The American Revolution: my Dana connection

Our house in Ballarat is two blocks from Dana street, named after Henry Edmund Pulteney Dana (1820-1852), commander of the native police corps in Victoria, who was responsible for collecting the first gold licence fees in Ballarat in 1851. Henry Dana was the brother of my third great grandmother Charlotte Champion Crespigny née Dana; he was my fourth great uncle.

The Dana family is a notable American family, and when in 1989 Greg and I spent a few days in Massachusetts, we visited some places there connected with my Dana forebears.

This was through the kindness of my great aunt Nancy Movius née Champion de Crespigny (1910 – 2003), sister of my paternal grandfather. Nancy, born in Australia, had married an American and settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

My great aunt Nancy, her dachshund Cobber and me being licked on the nose. Cobber means friend or mate in Australian English and Cobber the dachshund was indeed a very dear friend.

Some of our Dana forebears lived in this area, from as early as 1640. Nancy shared my interest in our family history, and during our visit she drove us to the nearby town of Concord, where, it is said, “the shot heard round the world”, the first shot of the American Revolutionary War, rang out on 19 April 1775. 

• 

  Orchard House

• 

  Wayside Inn

• 

  Grist Mill

• 

  Old North Bridge

I took no photos this day but recorded in my diary: Drove to Concord saw bridge where first soldiers were killed in Revolution, also Alcott House. Had lunch at Wayside Inn – also saw mill where flour and corn still ground.
Photos from Wikimedia Commons: Orchard House, Concord, Massachusetts. Home to Louisa May Alcott and her sisters – photo by user victorgrigas 2013 CC BY-SA 3.0; The Wayside Inn Sudbury and the inn’s grist mill – photos by user Dudesleeper CC BY 2.5 and CC BY-SA 3.0; Old North Bridge Concord, 1956 replica bridge in the Minute Man National Historic Park. Photograph by National Park Service retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

Actually, there is some dispute as to whether the first shot of the Revolution was fired in Lexington or in Concord.  In the centenary celebrations of the beginning of the Revolution at Lexington on 19 April 1875, Richard Henry Dana (1815 – 1882 my second cousin five times removed) claimed that “the first shots fired back by our troops at theirs” were fired on the Green at Lexington.

The battle of Lexington, April 19th. 1775. Plate I.” In: “The Doolittle engravings of the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775.” The first of four engravings by Amos Doolittle from 1775. Doolittle visited the battle sites and interviewed soldiers and witnesses. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

As they neared Lexington, the report came to them that some five hundred men were under arms; and I am not disinclined to reconcile their testimony with the facts, by the consideration that they heard the roll of our drums, and perhaps saw the flash or heard the report of our signal-guns, intended to call our men together, and thought them a defiance ; and perhaps officers in the centre or rear might have thought them hostile shots. But the front knew they had not been fired upon, and saw the short, thin line of sixty men with arms at rest. Pitcairn, when he rode up to them, and ordered them to surrender their arms and disperse, knew they had not fired. He was not the man to talk after hostile shots. Pitcairn has had the fate which befalls many men who carry out orders that afterwards prove fatally ill-judged. When he ordered our men to surrender their arms and disperse, he was executing the orders of his commander-in-chief and of his King. If Britain was in the right, Pitcairn was in the right. Twice they were ordered to surrender their arms and disperse; and twice they refused to obey, and stood their ground. Then came the fatal fire; and why not? General Gage had been authorized to use the troops for this very purpose. He was authorized to fire upon the people, if necessary to enforce the new laws, without waiting for the civil magistrate. He had resolved to do so. Had that volley subdued the resistance of Massachusetts, Pitcairn would have been the hero of the drama. Was he to leave a military array behind him, and not attempt to disarm and disband them? If they refused, was he to give it up? I have never thought it just or generous to throw upon the brave, rough soldier, who fell while mounting the breastworks at Bunker Hill, the fault which lay on the King, the Parliament, the Ministry, and the commander-in-chief. The truth is, the issue was inevitable. The first force of that kind which the King’s troops found in martial array was to be disarmed and disbanded; and, if they refused to obey, they were to be fired upon. Both sides knew this, and were prepared for it.

Hudson, Charles & Lexington Historical Society (Mass.) (1913). History of the town of Lexington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, from its first settlement to 1868. Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin company. pp. 284-5 retrieved from archive.org

The Battle of Lexington, 19 April 1775, Oil on canvas by William Barns Wollen, 1910. National Army Museum, London. Retrieved through Wikimedia Commons.

