7. Annabel & Patrick Dott, WWI & the Cottage Colony: 1917 to 1919

On 19 June 1917, the Rev William Patrick Dott was appointed one of the temporary chaplains to the Forces, a post he held for the rest of the War; he seems to have been an honorary chaplain for a year or two after the War ended.  He and his wife Annabel moved to his new post at the military camp at Blandford in Dorset.

The Rural Dean, in his address to the congregation at Patrick's induction to the living of Woodside, Croydon, said that the camp frequently consisted of 18,000 men and

The drafts from the Royal Naval Division, Crystal Palace, usually went to this camp on leaving the Palace, as did the men of the RAF.  Mr Dott had a hut in camp, and considered his duties a glorious opportunity for good work.  His experience and knowledge of men won him the confidence of the lads, and they would come to him almost at all hours of the day and night with their troubles and difficulties, and ever found him sympathetic and practical.  He received the special thanks and recognition of the Chaplain-General, Bishop Taylor Smith, for his services at this camp.  [Norwood News, 3 October 1919]

Annabel was clearly shocked and dismayed at the rural poverty in Dorset.  She wrote of it with great feeling in her article for The Nineteenth Century and After in February 1919, in which she was describing the scheme that was being set up in Goathland for a cottage colony for disabled officers.  She advocated the involvement of ex-officers to improve rural life:

There are so many ways in which country life could be made happier: the use of machinery to save drudgery, better lighting to lessen the dullness and darkness, electricity harnessed for both purposes, larger returns won by intensive culture, the organisation of better transport, a higher standard of living, more amusements, sports, and above all a reformation of the housing system ... 

Monotony is the bane of country life; it causes the seven devils of gossip and spite, envy and slander, narrowness (one of the meanest of the devils) and hopelessness; and emptiness, the mother of them all ... 

It is in the winter that the dullness is most deadly.  The long, dark evenings must be filled ... 

Have I dwelt too long on mere amusement?  The dullness of the country has been like a miasma sapping at rural life.  One has actually to live among the agricultural labourers in one of their small inconvenient cottages, as the writer has done for nearly a year, near a great Camp, to realise how little of recreation they have.  The fields are fenced with hedges, there are not many open spaces for all comers, hence the great need of a village green.  In the narrow, overcrowded living-room of the average cottage there is no privacy, there is not even much room for a guest and a stranger.  In many villages there is no resident squire, and often the vicar, handicapped by the anxieties of a small living, and the depressing isolation from the society of his equals, sinks into an apathy that has not the energy to start fresh schemes outside his special duties ... 

Here she speaks of the measures she considers necessary to improve rural life:

every house should if possible have water laid on (even if the supply is an adjacent well, a hand pump will raise the water to a cistern in the roof) and that a kitchen sink is essential.  Very few, scarcely any, gentlefolks realise what it means on a rainy, muddy day to draw every drop and carry it to the house, and afterwards empty the dirty water outside the cottage; small wonder if it is thrown close to the door until the fouled ground becomes a fertile breeding place for germs.  Cupboards in each bedroom, so that the Sunday clothes may last longer by being carefully stored; cupboards in the living-room to hold a supply of groceries and enable more economical buying; damp-courses and double walls in exposed situations to give dry and healthy dwellings ...

... no special technical training is needed to know that proper space in the living-room and three bedrooms in a family cottage are essential for bare decency

Transport, she felt, was of great importance:

a motor-'bus service ... would be a great advantage to the women of a district.  It would lessen the hardships of distant shopping, and it would bring chances of social life and the opportunities of seeing relations and friends to those who now lead needlessly drab and narrow lives ... 

Lighting is another important rural matter.  The dark roads make traffic difficult if not impossible after sunset, and during long evenings when there is no moon it is not an easy matter for old people, women, or delicate folk to get about.  One of the attractions of the town is the brightly lit streets ...

But Annabel and Patrick's most immediate and pressing concern was their feeling – which they shared with very many people – that something must be done for servicemen disabled in the War.

These three webpages – Historic England's overview of Domestic Housing for Disabled Veterans 1900-2014, an interview on the Digging In website with Louise Bell, First World War Diverse Histories researcher at the National Archives, and an account of the history of the Enham Trust – are just a selection of websites to give an idea of the efforts being made and the thought being put into the problem before and after 1918.  

Annabel and Patrick felt they must – and could – do something themselves.  They decided to donate the nine cottages of The Orchard in Goathland to be a "cottage colony" for disabled officers and the nucleus of a County scheme.

Annabel and Patrick devised a threefold scheme, which they laid before the Lord-Lieutenant Sir Hugh Bell (father of the celebrated Gertrude Bell) in January 1917.  It comprised housing, occupations and education. 

As regards housing, officers and their families were to be able to live comfortably in a suitable house at a nominal rent – 5 shillings per week was suggested – to cover repairs.  

As regards occupations, they wanted the disabled officer to have a choice.  Suggestions included poultry rearing, fruit growing, bee-keeping (for heather honey) and small cultures including medicinal herbs.  The North-Eastern Railway Company had granted a lease at a peppercorn rent of a piece of ground near to The Orchard, upon which foxgloves and other herbs could grow in the semi-wild.  High hopes were entertained of weaving, which it was thought might become a village industry (this was a cherished dream in the Arts and Crafts Movement at the time).  The Dotts had enlisted the help of Professor Aldred Farrar Barker (1868-1964), Professor of Textile Industries at Leeds University, who had offered the guidance and help of his department. 

As regards education, the Dotts hoped that the county would raise a small fund that would supplement other grants available to disabled officers to educate their sons.  They felt it was very important that a boy should be able to go to his father's school and that "a girl should receive such an education as may qualify her to earn her livelihood professionally."  This part of the scheme remained in abeyance.

Their scheme was announced in October 1918.  The Yorkshire Post of 19 October carried a piece under the headline "Provision for Disabled Officers – A Model Scheme at Goathland."

The thoughts behind the scheme can be found in a long piece by Annabel published in the February 1919 edition of the monthly review The Nineteenth Century and After.  In it we can see Annabel the reformer and campaigner, with a deep concern for the working men of Britain and the men disabled in the War.

She began with a rallying cry, a quotation from the King: "We have to create a better Britain."  She paid tribute to the working men of the country who fought in the War, in typically vivid and blunt language:

It is so easy to point to the profiteers, to the shirkers and skulkers in every class.  The scum always rises to the top but a good housewife knows that it is when the pot is boiling furiously that the scum can be skimmed off and thrown away ... 

If we want to fight alike Revolutionists and Reactionaries, we shall do it by forgetting class and our own self-interest, and remembering that we are all English together

She spoke of the need for leadership and that it is to the young returning Officers that the country must look for the same qualities in peacetime that made them successful leaders of their men in the War – but she envisaged a changed society:

The leader who will gain followers is the leader who brings hope ... The privileges of wealth, position, education, influence never carried a heavier responsibility than today ... 

... money-making is important, but the money made must be shared more equally in future ... 

... Such an opportunity to strengthen and build up the country and the Empire has never come before, and may never come again.  The Government realised this when Sir Richard Winfrey, the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, brought in his Small Holdings Colonies Bill, asking for 80,000 acres as a start to provide land for the discharged and disabled soldiers; this 80,000 acres will be only a beginning of what is needed ...

Her suggestion was that it is in the countryside that the disabled Officer can find a way of using the leadership skills he had learned and shown in the War to help build up a better Britain. "Rural reconstruction" would give an opportunity for men who could not bear the stress of town life to recover some strength and vigour and also to benefit the countryside. 

