A Silver Medallion.

The medallion pictured below bears the unit title ‘No.4 Batt Machine Gun Corps’ over the two crossed Vickers Mk.1 machine guns. While it has been in the Group’s collection for a little while, it was only very recently that some research on the unit named has been undertaken. This research has been expanded upon to take a brief look at the history of the Machine Gun Corps. A number of men from Goole were to be posted to the M.G.C., some of whom were also part of the battalion MG Sections that preceded them.

Throughout the First World War a number of units were formed that only existed for the duration of the War and for a few years after hostilities ceased.

A large number of these units were the Service Battalions that were formed after January 1916 when conscription was brought in. These battalions would go on to supplement the Regular and Territorial battalions, as well Kitchener’s New Armies following the surge of enlistment in the weeks after the commencement of hostilities, all of which would be formed into Brigades and then assigned to a specific Division. Prior to November 1917 a Division was formed of four brigades, each with four infantry battalions – these in turn, if at full strength would number approx. 1025 officers and men.

After the above date and through to January 1918 a re-organisation of the Divisions led to the number of brigades and battalions each being reduced to three. The table below shows a simplified version of how a Division was organised, and where it fit into the overall organisation of the Army to which it was assigned within the BEF as a whole.

In addition to the infantry units, each division was also assigned ‘Divisional’ troops. The ‘Divisional’ troops were individual units and companies which were part of other Army units at a higher Corps level – being from the Royal Engineers; Royal Army Medical Corps; Army Service Corps and Royal Field Artillery. Unlike the infantry units, which were on occasion re-assigned to another Division (dependent on battles then in progress and the casualties caused to it, or indeed to the one being replaced), to a large degree the ‘Divisional’ troops would remain with their division for the duration of the War. There were times though when a Division was moved from one Corps to another – the Corps formed the basis for an Army.

Prior to February 1915 each infantry battalion had a Machine Gun Section, being formed of two subsections – a gun each and manned by six privates under the command of a Sergeant (1 Section) and Corporal (2 Section). Each gun was transported by a limbered wagon hauled by one or two draught horses. The men of the MG Section were from and would still be a part of their respective battalions.

A limbered Maxim machine gun of an MG Section, of an unidentified Battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light

Infantry, date and location unknown. (Group collection)

In February 1915, and as a result of the experiences of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front and as Kitchener’s New Armies were being trained in England the number of MG sections was increased to four. As with the previous statement, the men were from the battalion itself, with no increase of the established number to allow each company to have the full complement of around 250 officers and men.

Army Order No.414, dated 22nd October 1915 authorised the formation of the Machine Gun Corps, being formed to bring an overall command structure to allow the British Army Divisions in France to have an organised structure of machine gun units to each Division and the men to man them; as such, a machine gun battalion was assigned to each Division.

One such battalion, No.4 Batt. Machine Gun Corps was assigned to 4th Division. It was formed on 26th February 1918 and comprised of the 10th, 11th, 12th and 234th Machine Gun Companies – the table below shows how these companies were formed. The men from the constituent MG Sections were all transferred to the Machine Gun Corps; there numbers supplemented by other men transferred from other units or by newly enlisted men.

4th Battalion, Machine Gun Corps
Machine Gun Company	MG Sections from -
10th	1st Bn Royal Warwickshire Regiment
	2nd Bn Seaforth Highlanders
	2nd Bn Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment)
11th	1st Bn Somerset Light Infantry
	1st Bn Hampshire Regiment
	1st Bn Rifle Brigade
12th	1st Bn King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment)
	2nd Bn Lancashire Fusiliers
	2nd Bn Essex Regiment
234th	Joined 4th Div. on 16th July 1917

The four companies were each formed of 150 officers and men (including two from the Army Service Corps) being equipped with 64 Vickers Mk.1 machine guns, 52 horses and four bicycles. While the 10th, 11th and 12th MG Companies were assigned to their respective battalions, the 234th MG Company was held as Divisional Reserve.

A Vickers Mk.1 Machine Gun, from 1917, during the display at Boothferry Primary School, 6th November 2023.

After the formation of the MGC and the attachment of No.4 Batt. MGC, the 4th Division, which was classed as a ‘Regular’ Division based on the battalions within, though very few of the men who left England in August and September 1914 were still serving with it. In early April 1918 the 4th Division was transferred from XVII Corps Third Army to I Corps First Army. Prior to 28th August it was again transferred, this time to Canadian Corps First Army; in October it was again transferred, to XXII Corps First Army, with which it remained at the time of the Armistice. Following the Spring 1918 German Offensive, Operation Michael (Kaiserschlacht or ‘Kaiser’s Battle) it went on to take part in a number of battles that became part of the ‘Advance to Victory’.

