To what extent and why did the voluntary ethic characterise Winchester's response to war in 1914 and 1915?

THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

DEPARTMENT OF WAR STUDIES

'To what extent and why did the voluntary ethic characterise Winchester's response to war in 1914 and 1915?'

 

Dissertation for MA in British First World War Studies. September 2015.

Derek Whitfield

 

LIST OF CONTENTS    

List of Abbreviations List of Tales Glossary of Plates
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Beyond all praise: Winchester's home front volunteers, August-December 1914
Chapter 2 - For King and Country: Winchester's military volunteers, August-December 1914
Chapter 3 - 1915: Voluntaryism on the wane?
Conclusion        Endnotes
Bibliography

   

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

 

AIF	Australian Infantry Force
BEF	British Expeditionary Force
CID	Committee for Imperial Defence
HRA	Hampshire Regimental Archive
HRO	Hampshire Records Office
IWM	Imperial War Museum
LC	The Liddle Collection, University of Leeds
NCO	Non Commissioned Officer
PRC	Parliamentary Recruiting Committee
TNA	The National Archive
TNA CAB	The National Archive, Cabinet Papers
TNA NATS	The National Archive, National Service Papers
TNA REG	The National Archive, National Register Papers
TNA WO	The National Archive, War Office Papers
VAD	Voluntary Aid Detachment (of Red Cross)
WCFWWD	Debt of Honour: Winchester City's First World War Dead
WCA	Winchester College Archive
WCW	Winchester College at War website, http://www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/
WWSR	Winchester War Service Register

 

LIST OF TABLES

 

2.1 Number of Winchester men entering military service, August 1914-November 1918
2.2 Winchester recruiting figures by month, August-December 1914
2.3 Weekly Winchester recruitment by percentage, 4 August-26 September 1914
2.4 Recruitment up to 4 November per 10,000 population
2.5 Winchester recruits by social class, August-September 1914
2.6 Recruiting numbers in Winchester by street, August-September 1914
2.7 Winchester recruits by age at enlistment, August-September 1914
3.1 Winchester recruiting figures by month, 1915

 

GLOSSARY OF PLATES

 

Plate 1	Boys of the Winchester College OTC on manoueuvres before the war
Plate 2	Wiltshire Yeomanry unload supplies at Winchester College, August 1914
Plate 3	VADs serving afternoon tea to recuperating soldiers at Winchester College Red Cross Hospital
Plate 4	American troops march into Winchester from Winnall Down camp, 1917
Plate 5	Postcard from Morn Hill camp, 1915
Plate 6	The 1st Hampshires on parade in Winchester in June 1919
Plate 7	The 1/4th Hampshire Regiment in Winchester after their release by the Turks
Plate 8	Earl Grey of Falloden addresses boys and staff at the laying of the foundation stone for Winchester's College's War Cloister in 1922
Plate 9	Winchester College War Memorial today

 

INTRODUCTION

Historiographical background and Winchester on the eve of war

 

This dissertation examines the way in which the people of Winchester voluntarily mobilised behind Britain's war effort between August 1914 and December 1915. It focuses both on voluntary enlistment into the armed forces and self-mobilisation at home, and seeks to answer two questions. First, how pervasive was the voluntary ethic in Winchester and, second, what motivated Wintonians to volunteer? The dissertation is a microhistory, a method of study which, it is contended, better enables the researcher to 'uncover unknown complexities and reveal “new meanings” in structures, processes, belief systems and human interaction'.1Rather than fill a specific gap in the historiography, it seeks to build on the findings of the local studies discussed below. It is now generally accepted that there was no one single experience of the war and that the responses of different communities were nuanced and complex. The responses of Wintonians in 1914 and 1915 that are identified by the dissertation, and the importance of locality in shaping them, confirms that view.

There is a growing body of literature concerned with British voluntary mobilisation. Recent studies by the likes of Adrian Gregory and Catriona Pennell have advanced the scholarship enormously and helped to dispel the verdict of Arthur Marwick that 'British society in 1914 was strongly jingoistic and showed [a] marked enthusiasm for the outbreak of war ... that bordered on derangement'.2 Gregory and Pennell have argued that far more diverse and complex factors than simple war enthusiasm were at play in August 1914. Both have contended that the period of peak enlistment came not immediately after 4 August, but in late August and early September when it appeared the BEF was on the verge of defeat. Furthermore, Pennell argues that while war enthusiasm motivated some men to enlist, more important as drivers were men's understandings of a 'national cause' – why the country was fighting Germany – as well as the effects of geography and the social make-up of the communities from which the volunteers came. Pennell also contends that persuading people of the justness of the national cause was crucial in the process of voluntary civilian engagement in the war effort and in the establishment of a 'new moral order' based on duty, sacrifice and appropriate behaviour. Gregory's study treads a narrow path between cultural and social history. He examines the voluntary ethic, for example, not only through quantitative analysis – demonstrating how enlistment rates varied in different parts of the country – but also through the psychological dynamics of recruiting and the notion of an 'economy of sacrifice'.

Military historians have contributed to the historiography through studies of the Kitchener Armies. However, while these works provide useful information on how the armies were raised, trained and deployed, their analyses of patterns of recruitment and of the reasons that men enlisted are less detailed.3 One exception is Peter Simkins who has pointed to the complex social, political and economic forces that drove men to enlist. David Silbey has developed several of these themes in his persuasive study of attitudes and motivations among working class volunteers.4 Besides the works of Gregory, Pennell, Simkins and Silbey, the dissertation will be most informed by microhistories of places as diverse as Kent, Liverpool, Sussex, Norfolk and Suffolk, Worcestershire, Devon,  Scotland and even Freiburg. These have provided a challenging new analytical focus in the historiography of the home front which has traditionally viewed events within the framework of the nation state.5 Jay Winter has asserted that in 1914 many people's notion of 'England' was 'envisioned as a very local and particular place, bounded in many cases by the streets they knew and the daily lives they led'.6 Thus microhistories, with their 'greater emphasis on the effects of war on local communities in their distinctive settings' can be used to identify nuanced responses that might otherwise be obscured in studies at a higher or macro level.7 One example is Richard Batten's Ph.D thesis on local elites in Devon and their influence on wartime mobilisation in the county.8 Batten's study reveals that many Devonians placed individual priorities above service in the armed forces with the result that the county elites acted as 'provincial patriots' or 'superintendents of patriotism', attempting to educate Devonians in the codes of ideal conduct in wartime.9

There is no full-length monograph examining recruitment and home front mobilisation in Winchester so the dissertation will fill a gap in the local historiography.10Of the local literature, the most useful in informing the dissertation has been the register of Winchester war dead compiled by local researcher Jennifer Best in conjunction with Tom Beaumont James of Winchester University. Debt of Honour: Winchester City's First World War Dead (WCFWWD) gives details of the 460 city men who died in the conflict and is a much shorter list than the Winchester War Service Register (WWSR) discussed below.11 Significantly, it also gives soldiers' service numbers. This has made it possible to break down the entries according to month of recruitment and, by consulting the Silver War Badge list located in the Hampshire Regimental Archive, to establish exactly when some of the men on the Debt of Honour list joined up.12 The dissertation has also made use of local historian Tony Dowland's paper on the mobilisation camps established around Winchester during 1914 and 1915 and Christine Grover's Ph.D thesis on the suburban development of the city from 1850 to 1912, which  has proven useful in establishing the social backgrounds of volunteer soldiers.13

Most primary source material was obtained from archives in Winchester, including the Hampshire Records Office, Winchester College Archive, the Hampshire Regimental Archive and the Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Archive. Of particular value for the dissertation are the two local newspapers, the Hampshire Chronicleand Hampshire Observer, whose editorials, letters and news pages give a flavour of the prevailing mood. Both gave prominent coverage to local dignitaries, such as the wartime mayors Harry Sealey and Alfred Edmeades who became major drivers of voluntaryism. Another significant primary source is the WWSR which lists some 3,500 men from the city who served in the war.14 It has been used in conjunction with the 1911 Census and the WCFWWD to identify the trends and demographics of recruitment. The Winchester archives contain little in the way of relevant soldiers' letters so these have been obtained primarily from the Imperial War Museum, the National Archives and the Liddle Collection at the University of Leeds.

Several factors make Winchester the ideal 'laboratory' for a microhistory. Despite its comparatively small population – just 23,500 in 1911 – the city's demographic mix was unusually broad. At one extreme stood Winchester Cathedral and Winchester College, upper class bastions of tradition and conservatism. Below this, a professional class of lawyers, doctors, Army officers and clergymen, together with a raft of shopkeepers, traders and merchants, added to the air of respectability and prosperity.15 The picture, however, was very different in other parts of the city, particularly in the crowded streets to the north of the High Street where many families – often with with ten or more children - lived in appalling slum property.16 However, since little heavy industry existed in Winchester, this was a largely unpoliticised, conservative working class. The armed forces also figured prominently in Winchester life. The Hampshire Regiment had its depot in the city, with many local men serving as Territorials in the 4th Battalion. Nearby stood the depot of the Rifle Brigade and the King's Royal Rifles, regiments which mainly recruited in London but also locally. The Navy, too, just 20 miles away in Portsmouth, provided an escape route for many young working class Winchester men. No fewer than 794 men (11.3 per cent of the total working population) were serving in the armed forces on the eve of war.17

Several leading Wintonians stand out as potential drivers of wartime voluntaryism. Lieutenant-Colonel Guy Baring, a member of the banking family and former Coldstream Guards officer, had been elected as Conservative MP for Winchester in 1906 and, along with his uncle, the Earl of Northbrook, was a respected figure in the city.18 The Earl, a former Rifle Brigade officer had been Liberal MP for Winchester from 1880-85 and remained a powerful influence. Sealey and Edmeades represented the city's burgeoning entrepreneurial class. Sealey, a developer, and Edmeades, managing director of Winchester Brewery, were dynamic and hard-working businessmen, qualities that would serve them well during the war. The Hampshire Chronicle noted of Edmeades: 'When he speaks he adds real grist to the debate, and more than once he has swung the weight of opinion round to his view. That is the real power of a public man.'19 Religious life, too, provided leaders. Edward Talbot, Bishop of Winchester, may have been more cerebral than dynamic, but in a city where the overwhelming majority believed in God his voice carried considerable weight.20 In the words of one local historian:

Wintonians were believers: they believed in God, practising their beliefs in their own differing denominational ways; they believed in the family, and in family responsibility, in self-help; they practised charity and they accepted it... Education and religious belief were virtually inseparable; both offered a better life, and almost all Wintonians thought that the world... was getting better. There was squalor and poverty, but progress was part of the natural order.21

The dissertation is divided into three chapters.

Chapter One focuses on the voluntary ethic among Winchester's civilian population in 1914 and examines three questions. How did citizens display the voluntary ethic? Who volunteered, and was any one social group more involved than the others? Why did people volunteer to support the war effort? Within this general framework the chapter considers the degree to which civilians believed in a national cause. Local newspapers have been consulted to gauge the reaction of Wintonians to the declaration of war, and to try to distinguish between war enthusiasm and the city's immediate and unavoidable immersion in military mobilisation. The chapter then examines the numerous ways in which civilians mobilised behind the war effort and, taking Batten's study as a cue, the role of local dignitaries in promoting voluntaryism. Local newspapers, parish magazines, school logs, Winchester College reports and civilian diaries and reminiscences all provide a wealth of evidence. The chapter argues that Wintonians were enthusiastic supporters of the war effort at home and describes the many ways in which they responded to the national emergency. However, although all social classes participated in the voluntary response, the impetus came primarily from Winchester's middle and upper classes. Citizens volunteered because they believed Britain's national cause was righteous and to show solidarity with the men at the front, but also because of specific local factors such as the city's proximity to the war and its strong military tradition.

Chapter Two examines military recruitment in 1914 and again addresses three questions. Given Winchester's ties to the armed forces, was there a 'rush to the colours' immediately after the declaration of war? Did recruitment follow a discernible pattern and when did it reach its peak? Who were the men who volunteered and why did they enlist? The WWSR, WCFWWD and the 1911 Census have been used to obtain a snapshot of enlistment trends and to establish a tentative 'chronology of recruitment'. Local newspapers carried reports of recruitment meetings and one in particular, held on 25 August 1914, is highlighted to examine the recruiters' 'tactics' and the language, imagery and cultural and economic appeals that they employed. The aim is to try to identify factors that may have led to the recruiting surge that followed the rally. Other sources consulted include soldiers' letters, regimental journals and Winchester College records.

Chapter Three looks at military and civilian voluntaryism in Winchester in 1915. It examines the degree to which the voluntary ethic continued to define the city's response to the war and also the extent to which it began to wane as the city settled into war. It focuses in particular on the recruiting authorities' claim in autumn 1915 that 2,000 men had held back from enlisting and shows that this was unfounded. Rather, the chapter demonstrates that recruitment levels in the city at the end of the voluntary period matched those of the nation's most patriotic urban areas.

Plate 1: Boys of the Winchester College OTC out 'on manoeuvres' on Twyford Down shortly before the outbreak of war. Winchester College had one of the most active OTCs among English public schools and large numbers of boys secured Army commissions in August and September 1914. Of the 2,488 members of the Winchester College community who served in the First World War, 513 died.

 

CHAPTER 1

Beyond all praise: Winchester's home front volunteers, August - December 1914

 

This chapter examines the extent to which Wintonians voluntarily mobilised behind the war effort on the home front in 1914. It argues that they responded overwhelmingly in a positive way, by billeting troops in their homes, housing refugees, giving generously to charity and performing a wide range of war-related work. Although all classes participated in this voluntary response, it was driven by Winchester's middle and upper classes and civic authorities. The chapter also identifies the reasons why people volunteered: enthusiastic patriotism driven by the city's military tradition and proximity to the war, a belief in the justness of Britain's cause, fear and hatred of Germany and a desire to be seen to be behaving appropriately as a 'new moral order' took hold.