It is here that she describes the ways in which country life could be so much improved – and it is noticeable from the quotations I gave earlier that Annabel does not have a nostalgic view of the possibilities for rural life.  She looks to the use of machinery, electricity and motor transport and her view of farming is prescient:

the future prosperity of agriculture in England lies in the big farms worked on scientific principles ... and in small holdings and intensive culture.  The medium-sized farm worked in a somewhat rule-of-thumb fashion without sufficient capital must be eliminated, it will not be able to hold its own in the coming competition.

And in these comments we can find a foreshadowing of the work of rural development programmes:

Hitherto small cultures and village industries have been largely in the hands either of cranks or of uneducated people; no one has quite realised the possibilities that may lie before them.  Organisation, the use of better materials, good transport, and business ability brought to bear on securing the right markets might open a very different future

She goes into detail on the subject of the possible occupations – and she is blunt on the need for a new mindset.  She suggests that an officer with an orchard on the edge of a town could buy one of the numerous camp huts that would soon be for sale, set up a storehouse, and jam-boiling room, and a shop – "the War has killed snobbery."

She deals with poultry farming ("urged almost ad nauseam" but success is possible with the right business choices); with fruit growing; bee-keeping; fish-breeding; rabbits; a nursery of saplings, ideal for officers who cannot give constant attention; handicrafts; basket-making – she advises growing one's own osiers; and glove-making.

She is passionate on the subject of entertainment in country life.  She speaks of the need for villages to have the equivalent of a village green where the children can play – a field should be bought, or donated "but it must be close to the largest group of cottages or in an easily accessible spot."  Country sport, she felt, was too much for the rich:

Fishing, not poaching, must be made easier for lovers of the rod, and why should not many of the golf links be open to all on payment of a small fee, at any rate in the evening?

The long, dark evenings could be filled with dances, whist drives, lectures and classes, all of which could do with the support of officers and their wives.  

Another pastime too much neglected in the country save in the great houses is acting.  We all love it.

An open air stage can easily be created – pageants for children and adults can be staged.  In Pickering 

a delightful small pageant was given by the townsfolk in the grounds of their ruined and historic castle.

Where there is a village hall, plays could be arranged in the winter, "a time when they are still more needed."  "Morris dancing is sometimes smiled at as the fad of a few enthusiasts" but why should not children 

in the National Schools be taught to dance three days a week instead of the usual daily drill and Swedish exercises?

It was with these thoughts in mind that Annabel and Patrick offered The Orchard as the nucleus of a County scheme.

Their gift was accepted.  Sir Hugh Bell made his own financial contribution to the scheme and the celebrated York architect Walter Brierley was involved in the conversion of the cottages to fit the needs of the disabled officers.

Annabel gives a short description of the cottages – with the footnote referring readers who wished for more details to her illustrated article on the subject in the Architectural Review of April 1918 (I have not obtained a copy of this article so I can give no further information) – and she remarks of the furniture

The furniture is largely old oak collected from the countryside, the gathering of years, and towards this the Lord-Lieutenant provided £1,000, the rest is the gift of the donors of the houses. 

 She describes the garden in some detail:

The garden is immature yet, for trees and clipt hedges grow slowly in these windy spaces, but within a few years the foundations now laid will develop into a beautiful and dignified garden.  There are paved walks, and two flagged courtyards between the blocks of houses; one has a sundial with a motto copied from an old Dales farm house; in the other is a well-head after the Venetian fashion, on one side of which it is proposed to inscribe the names of the naval battles, on another side – France and Flanders – on a third side the far-flung battle line – Africa, Egypt, Gallipoli, Italy, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Salonika – on the fourth side facing the road 'Te Deum Laudamus'; while cut deep with the rim is the dedication 'God gave them a great thing to do, and they did it.'

Save one Officer, who being blind came from St Dunstan's [now called Blind Veterans UK], all the Officers now settled at the Orchard were sent by Mr Don Wauchope, through the Ministry of Pensions.  Any disabled Officer wishing for further information is asked to apply to Mr Don Wauchope, Imperial Association for Disabled Officers, Columbia House, Regent Street, W1 

We who have not fought must not shirk when it comes to giving – and the best we can do is not good enough.  We must remember the trust our dead have left us – to stand by their maimed comrades and "to build a better Britain."

By early February 1919, the Sheffield Daily Telegraph was reporting that six officers were in residence.  By 27 March, the Yorkshire Post said that the settlement is now "practically complete":

All cottages have been allotted, and eight officers with their wives and families are now, or shortly will be, in residence, and a start has already been made towards achieving the three-fold object which the generous promoters of the settlement had before them – the housing and occupation of the officers and the education of their children.  

Some degree of training had been given to the "settlers" through the Ministry of Pensions before they entered into residence, and lectures and demonstrations now being given on the spot in gardening and poultry rearing mark the beginning of instructional courses, ultimately to embrace a useful range of village industries, of which, it is hoped, the residents of the Goathland officers' settlement will be the pioneers, and the source of inspiration and example for the surrounding countryside ... 

The North-Eastern Railway Company have given land by which an extension will be possible of the existing Orchard, and so meet the needs of an officer who desires to specialise in fruit growing.  A further extension is now urgently wanted for another purpose.  One of the officers, blinded in action, wishes to take up sheep-farming on scientific lines.  A small piece of land, about 27 acres, adjoining The Orchard, could be acquired for £600.  The land has been used for sheep.  This is an opportunity for a generous Yorkshire man or woman to assist in an interesting Yorkshire experiment in the care of our disabled officers.  The land would, of course, be held by the trustees.  Mr Don Wauchope, Colombia House, Regent Street, London, W.1, would be glad to furnish particulars.  Mr Wauchope is an old football "blue" and international player, and is nephew of General Wauchope, who fell at Maggersfontein in the South African War. 

The Ministry of Pensions and the Executive of the King's Fund are also much interested in the Goathland scheme ... It is thought that big landlords and small, would be willing to assist in the patriotic movement by giving land on a longish lease, say 14 or 20 years, where the freehold cannot be given, preferably with buildings on it that could be adapted to small houses.  Another suggestion is that owners of great country houses for which they have no pressing use might consecrate them to a humane mission ...

Andrew Ramsay Don Wauchope (1861-1948) was Secretary of the Imperial Association for Assisting Disabled Naval and Military Officers, so it was apparently this organisation that was initially co-ordinating the foundation of the cottage colony.  Subsequently, a trust must have been set up, as when the houses were finally sold it was on the instructions of the Trustees of the Goathland Homes for Officers.  (Not, as Percy Ward thought, the Red Cross.)

This stone tablet commemorates the Dotts' gift.  

By May 1919, Annabel and Patrick had returned to Dringhouses vicarage – but they were not to remain there long.  At the end of September, Patrick was in his new parish of St Luke's, Woodside, a rapidly growing suburb of Croydon.

Very many thanks to 
Elsie Smith, a Trustee of Goathland Village Hall, who supplied me with the Percy Ward article
Dr Elizabeth McKellar for information on Walter Brierley.  The papers relating to Walter Brierley's involvement in the project in 1917/18 can be found in the Borthwick Institute Atkinson-Brierley papers

Next:  8. Annabel & Patrick Dott in Croydon: 1919 to 1923

Mrs Annabel Dott & the Goathland Homes for Officers

I came across the story of Mrs Annabel Dott and the Goathland Homes for Officers quite by accident.

