Early Life

It is unsurprising to find Albert amongst the ranks of the teaching profession as his father William was a schoolmaster, rising from the background of a labouring family into the profession by the age of 18.

William’s roots lay in Poplar, London. He was born in 1843 to a sawyer but by the age of 18 appears in records as one of five teachers employed at the Asylum for Idiots’, situated on Earlswood Common between Reigate and Redhill, Surrey.

The asylum was an innovative and pioneering work in understanding the difference between, in today’s terms, special needs education and psychiatric care. Its work, focused solely on the former, was in many ways the forerunner of special needs education today. It is worthy of inclusion in Albert’s story, as his father’s experiences there would no doubt inform his thinking and his approach to teaching.

The Asylum for Idiots’, Earlswood Common between Reigate and Redhill, Surrey. Public Domain

Until the institution’s foundation in 1855, the plight of the idiot had been bound up with the lunatic. An independent church minister, Dr. Andrew Reed D.D. (1787–1862), had visited institutions for the care of idiots in France, Switzerland and Denmark, and had corresponded with specialists in Paris and Berlin (Drs Itard, Seguin and Saegert). He became convinced that special and individual attention would help the idiot develop as far as was possible and to this end founded the asylum.

The aim of the institution was ‘not merely to take the Idiot and Imbecile under its care, but especially, by the skilful and earnest application of the best means in his education, to prepare him, as far as possible, for the duties and enjoyments of life’. Preference was given to young children, who it was felt, would benefit most from the education given at the institution.

William’s work there, at the age of 18, would have been as an unqualified assistant teacher—though whether the staff of such an institution fitted the general job titles found in mainstream education is not known. It must be assumed that he then went to training college as he next appears as a schoolmaster in Bournemouth in 1871. He was to meet and marry Jane Oatley (b.1848, Bath, Somerset) there in 1874. She was a schoolmistress teaching in a National school in Holdenhurst. Now on the northeast outskirts of the conurbation, the parish of Holdenhurst and Throop was then deeply rural, with the National school mid-way between the two hamlets, overlooking the River Stour. As William appears at that school as schoolmaster in the census following their wedding it is reasonable to assume that it was there they met.

The couple settled in Holy Trinity School House where William continued as schoolmaster. Jane soon had her hands full. By 1881 she was mother to five children aged from 1 month to five years old and, ten years later the brood had grown to nine, aged one to fifteen. A tenth child, Edwin, had died shortly after birth. Life must have been crowded in the school house which was not large. Albert was their sixth child, born on October 2nd 1882. The children, with their later occupations are as follows:

Francis William (1875-1941, Gardener)

Percy Ernest (1876-1953, Bank Clerk)

Walter Alfred (1878-1946, emigrated to New York)

Susan Blanche (1879-1941, Teacher)

Edith Harriet (1881-1931, Wool Store Assistant, later her father’s carer)

Albert Edward (1882-1915, Teacher)

Ethel Jane (1884-1956, Teacher)

Harold George (1886-1954, Naval Sick Berth Chief Petty Officer, later Pathology Technician)

Edwin Arthur (1887-1888)

Cecil Henry (1889-1964, Metal Turner)

All were born while William and Jane were at Holdenhurst, with the exception of Susan Blanche (always known as Blanche) who was born in Bath where Jane herself was born. It must be assumed that Jane had travelled back to her family there for the confinement.

The family had moved from Holdenhurst by 1898: the school head is recorded as Miss Duthy and William is to be found listed in the Bournemouth Directory as Master of Holy Trinity School, St. Paul’s Road: ’built, with master’s residence, in 1850, & enlarged in 1874, for 500 children; average attendance 476; William Beaumont, master; Miss Jennie Cooper, mistress; Miss J Bruce, infants’ mistress’. The census of 1901 tells us that four children are still living at home in the school house of which and Albert and Ethel are pupil-teachers. William and Jane also had a live-in servant, a local girl called Beatrice Pope, aged 18.

Albert attended the Bournemouth and District Pupil Teachers’ Centre from 1899 to 1901 for study and training on day-release and Saturday mornings. He was one of 72 pupil-teachers¹ working towards their King’s Scholarship Examination—the entry requirement for teacher training college. The centre also had 12 students (probably working as assistant teachers) who were studying for their teacher’s certificate; providing they were recommended by a school inspector this would allow them to train at college on a fast-track one-year course. Albert is listed amongst the centre’s prize-winners, gaining a fourth-place prize in his second year there. ²

A postcard of St. Paul’s Church, Bournemouth from the turn of the century. The Rev. Burrows was well known to the family and presented Albert with his leaving present. Image reproduced under Creative Commons Licence.

