Gravesend in the Great War

By Stephen Wynn

Gravesend was like most other towns in the UK during the course of the First World War. When the call came to serve King and Country, local men enlisted in their thousands, but sadly not all of them returned.This book gives an insight into the Tilbury to Gravesend Pontoon Bridge, which allowed the rapid deployment of troops in the event of a German invasion along the East Coast. It provided a quicker route to get troops, equipment and supplies from Essex into Kent for transportation across to France. It looks at the role both New Tavern and Shornemead Fort, part of the London Defence system, played in preventing the German Navy from carrying out direct attacks on London.There is an account of the Gravesend riots, in which groups of local people burnt and looted premises they believed belonged to German aliens who were residents in the town, and the unique story of Captain Robert Campbell, taken as a prisoner by the Germans early in the war. He was allowed home by the Kaiser to see his dying mother one last time, and voluntarily returned to captivity in Germany, on his word of honour to do so.The story of Sir Gilbert Parker, the wartime MP for Gravesend, is also told. He was instrumental in convincing America to join the war as a British Allie, which was no easy task, as the United States Justice Department estimated there were some 480,000 Germans living in America at the time.The book also tells the individual stories of Gravesend's men who fought in the war, some who survived and returned to their loved ones, and others who were not so fortunate. It documents the triumphs and tragedies of Gravesend's people as they sought to find normality amongst a reality far removed from anything they had ever known before.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473864962

Stephen Wynn

Stephen is a retired police officer having served with Essex Police as a constable for thirty years between 1983 and 2013. He is married to Tanya and has two sons, Luke and Ross, and a daughter, Aimee. His sons served five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013 and both were injured. This led to the publication of his first book, Two Sons in a Warzone – Afghanistan: The True Story of a Father’s Conflict, published in October 2010. Both Stephen’s grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Mercantile Marine, whilst his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.When not writing Stephen can be found walking his three German Shepherd dogs with his wife Tanya, at some unearthly time of the morning, when most normal people are still fast asleep.

Book preview

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

PEN & SWORD MILITARY

an imprint of

Pen and Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright © Stephen Wynn, 2016

ISBN: 978 1 47382 7 899

PDF ISBN: 978 1 47386 4 979

EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47386 4 962

PRC ISBN: 978 1 47386 4 955

The right of Stephen Wynn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

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Contents

About The Author

Acknowledgements

Prologue – Pre War Gravesend

1914 – Eager for a Fight

1915 – Deepening Conflict

1916 – The Realization

1917 – Seeing it Through

1918 – The Final Blow

Aftermath

References and Sources

‘I had grown up in a humanist atmosphere, and war to me was never anything but horror, mutilation and senseless destruction, and I knew that many great and wise people felt the same way about it.’

George Grosz

(German First World War Soldier and Artist)

‘God would never be cruel enought to create a cyclone as terrible as that Argonne battle. Only man would ever think of doing an awful thing like that. It looked like the abomination of desolation must look like. And all through the long night those big guns flashed and growled just like the lightning and thunder when it storms in the mountains back home.

And, oh my, we had to pass the wounded. And some of them were on stretchers going back to the dressing stations, and some of them were lying around, moaning and twitching. And the dead were all along the road. And it was wet and cold. And it make me think of the Bible and the story of the Anti-Christ and Armageddon. And I’m telling you the little log cabin in Wolf Valley in old Tennesse seemed a long way off.’

From The Diary of Alvin York

and his account of 7 October 1918.

About The Author

Stephen is a retired police officer having served with Essex Police as a constable for thirty years between 1983 and 2013. He is married to Tanya and has two sons, Luke and Ross, and a daughter, Aimee. His sons served five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013 and both were injured. This led to the publication of his first book, Two Sons in a Warzone – Afghanistan: The True Story of a Father’s Conflict, published in October 2010.

Both Stephen’s grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Mercantile Marine, whilst his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.

Stephen co-wrote a book published in August 2012, entitled German POW Camp 266 – Langdon Hills. He has also co-written three crime thrillers which featuring a fictional Detective Chief Inspector named Terry Danvers.

