Beauty & The Beast

On Friday 9th February the East Sussex News published an article on "an entertainment" - Beauty and The Beast - which took place at The Parish Room, Chailey.  The full cast list was also printed, some of the players also appearing in Nurse Oliver's album.

The article and two subsequent articles are reproduced below.  Over time, I will add links for those men and women who appear in Nurse Oliver's album. For the others who didn't record an entry, all we know for sure is that they were convalescing at Beechlands in February 1917.

ENTERTAINMENT AT THE PARISH ROOM

An entertainment by the soldiers and staff of The Beechlands Red Cross Hospital, assisted by a few friends, took place at The Parish Room on Wednesday evening.  The proceeds are for The Prisoners of War Fund and, judging by the crowded room, the fund should benefit by a considerable sum.  Beauty and The Beast, a pantomime in three acts, proved very amusing and created roars of laughter.  It was preceded by comic songs by Mr Gus Avery. Songs by Miss Hoather and recitations by Miss Beauchamp Marshall.  The characters in the pantomime were represented as follows: Beauty, Pte Keenan; Beast, Lc-Sgt Croft; Languor, Pte Lucas; Vanity, Rfm Maginnis; Merchant, Lc-Corpl Smith (Canadians); Fairy Godmother, Lc-Corpl McCrorie; Folly, Rfm Hobbs; Commonsense, Gunr Bright; King Cole, Corpl Reynolds; Fiddler, Pte Flynn; Fiddler, S-S Atkinson; Fiddler and Farmer’s Boy, Lc-Corpl Stern; Highlander, Pte McKenzie; Queen of Hearts, Pte Oliver; Knave of Hearts, Pte Hubbard; Knight, Pte Lincoln; Wizard I, Pte Head; Wizard II, Pte Gray; Wizard III, Pte Washbourne; Bo-peep, Pte Proctor; Poppy, Pte Brassington; Bee, Lc-Corpl Smith (Buffs); Firefly I, Pte Robinson; Firefly II, Pte Jennings; Forget-me-not, Pte Hoidge; Fairies, Misses J and K Fenn.

Sunday February 18^th 1917 - Chailey [The Sussex Express]

ENTERTAINMENT

The Parish Room was crowded with a large and appreciative audience on Wednesday evening, when a variety entertainment, organised by Miss Cotesworth, was given.  The first part consisted of song and recitations.  The second half of the programme was composed of a short musical play in three acts written by Miss Hughes, entitled ‘Beauty and The Beast”.  The proceeds will be donated to the Prisoners of War Fund.

February 23^rd 1917 [The Sussex Express]

The variety entertainment which was held at the Parish Room a fortnight ago realised £9,17s for the Prisoners of War Fund.

136676 Driver William Norman Jenner, Royal Engineers

William Norman Jenner was born at Newick on 25th March, 1893. He and his sister, Susan (born 3rd April, 1891) were the two children of Norman Jenner's second marriage to Ellen Maria Braysher, who was born at Chailey in 1861. At the time of their marriage Ellen Maria was living at Oxbottom which lies to the south of Newick and roughly mid-way between Hickwells and Beechland House 

William’s father Norman, ran a butchers shop on The Green, Newick, having moved there from Brighton with his first wife, Sarah Anne (nee Penny), sometime between 1881 and 1891. The shop was next door to the present butcher's, in what is now a pharmacy. Sarah died on 10th April 1889 and William married Ellen Braysher the following year, their marriage registered at Lewes district in the June quarter of 1890. 

Ellen Maria died at Oxbottom on 26th February 1896 aged 35 and Norman died at Newick Cottage Hospital on 14th October the same year.  He was 51 years old.  The orphaned William (aged three) and Susan (aged five) were taken in by their grandmother, Susan Braysher, and lived with her and Ellen's sister and brother-in-law, Frances and George Constable at Oxbottom in a small two-bedroomed cottage. 

 

William Jenner appears first in Chailey Parish Magazine in January 1916 in a list of specially attested men (as Jenner, William N) and in a line entry which states: Jenner, Sapper W, RE, England.  He had enlisted at Brighton with the Royal Engineers on 1st November 1915 and was given the service number 136676 and the rank of driver.