Nothing prepared the people of Winchester for the outbreak of the First World War. Events in Europe had scarcely registered during the July crisis, and as late as 1 August 1914 the local newspapers, in common with elsewhere, were more focused on 'development[s] of the gravest character' in Ireland than the situation on the Continent.22 However, when war came three days later the city responded swiftly and enthusiastically. While most Britons did not discover that the country was at war until the morning of 5 August, the situation in Winchester was different. Reservists for the Hampshires and the two Rifles regiments began to arrive at the city's Army depots even before Britain's ultimatum to Germany had expired.23 By the following day the depots were packed.24 The Chronicle reported that:

... [t]he Royal Proclamation to mobilise the Army has had an extraordinary effect upon the military forces. On Wednesday [5 August] there were scenes of such enthusiasm as have rarely accompanied military preparations in this country. Battalions gave way from time to time to their feelings by vociferous cheering, and as one passed barrack-rooms the vocal evidence of satisfaction were volleyed out of the windows in unmistakeable fashion. The spirit of the Army has shown itself to be magnificent, and the contrast from the quiet, strained demeanour... during the days of suspense was most remarkable. Probably never before has the Army mobilised with such evidence of rejoicing.25

Many of the Reservists, having arrived in Winchester ahead of schedule, did not head immediately to the barracks but chose instead to fraternise with old comrades in the streets outside. Inevitably many ended up in the city's pubs which had the effect of ratcheting up the fevered atmosphere further still. The reactions of Wintonians to these events can be gauged in part through the Chronicle. While recognising the war as a 'catastrophe', the newspaper nevertheless acknowledged the 'thrilling intensity' of mobilisation.26 Winchester, it believed, had:

... shared to the full in the marvellous wave of patriotism that has swept over the country ... but in the capital of the County which is England's most important Naval and Military centre ... it is perhaps natural that those scenes should have been more vivid than in some places.27

Such scenes and the passions they stirred up were temporary and not all Wintonians shared in them, but their impact on voluntaryism, both military and civilian, should not be ignored. Nor should the fact that Winchester stood on one of the Army's major lines of communication to the continent and consequently never experienced the 'remoteness' from the war identified in other parts of the country. While in rural Gloucestershire 'people [had] hardly heard of the war' even at the end of August 1914, the presence of two major Army depots in Winchester and, increasingly, a network of huge mobilisation camps on its outskirts, brought home to Wintonians the realities of the conflict.28

The self-mobilisation of Winchester civilians encompassed all classes and ages, but the middle and upper classes galvanised the process. In the days following the declaration of war, the city's Mayor, Harry Sealey, found himself bombarded by letters from well-heeled citizens wanting to 'do their bit'. As the various suffragist organisations suspended their political activities, Lady Ridding, president of the Winchester Branch of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, told Sealey that her members were anxious to help those 'thrown into distress by the present terrible crisis' by providing shelter and distributing provisions and clothes.29 Mary Fortescue, wife of the commandant at the Rifles Depot, suggested volunteers could be organised to bring in the harvest.30 There were general offers of assistance, too, from other citizens, among them clergymen and retired Army and Naval officers.31 An interesting offer of specific help came from W. H. Loveland who asked Sealey if he intended to organise a war relief committee for Winchester. If so, he said, 'being the elected representative on the “Board of Trade”... I feel my services may be of some use to you, as my knowledge of the working classes and their difficulties are rather extensive'.32 

The large numbers of men arriving in Winchester following the mobilisation order brought a more broad-based demonstration of voluntaryism. As the depots quickly filled up, the Army sought help with billeting from the authorities who responded by using civic buildings as temporary accommodation. Despite being exempted from having to take troops, Winchester College chose to open its doors to Reservists from the Rifle Brigade and put up 500 men on 7-8 August. When the Rifles left the Wiltshire Yeomanry moved in and stayed for nearly two weeks, with around 470 men sleeping in the College sanatorium and gymnasium and officers in College Houses.33 Elsewhere, the Winchester Brewery Company provided accommodation and stores for troops while Head Constable John Sim arranged billeting in the city's pubs.34 Other businesses and institutions joined ordinary citizens in putting up soldiers, although the accommodation was not always salubrious. W. R. Owen of the 13th Rifle Brigade recalled how he and five friends slept in a variety of locations: on a greengrocer's straw-covered floor 'with its accompanying fleas and spiders', under the pews of the Congregational Church and on the floor of the 'chock-full' YMCA.35  In mid-September, the Mayor announced that 350 men had been billeted in private homes and pubs but 700 more still required accommodation.36 The following week the Chroniclereported that offers of billeting had vastly exceeded Sealey's appeal, with some larger households taking in as many as six men. The Army paid an allowance of 6d per night but 'in frequent instances' householders refused to accept it.37 Meanwhile, in the rapidly expanding mobilisation camps on the downs, the YMCA erected marquees and huts for troops. Each hut cost £300 to which local people were invited to contribute. A grateful Army paid tribute to the support of Winchester's citizens:

From the moment that mobilisation was ordered everything that could possibly be done for Reservists joining here was done in a most generous manner and this treatment was afterwards extended to the thousands of recruits who passed through the city. When the worst of the heavy rush was on, the people of Winchester opened their houses to the recruits, took them in, fed them and treated them like their own, asking for no payment, although many who thus helped were in humble circumstances. The conduct of these people was beyond all praise.38

Although some Winchester households chose to billet troops to make money, they were a minority.39 The overwhelming response was one of equality of sacrifice across the classes. However, a more nuanced response marked the way Wintonians supported the many charities and appeals launched in the opening months of the war. Although the working classes participated in these appeals, it was the city's middle and upper class citizens, together with the civic authorities, who acted as drivers. This was clearly visible in Winchester's policy towards Belgian refugees. The city council initiated the voluntary response by launching an appeal fund in October 1914 to provide accommodation for a number of refugees. Alfred Edmeades, the Mayor-elect, said offers of a house had already been received, but more was needed – clothing, furniture, food and coal as well as people to visit, to act as interpreters and to do 'the variety of things which persons of leisure were able to do for those who were not able to help themselves'.40 The task of housing the refugees was placed in the hands of a committee of young women, including Edmeades's daughter, Doris. Having secured the loan of a large house, No. 13 St James Terrace, the committee then furnished it with the help of donations and weekly subscriptions. In all, the committee housed seven refugee families and helped them find self-supporting work on leaving St James Terrace.41

Elsewhere, Winchester College housed up to 17 refugees in properties that it owned. Seven stayed initially as guests of the headmaster, Dr Montague Rendall, before moving into a College boarding house. The Wykehamist reported that 'the house is the property of the College. The rooms have been furnished by the united efforts of the ladies of Winchester. All the service is voluntary.'42 The funds needed to maintain the families were raised by weekly collections in the College chapel.43 Dr Rendall also noted that there were 'a few Belgian boys of good family living in the town who... could profit by a Winchester education' and early in 1915 two were admitted to classes.44 Neither paid fees – they were the 'guests of the school'.45 By housing and educating refugees and billeting troops, the College played an important role in the city's self-mobilisation. This aspect is absent from the historiography of public schools which has instead focused primarily on portraying them as institutions which instilled in young men a culture that resulted in the slaughter on the Western Front.46

Wealthy Wintonians also took in refugees. Miss Sidney Courtney travelled to London in mid-October and spent the whole day unsuccessfully looking for a suitable family. '[W]e saw hundreds of the poor things but they were practically all belonging to the lower middle class,' she noted. 'I suppose the better class people are taking rooms for themselves'.47 A week later she found what she had been seeking – a young Louvain professor, his wife, their baby and nurse.48 'We are quite charmed with M & Mme T... and feel we have been extraordinarily lucky to secure them,' Miss Courtney enthused in her diary.49 'Suitability' was an important consideration for many middle class volunteers involved in accommodating troops or refugees. In mid-September, the Chronicle reported that the number of recruits arriving in the city had fallen, but the 'general class of men... [was] a considerable improvement upon the earlier lots'.50 A large group of clerks from the London Stock Exchange and a party of golf professionals were particularly welcomed by the city's 'respectable classes'. The voluntary ethic may have been enthusiastically embraced by Wintonians, but it did not sweep away deeply-entrenched notions of class.

Winchester's middle and upper classes also drove the Red Cross Society's voluntary response to the war. By 7 August, the local branch, under the Countess of Northbrook, had already opened a fully equipped primary auxiliary hospital in a house near the cathedral.51 The property was loaned rent-free by its owners, Hampshire County Council, and the new hospital run by a trained matron, Mrs E. F. Johns. It had 47 beds although that quickly increased to 65 as donations of money flowed in. Dr Roberts, a local GP, volunteered as medical officer and the Hampshire Automobile Club loaned a vehicle which served as a Red Cross ambulance.52 Initially, the hospital took patients from the mobilisation camps, but on 5 September it was made part of the Military Hospital at the Rifles depot and two weeks later received wounded Belgian and French soldiers. The same month, the College put 30 beds in its sanatorium at the disposal of the Red Cross, with its nurse Miss Evelyn Montgomery placed in charge.53 On 1 November a second hospital, with ten beds, opened in Jewry Street, but two months later it transferred to Uplands, a large house in the city loaned by Colonel and Mrs Munro.54 For two years, the 35-bed hospital was largely supported by Mr Philips, a wealthy Winchester benefactor, and after his death by voluntary donations.55 Red Cross nurses of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VADs) also became an increasingly common sight at the main Royal County Hospital as staff there volunteered for service overseas.56 The voluntary spirit was evident in other ways at the Royal County: the house surgeon offered to do the work of the house physician after the latter was sent to India with the Territorials, while the pharmacist gave up his annual leave to remain at his post during the hectic early weeks of the war.57 The hospital also loaned out its only ambulance to the Hampshire Automobile Club, whose members were acting as volunteer drivers for the moving of wounded soldiers.58

One of the most common ways in which civilians supported the war effort was by giving to charity. Besides contributing towards the upkeep of Red Cross hospitals and Belgian refugees, Wintonians supported an array of other appeals. One early example was the Prince of Wales National Distress Fund, a national appeal administered locally which raised money to alleviate hardship caused by the war. The Chronicle regularly published details of who had contributed to the fund and they indicate a clear 'hierarchy of voluntaryism'. The edition of 29 August, for example, show contributions from wealthy Winchester residents such as Lady Brandreth (£25), Mr and Mrs M. Hodgson (£25 each), Rear Admiral Humpage (£10) and Miss Courtney (£10). Contributions from churches also figure prominently, ranging from £64 1s 5d collected at the Cathedral to the 17s raised at Winnall church. Finally, there is the money donated by working class organisations – 10s in luncheon tickets from the city's fire brigade and £10 from Winchester Corporation workmen, that being the sum voted by the Corporation towards expenses for the men's annual outing.59 The scale of Wintonians' support for charities in 1914 is impressive, with the Chronicle and the Observercarrying hundreds of reports of fund-raising activities. Nor did this largesse come at the expense of other causes. Charities not connected to the war effort feared donations would fall as support switched to patriotic causes, but this did not happen. Christmas presents poured in as usual at the Royal County Hospital. Even charities apparently as obscure as the Winchester Auxiliaries of the Birds' Nest Home, Dublin, reported that despite 'voluntary funds [being] required for so many worthy causes ... it is gratifying to know that local interest has not waned'.60

Wintonians also threw themselves into voluntary work. At the main railway station a team of volunteers served food and refreshments to up to 1,000 men a day from a large marquee. The marquee relied on donations, with wealthy residents such as barrister J. H. Harris giving generously.61 The daughters of two prominent Winchester citizens, A. L. Bowker and Charles Warner, set up another small canteen nearby, providing meals and tea. A third outdoor refreshments stall established near the station by a group of local women eventually transferred to the Old Guildhall. The building was placed at the women's disposal by Messrs Timothy White and Co., one of many businesses to support the voluntary response. Another, the Winchester Cooperative Society, offered the use of its hall free of charge to working parties preparing comforts and other items for soldiers.62 The newly-opened Theatre Royal contributed, too, raising £11 for both the Prince of Wales Fund and the Red Cross at a special matinee performance while the employees of Messrs Sherriff and Ward clubbed together to send 10,000 cigarettes to the 1st Hampshires in France.63 The Mayoress, Sealey's daughter, set up a Citizens' Working Party to  make and collect clothes for hospitals, Belgian refugees and sick and wounded soldiers.64 Local women also supported Queen Mary's Needlework Guild and Queen Alexandra's Appeal which provided clothing and other assistance for soldiers and sailors and their families and the poor.65

Much of this voluntary work was done by women but men contributed, too. In August, a Citizens' Drill Class was formed in response to fears of a German invasion and two months later it had 250 members.66 Even children volunteered. Girl Guides played an active role in parish working parties, while more than 30 Boy Scouts were attached to the railway station, the police station, the Red Cross hospital and the barracks.67 Scouts even supervised the washing of Army recruits on their arrival in Winchester.68 Youngsters also assisted in hospitals. Jessie Dore Dixon accompanied wounded soldiers – mostly amputees – from one hospital to another for treatment. Having a child with them, she said, gave the soldiers confidence.69 Meanwhile, poems and verses exhorted 'You boys and girls of Hampshire/Awake at Duty's call/Though weak your bands and voices/Your country needs you all.70

At the end of October 1914 an estimated 20,000 troops were living in the mobilisation camps, with hundreds more in the two Army barracks. Providing entertainment and places where the men could relax prompted another wave of civilian voluntaryism. Soldiers' clubs sprang up in church and parish halls, the YMCA, the railway station buffet and numerous other locations.71 All were manned by volunteers, such as Miss Courtney who regularly helped out at the club established in St Thomas parish hall. The clubs did not serve alcohol but tea, coffee and light refreshments could be purchased at a moderate price while writing materials, newspapers and games were supplied free. Voluntary donations covered the running costs of these clubs which were so well patronised that in early December the city council opened a larger club in the Guildhall.72 Sunday night concerts proved a particularly popular feature of the new club. The first, organised personally by Edmeades, raised £2 which was used to 'send “smokes” to the front'.73 Two months after the club opened, the Mayor reported that more than 32,000 men had visited – nearer to 40,000 if those who had attended the free Sunday concerts were added.74 Clubs were also set up in the mobilisation camps, with the YMCA playing a leading role.75 The Chronicle reported that the city was doing everything possible 'to make the soldiers happy and contented ... and the arrangements generally are such that the citizens may with reason congratulate themselves'.76 This soldier's verdict certainly supports that view:   

Dear Winchester – Before I leave, may I for myself and my comrades express gratefulness for the kind way in which Winchester treats her soldiers? The provision of Clubs and Recreation Rooms is wonderful, and it's absolutely past describing what a boon they are ... the Westgate Rooms have been to me a veritable haven of refuge in the late awful weather.