Gravesend in the Great War is one of numerous books which Stephen has written for Pen & Sword in the Towns and Cities of The Great War series which commemorate the sacrifices made by young men up and down the country.

Acknowledgements

Researching a book of this nature requires a considerable amount of time and effort on the author’s part, but it would not have been possible to complete without the help and assistance of others. I would like to express my appreciation to the following:

Andrew Bratley, for the use of his research on Kent men who served in the Australian Army; the staff at Gravesend library for their help and assistance; my wife Tanya, for her continued support, help and understanding.

Every effort has been made to identify and acknowledge the copyright holders of photographs and documents used or referred to in this book. Any omissions are unintentional.

PROLOGUE

Pre-war Gravesend

The town of Gravesend has a long a varied history going as far back as the Stone Age. Implements from that era have been found and there is also evidence of both an Iron Age settlement, as well as extensive Roman remains at nearby Springhead.

Gravesend lies immediately to the north of the old Roman road which is now called Watling Street and connects London with the Kent coast to the east. It is situated in north-west Kent, immediately opposite Tilbury in Essex on the north side of the River Thames and just 21 miles from the centre of London. Because of its geographical location and closeness to the capital, the town has always had an important role to play in the area’s history.

Milton Chantry, a Grade II listed building, is Gravesend’s earliest building, dating from the late thirteenth century, and can be found in the gardens of the town’s old fort. The Chantry is on the site of a leper hospital which was founded in 1189. It was also known as the Hospital of St Mary the Virgin. The original purpose of the Chantry was a place where prayers could be offered for the souls of those who had died. Over the years the Chantry has also been a private home, a farm and an inn, called the New Tavern, which at one time was also part of the barracks of New Tavern Fort.

Gravesend also has one of the country’s oldest surviving markets, with its charter dating from 1268. In the same year the area, which covered the two parishes of Gravesend and Milton, was granted town status by King Henry III. The first Mayor of Gravesend was also elected in 1268, although the first town hall was not built until 1573. This building was replaced in 1764 and additional alterations were made to the building in 1836.

In 1380, during the Hundred Years’ War, Gravesend had the ignominy of being sacked and burned by a Castilian fleet which had sailed up the River Thames before landing in the town.

In 1401, the town was awarded a royal grant which allowed local men to operate boats between London and Gravesend. The river crossing became a popular alternative for travelling to and from London, taking away the worries of being robbed and killed by highwaymen, a threat that was always a possibility when travelling by road, as the main London to Dover road crossed Blackheath Common on the outskirts of London, a notorious area for highwaymen.

At Fort Gardens is the New Tavern Fort, currently a museum, built during the 1780s and extensively rebuilt by General Gordon between 1865 and 1879.

On 21 March 1617 John and Rebecca Rolfe (Princess Pocahontas) along with their two-year-old son, Thomas, left London on board a ship bound for Virginia in the New World of America. The ship, The George, under the command of Captain Sir Samuel Argall, an adventurer and British naval officer, had only sailed the short distance to Gravesend before Rebecca was taken ill. Soon after being taken off of the ship, her condition worsened rapidly and she died. The cause of her death was not recorded. She was buried in the chancel at the nearby parish church of St George.

As the original church on the site when Rebecca died, was destroyed by fire in 1727, her exact resting place is uncertain, although it is believed to be underneath the chancel of the present church. The following is taken from the burial register of St George’s Chapel for 21 March 1617: ‘Rebekah Rolfe, wife of Thomas Rolfe, gentleman. A Virginian lady borne was buried in this chancel.’

Two hundred years later, whilst on a six day visit to England which began on 26 December 1918, Mrs Woodrow Wilson, the wife of the then American President, who was related to Princess Pocahontas, presented St George’s Church with a signed portrait of herself and Pocahontas, to be hung in the church’s vestry.

Mrs Wilson had traced her descent through the Bolling family from Thomas Rolfe, the only son of John Rolfe and his wife Rebecca, better known as Princess Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan.