On 27th April 1916 he arrived in France as part of 446 Field Company, Royal Engineers.  The following month, Chailey Parish Magazine noted, Jenner, Sapper W, RE, France.   

Nothing is known of his service over the next two years but on 28th September 1918 he was injured when the mess cart he was driving overturned between Nurlu and Moislaines (approximately 12 miles west of Albert on The Somme).  William was thrown into a shell hole and injured seriously enough to be admitted to hospital the following day.  He remained there for the next six weeks, finally being discharged two days after the Armistice was signed.   

On 26th November 1918 William joined 447 Field Company via “REBD” (which possibly stands for Royal Engineers Base Depot) and seems to have remained with this company until discharged at Chatham in April 1919 (he had returned to England the previous month on account of long service).  His discharge papers note his address as Allington Road Newick. 

The following year, on 27th October 1920, William married Mary Anne Turner at Nutley.  The couple had met when they were both ‘in service’ at The Hall, Nutley.  His occupation was then given as electrician and his address as Eltham.

 

William Jenner subsequently worked as a clerical officer for Woolwich Borough Council and died at Plumstead on 18th August 1971 at the age of 78.

My thanks to Chris Jenner for providing some of the information that appears on this page, also for the photograph of William and Mary. Thanks too, to Simon Stevens for the poetrait of William which was sent to his headmaster, John Oldacre, at Newick School.

A A C Eldridge, Royal Fusiliers

Corporal Eldridge was a patient at Beechland House in 1916.  His entry in Nurse Oliver’s comprises a pen illustration of two pigs, underneath which he has written (in beautiful handwriting): 

The principal inhabitants of Newick. 

A A C Eldridge Cpl

Royal Fusiliers

Beechlands 1916 

At the time of writing, this man has confounded me for thirty years. There is too little information contained in his album entry and too many Eldridge possibilities on census returns, the civil registration birth indices and medal index cards to provide a positive match for this man. For that matter, I'm not even sure his name is Eldridge. I'd welcome further thought on this man.

Henry J Mitchell

Chailey Parish Magazine notes Henry J Mitchell in a special list of attested men published between January and April 1916.  No further information is available about this man. 

Henry Mitchell was the second eldest child in a family of nine children (eight of them boys). 

His parents, Charles and Emily Mitchell, were married in 1880 and by the time the 1881 census was taken they were living at 1 Upper Birchland, Newick.  Both were aged 22 with Charles (born in Lindfield) working as an agricultural labourer.  Ten years on, by the time the 1891 census was taken, Charles and Emily were living at what looks like Plummers Den Cottage No 1 in Lindfield and had five children:  Charles Mitchell (aged nine), Henry J Mitchell (aged eight), Alfred Thomas Mitchell (aged six), John Mitchell (aged three) and Albert Basil Mitchell (aged eleven months). 

By the time the 1901 census was taken the family was still living at the same Lindfield address but there were now more brothers – and a sister.  New arrivals and their ages in 1901 were: Elsie Mitchell (aged seven), Walter Mitchell (aged five), Wallace Sidney Mitchell (aged four) and Maurice Gilbert Mitchell (aged nine months). 

Henry Mitchell’s brothers Albert, Alfred, John, Wallace (Sidney) and Maurice, also served during the First World War.  All of them survived.  Their distant relatives, the Plummer brothers were less fortunate.  Albert, Alexander and Owen Plummer all lost their lives.

41987 Pte William Tingley, 11th Suffolk Regiment

Chailey Parish Magazine notes in July 1917, Tingley, Pte W, 25th Training Reserve and in December 1917 updates this with Tingley, Pte W, 9th Suffolk Regiment.  In January 1919 it notes that he has been awarded the DCM whilst serving with the 12th Suffolk Regiment and in July 1919, gives his battalion as the 1th Suffolk Regiment and the fact that he also holds the Croix de Guerre.

I know very little about this man.  On 12th March 1919 William's award of the DCM is confirmed in the supplement to The London Gazette, (Page 3389):  

 

"Chorley" should of course be "Chailey".

