Bridgnorth in the Great War

By Christopher W. A. Owen

This social history of WWI explores the wartime sacrifices and contributions made by the people of this charming, historic English town.
 
The town of Bridgnorth, located along the Severn River in Shropshire, is a popular tourist destination known for its historic castle and unique funicular rail system. Though it is steeped in military history, much of its role during the Great War has remained obscure until now.
 
Misled by government propaganda, many of Bridgnorth’s men enlisted in the military for what they thought would be a short-term adventure. Their commitment and fortitude in the face of bloody trench warfare gives testament to the incredible bravery of the people of Bridgnorth, and their losses are evidenced in the various commemorative monuments erected throughout the town and surrounding hamlets.
 
Utilizing contemporary documents and wartime servicemen's poignant letters, some of which are disclosed here for the first time, Bridgnorth in the Great War reveals how this once prosperous and industrious West Midlands' town endured great sacrifice in the name of Britain’s war effort.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781473866133

Christopher W. A. Owen

Chris Owen is a freelance writer and IT graduate who lives with his wife and son in Shropshire. He is a local historian whose specialty is the Second World War and has therefore written a logical prequel to this later cataclysmic event which stemmed from the mistakes of its bloody predecessor. Intrigued by this rural farming county's wartime history he is also commissioned to write about some of its other towns and their sacrifices during the Great War, which are to be featured in this fascinating Pen & Sword series.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

1914 – Distant Rumblings Further Down the Line

A Brief Introduction to Bridgnorth

Bridgnorth is located on the A41 between Telford and Kidderminster about 40 miles north-west of Birmingham. Its once great and diverse industrial past is now long gone and nowadays the town is looked upon as a general trade centre and magnet for tourists who are drawn to the river or, in the case of steam enthusiasts, to the private railway society terminal housed in the former mainline railway station. The reader will note that the chapter headings are deliberately derived from railway terms to reflect the major preoccupation of the current vibrant metropolis.

Modern day scene of Bridgnorth High Town

Bridgnorth’s Coat of Arms

For the purposes of this book we will be including the villages of Claverley and Quatt as representative of many other surrounding smaller hamlets whose socio-economic history was intimately bound-up with the town. We will briefly trace their collective social history from the early eighteenth and nineteenth century Industrial Revolution through to the early twentieth century leading up to the Great War.

Bridgnorth is a picturesque West Midlands market town divided by a sandstone escarpment carved out by glacial activity eons ago during the retreat of the last ice age. This has resulted in a shallow-bottomed mighty river flowing through the town, the Severn, the longest river in England.

View of the bridge over River Severn c.1900

This geological heritage has split the topography of Bridgnorth into Low Town and High Town communities. Low Town, as the name suggests, straddles both banks of the Severn whilst High Town nestles on a promontory over a hundred feet above, which juts out over the sandstone escarpment to afford commanding views of the rolling Shropshire countryside. Local history has it that this is where Aethelflaed, the Lady of the Mercians, daughter of King Alfred, who ruled the kingdom of Mercia 911 – 918AD, decreed that the first substantial river bridge was to be built, thus permanently uniting the communities of the upper and lower towns. Some historians would argue that the first actual wooden bridge spanning the Severn was constructed further downstream at Quatt, but the fact remains that after the bridge’s construction, a more permanent and expanding settlement arose at Bridgnorth. It did not become a town officially until Robert de Bellême, third Earl of Shrewsbury, son of Roger de Montgomerie, moved from Quatford and built a castle and a church to defend against attacks from Wales.

View of Bridgnorth c.18th century

Modern day Bridgnorth, viewed from High Town

Nowadays it is a magnet for steam railway enthusiasts who flock in their tens of thousands annually, to experience one of the biggest and busiest privately-owned rail companies: The Severn Valley Railway Co. Ltd., (incorporated since 1970). The SVR was set up by a group of enthusiasts led by the late Sir Gerald Nabarro MP, who collectively bought the line, stations and rolling stock from the then nationalised British Rail authority. The line extends from Bridgnorth terminating at Kidderminster some 16 miles away with eight stations (and two halts) between. Another unique feature of the town is its funicular railway which runs between High Town and Low Town and has operated since 1892. Although originally steam-driven, it is still fully operational being the world’s longest running facility of its type.

