies of 250 apiece and, at last, kitted out in uniform.

In the absence of khaki the War Office had bought 500,000 surplus Post Office uniforms and it was in this unlikely garb that the 10th, whose members had become a familiar sight to adoring girls and envious school boys, marched off to UNIFORMS: Clee Fields, August 1914. In the absence of khaki, the War office had bought 500,000 surplus Post office Uniforms.

MENTOR: Staff Sergeant and Musketry Instructor Charles Stebbings, a gentleman among gentlemen and known, most affectionately, to all and sundry as Stebbo, was a veteran of the South African war. In 1914, Louth’s recruiting sergeant, he abandoned his office to become ‘A’ Company’s mentor.

Brocklesby. But it must have been with mixed emotions that Lord and Lady Yarborough welcomed these would-be soldiers on to their estate.

For they and all Brocklesby had been plunged into the deepest mourning that October when news came from France that Lord Worsley, the Earl’s eldest son, had been killed in action at Zandvoorde while serving with the Royal Horse Guards.

Among those who went to Brocklesby that October was the Municipal College art master Robert Wrigglesworth, who, although an elderly member of staff and not an officer in the Corps, had chosen to enlist as a private solider.

During September he had been doing what he knew best to aid the recruiting drive and now received congratulations for his work.

Being sold in the town in their thousands was his now famous postcard, printed in both blue and in buff, on which a British Tommy, at the ready with bayonet fixed, stared confidently forward with the famous Grimsby landmark, the Dock Tower, in the background. Around and below him, in oval cartouche frames, were the men in whom he was putting his trust ...Vignoles, Howkins, Stream and Pratte.

Flanking the royal cypher were Major Bennett and Lt Col Heneage both of whom, in turn, flanked the man who started it all, Alderman JH Tate, Mayor of Grimsby.

Mindful of the centenary celebrations for Trafalgar, then only nine years’ distant, Wrigglesworth had included that evergreen exhortation of Nelson’s – England expects that every man will do his duty. But at the top of the card, and given pride of place were just five words. They read: “Grimsby Chums Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment”.

The chums, 1,000 strong, were a reality. ● Continued tomorrow and read each week’s chapters as an online e-book, uploaded each Sunday at www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk

DON’T MISS! Daily coverage to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the First War, including this retelling of The Story Of The Chums and a 32-page special publication in your Telegraph on July 29, including a replica 1914 edition of the Grimsby Telegraph.

PLUS, in August, collect your 7-part First World War Day By Day set of booklets.

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BOYS BECAME MEN: Former Municipal College ‘A’ Company Boys all. In shirt and braces, lathered up, Pte Charlie Harvey. On his right Pte Sidney Dilnot, cricketer and later town clerk of Holmfirth. In front of them holding shaving mug, Pte Gordon Abbott, later Portmaster Grimsby and Dockmaster Immingham.

FOR KING AND COUNTRY: The art master’s contribution.

WHO’D BE A CHUM? Spud bashing, Brocklesby, late 1914.

We’re all Chums every mother’s son of us ...

THE need to belong is essential to many of us.

Family, school, club and workplace all provide the embrace that welds man together.

In 1914, you could add another, the church or chapel.

The bond formed in these places lasted a lifetime, particularly when men did not move away from their place of birth.

Their union and association was precious to them and formed a community within a community. It transcended the mysterious distinctions of class and no matter whether a man was to prosper or to founder, his past ‘belonging’ survived.

To have been a ‘number’ was to have become an ‘old boy’.

And to be among the ‘old boys’ was to be among friends, among pals ... among chums.

A chum is a dated word these days.

Today people have muckers, mates and oppos.

In 1914, people had chums.

Readers of Frank Richards and Gunby Haddath, of Charles Gilson and Percy F Westerman, all of whom extolled the public school life and the camaraderie of men together, were avidly read by schoolboys throughout the Empire.

In tales of derring-do, youthful heroes pitted their wits against variously mighty forces – torrential cataracts, ravenous tigers, rebellious natives or authoritarian schoolmasters.

In all their vivid endeavours they were chums together, indissoluble.

