The Sharps of London

By the time of Joseph Martin’s birth, the Sharps were firmly settled as an East End of London family. However, on his father’s side of the family, Joseph’s great grandparents and grandparents were fenland folk. Hailing from Cambridgeshire,¹ they were agricultural labourers by trade. His grandparents had made their way to London in the early 1860s, to settle in the West Ham area, just north of the recently-opened Royal Docks. It was here that his grandfather and father would work in the physically demanding job of coal heavers: manually off-loading coal ships”exhausting, dirty, and dangerous work that was also hazardous to health.

His forebears’ names have not been mentioned yet, and for good reason: Joseph Martin was the third generation of the family to carry those names. His father and grandfather were both Joseph Martins.² For the sake of clarity, only our subject will be called by name.

His father and mother married on December 20th, 1888 in the parish church of Bromley St. Leonards,³ Tower Hamlets. By this time, his fifty-four-year-old grandfather had left coal-heaving and appears on the Marriage Certificate as a greengrocer. Joseph’s mother was Annie Maria, daughter of a boilermaker, born 1861 in nearby Limehouse. Annie’s side of his family were East End through and through; Limehouse, Poplar, Stepney, Bromley-by-Bow, and Spitalfieds were their haunts.

The first of their children⁴ was born a year later. Joseph and his siblings are

Florence Ethel, b.1889 West Ham

Rose, b.1891 Woolwich

Joseph Martin, b.1894 Woolwich

Rebecca Eliza, b.1896 Woolwich ⁵

Grace Lillian, b.1899 Plaistow

The extended family was large: Joseph and his siblings had thirteen bloodline aunts and uncles.

Joseph’s father, Joseph Martin, was a coal heaver (1881), general labourer (1901 and 1911 ” the 1891 Census is missing), and Undertaker’s Assistant (1913 college records). From what is an economically and socially unassuming background, the possibility of a move into one of the professions would seem unlikely, and yet this is precisely what Joseph achieved.

What we know of Joseph’s schooling is taken from his later college Student Record. He attended Balaam Street School, Plaistow, where he received his primary education. The school was set on a busy commercial street, with almost every address being a shop or small business. Balaam Street is the oldest of the Plaistow and West Ham thoroughfares. Dating from the 12th Century, it was known as Balostret in 1371. The school, founded in 1844, had moved to new buildings two years before Joseph started. It was a Board (i.e. local authority) school, providing non-sectarian education’.

In 1906, he moved up West Ham Central Secondary School and he would have been in the first intake of 369 pupils at this new school. It was a mixed school, on the junction of Whalebone Lane and Tennyson Road, and had a projected capacity of 680. The ratio of first intake to full capacity indicates that the new pupils comprised children from upper elementary school years (11“15s), so it is likely that Joseph started in the second-year class (Year 8 today).

At some point in his schooling, Joseph must have been encouraged to take up teaching as a career. There were two routes into teaching at this time. The first, recently introduced, way was to apply for a bursary to complete education to age 18 at secondary school, perhaps take an optional one-year unqualified student teaching post, and then go to training college. The more established way, which was rapidly being phased out, was to leave school at 16 and take a one- or two-year pupil teacher post, then possibly an unqualified assistant teacher post, before going to training college. Both paths required passing examinations before college application could be made. Joseph chose the latter course and was appointed as a pupil teacher at Hermit Road Council School, West Ham.

Despite being restricted by law to 20 classroom hours per week, life for the pupil teacher was busy. It was the headmaster’s responsibility to ensure that personal tuition was provided to the trainee both before and after the school day. There were regular inspections of performance and work, and courses to attend. These were arranged on a day-release and evening class basis and held in a local Pupil Teacher Centre. Joseph’s local centre was in a familiar setting: West Ham Central, which he had just left. Two older centres had been amalgamated and rehoused on the new school site.

Joseph completed two years as a pupil teacher and was then appointed as an unqualified assistant teacher for one year, still at Hermit Road School. During this final year he sat and passed the exam that would enable him to apply for a training college place: the Preliminary Examination for the Certificate. He applied for a place at Winchester Training College and was accepted. In early September 1913, at the age of 19, he travelled from the East End of London to leafy Winchester, to begin a two-year course.

Joseph in The Army

At the outbreak of War, B Company were on the annual camp at Bulford, Salisbury Plain. At the time it comprised some 104 men of which 40 were Seniors (second year students).

When war was declared, B Company were;

Most of the College men who were at camp were transferred into the 1/4th or 2/4th Battalions of the Hampshire Regiment. These men went, via India, to fight against Ottoman forces in the Middle East: Egypt, Palestine (2/4th)¹¹ and, mainly, Mesopotamia (1/4th).

4th Hants Territorials on camp. Joseph sent this to his family with a handwritten message on the back: I want to keep these so put them safe.’ Image courtesy of E. Wilson

4th Hants football team on summer camp, Salisbury Plain, July“August 1914. Joseph is leftmost in the kneeling row. Image courtesy of Ed Wilson.

Troops preparing to disembark at Le Havre. ©IWM Image Q51128

The first active unit mentioned in his Army record is 2/8th Battalion Warwickshire Regiment. On the morning of Sunday, May 22nd 1916, the Battalion left their camp at Perham Down in Wiltshire, marching the short distance to entrain at Ludgershall station, en route to Southampton. As Joseph began his journey to the Western Front, it is comforting to know that he would be with friends: fellow WTC students Albert Lewis and Merton Rose were also making the same journey. All three had overlapped at college in the 1913-1914 academic year. At 7pm, 23 Officers, 855 Other Ranks boarded the paddle steamer Princess Clementine at Southampton Dock, bound for Le Havre, landing there the next morning at 3am. They had landed in France as part of the 182nd (2nd Warwickshire) Brigade in the 61st (2nd South Midland) Division, heading towards enemy lines.

Joseph’s war was, like many others, a long one. His Battalion were engaged in various actions on the Western Front including;

The Attack at Fromelles, July 19-20th 1916

The Operations on the Ancre, 13-18th November 1916

The German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line, 14th March to 5th April, 1917

The Battle of Langemarck, 16-18th August 1917

The 2/8th Battalion was disbanded on 20th February, 1918, and Joseph was transferred to 2/7th Battalion Warwickshires. No great change would result from this transfer as both Battalions were part of 143rd Brigade, 48th Division, having fought in the same actions. His war continued unabated:

The Battle of St Quentin, 21-23rd March 1918

The Actions at the Somme Crossings, 24-25th March 1918

The Battle of the Lys, 7th April 1918 on

The Battalion War Diary carries a short note on April 1st, 1918: Men worn out through recent active operations’. They had just come through a torrid time: in the previous three days they had lost 82 men”roughly one in ten. They were relieved for re-equipping, cleaning equipment, and rest. On April 11th they were thrust back into action at Calonne-sur-Lys”part of the larger Battle of the Lys.

Throughout April 12th and 13th, they suffered heavy casualties as a strong enemy attack was repelled: 5 Officers and 43 Other Ranks. After this attack, the conflict turned into exchanges of heavy artillery bombardments each day, with some gas shelling from the enemy on the 22nd. The 24th and 25th saw a lot of enemy aircraft activity over the trenches.

A nurse attends to a soldier in a ward on a hospital barge near Aire. © IWM Image Q10666

Researcher and Author: John Vickers