During this time of study, he was working as a pupil-teacher at Central School, Bournemouth.³ Central School is synonymous with Holy Trinity School as William is named as head of both schools in the same period. To add further to the confusion, the school was next to St. Paul’s parish church in St. Paul’s Road and is also referred to as St. Paul’s School. His father was a leading light in the teaching profession in the Bournemouth area, heavily involved in the teacher’s association and the National Union of Teachers. His name appears frequently in the press in connection with these. Being a pupil-teacher under a father’s gaze is an experience shared by a few of the fallen.

For Albert, the time had come for him to spread his wings:

Into the World and War

In the summer of 1904, just as Albert reached the end of his course, his mother Jane died. After leaving College, Albert took up a teaching post as a Certificated Assistant Teacher at the British Boys School, Richmond.⁷ He is also recorded there playing football for Richmond Idlers in the 1908-1909 season. A later letter from his father to the College Principal fills in his next move:

This shorthand account omits that his first port of call in continental Europe was Paris, where he gained diplomas as a linguistics student,⁸ enabling his subsequent language teaching. Again, from his father’s letter: ‘He was most proficient in several European languages (French, German, Flemish, Dutch, etc.)’. Also, while teaching in Germany he acted as a guide for a visiting Bournemouth football team.⁹

At the outbreak of war, Albert was working in Belgium. The pre-war German strategy (the Schlieffen Plan) was to avoid the strongly defended France-German border and invade France through Belgium-Luxembourg-Netherlands, then sweeping south into France. On July 24th, the Belgian government had announced that, in the event of war, Belgium would continue its historic stance of neutrality. On August 2nd a German ultimatum was communicated to King Albert and the Belgian government, demanding passage through Belgium. This was refused, and Britain guaranteed military support to Belgium. Germany declared war on Belgium on 4th August and the invasion began on the following day with the Battle of Liège.

Ghent was to the northwest of the direct path of invading forces in the initial phase of the conflict and so had a breathing space of a few weeks as the towns and cities to the east and south fell to the invading forces. However, between the end of August and the middle of October, some 45,000 refugees arrived in the city, fleeing from the invasion and the atrocities visited upon the Belgian civilian population in what became known as the Rape of Belgium. This was not polemical propaganda: 6,000 Belgians were killed, 17,700 died during expulsion, deportation, imprisonment, or death sentence by court, and 3,000 Belgian civilians were killed by the electric fences erected by the German Army to prevent civilians from fleeing the country. Around 120,000 became forced labourers, with half of that number deported to Germany. German troops arrived in Ghent on October 12th 1914, and it was reported that Albert was one of the last British citizens to get out of the city. This is born out in his identity papers,¹⁰ issued on 10th October 1914. These include a testimonial that seems to be written with future military service in mind but couched in language which would not compromise him if apprehended by the invading forces:

German troops enjoying a quiet moment in captured Ghent. Copyright IWM Q88144.

He fled northeast and got through the German lines into Holland, and landed in England just before Christmas.’¹¹ Arriving in London, if he thought that danger had passed he was mistaken. Instead of travelling back to family in Bournemouth, he chose instead to go directly to a recruiting station to enlist:

Once this mistake had been rectified, he joined the 1/18th (County of London) Battalion (London Irish Rifles). Again, we turn to his father’s letter to College: ‘With his Battalion he was sent to France about April 1915. For two months he was fighting in the trenches’. He had, in fact, travelled from billets in St. Albans to Southampton by train on 9th March, where the Battalion embarked on four ships: the Queen Alexandra, Copenhagen, Trafford Hall and Viper. They landed at Le Havre at 9.30am the following morning and were moved to a camp five miles from the port. On 12th March they were transported by train 140 miles northeast to Winnezeele, 15 miles inland from Dunkirk. A further move one week later took them to Burbure, 10 miles west of Béthune, where they were to be billeted for the remainder of the month, spending the time training. During April and May, Albert’s short war experience would be played out in the Béthune sector, spending June 8 miles southeast near Loos/Lens.

Béthune in January 1915. The city was largely still intact when Albert and the London Irish Rifles arrived, but was not destined to escape destruction. Copyright IWM Q57407.

By the end of March, Albert’s linguistic skills had been recognised. He wrote home to his father who forwarded it to the local paper. It was published on April 3rd and details show it was written on March 24th at Burbure. The text is worthy of reproducing in full as it not only gives a picture of his situation but gives a sense of the measure of the man:

No doubt part of Albert’s moral imperative was informed by his Ghent experiences and the refugees he would have come across there.