Yours truly, Soldier.77

Thus, a spirit of voluntaryism pervaded Winchester in the autumn of 1914. Why, though, did people invest their time, money and energy in this way? Although the initial enthusiasm identified above played a part, more profound factors were at work, particularly a belief in the righteousness of Britain's cause. Based on idealistic principles such as justice, liberty and freedom, this national cause united Wintonians and manifested itself in positive behaviour, especially volunteering.

While the Chronicle in its 8 August edition emphasised the enthusiasm seen on Winchester's streets following the declaration of war, this was not the whole picture. According to Lady Ridding many people were stunned and confused while the Bishop of Winchester recognised that 'in the amount of suffering it may cause, there has been nothing like it in the history of Europe'.78 By the following week, with the immediate rush of mobilisation over, the Chronicle also detected a more sober mood, one 'of grim determination, of the calm that comes to men with minds made up to see a thing through'.79 It was in this atmosphere that Winchester set about rationalising why the country was at war. From the outset, Wintonians blamed Germany for the conflict, describing it variously as 'a haughty and overbearing foe' and 'full of black lust of conquest'.80 Britain, by contrast, was seen as having made strenuous efforts to maintain peace. One clergyman told parishioners that 'no nation ha[d] ever entered into war more reluctantly... but duty and honour left us no alternative'81. Even those who regarded war as 'madness' conceded that it was necessary to uphold justice and honour and to secure a lasting peace.82 The invasion of Belgium particularly shocked the churches because it was seen as a fragrant violation of international law, while reports of German atrocities caused widespread outrage and strengthened the consensus that Britain's cause was just.83 The Bishop of Winchester wrote of his '... relief to feel increasingly that we are fighting in a righteous cause, for freedom and a better future, than one of naked international selfishness.'84

The churches not only offered spiritual guidance, but urged Wintonians to support the war effort by giving to charities and appeals and even by buying War Loans.85 Ordinary civilians also considered Britain's cause just. One wrote that the nation was 'fighting for honour, for justice, for liberty, for truth... against an iron despotism... that would trample on the rights of the weak and helpless'.86 Wintonians certainly included Belgium among the latter and applauded its heroism and self-sacrifice.87 Solidarity with Britain's other principal allies, France and Russia, was also stressed. At public meetings bands played the national anthems of all three allies, while speakers praised France and Russia for their contribution to the war effort and their 'intellect and character'.88 As a result, support for these nations, through relief funds, flag days and accommodating refugees, soared.

The opening weeks of the war cemented in the minds of Wintonians notions of equality, duty,  sacrifice and the setting aside of differences. The Wykehamistreflected on the new sense of national unity: 'Everything has been merged in Nationality. We have given our all to King and Country. Party, Creed and Race all flow in the same stream.'89 The Bishop evoked the spirit of sacrifice when he said that young military volunteers had provided an object lesson in 'renouncing self'.90 People were also expected to behave appropriately in these new circumstances. Wintonians questioned whether 'childish' leisure pursuits such as golf and football should be permitted while soldiers were dying for their country.91 A founding member of the Hampshire Football Association resigned over its refusal to end its support for organised matches for the duration of the war, while one Chronicle reader called on the newspaper to exclude cricket and football scores from its columns.92 The war, Wintonians were told, was a solemn call to national and personal repentance, a deserved chastisement for 'forgetfulness of God, growing love of pleasure... and lack of seriousness and the spirit of self-sacrifice'.93 In a God-fearing city like Winchester this was a potent message and one that fuelled the new voluntary ethic. As the term drew to a close at Winchester College and a number of boys prepared to leave to join the Army, those remaining behind were asked to ponder how they could serve the war effort 'while the bravest of our manhood are fighting for our freedom and safety'.94 In the wider city, the people had answered that question by overwhelmingly supporting Britain's national cause. On a visit to the city on 16 December, King George V told Edmeades of his admiration for all the work done by citizens since mobilisation. The Mayor replied that 'they had looked upon it as a pleasure to do it; and further, so long as he required their services, so long would they be freely and willingly given.'95

This chapter has demonstrated the magnitude of Wintonians' voluntary support for the war effort in 1914. It has shown, too, that this support came from across the social spectrum, with the city's middle and upper classes and the civic authorities providing the organisational drive. Patriotic enthusiasm, evident in Winchester after the order to mobilise, and the city's unavoidable immersion  in the business of war, were factors in the decisions of Wintonians to volunteer. Alongside these  went a belief in a national cause based on idealistic principles and the conviction that Britain had gone to war reluctantly against an enemy bent on conquest. The chapter has also shown that an appropriate code of behaviour, part of a broader new moral order, quickly came to govern people's lives in the city. As Chapter Two will demonstrate, these factors and others also helped to persuade many hundreds of Winchester men to volunteer for military service.  

Plate 2: Wiltshire Yeomanry unload supplies outside Winchester College in early August 1914. The College opened its doors and billeted hundreds of troops in the days following mobilisation.

 

Plate 3: VADs serve afternoon tea to recuperating troops in the College grounds. The College voluntarily turned over its sanatorium to the Red Cross for use as a hospital in September 1914, along with its nurse, Miss Evelyn Montgomery.

 

CHAPTER 2

For King and Country: Winchester's military volunteers, August-December 1914

This chapter examines the extent to which the men of Winchester volunteered for military service in 1914 and the reasons why. It demonstrates that the numbers enlisting during the period considerably exceeded the regional and national averages and that the city's response was on a par with the most patriotic areas of Britain. It suggests, too, that Winchester's strong military tradition enabled it to buck the recruitment trend in the first month of the war. Although the heavy recruiting seen between 23 August and 5 September is in line with Gregory and Pennell's findings, the large number of men who apparently joined up between 4 and 8 August is not. Analysis of the volunteers' backgrounds reveals that the men were predominantly working class, confirming the findings of Silbey. Although little evidence survives showing why men enlisted, other contemporary sources have been used to suggest the most likely factors: patriotism, enthusiasm, a sense of duty, loyalty to friends and locality as well as financial gain. The chapter demonstrates, too, the valuable role of microhistories in identifying nuanced responses that might be smoothed out in broader, macro-level studies.  

Winchester's Army barracks received the order to mobilise at 4.43pm on 4 August 1914, and shortly afterwards buglers were despatched to different parts of the city to call up the Reserves. In the hours that followed, small enthusiastic bands of men made their way to the depots watched by citizens who 'admired the splendid way the[y] responded to the call'.96 However, these Reservists were not volunteers, but men required to answer the call to arms.97 In fact, Winchester's voluntary response was even more impressive. While more men in England and Wales were conscripted than volunteered, 56 per cent of Wintonians who entered military service between 1914 and 1918 did so during the 17 months of the voluntary recruiting system.

Source: WWSR

Moreover, while twice as many men across Britain enlisted each month during 1914-15 as during the conscription era, in Winchester it was considerably more: 83.5 men per month compared to 32.7.98 It is only when the boom recruiting months of August and September 1914 are excluded along with all of 1918 – when the manpower barrel had been scraped dry – that the figures reach the same level, at 46 men per month.99 Voluntary recruitment in the five months of 1914 also exceeded that in all of 1916, the best year of conscription. Even 1915 showed a rate of recruitment only slightly lower than 1916. These statistics confirm Silbey's contention that, contrary to the arguments of some historians, the voluntary system was an effective method of recruiting and that men did not simply turn their backs on military service after the boom of August and September 1914.100 Rather, the system settled into lower, but more consistent, levels of recruitment from mid-September with occasional smaller peaks and troughs. This trend continued through the voluntary period and that of conscription.

Source: WWSR. Not included: 97 entries in WWSR which give date of enlistment simply as 1914.

Further significant trends are apparent on a closer examination of Winchester's recruiting rates in 1914. Table 2.2 shows August as the month of heaviest recruiting rather than September which had the highest average rate nationally.101 Of the 1,427 men who enlisted in the city over the five months, 21 per cent did so in August and 19 per cent in September. Winchester's 'chronology of peak recruitment' also bucked the national trend (see Table 2.3). Across the country, enlistment rose steadily between the outbreak of war and 29 August after which weekly figures soared from just over 60,000 to nearly 175,000 in just seven days. This exceptionally heavy recruiting lasted for around two weeks, falling sharply after 11 September.102 Winchester did witness a recruitment surge in the week 30 August-5 September, but the previous week's figures were also high, boosted by a recruitment rally on 25 August and Secretary of State for War Lord Horatio Kitchener's appeal two days later for a second 100,000 New Army volunteers.103

Most significant of all are the results for 4-8 August which are not only well above the national rate, but suggest it was Winchester's biggest single recruitment week during August and September. These findings buck the national trend to such an extent that they should be treated with caution. Whereas Tables 2.1 and 2.2 are based on a significant number of the 3,454 entries in the WWSR, Table 2.3 has been compiled using a sample of just 65 names.104 Moreover, the results do not take into account the enlistment dates for men in the Hampshire Regiment's Territorial units in which large numbers of Winchester men served, especially the 4th Battalion. As such, the findings should be considered only as a partial snapshot of Winchester's early chronology of recruitment. However, there are reasons for believing they are not wholly misleading. Most entries in the WWSR simply give the month a serviceman enlisted; only rarely is the preciseenlistment date given. The fact that a disproportionately high number of entries carry enlistment dates between 4-8 August suggests it was a period of exceptionally brisk recruitment.

Contemporary sources also lend weight to the findings. On 8 August, the Chronicle reported that 'evidence of the popularity of the war was to be found in the sudden rush for service on the part of civilians who have never served at all'.105 One explanation is that the highly-charged and patriotic atmosphere that gripped Winchester immediately after mobilisation encouraged men to enlist, both new recruits and former servicemen. Military tailor William Weller, for example, re-enlisted in the Hampshire Yeomanry on 4 August, aged 47, while Frederick Glenister rejoined the following day as a corporal in his old regiment, the Rifle Brigade.106 Winchester's military tradition drove the recruitment surge in another way. Strong bonds of loyalty existed between the armed forces and the hundreds of serving fathers, sons, brothers and their families. These ties appear to have encouraged significant numbers of men to enlist in a show of solidarity with serving family members. James Lock, for example, had set his heart on joining his father in the Warwickshire Regiment when he enlisted on 6 August but ended up in the 2nd Hampshires. Lock had only just turned 14 but, at 5ft 10ins tall, managed to convince the authorities that he was 18.107 Ernest Scott had a brother, Edward, serving in the Royal Artillery when he joined the Royal Field Artillery on the first day of war, while the father of 21-year-old Frederick Flight was a military outfitter and former soldier.108

Sources: WWSR, WCFWWD and Hampshire Regiment Silver War Badge List

Another local factor that helps to explain the early recruitment spike was the relative efficiency with which the city's Army depots processed Reservists and volunteers. Long delays in enlistment occurred elsewhere in the country because recruiting offices were overrun with men wanting to join up.109 This was less of a problem in Winchester where the depots had been on alert since 29 July following the issue of orders to adopt the 'precautionary period' measures.110 Much work had already been done before the arrival of the Reservists and the first volunteers who were consequently processed more efficiently.111 In Winchester it appears men went relatively quickly from 'volunteer' status to 'enlistee' and their names officially recorded. Family ties and loyalty to the military continued to drive recruitment during August and September, and indeed throughout the entire voluntary period. When Percy Andrews volunteered for the Army in September, he already had a brother serving in the Royal Army Service corps while three other brothers had been called up as Reservists or pre-war Territorials. Another brother joined up in 1917.112 Three Breadmore brothers volunteered between October and November (two won commissions) and were joined the following year by their 45-year-old father and another brother in 1916.113

The boys of Winchester College also responded enthusiastically to the call to arms.114 In July, the College sent a company of 220 boys and officers to the annual Officer Training Corps (OTC) camp on Salisbury Plain, but this was seriously disrupted by the 'precautionary period' measures that began before mobilisation proper. Boys eager to 'do their bit' were left frustrated:

The early stages of the war found most of us in a great perplexity. We wanted to help, we were almost ashamed to appear in public without uniform, but we were not quite sure what to do. The happy idea of a camp at Tidworth Pennings [involving 500 pupils from southern public schools, including 150 from Winchester] solved all our difficulties; it gave us something to do, [and] it gave most of us a uniform to wear.115

In October, the headmaster reported that 112 boys, rather than the usual 80, had left since the end of the summer term. Most of those leaving early had joined the Army: seventeen had enlisted since the start of September alone.116 Many gave up places at university to join up. William Hollins, a Colour-Sergeant in the OTC, turned his back on an Oxford scholarship after obtaining a commission in the 8th Sherwood Foresters. He was just 18 years old.117 Edward Paton, also 18 and an OTC Sergeant, had secured a place at Oxford but volunteered instead for the Monmouthshire Regiment.118 George Tyacke was among those boys who left College early to join up: he had just turned 18 when he enlisted in the Border Regiment.119 Others were clearly frustrated at not being able to immediately obtain a commission. Sonny Fox had asked the headmaster for a reference but feared it would not be good enough to secure him a commission: 'I hate the idea of my evil character being dragged into every conceivable thing I do, after all it is a good time to go now [to join up].'120 Fox eventually obtained a commission in a Territorial regiment which was sent to India in September 1914, but he quickly tired of the 'quiet life' there and longed to be in the thick of the action in France.121 Nor were College masters immune from the early enthusiasm. Cyril Robinson said he had not 'spent a more hideous [time] than the first few weeks of the war – being at home with nothing to do'.122

Enlistment in Winchester fell sharply from around 11 September when Kitchener raised the physical standard for recruits to stem the flood of volunteers who, elsewhere in the country, had overwhelmed the Army's recruiting infrastructure. Potential volunteers took the raised standards to mean that they were not wanted. This, added to a belief that the war would be short and the government's insistence on 'business as usual', dampened recruitment between October and December 1914.123 Even an appeal for more more volunteers by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee at the end of October failed to revive recruitment to the levels seen in August and early September.124 Nevertheless, this should not cloud the fact that Winchester's response to the call to arms in the first three months of war had been remarkable.125 As Table 2.4 shows, the number of Wintonians volunteering considerably exceeded the regional average (170) and was on a par with that in southern Scotland, the most patriotic region of Britain.

Source: Parliamentary Recruiting Committee report, cited in P. Simkins, Kitchener's Army, p. 112.

