Forest Gate and WW1 - on the 110th anniversary of its outbreak

Over the years, we have published various articles on how Forest Gate was impacted by the First World War. On the 110^th anniversary of its outbreak, this post summarises them, with links to the greater details provided in each.

Troops on the battle fronts

Elliott Taylor and Barney Alston published Up The Hammers to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1. It is available from Newham Bookshops and other reliable book retailers. It is the story of the West Ham Battalion (known as the Hammers Brigade) from its establishment in Forest Gate in December 1914 until its demise and amalgamation with other detachments following severe losses in 1918.

Recruitment poster for Hammers Battalion

We published two articles based on it, featuring the lives of Forest Gate soldiers: here and here. The first covered the period until the first day of the Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916), and the second covered the period until the battalion's disbandment in January 1918.

A significant local figure in the battalion was William Walter Busby of Sherrard Road, a local Congregationalist and scout leader, who was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry during the Battle of the Somme and who was killed on the fateful night of 26/27  November that year, when over 170 members of the Battalion were killed at the Battle of Ancre.

Forest Gate's William Walter Busby MC

Other Forest Gate soldiers whose roles were recognised by Taylor and Alston and whose stories we relate included: Bernard Page, Leonard and Alan Holthusen, Gilbert Simpson, Arthur Davies, Alfred Sekles, Private EM Wilding, Private Robert Lee, Hubert Ayres, Joseph Sait, Arnold Hone, Cpl Frederick Hunt, Sgt Harold Joseph Morrison, and 2/Lt George Gemmell.

Their stories and their experiences are summarised in the blog articles but well told in Taylor and Alston’s book.

Cover of Taylor and Alston's book

The home front

We have been fortunate to have access to almost a century of the Godwin Road school logbook, including how the war impacted the school, its pupils, and the wider community. We published details of the impact here, in an article and series of diary entries that featured:

·         Deaths of former Godwin pupils during the conflict;

·         Assistance Godwin pupils gave to the war effort;

·         How war-induced fuel and food shortages impacted Forest Gate;

·         Impact of air raids on the district;

·         Attempts to provide "business as usual" in the school; and

·         The impact of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1919 on Godwin.

West Ham borough suffered  2,035 civilian and military deaths during World War 1; the exact number of the Forest Gate death toll is not known.

1915 post Lusitania sinking anti-German riots

Contemporary photo of anti-German East End riots

After the onset of war, the biggest upsurge in anti-German feeling locally came nine months after the outbreak of hostilities; and followed the sinking of the Lusitania on 7 May 1915. There was a significant amount of rioting and looting of German premises in both Forest Gate and Manor Park by Forest Gate residents, reported by the Stratford Express.

Stratford Express reports the riots

Extensive extracts from the paper identified locations of the rioting and looting; these included:

·         341 Green Street (now the library)

What is now Green St library attacked

·         Manor Park Broadway

What is now Manor Park library attacked

·         Station Road, Manor Park

·         Romford Road

·         Green Street and

·         Sebert Road

Bonheim's the furriers, Sebert Road attacked

We were also able to identify over a dozen local looters and rioters, successfully prosecuted in Stratford Magistrates Court.

The anti-German riots article can be accessed here.

Conscientious Objectors

We accessed several primary sources, secondary reference sites, and books to find considerable details of 48 Forest Gate people who claimed Conscientious Objector (COs) status during WWI and provided details of them here. On a pro-rata basis, given the total number of COs registered nationally, Forest Gate could have expected to have been home to only eight. It is not entirely clear why the local number would appear to have been so disproportionately high.

We found ten local Quaker COs (John Edwin Davies, Alexander Stewart Fryer, Frank George Hobart, Ernest George Mountford, Reginald William Mountford, George Leonard Pratt, William Ronald Read, Frank Augustus Root, Robert Sandy, and George Alfred Weller). 

Twenty other local COs quoted religious objections as grounds for seeking exemption from military service. Some were Jehovah's Witnesses, but others were members of the Church of England (CofE) and its fundamentally pacifist arm, the International Bible Students' Association (IBSA).

Two of the 48 claimed political objections to fighting (Edmund Howarth and Frederick Thompson, the former described as an "Anarchist/Communist/ Athiest" and the latter as a member of the Independent Labour Party). 

There were four local Absolutists who refused to enlist or undertake any work that could be seen as supporting the war effort. They had a totally torrid time. They were Howarth, Thompson (above), Frank Augustus Root, and George Arthur Weller.

Twenty-one of the Forest Gate 48 served prison sentences because of their CO status - some in several prisons. Fifteen - almost a third of local COs spent time in Wormwood Scrubs, four in Winchester, two in Dartmoor, and one each in Maidstone, Pentonville, Newhaven, and Wakefield, while four spent time in unspecified prisons.