In the pages of the Boy’s Own Paper, of

We continue the serialisation of Grimsby’s Own: The Story Of The Chums, by Peter Chapman. Today, Chapter 1: Prelude To War continues Young England, of The Scout and in innumerable splendidly illustrated adventure books and annuals, they strove in magnificent unison, triumphing over evil, overthrowing would-be despots, scoring the winning goal, hoisting the Union Jack, schoolboys become soldiers, sailors even aviators, always intrepid, always chums.

The very word was so ideal and descriptive that the most popular of all their several journals was called Chums.

Nothing else. Just Chums.

Whether this alone was the reason for Grimsby’s Pals’ Battalion to choose its unique name is pure speculation.

The name first appeared in print on September 11, 1914, when a headline writer on the Grimsby Telegraph, eschewing the word Pals, wrote on top of a short story – Important Notice to Athletes and Others. A Chums Battalion in Grimsby and District.

The word was taken up by those involved in recruiting but was given ‘official’ status by the redoubtable Lady Eugenia Doughty.

An Australian and the wife of Grimsby’s MP Sir George Doughty, she had, from the start, penned a torrent of

LT COL E KYME CORDEAUX: Acquisition.

patriotic exhortation, prose, and poetry, which all appeared in the Telegraph.

She was uniquely placed to see her sentiments into print, for Sir George owned the paper! They first appeared on August 8, empirical rallying calls, and continued more, unabated.

On October 2, the title Chums proved to be of irresistible charm and inspiration.

She picked the word for her new poem “All Chums” and dedicated it to the Grimsby Chums Battalion, right. ● Continued tomorrow and read each week’s chapters as an online e-book, uploaded each Sunday at www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk

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FIRE: Standing firing and ‘prepare to meet cavalry’ – the first uniformed platoon with the old Lee-Metfords. Clee Fields Pavilion, 1914.

PART OF 'C' COMPANY: Early days at Brocklesby 1914. Pte Harry Baumber, far left, back row. Note that only two of the men have been issued with their regimental badges.

When we heard they’d starte d fighting – well We’d hav we wanted to be in. e you know, When we’re finished – well So we for med a little corps we’re ready for among our chums, some more, And we vowed we’d stick together, yes we For we’re all chums, every would, through thick and thi blessed one of us, n.

All Chums, every mother’s And together we will face son of us, whatever comes, With the old flag waving o’e For there’s no one like a chu r us, m to have beside Oh it’s proud you in a fight. we are today, To have places in the chorus You can bet your boots he’ll that is led by K of always play the K game, When we go across the oce So we all gripped our hands an and come face to together – and our face with Bill, grips were pretty tight, We will tell him that we thi Though we feared the drills, nk of him – not an d lec Ha tur lf! es mig ht be tame, And we’ll tell in a language So we’re all chums, every mo that is even ther’s son of us, Hotter still All Chums, every blooming one of us, Than the Pontoon knows (bu t this is only Can’t you hear us gaily sin ging as we’re march- chaff), ing down the street?

We’ve three words to say to Willie – what Can’t you hear the distance they are I will not tell, ringing with the echo of our feet?

When he understands we’ll point the nearest Oh we’re school pals and we wa y, ’re work pals, And there’s some from office For we’ll tell him very plainl stools, y that his proper, And there’s others haven’t Pla ce is – well it’s a place wh started ‘biz’ as yet, ere whiskered But we’re all Chums togeth er and we’re out to sinners always stay, learn the rules, We’re the Chums, Chums, eve ry gunner’s son of And we’ll learn ‘em pretty us, slick it’s safe to bet, Tho we only started drillin g just a week or two Chums, Chums – now come and be one of us, ago, Kaiser Bill is bound to catch it when the Chums get on his track, And there’s some of us had never drilled before, For we’ll pack him off to Po We are shaping pretty well tsdam and you’ll we think and so, Never see him back.

DIGNITARIES: Sir George Doughty and the redoubtable Lady Doughty, author of All Chums and other exhortations.

RIGHT: A musical moment at Brocklesby, November 1914. Pte Hubert Larkin is seated left.

DON’T MISS! Daily coverage to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the First War, including this retelling of The Story Of The Chums and a 32-page special publication in your Telegraph on July 29, including a replica 1914 edition of the Grimsby Telegraph.

PLUS, in August, collect your 7-part First World War Day By Day set of booklets.