On 11th November 1918, the 4th Division was acting as XXII Corps Reserve, being concentrated to the south-east of Valenciennes. In the days and weeks following the Armistice, the division did not proceed to the Rhine to form part of the Army of Occupation. Instead, it moved to Valenciennes, where on 4th December it was visited and inspected by King George V. On 6th January 1919 the division moved to the Binche-le-Louviere area, from where the process of the demobilisation of the men was started.

The reverse of the medallion is stamped with the characters ‘J W T’ – being the letters of the person who sponsored the casting of the medallion. Next to these are three shield marks that show an Anchor, denoting that it was manufactured in Birmingham; a Lion – showing that it is of sterling silver; and the character ‘S’ – showing that it was assayed in 1942. The individual links on the chain are also stamped with the Lion mark.

One local man is recorded as having served with 4th Battalion MGC. Millson Burkitt was born in Luddington in September 1887. He was living in Edinburgh Street at the time of his marriage in March 1910 to Beatrice Gamewell. Millson’s war service took him from the Royal Navy (as a fireman onboard a ‘Q’ ship) to the K.O.Y.L.I., before being posted to the MGC, firstly to 61st Coy. in December 1916 and then to 11th Coy. in September 1917, which in turn joined 4th Batt. on its formation in February 1918.

Millson Burkitt pictured with his wife Beatrice and their daughter Mary Agnes (Courtesy Jay Whittaker)

Official records that survive show some 60 or so men from Goole served with various battalions and companies of the Machine Gun Corps, some of whom were killed while serving with the Corps. By the very nature of the weapon they were tasked with using on the enemy, the MGC were in turn heavily targeted, and not without cause, with typical Army humour, were the MGC referred to as ‘The Suicide Club’. Around 170,500 officers and men served with the M.G.C. during its brief wartime existence, they suffered nearly 17,000 thousand men killed; died as a result of wounds; accidents; drownings and unknown causes, with another 6,600 being wounded while almost 43,000 were reported as ‘missing’ – with a large number later to be recorded as ‘Prisoners of War’.

The Machine Gun Corps was disbanded in 1922, partly to save money but also to bring the army back to a pre-War level of manpower. A different approach to how machine guns equipped, and the organisational structure of the units, was in place prior to the Second World War, which is beyond the scope of this text.

Sources

Published

Crutchley, C.E.; Machine Gunner 1914-18: Personal Experiences of the Machine Gun Corps

Pen & Sword; 2013.

Russel, Arthur; The Machine Gunner

Roundwood Press; 1977.

Online

Vickers MG Collection & Research Association

https://vickersmg.blog

St. Paul's Church Memorial

Members of the Group had the opportunity on Tuesday to visit the crypt beneath St. John’s Parish church.

The purpose of our visit was to see and asses the condition of a memorial plaque that was placed there on an unknown date. A Goole Times article from August 1998 showing the then Warden, Peter Dunleavy, pictured with it after he found it while preparing for the Church’s 150 year anniversary, with the accompanying article stating that there was only one name recorded – John F. Thorpe “who was killed in the Great War”.

John Fillingham Thorpe was born on 6th July 1894. Just over twenty years later on 29th August 1914, while employed as a labourer, he presented himself at an enlistment office and ‘joined up’. Initially assigned to the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (No. 18463), he was reassigned to the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on 8th September (No. KW/129). After several months of training at Blanford Camp, Dorset, he was posted to Nelson Battalion, Royal Naval Division, then being prepared for transportation to Egypt as part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, to be ultimately engaged in the landings at Gallipoli, where Nelson Battalion landed at Anzac Cove on 29th April, in company with Deal Battalion, Royal Marine Light Infantry.

John reported ‘sick’ on 5th October 1915, being diagnosed with gastritis; it was to be the 2nd of the following month before he was able to return to his unit. The Gallipoli campaign came to an end in December with all units being withdrawn by the 20th. After refitting and bringing units back up to ‘strength’ in Egypt the Division was then transported to France, arriving in Marseilles between 12th – 23rd May 1916. Two days shy of his twenty-second birthday John was killed in action. He is buried in Tranchée de Mecknes Cemetery, Aix-Noulette.

 

The exterior of the memorial plaque to John Fillingham Thorpe seemed to be in relatively good condition, in part with thanks to Peter Dunleavy who had carried out some restoration work on it. Unfortunately, the condition of the paper hadn’t faired so well – at some point water had damaged the paper within, the left hand side being easier to read than the right. The text appears to be based on Requiem Æternam.