I was flicking through a volume of the old Harmsworth Encyclopaedia, published in the early 1920s, and I found to my surprise that there was an entry for the village of Goathland:

Goathland.  Parish and village of N.R. Yorkshire, England.  It is 8m S.W. of Whitby, on the N.E. Rly.  Here is a cottage colony for disabled officers.  Goathland Moor lies 2m S. of the village, and is noted for its cataracts.  Pop 519

I was intrigued – I had no idea there had been a "cottage colony for disabled officers" at Goathland.  I soon found that the houses were the work of a remarkable woman, Mrs Annabel Dott.

Annabel Dott is best described as a woman builder who, self-taught, designed (with a little help) and built the Goathland cottages herself.  It was her first major design & build project; others followed.  In 1917 she and her husband generously offered to give the Goathland cottages to the county to be homes for disabled officers returning from the First World War.  Their donation was gratefully accepted and the scheme ran from 1919 to 1931.

Born in 1868, she was a woman unafraid to operate in a man's world.  She was part of the campaign for women's suffrage and equal rights and a founder member of Women's Pioneer Housing Ltd, a London housing association formed to fill the urgent need for homes for the women who remained in the workforce after the end of the First World War, or who, in increasing numbers, entered the world of paid work after 1918. 

I also found that I was joining a band of Annabel researchers and admirers.  This is my contribution to the field of study.

I feel obliged to add here that readers from outside the county will probably know Goathland best as Heartbeat territory from the much-loved TV series, in which it appeared as Aidensfield.  (I see that Heartbeat location tours are offered these days.)  And of course Goathland station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway featured in the first Harry Potter film too.

I will post this research in separate chapters, which I think will make it easier to follow, but I will place acknowledgements at the foot of each chapter, with my thanks to everyone concerned.

I have removed the photograph that previously illustrated this blogpost, as I am assured by a member of the family that it showed a Mrs Crebin, not Annabel Dott

The story of Annabel Dott begins with 1. Mrs Annabel Dott (1868-1937): her family

Local newspapers report the news of the Armistice in 1918

The North-Eastern Daily Gazette 12 November 1918

A DAY OF REJOICING 

The rejoicings which began in Middlesbrough yesterday morning over the news of the armistice continued without interruption till nearly midnight and the town has seldom passed through fourteen hours of such joy.  In the afternoon the streets were a seething mass of humanity, and Linthorpe-road has seldom been so congested.  All the works were stopped by mid-day, and as the day wore on the neighbouring communities poured their thousands into the town to swell the huge crowds who had already congregated in the main thoroughfares.  Owing to restrictions of all kinds which could not be entirely removed with a wave of the hand, the illuminated display was not on such a scale of grandeur as might have been possible on an occasion of rejoicing in the halcyon days of peace; but the people did their best with the lights at their disposal, and the brighter streets were a pleasant reminder of a time which seemed almost to go down into the distant past.  The sky was lit up at intervals by the pyrotechnic display, and the jubilant note which prevailed throughout seemed to be well controlled.  In the days to come when Middlesbrough spreads its wings it will probably be better able to accommodate such huge crowds on a day of national rejoicing, but it may never again have an occasion when the circumstances so thoroughly justified such an explosion of pent-up exuberant patriotic feelings. 

STOCKTON'S REJOICING
In the long history of Stockton there have been many enthusiastic gatherings in the High-street opposite the Town Hall, but never one so large and so lively - and yet well behaved - as assembled yesterday afternoon when the Mayor and a number of other public men delivered short speeches of congratulation upon the great event of the day.  The band of the Bowesfield Ironworks played, and the people, with all their hearts, and with all the powers their lungs could give, sang the National Anthem, and then sent up cheer after cheer for the King.  "It is a memorable occasion, an occasion which has never before occurred in the history of the country," said the Mayor (Alderman J Harrison) "and we rejoice in it.  After four years of terrible war we have broken the terrible German menace, and we are confident that we have broken it in such a way that Germany will never again be able to make war.  This is not yet a declaration of peace, but we thank God that the armistice has been signed, and that we can see the end of the war."  

PAST AND FUTURE
There followed loud cheers, and with cheers were also greeted the other speeches in the High-street, Stockton.  Alderman Bainbridge said we had fought a good fight, and won, and he hoped that everyone would feel the responsibility of doing his or her share in the work of reconstruction which lay before the country.  "Whilst," said Alderman Nattress, "we rejoice in victory, and whilst we think of those men who have won the final victory, let us not fail to remember those who have fallen on our behalf."  "It is a victory for the forces of democracy and freedom over autocracy and militarism," said Councillor Bollands.  Councillor W Reed said in the great fight we had proved that might is not right, but that right is right, and that the God of Righteousness had been on our side.  Councillor I Robson and the Vicar of Stockton also addressed the gathering, and the company broke up with the singing of the National Anthem.  Similar proceedings took place from the balcony of the Town Hall, Thornaby. 

A solemn Te Deum will be sung at All Saints' Parish Church, Middlesbrough, tonight at 3pm, in thanksgiving for the end of the war. 

THANKSGIVING SERVICE
During the afternoon yesterday, the No 1 South Bank Boys' Brigade paraded South Bank, calling the people to a United Thanksgiving service at the Wesleyan Church.  There a good and representative company, which was presided over by the Rev M P Evans, President of the Free Church Council, and addressed by the Revs H W Pates, J Rutherford, C Allwright, and Councillor Vaux.  National hymns were sung, and the thanksgiving of the assembly voiced by Councillor T Bosher, Mr T Peacock, and others.  It is intended to continue the rejoicing on Sunday evening next in the Baptist Tabernacle.

The Yorkshire Post carried reports of rejoicing across the region, including

The Yorkshire Post, 12 November 1918

Cheering soldiers were in great evidence at Richmond, and at the Market Cross there was a great crowd, where, on the motion of the Mayor, it was decided to send a message of congratulation to Marshal Foch, Sir Douglas Haig, and the Prime Minister.  At Catterick Camp a general holiday was proclaimed 

At Whitby the band of the Hunts, Cyclist Battalion paraded the town, and the gaily decorated streets were thronged with happy people.  

There were scenes of intense enthusiasm at Darlington, but happily unmarked by any touch of rowdyism.  

Midshipman John Duncan Stubbs (1899-1914)

This was written for the archives of the Live Bait Squadron Society.  

John Duncan Stubbs (always known as Duncan) was born on 24 June 1899 at Coatham on the North Yorkshire coast.  

When he was eight years old, his family moved inland to the rural hamlet of Nunthorpe Station, south of the industrial town of Middlesbrough where his father was in practice as a solicitor.  Coatham remained a familiar place; his grandparents lived there and in May 1909, when he was nearly ten years old, Duncan left the care of the governess who had taught him at home with his younger brother and became one of eleven pupils boarding at Coatham Grammar School.

By that time he had already decided that he wanted to join the Navy.

Duncan’s parents could live very comfortably on his father’s professional income – this was a time when food was cheap and domestic staff plentiful – but their finances needed careful management.  His father, Thomas Duncan Henlock Stubbs (also always known as Duncan), and mother, Margaret Isobel Buchannan (“Madge”), herself the daughter of a solicitor, had three children.  Duncan was their eldest.  His brother Hugh was nineteen months his junior, born a week before the death of old Queen Victoria, and their sister Katharine was born in 1905.  Duncan and Madge were anxious to do their best for the children.  They must have found little Duncan’s ambition a source of pride and some relief; fees for the Royal Naval Colleges were subsidised by the government and were not as high as those charged by the public schools.  This would be an ideal way of educating the boy and providing him with a career.  His younger brother’s future would have to depend on getting scholarships.

