Just to refresh our memories ......

After war had been declared, on the 4th August 1914, regular soldiers had been re-deployed to France as the The British Expeditionary force.

Reservists had been re-called ... Territorials had been embodied ... and recruiting of civilian volunteers was in full swing by the end of August.

This talk is complete in itself but was designed to follow the earlier talk (August) that looked mainly at the role of men in the war .....
the Oldham battalions ... recruitment ... training ... their postings ...prisoners of war ... the 3 Oldham Victoria Crosses and u-boat attacks on passenger liners etc.

This will be more concerned with a brief look at some of what was happening at home ... and the role of women, both here and abroad ....

In January 1916 the Military Service Act came into force.
It was an attempt to push the fit and able men, who were not already in uniform, into the armed forces. However, men were given the opportunity to appy for exemption ...

Local Military Tribunal Boards were set up to consider applications for exemption and interview the applicant.
If the applicant was unhappy with the decision then they could appeal through County Appeal Tribunals.

Although there were many booklets and hundreds of pages of guidance issued ... with literally hundreds of possible examples for exemption ... a successful application often depended on the personal bias of the local board members, especially in the case of conscientious objectors.

There were 7 official 'grounds for Appeal' and put simply, they were.

Most successful applicants, on conscientious grounds, were obliged to serve in non-combatant roles ... often at or near the Front.
If they also refused this, then they faced court martial and possible execution. This was usually commuted to a long term of imprisonment.
Only a very tiny number were actually executed.

As a further punishment in the 1918 Representation of the People Act they were denied the right to vote in the General Election that year and for the 5 years following the the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

In Oldham there are reports in the Oldham Chronicle of Tribunals held at Crompton, Chadderton, Lees, Springhead, Limehurst, Royton, Failsworth and Oldham itself.
They usually record the names of the officials on the Tribunal Board, details of the applicants, often with their names and the many and varied grounds for their appeal.
They included appeals by firms on behalf of those employees deemed irreplaceable ... for example one from the Magnet Spinning Company at Manor Mill and one from W. Taylor Ltd., at Vale Mill.

The reports also gave the decision and, sometimes, the verbal exchanges in the room are recorded in full, providing a sense of the feelings and opinions amongst the men.

There are a number of reports of conscientous objectors being arrested on the criminal charge of, 'Failing to Comply with the Military Service Act.' One such report was of 3 brothers called Hubert, Stanley and Hayden Greaves, of 1, Leach Street, Royton. They had had failed to attest after having appealed more than once and each time been rejected. When they appeared in court they were each fined 40/- (the minimum fine) and handed over to a military escort.

Everyone had an opinion and, in one letter, the Royton Tribunal was accused of being 'too lenient' and, " I am afraid that there is too much sentiment being shown by members of the tribunal ..." It finishes with, "It certainly seems that, next to going into munitions, one's best way to escape service is to live at Royton."

When the Belgian Government appealed for aid Britain set up a War Refugees Committee and Local War Relief committees were asked to set up sub-committees to organise the relief and find suitable homes in their own areas.

Before the end of the war, over 250,000 Belgian refugees would have arrived in Britain, finding shelter and support.

In Oldham, Mr Nadin, the Secretary of the Oldham Relief Committee, had already received several dozen offers of homes for individual children but the more urgent need was for families to be accommodated together.
In mid September, the Oldham Evening Chronicle published an article headlined, "Belgian Refugees - an appeal to Oldham's Hospitality'. Within weeks offers of a number of houses, rent free, were received, including Royton Hall, Greenacres Lodge, Broomhurst, Chadderton House, 146, Coppice Street in Oldham and 36 Oak Street, in Shaw.

The family had escaped from Ghent ... leaving everything behind.

Offers of help were immediately received by the Saddleworth Distress Committee and it was also suggested that the untenanted council houses should be made available for refugees.

Fund raising for initial expenses, such as furniture and basic necessities, was going to be a priority and was started immediately.

In the early months there was a great deal of press enthusiasm, with only a few voices of dissent or caution. So great was this enthusiasm that in some places, such as Saddleworth, the only shortage was of Belgian families to take up residence ... Offers were currently exceeding demand!

