Peterborough in the Great War

By Abigail Hamilton-Thompson

When news of the war first broke out in 1914, the citizens of Peterborough could not have been prepared for the changes that would occur over the next four years. This book takes a detailed looks at Peterborough's involvement in the Great war from when it commenced in July 1914, to the Armistice in November 1918, covering in great detail its affect on the city and the every day lives of its people. For example, the factory Werner Pfeiderer & Perkins at Westwood Works was forced to change its name to Perkins Engineers due to the anti-German feeling at the outbreak of the war.One in six of Peterborough's working age men did not return from the front line, and in one single day forty-six men from the city lost their lives. Many of these men came from Peterborough's factories. As a result, these factories looked to women to produce armaments and tanks, as well as repairing guns used in the trenches.Edith Cavell, the famous British nurse, grew up in Peterborough and was shot dead in 1915 for assisting the escape of Allied soldiers from Belgium. Peterborough in the Great War is a poignant testimony not only to her bravery, but that of the city's people and their momentous efforts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781473860148

Abigail Hamilton-Thompson

Abigail Hamilton-Thompson lives in Eastern England and has an extensive interest in local history and the great outdoors. She has written for various regional and national magazines. When not busy working on her next project, Abigail is researching her own family's involvement in both the First and Second World War.

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Bibliography

Prologue: Peterborough pre-war

In 1774, Peterborough was described as the smallest city in England by The Gentleman’s Magazine as the ward had a population of less than 3,000. There had been little growth or expansion of the city as the boundaries were not dissimilar to that of twelfth-century Peterborough. Famous people linked to the city include Mary Queen of Scots and Catherine of Aragon who are both buried here.

Not far from Peterborough, in 1797, the Norman Cross Prisoner of War camp opened, the first of its kind in the world. The war with France necessitated prisoner of war camps to be built, and Norman Cross, near Yaxley, was chosen as one such site. Prisoners were captured from ships and became the responsibility of the Royal Navy. Before long, prisons on land and at sea became full, so a site was chosen which was far enough from the sea to make escape difficult. Norman Cross was designed to be the most humane prison around. At its peak, the camp housed over 5,000 prisoners, twice the size of the nearby city! This benefited the local area economically, as the guards, and prisoners on parole, were allowed out to Peterborough on day release. Additionally, the prisoners were fed on locally sourced fresh food as part of an arrangement between the British and the French governments. Any prisoners who seriously breached discipline were placed into the ‘Black Hole’, a cell block with no windows, and chained.

Disease spread quickly through Norman Cross due to the large numbers of people in close quarters. The main sicknesses were pneumonia and consumption, and a typhus epidemic broke out during 1800 to 1801. The typhus epidemic meant that a special cemetery had to be built outside the prison grounds which accommodated over 1,000 victims who succumbed to the disease.

Many prisoners residing in Norman Cross crafted beautiful intricate models carved out of animal bone to supplement their income, and were allowed to sell them at public markets. Some of these models are on show at Peterborough Museum. The prison was closed in June 1814 but several prisoners stayed on in the locality. A memorial was later erected to commemorate those that had died at the site.

The Peterborough Yeomanry cavalry, after Norman Cross was closed, gave the remaining funds from the prisoner of war camp to set up a public dispensary in Peterborough which opened in Cowgate in 1821. To be seen by either the resident Dr Pope, Dr Fenwick Skrimshire, or the visiting surgeon Thomas Walker, you had to have a letter of recommendation from a member of the board of governors. Churches and workers’ organisations helped raise money towards the infirmary which relied heavily on donations. In 1856 Earl Fitzwilliam donated his town house in Priestgate to be used as a hospital; thirty years later an operating theatre was added. The hospital was the first outside London to use X-rays, in 1896. The hospital secretary, Alfred Taylor, constructed his own X-ray machine but sadly died because of his work – the dangers of using nuclear technology were not understood back then. Today the hospital is the city’s museum and you can see the original operating theatre as it would have looked in the 1890s.