Historically, travel by road between London and Gravesend and onward to the Kent coastal towns, had been extremely dangerous, especially during the two hundred year period between the mid 1600s and the mid 1800s, when highwaymen plied their trade throughout the Blackheath area on the outskirts of London.

Statue of Pocahontas

Gravesend Clock Tower

Gravesend had two coaching Inns and by 1840 reportedly had as many as seventeen stage coaches, changing horses in the town, both ways, each day, covering the London to Canterbury route as well as Dover to Faversham. The coaches picked up and dropped off at the New Prince of Orange and Lord Nelson pubs, or coaching houses; by then there had been a stage coach service for some 200 years. Samuel Pepys is known to have stopped off at Gravesend in 1650.

The town also boasts the world’s oldest cast iron pier, which was completed in 1834, and one of its most notable landmarks is its clock tower, which was built as part of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. The clock’s mechanism was started for the first time on 5 June 1889, with its overall cost being just over £1,000.

The town wasn’t just reliant on its maritime trade to drive the local economy, it also had large business interests in the paper and cement industries.

Until 1886 when Tilbury Docks, on the opposite side of the river was completed, Gravesend was the first port of entry for immigrants arriving in England as well as troops embarking for foreign climes.

Whereas lots of other communities across Great Britain were no more than villages or small towns at most before the outbreak of war, in 1914 Gravesend was already a thriving location to live. The 1911 Census showed that the population had already reached 28,115, which would probably have risen to in excess of 30,000 by the outbreak of war. This was a massive increase from the previous census ten years earlier in 1901 when the population then stood at 11,662.

CHAPTER ONE

1914 – Eager for a fight

The outbreak of war didn’t exactly come as a shock to most people as the threat of it was nothing new. There had been political manoeuvrings and rumblings going on for years as countries aligned themselves with other nations to form protective alliances against the threat of possible invasion and war.

It was a tactic which had many positives attached to it as a preventative measure at keeping a neighbouring country at arm’s length. The down side was evidenced with the outbreak of the First World War. Countries which were militarily aligned with each other, had no real option but to support and defend those with whom they had alliances, even if it meant having to declare war on a country that they didn’t actually have a direct issue with.

Gravesend Promenade

There was an air of optimism, almost excitement, as young men enlisted in the armed forces so that they could go off and do their bit, not fully appreciating the hell that they would be letting themselves in for. To most it was an adventure, a break from the routine drudgery of an existence that passed for a life for most working class men of the age, especially with articles which appeared in the national newspapers, proclaiming the likelihood of it all being over by Christmas.

German Reservists in Gravesend

The eve of war, 2 August 1914, saw an unusual sight in Gravesend: a group of Germans, estimated to be in the region of several hundred, arrived in the town by train from London. Most were reservists in the German Army returning home with their families. They were in a buoyant mood as they made their way through the town from the railway station to the docks to embark on a cargo vessel, the Oswiga, bound for Germany. Fortunately for those on board, it was only due to be a short journey because there was no passenger accommodation on the ship and only enough provisions for 200 people. She had sailed out of the Surrey Commercial Docks and was anchored up in the River Thames opposite the Imperial Paper Mills, awaiting the arrival of her passengers including another contingent of German reservists who had travelled to Tilbury on the Essex side of the river.

It was something of a strange affair. Britain and Germany were not at war at the time, although they would be two days later and it would be fair to say that matters between the two countries had been strained for quite a while. There were some low level demonstrations by locals because of the Germans’ presence in the town. Not everybody felt the same way, with others even managing to be polite to the soon-to-be foes, but there were no major incidents. Imagine if you will the same situation occurring today. Foreign nationals from another country that the United Kingdom was just about to go to war with, who wanted to leave and return to their country of birth so that they could then fight against the very country that had allowed them to live in their midst. The response, I would suggest, would be a lot more hostile and result in their detention rather than them being allowed to leave the country.

