Chester in the Great War

By Susan Chambers

An extensively illustrated account of how the residents of this English market town experienced and endured the First World War.

At the outbreak of the Great War, Chester was transformed from a county market town with some nice shops and lots of day-trippers to a bustling, frantically busy military center with men and horses everywhere. As they left for the war zones, or to go to other parts of the country for training, the city settled down to the hard work of dealing with the absence of so many men from vital jobs—a challenge eventually tackled by many of the city’s women.

Life was hard and money was short for some, though others earned good wages in the ammunition works. It soon became obvious that many men would never come back. But life in the city went on, everyone played their part, and the cinemas and theaters stayed open as did the pubs (though with reduced hours). Concerts kept the people entertained and helped to raise vital funds, and news films kept them up-to-date with the latest from the front. But, eventually, it was finally over—and the city moved on to dealing with the aftermath.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781473846487

Susan Chambers

Susan Chambers is a creative thinker, and she delights in painting word pictures so that the stories she writes weave their own brand of adventure, fun, drama, fantasy, and friendship into each fiction work.  Susan enjoys her role as author and looks ahead to sharing many more entertaining stories with children, young adults and the young at heart of the world.  Susan is also passionate about her family and maintains a close connection with her children and grandchildren.

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Preface

Chester was a different place 100 years ago – it then had several cinemas, a theatre, a music-hall, assembly rooms, a roller-skating rink, a synagogue, a brewery, a cheese market, some really classy shops, and its own council. The city had its share of wealthy residents, but it also had some very poor people who lived and worked in grim conditions that have now, a century later, become part of its past history.

This book aims to recount how the people of Chester lived throughout the years of the Great War and its immediate aftermath. It is an account of the way that war affected our families, how they coped in those strange, unpredictable times, and how those who governed the city sought to keep things going under such difficult conditions.

The task of telling the individual stories of those Chester men who fought for their country must be left to other writers; I have simply given a brief mention to a selection of local soldiers, sailors and airmen who must represent the others. Chester men fought in over eighty different units, the main ones being the Cheshire Regiment, Royal Welch Fusiliers, Royal Field Artillery, King’s Own Liverpool Regiment, and the Royal Engineers. Many memorials in the city conscientiously record those who died.

Thanks must go to Cheshire Archives and Local Studies for their great help and encouragement, especially Archivist Liz Green. Valuable help and information has also been given by Geoff Crump and Bill Preece from Cheshire Military Museum and Caroline Mannion the Museum Officer of that establishment. Peter Boughton from Grosvenor Museum, Cathryn Eales of Chester History and Heritage, Louise Martin from Eaton Estate and my fellow volunteer John Dixon have all willingly helped me in this task. I give special thanks to Olly Chambers for much technical assistance.

The newspapers of the time have been a good source of useful material, as have the comprehensive records of the Chester Council for Social Welfare (nowadays represented by Chester Voluntary Action), also Chester City Council and Cheshire County Council minute books, Medical Officers’ annual reports for the city, Chief Constables’ annual reports, school log books, and records of Chester Leadworks and the Hydraulic Engineering Company. The Cheshire Regiment’s The Oak Tree journal courtesy of Cheshire Military Museum and The History of the Cheshire Regiment in The Great War (Crookenden), both have been useful guides to military matters. Most of the photographs supplied by the Military Museum are from an album collated by the Medical Officer of the 1st Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment, John Maitland Forsyth MC, who served at the Front throughout the war, and was badly gassed in 1918. He died in 1922 in Singapore where he was working in medical practice. Many of the images of early Chester are from the collection of Frank Simpson, in the Cheshire Archives and Local Studies Collection. I hope that both these men would have been happy to see their photographs used here.

PROLOGUE

Chester Life Before The War

In the early years of the twentieth century, when prosperous Britain ruled an Empire, the city of Chester was gradually emerging from its role as a traditional county market-town and becoming a regional shopping and tourist centre – though it was more than once described as ‘sleepy’ and ‘quaint’ in the local papers. Some of its older industries had gone, but it still served as an important administrative centre for the Cheshire County Council, the Cheshire Regiment and the Chester diocese of the Anglican Church.