I have a further Dana connection to the beginning Revolutionary War.

One of Richard Henry Dana’s cousins (and my first cousin seven times removed) was George Dana (1742 – 1787), a Sergeant in Captain Jonathon Gates’ Company of Minutemen, which marched from Ashburnham on the Lexington Alarm of 19 April 1775.

The Lexington Minuteman. Photograph by user Daderot CC BY-SA 3.0 retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

Sources

• Edward Tabor Linenthal (1991). Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields. University of Illinois Press. p. 36.
• Dana, Elizabeth Ellery (1956). The Dana Family in America. Wright & Potter Printing Company, 32 Derne Street, Boston. p. 482.
• Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War volume 4 page 388 retrieved through ancestry.com
• Stearns, Ezra S (1887). History of Ashburnham, Massachusetts, from the grant of Dorchester Canada to the present time, 1734-1886 : with a genealogical register of Ashburnham families. Pub. by the town, Ashburnham, Mass. pp 139 – 145 – retrieved through Hathitrust and p. 674 retrieved through Hathitrust

Related posts

• George III: my part in his downfall
• Trove Tuesday: Nancy de Crespigny at Salt Creek 1936
• D is for Daniel
• S is for Shrewsbury
• A search for the arms of the Dana family

V is for Victory

In Australia today is ANZAC Day, the anniversary of the first large (and pointless and losing) military action by Australian and New Zealand soldiers (the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps), their landing at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915.

11 November 1918, when WWI came to a halt, was called Armistice Day. It was a truce, not a victory. Armistice Day is set aside as a day to remember all the men and women who served in Australia’s armed forces.

When WWII in Europe ended with the surrender of Germany on 8 May 1945, the day was known (on the Allied side) as V-E (Victory in Europe) day. In London there was great celebration.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill waves to crowds in Whitehall on the day he broadcast to the nation that the war with Germany had been won, 8 May 1945. Imperial War Museum photograph H 41849 retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

British Movietone News Film of VE Day in London 1945:

V E Day began with Mr Churchill’s broadcast officially announcing the end of war in Europe. Londoners took to the streets in celebrations which continued for nearly two days. Outside Buckingham Palace the crowds chanted ‘we want the King’ and were rewarded by the Royal Family appearing on the balcony. At nine o’clock in the evening the King broadcast to Britain and the Commonwealth.

Plans for V-E day had been announced in Australian newspapers on 2 May, a week before.

The war was not finished for Australians, however. The Japanese had not yet surrendered and Australia and its allies were still fighting in the Pacific. The Adelaide News noted that “the Allied victory in Europe, V-E Day, was [celebrated] in Adelaide in an atmosphere of sober satisfaction and thanksgiving rather than one of wild rejoicing.”
(News (Adelaide), 8 May, p. 3.)

The front page of the Adelaide News on 9 May did not report local V-E celebrations. It gave prominence instead to an article announcing that King George VI had pledged Britain would use all her resources in the war against Japan.

It was more than three months before Japan surrendered, on 15 August 1945 August, finally ending WWII for Australia. This day was celebrated as V-J (Victory over Japan) Day.

WORLD REJOICES AT VICTORY (1945, August 17). The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), p. 1. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43506752

“The Fallen of World War II” is an animated documentary about war and peace that looks at data on the human cost of the wars in the twentieth century and how these compare to wars in the distant past and more recently.

 

I hope we never forget the suffering and misery of war and the unspeakable wickedness and stupidity of people who let it happen.

Remembrance day 2019

When in 1914 what came to be called the Great War broke out, men of our families, mine and Greg’s, enlisted and fought for their country. This happened again in the war that followed the war to end all wars.

Taken together their determination to serve had a measurable affect on the shape of the conflict and its outcome, of course, but in each case their personal decision also had deep private consequences for their friends and family. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, children, girlfriends, mates, and acquaintances all became willing or unwilling partners in a man’s choice to join up, and one way or another they all suffered for it.

At the very least the father, son, husband, brother, or friend was taken from their lives for a long time, and it very soon became clear that the person finally returned to them, if he returned, might now be a sad maimed and crippled shell of the young man who had gone away.

Both Greg’s grandfathers fought in WWI. Both were wounded and returned to ordinary life more or less incapacitated, a burden to themselves and their families. Greg’s paternal grandfather Cecil lost a brother, a half-brother, and a cousin. His maternal grandfather Arthur Sullivan came back wounded and ‘shell-shocked’, to use the euphemism of the day.