TABLE VERSION A

Sources: WCFWWD and 1911 Census

The question of how different social classes responded to the outbreak of war is complicated by the difficulty in identifying many men's social background. The 1911 National Census provides some guidance by listing a man's age, occupation and the size of his family. Using this information and the WCFWWD, it has been possible to build a picture of volunteers' backgrounds and consequently to gain an idea of the social composition of the Winchester men who enlisted in August and September 1914. Table 2.5 shows that they were predominantly working class.126 Despite the city's broad social cross-section, this is not entirely unexpected. In Birmingham, 78 per cent of the volunteers in August came from the same classes which had joined the peacetime Army.127 In Winchester 73 per cent of volunteers in August-September were working class. Table 2.6 shows that the areas of the city where the largest numbers of volunteers lived – the Brooks, Wales Street, Water Lane, Eastgate Street, High Street and Colebrook Street, for example – were predominantly those which supplied the pre-war servicemen. These volunteers were labourers, bricklayers, carpenters, painters, gas workers, gardeners, porters and the like, with a leavening of lower middle class clerks, tailors and shopkeepers and a smaller number of upper middle class recruits. At the recruitment meeting on 25 August 'practically every man on the floor of the hall was a working man in one grade or another ie he was a man working for his daily bread'.128 Alfred Millard, who volunteered at the rally, lived in Colebrook Street and was the 18-year-old son of a gas worker.129 His neighbour, George Prince, one of eight children and the son of a labourer, also joined up at the Guildhall meeting.130

Sources: WWSR and 1911 Census.

Not only were the majority of Winchester recruits in 1914 working class, they were also young. Table 2.7 shows that men aged 18-24 made up nearly half those who volunteered in August and September and those aged 25-32 a further 27 per cent. A significant number (9.5 per cent) were under-age, including Ernest Bright who was 16 when he joined the Royal Marines Light Infantry in September. Much older men proved equally adept at fooling the recruiting sergeants. Charles Smith, a carpenter, was 49 when he re-enlisted with the 4th Hampshires while Albert Marshall, a bricklayer, rejoined the Rifle Brigade at 43.134

Sources: WCFWWD and 1911 Census

Why did Winchester volunteer other than out of patriotic enthusiasm? Although little contemporary evidence survives, some idea can be gained by examining those social and economic factors which are known to have influenced recruitment elsewhere. One senses that together with a desire to serve alongside his father, James Lock's decision to enlist was motivated by a yearning for adventure. Certainly he seemed less than happy to be out of the Army and back in Winchester with only the prospect of munitions work to look forward to. 'I don't like it, lopping about here with nothing to do,' he replied when asked what it felt like to be home again.135 For most men, however, 'other conditions were required to move from patriotic cheering on the sidelines to actually joining up'.136 There is evidence that local employers offered financial incentives to join up – the city council, for instance, continued to pay the wages of workers who enlisted, albeit for a limited period.137 Fear of defeat sparked by the Mons Despatch undoubtedly acted as a spur to recruitment at the end of August, while German 'outrages' such as the shelling of Scarborough in December 1914 may also have had a small impact on local recruiting, particularly given that the Reverend Cecil Cooper, a clergyman in the seaside town, had previously been a well-respected rector in Winchester.138 The influence of the church in encouraging men to volunteer should not be underestimated. In Winchester men would have listened to church leaders such as the Reverend C. E. Nuttall who said he hoped 'every loyal-hearted man who can do so will enlist without delay in some branch of the military forces'.139

Perhaps the most important influence on a man's decision to volunteer was the local recruitment meeting. During 1914 and 1915 Winchester held several of these rallies, which have been described as 'reminiscent of a religious revival'.140 This was clearly the case at the city's first major recruitment rally of the war, at the Guildhall on 25 August 1914. The packed meeting – with women seated in the galleries and men in the hall itself – was invested with much pomp and ceremony. British and French flags hung from the walls and a large framed photograph of the King stood in front of the platform.141 The recruiting committee sat on the platform, along with the speakers and leading local councillors, clergymen and senior retired and serving military figures. These men, middle-aged and middle and upper-class, represented Winchester's elite whose task was to try to persuade an audience of working class men to make a decision that would cost several their lives. How did they do this? Besides attacking Germany as a country in thrall to 'crass militarism' and one that believed it 'owed no duty to mankind', the speeches contained a number of recurring themes – unity, duty, honour and the importance of locality.142 Mayor Sealey emphasised the city's political unity - 'they met that night as one party [and]... under one flag' – while the main speaker, Sir Evelyn Hubbard, a director of the Bank of England and a leading supporter of the National Service League, said they were 'all in this together', even the City of London 'which stood to lose more than any other part of the community by this war'.143 Sir Evelyn played on the audience's sense of local identity by suggesting that in 'historic Winchester... the cradle of kings and the birthplace of Parliament' nobody seriously believed that war could have been avoided and did not concern Britain. He also employed some astute reverse psychology. Young men, he said, were answering Kitchener's call and 'if there were any [in Winchester] who had not [enlisted] he would not insult them by suggesting that they did not intend to do so'.144 Sir Evelyn said France was putting five million men in the field, now Britain had to wake up to its responsibilities. 'We had been so long at ease, so long at peace,' he said 'that we had forgotten the primary duty of every citizen.' He ended by promising volunteers excitement: 'Life would be very dull if there were no adventure in it, and the war was the finest game they could play.'145 The climax of the meeting came when men who were willing to join Kitchener's Army were asked to stand up, the moment when war 'spectatorship' turned to 'participation'.146 The Chronicle reported that:

Amid much enthusiasm a number of men... stood up in different parts of the hall... Mr Warner [of the Recruiting Committee] assured them that their names would be honoured in Winchester and never forgotten, that those they left behind would be taken care of in their absence, and if they returned – as they hoped might be the case – they would be welcomed as good compatriots by them all (cheers).147

Sixty-five men volunteered at the meeting, a figure which disappointed Sealey who had hoped for closer to 100, but still enough to significantly boost recruitment that week. However, the success or otherwise of the rallies was less important than the fact that they 'created an atmosphere in which volunteering was seen as the appropriate act'.148 Another aspect of the meeting which sheds light on why men volunteered was the Recruiting Officer's explanation of the Army rates of pay and complicated system of allowances. Clearly the authorities were aware that some working class men would volunteer for financial reasons and so ensured that a senior Army officer was present to answer questions.149 This is in line with Silbey's contention that economic motivations underpinned many working class decisions to enlist.150

Winchester may not have had a Pals' Battalion, but in the 4th Hampshires the city had a Territorial equivalent. As early as 8 August, the Chronicle was reporting that '... a large number of recruits have enlisted in the 4th Battalion Hampshire Regiment', a fact borne out by the rolls of honour in parish magazines.151 In fact, almost the entire 'A' Company of the 1/4th Battalion would ultimately be made up of Winchester men.152 Of the enlistments shown in Table 2.6, no fewer than 160 were for the Hampshire Regiment.153 The opportunity to serve with friends and even family in the same regiment or battalion was a strong incentive to join up. William Hooker, who enlisted with the 4th Hampshires on 5 September acknowledged this:

The daily papers were calling out for recruits to join the forces. I was just 18 and considered it was my duty to go. I talked it over with my father who said he would put nothing in my way. Some of my friends had joined the local Territorial [battalion] in Winchester, so I went along ... and became a soldier.154

Hooker's was a mature, carefully considered decision, very different to the spur-of-the-moment patriotic volunteering of early August. It is likely that many Winchester men volunteered for similar reasons – a sense of duty and loyalty to friends. On his way to India in December 1914, Private Robert Warren of the 2/4th Hampshires expressed the hope that the battalion would be stationed with the 1/4ths because he had 'a good many friends amongst them'.155 A degree of self-interest motivated other volunteers. Some enlisted in branches of the military for which they already possessed the necessary skills or because they hoped to gain skills that would benefit them later in civilian life.156 Such considerations probably lay behind the decisions of engineering apprentice William Lawrence to join the Royal Flying Corps as an Air Mechanic, and groom Edward Smart to enlist with the Royal Horse Artillery as a driver of horses.157

Not all factors influencing volunteering were positive. Some, such as the fear of not conforming to the standards of appropriate behaviour in Britain's new moral order, were decidedly negative. Men who held back from enlisting were criticised for showing a 'lack of fire and enthusiasm' which might condemn Britain to defeat.158 Women, too, were urged to show their 'disapproval and their contempt for the loafing and useless young men who are standing aside when our Mother Country is calling on them'.159 Even when Winchester was outperforming most of the country in recruiting, those not volunteering were ridiculed as cowards:

The Times is asking for petticoats for the able-bodied men of England who have not joined any force for the defence of their country. As the pattern for these articles cannot be obtained from the Red Cross or Army Departments, I venture to suggest that they should be made wide enough to afford full scope for running.'160

Despite these social pressures many men chose not to volunteer. Some were discouraged from doing so by employers while others placed loyalty to family above loyalty to King and country, particularly if they were the sole breadwinner. Then there were the hard-headed men who chose not to enlist because they could make a better living at home as economic conditions improved from September 1914. Finally, as will become evident in Chapter Three, a considerable number of men did volunteer, only to be rejected on medical grounds.

This chapter has demonstrated the extraordinary extent to which Wintonians volunteered for military service in 1914. Family links to the armed forces and the city's military tradition helped to drive the high levels of recruitment seen in August and September. The civic authorities and other members of the city's elite helped to mobilise this response by organising recruitment rallies, but their role at this stage was limited to cajoling and encouraging rather than exhortation and criticism. In 1914, Winchester's men responded in exemplary fashion to the demands of war. The question was: could they sustain this in 1915?

Plate 4: U.S. soldiers marching down into Winchester from Winnall Down camp in 1917, giving some idea of the sheer number of troops that were present in the city during the war. The mobilisation camps around Winchester profoundly influenced voluntaryism. Thousands of troops were billeted in civic buildings and with families during the initial rush of mobilisation and again early in 1915 when bad weather forced an entire Division to seek refuge.

 

Plate 5: Conditions at the camps in 1914 and 1915 were rudimentary, but gave rise to a certain wry humour

CHAPTER 3

1915: Voluntaryism on the wane?

It is not feasible in one chapter to cover every aspect of voluntaryism in Winchester in 1915. The focus here is on the more significant examples of the voluntary ethic and the extent that it continued to drive the city's support for the war effort. The chapter argues that although voluntaryism remained a powerful component of Winchester's response to the demands of war, it became more nuanced as citizens came to realise that the conflict would not be short. On the home front, some organisations witnessed a decline in volunteering, whilst behaviour deemed inappropriate in 1914 – criticism of Belgian refugees, strikes and demands for better pay, for example – showed that citizens were prepared to place individual or sectional interests above those of the national cause. The chapter argues, too, that recruitment levels in Winchester remained impressive and that the authorities greatly overstated the number of men who had held back from enlisting. As in 1914, the city's elite and local authorities galvanised and harnessed the voluntary spirit, although increasingly they had to resort to bullying and cajoling as well as encouragement.  

The winter of 1914-1915 was the worst for years in Winchester. Gales and torrential rain caused chaos in the mobilisation camps, blowing down tents and turning the ground into a quagmire. On New Year's Day, General Bulfin, the commander of 28th Division, decided 'for the safety of the men and in common humanity to bring them in and to throw them on the city'.161 Within two to three days, billets had been found for the whole Division – more than 20,000 men – despite the troops often arriving virtually unannounced.162 The city's response to the Army's plight matched that of the previous August, with civic buildings, business premises, schools, private homes and even the workhouse and the College's fives courts pressed into use as makeshift billets. Inevitably, this caused disruption. Schools were forced to extend the Christmas holidays by up to three weeks, while work virtually ground to a halt at businesses such as W. H. Forder's wool stores where troops were billeted over several storeys.163 Bulfin, like Colonel Lord Hardinge before him, was deeply grateful and publicly thanked the city council and the citizens for their efforts which 'speaks volumes for the spirit in which Winchester has taken the whole affair'.164

The billeting of troops demonstrated how effectively Wintonians could mobilise to deal with ad hoc local demands, and this became a feature of voluntaryism in the city in 1915. When the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Bowker, commander of the 1/4th Hampshires, called for an appeal to raise money to buy spine protectors and tinted spectacles for the men of the 'local' battalion which had been transferred to Mesopotamia, the city council quickly became involved.165 Edmeades urged Wintonians to contribute because it was their 'privilege to see that the comforts and necessaries which the Government did not provide for [the men] were not lacking'.166 The appeal struck a chord with citizens, including schoolchildren, and successfully met its target.167 Likewise, concerns for the moral well-being of local girls lay behind the formation of women's patrols. Respectable Wintonians feared the girls would fall prey to the charms of young soldiers or be led astray by 'the vilest of women [and] the “bad lots” from neighbouring towns and villages' who had invaded the Army camps.168 Girls perceived to be at risk were spoken to by the patrol women and their mothers visited at home.169 Local considerations also prompted the Countess of Portsmouth and other prominent Winchester women to set up a Girls Patriotic Welcome Club.170 In a textbook example of elite voluntaryism, the women acquired a building in Parchment Street rent-free from Lady Northbrook. Here they founded the club, which aimed to safeguard the virtue of local girls and provide a safe and comfortable refuge for families visiting soldiers.171 Elsewhere, volunteers diligently continued with the work begun in 1914. By September 1915, the Mayoress of Winchester and Countess of Northbrook's Central Clothing Depot had sent more than 13,000 items of clothing to soldiers at the front and hundreds more to Red Cross hospitals and regiments stationed locally.172 The Hampshire Automobile Club could also boast a 'splendid record of voluntary work', having supplied ambulances on 493 occasions and conveying 1,035 wounded men to and from military hospitals.173 At Winchester College, boys busied themselves with YMCA work and also helped with the writing, checking and indexing of 40,000 National Registration forms, 'a very valuable and instructive piece of civic duty' and one which brought 'a pleasant sense of patriotism'.174

Thrift and a willingness to economise became an important plank in the voluntary ethic in 1915 as Wintonians came to realise that the war would not be short and that cutting back at home was a practical way of helping the men at the front. The Bishop urged citizens to be 'frugal like misers, not for our own but for the country's sake', while the Reverend W. E. Colchester told parishioners:

We must exercise a sense of proportion and the important thing for us now are the supply of the needs of the Army and Navy, and the most careful thrift in the use of all supplies for ourselves. If we don't use so many loaves as usual we shall make it easier for the baker to employ less labour and we shall make flour much more plentiful for others.175