Madge & Duncan Stubbs
with Duncan, Katharine & Hugh

After two years at Coatham Grammar School, Duncan was sent in January 1911 to Pembroke Lodge, a preparatory school at Southbourne on the south coast.  His parents probably thought this would better prepare him for the Selection Committee and the entrance examination for the Royal Navy College Osborne.  He passed these hurdles in February 1912; after his death the private secretary to the First Sea Lord wrote that Duncan 

“was quite one of the best boys that ever came before the Selection Committee for Osborne & his progress at the two Colleges had only confirmed the good opinion we had formed of him.”  

Duncan Stubbs c1914

Duncan was a confident, lively boy, much liked, good at his schoolwork and excellent at sports.  At home, he led his brother and sister in fun and mischief in their rather hazardous games in the ponds and woods beside their home.  He loved the family dogs and country sports, and he and his brother and their friends were to develop a passion for motorbikes, after having been allowed to borrow the one owned by Gerald Cochrane, a close family friend.

He entered RNC Osborne in May 1912.  At the end of his first year he was one of the four boys, out of seventy, to be promoted cadet captain.  At the end of his second year he came out head of the list, being presented with the prize for the highest aggregate of marks, including seamanship and engineering.

Centre: Duncan Stubbs
Right: Geoffrey Gore-Brown

That winter his parents found the money to send him on a holiday to Switzerland; he had evidently been invited to join friends in winter sports at Klosters.  He enjoyed it enormously, sending a postcard to Gerald Cochrane asking him to persuade his father to let him have a go on the bob run:

“It is absolutely safe on the run we use but the people I am staying with will not take the responsibility.  [Added at the top of the postcard] You might put it v. gently”

He entered RNC Dartmouth in May 1914, a few weeks before his fifteenth birthday.  His grandmother sent him a postal order (“I will give your mother another five shillings to keep till you may require it later on”) and his father wrote, 

“I hope you will have a happy day and many happy and useful years.  You are beginning to get to an age not far removed from early manhood and you will meet new troubles and difficulties but if you face these squarely and are determined to stick to the right you will pull through alright.”

Duncan expected to go home on leave in early August and was longing to try out the motorbike that his father had recently bought.  The family expected him back on the 6th, but on 4 August they received a postcard from the college saying that Duncan had been sent to his war station at Chatham.  That evening, his father, an officer in the Territorial Army, received his own order to mobilise.  He and his Battery (the Northumbrian North Riding Heavy Battery) were posted to Tyneside, where he would be joined by Madge and the younger children within a few days, and he was promoted Major. 

Within a day or two, the family heard from Duncan.  The order to mobilise had arrived during a game of cricket, but everything was packed and down to the station in a very short time and, he being placed in charge of nine other boys, they had travelled through the night to Chatham where he joined HMS Aboukir as senior acting midshipman.  Duncan wrote to Gerald Cochrane,

“I say you might sort of reassure my mother and tell ’em that it is nothing serious as I think Mother will start to fret.  I would be very grateful if you would.  I am in the ‘Aboukir’ cruiser and we will not probably see service unless there is a real set to.  I am sorry that I won’t be back yet to ride the bike.  Do you realise that 1915 Douglases have 3 speed gears?  Well I hope I will meet you again and until then, adieu … [written in a corner of the postcard]  I have an idea we will meet sometime and have a gorgeous time on our Bikes”

Duncan evidently wrote home when he could, but the letters have not survived.  He wrote in a postcard to Gerald Cochrane dated 25 August,  

“We are having a very fine time.  After the days work we go & do gym on the quarter-deck to keep us in training.  I am writing a PC [postcard] which gets through the GPO & censure [censor] quickest.  I am keeping a diary.  I wonder how the works are standing the strain.   Will they hold out?  [Cochrane was an ironmaster] I wonder what the Daily Mail’s accounts of the War looks like?  All headlines I suppose.  We get our news by wireless & then get the stale papers which are about our only form of literature.”

On 21 September, the day before the disaster, his parents received an account of him from the mother of another midshipman.  This was Mrs Wilson, mother of Alisdair, and she wrote because HMS Aboukir had been at Chatham recoaling and repairing for four days in mid-September, and she had gone to visit her son.  She had invited Duncan to join them; later she was to tell Madge that in his letter of thanks to her for her kindness, Duncan had written, “Next time I shall hope to have my Mother but she is so far away in Newcastle.”  Mrs Wilson reported that, all the boys being promoted midshipmen, there had been much competition amongst them to be the first in having the midshipman’s patches put on their uniforms.  Duncan, she told his parents, was as full of life and spirits as a boy could be.  Indeed, it’s clear that Duncan enjoyed every moment of his time on board ship.  It was, for him, the most enormous adventure and he excelled at his work.  

The gunnery lieutenant, John Bernard Hughes, wrote to Duncan and Madge on 24 September from his father’s rectory at Tarporley in Cheshire, when Duncan was still posted missing and hope remained that he might yet be found among the survivors,

“He was a very great friend of mine.  So absolutely straight and upright, so thoroughly keen at any work or game, always cheerful no matter at what hour of the night or day or how rough the sea was.  He was my special assistant, and always worked with me.  As you probably know, he was the senior midshipman, and as I was the officer in charge of them I had much to do there, and could not have done without him.  He will be a great loss to the service, and was bound to have done well.  I only hope that he may still be alive to do so now”

On 2 October, with Duncan’s death confirmed and after appearing before the inquiry at Chatham, Lt Hughes set off for Newcastle to talk to the parents.  Major Stubbs recorded in his diary:

“He spoke so nicely of Duncan and found some difficulty in speaking sometimes.  He said Duncan was extraordinarily quick and capable, able to pick up things in a day or less that an ordinary person would take a week over, he was known and liked by all the men and was quite capable of managing his battery of 12 p[ounde]r guns entirely by himself.  Hughes could leave him alone in charge of the battery and at the foretop, Duncan’s station, knowing the work would be done properly.  He said it was impossible for Duncan to tell a lie and that he was a long way the most capable of the midshipmen.  Duncan had never mentioned to Hughes that he had passed out top from Osborne and Hughes did not know it until I told him, but D had often talked about us and Nunthorpe to him.  Duncan and the gunner Mr Shrubsall were great friends and took the watch together, Hughes wanted to change Duncan’s watch for some reason but Mr Shrubsall would not hear of it, he liked to hear Duncan talk at night and would not have any other midshipman with him.  Hughes said that when he was in his hammock he could hear the two talking on watch and Duncan’s laugh could be heard all over the ship.  Duncan had been perfectly happy at sea the whole time, was never sick and always cheerful, the night before the disaster Hughes had spent a long time with Duncan and said he was in splendid spirits”

Duncan & Gunner Shrubsall

It was from Lt Hughes that Duncan and Madge at last learned something of the movements of HMS Aboukir and Duncan’s part in them:

“Ever since the War began these cruisers had been engaged in patrolling the North Sea off the German coast preventing mine laying the only time when they were withdrawn for a few days the Germans came out and laid mines.  Also they had taken marines to Ostend when fighting was expected there, Duncan begging Hughes to let him go with the landing party”  

Lt Hughes wrote a few days later from the Royal Naval Barracks at Devonport to Gerald Cochrane,

“He was always so cheerful.  Everyone who had anything to do with him liked him.  I know the men did.  He had charge of one of the 12 pdr: batteries & took charge of it splendidly.  He drilled the guns’ crews before he had been more than a few days on board, – they were nearly all reservists – men of 30 to 40.  He had the knack of taking charge.  As he told me one day, “the men didn’t seem to take much notice of what he told them, but he didn’t want to ‘run them in’ as they always did it.”   