Greg’s father signed on in WW2 and was sent to New Guinea. He didn’t like to talk about it.

All four of my great grandfathers fought in WWI. All were wounded or became ill. Both my grandfathers fought in WW2.

Family tree chart showing the men of our family who fought in WW1: all eligible men of our family in that generation fought and all of them were wounded or ill as a result. Men highlighted in grey: Peter, Geoff and Hans fought in WW2.

Greg’s paternal grandfather Cecil Young (1898 – 1975) fought along with the following relatives.

• John Percy Young 1896 – 1918 brother
• George Edward Tunks 1894 – 1983 cousin
• Leslie Charles Fish 1895 – 1988 cousin
• William Alfred Fish 1890 – 1917 cousin
• Leslie Leister 1894 – 1916 half-brother
• Ernest James Young 1878 – 1942 uncle

Greg’s grandmother Elizabeth Cross had two brothers and a cousin fighting.

• Frederick Beswick Cross 1893 – 1959 brother
• George Murray Cross 1890 – 1962 brother
• William Stanley Plowright 1893 – 1917 cousin

Greg’s maternal grandfather, Arthur Sullivan (1891 – 1975) fought. Also fighting were a brother and brother-in-law.

• Henry Sullivan 1894 – 1969 brother
• Edward Blakeley Clark 1879 – 1947 brother-in-law

The brothers of Greg’s maternal grandmother, Stella Esther Gilbart Sullivan née Dawson (1894 – 1975) were all too young to enlist and her sisters did not marry until after the war. Her husband fought. An uncle was killed in action and a cousin of her mother’s also fought.

• Stanley Gilbart Edwards 1889 – 1917 uncle
• Francis Walter Roy Rawe 1889 – 1969 cousin of mother

On my side of the family my father’s paternal grandfather, Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny (1882 – 1952), fought as did three of his brothers, one of whom was killed. There were also several maternal cousins who fought, however because his mother had died when he was young, I am not sure that he would have known these cousins well.

• Francis George Travers Champion_de_Crespigny 1892 – 1968 brother
• Hugh Vivian Champion_de_Crespigny 1897 – 1969 brother
• Philip Champion_de_Crespigny 1879 – 1918 brother
• Arthur Philip Chauncy 1897 – 1954 cousin
• Auschar Philip Lamothe Chauncy 1888 – 1937 cousin
• Clement Lamothe Chauncy 1893 – 1917 cousin

My father’s paternal grandmother was Beatrix de Crespigny née Hughes. Her husband fought as did two of her brothers; the other brother had been rejected on medical grounds. One brother was killed. One of her cousins also died. Two cousins of her father’s also fought.

• Cedric Stuart Castlereagh Hughes 1893 – 1953 brother
• Vyvyan Westbury Hughes 1888 – 1916 brother
• Selwyn Goldstein 1873 – 1917 cousin
• Cyril Hughes 1875 – 1916 cousin of father
• Harry Wynne Hughes 1870 – 1945 cousin of father

My father’s maternal grandfather, Arthur Murray Cudmore (1870 -1951) fought. He had quite a few cousins and a nephew fighting.

• Arthur Sexton Cudmore 1897 – 1972 cousin
• Collier Robert Cudmore 1885 – 1971 cousin
• Ernest Osmond Cudmore 1894 – 1924 cousin
• Francis Alexander Cudmore 1892 – 1956 cousin
• John Cudmore Sprod 1879 – 1923 cousin
• Milo Massey Cudmore 1888 – 1916 cousin
• Frederick Cudmore Andrews 1895 – 1975 nephew

My father’s maternal grandmother was Kathleen Cudmore formerly Cavenagh-Mainwaring née Cavenagh. Her husband fought as did two of her brothers; the other brother was rejected. Her brothers-in-law also fought.

• James Gordon Cavenagh-Mainwaring 1865 – 1938 brother
• Wentworth Rowland Cavenagh-Mainwaring 1869 – 1933 brother
• Owen Francis Gillett 1863 – 1938 brother-in-law
• Thompson Horatio Millett 1870 – 1920 brother-in-law
• William Edward Blackwood Magee 1886 – 1981 brother-in-law

Both of my mother’s grandfathers served in the German army and were wounded.

• Fritz Hermann Boltz 1879 – 1954
• Emil Wilhelm Manock 1883 – 1966

101 years after the armistice was signed on 11 November 1918 we remember those who fought and those who died in the war.

A poppy is commonly used as a remembrance symbol.

