World War I

Spennymoor People in World War I

These links are part of the Durham at War website (Durham County Record Office). Supporting material was produced as part of a First World War Centenary commemorative exhibition entitled ‘Spennymoor’s Great War’, held at the Bob Abley Gallery, Spennymoor Town Hall, during August 2014.

Spennymoor's Battle of the Somme

Research by John Grainger, written by John Banham. May 2016

July 1st 1916, the First day of the Somme, is considered to be the worst single day in the history of the British Army, with 60,000 casualties of whom 20,000 were killed. Twelve soldiers from the Spennymoor area were killed on July 1st; seven have no known graves and are commemorated in France on the Thiepval Memorial.

The series of battles collectively known as The Somme lasted from July to November and a total of 105 soldiers from our area died in them. The list of these men is below. They served in 24 different regiments with just over 40% serving in the Durham Light Infantry (DLI). Although July 1st was the worst single day for casualties, Spennymoor men died throughout the battle and over 60% of the DLI dead were killed in September, October and November.

In particular, the 13th Battalion DLI was involved in heavy fighting in mid-September at Flers–Courcelette, where Corporal Harry Craddock, who lived at Merrington Lane, won the Distinguished Conduct Medal. In October 1916 the Durham Chronicle reported Craddock’s bravery :

The official report states that in an attack on the enemy block in the Munster Alley, Corpl. Craddock begged to be allowed to take up reinforcements to the block established by Lieut. Rees, 18 yards from the enemy. On his way up he rallied some men, who had been bombed out of our block by the enemy, and led them back to the block, where he fought until relieved at 1am, most of his men being killed or wounded. Again at 3 am, he took another bombing party and held the block until relief came at 5 am. During the whole night bombing was intense. He was afterwards promoted to Lance-Sergeant, and along with Sergt Fittes, also of the DLI, when near Martinpuch on September 17, showed great courage, enterprise, and devotion to duty in carrying up grenades through a heavy barrage to the London Regt. in the front line trenches. Their officers had been killed and the guides lost. They proceeded to reconnoitre the country, found the London Regt., returned to their party, and led the men through to their destination, under heavy shell fire.

Harry Craddock, who was also awarded the Military Medal in an earlier action, died of wounds in 1917 during the third battle of Ypres.

Not all medals were awarded fighting on the front line, 18 year old Private Joseph Willis of the Royal Army Medical Corps was awarded the Military Medal for conspicuous gallantry in bringing in the wounded between July 29th and August 4th 1916. Willis, a miner at Westerton Colliery, survived the war and was presented with a gold wrist watch by officials and miners at the colliery.

The spirit of service in saving the wounded is also exemplified by the death of Major Bede Liddell Fenton, the son of Rev. Enos Fenton, the first Vicar of St. Andrew’s. Major Fenton was killed near the German Lines on July 15thsearching for a fellow officer who he believed to have been wounded (he was in fact dead). Bede Fenton, born in Spennymoor but, by 1914, a head teacher in a colonial school in Malaya, returned to England at his own expense to enlist with the Dorsetshire Regiment and had only been in France six weeks when he was killed. By contrast, Sister Kate Maxey of Spennymoor served in with the Territorial Force Nursing Service in France from October 1914 to March 1918, when she was severely wounded in a German air raid. During the Somme battles she was working at the No.1 General Hospital at Etretat on the Normandy coast. One of her colleagues, Edith Appleton, who became a close friend, kept a diary (now published as A Nurse at the Front) and described their experience of receiving trains full of wounded soldiers in early July :

I give up trying to describe it – it beats me. In ordinary times we get a telegraph from Abbeville saying a train with so many on board has left and is coming to us. Then they stopped giving numbers – just said “full train”. Not even a telegram comes – but the full trains do.

From the patient’s perspective, a wounded cricketer from the Spennymoor District wrote anonymously to the Durham Chronicle in September 1916 about his experience after been injured by a German Bomb in the Somme fighting. The newspaper reported:

He struggled to an advanced dressing station and had his wounds attended to. After one leaves the trenches the Red Cross system is perfect. Tommy out in France had the impression that he was not a person of much importance, but what a fairy like change when he was rendered unfit for present service and came across to dear old England. Then he found himself so much respected and tenderly cared for that it was almost worth enduring all the hardships.

After the war, Sister Maxey was one of the first recipients of the Red Cross’s Florence Nightingale Medal.

Some who were wounded on the Somme and transferred to England to hospital, like Gunner Evan David Tolmie of the Royal Field Artillery, did not survive. The following report appeared in the Durham Chronicle on October 6th 1916 :

The funeral of Gunner E D Tolmie, of the R.F.A., took place at Spennymoor Cemetery on Sunday amid every token of sincere respect. He had been wounded in action and succumbed to his wounds in King George’s Hospital, London on Wednesday week. The coffin was carried by members of the Royal Field Artillery, and the service, held in St Paul’s Church was conducted by the Vicar, the Rev G R Cook. After the burial service the firing party presented arms and fired three volleys, after which the “Last Post” was sounded by the buglers.

Gunner Tolmie’s name is commemorated on the St Pauls’ Church and Binchester War Memorials.

As in all wars, not all deaths occurred during action. Rifleman John Frederick Elves of the Kings Royal Rifle Corps was accidentally killed while cleaning a machine gun. Rifleman Elves was a cash and pay clerk at the Weardale Company’s head offices at Tudhoe Ironworks and a promising cricketer with Tudhoe Cricket Club. News of his death was sent to the Elves family by Lieutenant Anthony Eden (of Windlestone Hall, the future Prime Minister) who wrote :

I am very sorry to inform you of the death of your son, which took place at 6 o’clock this morning 10 Aug. He was cleaning a machine gun when it went off accidentally, and the bullet struck him in the thigh. He died more from shock than the actual wound. He was not in my platoon at the time, as he became a machine gunner some little time ago, but I thought I must write and sympathise with you in your great loss. He was always one of the keenest, and cheeriest men of the platoon, and he will be much missed both by us and the machine gunners. Please let me know if there is anything I can do.

By the end of August, the people of Spennymoor were attending services to pay tribute to those killed. As reported in the Durham Chronicle, on Sunday 27 August, there was a crowded congregation at St. Paul’s Church for a service in memory of five soldiers killed in July, two from the DLI, two from the Northumberland Fusiliers and one from the East Yorkshire Regiment.

Before the end of the battle, in November, as well as attending memorial services for the dead, Spennymoor residents were watching a propaganda film – The Battle of the Somme - in the Arcadia Hall in Cheapside. The silent film had its première in London on 10 August 1916 and was released generally on 21 August. It depicts trench warfare, marching infantry, artillery firing on German positions, British troops waiting to attack on 1 July, treatment of wounded British and German soldiers, British and German dead and captured German equipment and positions. A scene during which British troops crouch in a ditch then "go over the top" was staged for the camera behind the lines. The film was a great success, watched by some 20 million British people in the first six weeks of exhibition.

2016 Tudhoe & Spennymoor Local History Society.

Men who died during the Battle of the Somme (July to November 1916)