The New Poor Law was passed in 1834, replacing the previous legislation which dated from Elizabethan times. The update was much needed thanks to growing populations; people were beginning to resent the expense of helping the poor, whom they often saw as idle. Parishes were now grouping together and were ordered to share workhouses, to provide those in need with accommodation and work. Admitting yourself to a workhouse was very much a last resort for any person. Upon entry each person was stripped of their own clothes, checked for infectious diseases, washed, issued workhouse clothes, and allocated a set diet. The register for this newly erected Union Workhouse showed that most of the adults who entered the workhouse gave their occupation as agricultural worker, which indicated that the city was changing from an agricultural market town to an industrial town. The Board of Guardians in Peterborough (forty-five in number, each representing individual parishes) was set up in 1835 to find suitable premises as the existing institutions, run by feoffees, were not suitable and so a new Union Workhouse, based on the popular cruciform layout, was built in Thorpe Road to accommodate 200 inmates. It included an infirmary block, to which further wards were added later, and a chapel. The former workhouse site later became Peterborough District Hospital.

City Infirmary pictured in 1910.

Peterborough holds the distinction of being the last city in Britain where you could be carried around in a sedan chair. However, the first railway line came to Peterborough in 1845, from Northampton, a second line to Boston followed in 1847, and then the most important line, from London, in 1850, which transformed the city from a market town into an industrial hub. All three railway companies built engine sheds here in Peterborough and their staff resided in the city. Finally the city began to expand from the stagnant twelfth-century plan, with properties being built alongside the railway lines. By 1861 the city’s population had grown to almost 12,000.

A boom in industries developed outside the framework of the old parish boundary of medieval Peterborough. The city’s environs became home to the London Brick Company, the leading producer of bricks in the UK. Transportation of the finished goods was made by railway. Many of the country’s landmarks were constructed using the locally made Fletton bricks. At one stage ten per cent of Peterborough’s population were employed by this leading producer of lower Oxford clay bricks. Later, in 1903, Baker Perkins relocated from London offering further jobs to the city’s residents; and Peter Brotherhood, industrial machinery manufacturers, came to Walton in 1906; both companies were major employers of local people.

The Victorian era brought many improved facilities for the residents. As well as an infirmary which was opened in 1822, gas lighting arrived in 1830 for the public thoroughfares thus improving residents’ safety. A corn exchange in 1846 was set up in the former theatre. In the 1870s piped water and a sewerage system was implemented when the municipal borough was incorporated with the city, to be now governed by a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors. The public library opened in 1892 and a cinema arrived in 1911 just before the start of the Great War. The city had grown to a population of 30,000 by 1901, ten times the size seen at the beginning of the 1800s.

Riotous behaviour was commonplace on election nights in Peterborough towards the end of the nineteenth century between townsfolk and the police. Locals would tear down the hustings (wooden political speech platforms), damage shops, roll lit tar barrels down the streets and rampage drunkenly through the city. The Angel Hotel on Narrow Bridge Street, the assumed Conservative Party headquarters, was frequently targeted on these evenings.

On 6 August 1895, the death of Mademoiselle Adelaide Bassett was recorded in the Peterborough Advertiser. She and her partner Captain Alfred Orton were famous for their daredevil parachute jumps as double aeronauts and had completed their acts on numerous occasions. On this day, the weather had been wet but the decision was made to still go ahead with the Bank Holiday show. The Victorian smoke balloon did not rise as quickly as normal and hit a tree before becoming stuck in some telegraph lines. The following was recorded in the Aberdeen Weekly Journal:

Female Parachutist Killed. Miss Adelaide Bassett, a London parachutist, was killed in Peterborough yesterday evening. In connection with a fete there had been arranged a balloon ascent and a double parachute descent by Captain Orton and Miss Bassett. The latter’s parachute was broken by a telephone wire on the balloon being released, and as she had consequently no means by which to descend, she jumped