Surgeon James Gordon Cavenagh at Waterloo

A guest post by Diana Beckett; great great granddaughter of James Gordon Cavenagh.

Miniature of James Gordon Cavenagh in the possession of a granddaughter of Lt Col W.O. Cavenagh

 

Lt Col W.O. Cavenagh, (Wentworth Odiarne / WOC / Cousin Wenty) who did extensive research on our Cavenagh ancestry, was the grandson of the surgeon. The latter died in 1844 and WOC was born in 1856, so they never met. However, WOC knew as family tradition related by his father (Gen Sir Orfeur Cavenagh) that the surgeon had served at Waterloo, but was puzzled that he never received the Waterloo medal awarded to all those who served there. This therefore raised the question to later generations as to whether it was indeed true.

J G Cavenagh was the Staff Surgeon of the Royal Staff Corps, a regiment responsible for short term military engineering, which was stationed in Flanders from April to July 1815. The Battle was on June 28th.

In his book “The Bloody Fields of Waterloo”, M.K.H Crumplin, a retired surgeon, medical military historian much involved in Waterloo re-enactments,  meticulously lists all the surgeons present at Waterloo or working with the wounded in the aftermath. Cavenagh is listed on page 157 as a late arrival. Presumably he was not ordered from his Flanders base to the battlefield in time.

On page 148 Crumplin explains that surgeons who arrived late were not awarded the Waterloo medal nor the two years added pension rights.

“There must have been many a military medical man who wished he had been present at this monumental battle. The staff who were there, were mostly surgeons both in regimental and staff posts. Some arrived late and would not receive the coveted Waterloo medal and two years added pension rights.” See Appendix below.

Arriving late, Cavenagh would have worked after the battle in one of the several hospitals in either Brussels or Antwerp where the wounded were treated. We do not know how long he stayed in Belgium but WOC records that sometime after the battle he proceeded to Paris where he was joined by his wife. (GO471 p 29)
An internet search shows that at least 3 officers of the Royal Staff Corps did receive the Waterloo medal.

Cavenagh is also mentioned in the Medico Chirurgical Transactions 1816 (Volume 7, part 1) when he was consulted about an operation on the jaw and mouth of a young drummer. The wound healed and the young man was discharged on August 16th.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=XvK3l9ZKvHsC&pg=PA108

P148 Crumplin Bloody Fields of Waterloo.

Related post

• N is for neighbours

Y is for Yorks and Lancs

My step grandfather was George William Symes (1896-1980), a soldier, who retired with the rank of Major-General.

George Symes enlisted in the British Army in 1915 at the age of nineteen. In June he was commissioned with a war service commission (for the duration of the war) into the Durham Light Infantry as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was seconded to the Machine Gun Corps on 22 February 1916, and was sent to France and Belgium on 23 February 1916. On 1 November 1916 he was promoted to the rank of Temporary Lieutenant. On 21 June the following year George Symes was granted a regular commission in the York and Lancaster Regiment, with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.

George Symes during WWI

Between WW1 and WW2 George remained a professional soldier. At the outbreak of the Second World War he was rapidly promoted, appointed Major-General in command of the 70th Division in Africa and then in India. The 70th Division was broken up, however, to form part of the “Chindit” Special Force under Orde Wingate, designed to operate behind the Japanese lines in Burma. George became deputy, but was stationed at New Delhi. He held command of Lines-of-Communications divisions in France and later in Burma, and after the war he was commander of the South-West District in England.

In 1949 he resigned his commission and emigrated to Australia.

George Symes in 1941

George was colonel of the York and Lancaster Regiment from 1946 to 48.

In 1968 the British army was reorganised. The York and Lancaster regiment was one of two infantry regiments that chose to be disbanded rather than amalgamated with another regiment.

When the regiment was disbanded George purchased some memorabilia including a drum.

On his death George Symes left a large sum to the Regimental Chapel for the York and Lancashire in Sheffield Cathedral, England. The ceiling of the chapel is a memorial to George and his first wife Katherine.

Screen of bayonets and swords in St George’s Chapel Sheffield Cathedral. Photograph from Wikipedia taken by user Oosoom license Cc-by-sa-3.0

Memorial to George William Symes in Sheffield Cathedral. Photo from Wikipedia, taken by user Author Andrewrabbott and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

 

There is a regimental museum and archives at Clifton Park, Rotherhamregimental museum and archives at Clifton Park, Rotherham.