The message was constantly reinforced in newspapers, in schools and at rallies. A serving soldier told a 7,000-strong rally to mark the anniversary of the outbreak of war that citizens should 'economise more and more [and] not spend too much'.176 Another serviceman urged schoolchildren to 'be careful of your pennies, be careful of waste ... be careful of [y]our food ... you boys and girls can help in that at home'.177 To encourage greater thrift in the city, clergymen and other members of the local elite, such as Edmeades and MP Guy Baring, helped set up a Winchester Collecting Savings Bank, into which citizens could deposit as little as 1d per week.178 The notions of self-sacrifice and equality of sacrifice, identified by Adrian Gregory, permeate these exhortations to economise.179 In August, just days after he learned of his son's death in France, the Bishop urged Wintonians not to allow their spirit of 'sacrifice and service' to weaken, while Edmeades told them:

... there is no claim which can be made ... no burden which can be placed on us, either as a community or individually, which we will not willingly and cheerfully bear ... in promoting the great work in which we are engaged, or the great principle for which we are fighting.180

Although these examples demonstrate the robustness of the voluntary ethic among Wintonians in 1915, there were nevertheless indications of a subtle shift in attitudes. Lady Ridding recognised this when she noted that people had become quietly accustomed to the war and were even beginning to find it dull.181 As a result:

... they cannot keep going with the same intensity... which they experienced at the beginning... The war came and for a time its novelty [and] its horror... seized their imagination and banished egoism. But we cannot live on the edge for long together … and so the inevitable self rises again to the surface and the selfish want … short days and high wages and the strikes have begun again.182

Winchester workplaces were not heavily unionised but labour disputes did break out between workers building huts for the mobilisation camps and contractors.183 Most Wintonians regarded the disputes as a betrayal of the fighting men and accused the strikers of 'putting self in place of country'.184 There were other indications, too, that the enthusiasm that had driven voluntaryism from the outbreak of war might be ebbing. In early 1915, Winchester College announced it would no longer make its sanatorium available to the Red Cross which also had to deal with the resignations due to pressure of work of Mrs Johns and Dr Roberts, matron and medical officer respectively at the hospital in The Close. In July, Edmeades wrote angrily about Winchester's 'lamentably weak' response to his appeal for volunteers to help process National Registration forms.185 Meanwhile, attendances at the Citizens' Drill Class fell sharply, to the extent that the secretary had to warn members that it 'was not a plaything to be picked up and dropped as they liked'.186 The warning had little effect and by June Edmeades, too, was admonishing those who 'allowed other interests and occupations to interfere with their duty to the country'.187 The following month, however, just 50 to 60 men turned out to be inspected by Hampshire's Chief Recruiting Officer, Colonel C. H. Lewis, who regretted that not more Wintonians were 'imbued with the spirit of enthusiasm that they... might come and gain some training in the art of defending their hearths and homes'.188 Attitudes towards Belgian refugees similarly became more nuanced. While most Wintonians continued to sympathise with and support refugees, a minority began to question why 'youngidle Belgian men' should be allowed to live in the city while hundreds of Winchester men were being sent to fight and die to liberate Belgium.189

None of this is to suggest that 1915 marked a sea change in attitudes towards voluntaryism among Wintonians. Indeed, such was the 'readiness to serve and share' that leading clergymen pondered how the church could best harness this voluntary spirit when peace returned.190 Nevertheless, as the city settled into war, an inevitable adjustment took place, as Pennell has identified.191 Some citizens who had volunteered in the first flush of enthusiasm in August 1914 found it difficult to maintain the intensity of their commitment. Circumstances also changed. With the receding threat of invasion, for example, it is likely that many men no longer felt it imperative to spend their evenings learning drill. Perturbed by what he saw as a general failure to comprehend the magnitude and significance of the war, the Bishop lamented:                                                                                                                                           

... the trouble is no doubt due in part to the strange combination ... that while the sword pierces the heart in almost every place and neighbourhood, yet life goes on calmly and prosaically.192

Chapter Two showed that in 1914 Winchester outperformed most of the country in terms of military recruitment. Although the city's record in 1915 was not of the same magnitude, it nevertheless compared favourably with the rest of Britain. Between August 1914 and May 1915, its enlistment rate of 31 per cent of the eligible male population was on a par with the national average of 30 per cent.193 This was higher than in the predominantly rural counties of Cornwall, Yorkshire and Cheshire where enlistment rates averaged 24.7 per cent, but lower than urban Lancashire, London and Northumberland where 38 per cent of eligible men joined up.194 However, given that the city was more agricultural than industrial in outlook, it was still an impressive result. By the end of the voluntary period, 43.6 per cent of eligible Winchester men had enlisted, a figure bolstered by particularly heavy recruiting during the period of the Derby Scheme as Table 3.1 shows. This rate of recruitment was significantly higher than that achieved in many urban areas.195

Source: WWSR

One explanation for Winchester's success in attracting volunteers is that it was home to significant numbers of men working in finance and commerce, the professions and entertainment (including pubs, restaurants and cinemas). National rates of recruitment in these areas of employment averaged more than 40 per cent, significantly higher than those such as mining and transport, which employed very few Winchester men.196 Moreover, a male employee in a shop or hotel could more easily be replaced by a woman or older worker if he enlisted, increasing the pressure on the man to volunteer. For example, when Post Office telegraphist Ernest Bishop joined the Royal Engineers as a signaller in May 1915, finding a replacement would have been relatively straightforward.197 Indeed St Maurice and St Lawrence Parish Magazine referred to civilian volunteers 'filling vacancies in the telegraph service'.198 In the same month, ten members of the city's police force asked if they could volunteer for military service. Five men – all single and all aged under 30 – were allowed to enlist immediately and replaced by special constables over military age.199 Winchester volunteers also increasingly came from a broader social background, better reflecting the city's demographic mix. An examination of the addresses of 1915 enlistees shows that, in general, fewer recruits came from those working class areas that supplied the bulk of volunteers in August and September 1914 and more from lower middle class and middle class areas.200 William Chatfield, for example, who enlisted in January 1915 was from middle class Ranelagh Road, while architect Arthur Cook, commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers in February, lived in The Close in the shadow of the cathedral.201

At Winchester College, pupils continued to flock to the colours in 1915 despite heavy casualties among Old Boys and a growing awareness of the realities of war. In March, the Wykehamist noted: 'It is vain to see in modern war romance and beauty. There is none. War is today a thing of horror.'202 Nevertheless, by October nine members of staff were serving in the forces while many boys, such as Gerald Lenanton, had left early to enlist or enter Sandhurst. The result was that no College boy went up to Oxford or Cambridge in 1915.203 Most boys and masters who enlisted did so out of a sense of calling. One master, H. E. G. Tyndale, said that '... the more I see of this new army, the more I realise how dependent the men are on being well led: the good old Wykehamist is just the type of officer'.204 A few, however, were less sanguine. A. B. K. Cook, another master, decided that 'I had better go off and make a fool of myself as a soldier, especially as it is my father's strong opinion that I ought to [but] I am under no illusion as to the sort of officer I shall make'.205 Even in a bastion of patriotism such as Winchester College, nuanced responses to volunteering were not unknown.

The period of the Derby Scheme saw Winchester men enlist in larger numbers than at any time since September 1914, a surge described 'as nothing short of phenomenal'.206 The Chronicle suggested that one reason for this was the government's clarification of the scheme's aims, particularly with regard to married men.207 Assuming that they would be called up last, married men in Winchester responded strongly, though the paper recognised that the scheme's success depended primarily on the number of single men enlisting.208 Other factors also encouraged men to volunteer. Only those who attested would have a 'locus standi' before the appeal tribunals, while the King's Royal Rifles announced that those enlisting before the end of the Derby Scheme would be able to join the corps of their choice. This assurance came as the result of an enquiry asking whether 'well-to-do men of good social standing ... who have been accustomed to comfort' would be able to serve together.209 Some regarded such 'incentives' as an attempt to 'wheedle, badger and bully' men into enlisting which ran counter to the principle of voluntaryism.210 In the end it mattered little. Despite the deadline for the Derby Scheme being extended twice to cope with the rush of men to attest, voluntaryism's last great hurrah failed because of the reluctance of single British men to come forward in sufficient numbers. To fulfil Asquith's pledge to married men, the government was forced to obtain the services of single men by conscription.211

Given the impressive response of its men to the call to arms, it is surprising to find Winchester accused of failing 'to do its bit' in 1915. At his inspection of the Citizens' Drill Class in July, Colonel Lewis said that while Winchester had performed well with regards to the billeting of troops, it had not produced the expected number of recruits.212 His comments were based partly on observing 'lots of young men employed behind counters' in city shops.213 The large number of troops in the area had been a boon for businesses and was, Lewis believed, one of the reasons employers were not releasing men. However, he also revealed that the War Office had sent out 150 forms to shopkeepers in Winchester asking them how many men of military age they employed. Only 60 shopkeepers had replied, indicating a total of 160 potential recruits, of whom the employers were prepared to release just twenty.214 Lewis told, too, how he had addressed two recruiting meetings in Winchester a few weeks earlier, but not one man had enlisted. 'Not to obtain one recruit was fairly appalling for a place the size of Winchester,' he said.215 Edmeades laid bare the extent of the perceived problem in early October when he told a recruiting rally that 2,000 men of military age had still not enlisted.216 The Mayor pleaded for men to come forward and urged women to 'us[e] their influence to induce the young men of their acquaintance ... to bear arms'.217 At the same rally, a Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (PRC) representative was asked whether he was prepared to enlist. The laughter that accompanied the exchange indicates an unusual lack of deference towards a figure of authority.218 Despite the pleas of both Edmeades and the PRC representative, the rally had little immediate impact with only eight men enlisting.

The rally may have had a longer-term impact, however. During October and November 1915, the period of the Derby Scheme, Winchester experienced its heaviest recruiting since August and September 1914. Edmeades, though, was still not satisfied. At the end of November, the city's third most successful recruiting month of the voluntary period, he expressed his disappointment with enlistment numbers.219 Like Colonel Lewis in July, Edmeades accused employers of holding men back. He attempted to win them over with assurances that employers who believed their workers to be indispensable would have the opportunity to put their case to the new tribunals that would shortly be set up.220 Edmeades concluded with an appeal to employers and all Winchester men:

I hope it can never be said that employers in the city stood in the way of recruiting when our country and Empire were, as I believe, successfully emerging from its severest trial, or that there was in the whole city one man of military age who had not willingly and without delay gone to the Recruiting Office... Surely the young men of Winchester will not be amongst those who contribute to the introduction of compulsory service because they fail to recognise the necessity of bringing the war to a successful issue.221

How does one reconcile the claims of the recruiting authorities with this dissertation's findings that enlistment rates in Winchester exceeded those in most of Britain? The answer becomes apparent when examining the numbers of men recruited under conscription. Chapter Two demonstrated that recruitment in 1916 was only marginally higher than in 1915 and considerably below 1914 levels. In 1917 it failed even to reach the levels of 1915. If 2,000 eligible men really had not enlisted then they would surely have been 'mopped up' through conscription in 1916 and 1917. Instead, the first Military Service Act produced a disappointing haul of recruits in Winchester, as it did in the rest of Britain. The figures rose in June 1916 following the introduction of universal conscription, but not on the scale of November 1915 never mind August and September 1914. The 2,000 'shirkers' failed to materialise because they were never there. It appears that the authorities failed to take into consideration several factors which, according to Silbey, account for the inflated figure of unenlisted men.222 A large number of men, particularly from working class backgrounds, tried to enlist but failed on medical grounds.223 These rejected men were then returned to the pool of 'eligibles' and counted among those available for military service.224 Others broke down physically after enlisting and had to be discharged, while a significant number of unfit men never tried to enlist at all. Finally, the War Office did not exclude all the vital industries from its count. In 1915, the government estimated 1.4 million eligible British men had not enlisted. However, Silbey has calculated that when the factors above are taken into consideration, the real figure was closer to 600,000, just 43 per cent of the original estimate.225 Applying the same calculation to Winchester's 2,000 'eligible' men gives a figure of 860, one that corresponds far more closely with the 625 men conscripted in 1916. Among these there were undoubtedly a small number who could justifiably be termed 'shirkers'. Others, however, appear to have had genuine reasons for holding back, as the reports of Winchester's Military Service Tribunals in 1916 reveal. A number of men claimed to be the sole carers of an elderly parent; others were doing what they considered to be essential war work, such as driving Red Cross ambulances. One tribunal in March dealt with 26 appeals. Of these, seven were upheld on the grounds that the men's work (including butcher's manager, wool sorter, master baker and dairy farmer) were certified occupations, nine were granted temporary exemptions and ten were refused.226

This chapter has demonstrated that voluntaryism remained a powerful driving force in Winchester in 1915, although the commitment of some citizens did wane as it became apparent that the war would last longer than originally thought. On the home front, people continued to give to and work tirelessly for those appeals and charities most directly associated with soldiers and those with a strong 'local' element. Despite the exhortations of the city's elite, citizens were less responsive to appeals for bureaucratic help, such as that made by Edmeades for assistance with National Registration work, while the number of men attending drill classes dropped sharply as the threat of invasion diminished. The chapter has also shown that the recruiting authorities greatly overstated the number of men who had still not enlisted by autumn 1915. It is likely that the figure was less than half the 2,000 men calculated by the authorities. In fact, rates of voluntary enlistment in the city were well above average, albeit largely as a result of exceptionally strong recruiting in November and December. Duty, patriotism and loyalty to family continued to motivate many men to volunteer, while others succumbed to social pressures from family and friends as well as Army 'incentives' which, to some observers, blurred the distinction between voluntaryism and compulsion.  

Plate 6: The 1st Hampshires on parade outside Winchester Guildhall on 21 June 1919. Of the 64 soldiers present, four had gone to France in 1914, including RSM Palmer, MC, DSO.

 

Plate 7: Officers and men of the 1/4th Hampshire Regiment, one of two 'local' Winchester battalions, outside the city's Great Hall in February 1919 after their release from Turkish captivity. They were taken prisoner after the fall of Kut-el-Amara in 1916.

Conclusion

This dissertation set out to answer two questions. First, to what extent did the voluntary ethic characterise Winchester's response to war in 1914 and 1915 and, secondly, why did Wintonians volunteer for the armed forces or give their time and money to support the war effort at home? The study has demonstrated that Winchester witnessed an explosion of voluntaryism that, even for this period of exceptional patriotism, was remarkable in its scale and enthusiasm. Chapter One showed how in 1914 civilians and the civic authorities billeted thousands of troops, earning the gratitude of ordinary soldiers, Army chiefs and even the King. Citizens mobilised behind the war effort in myriad other ways, such as working in hospitals, giving generously to appeals, collecting and distributing clothing to troops and the needy, and housing Belgian refugees. These were not unique to Winchester, but specific local responses – such as the numerous appeals in aid of Winchester troops and the establishment of a Winchester Collecting Savings Bank – also featured in the city's self-mobilisation.