We had some very rough weather a few days before the disaster, but he was not the least seasick, though I admit I was pretty bad.  He was the senior midshipman and as such took charge of the remainder splendidly.  I was in charge of them all, but left it nearly all to him.  I have never met anyone so quick at picking up anything.  He seldom wanted telling twice.  He made great friends with the Gunner – an excellent man – and they used to keep watch together at night on the guns manned for defence against torpedo attack.  I used to sleep in a hammock close alongside and I shall never forget his hearty laugh (which was usually the last thing I heard before I went to sleep & the first thing I heard when I woke) at the Gunner’s rather tall yarns.”

Later he told Cochrane:

“As senior midshipman, and as there was no sublieutenant in the gunroom, I frequently had to call on him in matters concerning the discipline of the gunroom, which he said, made him feel rather like a policeman.  I asked him what the others thought about it and he said “That doesn’t matter; I can punch all their heads except Gore Browne, and he and I get on all right.”  He started a “temperance league” as he called it, which meant refraining from throwing food, etc, about the gunroom, and really the Gunroom was remarkably well behaved as gunrooms go”

With Lt Hughes’ help and through the letters and telegrams that flew between the midshipmen’s mothers, Duncan and Madge began to piece together some idea of the sequence of events.  It had been a scene of terrible confusion and it took some time for details to emerge.  

The Aboukir was hit by a torpedo fired by a German submarine at 6.20 am on the morning of Tuesday 22 September.  Duncan, the senior midshipman, went below to wake Midshipman Herbert Riley, who had slept through the explosion.  Riley (who did not survive the disaster) told Lt Hughes this himself, when they were in a boat together.  “It required some pluck to do that, with the ship heeling over and liable to go at any moment,” commented Hughes.  

The Aboukir’s midshipmen then went into the water and swam for the Hogue; she herself was hit and went under at 7.05 am.  Before they reached her, Duncan and Midshipman Kit Wykeham-Musgrave had together tried to save a drowning marine.  

Duncan’s parents learned of this from Kit’s mother.  She described their attempt to keep the man afloat and their success in reaching the Cressy shortly before she too was hit at 7.30 am.  Mrs Wykeham-Musgrave’s letter does not survive, but is paraphrased by Major Stubbs in a letter written on 17 October to Gerald Cochrane:

Duncan & her boy after leaving the Aboukir swam towards the Hogue but before they reached her they saw a drowning marine they got hold of him & held him up for a long time, telling him how to help himself by floating, the marine could not swim, but they could not keep him afloat any longer & he was drowned.  They then swam towards the Hogue but she sank before they reached her so they got to the Cressy where they had cocoa & were sitting together on the quarter deck when the Cressy was struck the second time.  They both went into the sea again & after that Musgrave never saw Duncan again.

Later, Kit seems to have given a fuller account of events, in which he described Duncan’s death; it must have been hard for the boy to speak of the deaths of his friends.  

Duncan was last seen clinging to an oar with his close friend Geoffrey Gore-Browne.  They took the oar to the aid of a drowning man, but his desperate grip took all three of them under the water and they were lost.  

The disaster happened so early in the War that, although it came as a terrible, dismaying shock, early enthusiasm and patriotic idealism remained untouched.  This can be seen in Lt Hughes’ second letter to Gerald Cochrane, who was by then trying to join the Army (“I hope you will have no difficulty in getting to the front”, Hughes wrote).  Of Duncan, Hughes said,

“What a glorious death & what a hero the boy was.  Dying hardly seems to matter if one can die like that.  It makes me feel quite ashamed of myself, to think of him risking his life 3 times in as many hours to save others.”

In Newcastle, Tuesday 22 September had passed very pleasantly:

“we were all so jolly and happy, little did we think that our dear Duncan had that morning given his

T D H Stubbs

life for his country”

wrote Major Stubbs in his diary.  At about 5 o’clock he went to the house where his wife and daughter were staying, intending to take them out for a walk.  As he entered the gate he saw Mr Bell, the owner of the house, with a newspaper in his hand:

“he was very white and looked much distressed when he saw me.  I guessed in a moment, he asked me to go into the house and then asked the name of the ship our boy was on.  I told him.  He shewed me the paper in which the stop press news stated in a couple of lines that the Aboukir had been struck by a torpedo.  Nothing further.  I wired the Admiralty for news and he very kindly took the telegram.”  

Major Stubbs then went out in the hope of discovering more information before telling his wife.  He found another newspaper which carried an official report that the three vessels had been struck and that lists of the saved – “a considerable number” – would be published as soon as possible.  

As he waited in the camp for more details to come through, Mr Bell came to tell him that Madge had received a telegram from her sister asking whether they had news of the Aboukir; he went to her immediately.  Meanwhile, in the chaos, their nine-year-old daughter had picked up the newspaper and learned of the fate of her brother’s ship for herself.  

“That night”, wrote Major Stubbs

“I wired Mrs Wilson the mother of one of the other boys asking if she had news and stayed that night at St Georges Terrace.  Neither of us slept and the suspense was too terrible, Mrs Wilson wired about 1.30 am to say she had no news yet.”

The next day they heard by telegram from the Admiralty that Duncan was not among the saved.  

Major Stubbs’ diary entry for the following day begins,

“Another terrible day.  I don’t know how we got through it.  Many letters from friends but awful.”

Their younger son Hugh had by then started at his public school, Sherborne.  The news of his brother’s death was broken to him by his housemaster.  It took the man two attempts; on his first, he was unable to bring himself to do it.

Letters of sympathy were pouring in; the family received more than a hundred within the first five days.  A memorial service was arranged for Friday 2 October at St Cuthbert’s, Ormesby, where the family worshipped.  “The church was full of people,” wrote Major Stubbs,  

“Everyone loved our little Duncan and they are very touched at his death.  Neither the choir nor bellringers would accept payment so I thanked them all, Metcalfe the leader of the ringers said, ‘That is the very least we could do Sir’”  

Major Stubbs soon learned that bodies were washing up on the Dutch coast and he approached the Dutch authorities.  On the 6 October, General Snijders, Commander in Chief of the Dutch armed forces, wrote to his officers saying that he had been asked to cooperate in the search for the body of Cadet Duncan Stubbs so that it might be returned to his family.  He described Duncan as a slight boy of fifteen, blond, with delicate features and blue eyes.  

We know from Major Stubbs’ diary of one result of this appeal.  On Wednesday 14 October he was sent details by the British Vice Consul at Ymuiden of the body of a boy of about seventeen, together with a photograph.  He could not identify the face but thought the hands were similar to Duncan’s.  He telegraphed the Vice Consul asking him to look for identification marks “especially the teeth and to take a cast if possible”, but the boy was not Duncan.  

A recent discovery among papers relating to the town council of Heemskerk reveals that they thought that a beachcomber in their employ had found Duncan’s body on 12 November, but it is not known whether an identification was made.  As far as the family was concerned, Duncan’s body was never found.

In mid-October Major Stubbs heard that Duncan’s sea chest was still at Chatham and would be sent home.  He wrote to Gerald Cochrane, who was a near neighbour, and who was of great assistance to the family at this time,

“I wonder if you could possibly take it in, it is a big thing but there may be things in it which should be kept, it is probably locked & the key will be lost with the ship but I believe they are all numbered & probably a duplicate key can be obtained.  The chest could of course be taken to our house & put in his bedroom, when I could see it next time I am over probably this would be the best & it is very big & heavy – I want to keep it though, he was so proud of it.” 