 

The medal roll for the British War and Victory medals gives a little more information about the battalions that William served with: the 9th Battalion, 11th Battalion and 12th Battalion. No service record however, survives to enable us to dig down a little deeper.

 

Medal index card courtesy of Ancestry.

G/9591 Pte George Smith, 13th Royal Sussex Regt

The George Spencer Smith commemorated by The Commonwealth War Graves’ Commission was entered in the Lewes District birth register for the March quarter, 1887 as Spencer Maryon Smith. He also appears on the 1891 and 1901 census under this name as well.

He appears on the 1891 census of England and Wales living at Hanly Farm, Cooksbridge Road, Barcombe, with his family. The household comprised James Smith (head, married, aged 32, working as a groom), his wife Margaret Emma Smith (nee Diplock), also aged 32 and their five sons: Arthur Vere Smith (aged eight), Frederick James Smith (aged six), Spencer Maryon Smith (aged four), Henry William Smith (aged two) and Edward George Smith (aged five months). James was from Newick, his wife from Lindfield. Arthur had been born in Newick, Frederick in Hamsey and the other four boys in Barcombe. Next door to them lived William Diplock and his family. William was almost certainly directly related to Margaret; either an older brother or her father.

By the time the 1901 census was taken, the family had grown and had also moved house to Cornwell’s Bank, Newick. The household now comprised: James Smith (42, by now working as an agricultural labourer), his wife Margaret Emily [sic] Smith and their nine children: Arthur Vere Smith (aged 18, working as an agricultural labourer), Frederick James Smith (aged 16, working as a gardener), Spencer Maryon Smith (aged 14, working as a gardener), Henry William Smith (aged 12), Edward George Smith (aged ten), Leonard Diplock Smith (aged eight), Cissie Eva Smith (the only daughter, aged seven), Sydney Septimus Smith (aged 5) and Cyril Frank Smith (aged two). The four younger children had all been born in Newick.

George is not mentioned in Chailey’s parish magazine but The Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Debt of Honour Register notes that he was 32 years old and was the son of James and Margaret Emma Smith of Yew Tree Cottage, Colonels Bank, Chailey, Lewes, Sussex.

G/9591 Private George Spencer Smith was killed in action on 26th April 1918 whilst serving with the 13th Royal Sussex Regiment. He has no known grave and is commemorated by name on the Tyne Cot memorial (below) in Belgium. His brother, Frederick James Smith, had been killed in France just over a year before, on 17th April 1917.

Both George and Frederick attended the village school at Newick and the photo that appears on this page is the one which Frederick sent his old headmaster, John Oldaker. A photographer's stamp at the bottom shows that it was taken at Newhaven, Sussex. I am grateful to Simon Stevens for sending me the photo.

Twenty pages of George's service record survive in the WO 363 series at the National Archives, also accessible via Ancestry. These are the key dates taken from that service record.

8th December 1915 - attests at Chichester (Derby Scheme) aged 32. Living at Westdean Park, Chichester and working as a footman. Next of kin given as his mother, Emily Smith, of Yew Tree Cottage, Colonels Bank, Newick
24th March 1916 - called up
25th March 1916 - posted to 3rd Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment and given number G/9591
7th December 1916 - arrives France and posted to 40th Infantry Base Depot
25th December 1916 - posted to 13th Bn, Royal Sussex Regiment
9th December 1917 - granted leave to UK until 23rd December
26th April 1918 - killed in action

L/10315 Pte William George Day, Royal Sussex Regiment

 

 

William George Day does not strictly belong on this blog as he is commemorated on neighbouring Newick's War Memorial.  However, his name appears in the memorial book kept by Newick School's headmaster, (below) along with many men from Chailey.

 

William was a regular soldier who enlisted with the Royal Sussex Regiment in April 1914.  The photo above almost certainly dates from that time and was probably taken at the regimental depot.  Note the fresh creases in his tunic and trousers.

 

William, born in Fyzabad, India (presumably into an army family) was killed in action on 15th May 1916 whilst serving with the 9th (Service) Battalion of The Royal Sussex Regiment.