In November, at a meeting of the Distress Committee, it was suggested that, with 10 empty houses offered and ready for occupation but with, as yet, no families to put in them, that 2 of them should be made available for the use of convalescent soldiers. One, Oakdene, would later become the first Military Hospital in Saddleworth.

In December, the only refugees to have actually arrived were those of a family called Foreff, in Bleakhey Nook. The Foreff family had been discovered by a local businessman, Mr. Greenwood, whilst visiting Manchester. On hearing their sad story, he immediately offered them a cottage and settled them there at once.

As the years went by, did the finances become a burden ... ?

In 1916, Belgian men were exempt from conscription under the 1916 Military Act.

Even today, many questions remain only partially answered.

Groups of women had organised themselves within weeks of the outbreak of war, to 'do their bit'.

The money raised paid for an ambulance, stretchers, materials, treats and trips for convalescents.

In February 1916, many of these local groups, including Failsworth Wesleyan, combined together in order to centralise their organisation for greater efficiency and effectiveness.
They took the title of 'Failsworth and Woodhouses War Comforts Society'.
Some of the items were sent tospecific servicemen but mostly they were sent to a collection point then distributed wherever the need was greatest.

Read more about them HERE

Unfortunately, although we find passing references to their existence, the detailed reports that still exist are thin on the ground ...

Not forgotten, but put to one side in the face of greater need, many of these organisations, especially the women's suffrage, now channeled their energies into support of war aid.
In London's desperately deprived East End, anti-war campaigner and suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst, turned her attention to supporting the families left destitute, as their men enlisted.

As in the past, Marjory Lees and her mother, Dame Sarah Lees, were swift to offer their personal aid. Marjory paid for free milk, for expectant and nursing mothers, in 454 families. In the first 3 months of the scheme, in 1914, this amounted to 1594 pints of milk each week.

One solution, was to requisition suitable buildings and convert them into temporary hospitals, such as that at Ashway Gap House, in Greenfield ...

In Oldham, in September 1914, the Chronicle reported that "... The governors of the infirmary have decided to place forty beds at the disposal of the military and naval authorities..."

To try and put the situation into context, in 1914,

There were also numerous small, privately set up hospitals such as that near Altrincham, the Stamford Military Hospital, at Dunham Massey House.

The casualties would make the journey to the coast in specially equipped hospital trains or even barges where appropriate.

Here we see a ward car for those able to travel sitting up and another for stretcher patients.

A hospital ship would transport them across the channel to a hospital on home ground.

In 1914, the few professionally qualified women, including those in medicine, were still finding it almost impossible to gain acceptance in the male dominated institutions.
Many of those early pioneering women, such as Dr. Elsie Inglis, had opened their own practices or small hospitals, often with the emhasis on maternal and child care.
However, when war broke out, they were amongst the first to volunteer their services.

Female Doctors offered their services to the Military and to the British Red Cross ... and were famously refused!
They then offered their expertise to foreign authorities and were welcomed with open arms.

Drs. Louisa Garrett Anderson & Flora Murray immediately founded the Women's Hospital Corps and, with the French Red Cross, set up hospitals firstly near Calais and then in Paris.
Their care and treatment of the wounded was so successful that they were asked to set up and run a Military Hospital in London - which they did.

Dr. Elsie Inglis turned to the Scottish Suffrage Society for financial aid and founded the 'Scottish Women's Hospitals' with the support of the NUWSS. (National Union of Women's Suffage Societies)

The first of the Scottish Women's Hospitals was established, by Dr. Inglis, in the Abbey of Royaumont, in France and was in operation by January 1915. It would care for 11,000 casualties before it closed in March 1919.

In total ... the 'Scottish Women's Hospitals' established 14 units in some of the worst conditions imaginable and raised £449,000 in fundraising for them.

There were other voluntary organisations operating, wherever there was fighting, and included:

Two weeks later they landed safely at Salonica and found that the final destination, for our Oldham Doctors and Mrs. Stobart, was to be Kragujevatz, about 60 miles south east of Belgrade.

The hospital staff were virtually all women but there were about 40 Austrian POWs who did the heavy work around the unit.

Many of the Serbian doctors had either died in the typhus epidemic or were serving with the army.