By 1914 around 40,000 people lived in the city, with several thousand more in the outlying districts. Many of the city dwellers were still crowded into the ‘courts’, huddled groups of dilapidated cottages crammed together behind the main streets, and traces of them can still be spotted, for example off the north side of Foregate Street, between some of the shops. Many people also lived in the more reasonable conditions of the terraces of areas like Newtown, Garden Lane, Boughton and Saltney, whilst the middle classes settled in Hoole or in small enclaves of larger terraced houses dotted around in the city and suburbs. The most desirable housing was centred on areas like Dee Banks, Queens Park, Hough Green and Curzon Park.

A number of the town centre buildings were relatively new, including the Victorian black and white architecture that is still a major feature of our city streets today. Most of Chester’s small traditional workshops producing handcrafted goods had disappeared by the Edwardian era, and many shops were offering a selection of factory-made wares. Brown’s of Chester (as it was known from 1913), on Eastgate Street, was definitely the city’s leading store. It was still a high-class establishment in those days of a century ago, attracting the wealthy with the quality of its merchandize, some of which was still actually being made by craftsmen in its own workshops.

The view from Northgate, early twentieth century. (Cheshire Archives and Local Studies [CALS]: ZCR 119)

A variety of food shops flourished on the main streets, notably Bolland’s high-class confectioner and café next to Brown’s; Marks & Spencer’s Penny Bazaar was to be found on Foregate Street, in a building that is now a small café. St Michael’s Arcade off Bridge Street had been finished in 1910 and provided attractive new premises including a Turkish Baths, (for men and women) on Bridge Street. The city had a twice weekly general market, weekly livestock market (in George Street), and a monthly cheese market.

Several of the city’s old mills had closed in those years before the war. Of the corn millers, the biggest company, F.A. Frost & Sons on Steam Mill Street, (now converted to flats) had moved to Ellesmere Port in 1913. Dee Mills at the city end of the Dee Bridge was demolished in 1910, to be replaced by a hydro-electric plant just before the war. Albion Mill in Seller Street, (also now the site of flats), was only producing animal feed by 1913. Cestrian Mill (Mill Hotel) was being used as a warehouse. Thomas Nicholls & Co, Deeside Mills, where 1960s flats and houses are now standing on the Handbridge side of the river, processed tobacco and snuff, and was still functioning in 1914 as was W.T. Davies & Sons, part of Imperial Tobacco, in Canal Street, now demolished and replaced with offices, and both these mills were big employers of women. Several firms of seedsmen and plant nurseries were still successful and important city businesses.

Engineering works, especially the Hydraulic Engineering Company on Egerton Street were major employers as was the leadworks of Walkers, Parker & Co (the shot tower remains a landmark in the city), and Henry Wood & Co, a chain maker located in Saltney. The only brewery remaining was Northgate Brewery on Water Tower Street, which ran parallel to the city walls.

Electric trams had been running since 1903, and by 1914 there was a Boughton line with a terminus at Tarvin Bridge and a branch to Christleton Road, also a Saltney line starting at Chester General station. Motor bus services were increasing, and there were three railway stations – Liverpool Road, near the site of the present fitness centre, also Northgate, now the site of the Northgate Arena, and Chester General, still in use.

The big political problem in the country at this time was the Irish Home Rule debate. In early January 1914 a huge gathering, a ‘Great Unionist Demonstration’ was held at the city’s American Skating Rink with Sir Edward Carson, leader of the Ulster Unionists, to rouse opposition to any plan for Irish Home rule. The rink, capable of holding around 2,000 people, was on Northgate Street on the site that was later Crosville bus depot for many years. Women’s suffrage was another issue that was still occupying the energies of many in the UK, including Chester, and in early March the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (‘non-militant’) held one of their meetings in the Newgate Assembly Rooms.