The fate of several Forest Gate WW1 war memorials

About twenty varied war memorials were erected after World War 1 in the Forest Gate area.  As far as is possible to tell, about half of them have subsequently been lost or destroyed. The article chronicling their fate can be accessed here.

About half of the memorials we featured were in churches and synagogues; some have been subsequently lost or destroyed as a result of Second World War bomb damage, while others were not saved when churches and a synagogue were demolished.

War memorial: All Saints church

Forest Gate's major cemeteries have Commonwealth War Grave memorials and about 300 individual graves and plots with headstones.

CWGC memorial Woodgrange Park cemetery

There are a small number of other employment or school-specific memorials to the WW1 fallen, including at St Bonaventure school, the Royal Mail Sorting Office, and one recently installed outside Forest Gate police station.

War memorial outside Forest Gate police station, erected during centenary of war

In all war conflicts, some deeply tragic personal stories illustrate the human cost and suffering of the wider story. This blog has featured two very different case studies, both resulting in devastation and death caused by the “War to end all wars.” One was a love affair that ended in death on a battlefield, and the second was a horrific murder case undoubtedly induced by post-traumatic stress disorder.

The diaries of two local lovers whose affair was extinguished on the battlefields

A decade ago, local resident Paul Holloway self-published an account of a romance between his Forest Gate grandmother, May Larby, and a friend she met while travelling to London to college—fellow Forest Gater Jack Richardson. The book was called There Are No Flowers Here. We published a story summary in two articles, here and here.

May Larby

The romance between the couple, who lived within half a mile of each other, only lasted two years, but May lovingly remembered it for the rest of her life through the precious letters they exchanged during its brief duration.

May’s daughter from her later marriage, Elizabeth, kept these letters, and Paul transcribed and published them on her death, in remembrance of the two women and Jack.

The first episode of the series tells how the couple met and how their friendship blossomed until Jack, having enlisted in the City of London Fusiliers, was sent to the front line in France in early 1915.

Jack Richardson

The second episode of the blog records Jack’s experiences in the trenches until his final message to May:

“While the weather lasts, I think on the whole, I would rather be in the trenches than in billets. I scarcely ever sleep comfortably in town because I expect to be called up with an alarm every night I hear the gunfire; here the guns boom all night and one doesn’t notice it.

"My beloved, these days of sunshine make me feel only a matter of weeks or a month or so before I see you again - I dream of it at night."

Sadly, it was not to be. On Sunday, 25 April 1915, Jack was wounded, having been reconnoitering in front of his trench at night with his sergeant. He died of these wounds on Friday, 7 May 1915, aged 22.

Jack's memorial scroll

May later married Richard Williams and had four children. She became a successful mathematician, was awarded a CBE for her contribution to maths in education, and died in 1986, aged 91. But the memory of that brief affair lingered with her till the end - 70 years on; individual testimony to the lasting grief that the 'war to end all wars' brought to so many.

The 1919 Forest Gate Murders – a Post-Traumatic Distress Syndrome case study

Some of the most horrific local civilian deaths resulting from World War 1 came six months after the cessation of hostilities when four members of the Cornish family were murdered in their home, Stockley Road in April 1919.

The murdered Cornish family

Henry Perry, aka Beckett, was executed by hanging at Pentonville jail on 10 July 1919 for the murders - and so became the last person judicially executed for  Forest Gate-related killings.

Case reported

The story of the killings and subsequent trial is a horrific one, covered on the blog here. Perry, a war veteran, pleaded insanity, but this was dismissed. PTSD was not a well-understood condition at the end of World War 1. “Shell shock” was probably as close an understanding of the condition that existed then, but it was not accepted as a defence.

Henry Perry aka Beckett, as a soldier

In a more enlightened time today, it would be widely accepted that the four Cornish family deaths, along with that of the perpetrator Perry, would be accepted as deaths consequential to the traumas and suffering Perry experienced on the battlefields of Europe.

Centenary of anti-German riots in Forest Gate

Following the outbreak of World War 1, in August  1914, there were a number of riots and skirmishes aimed at German nationals, or those who were thought to be Germans, in towns and cities throughout Britain, including locally.


Location and date unknown, but a widely
used photo illustrating looting of "alien"
shops in East London during World War 1

A recent exhibition by the excellent Eastside Community Heritage (see footnote for details) looked at much of the anti-German activity in East London during World War 1. 

One of the more bizarre aspects of this was re-naming the former  King of Prussia pub on Stratford Broadway the more "patriotic" Edward V11 (who had recently died). Both his family and their name - Saxe-Coberg - were, of course, equally German.