Mrs Stobart wrote...
"We immediately pitched a bell tent at the outer edge of the hospital encampment on the roadside, improvised a notice board from an old packing case and, with the help of an interpreter, wrote, in Serbian, words to the effect, that if folks would bring their own bottles, medicine and medical advice would be given gratis. A doctor, a nurse, and an interpreter took charge of the tent dispensary and we waited with eager curiosity to see what happened. The result was that within a few weeks 12,000 people, men, women, and children .came to this roadside dispensary either in ox-wagons or walking, from distances of fifty, sixty, even seventy miles, ill with typhus, diphtheria, typhoid, smallpox, tuberculosis and every conceivable and inconceivable form of disease."

Money was again raised by the Serbian relief fund and extra staff and equipment were sent out. A total of 6 dispensaries were set up.

The rest of the unit remained in Kragujevatz and a few months later were evacuated safely and returned to England.

Meanwhile on the 1st of October Mrs. Stobart's flying field ambulance, packed into 6 motor ambulances and over 30 ox wagons was loaded onto the train.

By the 4th of October they'd arrived ... and the hospital tents were pitched and operational.

The retreat had begun ... from Austrians & Germans advancing from the north and Bulgarians from the East.

She died on February 4th 1918 and is buried in Chadderton Cemetery.

In Scarborough it came whistling through the air .... massive shells bringing death and destruction ...
On the morning of 16th December 1914, Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby were shelled by German Battleships cruising just off the east coast shore.
There were Oldhamers, living in or visiting the towns at the time, and they sent home graphic reports to family, friends and the newspaper.

An Oldham man, working in Hartlepool, sent an account of events to the Oldham Chronicle. In it, he mentions ... the gasworks blazing, the railway station damaged, the deaths of a woman and his friend's child.
He writes of people fleeing from the sea front streets, of the wounded being carried past on stretchers, of damage to homes, boats in the harbour and the shipyards.

He ends his narrative with the words,
"...If this does not stimulate recruitment nothing will. It makes one able to picture - though very faintly - the dire distress of our Belgian comrades...."

He was right ... 'Remember Scarborough' became a popular slogan in the recruitment campaign.

In all, 137 people were killed and 592 injured in the attack.

She wrote, "August 1914, a telegram came for the military band that was here ... to join their regiment at once ..."

"Battleships and destoyers were on either side of us ... 50 big battleships sailed gloriously past ..... like so many guardian angels ... Then another lot of 19 ... with a Dreadnought in front ... looking for all the world as if they were playing 'follow my leader'. "

A later letter from her refers to the wounded, and she writes, "Isn't it wonderful how the boys keep up the spirits ... and yet what pitiful sights we see ... "

Initially unprepared, the east coast was particularly vulnerable to attacks from the airships coming across the North Sea and considerable damage, with civilian casualties, was suffered.

Oldham itself never actually suffered a bombing raid, although Zeppelins passed overhead and bombs were dropped not so many miles away, as in Bolton. However, a group of Oldham soldiers was killed in an airship attack on another town. They were in the Regular Army's 3rd Battalion (Reserve) of the Manchester Regiment.

In March 1916, a number of the regiment were sent to Cleethorpes, on the East Coast, to strengthen the Humber Defences in that locality. On arrival, and unaware that danger was already approaching through the air, the men unpacked their kit and settled down for the night in their billet in a church hall.

According to reports, of the 84 men in the building, 32 died immediately or as a result of their injuries (at a later date), and 48 were injured. Just 4 men, playing a game of cards in the cellar, were unharmed.
13 of the dead soldiers were Oldham men.
Some men were taken home, to be buried by family but, for the others, there was a full military funeral in Cleethorpes.

Two years later, this Special Memorial to the men was unveiled in the Cleethorpes cemetery.

On the CWGC website HERE, can be found 28 names of those in the 3rd Battalion of the Manchester Regt. who died on that date. Of these, 9 are identified as being from the immediate Oldham area.
(Search on CWGC with, 'Commemorated in the United Kingdom';
Served with 'United Kingdom forces';
with the 'Army';
Dates from and to 1st April 1916;
Regiment 'Manchester'.)

From 1914, as the demand for men, materials and armaments grew ever more urgent, and more and more men enlisted or were conscripted, the only people left to fill the gaps were WOMEN ...

It was the opportunity to prove that they could do any job that a man could do ...