 



 

NFDDSS - Newick & Chailey

This splendid photo shows members of the Newick and Chailey Branch of the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers at their wind-up supper outside The King's Head, Chailey on July 12th 1921.

Numbering left to right, identified members so far are:

Back row: 2: Frank Mainwood; 6: Len Gordon; 7: "Buffer Ford"; 8: William Padgham; 11: Hugh Page; 13: Charles Pateman

Second row: 6: Thomas Divall

Third row: 3:?? Ireland

Front row: 1: Jack Padgham (father of Albert and William); 7: Thomas Deadman


Frank Mainwood, RGA. My thanks to Helen Davy and Peggy Fuller in Hampshire for helping me identify him in the main photo above. Frank lost his right eye whilst serving with the Royal Garrison Artillery during the First World War.


Len Gordon, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders


William Padgham, RFA


Tom Deadman, Rifle Brigade

Sick and wounded slideshow

I have just added a slideshow to the page for sick and wounded soldiers which shows soldiers recuperating at Hickwells in Chailey and Beechlands in Newick. Most of the pictures date to 1915 at Hickwells and I have tried to put the photos up in chronological order. With the exception of Charles Sabourin who has his own slideshow, I have included captions for those men whom I have identified.

Victor George Ashford - a brief war

Victor George Ashford was born about 1900 in Newick. He appears on the 1901 census as the youngest child of James Thomas Ashford (a fishmonger) and his wife Jane. Three other children are also noted.

Victor's service record more rightly belongs on a Newick commemoration site as he lived at Colonels Bank, Newick. However, his service record notes Colonels Bank as being in Chailey and so I am more than happy to add his name to the Chailey parish roll call.

Charles Lee & John Thurgood

Charles Lee was killed on 3rd June 1917 whilst serving with the 11th Royal Sussex Regiment. He was 31 years old. A married man who had enlisted in Henley but was living in Chailey, Charles is buried in Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery in Ypres. On his tombstone is written, “UNTIL THE DAY BREAK / AND THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY”.

On 4th June 1919 John William Thurgood, formerly of the Royal Field Artillery, died of appendicitis at his home in Grimsby. He was 27 years old. His connection with Chailey (or rather, Newwick) was that he had been a patient at Beechland House some time between November 1917 and March 1918. John Thurgood is buried beneath a CWGC headstone in Scartho Road Cemetery, Grimsby.

George Page

I've updated George Page's biography on the Chailey website. As mentioned the other day, I've been sent a number of photographs and biographical details of men who went to Newick School. George falls into that category and so I'm happy to be able to add further information about him.

What I didn't know was that he died in 1919 whilst serving in India. Strangely though, his name does not appear on either the Chailey or the Newick war memorials, even though technically he is a war casualty. (He appears on the Commonwealth War Graves' site for instance).

I'll be updating more biographies and adding further portrait photographs over the coming days.

The Hobden brothers

During the First World War, John Oldaker, the headmaster of the village school in Newick, Sussex, kept notes of old pupils who were serving in the armed forces. He also sent word to them that he would like a photograph of them in uniform.

Earlier this week, Simon Stevens of Sussex, sent me photographs of a number of men from John Oldaker's collection. Newick neighbours Chailey and so it is not at all surprising that a number of the Chailey men went to school there. Nevertheless I am indebted to Simon for taking the trouble to take time out from his own Newick research. I have uploaded some of John Oldaker's photos to the website and more will follow.

The WW1 biographies of William Ellis, Owen Hobden, Frederick Smith and his brother George Smith now all have photos and it's great to see their faces for the first time. Sadly, only William Ellis survived the war. The other three men were all killed in action.

Below, I attach photographs, from top to bottom, of Alfred, George, Owen and Richard Hobden. Alfred, George and Richard do not feature much on the website although I do refer to them on Owen's page. Interesting features to note below are Alfred's Good Conduct chevron and two vertical wound stripes below that, George's Good Conduct chevron, and Richard's skill-at-arms signalling badge on his lower left arm.

Wounded soldiers at Beechlands

One of several images of wounded soldiers (this group at Beechlands) which I have posted on a separate PHOTOGRAPHS page on this blog.