The chest has not survived the years, but its contents included Duncan's lettercase, in which were found the letters that he had received on his birthday.

Duncan Stubbs

Duncan was commemorated by his friends and family on a brass plaque in Ormesby church and, together with his cousin 2nd Lieut. Jock Richardson who died a few months later, on a plaque in Guisborough parish church.  His name is inscribed on the Nunthorpe War Memorial and on the memorial erected by Coatham Grammar School.

In the years that followed, the family’s grief was embodied in a sadly lasting form in the lifelong depression that afflicted Duncan’s mother.  In the 1920s she was admitted on at least two occasions for treatment in an institution, and her bitter distress was manifested until her death in 1958 in difficult and often unkind behaviour towards her family and those nearest to her.  

Aftermath

When Henk van der Linden appealed in the Navy News for contact from the families of men of HMS Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy, I replied on behalf of my family to tell him of Duncan’s life and of the diary entries made by Major Stubbs during those terrible weeks.  By a curious coincidence, Henk at this point had received only two other replies, and one was from the family of Gunner William Shrubsall, whose name appeared in Major Stubbs’ diary.  This was all the more striking because on the publication of the Dutch edition of his book Henk had recieved a letter enclosing the request from General Snijders to his officers regarding the body of Cadet Duncan Stubbs.

We were very moved to learn from Henk that the site of the wrecks had become a vital ecological resource, a nature reserve for marine life.  We were honoured and delighted to be present at the launch of the English edition of his book on 22 September 2012 and at the centennial commemoration of the disaster in Chatham and The Hague.  We were frankly amazed to find ourselves part of the film made by Klaudie Bartelink and her team.

We had never forgotten the blight caused by the loss of a boy so loved and full of promise, but at the book launch in 2012 we met families on whom the disaster had brought the extra burden of dire financial need, with emotional and economic consequences to a man’s widow and children that cascaded down the generations.  The implications of the lasting social dislocation caused by war was brought home to us fully for the first time; I know that realisation was shared by others there, historians and families.  The ability to share stories with the other families in 2012, the pleasure of meeting the family of Gunner Shrubsall, and the moving experience of meeting the family of Otto Weddigen in 2014 have left a lasting imprint on our minds.

At the book launch at Chatham in 2012, Duncan Barrigan, great-grandson of Duncan Stubbs’ brother Hugh, was fired with enthusiasm by the presentations by divers Klaudie Bartelink and Robert Witham.  On 4 August 2013, with Klaudie and her team of diver-filmmakers, he dived the wreck of the ships that his great-great-uncle had known, in the North Sea waters where little Duncan Stubbs had died nearly a hundred years before. 

Related blog posts

There are quite a few posts on this blog that relate to young Duncan Stubbs, so I have rounded up a few of them here:

The loss of HMS Aboukir, Hogue & Cressy
Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 23 September 1914
Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 27 September 1914
Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 1 October 1914
Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 2 October 1914
Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 5 October 1914
Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 14 October 1914
Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 16 October 1914
The wrecks of HMS Aboukir, Hogue & Cressy
Nunthorpe-in-Cleveland War Memorial - this includes the Order of Service for the unveiling of the memorial in 1921

War Horse - Major Stubbs' horse Jess

Klaudie Bartelink's documentary

A Boroughbridge Boyhood in the 1850s - this begins a series of posts on John Duncan Stubbs' grandfather, John Richard Stubbs
Days of plenty in Redcar - a middle class household before the First World War - these are recollections of meals at her grandparents' house, recorded by Katharine Isobel Ellis Stubbs, but it begins with her vivid memory of the beginning of the War
Nunthorpe in the early 20th century
War begins - Nunthorpe, 1914
The Live Bait Squadron 1914: survivors from Whitby
The War Memorial to the 50th (Northumbrian) Division

The wrecks of HMS Aboukir, Cressy & Hogue

The vessels HMS Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue have been designated under the Protection of Military Remains Act – which means that, at long last, the site is a War Grave.

The story of their loss on 22 September 1914 is told here on this blog.  Families of the 1,459 men and boys who died that day owe a great debt to the hard work and commitment of Dutch author Henk van der Linden, without whose dedication it is hard to see how this could ever have been achieved.

This documentary film takes us down to the wrecks, where the grim remains have turned into a small world of colour and life under the North Sea.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
                                             Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell. 

The Live Bait Squadron - film by Klaudie Bartelink

I didn't put this on earlier, I was hiding from it because a younger version of me features in it ...

It's Klaudie Bartelink's beautiful and moving documentary film on the Live Bait Squadron, the British cruisers that were sunk by one German U-Boat on 22 September 1914 with the loss of 1,459 men and boys.  It was premiered at Chatham for the centenary of the disaster.

But now, having effectively retired from research and nearly recovered from the process of downsizing to a smaller house, here it is:

http://onderwaterbeelden.nl/the-live-bait-squadron/

The beauty of the wrecks is breathtaking.

Unfortunately, they are under constant threaten from salvage operations.

UPDATE: The wrecks have now been designated as War Graves.  The families of the dead and the divers & historians who have been working to achieve this for several years are naturally delighted.

'The Live Bait Squadron Remembrance Book'

Henk van der Linden is the founder of the the Live Bait Squadron Society and the author of The Live Bait Squadron: three mass graves off the Dutch coast.

Henk is now proposing to produce a commemorative volume called The Live Bait Squadron Remembrance Book.

It would be a large, high quality hardback book in colour.  It would include a DVD of the moving documentary film The Live Bait Squadron made by Dutch diver & filmmaker Klaudie Bartelink (the film's in English!) and a DVD of the centenary commemoration at Chatham Historic Dockyard last year, which Klaudie also filmed.  The book would include accounts of the disaster, its historical context, stories of the men (sent to Henk by their families and descendants), and details of the memorials erected to their memory ...

In order to get this book published, Henk needs to guarantee to his publisher that it will achieve a certain number of sales.  So he needs a list of subscribers who will engage to buy the book when it becomes available.  The price will be £40.

So if you are interested, contact Henk!

His email address is h.van.der.linden@tip.nl


(The only thing that might put you off is that I feature rather more in Klaudie's film than I ever expected when filming took place!  I try not to think about it too much ...)

Alfred Edwin Sadler of Sadler & Co, Middlesbrough and Ulverston

Here, with very many thanks to Ian Stubbs, who contacted me to offer the use of the photographs on his flickr stream, are pictures of the Sadler family memorial in the churchyard at St Cuthbert's, Ormesby.

This side of the obelisk commemorates Alfred:

Also

Alfred Edwin Sadler J.P.

of Sandhall, Ulverston

brother of 

Sir S.A. Sadler J.P. D.L.

born 28th August 1857

died 24th April 1922

Ian's flickr stream is a must!  Especially if you are researching family from the North East and you can't easily get here, look and see if he has a picture for you.
 
For example: if you missed the WWI exhibition at the Dorman Museum, don't panic - you can read the beautifully-done information panels here from Ian's photos.

Days of plenty in Redcar: a middle class household before the First World War

In old age, Mrs Katharine Isobel Ellis Hill (1905-2005) looked back to the golden times before the First World War broke out ... when she lived with her parents and her brothers in the little hamlet then called Nunthorpe Station, and they went to visit her father's parents in Coatham ...

Her memory of the end of those happy times was very vivid and painful:

King's Head, Newton-under-Roseberry

On Aug 4th 1914 my godmother had a picnic for the young people staying with her & about 12 of us walked 3 miles across the fields, climbed Roseberry, had tea at the King's Head & walked 3 miles back.  