They stepped forward in their hundreds of thousands, to do just that!
Even when indispensible, women weren't welcomed with open arms, or received equal pay, when they entered the previously male dominated spheres of industry or service.

Many men maintained that women weren't physically or mentally capable of the work or esponsibilities ...

But women proved the critics wrong.

They weren't just given the jobs behind counters or in offices ...
Women were employed in dirty jobs ... in difficult jobs ... in physically dangerous ... or exhausting jobs.

In the booklet, there were 28 pages indexing trades in which women could be employed along with the specific processes involved.

There were 70 photographs of women actually employed in those jobs and, just so there could be no excuse, it included the addresses of the local labour exchanges where women could, 'do their duty and volunteer'.

There was work on the Railways ...
in the chemical ... clothing ... and food trades...

In this photograph we see Oldham women working in an engineering works.

And, of course, farm work ...
with the Land Army producing food and looking after the animals.

And last, but definitely not least, work in the giant munitions industry meeting the incessant demand for bullets, bombs and shells ..

The official photos usually show us smiling faces ... women glad to 'do their bit' ... but the reality was frequently different.
The hours in the workplace were long and hard;
there was often a danger to health, from contact with poisonous substances or fumes...
and there was always the fear of accidents ...

In Ashton, on July 13th 1917, there was an explosion in the munitions works manufacturing TNT for bombs, at Hooley Hill.
It was reported in newspapers as far away as Australia.
More than forty people lost their lives ... including a number of children in nearby streets and some on their way home from school.
Hundreds more were injured ...
and hundreds of families lost their homes when they were destroyed in the blast.

However, only time and labour were truly 'free' so virtually everything that was done carried a cost. Consequently, much of the work at home, was the often thankless task of fund-raising.

One of these was for the provision of motor ambulances and wheeled stretchers for use in front-line areas.

And this is a mobile X-ray unit ... privately donated and in use at Verdun.

This must have been a daunting sum of money, for any group to raise, but raise it they did.

The money for this ambulance was raised by donations in Shaw and Crompton ...

and the wish was expressed that it would be driven by local man, Driver H. Coupe, and be used in the area of Dunkirk.

Dame Sarah Lees presented the Oldham Branch of the St. John Ambulance Society with a fully equipped ambulance, which she named, 'The Oldham Suffragist.

It's seen here before setting off for France in December 1915.

A serious concern of the TLC was that of an ever growing realisation that manufacturers and large investors were making fortunes from the war and, after it was over, the working man would bear the financial burden of higher taxation to pay off what would become a massive National Debt.

One of the more immediate concerns was that food prices had increased whilst the purchasing power of the pound was dropping.
In 1900 it had a value of 20/- (20shillings)
in 1914 it had dropped to 17/5 (17 shillings and 5 pence)
and by 1915 to 14/2. (14 shillings and 2 pence)
by 1920 it would have dropped to just 7/- (7 shillings)

Another serious and pressing issue was the increase in rent charges. Consequently the Rent Restriction Act was brought in, in 1916. When it was largel;y ignored, a later ammendment to it froze rents at their 1914 level, if they had been below 10/- (10 shillings).
Tthe ammendment allowed for rebates to be claimed.

DORA was the acronym by which the Defence of the Realm Act was known. It was introduced on the 8th August, 1914, and new restrictions ... were added as and when the need was recognised.

The Act was designed to give the government far ranging powers enabling it to subordinate all activities to the needs of War. Government was given the right to requistion buildings or land and the output of factories needed for war work.
It imposed censorship to keep morale at home higher and it was also implemented to prevent sensitive information from falling into enemy hands. It also had the effect of 'gagging' social rights activists, preventing them from voicing their demands and criticisms more publicly.
Soldiers' letters home were strictly censored and anything too informative or 'unpleasant' would be blocked out.
Beer was watered down ... customers in pubs were not allowed to buy a round of drinks ... and opening hours in pubs were cut. These restrictions were designed to prevent thousands of working hours being lost when people had too much to drink.
British summertime was introduced in May 1916, giving a longer working day.

By August 1916, and 2 years of conflict, a war weary population had to be kept on-side. There could be no wavering ...
This Anniversary meeting, on the 4th August, with speakers and a concert by the Waterhead Brass Band, was promoted as, an "... opportunity to record the inflexible determination of the British People to continue the War to a victorious end."