Related posts

• I is for inn
• X is for the Military Cross
• Y is for Yangon Sailing Club

Sources

• Roger André, ‘Symes, George William (1896–1980)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/symes-george-william-11817/text21145, published first in hardcopy 2002

V is for volunteer

Between 1914 and 1918, 350,000 Australians enlisted in the armed services to fight for their country and the Empire.

Among these were my husband’s grandfather, Cecil Young (1898 – 1975) and his brother, John Percy (Jack) Young (1896 – 1918).

Both men and both their parents were been born in Australia.

When war threatened in August 1914, Australia, a Dominion of the British Empire, knew she was bound to join in. On 31 July 1914 in an election speech at Colac in Victoria, the Opposition Leader Andrew Fisher (ALP) famously declared that ‘… Australians will stand beside the mother country to help and defend her to our last man and our last shilling’. A few days later, on 4 August 1914, Britain declared war against Germany. On 5 August, attempting to prevent a German ship escaping from Port Phillip, Australia fired her first shot against the enemy.

In October 1916 Jack Young, aged 20, signed up, becoming, as a member of the Australian Imperial Force, a soldier of Australia and the Empire.

The war was not going well for the Allies.

On 19-20 July that year Australians had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Fromelles in France. The cost in Australian lives was the highest in any 24 hour period of the war. Among those killed in the fighting was Jack’s half-brother Leslie Leister.

From 23 July to 3 September 1916 Australian forces suffered badly at the Battle of Pozières in northern France. The Australian official historian Charles Bean wrote that Pozières ridge “is more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth.” Among those killed were Wes Rowlands of Homebush, an acquaintance of Jack and Cecil.

The slaughter in France left the Australian forces under-strength, and it was widely believed that conscription was necessary to maintain troop levels. This was view of the Australian Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, which the losses at Pozières seemed to confirm. Not all Federal politicians supported Hughes, however, and the matter was put to a
plebiscite. After a divisive public debate and strong campaigning on both sides, on 28 October 1916, the “No” vote narrowly prevailed

Jack Young’s enlistment – he signed his attestation papers on 3 October 1916 – came at the height of this conscription debate.

Jack Young was not yet 21 and would not have been conscripted anyway.

After 6 weeks in the AIF Signal School Jack sailed on the ‘Medic’, leaving on 16 December and disembarking in Plymouth 18 February 1917. He was first at Hurdcott camp, 7 miles from Salisbury. A few weeks later he marched out to Sutton Mandeville, 15 miles west. There was a camp at Fovant nearby. From Fovant he was transferred on 7 April to Durrington 20 miles to the north-east; the military settlement of Larkhill is nearby. On 1 January 1918 he sailed for France.

Fovant Badges The badges were cut into the chalk hills near the miltary camp and originate from 1916. From the left:- The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, 6th London Regiment and the Australian Commonwealth Military Forces.

The Australian Rising Sun emblem cut in the side of a hill. Australian War Memorial ID number H13577

Group portrait of the Signal Section of the 10th Infantry Brigade, outside the Chateau at Querrieu, 7 July 1918. Pte J. Young is in the back row eighth from the left (fourth from the right). Australian War Memorial photograph E03830

On 26 August, wounded in a mustard gas attack, Jack was admitted to a Line of Communications hospital. On 28 August he was invalided to England and admitted to Beaufort Hospital near Bristol.

On 26 September Jack was discharged on furlough from Beaufort hospital, but on 6 November he was in hospital again, the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital Dartford. At 11:40 a.m. on 9 November 1918, two days before the war ended, Jack died of pneumonia. He is buried at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey.

Wooden crosses mark graves in the AIF section at Brookwood Cemetery January 1919. Photograph from the Australian War Memorial Accession Number D00190

I have written about Cecil’s war experience at Cecil Young and family: Cecil’s early life up to end World War I . I have previously remembered Jack at John Percival Young (1896 – 1918).

N is for neighbours

My 3rd great grandfather was James Gordon Cavenagh (1770-1844), an army surgeon who was with the Royal Staff Corps at Waterloo.

Cavenagh obtained his diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1795-6 he first saw active service, with the 83rd Foot in the so-called ‘Maroon War’ in Jamaica. On 21 February 1800 he transferred to the Royal Staff Corps. The Royal Staff Corps was a corps of the British Army responsible for military engineering which was founded in about 1800 and disbanded in about 1837.

In March 1815 Cavenagh married Anne Coates. They lived at Hythe, Kent, where the Corps was headquartered and had eight children.

