Sometimes you will experience situations within your Great War research, that are a bit above your expectations. This is my small story about the first impression of the opportunity to take part of discovered documents from soldiers and their families, from the early period of the Great War.
My colleague at work asked me if I wanted to examine a box with some documents that relatives to his British born wife had found the garden shed from the family home in Dovercourt, Harwich, England. It turned out to be a very interesting box.
The main character in this story is Mrs Bowick was the Grandmother of my colleague’s wife. Mrs Bowick lived in the area of Dovercourt, west of the town of Harwich on the east coast of England. By reading the cards from the soldiers, to Mrs Bowick, I can understand that she sent a lot of gifts to the soldiers on front, but also kept contact with some of the soldiers families. The Bowick family themselves also has connections to the Great War, as I found the British War Medal of Benjamin John Bowick, Mrs Bowick’s husband, who seems to have been connected to the Mercantile Marine.
Below the medal of Benjamin John Bowick, that I found in the box.
I have now sorted the documents found in the box, and there are mixed letters and notes, some of them from the year 1801 and 1837, but most of them from the period of 1914-1916. An amazing piece of history, but also hard to transcribe, due to the style of the handwriting, but also due to the fading text.
There is a lot of information to read in the cards and letters, but I will try to make a short summary, and in the future try to develop the context written by the soldiers and their families.
The Bright family
The very interesting, faded photo of the children in the post title, is from the, as I understand, the Bright family. It is so nice to see the names of the children on the back of the card, and the text which is written by their mother, but also the wife to Mr Bright. I wonder what the family do today? In my opinion a very nice and interesting piece of history.
Most of the letters between the Bowick family and the Bright family are written by the wife of G W Bright, who, which I believe, served on the H.M.S Thames, in 1915. H.M.S. Thames was completed in 1888 as one of four second class protected cruisers and served in the war as a submarine depot ship. At the moment I haven’t been able to find out who Mr G W Bright was, but I will try to ask some of my UK friends. All I know is that he served in the Royal Naval Barracks in Chatham, which is mentioned in the letter further down below. If you know more, do not hesitate to take contact with me.
As I understand the family lived on 46 South Grove, Highgate, in London. Below some snippets from the one of the letters between Mrs Bowick and the Bright family.
The soldiers who didn’t make it
Among the quite many cards from the soldiers to Mrs Bowick, I found cards from soldiers which I could confirm through different archives, did not survived the war.
For me it is very sad to read words from a soldier, who served in the Great War, who was in some moments very happy when he received the gifts from the Bowick family, but later on paid the highest price, to fall in the war.
8150 Pte Thomas Henry Brewin
It took awhile before I could decipher the surname in the card which I later found out was written by the soldier in the British Expeditionary Force, Pvt Brewin. I can see him in front of me, when he received the package, which contained some tobacco.
Pte Brewin served in the 1st Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, when he was killed in action on May 23rd, 1915. He may have been one of the four ORs who, according to the unit war diary, who was killed on the specific day.
Pte Brewin is today buried at the Spoilbank Cemetery, west of the Bluff area, south west of Ypres in Belgium. On my small tour in May this year, my colleague who lent me the box with all these documents, will join me. We will bring the card with us when we, among other sites, will visit Pvt Brewin’s final resting place.
Acting Sgt 9668 Edward Ernest Paddick
I was able to find Edward through his service number, when searching through different archives. It is a very special feeling to see the text on the card, now knowing that that he sadly is missing in action after been serving in the Gloucestershire Regiment on the Western Front during the war.
On the card he only stated that he belonged to “D Company” in the Regiment, but according to some documents I understand that he served in the 8th Service Battalion. He wrote the card in December 1914, which was quite early in the war.
Pte Paddick also wrote some small letters to the Bowick family.
When looking in the war diary of the 8th Service Battalion in Gloucestershire Regiment, I can see that they were on the Front line on the stated date of his death, September 6th, 1918.
Today Edward Ernest Paddick can be found on the Loos Memorial at Dud Corner Cemetery in France.
More soldiers
Below you will find documents from other soldiers I found in the collections of Mrs Bowick. At the moment I am still looking up information about these soldiers but I will give you some information to look through, as you may know more about them.
Pte William Patrick Tierney
Quite a lot of documents is from the soldier W Tierney. It took quite a while until I managed to decipher the handwriting from his letters and cards, but I think I have managed to find the correct individual.
He belonged to the 1st Lincolnshire Regiment, the same regiment as Pte Brewin. Pte Tierney has written both cards and some small letters to the Bowick family. He mentioned how he struggled with his transport equipment to support the soldiers in the front, and is a really nice snippet from the period in the beginning of February of 1915.
Below you can see some documents from the collection.
Spr Frank Albert Piff
Frank belonged to the 1st Gloucestershire Regiment, the same regiment as Pte Paddick. Frank wrote a card to the Bowick family, but I have also managed to find other related documents of Sapper Piff.
Pte Harry Prosser
Harry Prosser seems to have served in North Somerset Yeomanry Dragoons. He wrote a small letter to Mrs Bowick in which he signed as Corporal No 718 Harry Prosser, C Squadron, North Somerset Yeomanry, BEF. The small letter is dated February 14th, 1915.
I have at this moment found some other documents connected to Harry.
Rifleman Harry Lee
It has been quite hard to find information about, who I assume is, Harry Lee. He wrote that his service number was 2236, but so far I haven’t been able to find any more information which will lead to that I can confirm that the individual who wrote the small letter, is the soldier of Harry Lee. If you know more about this soldier it would be great to be informed.
Below some snippets of the letter.
In the end of this small post I will give you some snippets of cards from two soldiers who I will continue to research.
Below you will find the card from W Evans, who wrote a card when he was a Prisoner of War in the german POW Camp of Hameln Weser in Germany. As I understand this could be interesting information to the site of wartimememoriesproject.com which seems to not having this name on the list, even if I understand they have a quite large backlog to take care of when it comes to information sent in from others. I will try to send this information to them and then we will know if this will be new to them or not.
I only have one card from the soldier, which I think had the surname of Sims. He seems to have been a Corporal in the 1st Rifle Brigade, but it is hard to read his initial letter of his name. If someone know more about who this Sims can be, among quite many Sims, please feel free to inform me, it would be very interesting to know more about him.
In this post I haven’t mentioned the old documents from between 1801 and 1837, as they are very brittle, and I will let any museum or archive to take care of them, but it has been very interesting to have been able to read them, even if they are very hard to decipher due the old handwriting.
Even if this collection is not connected to any of my Swedish soldiers in my research, it has been great to have the opportunity to look them through. It is a very special feeling to hold a card which is written by a soldier who participated in the Great War, to hold documents which are over 100 years old, and especially sad to hold the cards in my hand, from the soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the War.
Lest we forget.