Stratford's King of Prussia pub renamed Edward V11

The biggest upsurge in anti-German feeling locally came nine months after the outbreak of hostilities; and followed the sinking of the Lusitania on 7 May 1915. There was a significant amount of rioting and looting of German premises in both Forest Gate and Manor Park, by - as we shall see - Forest Gate residents.

Most of the copy in this blog is taken from the Stratford Express of the time.

Sinking of the Lusitania

The Lusitania was a British ocean-going liner, launched in 1906, and was for a period the world's largest ship. It regularly crossed the Atlantic - from the UK to New York.


The Lusitania - one time largest ocean going vessel

In February 1915 Germany declared the waters around Great Britain as a war zone, and said it would attack hostile vessels. In April 1915 their embassy in London placed adverts in the British press, warning civilians of the perils of  transatlantic travel for the duration of the war (see advert, below).



German advert, warning
travellers to avoid the 
Lusitania, April 1915

On 1 May the Lusitania left New York on its final voyage, and was hit by a German U-boat, off the south coast of Ireland, on 7 May.  It sunk, completely, within 18 minutes.

1,198 people perished in the sinking and 764 survived.

Britain claimed the Germans had broken international conventions, by hitting a civilian ship. The Germans countered (correctly) by saying that it was an auxiliary military ship, since it was carrying over 4 million rounds of ammunition and other military equipment.

This was denied by the British government, who used the incident as leverage to persuade America, which had lost citizens in the sinking, to join the war.

The sinking lead to widespread anti-German riots throughout the United Kingdom, including - as we shall see - in Forest Gate and Manor Park.

The first extract, below, is from the Stratford Express dated 15 May 1915, and describes local riots on the nights of 11 - 13 May 1915.
 
We have cross referenced the premises and business mentioned with local trade directories  of the time, and, where possible, are showing photos of those locations today. We are also highlighting the names of local streets and addresses in the text that follows.

The second extract is from the the following week's edition of the paper and records the court appearances and sentences of local people convicted of rioting and looting. It suggests that the justice was pretty summary.

Riots, Stratford Express Sat 15 May 1915

Stratford Express 15 May 1915

Anti-German feeling has been high in every quarter ..., and commencing on Wednesday afternoon many ugly scenes have occurred...

Quite close to Upton Park station there is a large butcher's shop kept by Messrs Schuch and Sons  (341 Green Street) and for many hours on Wednesday evenings these premises formed the scene of an extraordinary demonstration.

341 Green Street now - a library, on the site of
Schuch's 1915 looted butcher's shop

Thousands of people gathered in the roadway and it was with great difficulty the trams and motor buses made their way through the crowd.

The police did what they could to protect the premises but they could do very little in the face of such an overwhelming crowd .. but every minute the 'ping' of a stone would strike the shop or upper windows and when the glass fell to the pavement there was a loud cry of exhalation. Hundreds of youths were in the crowds and for hours sang snatches of patriotic songs.

Green St is paved with cobble stones, and by the number of stones that were thrown it was quite evident that a certain element in the crowd had brought their 'weapons' with them from some other place.

At Manor Park everything was quiet until the evening, when a large crowd assembled in the Broadway and a determined attack was made on two shops in that district - one a watchmaker's shop, kept by Messrs Krenz and Sons (697, Romford Road) and a pork butcher kept by Mr Streitberger (693, Romford Road), all the front windows in the pork butchers shop were broken, but the damage inside the house does not appear to have been so great as was the case in some instances. 

 

693 - 697 Romford Road today, a century ago,
 the premises of the looted watchmaker's of Mr Krenz
 and the pork butcher's of Mr Streitberger

The watchmaker's shop, however, was gutted, and had a bomb dropped on the shop greater damage could not have been done. Not a vestige of a window was left, and all the goods were destroyed or removed.


799 Romford Road - Bachmeyer's hairdressers,
1915, chicken shop today

Two shops kept by men named Bachmeyer - one being in Station Road (51)and the other in Romford Road (799) - were also attacked and a great deal of damage done". (These were both hairdressers shops. See photographs of locations today; 51 Station Road continued to be a hairdresser - 100 years on -until its very recent closure!).

51 Station Road, Manor Park
- hairdressers in 1915 (Bachmeyer's),
and until very recently, now

In addition to the events above, on 12 May 1915 a large crowd attacked house of Martha Mittenzwei, a German citizen, in Manor Park, but no details of her address survive.

Also, at a date unknown, Menzler's  shop (speciality unknown) -  890 Romford Rd, near Manor Park -  was attacked by stone throwing.