26

Grimsby Telegraph Thursday, July 17, 2014

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YOUNG VOLUNTEER: Pte Billy Croft.

RIGHT: Capt WS Pratte with CSM Toby Atkinson on his left, Brocklesby, November 1914.

Determined to get to Front WHEN the Chums were taken, exhibit like, to a cinema in Grimsby, ostensibly, for a management treat but in fact as the ‘latest attraction’, they began to realise that while not a raree show they were currently the toast of the town.

Grimsby’s city fathers were burstingly proud of Grimsby’s Own and for not being found wanting when the call to arms had come.

The Chums, avid readers all, thrilled to the accounts of action in France and applied themselves with ferocity to their training, determined to emulate the deeds of those more fortunately already ‘at the front’ and glowingly reported in the local papers.

Employers had announced loudly and loyally that no man would be penalised for forsaking his bench for the khaki, that jobs would be held open on their return and that wives and dependant mothers would be adequately recompensed for the loss of the breadwinners.

Thus it was with a combination of confidence in the future, heroism in the offing and a sureness that there was a job to be done and they were the men to do it, that the Chums eventually marched out of town to a fine hutted camp in Brocklesby Park.

The Earl of Yarborough, Honorary Colonel of the 3rd Battalion and, distantly (1892) Captain of the Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, was but tenuously martial and, at 55, in no position to assume more than the role of host.

His friendship with Colonel Heneage had helped in smoothing the path toward the receipt at Brocklesby of 1,000 hearty young soldiers and no doubt lasted as the beautiful parkland was transformed into a microcosm of what the Western Front was thought to resemble.

The Telegraph, in an earnest bid to ape the censor and bring the local urgency to its parish, had refrained from actually saying the Chums had gone to Brocklesby but chose as a suitably clandestine euphemism “a camp

We continue the serialisation of Grimsby’s Own: The Story Of The Chums, by Peter Chapman. Today, Chapter 1: Prelude To War continues situate in a picturesque part of the district”.

They all marched off to this secret location at Brocklesby, exhibit like again, the bands playing, thousands watching, a credit to the town by Mayoral pronouncements.

For seven months at Brocklesby, the Chums, amateurs all, were introduced to the pleasant and the patently unattractive aspects of military life by their hastily collected leaders from the Militia, from the reserves, from the Retired Lists and from the Cadet Corps.

Bennett’s position as Commanding Officer was surrendered to Heneage, Cordeaux became second in command, Vignoles was appointed adjutant and A, B, C and D Companies cohesed into recognisably military formations.

Winter – and Christmas – approached and the war, which everyone had once feared would be all over and done with, went joyfully on. The Chums consoled themselves that they might not be too late after all.

It was a unique, gentle and utterly homespun introduction to soldiering.

Weekend leave was requested and accepted as of right for home was not a mile or two away.

Nevertheless that essential bond of camaraderie was formed at Brocklesby and, gradually, the civilian clothes were packed away and the hand-me-down Post Office Blues gave way to a uniform khaki and an issue of Lincolnshire regiment cap badges.

Training was as informed as possible.

The British Army, notorious for training troops to fight the ‘last war’, was not noticeably represented in a modern light at Brocklesby.

Almost all the senior NCOs with active service experience were grey-

UNUSUAL UNIFORMS: In Post Office blue, on Clee Fields with the pavilion in the background. beards, veterans of either Omdurman or South Africa (in both of which the regular battalions of the Lincolnshire regiment had fought). But the experience of the Chums in the hands of such antique warriors was by no means unique to the men of Kitchener’s New Ar mies.

Among these veterans was George Cheffings, the Battalion’s first Regimental Sergeant Major, who had enlisted in 1891 and had fought through the Boer War. To him, incidentally, goes the honour of bearing the regimental number 1. To him also goes the credit for putting his stamp on this battalion in the making.

To him the Chums were to owe much.

He was later commissioned as Captain/Quarter master.

Company Sergeant Major WJ Baldwin was even longer in the tooth. He’d soldiered in the 1880s with the Northamptonshire Regiment, was also in the Boer War and found himself at Brocklesby as C Company Company Setgeant Major. He succeeded Cheffings as Regimental Sergeant Major.