As I ran across the last field & the others went away I crossed the road & saw my father in his Territorial Uniform (khaki) vanish round a bend on his motor bike – I called after him but he did not hear – 

I rushed into the house & asked why? & someone said, 

"There's a war with Germany, so be a good girl."   

I never see that corner of the road without seeing my father on his way to Ypres & the Somme.  7 weeks later Duncan was dead; our house was closed for the duration & I was parted from all my little friends, pets, the garden (& all sense of security forever) & the servants who were old friends.

Katharine's brother, Duncan Stubbs

(Her father's account of the day is here and an account of the death of her brother Duncan is here.)

But to return to life before the War ... 

Katharine looked back across the decades to meals at her grandparents' house, 7 Trafalgar Terrace, Coatham.

7 Trafalgar Terrace, Coatham, in 1904

Her grandfather John Richard Stubbs, had grown up with the open hospitality of his mother and her neighbours in Boroughbridge.

Her grandmother Ellis Macfarlane grew up on the west coast of Scotland, in Helensburgh.  Her father Duncan Macfarlane was a Canada merchant; her mother Mary (also a Macfarlane) was the "lovely little girl" mentioned in Three Nights in Perthshire; with the description of the Festival of a 'Scotch Hairst Kirn' (1821).

This little book, several times reprinted, recounts the author's visit to Mary's childhood home – Ledard, "a large, beautiful farm-house" near the head of Loch Ard.

Mary's father, Donald Macfarlane, had himself taken the great Sir Walter Scott to inspect the nearby waterfall, which Scott described to great dramatic effect in Waverley and Rob Roy.

(Sir Walter hasn't been in fashion in England for many years – this post on Louis Stott's literary blog will put you in the picture).

The book describes the harvest festivities, with plentiful accounts of the food and drink:

sweet and ewe milk cheese, some of the delicious trout for which the neighbouring lochs are famous, basons of curds, with bowls of sour and sweet cream, and piles of crispy oatcakes, together with rolls and butter. 

So we can imagine that, with that sort of family background, food played a significant part in John and Ellis Stubbs' daily life.

John Macfarlan Charlton, 21st Northumberland Fusiliers

I've recently been sent these details on the death of Captain John Macfarlane Charlton.  They come from Dennis Tyerman, whose father, a private in the same battalion, was wounded in front of La Boiselle on the same day.

Dennis wrote:

After volunteering in 1914 Captain Charlton trained with his battalion, the 21st Bn, Northumberland Fusiliers (Tyneside Scottish Brigade) throughout 1915. In 1916 the Brigade embarked for France and experienced life in the trenches on the Western Front in the early months of 1916.   

On 1 July 1916 the Northumberland Fusiliers were in the front line with orders to attack the German strong point of La Boiselle.  

At exactly 7.30 am Captain Charlton and the other Company commanders led their men into No Man's Land towards the German lines. 

As the British troops reached the point of no return, machine gun crews of the Bavarian Infantry Regiment subjected them to withering fire. Despite heavy casualties some troops reached the German second line but attempts to gain a foothold in La Boiselle failed.  

Captain Charlton and Captain Herries with six men were isolated in a crater and unable to advance because of heavy fire. They eventually obtained a machine gun and advanced. Herries reported how Charlton was killed. 

"For a while we did great execution but the gun jammed at a critical moment. Charlton was shot down while attempting to charge a German strong point and the initiative passed to the enemy."  

The 20th and 23rd Battalions, Northumberland Fusiliers had practically ceased to exist and only the remnants of the 21st and 22nd Battalions, some 200 men and seven officers, remained holding the line. After suffering great hardships, at midnight on 3rd July, thes men made their way back to the British lines.  

The total number of casualties sustained by the four battalions of Northumberland Fusiliers was 2,438 killed, missing or wounded. The 21st Battalion alone recorded 11 officers killed, 10 wounded, other ranks killed 161, wounded 478. The survivors from the whole Brigade barely comprised one battalion and the Brigade was pulled from the line.  

By condensing the first day of the Battle of the Somme to those few lines I have done a great disservice to those men who participated. It must have been a horrendous experience. 

Joseph Beresford Shields: Stockton lad in Essex

I'm just making a correction today to the post about Joseph Beresford Shields 1879-1917, because I've heard from Carole Mulroney in Leigh-on-Sea that the address of the house in which Joe lived was Southsea Avenue, not Southend Avenue.

Carole will be telling the story of Joe's letters in the local history magazine - if nobody from Leigh-on-Sea comes forward to claim the letters, I'll see if Preston Park Museum would like them.  If anyone has a better idea, please let me know!

Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 16 October 1914

Friday 16 Oct

… I wired to the Navy League to order me a wreath from Harrods to be placed on the Nelson Column on Trafalgar Day and I sent a card to attach to it as follows: “In loving memory of Midshipman John Duncan Stubbs of HMS Aboukir who died doing his duty in the service of his country, from his Father & Mother” …

… Another cruiser torpedoed in the North Sea, HMS Hawke, & 500 lives lost.  In the Navy list are given the names of several cadets on board.  I only hope the poor boys were taken off as a result of the Aboukir disaster but I am afraid it will not be so as there are not enough midshipmen to man all the ships in commission without the cadets.  The new Dartmouth Coll Captain writes “expressing the sympathy of the College & Navy in his sad but honourable end” & saying that his sea chest is at Chatham, not lost on the ship as I expected.

Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 14 October 1914

Wednesday 14 Oct 

… I received a telegram from Averil [his sister-in-law] that a boy’s body had been found at Karright [?] and she was sending the papers by express post.  I received the papers about 4.10 being a letter from the British Vice Consul at Ymuiden with particulars of the body and a photo.  The particulars were of a fair haired, blue eyed, thin boy aged about 17.  The face I could not identify.  The body was dressed in trousers and a pyjama jacket the hands looked like Duncan’s.  I telegraphed the Vice Consul asking him to look for identification marks especially the teeth and to take a cast if possible.  I also wrote him fully …

George Hutton Bowes-Wilson of Hutton Rudby

Martin Eggermont kindly sent me this information on George Hutton Bowes-Wilson.  He was the elder son of Thomas Bowes Wilson (1845-1929) who, with his brother Allan, ran the Cleveland Sailcloth Mill in Hutton Rudby.  

An account of how the family came to Hutton Rudby can be found in James Wilson of Hutton Rudby (c1775-1865).

George was born on 26 October 1873*. 

He was educated at Clifton and New College, Oxford, and qualified as a Solicitor in April 1902.  His offices were at 28 Albert Road, Middlesbrough. 

In 1906 he was elected a Councillor for the Exchange Ward and having been re-elected a number of times, was still in post at the time of his death.  During the intervening years he had served on many committees such as Sanitary, Sanatorium Finance, Streets, General Purposes, Fire Brigade and Cemeteries. 

On 29 September 1908 he married Nora Dulcie Linney at St Peter’s Church, Harrogate. She was aged twenty-three, the only child of the late Herbert Linney. 

George was a Freemason and is recorded in the Ferrum Lodge documents as living at 6 Lothian Road, Middlesbrough when he was proposed for membership; his proposer was W Bro Henry Winterschladen, seconded by W Bro S.F. Thompson, and his initiation in Ferrum Lodge was on 8 March 1911. 

George was later employed in the Treasurer’s Department of the Town Hall, was a representative for Middlesbrough on the North Riding Territorial Association and a Cleveland Unionist Agent. 