By September 1916 the tank, up to recently a closely guarded secret, had put in a welcome appearance on the battlefields of the Somme.

In February 1918, Oldham found itself with a tank, called 'Egbert', on Yorkshire Street, near the Town Hall. 'Egbert' had been in the Battle of Cambrai, in November 1917 and it became part of a national investment campaign ... raising money to pay for the war by urging people to buy War Bonds and War Savings Certificates.

There was a grand opening of the Oldham 'Tank Bank' on the 9th February, by the mayor, who ceremoniously invested £100,000 for the council.

The target investment for the town was £1,000,000.

A final tour of Oldham, Crompton, Shaw, Royton and Lees, by the illuminated tram on the 15th brought the investment figure up to its target £1,000,000.

Altogether, Oldham and the townships, invested over one and a half million pounds in that week.

'Egbert' moved on to other towns but, at the end of the war, both Crompton and Oldham were given tanks of their own, and Oldham's found a home in Alexandra Park.

In November 1914, Vesta Tilley, the famous music hall male impersonator, visited Oldham and gave a performance at the Palace Theatre.
Many of her acts included performances where, dressed as a soldier, she sang songs encouraging the men in her audience to go out and 'sign up'.
The soldier songs were amongst her most popular, for example, 'There's Tommy, Tommy Atkins' .... and one about a new recruit called, 'I joined the army yesterday ... so the army's alright today.' So good was she, at doing this, that she was nick-named 'Britian's Best Recruiting Sergeant'

Although the servicemen were never far from the thoughts of family and friends they'd left behind, the men, in their turn, thought constantly of home. Letters and cards were precious to everyone ...

In France, particularly, there was a thriving 'cottage industry' in souvenirs which were often made from exploded shell casings and the like, for instance, letter openers, ash trays and other similar souvenirs were all offered for sale, bought by the soldiers and sent home. Even 'souvenir' bullets, removed from a wound in hospital,. would be sent home with pride ... all would be treasured by family and passed down the generations.

concerts ...

dances, whist drives and garden parties ...

sales of garden flowers, decorated cards and hand made craft items ...

with donated items ranging from expensive jewellery to half a dozen cups and saucers ...

and no amount was considered too trivial to add to the 'pot'

But, for someone, every day there was heartache ... a death confirmed or the anguish of a loved one 'missing in action'.

One such was this notice in the newspaper, pleading for news of a missing son.
William Tetlow, of Grendon Avenue, was reported missing on April 24th, 1918 and was known to have been gassed.

The family hopes would be crushed .... on the Commonwealth War Graves commission website can be found this record of his death in that month and on that date.

The hardest part, now, was for the families waiting for their men to come home, and for the servicemen, wanting nothing more than to get home and get on with their lives.

For the majority, this would drag on well into 1919.

Sometimes, there would be the medals recognising courage and valour ...

But, for hundreds of thousands of families, there was no celebration ... just a memorial plaque and certificate, to mark their sacrifice, and place alongside the medals.

In 1918, Parliament, compelled to extend the franchise to all men over the age of 21, now found it virtually impossible to refuse to include women.
However, three quarters of a million men were dead and the main Political parties didn't want the electorate to be swamped by women, particularly 'working class' women, so the franchise was limited to:

(Read about Women's Suffrage HERE)

In July 1919 Oldham had a decorated 'Victory Car', as part of the 'Peace Celebrations ...
There were 'Welcome Home' entertainments ...
flag waving and parades were the order of the day for the returning heroes ...

But not all the men coming back felt like heroes ...
hundreds of thousands of them were physically and emotionally maimed ...
a legacy they would carry for the rest of their lives.

In the 1920s, visits to the war began cemeteries and memorials began to be organised ...

offering a chance for relatives to visit graves and see memorials such as the Menin Gate ...

But time moved on and, in the years that followed, virtually every town and village, raised money for public war memorials.

Thousands of churches, schools, institutions, factories and offices installed their own memorial boards, books, and scrolls ...

but now, 100 years later, can there be anyone left whose memory reaches back to those years?

Our responsibility, in this centenary year, is to remind ourselves of the horrors that touched our own and virtually every family in the land ... and remember those men and women who served, suffered and sacrificed ...

and to try and keep faith with that early promise.

Grateful Acknowledgements