Prior to our visit, a copy of a postcard of a memorial that was once erected within St. Paul’s Church was passed on to Chris; this shows the memorial placed above several floral arrangements, but the occasion for this is not recorded. This scene was photographed by James George Powles.

This plaque lists the names of 37 men who were associated both with the Church of St. Paul’s and the Sunday School to which many of them attended. Sometime after the picture of the memorial within St. Paul’s was produced an extra name was added to the left column, Herbert Clarke replacing the R.I.P. at the base.

A great deal of information is known about a number of the men named on this plaque – including three Service Records, for John Brunyee (d.28.06.1916), Stanley Brunyee (d.30.03.1917) and Herbert Clarke (d.22.09.1917); along with biographies of Edgar Bowles (d.21.03.1918) and Percy Jeeves (d.22.07.1916).

At some point members of the Group confused the two plaques mentioned above and came up with ‘one’, as such it was a great surprise to see both memorials and the good condition they are currently in.

The British Army and Private William Cawson

It is too simple to just state the fact that the men of Goole served in the Royal Navy, Army, Air Force and Mercantile services.

 

Prior to the outbreak of hostilities there were a number of men from Goole who had or were currently in the Royal Navy or the Army, with those who had seen service being on the ‘Reserve List’. Some of those on the ‘Army Reserve’ had seen action as far away as South Africa and India, with others having been posted to Hong Kong and Singapore.

 

Once their service was over they were placed on the ‘reserve’ for seven years, during which time they were liable to be recalled to the Colours should the nation be placed in a ‘national emergency’. To keep their skills, marksmanship, field-craft, etc. current they were required to attend the camp to which their former Regiment was based – Strensall (York and Lancaster Regiment); Pontefract (King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry), being two examples.

 

The men of Goole who were already in the Army were part of what came to be called ‘the contemptible little Army’, a phrase which seems to stem from a quote taken from Kaiser Wilhelm II. The organisation of the British Army at that time, based purely on a voluntary basis, meant that its numbers were small compared to other European armies which used conscription; this was however miss-leading as these armies were based on a service of two or three years, whereas the British soldier could stay for a time as short as three, or as many as twenty-plus years, this being determined in some cases by the rank attained.

 

The British Army may have been small, but it certainly had ‘teeth’. This was in the form of the Short Magazine Lee Enfield rifle, the SMLE Mk. II being introduced in 1907, later replaced by the Mk. III in 1915 – as it was cheaper to manufacture in larger numbers. When the German Army advanced through Belgium and first came in to contact with this rifle and the men behind it, they thought that they were encountering machine-gun fire such was the amount of ‘fire’ being brought to bear and the number of casualties inflicted.

 

While the Army suffered heavily in the retreat from Mons to the Marne it slowed the opposing forces to such an extent that it allowed further ‘regular’ Regiments still serving at ‘home’ to be made ready. The Depots of all Regiments were awash with those men undergoing various stages of training and reservists going through the process of getting all their equipment; alongside all of this the Territorial battalions associated to their Regiments were to be fully assembled and equipped; and all had to ultimately be transported across the Channel with the stores, horses, wagons and other equipment that made a 'modern' Army..

 

Those men who were undergoing training in the few weeks before the War commenced, and the reservists, were to face the challenges of action sooner than most as replacements to the large number of casualties that had been inflicted in the first weeks of the War.

 

Included within those who were on the reserve list and who were called-up is Private 5257 William Cawson. William enlisted in the Army in October 1898 at the age of 19. He requested to join the Army Medical Corps but was posted to the York & Lancs. He was to see service in South Africa between 1899 and 1902, and was awarded the Queen’s South African Medal, with eight clasps; and the King’s South African Medal, with three clasps.

 

William married Ethel Beatrice Brooks in November 1903, in Dover, eventually having five children – William, Ethel Beatrice Eliza, Harold Sydney, Leslie Thomas and Robert Leonard.

 

Upon his discharge in October 1910, William was placed on the Army Reserve; thereafter he attended Strensall Range, in July 1911 and June 1913.

 

William was issued with a travel warrant on the 4th August, 1914, that allowed him to get to Pontefract. He was to serve at 'home' initially and it wasn't until 30th April, 1915, that William was posted to France. Less than two weeks later on 11th May William was wounded in the right arm and shoulder, seriously enough for him to be brought back to England. He died due to his wounds in hospital at Newcastle four days after being wounded. He was buried on Friday 20th May in Goole Cemetery.