Many factors motivated civilians to volunteer. From early in the war, most clearly identified with a national cause and the need to behave appropriately, confirming the findings of Pennell. There is evidence, too, of Gregory's 'economy of sacrifice', with citizens voluntarily cutting back and economising to support the war effort. Winchester's 'proximity' to the war, its long-standing military ties and sense of historical identity also helped to drive civilian self-mobilisation which, of course, did not end with the introduction of conscription, but continued through 1916 and in an even more grimly determined form during the 'remobilisation' of 1917 and 1918.

The response of Winchester men to the call to arms was equally impressive. Chapter Two showed that more men enlisted during the voluntary period than during nearly three years of conscription, with recruitment levels in the first three months of war matching those seen in the most patriotic areas of Britain. The city's immediate immersion in the war produced an enthusiastic surge of early recruitment with the result that August 1914, not September, was the city's heaviest recruiting month. The study has also uncovered evidence of exceptionally heavy recruiting between 4 and 8 August 1914, although this finding should be treated with some caution as it bucks the national trend to such a degree. A larger data sampling is required before it can be confirmed: this offers one avenue of possible future research. With the notable exception of Winchester College boys, the recruits of August and September 1914 were overwhelmingly working class, which is in line with Silbey's findings. Thereafter, volunteers tended to be drawn from a wider social base which reflected the city's broad demographic mix.

Many of the reasons that Winchester men volunteered for military service – patriotism, enthusiasm, a sense of duty, a desire to be seen behaving appropriately and even self interest – have been identified in previous studies. However, as with civilian mobilisation, local influences also drove recruiting, particularly family ties to the forces and the city's military heritage. At recruiting rallies and meetings, speakers frequently alluded to Winchester's ancient heritage in the belief that such appeals would bring a patriotic response. Any future research into early recruiting in Winchester could possibly be broadened into a comparative study of enlistment in British garrison towns and cities to try to establish whether they witnessed similar patterns of recruitment and, if so, whether they were driven by the same local social, cultural and historical factors.

Chapter Three showed how Winchester's elite feared voluntaryism might be losing momentum in 1915 as several appeals drew lack-lustre responses and labour disputes broke out at the mobilisation camps. A feeling developed that citizens had grown used to war and that selfish pre-war attitudes were beginning to reassert themselves. In fact, the intensity of voluntary commitment that many had displayed in the war's opening months simply proved impossible to sustain. To borrow a sporting analogy, Wintonians began the war believing they were running a sprint only to discover in 1915 that they were actually involved in a marathon. Unsurprisingly, some dropped by the wayside while others were forced to adjust their pace.  

Local elites were important in harnessing and driving Winchester's voluntary ethic. The city's middle and upper classes marshalled the civilian response by setting up and running appeals and volunteering for war work. They also donated most money, continuing a philanthropic tradition that pre-dated the war. In his study of Devon elites, Batten describes the resistance encountered by local dignitaries as they sought to mobilise the county behind the war effort. Winchester elites never faced such opposition, largely because the city was never remote from the war like Devon. In 1914, men such as Harry Sealey and Alfred Edmeades merely had to nudge and persuade, rather than cajole and bully. Edmeades's role did change in 1915 as perceived shortcomings in the voluntary response led him increasingly to act as a 'superintendent of patriotism'. However, Winchester remained overwhelmingly patriotic and supportive of the war effort and this study has shown that the problem which most concerned Edmeades – the city's '2,000 unenlisted men' – was greatly overstated. In fact, total recruitment in Winchester at the end of the voluntary period was higher than in most urban areas of Britain.

One of the principal objectives of the dissertation was to use the methodology of microhistory to demonstrate its importance in revealing trends and responses that have previously been subsumed within macro-level studies. It has succeeded in that aim. 'Flattened out' within regional or national statistics, Winchester's exceptional recruiting performance and the role of its elites and of local social, cultural and historical factors in driving voluntaryism in the city can now be revealed for the first time. The study therefore reinforces the findings of comparative microhistories that stress the importance of locality, localism and local identity in a community's responses to war.227 For reasons of space, the dissertation has focused exclusively on the city of Winchester. However, a comparative study of its urban areas and the surrounding rural communities – an approach employed by Chickering in his study of Freiburg – would make a fruitful research project.228 Certainly there are indications that the voluntary response in these villages and hamlets was less enthusiastic than Winchester's. The British nation state in 1914 was not a monolithic structure and experiences of war varied across the country. Consequently, Keith Grieves has proposed that further 'histories of local and regional communities are necessary' to build a truly accurate picture of Britain at war.229 This dissertation has, in a small way, added to that picture.

Plate 8: Earl Grey of Falloden, an Old Wykehamist, addresses  boys and staff at the ceremony to commemorate the laying of the foundation stone for the Winchester College War Cloister on 15 July 1922.

Plate 9: The Cloister today is not only a place of quiet contemplation, but a thoroughfare for boys making their way into College from boarding houses in the city

ENDNOTES

(1) Barry Reay, Microhistories: Demography, Society and Culture in Rural England, 1800-1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 260.

(2) Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008; Catriona Pennell, A Kingdom United: Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War in Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Arthur Marwick, The Deluge: British Society and the First World War (London: Macmillan, 1965), pp. 309 and 38.

(3) See, for example, Charles Messenger, Call to Arms: The British Army 1914-18 (London: Cassell, 2005); Philip Magnus, Kitchener: Portrait of an Imperialist (London: John Murray, 1958); Howard Green: The British Army in the First World War: The Regulars, The Territorials and Kitchener's Army (London: J. Trahern, 1968); A. J. Smithers, Fighting Nation: Lord Kitchener and his Armies (London: Leo Cooper, 1994); John Morton Osborne, Voluntary Recruiting Movement in Britain, 1914-1916 (New York: Garland, 1982).

(4) Peter Simkins, Kitchener's Army: The Raising of the New Armies, 1914-16 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988); David Silbey, The British Working Class and Enthusiasm for War, 1914-1916 (London: Frank Cass, 2005).

(5) See Mark Connelly, Steady the Buffs! A Regiment, a Region, and the Great War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Helen B. McCartney, Citizen Soldiers: The Liverpool Territorials in the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Keith Grieves, Sussex in the First World War (Lewes: Sussex Record Office, 2004); Gerald Gliddon (ed.), Norfolk & Suffolk in the Great War (Norwich: Gliddon Books, 1988); Paul Rusiecki, The Impact of Catastrophe: The people of Essex and the First World War, 1914-1918 (Chelmsford: Essex Record Office, 2008); David Parker, Hertfordshire Children in War and Peace, 1914-1939 (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2007); Richard Batten, 'Devon and the First World War', unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Exeter, 2013; Nick Beeching, 'The Provincial Press and the Outbreak of War: A Unionist View in Worcestershire', Midland History, Vol. 39, No. 2, Autumn 2014, pp. 163-84; Daniel Coetzee, 'Factors Accounting for Variations in Voluntary Enlistment in Scotland, August 1914-December 1915', unpublished Ph.D thesis, Cambridge University, 2003; Roger Chickering, The Great War and Urban Life in Germany: Freiburg, 1914-1918 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007).

(6) Jay Winter, 'Popular Culture in Wartime Britain' in A. Roshwald and R. Stiles (eds.), European Culture in the Great War: The Arts, Entertainment and Propaganda, 1914-1918 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 331.

(7) Keith Grieves, 'The Quiet of the Country and the Restless Excitement of the Towns: Rural Perspectives on the Home Front, 1914-1918', in M. Tebbutt (ed.), Rural and Urban Encounters in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Regional Perspectives (Manchester: Conference of Regional and Local Historians, 2004) p. 80. 8) Batten, 'Devon and the First World War'.

(9) Ibid., p. 10.

(10) A 176-page study of the city between 1914-18 by John J. Eddleston as part of the Pen and Sword series of local Great War histories is scheduled for publication on 31 January 2016. However, any academic consideration of voluntaryism is likely to be very limited. John J. Eddleston, Winchester in the Great War (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2016).

(11) Jennifer Best, with an introduction by Tom Beaumont James, Debt of Honour: Winchester City's First World War Dead, unpublished.

(12) The Silver War Badge was worn by servicemen in civilian clothes who had been wounded and were recuperating at home. Its purpose was to distinguish the wearer from so-called ‘shirkers'.

(13) Anthony J. Dowland, Winchester Morn Hill: The First World War Army Camps (Winchester: 2009). Christine Grover, Hyde: From Dissolution to Victorian Suburb (Winchester: Victorian Heritage Press, 2012) and ‘The Suburban Development of Winchester from c.1850 to 1912', unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Southampton, 2008. See also See Tom Beaumont James, Winchester: From Prehistory to the Present (Stroud: Tempus, 1997); Barbara Carpenter Turner, Winchester – 100 Years Ago (Southampton: Cave, 1979) and A History of Winchester (Chichester: Phillimore, 1992); Mark Allen, 'Central Winchester in the 19th Century,' The Making of Modern Winchester, conference, University of Winchester. September 2005.

(14) A. Cecil Piper (ed.), Winchester War Service Register. A Record of the Service of Winchester Men in the Great War, 1914-1918 (Winchester: Warren and Co., 1921).

(15) Of a total working population of just under 7,000 in 1911, 440 were in 'professional occupations and subordinate services, 294 worked in general or local government, 146 were employed as merchants, agents, accountants, bankers or insurance brokers and 148 worked in food shops. A further 485 worked as dressmakers or tailors and 104 as printers. More people (947) were employed in the building and construction trade than any other category, followed by 841 who provided 'food, tobacco, drink and lodging'. Winchester also had 383 road workers, 330 labourers and 382 agricultural workers. 1911 Census: Occupations (part 1), England and Wales, Vol X, pp. 410-11.

(16) Sarah Bussey, Winchester Voices (Stroud: Tempus, 2002), pp. 41-48 and pp. 49-50.

(17) 1911 Census, op. cit.

(18) Baring was killed in action on the Somme in 1916.

(19) The Mayor-Designate of Winchester: A Character Sketch, Hampshire Chronicle, 31 October 1914.

(20) The 1851 national religious survey showed church attendance by all denominations at more than 70 per cent in Winchester, three per cent above the county average. However, this figure was undoubtedly too low because Winchester Cathedral refused to submit returns. Attendances may have fallen slightly by 1914, but as Adrian Gregory has observed 'reports of the death of God in Edwardian Britain are much exaggerated' and religion remained an important influence on most people's lives. Carpenter Turner, Winchester 100 Years Ago, p. 3; Gregory, The Last Great War, p. 159.

(21) Carpenter Turner, op. cit., p. 3.

(22) Bloodshed in Ireland, Hampshire Chronicle, 1 August 1914, p. 2.

(23) C. T. Atkinson, The Royal Hampshire Regiment, 1914-1918 (Glasgow: Robert MacLehose, 1952), p. 3.

(24) Ibid. On the evening of 5 August 2,000 troops were processed at the Rifles depot alone.

(25) The Call to Arms, Hampshire Chronicle, 8 August 1914, p. 3.

(26) Winchester and the War: Enthusiastic Scenes, Hampshire Chronicle, 8 August 1914, p. 5.

(27) Ibid.

(28) M. Pottle (ed.), Champion Redoubtable: The Diaries and Letters of Violet Bonham Carter (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1998), p. 6. The situation was the same in large parts of Devon. See Batten, op. cit. For the changes in everyday life in Winchester see The War Chronicles (Papers of Laura, Lady Ridding), diary entry of 13 October 1914. HRO 9M68/65.

(29) Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918 (London: Penguin, 2014), p.4.

(30) Letter to Sealey from Laura Ridding, The Old House, Wonston, 7 August 1914. HRO W/C1/5/589l/l.

(31) Letter to Sealey from Mary Fortescue, Grove House, Winchester, 6 August 1914. HRO W/C1/5/589l/l.

(32) See, for example, letters to Sealey from A. Broomfield, 5 August 1914 (no address given); H Stevenson, Glencairn, Winchester, 6 August 1914; C. W. Thomas (Capt RN), Sunny Bank, East Hill, Winchester, 13 August 1914; theRev B. Quirk, St Giles Hill, Winchester, 6 August 1914. All HRO W/C1/5/589l/l.

(33) Letter to Sealey from W. H. Loveland, 4 Egbert Road, Winchester, 6 August 1914. HRO W/C1/5/589l/l.

(34) College during Summer Holiday 1914, The Wykehamist, No. 534, October 1914. See also Dr Montague John Rendall's Reports for the Year 1914, WCA A3/5.

(35) Winchester and the War: Enthusiastic Scenes, op. cit.

(36) W. R. Owen, letter of 16 July 1963, IWM BBC/GW.

(37) Billets for Recruits in Winchester, Hampshire Chronicle, 19 August 1914, p. 5.

(38) Winchester and the War, Hampshire Chronicle, 26 September 1914, p. 4.

(39) Winchester Town Council: Lord Hardinge's Letter, Hampshire Chronicle, 14 November 1914, p. 7. Lord Colonel Hardinge had replaced Colonel Fortescue as CO at the Rifles Depot a few weeks earlier.

(40) If householders wanted the 6d allowance they had to apply for a special form of authorisation from Head Constable John Sim, who doubled as Billet Master. Residents were warned not to simply 'invite men to accept accommodation – as has been done'. Hampshire Chronicle, 26 September 1914, p. 4.

(41) The Belgian Refugees: Winchester's Hospitality, Hampshire Chronicle, 24 October 1914, p. 7. Author's emphasis.

(42) Originally intended to operate for just six months, the house carried on taking refugees until it closed in 1917.

(43) The Wykehamist, October 1914, p. 341. See also letter from Gerald Lenanton to his parents, 11 October 1914. The Private Papers of Sir Gerald Lenanton, IWM Documents.11120.

(44) £10 per week was needed for the maintenance of the refugee families. The collections usually raised nearer £20. Dr Rendall's Report for 1914, op cit.

(45) The boys studied in the College but returned to their families in the evening. Dr Montague John Rendall's Reports for the Year 1915, WCA A3/5.

(46) Ibid.

(47) See Peter Parker, The Old Lie: The Great War and the Public School Ethos (London: Constable, 1987)

(48) Diary of Miss Sidney Margaret Courtney of Marlfield, St James Lane, Winchester, HRO COPY/525/1. Diary entry of 14 October 1914.