Brown’s of Chester, the city’s fashionable store in the early twentieth century. (CALS: ZCR 119)

Several issues were keeping our local politicians occupied – Chester City Council and Hoole Urban District Council were both discussing the problem of the shortage of housing for the working classes, and both were reluctant that a financial burden should fall on the ratepayers. The city council was involved in a long standing debate over rights of way up the steps to the Rows and various plans for alterations to shops on the Rows.

But in March the town was pre-occupied with the visit of the King and Queen (George V and Mary) for the official opening of the new wings of Chester Infirmary. The city’s role as a military centre was highlighted by the many and various troops taking part in the arrangements for the visit. Chester was the headquarters of Western Command, the army’s administrative centre which served Wales, north-western and north-midlands counties. Several other army establishments were based in the city and it was the home depot of the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment; this had two regular full-time battalions, the 1st Battalion which was at this time stationed in Londonderry, on hand because of trouble in the Irish crisis, and the 2nd Battalion which was in India. The band and drums of the 1st Battalion were brought over from Ireland for the March Royal visit. Men from some of the part-time Cheshire Regiment Territorial Battalions from other parts of the county came over and lined Northgate Street, while a party of the Welsh Border Mounted Brigade which included the Cheshire Yeomanry (Territorial) were in the Town Hall Square. The 5th (Earl of Chester’s), another Territorial Battalion, was lining City Road, with its band stationed near the Queen Hotel.

King George V and Queen Mary outside Chester General Station, March 1914. (Chester Library Photographic Collection/Getty Images)

Crowds standing in the Cattle Market on George Street to greet the royal couple in March 1914. (Chester Library Photographic Collection/Getty Images)

The country’s regular army was considered to be too small a force in case of any major war, so the Territorial forces were kept in training in case of need to defend the country, though they were not obliged to fight abroad. Being a member of the Territorials, the successors to the old Volunteer movement, had been a popular diversion for the working man for many years. In Chester there were several evening sessions each week at the Volunteer Street Drill Hall for the Territorials of the 5th (Earl of Chester’s) Battalion, including one for a Maxim gun section composed of men from the Hydraulic and other engineering works, also a gymnastics class, recruits’ evenings and various lectures. Among the officers were Captain W.A.V. Churton, and Second Lieutenant S.P. Gamon, both men from well known Chester families, who would be heavily involved in the events of the next few years. Other Territorial units (‘Saturday Afternoon Soldiers’ according to one local newspaper) were also busy with drills and lectures on semaphore, fuse-setting, harness-fitting and care of horses.

The last relatively care-free Easter for five years saw the Foden Motor Works Band playing at the American Skating Rink. Special trains were running for the Hooton Park Steeplechases, and the gardens of Eaton Hall were open for the display of daffodils. Record crowds at the Races followed in May, and the Duke of Westminster took along his distinguished house party including the Earl of Derby, the Marquis of Cholmondely, the Earl of Lonsdale, Lord Herbert Vane Tempest and Captain Percy Wyndham. Percy was the Duke’s half-brother, who would be killed in action within four months. A long list of aristocracy and distinguished gentry made up part of the 87,000 attendees. The sailing regatta was a popular event in mid-July with steamers taking trips from the Groves, and performances of the band of the 3rd Battalion (a training and reserve unit). On the same day crowds flocked to a field in Bumpers Lane to see an exhibition of flying by Frank Goodden in which his monoplane looped the loop, flew upside down and did a variety of dives. Concerts in the Groves were being held in the brand new bandstand. This had been debated at some length the previous year and there had been complaints from eighteen residents of the Groves that musical performances would ‘attract all sorts and conditions of people’. Obviously not everyone saw the Groves as a welcome visitor attraction!

At the races on Chester Cup Day, 1914. (Author’s collection)

CHAPTER 1

Autumn 1914 – And Chester is ready for war

Meanwhile, in