Sgt Major Atkinson, Toby by affectionate nickname, had been at Omdurman and CSM Forrest also came out of comfortable retirement to become CSM once again.

All these senior non-commissioned officers tempered their not-forgotten regular army attitudes to cope more

kindly with these exuberant civilians-in-uniform having been formally instructed “to adapt themselves to the new form of discipline which characterised the Kitchener brand of fighting material”.

Pioneers therefore. The Chums, pioneers too, were grateful to them all.

There were amid all the fevered training, lighter moments, games of football, one company pitted against another, boxing matches too for which medals were awarded and eagerly sought. And gentler occasions ... ● Continued tomorrow and read each week’s chapters as an online e-book, uploaded each Sunday at www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk

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The Story Of The Chums

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ON THE MARCH: En route for Brocklesby, in an assortment of civilian caps, blue peaked caps (badged and unbadged) and clutching pristine white kit bags proudly stencilled ‘Gy BATTn Lincolnshire Regiment’ and an assortment of home-comfort parcels, the Chums march past Hewson Chapman’s timber yards at Lock Hill.

NOTABLE NAMES: Provost Sgt Joe Brown, second left, front row, Municipal College languages master Clayton Branfoot, WHAT A SCENE: October 1914, and the Chums march past the Telegraph offices, from whose upper storey this picture second left, centre row, Pte Sidney Dixon, third right, back row, and Pte E Wetherell, second right, back row, on Clee Fields, was taken, in Cleethorpe Road, with Riby Square, right, and the Sheffield Arms, centre.

August 1914.

TRAINING: CSM Forrest, still in civvies, at the end of a long line of very fixed Lee Metford bayonets, late autumn 1914.

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ARMED BUT UNBADGED: Still unbadged, an ‘A’ Company section on guard with the old Lee Metfords. Pte Charlie Harvey is front row, right, Pte Billy Croft next to him and Pte Sid Dilnot, front row, left.

Daily coverage to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the First War, including this retelling of The Story Of The Chums and a 32-page special publication in your Telegraph on July 29, including a replica 1914 edition of the Grimsby Telegraph. PLUS, in August, collect your 7-part First World War Day By Day set of booklets.

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Grimsby Telegraph Friday, July 18, 2014

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First World War - centenary commemorations: Grimsby’s Own –

THE GENEROUS HOST: The 4th Earl of Yarborough in the full dress uniform of the Lincolnshire Yeomanry of which he was Honorary Colonel.

The faces of The Chums We continue the serialisation of Grimsby’s Own: The Story Of The Chums, by Peter Chapman. The book is full of rare photographs of the Chums. Today, we feature more of the pictures, before we continue with the story tommorrow.

TOP: Map reading at Brocklesby. Front row, from left, G Renison, R Close, Nick Carter, Charles Tether, Frank Daubney, Evison Crunkhurn.

MIDDLE: Autumn 1914, Pte Charlie Harvey, standing left, and the merits of camp fire cooking at Brocklesby.

LEFT: Teaching straw-filled sacks a thing or two, Brocklesby, late 1914. CSM Forrest is on the right.

RIGHT: Officers’ Mess, Brocklesby, winter 1914-15.

Company Quartermaster Sergeant Toby Atkinson, left, Captain Tom Baker, Captain Pratte (wearing hat), 2nd Lieut Raymond Eason, 2nd Lieut R Coote Green.

RIGHT-HAND PAGE, TOP: Near one of the Brocklesby Park lodges, 2nd Lieut Charles Emerson, Major E Kyme Cordeaux and Lieut HL Dent are seated centre. Staff Sgt Stebbings is standing left.

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The Story Of The Chums

Grimsby Telegraph Friday, July 18, 2014

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DIGGING IN: Heavy digging with C Company at Brocklesby Park, October 1914. On the parapet, from left, Pte Everard Ross, Sgt Carter, Pte Dick Close, 2nd Lieut Edwin Inman. In the trench, Ptes Olivant and Studley.

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legraph.co.uk/firstworldwar

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A special 32-page souvenir publication FREE in your Telegraph on Tuesday, July 29, including a replica 1914 edition of the Grimsby Telegraph.

PLUS, from July 28, collect your 7-part First World War Day By Day set of booklets