In the past Bridgnorth has enjoyed many industries, from carpet-making to boat-building, which were well served by their riverside positions at the birth of the Industrial Revolution for mass transport of finished goods prior to the advent and rapid expansion of the railways. Due to their overwhelming success, the river’s traditional main bulk haulage system, the Trow barge trade, despite 300 years of faithful service died off at the end of the nineteenth century. Rapid transport direct to main cities opened up new national industries including the fresh produce trade, which sounded the death knell to most slower forms of transport.

Map of Bridgnorth circa 18th Century

However, the railways, this favoured child of the Industrial Revolution, could have arrived in the town as early as 1848. The Bridgnorth area found itself at the centre of a land dispute between the local gentry, who viewed the railways as a highly speculative venture sometimes resulting in bankruptcy, and the railway construction engineers led by George Stephenson. It was to be as late as 1867 before there was a functioning line, and then only as a subsidiary connection via Shrewsbury and Ironbridge to the main Wolverhampton branch of the London to Midlands division of the famous Great Western Railway.

The equally famous Bradshaw’s railway guide of the period describes Bridgnorth as:

A Telegraph station; a considerably sized town situated on both sides of the Severn, the two parts being distinguished by the names of Upper and Lower and connected by a noble bridge of six arches. It has a considerable carrying trade on the river; in other respects it is of a miscellaneous character and the promenade outside the town should be visited.

Any student of Bridgnorth’s history will note that embedded deeply in its DNA are the common threads of conflict and war. Its Norman castle once dominated the surrounding flat plains from its position high on the promontory at the eastern edge of High Town. All that remains these days is the ruined keep, tilted at a precarious angle in the grounds of what is now the Castle Memorial Grounds, or centenary park in High Town destined to become the focus for the town’s memorial and collective mourning for their Great War dead.

The keep’s present state is attributable to fierce and prolonged fighting during the English Civil War between 1642–1651. Bridgnorth was a Royalist stronghold besieged by Cromwell’s Parliamentary forces. Despite fierce resistance, after receiving news of a threat to blow up the garrison, the town was surrendered on 26 April 1646.

Copy of the Bridgnorth Castle articles of surrender in the civil war

Memorandum – entableture of Bridgnorth Civil War Surrender

Bridgnorth also holds the distinction of being the home town of the regimental forerunner that was to form the basis of the King’s Own Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI) Regiment which recruited so many volunteers across the county in the Great War. We shall be relating some of these local stories enshrined in the terrible toll of war dead suffered by this little town and the surrounding hamlets.

The social strata of Bridgnorth and the surrounding hamlets at the turn of the twentieth century comprised a cross-section of professionals, tradespeople and the working classes. The town was autonomous in its legal function having held a local assize for over 600 years, dispensing justice at all levels of misdemeanour from its town hall base in the High Street. In the twentieth century, these were held in a lower assize court as we shall read from the following reports. The Crown Court in Shrewsbury took precedence over these local courts in trying the more serious capital offences such as murder.

The local newspaper, the Bridgnorth Journal, as the only accessible social mass media of its time, reflected the lives of the townsfolk leading up to the war. In order to sample the flavour of this society pre-war we include some extracts from the Journal of the social and legal events of 1914 as reported in the following editions:

3 January 1914

Married at the Baptist chapel, Ladbroke Drive, J.W. Ward Dyer of Eltham College, eldest son of the Rev. W.J. Dyer of Bridgnorth to Blanche Olive.

Married at St Mary’s Church, Robert Edward, eldest son of Mr and Mrs R.B. Foxall of Friars Street to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Mr G. Wootton of Bridgnorth.

(We shall hear more of Robert’s service in the war, as reported in the Journal in 1915. In the meantime, there is more disturbing news of his father in the local assize court later in 1914 and up to