Lord Mayor’s Appeal

The Mayor of Gravesend, Alderman A.E. Enfield, issued an appeal to the people of the town on the first day of the war. In it he said:

‘In the terrible times before us, yet only dimly realised, English men and women should prioritise the patriotism that consists not in shooting but in working for the common good. Civilians can do little to help their country, but they can refrain from doing the things that harm it. Among them are:-

Remember that in a great war like the present, the last sovereign counts as much as the last soldier.

A.E. Enfield

Town Hall, Gravesend.

4th August 1914.’

If ever somebody’s words would come back to haunt them, then the Mayor of Gravesend most certainly got it wrong when he said, ‘Citizens can do little to help their country’. The continual efforts of ordinary civilians was one of the reasons behind why the Allies eventually defeated Germany during the First World War. If it had not been for volunteers, both men and women, whether they were men in the National Guard, soldiers in Territorial units, VAD nurses, women working in munitions factories, delivering the post, or driving buses, Britain and her Allies would have been hard pushed to have won the war.

Point four of his appeal could be described as being a somewhat self-effacing comment. If people who hold power over others by the positions or rank that they have acquired, don’t do what they are supposed to do or inexcusably blunder, especially in a time of war, then ordinary members of the public had every right to have their say, even if their words of truth were deemed by some to have caused embarrassment.

The first local newspaper, with news about the outbreak of the First World War available to the people of Gravesend, came out on 8 August 1914. The amazingly long titled newspaper, the Gravesend and Dartford Reporter, Northfleet Reporter, North Kent and South Essex Advertiser, which, covered the districts of Swanscombe, Greenhithe, Stone, Dartford, Meopham, Fawkham, Cobham, Higham, Shorne, Southfleet, Green-Street-Green, Cliffe, the Hundred of Hoo, as well as Grays and Tilbury on the Essex side of the river, contained a plethora of headlines – The Great War, Stirring Mobilisation Scenes, Ranks of Industry Depleted, Territorials Leave for Home Defence, VAD Nurses Ready, National Reservists Volunteer for Service, German Reservists Embark at Gravesend, Local ‘Spy’ arrested on Bawley.

Local Territorial Units

On the first day of the war two local Territorial Units, the Kent Fortress Royal Engineers and the Kent Royal Garrison Artillery, were both mobilised at the Gravesend Drill Hall. Despite the seriousness, urgency and importance of the situation, there was an unexpected calm in the demeanour of the men present. There were no scenes of unbounded enthusiasm or the singing of patriotic songs, as might have been expected. Instead men stood round in groups of four or five either quietly talking to each other or in total silence. They were almost gloomy, but unknown to most was the fact that the men of both units had been at the Drill Hall for nearly a week, when they were not at their normal place of work, waiting to be mobilised, the stress of the situation catching up with most of them.

The office of Lieutenant Colonel Gadd was crowded by men from both units eagerly waiting the call to mobilise. The day had come and gone and still there was no news. It would be 9.20pm before the telegraph message they were all waiting for, finally came through. It was short and to the point, ‘Mobilise at once’.

The moment that some of them had spent years training for was finally upon them. There were to be no more training exercises, this time it was for real, their chance to finally put all that they had learned into a reality. Each of them had to queue up to be issued with their own individual copy of the mobilisation notice, but even this was met with a strange indifference. For some it provoked smiles, back slapping and a renewed vigour that had not previously been evident throughout the course of their long wait. At last they had the chance to go and do their bit for their country and prove themselves as real men. For others the realisation that the long awaited and expected war was now upon them, was nothing to be happy about or celebrate like exuberant youngsters off on their first camping weekend. They were now officially on a war footing and very soon they would be in the thick of the fighting. For some this would be a defining moment in their lives, for others, a grim reality coupled with an uncertainty of what lay ahead of them. All they could hope for was that God was on their side.

Like many towns and cities throughout the country Gravesend had been roused from its slumber and called upon to do its bit for the war effort. Geographically it was now at the very epicentre of the country’s war preparations, yet the week before, instead of being on a war footing with Germany, the main