Details of the Battalion’s movements and actions are recorded in the London Irish Rifles War Diary. The handwriting in the early part of this period is very difficult to read and unusually unfocused: it contains a lot of extraneous material on other units, making for a confused picture. The overall pattern is of his Battalion alternating with the 20th Battalion London Regiment, and of life rotating through rest days, training, and deployment in the trenches, where they suffered shelling.

The Battalion’s first taste of action came as they moved into the city of Béthune on April 7th. The buildings, which were to be almost completely destroyed in the German offensive of Spring 1918 were, at this stage, largely intact, though the billets provided for the men were ‘somewhat knocked about—very little glass in the windows.’ This was to be their base and HQ while the four Companies moved out to trenches at Annequin and the La Bassée Road on rotation. The Battalion was attached to the 6th Brigade from this day. The men began working parties around the village of Cuinchy and suffered their first casualties: 2 Riflemen slightly wounded by shelling.

The coming days were spent in a number of moves around the area to the east and northeast of Béthune, with the men manning front line trenches or in reserve: Gorre and Festubert (April 18th to May 5th), La Beuvriere, Les Glaugmes, Les Façons, Le Touret, Givenchy (May 6th-18th). It is difficult to know to what extent Albert would have been involved in any front-line work as at some point he became part of the HQ staff as an interpreter.¹⁵ His father’s letter to the College would suggest that the change took place in early June.¹⁶ The Battalion HQ moved with the Battalion, so he would never be far from the action.

The map shows a small section of the Cuinchy/Givenchy area; Bèthune is 4 miles to the west. Although dated two years later, the stalemate in this sector can be seen in that the trenches are in the same place as in May 1915. The Canal d’Aire à La Bassée and the main Béthune to La Basée road are prominent features. The map covers 2½ miles east to west. Enemy trenches are marked in red, British/French in blue.

Albert’s Battalion, part of the 1st Army under the charge of Field Marshal Douglas Haig, were on the southern fringe of the Battle of Festubert. At Givenchy on the 17th, the men were fortunate to escape casualties when a mine was exploded under the British trenches just north of their position. Two days later, the Battalion were moved 2 miles back from the front line to Le Préol for rest before returning to the Givenchy trenches on the 23rd. On the 25th and 26th an attack was made by other units and the Irish Rifles worked in support, suffering some casualties. An enemy trench was taken but this proved to be difficult to defend as it was overlooked by German artillery on higher ground. Attempts to hold it were protracted and expensive, continuing beyond the end of the month, when Albert and his men were pulled out for rest to billets in Bèthune and, on June 3rd, Annequin.

They were then moved south into the Loos/Lens area where they were in support trenches at Le Brebis (7th), reserve billets at Mazingarbe (11th), Le Brebis (17th), Grenay (21st, where it was reported that a number of children in the village were wounded by shelling on two occasions), and Le Brebis, near Mazingarbe (25th).

The whereabouts of Albert in the final entries leading up to his death (26th-30th June) are, on the surface, difficult to interpret. After consistently using place names throughout, the diary suddenly tells us that Albert’s Battalion moved from Le Brebis to relieve the 20th Battalion London Regiment at W3. The link between the entries of 30th June and 1st July (the latter, in a different hand, describes what is probably the same location using a different name) makes it likely that W3 was in or near Grenay/Maroc.¹⁷ A map of this area, made by a 47th Division Signals Company Royal Engineers, shows W3 to be the code for a section of the British front line lying just over one mile to the east of Grenay.

The ruins of Fosse 11 (Pit 11) at Grenay. The area was intensively mined for coal and is today marked by the massive spoil heaps which dominate the landscape and have UNESCO World Heritage status. These landmarks are 1000 metres south of where Albert’s Battalion HQ was located. Image copyright IWM Q78671.

The entries in the diary are:

 

Albert, acting as interpreter at HQ was among the casualties.

It is not known if he received his mortal wound on the 30th, as noted in the war diary, or July 1st as stated in his father’s letter. He died in a Field Hospital in Mazingarbe on July 2nd and was buried at Mazingarbe Communal Cemetery, in Grave Number 97. It is a small cemetery with only 108 burials. His headstone carries the words of Christ from John’s Gospel, Chapter 15 Verse 13, chosen by his father:

Mazingarbe Communal Cemetery. Image used under Creative Commons licence.

His brothers Cecil and Harold also served in the navy through the Great War and, at the time of death, one of his older brothers was involved in the Dardanelles campaign,¹⁹ though it is unknown which.

 

Original researcher and author: John Westwood. Revised and augmented by John Vickers