View at Hythe; illustration to Ayton’s ‘Voyage round Great Britain‘, vol. VII. 1823.  Print maker, draughtsman and publisher  William Daniell. In the collection of the British Museum retrieved through watercolourworld.org https://www.watercolourworld.org/painting/hythe-tww00a352

Engraving of “The Barracks and Town of Hythe, Kent” from Ireland’s History of Kent, Vol. 4, 1831. It appears between pages 224 and 225. Drawn by G. Sheppard, engraved by C. Bedford. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

On 25 June 1825 Cavenagh retired on half pay, afterwards continuing to live at Hythe.

In 1830 he leased a house next to the Royal Staff Corps Barracks, which earlier had been connected with it. There was a gate in the fence between the house and the barracks and the Royal Staff Corps decided to remove the gate and close up the fence. Cavenagh took exception to the this, and threatened the men removing the gate with drawn sword, saying, “I’ll run the first man through the body that attempts to touch the palings”. There was a brawl but eventually the fence was erected. When the matter went to court a jury found against Cavenagh and awarded 10 pounds damages. [The amount, hard to express in today’s money, would come to somewhere between £500 and £10,000.]

Hull Packet 17 August 1830 page 2 digitised by the British Library Board and retrieved through FindMyPast

In 1834 Cavenagh became the mayor of Hythe and was still living there in 1837. He died at Castle House, Wexford, Ireland in 1844 and is buried in Wexford in the family vault in St Patrick’s Abbey.

The Royal Staff Corps Barracks has gone, with the site from 1968 occupied by a Sainsburys supermarket and carpark. The only surviving part of the barracks complex is Hay House on Sir John Moore Avenue. It was built in 1809 and became the Commandant’s House. It is now subdivided into 6 flats.

It would seem that Hay House is the house that J. G. Cavenagh rented. The Mainwarings of Whitmore family history states

During the short peace between the Peninsular war and Waterloo James Cavenagh was quartered with this corps at Hythe, where he met and married his wife. On the termination of the campaign he returned with this regiment to Hythe, and when it was disbanded he remained there for some years, living in the Commandant’s house which he rented from the Authorities and in which all his children were born.

Hay House, Sir John Moore Avenue, Hythe, glimpsed from the entrance to the Sainsbury’s Loading Dock. Image from Google Street View May 2009 https://goo.gl/maps/BsWaHM8Kzxk

Sources

• The Mainwarings of Whitmore and Biddulph in the County of Stafford. An account of the family, and its connections by marriage and descent; with special reference to the Manor of Whitmore. J.G. Cavenagh-Mainwaring, about 1935
• John Booth (1816). The Battle of Waterloo: containing the series of accounts published by authority, British and foreign, with circumstantial details, relative to the battle, from a variety of authentic and original sources, with connected official documents, forming an historical record of the operations in the campaign of the Netherlands, 1815 : to which is added the names alphabetically arranged, of the officers killed and wounded, from 15th to 26th June, 1815, and the total loss of each regiment, with an enumeration of the Waterloo honours and privileges, conferred upon the men and officers, and lists of regiments, &c. entitled thereto : illustrated by a panoramic sketch of the field of battle, and a plan of the positions at Waterloo, at different periods, with a general plan of the campaign. Printed for John Booth …, T. Egerton … and J. Fairbairn … (Edinburgh). p. 20.
• Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London (1816). Medico-Chirurgical Transactions. Longmans, Green and Company. p. 108.
• “No. 18174“. The London Gazette. 10 September 1825. p. 1649.
• Hull Packet 17 August 1830, page 2 digitised by the British Library Board and retrieved through FindMyPast

• Dover Telegraph and Cinque Ports General Advertiser 8 February 1834, page 8 digitised by the British Library Board and retrieved through FindMyPast

• Paton, David. “Hythe’s Guides Town Walks (p. 38).” Hythe Life Magazine Spring Edition Issue 12, Hythe Life Magazine, Mar. 2017, issuu.com/hythelifemagazine/docs/hythe_life_magazine_-.
• Hay House.” Historic England, historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1068931.

I is for inn

My step grandfather George William Symes was born 12 January 1896 at Minterne Magna, Dorset. He was the son of George Symes (1859 – 1920) and Eliza Symes nee Paulley (1870 – 1946).

George Symes senior was born in 1859 at Puncknowle Dorset, 6 miles east of Bridport. He was the oldest child of Daniel Symes (1834 – 1914), an agricultural labourer, and Sarah Symes nee Trevett (1836 – 1925).