890 Romford Road today - 1915,
 the attacked premises of Mr Menzler

Court proceedings, Stratford Express 15 May 1915

Stratford Express - 22 May 1915

Thirty eight men, women and lads appeared before Mr WJ Grubbe, the stipendiary magistrate, on Thursday, charged with various offences, including theft, unlawful possession and disorderly conduct. Fines were imposed in a few of the more serious cases, but most of the prisoners were bound over for six months.

Amazing scenes, in which tremendous crowds took part were described by the police.  Sub-divisional Inspector Cudmore said that about twenty five different premises were damaged on the previous night, and there were thousands of people everywhere.  He had a force of 200 under him, but the crowd could not be dispersed.

Among those charged were: Walter Dixon, 38, labourer of 23 Harold Road, Upton Park; Victor Rider, 18 barman, 13 St George's Ave, Forest Gate and Harry Gordon Hall, 16, tailor's assistant of 23 Dorset Rd, Forest Gate, all charged with disorderly conduct, in Green St.

Inspector Cudmore said that at 11.10 pm he was called to 341 Green Street, the premises of Mr Schuch, a pork butcher. There was a hostile crowd of about 2,000 persons. The whole place had been wrecked and furniture had been thrown into the road from the rooms upstairs. He entered with a number of officers and special constables, and found over 30 persons inside, smashing everything they could lay their hands upon. Practically all the goods were stolen. All except the prisoners got away on hearing a shout of 'Police' five of them were in the cellar, and three were trying to push a large wire mattress downstairs.

Owen McGuire, 23, a coal heaver of 222 Queen's Road, Upton Park, who was charged with insulting behaviour was said to have 'dived' through the window of a butcher's shop in Green Street. He then went upstairs and through things into the street. When charged, he said 'I have only done my duty'. He was bound over.

John Enifor, 30, stevedore, of 343 Green Street, Upton Park and John Gardiner, 35, dock labourer of 3 Kings Road, Upton Park were charged with unlawful possession of two portions of bedsteads.

Inspector Cudmore said he saw the prisoners in Green Street, each carrying the back of a bedstead. Enifor said: 'They are all taking them home, and I don't see why I should not'. The prisoners said the bedsteads were thrown out of the windows'.

Inspector Cudmore said that there articles were presumably from the same butcher's shop. The prisoners were each fined 10s.

Thomas George Kirby, 34, grocer's assistant, of 17 Lansdown Road, Forest Gate, was charged with insulting behaviour, and also with throwing missiles. PC Watts 121K said prisoner was outside a butcher's shop shouting 'Come on, boys, let's do the XXXX in.' The windows had been broken and he shattered the remainder of the glass with stones. He was fined 5s on the second summons.

Ada Goding, 47, married of Henderson Road, Forest Gate, had possession of four half quarters of flour, taken from John Hoebig's shop at 60 Green Street, Forest Gate (see below) - She said her children brought the flour home. She was fined £1 or 10 days.

 

60 Green Street, John Hoebig's looted
 shop, 1915, Asian restaurant today

Mary Stephenson, 37, of Oakdale Road, Forest Gate was fined £1 or 10 days for having possession of 28 gramophone records taken from Hoebig's premises - she said her little boy brought the records home.

Eliza Mott, 29, married of Oakdale Road Forest Gate accused of having Mr Hoebig's sewing machine, said her little boy brought the machine home. She was fined 40s or 31 days.

Lena Harris of Studley Road, Forest Gate, who had a quantity of Mr Hoebig's kitchen utensils in her house, she said the children brought them home. She sent them back to the shop, but it was boarded up.

Mr Gillespie said: 'I think Mr Fagin must take a class down there' Fine £1 or 10 days.

 

Joseph Bornheim's furrier's,
6 Sebert Road, today

Lily Grimater, 27, married, of Forest Street, Forest Gate, who had a fur muff which had been taken from Joseph Bornheim's furrier's shop, 6 Sebert Road, Forest Gate, pleaded that she was in the crowd and that the things were thrown from the window and she picked the muff up. The police said the shop window was cleared, and many valuable furs stolen. Fined 40s or 31 days.

Below is a contemporary photo of Moy's coal and coke dealer of 741 Romford Road, whose premised were looted as belonging to an "alien" at the time of these riots.


1915 photo of Moy's coal dealer's
looted shop during World War 1, 741 Romford Road.

741 Romford Road now - hand wash car cleaners

Footnotes

1. The Eastside Community Heritage travelling exhibitions: Little Germany Stratford and East London 1914 is highly recommended as a source of additional information on the treatment of Germans and other suspected "aliens" in East London during World War 1. See here, for details.

2. Nusound 92FM, the local community radio station recently interviewed this blog's author about the post, above. Click here, to listen to the 20 minute long interview.