Halton update - with Army Camp Photographs.

While Halton is in Buckinghamshire there was a major army camp there during the First World War and there were strong connections with Tring. I recently acquired this card and in adding it to the web site I discovered other cards of the camp and the war which had not yet been posted online. I have therefore used the opportunity to restructure the Halton page - so there are now three linked pages - one deals with Halton House and the Church, the second with the canal, and the third had pictures of the army camp.

Tring at War - Latest News 19th December, 1914

Christmas in Tring is looking good, as the the decision to based the headquarters of the 21st Division in the town, and the billeting of some 3,000 men now means that the shops are busy, although they would be even busier if local people shopped locally rather than in London. The paper was full of Xmas adverts and Tring Consolidated Charities distributed tickets for bread and coal. Over £25 was raised at the Tring Stock Sale for the Belgium Relief Fund and the big local news was the death of Dr Brown. There are brief mentions of the success of  Evelyn A. Freeman and Norah Jeffery in music exams, the vocalists at the Gem cinema, a lecture by the Rev. E. J. Whitman at the Baptist Chapel at Wigginton,  and the fact that Mr. H. W. Bishop, of Pendley, was a judge at the Smithfield Show.

     The military plans to use the High Street Schools as a military hospital were  progressing, which will allow them to vacate the Victoria Hall. Several Councillors launch an appeal for Xmas gifts for the soldiers in the hospital. Meanwhile military training carries on in the area. The nearby village of Marsworth provides a list of men from the parish serving in the armed forces. The very rainy weather was causing problems in the construction of the large army camp just over the county boundary at Halton, where "The continual heavy rains have, if anything, added to the wretched conditions that prevail, and the roads in the vicinity of the camp are almost impassable to anything but heavy motor vehicles." These problems may be why James Putnam was offering 30/- a week, plus lodgings, for "Pair and Single Horse Drivers" to work at the camp. Elsewhere in the paper there is a mention of the problems farmers are having with preparing the fields for the crops because so many farm workers have volunteered for the forces. [Later in the war a single track narrow gauge line was built between Wendover Station and the camp]

     Bombardier P. Seabrook, 35th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, son of Mr. Edwin Seabrook, of Albert-street, wrote home and while such letters do not normally mention the location or the fighting he can report that "Yon can read of my Battery in the Daily Mail of Nov. 26th. The heading 'Sticking to the Guns.' and 'The Heroic Defence of --- by a Single Battery commanded Major Christie.'" [Has anyone got a copy???]

Extracted from the Bucks Herald, 19th December, 1914

See the Latest Old Tring News

Other Tring "Old News .  

Goodbye to First World War Army Hut at Tring

The site of the New Mill Social centre, a former First World War Army hut which came from Gadebridge Army Camp, Hemel Hempstead, circa 1922, for use as a church, has now been cleared so that six new houses can be built.

Story & Other Pictures

First World War Army Hut moving from Herts to Essex.

The Old Army Hut before Demolition had started.

Preparing to Remove the Roof

This First World War Army Hut was built as part of the Gadebridge Army Camp, Hemel Hempstead, in 1915. After the war it was purchased by Tring Parish  for use as a district church, St George. It later became  the New Mill Community Centre. The site is now to be redeveloped for housing and arrangements have been made to move the Hut to a site near Bury St Edmund where a reconstructed Army Camp is being built. Work has just started and the site will be cleared to be ready for the builders by the end of September. I visited the site this afternoon and had an interesting talk with Taff Gillingham, who is moving the hut.

More Information

Some newly acquired post cards

I have added a varied batch of new Hertfordshire views(all with higher resolution images) as follows:

Military

A View of Batchwood Camp, St Albans, taken by L. L. Christmas in September 1915. It  shows the North Staffordshire Lines, and was in the St Albans area at about the same time as Briton's Camp (location unknown) was in existence.

I have created a page for four early 20th century pictures of New Birklands School, St Albans, two of the exterior, one of the dining room, and one of the garden. Three were taken by a London firm of photographers, Elliott & Fry, who had photographic works in Barnet. The other was taken by Montiville Evans, of St Albans. I have added details of the schoolthen just called Birklands, in the late 20th century, but have not yet researched it foundation.