(49) Ibid.

(50) Diary of Miss Sidney Courtney, entry of 21 October 1914.

(51) Winchester and the War: Fewer Recruits arriving at Depots, Hampshire Chronicle, 19 September 1914, p. 3.

(52) The Red Cross Hospital, Hampshire Chronicle, 2 January 1915, p. 5.

(53) Anonymous, Report on Voluntary Aid Organisation in Hampshire by the British Red Cross and the Order of St John during the First World War, (Southampton: W. Walton, 1920), pp. 48-9.

(54) Ibid. See also the Wykehamist, October 1914 and Dr Rendall's Report, 1914.

(55) Anon, Report on Voluntary Aid Organisation in Hampshire, p. 49.

(56) Ibid. Uplands Hospital finally closed in 1917 due to lack of funds.

(57) Barbara Carpenter Turner, A History of the Royal County Hospital, (Chichester: Phillimore, 1986), pp. 100-1.

(58) Ibid.

(59) Ibid.

60 H.R.H. The Prince of Wales National Distress Fund, Winchester Branch, List of donors, Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p. 5.

(61) Sale of Work at Winchester, Hampshire Chronicle, 19 December 1914, p. 3.

(62) Winchester and the War: Work Among the Recruits, Hampshire Chronicle, 12 September 1914, p. 4.

(63) Offer by Winchester Cooperative Society, Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p.3.

(64) Winchester Relief Fund, Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p. 3. See also the Hampshire Regimental Journal, September 1914, Vol IX, No. 9, p. 194. The gift of cigarettes was particularly welcomed, with one soldier writing: 'You cannot imagine how they're appreciated. It's one of the best sights I've seen during the campaign.' Letters from the Front, The Hampshire Regimental Journal, November 1914, Vol IX, No. 11, p. 249.

(65) The working party for the parishes of St Michael and Swithun, for example, collected a complete outfit for 12 beds at a military hospital at the front. It comprised flannel nightshirts, bed jackets, pyjamas, pillow cases and 100 handkerchiefs. St Paul's Working Party, Hampshire Chronicle, 19 September 1914, p. 3.

(66) Queen Mary's Needlework Guild, Hampshire Chronicle, 15 August 1914, p. 3.

(67) See Proposed Citizens' Drill Class, Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p. 5 and Citizens' Drill Class, Hampshire Chronicle, 21 November, 1914, p. 5.

(68) Winchester Boy Scouts Association: Scouts' Work in War Time, Hampshire Chronicle, 26 December 1914, p. 7.

(69) Winchester and the War: Enthusiastic Scenes, Hampshire Chronicle, 8 August 1914, p. 5. Winchester and the War: Work Among the Recruits, Hampshire Chronicle, 12 September 1914, p. 4.

(70) Interview with Mrs Jessie Canfield (nee Dore Dixon), 25 May 1919. Winchester Memories Series, HRO AV12/54/S1

(71) To the Children of Hampshire, Hampshire Chronicle, 8 August 1914, p. 3.

(72) For a list of refreshment and recreation rooms in the city see Hampshire Chronicle, 5 December 1914, p. 7.

(73) Winchester Soldiers' Club (Letter to the Editor from A. Edmeades, A. L. Bowker and H. L. G. Hill), Hampshire Chronicle, 28 November 1914, p. 9.

(74) Mayor's Entertainment for Soldiers, Hampshire Chronicle, 14 November 1914, p. 5. The Chronicle reported that '... especially popular was Stanton Wick's song written to Kitchener's Army, and therefore heard for the first time at Winchester, “Enlisted – for War”.'

(75) Winchester Town Council: Winchester Soldiers' Club, Hampshire Chronicle, 6 February 1915, p. 7.

(76) Winchester and the War: YMCA Huts, Hampshire Chronicle, 19 December 1914, p. 10.

(77) Winchester Soldiers' Club, Hampshire Chronicle, 5 December 1914.

(78) A Soldiers' Gratitude, Hampshire Chronicle, 19 December 1914, p. 10.

(79) Lady Ridding Papers, diary entry of 4 August 1914. Bishop of Winchester quotation cited in Gwendolen Stephenson, Edward Stuart Talbot, 1844-1934 (London: S.P.C.K., 1936), p. 221.

(80) Winchester and the War, Hampshire Chronicle, 15 Aug 1914, p. 4.

(81) Winchester and the War: Enthusiastic Scenes, Hampshire Chronicle, 8 August 1914, p. 5. Lady Ridding Papers, diary entry of 4 August 1914.

(82) The Rev. C. E. Nuttall, St Thomas Parish Magazine, September 1914, HRO 37M82W/PZ21.

(83) A. M., War, (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 26 September 1914, p. 8.

(840 See, for example, the Reverend W. E. Colchester, St Maurice and St Lawrence Magazine, September 1914, HRO IM82W/PZ6 and Lady Ridding Papers, diary entry of 10 September 1914.

(85) Bishop of Winchester on the War (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 5 September 1914, p. 3.

(86) Bishop of Winchester's Pastoral to the Diocese, Hampshire Chronicle, 15 August 1914, p. 5. Reverend W. E. Colchester, St Maurice and St Lawrence Magazine, September 1914.

(87) A. Cameron Skinner, The Righteousness of Our Cause (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 12 September 1914, p. 3.

(88) The Mayor of Winchester's Luncheon, Hampshire Chronicle, 14 November 1914, p. 7. Speaking at the luncheon Councillor Furley said: 'If we were able to relieve in any way the pain Belgium had suffered we should do so with our whole heart.'

(89) Ibid.

(90) The Wykehamist, October 1914, p. 339.

(91) Bishop of Winchester's Pastoral to the Diocese, op. cit.

(92) At Winchester College, members of the debating society argued whether 'amusements' should be curtailed for the duration of the war. Gerald Lenanton to his parents, 23 November 1914. Lenanton Papers, op. cit.

(93) A Man at the Front, Football and War, Play Up! Play Up! And Play the Game (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 12 December 1914, p. 9. H. Stratton Bates, Patriotism Before Sport (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p. 5.

(94) The Reverend C. E. Nuttall, St Thomas Parish Magazine, September 1914.

(95) The Wykehamist, 22 December 1914, pp. 389-90.

(96) Visit of the King to Winchester, Hampshire Chronicle, 19 December 1914, p. 5.

(97) Winchester at War: A Retrospect, Hampshire Chronicle, 26 December 1914, p. 5.

(98) Among the Reservists and Territorials called up were four policemen, 23 Post Office workers (though two failed their medical), five warders at the prison, a hospital porter, numerous local authority staff and employees of private firms such as Warren & Co, the local printers. Winchester and the War: Enthusiastic Scenes, Hampshire Chronicle, 8 August 1914, p. 5.

(99) Figures compiled using WWSR. National monthly recruitment for the voluntary period was 145,101 as compared to 73,642 for conscription. Silbey, op. cit., p. 27.

(100) This was lower than the national average of 113,659 men per month against 83,780 because August was an even heavier recruiting month in Winchester than it was nationally. See TNA WO 161-82, 83-84 for national figures.

(101) Silbey, op. cit., p. 27. For shunning of military service see John Gooch, 'The Armed Services', in Stephen Constantine, Maurice W. Kirby and Mary B. Rose (eds.), The First World War in British History (London: Edward Arnold, 1995), p. 189; P. E. Dewey, 'Military Recruiting and the British Labour Force during the First World War’, Historical Journal 27 (1984), pp. 199-223.

(102) Pennell, op. cit., p. 144.

(103) TNA CAB 21/107, 13 April 1916.

(104) For King and Country: Lord Kitchener's Army Recruiting Meeting, Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p. 9.

(105) The Hampshire Regiment's Silver War Badge list does not contain details of soldiers who served in Territorial battalions. Figure 2.3 is therefore based on men in the regiment's Regular and Service battalions. The WCFWWD gives both a man's month of enlistment and Army service number. The service number can be matched up in the SWB list which provides an exact date of enlistment. The figures gathered in this way have then been added to the small number entries in the WWSR which also give a precise date of enlistment.

(106) The Call to Arms, Hampshire Chronicle, 8 August 1914, p. 3.

(107) WWSR, p. 147 and p. 57 and 1911 Census. Every effort has been made to filter out Reservists and pre-war Territorials. It has been assumed that Weller and Glenister had completed their full period of military service, including time in the Reserves.

(108) Lock became something of a celebrity in Winchester after being sent to Gallipoli with the Hampshires where he suffered six shrapnel wounds while serving as a sniper. At this point his mother decided her son had done enough. She sent his birth certificate to the Hampshire Regiment's Commanding Officer and shortly afterwards James was discharged. The British Boy who Fought the Turks: Winchester Lad's Glorious Work at Achi Baba, Lloyd's Weekly News, undated. HRO 65M9OW/198.

(109) Scott’s brother Cyril joined the Wiltshire Regiment in January 1916. Both Cyril and Edward Scott were killed in action. WWSR, p. 122. Flight joined the King Edward's Horse Regiment on 4 August. The family lived in St Cross and were comfortably off. WWSR, p. 50 and 1911 Census.

(110) Simkins, op. cit., pp. 51-2.

(111) Atkinson, op cit., p. 3.

(112 ) At the Hampshire regimental depot, for example, Regular troops were given medical examinations and equipment was checked before 4 August. Consequently, mobilisation passed off comparatively smoothly, with the first batch of Reservist drafts being dispatched to their battalions on the night of 5 August and a second the following day. At the Rifles depot, 2,000 Reservists were processed on the evening of 5 August alone. Atkinson, op. cit., p. 3. Winchester and the War, Enthusiastic Scenes, Hampshire Chronicle, 8 August 1914, p. 5.

(113) The Andrews, from St John's South, were a solid working class family. Percy joined the postal section of the Royal Engineers and survived the war. One brother, William, was killed in action in November 1914. WWSR, pp. 4-5.

(114) The Breadmores, who lived on Stockbridge Road, were middle class, with father Charles an established corn merchant. He joined as a Lieutenant in November 1915 and reached the rank of Staff Major. Brothers Cyril, 19, and Reginald, 20, won commissions into the Royal Army Service Corps and survived the war. Brother Percy, also 20, joined the Royal Berkshires and was killed in action in 1917. The fourth brother, Douglas, joined the Australian Infantry Force (AIF) in 1916 and survived the war. WWSR, p. 18 and 1911 Census.

(115) Of the 2,488 members of the Winchester College community who served in the First World War, 513 died. College boys who volunteered for the armed forces have not been included in the statistics here because most were boarders whose families did not live in the city.

(116) Officer Training Corps Camp, July-August 1914, The Wykehamist, October 1914.

(117) Dr Rendall's Reports, October 1914.

(118) Hollins was killed in action near Ypres in June 1915. See entry on Winchester College at War (WCW) website, http://www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/

(119) Paton died of his wounds in France on 31 December 1914. His battalion had been involved in the Christmas Day truce, although the Germans shot two men after they had taken them tobacco and cigarettes. See entry on WCW website.

(120) Tyacke transferred to the Machine Gun Corps in December 1915 and was killed in action in May 1918 during the German offensives. See entry on WCW website.

(121) Letter from Sonny Fox to Trent Bramston, 19 August 1914. WCA E3/5/82.

(122) See, for example, Fox's letter to Trent Bramston, 23 December 1914. WCA E/3/5/38/10.

(123) Letter from Cyril Jackson to H. A. Jackson, 20 August 1914. WCA E5/25/4.

(124) See TNA WO 159/19, Matters Concerning Recruiting 1915, 'Description of Recruiting Since Mobilisation'.

(125) Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, Leaflets of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (London: HMSO, 1914- 1916), 28 October 1914.

(126) The Winchester figure actually only measures recruitment up to the end of October. Measured up to 4 November, it is likely the Winchester response would have equalled, or even exceeded, that of southern Scotland.34

(127) The figures may actually under-represent the working classes as a number of 'borderline' occupations, such as printer's compositor and tinsmith, have been categorised as lower middle class.

(128) Adrian Gregory, 'Lost Generations: The Impact of Military Service on Paris, London and Berlin', in J. L. Robert and J. M. Winter (eds.), Capital Cities at War, London, Paris, Berlin 1914-1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 57-103.

(129) For King and Country: Lord Kitchener's Army Recruiting Meeting at Winchester, Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p. 9

(130) Millard was one of five surviving children, four having died very young. He joined the 10th (Service) Battalion and served at Gallipoli and Salonika. He died in captivity in January 1916 after being taken prisoner by the Bulgarians. WCFWWD, p. 318.

(131) Prince joined the 1st Hampshires on 25 August 1914, fought at Gallipoli and was killed on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. His brother John served in the Army Service Corps and survived the war. WCFWWD, p. 371.

(132) Vacher, who lived in Edgar Road, St Cross, was killed in action in late November 1914. WCFWWD, p. 461. Chapman lived in Andover Road and was taken prisoner by the Turks at Kut in April 1916. He died of enteric fever the following October. WCFWWD, p. 114.

(133) Russell, who lived at St Cross Mede, St Cross Road, was killed in action in France in October 1916. His father, Leonard Snr, came out of retirement to work as assistant to the officer in charge of the Rifle Brigade records. WCFWWD, p. 326.

(134) Harold Macmillan, Winds of Change 1914-1939 (London: Macmillan, 1960). Tennant was killed in action on 22 September 1916 near Guillemont during the Battle of the Somme. His cousin, Raymond Asquith, also a Wykehamist, was killed at Guillemont a week earlier. Both men are buried at Guillemont Road Cemetery. See entries on WCW website.

(135) Smith was killed near Basra in June 1915. WCFWWD, p. 415. Marshall died of his wounds in France in May 1915. WCFWWD, p. 299.

(136) The British Boy who Fought the Turks, op. cit.

(137) Gregory, The Last Great War, p. 74.

(138) Winchester and the War: Enthusiastic Scenes, op cit.

(139) St Thomas Parish Magazine, May 1915. HRO 37M82W/PZ21. The Reverend Cooper wrote to his former parishioners thanking them for their contribution of £73 9s 8d to the appeal launched after the bombardment of Scarborough.

(140) St Thomas Parish Magazine, September 1914.

(141) Gregory, The Last Great War, pp. 75-6.

(142) For King and Country, Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p. 9.

(143) Ibid.