Among his many hobbies and interests were golf and cricket and it is known that he played the latter game for Hutton Rudby, being their triumphant captain in the 1905 and 1906 Cleveland and Teesside Cup competitions. 

In July 1914 a new bowling green in Albert Park was opened by Mrs H.W.F. Bolckow; George was the Chairman of the Parks Committee.  At this time he lived at 80 Lothian Road. 

He was also a member of the New Oxford, Cambridge and Cleveland Clubs. 

George was a member of the Territorial Forces.  He was promoted Captain on 1 March 1913 and fought with the 1st/4th Battalion, Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own, Yorkshire Regiment (TF), more familiarly known as The Green Howards.    

A letter written by George to Preston Kitchen, Middlesbrough’s Town Clerk and a fellow Freemason (1917 WM Erimus Lodge) was printed in the Daily Gazette on 10 May 1915.

“You will now know our battalion has been in the forefront of the Ypres battle and how badly we suffered – one hundred odd men and five officers killed.
The battalion has been specially complimented by the General on the splendid way it fought in its first engagement. [This is a possible reference to the Yorkshire Regiment because of their bravery and fighting stance, later being dubbed the Yorkshire Ghurkhas.]
Middlesbrough can be proud of her sons. Not a man in my company hesitated.  Tell the people at home this war is by no means over. England will require every man she has before German Militarism can be crushed – and crushed it must be – otherwise all the lives we have lost will be in vain.
So far thank God, I am well. We are now in the thick of it and our losses are growing. Trench life is unpleasant but what a pleasure it is to receive letters from friends. I have not washed or had my boots off for ten days now so you can imagine what I feel like.
You ask me if you can do anything to help.  Yes, send me an occasional Gazette, some chocolate and a nice plum cake if you find time.”

George was killed by a sniper on 17 June 1915.

George Hutton Bowes-Wilson by George Kewley: Middlesbrough Town Hall

*I had the year of George's birth as 1878, but a family tree on Ancestry shows that he was born in the spring of 1877 in Newcastle.

Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 6 October 1914

Tuesday 6 Oct 
… I had a letter from Mr Herbert Samuel expressing his sympathy & saying that the private secretary to the First [Sea] Lord had written that Duncan “was quite one of the best boys that ever came before the Selection Committee for Osborne & his progress at the two Colleges had only confirmed the good opinion we had formed of him.”  That is about the highest praise that could have been given & I know it was thoroughly deserved.  After tea Madge & K & I went for a walk …

Herbert Samuel was Member of Parliament for the Cleveland division of Yorkshire.

Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 5 October 1914

Monday 5 Octr
… After tea Madge K & I had a walk & I went down to 84 St Georges Terr after dinner as usual.  The great question for us at the moment is billets.  Madge & K are likely to go to Alnmouth for a fortnight, Madge is generally looking happier now, though the awful sense of what we have lost comes to her very forceably sometimes as it does to me …

Major Duncan Stubbs' diary entry for 2 October 1914

Friday 2nd October

A lovely day.  Madge went to Tynemouth to spend the day by herself she can’t bear to meet people.  Poor thing.  I saw her off at the Station, returned and went out with the battery until 12 then came back had lunch and caught the 2.17 train to Middlesbrough. 

Gerald [Cochrane] had wired offering the car and he met me at Middlesbrough and we drove to the Box where we had tea and drove down to the Church at 5 pm.  My father, Mother, Kathy, Averil and Peggy were there and I joined them sitting in the Pennyman pew.  The porch was draped with the white ensign, also the pulpit and desk and a laurel wreath suspended.  The church was full of people.  Mr Kemm and Mr Lace took the service, there was a portion of the burial service, 3 hymns and the National Anthem at the end.  A very nice service indeed.  I spoke to many people afterwards but there were very many whom I did not see. 

Mr Nelson very kindly drove my people over and Mr Storr brought Jock from Darlington.  A party came from Guisbro in a brake and several of our old servants were there.  Everyone loved our little Duncan and they are very touched at his death.  Neither the choir nor bellringers would accept payment so I thanked them all, Metcalfe the leader of the ringers said, “That is the very least we could do Sir”. 

Hughes wired that he would catch the train arriving Newcastle at 8 pm, so Gerald sent the car back to Guisbro during the service for Katharine and took her to the Box, after the service G and I went to the Box and met Katharine.  We looked at the puppies and saw several of the Nunthorpe people then had dinner and K and I caught the 7.2 for Newcastle where we arrived at 8.40. 

I had asked Hedley to look after Hughes and my man [illeg.] met the train with a note from Hedley saying that he had taken Hughes to Tilley’s and would stay there until I arrived. 

K and I went to Tilley’s where we found Hughes having dinner with Hedley and Teddy Harris.  Hughes looked pale and rather nervous as though shaken by the terrible experience, they soon finished their dinner and he and K and I took a taxi to 84 St Georges Terrace, K went to bed and Madge and I talked to Hughes until nearly midnight.  He spoke so nicely of Duncan and found some difficulty in speaking sometimes.  He said Duncan was extraordinarily quick and capable, able to pick up things in a day or less that an ordinary person would take a week over, he was known and liked by all the men and was quite capable of managing his battery of 12 pr guns entirely by himself.  Hughes could leave him alone in charge of the battery and at the foretop, Duncan’s station, knowing the work would be done properly.  He said it was impossible for Duncan to tell a lie and that he was a long way the most capable of the midshipmen.  Duncan had never mentioned to Hughes that he had passed out top from Osborne and Hughes did not know it until I told him, but D had often talked about us and Nunthorpe to him.  Duncan and the gunner Mr Shrubsole [Shrubsall] were great friends and took the watch together, Hughes wanted to change Duncan’s watch for some reason but Mr Shrubsole would not hear of it, he liked to hear Duncan talk at night and would not have any other midshipman with him.  Hughes said that when he was in his hammock he could hear the two talking on watch and Duncan’s laugh could be heard all over the ship.  Duncan had been perfectly happy at sea the whole time, was never sick and always cheerful, the night before the disaster Hughes had spent a long time with Duncan and said he was in splendid spirits.  The Captain (Drummond) sent a message to us to say that he was very pleased with Duncan on the ship, which said Hughes was great praise from the Captain who hardly ever gave praise to anyone. 

The whole disaster seems to have been a series of frightfully unlucky events.  The day before the sea was so rough that the destroyers could not keep with the cruisers, consequently in the morning the ships were going dead slow waiting for the destroyers, then a submarine happened by chance or by information from spies to be in the exact spot at the right moment.  Hughes himself thinks there was only one submarine but says other officers think there were more.  Lt Noyes wrote to say that one of his marines told him that Duncan and another midshipman tried to save a drowning marine and that they had both been pulled down and although the other boy was saved Duncan never came up again.  This is being investigated Hughes thinks it quite likely, also that it was Duncan who was the boy described by a seaman as being the coolest he had ever seen, talking about the new chief and other subjects to a man near him  -

Ever since the War began these cruisers had been engaged in patrolling the North Sea off the German coast preventing mine laying the only time when they were withdrawn for a few days the Germans came out and laid mines.  Also they had taken marines to Ostend when fighting was expected there, Duncan begging Hughes to let him go with the landing party, and they were with the fleet in the Heligoland action close in but the fight did not come their way and they could not see much for the mist, but they were all ready and could hear the firing quite distinctly and they brought the destroyers back after the fight. 

After talking until midnight Hughes came with me to the camp and slept in my tent. 

Gerald Cochrane was a family friend and relation of Madge Stubbs.  He lived at The Box, near Nunthorpe station.
Kathy was Major Stubbs' sister.