Marsworth is on the Grand Union Canal on the birder with Hertfordshire, and close to Tring, so of interest despite being in Buckinghamshire. About a dozen post cards (possibly mostly amateur snapshots from about 1905) appeared recently on ebay and I purchased a number - some of which are good enough to justify high resolution scanning. As it is always a pity when a contemporary collection like this gets dispersed I have also included reduced sized thumbs to record those I did not win. 

Also included in the update were two pictures of Chorleywood, a picture of Radlett parish church before the wider nave was added, and a picture of  Nether Hall, at Widford.

Identifying WW1 post cards of soldiers in Hertfordshire.

The Military

Before Christmas I posted Something for you to do over Christmas to raise money for charity - the idea being to try and identify more soldiers who were in Hertfordshire from old post cards and other pictures. I report on three responses below.

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8th London (Howitzer) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery

The First is a post card showing soldiers grouped round a howitzer. Fiona tells me that the officer standing behind the gun is Eustace Nugent Fitz-George de Radcliffe Cooper. This confirms that the picture shows the unit which was based at Apsley, Hemel Hempstead between August 1914 and March 1915. As a result I have posted an old newspaper report from 1914 which mentions several soldiers who were members of the Brigade. Because a number of names are on record it should be possible to identify further officers and men who are in the picture - but I put this up as a challenge for visitors to this site.

More Information

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2/14th Battalion, London Scottish at North Mimms

Peter has kindly provided five digital images of the London Scottish on a musketry course at North Mimms in August 1915, Information on the back of one of the post cards allows the soldiers to be identified as part of the second line battalion, the first line battalion having been one of the first battalions to see action in October 1914. While there is not definite evidence it seems likely that the musketry course involved shooting on the Chalk Hill Firing Range..

More Information

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Jon has suggested that this picture of the Imperial Service Division at St Albans shows them on parade on the former St Albans School playing fields at Belmont Hill. The large house in the middle background with multiple chimneys would therefore be Torrington House - close to the site of Holywell House owned by the Marlboroughs/Spencers well into the 1800s. It would have been close to the White Hart HQ.

More Information

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Donate Here

I am still interested in any further information on troops who were based in Hertfordshire in the 1914-1919 period - and as promised in the earlier post I have made a donation of £20 to support the Mentally ill in Hertfordshire.

The Herts Imperial Yeomanry at Berkhamsted in 1906

Military Training Camp, Berkhamsted, May 1906

Berkhamsted

Military

The above card, and its partner, show the Herts Imperial Yeomanry Training Camp, which was held at Berkhamsted in May 1906, and many on the men shown would undoubtedly been fighting in the First World War a few years later. However card had some other interesting features relevant to this site. Both were taking by Frederick Downer, a pioneering Watford photographer - and I have opened up a new page to bring together his military photographs.

Watford

In addition the cards carried hidden messages in mirror writing, so that they could not be so easily read in transit, and prove to be affectionate letters from Jessie Louisa Smith, and her husband to be Thomas Lance Simmons, a Watford hairdresser. 

Identifying an Army Postcard - A Detective Story

  

This very faded post card, with no title, shows an army camp and I recently purchased it on ebay. I decided that I would use it to demonstrate how even an apparent "dead loss" post card can tell an interesting story. The questions that came to mind after a quick look at the card are:

• What army unit is shown?
• Where, when and why was the camp being held?
• Why was the card posted in Watford?
• Who was "M" (Miss M Rowe) to whom the card was sent?
•    ... and why could she not be found in the census at the address given?
• Who was "J" who sent the card?
•   ... and how was he related to the lady in question?
• Was Watford Football Club playing at home on Saturday, 20 November, 1909?

Click here to see how I set about trying to answer these questions. To confirm my finding I still need to look at some records (perhaps you can help) but the clincher evidence that ties everything together may be in the Watford Observer newspaper at the end of August 1910!