At the time of his ‘call-up’ in August 1914 the family were living at 7, Capstan Street. Sometime between the date of his death and the following November, Ethel had moved with the children back to Dover.

A Name on a List

2nd Lieutenant Henry Guy Thorp

The memorials erected in Goole are lists commemorated to those who were killed during the First World War. The method of gathering these lists involved extensive work by the Members of the Church or Organisation responsible for erecting the memorial. Typically the research involved a door to door survey of the town and a compilation of a central list. Lists of those in service or those who has been killed were also compiled in the local papers throughout the war. Therefore one would expect that the memorials erected within the town are representative of all those who were killed on active service. However a study of the local newspapers show that several Goole people who were killed during the war were not included on the Goole memorials.

An example of those not included on local memorials is Henry Guy Hanning Thorp, a Goole born 2nd Lieutenant of the 3rd Battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. Henry Guy was born in Goole in 1895 and lived in the town before attending Public School. His father, Henry Bell, was the Director of the Local Board, and prominent local architect. By 1911 Henry Bell had moved to Doncaster but was still working as a Valuer in Goole and designed the Fever Hospital on Westfield Lane in 1912. In the months leading up to the First World War Henry Guy was touring Canada but returned to Britain upon the declaration of War. Gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant Henry Guy joined the 3rd Battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and served in France from March 1915. Lieutenant Thorp’s service was short as he was announced dead on the 13th March 1915, age 19. The local newspaper reported the death and described Lieutenant Thorp as a well-known figure around Goole.

The reasons for people not been included on the War Memorials vary. This may range to clerical error or families not wanting to register the loss of a family member. Other practical aspects include whether any next of kin survived in the town to register the deceased for the memorial. Recently revision of historical practice has also allowed those killed for cowardice clemency and the right to be included on War Memorials.

Lieutenant Thorp was included in several weekly/monthly Rolls of Honour Published in the Goole Times during 1916 and listed within the Roll of Honour published by the Goole Times for the period from the start of the War until June 1917. Despite been known as a Goole Man and listed in the Rolls of Honour Lieutenant Thorp is not included on Goole’s First World War memorials. During 1915 Lieutenant Thorp’s father is noted as living in Doncaster but after this period little information is known about the Thorp family. Therefore it is likely that nobody was available to register Henry Guy Thorp for his name to be placed on one of Goole’s Memorials.

D Coy. 5th Bn King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

They say that every picture tells a story, and to a degree the one below is no different.

Goole had prior to the 'Great War' a 'company' of Territorial soldiers which formed part of D Company, 1/5th Battalion King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. This battalion landed in France, at Boulogne, on 12th April, 1915, along with 1/4th Bn K.O.Y.L.I. On 2nd February, 1918, the 1/5th and 2/5th were absolved in to one unit which became 5th Battalion K.O.Y.L.I.

Taken in early 1919 it shows the Goole 'Territorials' of D Company 5th Bn King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry marching behind members of the Queens Own Yorkshire Dragoons, during a parade to mark their return from France. The evidence for this can be seen from the 'bunting' that adorns the buildings of Boothferry Road - No.13 'Anglesey House', formerly the home of Dr. Blair (now NatWest Bank); No.15, the premises of Fred N. Huggins, Ironmonger, on the corner with Paradise Place (later Woodcock Travel); No.17, Arthur Rockett, Hosiery, and No.19 the offices of 'The Goole Times' newspaper. The building with the double chimney was the shop run by Harry Bloom.

Further evidence of when the picture was taken can be seen by looking at the faces and demeaour of the men themselves. Many of the faces betray the effects of having seen action in the trenches, the ever-lasting mud, and other horrors that formed the enduring hell that was the 'Great War'. Another feature of when the picture was taken is that, aside from one man, nobody else is wearing any medals. The man who is is Colour Quarter-Master Sergeant Sugden, and the medals he wears are the King's and Queen's Medals for service in South Africa, both of which appear to have 'bars' (denoting 'actions' at which he and his unit was present at). The officer leading the detachment of the K.O.Y.L.I. is Lieutenant L. W. Silvester (with the officers belt over his right shoulder and seen between the last two men of the right column wearing shoulder pouches of the Q.O.Y.D.).

The men of Goole who fought as part of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and who lost their lives during the First World War form a signifiacnt number of those named on Goole Cenotaph - 121 men of the 452 named on the plaques; of this number thirty-nine served in either 1/5th, 2/5th or 5th Bn. This number is further increased when examining those who had connections to Goole who also lost their lives, but who are not named upon the Cenotaph - 16 men from a total of 99 who served within the K.O.Y.L.I.