Daniel and Sarah Symes, Bridport, Dorset. Photograph from Rod Rumble who received it from Brian Jeans, a Symes descendant

On 2 October 1878, aged 19, George Symes, then a labourer, enlisted in the Royal Artillery. He signed his attestation papers at Bridport on 2 October and joined at Portsmouth on 14 October.

He first served as a gunner, was promoted to bombadier (equivalent rank of corporal) in 1884, and then to sergeant later that same year. He was promoted to Company Sergeant Major in 1892 and discharged at that rank in 1899. He served in India from 1884 to 1892, retiring in 1899 on a pension of 30 pence for life. He was formally discharged at the Tower of London, and became a Chelsea Pensioner (he would have been an out-pensioner as he did not live at the Royal Hospital Chelsea). His character on discharge was “exemplary”.

photograph of George Symes at the Tower of London from Rod Rumble who in turn got the photograph from Brian Jeans, a Symes descendant

George first married Rosa or Rose Guppy (1860 – 1892) at Milborne Port, Somerset, in 1886. They had two children: William Hensley Symes (1887 – 1888) and Edward Daniel Symes (1890 – 1950). William was born 27 November 1887 and baptised 1 January 1888 at Milborne Port Somerset. He died, only four months old, at Agra, India on 1 April 1888 and was buried there on 2 April. Edward was born in 1890 at Campbellpore, present day Attock, Pakistan. Rose died of cholera in 1892 at Ferozepore.

In 1894 George married again, to Eliza Paulley (1870 – 1946) at Minterne Magna, Dorset. They had one son, George William Symes, born 12 January 1896 at Minterne Magna.

At the time of the 1901 census the family was at Puncknowle. George Symes was 42, with occupation of ‘military pensioner’. His wife Eliza was 31 and they had two sons, Edward aged 11 and George aged 5.

George William Symes, boy scout, aged about 13 in 1909

In 1911, George Symes, a ‘military pensioner and publican’ was living at 61 South Street Bridport. In the same house were his sons Edward aged 21, a cabinet maker, George aged 15, at school. Also living at that address was George’s brother-in-law, Lewis Paulley, age 25, a harness-maker. On census night Eliza was away, with her parents in Minterne Magna.

61 South Street was the pub. The 1911 census states it had 9 rooms, not including the shop, office, warehouse or bathrooms.

George Symes died at Weymouth, Dorset, 18 May 1920.

The building at 61 South Street Bridport is still there and still operates as a pub; it is now called The Woodman Inn.

Woodman Inn Bridport in 2017

Sources

• Census records retrieved though ancestry.com
  • 1901: Class: RG13; Piece: 2012; Folio: 75; Page: 10.
  • 1911: Class: RG14; Piece: 12486; Schedule Number: 22
• Wo 97 – Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records 1760-1913 retrieved through FindMyPast: George Symes Birth year 1859 Birth parish Puncknoll, Bridport, Dorset, England Royal Artillery Attestation date 02 Oct 1878 Attestation age 19 years 6 months Attestation service number 5286 Attestation corps Royal Artillery Discharge corps Royal Artillery

140 years since the Battle of Isandlwana

Today is the 140th anniversary of one of the battles of the Anglo-Zulu
War. Several years ago I wrote a short piece about a cousin, a soldier who fought there. I thought I would republish it.

When my son asked me to write about the Zulu wars for the letter Z of the 2014 A to Z blogging challenge, I found a second cousin four times removed, Henry Germain Mainwaring (1853-1922), who served in the Zulu war of 1879.

Henry Germain Mainwaring was a Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot. He sailed for South Africa on 2 February 1878 and was there until 20 December 1879.

H. G. Mainwaring of the 2/24 Regiment. Photograph from the “Ron Sheeley Collection”

From 20 January 1879 the 24th Regiment was camped at Isandhlwana, an isolated hill in the Zulu kingdom in the east of Southern Africa. B Company of the Second Battalion had been left to guard the stores and hospital at Rorke’s Drift ten miles away. Rorke’s Drift was a mission station and the former trading post of James Rorke, an Irish merchant. It was near a ford, known as a drift, across the Buffalo River, which formed the border between the British colony of Natal and the Zulu kingdom.

On 22 January, Lord Chelmsford, British Commander-in-Chief,  took the second battalion of the 24th, with the artillery and some of the Natal Native Contingent away from the camp to seek battle with the Zulus, who had been reported to be south-east of the camp. 1,800 British and Colonial troops were left in the camp including 585 men of the 24th Regiment, the only British regular infantry regiment among them. While Chelmsford was absent, the camp was attacked from the north-east by a force of Zulu warriors, said to number 20,000. Of the 1,800 British forces, about 300 survived. These had fled south-west across the Buffalo River; of the 585 men of the 24th only ten survived.

The Battle of Isandlwana, 22 January 1879.  Charles Edwin Fripp (1854-1906), 1885 (c). A small band of the 24th gathered in a square around their Regimental Colour. In the aftermath of the battle there were several groups of bodies found which indicated that men had gathered themselves together to fight to the last. In the background rises Isandhlwana Kop which, significantly, is shaped like a Sphinx, the badge of the 24th.

Chelmsford and his troops arrived back at camp that night. John Price, of the 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment, wrote to his parents:

We arrived in camp about nine o’clock at night, and all the tents were burned to the ground, and where we had to sleep was a very uncomfortable place among the dead bodies all night…  from http://www.1879zuluwar.com/t2449-various-eye-witness-accounts

Henry Germain Mainwaring, a Lieutenant in F company of the 2nd Battalion of the 24th Regiment was among those with Chelmsford.

The mission station at Rorke’s Drift was attacked by several thousand Zulu warriors on the afternoon of 22 January and the battle continued overnight. 140 British and colonial troops, including 36 men in the hospital, defended the garrison. Chelmsford’s troops arrived at 8am on the morning of the 23rd. Seventeen British soldiers had been killed, ten wounded, and 450 Zulus had been killed.

The defence of Rorke’s Drift 1879 Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville  via Wikimedia Commons

The battle was reported around the world. In New Zealand, in the Otago Witness of 22 February 1879, Mainwaring’s name was listed as one of the officers of the 24th Regiment which had been in the battle and “almost completely annihilated” in the “massacre”.

The remainder of the 24th cleaned up after the battle and buried the dead. Mainwaring made a map of the battlefield showing the graves of those who were killed and were buried.

Mainwaring received a medal and clasp for the South African Campaign of 1877, 1878, and 1879. He was promoted to Captain in 1880. In the First World War he served as a Brigadier General.

Location of the Zulu Kingdom, Southern Africa, ca. 1890 by Seb az86556 [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

1879 map of Zululand with Rorke’s Drift and Isandhlwana highlighted by red arrows

References:

• UK National Archives WO76/233 South Wales Borderers (2nd Batn). Descriptions relating to individuals have been created using information from a nominal card index relating to Army Officers’ service compiled in the 1980s.
• David, Saul. “Zulu: The True Story.” British History. BBC, 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 27 Apr. 2014. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/zulu_01.shtml>.
• “24th – Anglo-Zulu War 1879.” 24th, 2nd Warwickshire, Regiment – Fact Sheets. The Royal Welsh Regimental Museum Trust, 16 July 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. <http://royalwelsh.org.uk/downloads/B05-01-24th-Anglo-Zuluwar1879.pdf>.
• Luscombe, Stephen, and Charles Griffin. “The 24th Regiment of Foot.” British Empire: Armed Forces: Units: British Infantry. Britishempire.co.uk, 7 Nov. 2013. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. <http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armyunits/britishinfantry/24thfoot.htm>.
• “The Battle of Islandlwana.” Zulu War. Britishbattles.com, 10 Apr. 2014. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. <http://www.britishbattles.com/zulu-war/isandlwana.htm>.
• Austin, Ronald J. (Ronald James) (1999). The Australian illustrated encyclopedia of the Zulu and Boer wars. Slouch Hat Publications, McCrae, Vic

Remembering John Percival Young died 9 November 1918

With next Sunday Armistice Day it seems appropriate to recall that today is the hundredth anniversary of the death of one of our family’s WW1 soldiers, Jack Young, brother of my husband’s grandfather.

Jack – John Percival Young – enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces on 6 October 1916. On 25 August 1918, while serving with HQ 10th Brigade – taking part in the so-called Hundred Days Offensive, the Allied attacks that brought the war to an end – he was wounded in a mustard gas attack and was admitted to a Line of Communications hospital. Three days later he was invalided to England, sent to Beaufort Hospital near Bristol.

He was discharged from Beaufort after a month, but within a few weeks he was back in hospital, the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital Dartford.

On 9 November 1918, two days before the war ended, Jack died of influenza and pneumonia. He is buried at Brookwood Military Cemetery.

Group portrait of the Signal Section of the 10th Infantry Brigade, outside the Chateau at Querrieu, 7 July 1918. Pte J. Young is in the back row eighth from the left (fourth from the right).

 

Related post

• John Percival Young (1896 – 1918)
• Q is for Querrieu