(144) Ibid. Sir Evelyn was the brother-in-law of Sir William Portal, 2nd Baronet of Malshanger. Sir William was chairman of the family's mill company in Laverstoke, near Winchester, which manufactured banknote paper for theBank of England. He was also deputy chairman of the London and South Western Railway Company.

(145) For King and Country, op. cit.

(146) Ibid.

(147) Gregory, The Last Great War, p. 76.

(148) For King and Country, op. cit.

(149) Gregory, The Last Great War, p. 75.

(150) The officer was Major H. G. Westmorland, The Call to Arms, op. cit.

(151) Silbey, op. cit., pp. 82-103.

(152 ) The Call to Arms, op. cit. See, for example, the Hyde Parish Magazines for October-December 1914.

(153) Winchester Events Exhibits, The Great War 1914-1918. HRO 154M84W/8a-ad.

(154) Figures compiled by author from WWSR. A further 22 joined the two local Rifles regiments, 76 enlisted in other regiments and five joined the Royal Navy.

(155) Grandad's Story (War Diary of William John Hooker, 2/4th Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment), HRA M1946.

(156) Letter from Henry Robert Warren to his mother, 29 December 1914. Letters of Henry Robert Warren, Liddle Collection, University of Leeds, LIDDLE WW1/MES/10.

(157) Silbey, op. cit., pp. 87-89.

(158) Lawrence, aged 21, of Clifton Road, came from a lower middle class background. He ended the war as a Sergeant in the RAF. WWSR, p. 84. Smart, 32, of Freelands Buildings, died of tuberculosis in March 1916. WCFWWD, p. 410. Both men volunteered in August 1914.

(159) A Citizen, The Call to Arms (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p. 5.

(160) Anon., Patriotism Before Sport (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p. 5.

(161) M. J. L. H., An Appeal (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 29 August 1914, p. 5.

(162) General Bulfin Thanks the Citizens, Hampshire Chronicle, 9 January 1915, p. 9.

(163) Winchester and the War: A Feat in Billeting, Hampshire Chronicle, 9 January 1915, p. 5. The 28th Division’s Adjutant turned up at Winchester College and told the headmaster: 'I'm sorry to disturb you in your work, Sir, but I have to request accommodation for 1,025 men who have been flooded out of camp, and they'll be here in half an hour.' In all, the College billeted more than 2,000 troops during January 1915. The Wykehamist, February 1915.

(164) General Bulfin Thanks the Citizens, op. cit. See, for example, St Thomas Boys' School Log Book, entry of 27 January 1915. HRO 177M87/LB2. Holy Trinity School Log Book, entry for 25 January 1915. HRO 34M66/LB4. More than 1,000 men were billeted in Forder's main wool stores. For the official list of places where troops were billeted see Winchester and the War: The Departure of General Bulfin's Division, Hampshire Chronicle, 23 January 1915, p. 5.

(165) General Bulfin Thanks the Citizens, op. cit. the Battalion Hampshire Regiment, Hampshire Chronicle, 10 April 1915, p. 5. st 4

(166) 1

(167) Necessaries for the 1/4th Battalion Hampshire Regiment: Meeting at Winchester, Hampshire Chronicle, 17 April 1915, p. 7.

(168) The scholars and staff of St Thomas' Boys' School raised £2 1s 5d for the appeal and Western Girls' School 21s. Schoolchildren and the Hampshire Territorials, Hampshire Chronicle, 1 May 1915, p. 5. Four teachers and 'numerous Old Boys' from St Thomas were serving in the battalion. St Thomas' Boys' School Log Book, entry for 23 April 1915.

(169) An Urgent War Problem, Hampshire Chronicle, 24 April 1915, p. 2. Among the women working at the camp were a large number from London, described as 'real smart girls' by one local who knew them. She added: 'We were brought up so modest girls. They were such lively girls.' Gertrude Asher, nee Whittier, Winchester Voices, op. cit., p. 59.

(170) J. S. Furley, Protection of Young Girls in Winchester (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 12 June 1915, p. 5.

(171) Girls Patriotic Club, Hampshire Chronicle, 20 November 1915, p. 10.

(172) Beatrice, Countess of Portsmouth, Appeal on Behalf of Proposed Girls Patriotic Welcome at Winchester (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 27 November 1915, p. 3.

(173) Mayoress of Winchester and Countess of Northbrook's Central Clothing Depot Report 1914-15, Hampshire Chronicle, 4 September 1914, p. 5.

(174) Voluntary Motor Organisation: Hampshire Automobile Club (Northern Division), Hampshire Chronicle, 14 August 1914, p. 10.

(175) Dr Rendall's Report for 1916. The Wykehamist, November 1916, p. 454.

(176) Anniversary of the Declaration of War: The Celebration in Winchester, Hampshire Chronicle, 7 August 1915, p. 7. The Reverend W. E. Colchester, St Maurice and St Lawrence Parish Magazine, July 1915.

(177) Anniversary of the Declaration of War, op. cit.

(178) Winchester Children and Empire Day: Address by Captain Hoare, Hampshire Chronicle, 5 June 1915, p. 3. See also St Bartholomew's School, Hyde, Log Book, entry of 2 June 1915. HRO 81A04W/LB1.

(179) St Thomas Parish Magazine, March 1915. Edmeades was bank president. Vice-presidents were Baring, the Dean of Winchester, the Headmaster of Winchester College, the Reverend Canon Gunning and the Reverend A. G. Egerton.

(180) Gregory, The Last Great War, pp. 112-51.

(181) Anniversary of the Declaration of War, op. cit.

(182) Lady Ridding Papers, entry of 21 March 1915.

(183) Ibid.

(184) Labour Difficulty at the Camps, Hampshire Chronicle, 27 March 1915, p. 5.

(185) 'Octo', A Word to Strikers (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 27 March 1915, p. 3.

(186) Alfred Edmeades, The National Registration Act (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 24 July 1915, p. 5.

(187) Drill Class, Hampshire Chronicle, 27 February 1915, p. 9. Attendances reached a peak of around 300 shortly before Christmas 1914 but fell sharply in the New Year and were below 100 by the end of February 1915.

(188) Winchester Voluntary Drill Class, Hampshire Chronicle, 26 June 1915, p. 5.

(189) Winchester Voluntary Training Corps: Inspection by the Chief Recruiting Officer, Hampshire Chronicle, 24 July 1915, p. 3.

(190) A Soldier's Mother, Young Belgians Idle in England (Correspondence), Hampshire Chronicle, 22 May 1915, p. 5. Emphasis in original.

(191) Winchester Diocesan Conference, Hampshire Chronicle, 16 October 1915, p. 3.

(192) Pennell, op. cit., pp. 198-226.

(193) The Bishop of Winchester on the National Attitude, Hampshire Chronicle, 10 April 1915, p. 8.

(194) TNA WO 159/3/23 The Creedy (K) Papers – Lord Kitchener's Strategical, Political and Miscellaneous Papers. To establish the rate of voluntary enlistment in Winchester during 1914-1915, the author had first to calculate the total number of men of serviceable age. The 1911 Census shows there were 9,231 males aged ten and over in Winchester. It also reveals that of the total number of women in the city, around 50 per cent were aged 15-45. Applying this percentage to the total number of men, and subtracting the 794 men already serving in the armed forces on the outbreak of war gives a figure of 3,821. This has been further reduced to 3,250 to allow for an age range of 18-41. The figure may still be slightly high given that in the summer of 1915 – when around 1,100 men had joined up – the local recruiting authorities claimed 2,000 men of serviceable age had still not enlisted. 1911 Census, Ages and condition as to marriage, England and Wales, Vol VII, p. 294.

(195) TNA WO 159/3/23.

(196) Todmorden in Lancashire, for example, had an enlistment rate of around 30 per cent for the voluntary period which was in line with the regional average. J. Lee, Todmorden in the Great War (Todmorden: Waddington, 1920), pp. 84-6. Cited in Gregory, The Last Great War, p. 90.

(197) Board of Trade, 'Enlistment from the Industrial Classes and the State of Employment on Government and other Work in mid-February 1916', Reconstruction Papers, TNA RECON 1/832. See also Winter, The Great War and the British People, p. 34.

(198) Two of Bent's brothers, George and Reginald, had enlisted in the Hampshires in 1914. Another bother, Charles, joined Ernest in the Royal Engineers as a signaller in September 1914. WWSR, p. 14 and 1911 Census.

(199) St Maurice and St Lawrence Parish Magazine, July 1915.

(200) Winchester Police Anxious for Military Service, Hampshire Chronicle, 15 May 1915, p. 5.

(201) The WWSR shows fewer recruits came from the Brooks, Wales Street and particularly Colebrook Street, while streets such as St Catherine’s Road and Andover Road produced more.

(202) The Wykehamist, 30 March 1915, p. 394.

(203) Dr Rendall's Report, 1915, p. 2. Lenanton Papers, op. cit., see diary entries for March 1915. In 1914, 43 College boys had gone to Oxford and 14 to Cambridge. Of the College's 40 Exhibitioners at Oxford and Cambridge, all but two had joined the armed forces by the end of 1915. Dr Rendall's Report, 1915, p. 7.

(204) Letter from H. E. G. Tyndale to H. A. Jackson, 6 January 1915. WCA E5/27/4.

(205) Letter from A. B. K. Cook to H. A. Jackson, 3 January 1915. WCA E5/14/4.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Archives

Hampshire Records Office (HRO), Winchester

Rolls of Honour/Casualty Lists

Winchester War Service Register, A Record of the Service of Winchester Men in the Great War, 1914-1918, HRO 216M84W/69

Roll call of 'A' Company of the 4th Battalion Hampshire Regiment who were imprisoned after the fall of Kut-el-Amara, 29 April 1916, HRO 71M88W/6

Casualty Lists for King's Royal Rifle Corps, 1914-1918, HRO 170A12W/D/0419

Roll of Honour for employees of Warren and Co., Winchester and Alton, HRO 28M88W/1

'Book of Life' of St Thomas Church, Winchester, HRO 37M82W/PZ107

 

Newspapers

The Hampshire Chronicle, 1914-1915

The Hampshire Observer, 1914-1915

Diaries/Letters etc.

Scrapbook of Alfred Edmeades (Mayor of Winchester, 1914-1918), HRO 71M75W/Z1

Diary of Miss Doris Edmeades (daughter of Alfred Edmeades), HRO 71M75W/Z5

The War Chronicles (Papers of Laura, Lady Ridding), HRO 9M68/65-67

Diary of Miss Sidney Margaret Courtney, HRO COPY/525/1

Letters to Harry Sealey, Mayor of Winchester, HRO W/C1/5/589l/l

Indexed scrapbook, Wooldridge family, Winchester, HRO 185M84W/11

Stopher Papers (Thomas Stopher, 1837-1926, architect and Mayor of Winchester), HRO 21/M85W

 

Parish Magazines

Winchester, St Bartholomew, Hyde (1914-1917). HRO 55M81W/PZ18,19

Winchester, St Maurice and St Lawrence (1914-1918). HRO IM82W/PZ6

Winchester, St Thomas  (1914-1918). HRO 37M82W/PZ21-25

School Log Books

Winchester, Holy Trinity, HRO 34M66/LB4

Winchester, St Bartholomew's, Hyde, HRO 81A04W/LB1

Winchester, St John's, HRO 11M60/LB3

Winchester, St Michael's, HRO 175M87/LB1

Winchester, St Thomas's, HRO 177M87/LB2

 

Recorded interviews

Interview with Mrs Jessie Canfield (nee Dore Dixon), Winchester Memories Series, HRO AV12/54/S1

Interview with John Barrow Simonds, Winchester Memories Series, HRO AV12/11/S1

Interview with Arthur Winton Hodges, Winchester Memories Series, HRO AV12/14/S1

Interview with Ernest Woolford and May, Reginald and Alfred O'Neill, Winchester Memories Series, HRO AV12/22-23/S1

Research Papers

Dowland, A. J. 'Winchester Morn Hill: The First World War Army Camps', HRO 99A09/1

Hampshire Regiment Archives (HRA), Winchester

 

Books/Journals

The Hampshire Regimental Journal

History of the Hampshire Territorial Force Association and War Records of Units, 1914-1919 (Southampton: Hampshire Advertiser Co., 1921)

2/4th Battalion Hampshire Regiment 1914-1919. 2/4th Bttn. HRA C2/Box 1/M1833

 

Diaries

The 1/4th Hampshire Regiment in the East. The Diary of a Company Commander (believed to be Captain Godfrey Burrell), (Winchester: Jacob & Johnston). HRA M2925

War-Time Wanderings of the 1/4th Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment (TF), 1914-1919. Harold V. Wheeler, Winchester. HRA M3323/4

Grandad's Story: War Diary of William John Hooker, 2/4th Battn, The Hampshire Regiment (TF) HRA M1946

Dum Spiro Spero: The First World War Diaries (1914-1919) of William Grant Bissett (1893-1964). 1/4th Bttn. HRA C2/Box 2/M1834

The Royal Green Jackets Archives, Winchester

The Rifle Brigade Chronicle for 1914 (London: John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, 1915)

The Rifle Brigade Chronicle for 1915 (London: John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, 1916)

The King's Royal Rifle Corps Chronicle, 1914 (Winchester: The Wykeham Press, 1915)

The King's Royal Rifle Corps Chronicle, 1915 (Winchester: The Wykeham Press, 1916)

Winchester College Archives (WCA)

Dr Montague John Rendall's Reports, 1911-1924, WCA A3/5

Winchester College Governing Body Minute Book 1912-1917, WCA A/7

The Wykehamist magazine, 1914-1916

Letters of Trent Bramston, WCA E3/5/82 and WCA E/3/5/38/10

Letters of H. A. Jackson, WCA E5/25/4, WCA E5/27/4 and WCA E5/14/4

Winchester College at War (WCW) website, http://www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/

Imperial War Museum (IWM), London

Private papers of Sir Gerald Lenanton, IWM Documents.11120

Letters of W. R. Owen, IWM BBC/GW

The National Archive (TNA), London

TNA WO 394/20, Monthly Recruiting Figures, 1914-1918

TNA WO 159/19, Matters Concerning Recruiting, 1915, 'Description of Recruiting since Mobilisation'

TNA WO 159/22, Recruiting figures for Regular Army, August/September 1914

TNA WO 293/1, War Office Instructions (7 August 1914, 4 September 1914)

TNA WO 159/3-4-18, The Creedy (K) Papers – Lord Kitchener's Strategic, Political and Miscellaneous Papers/Letters

TNA WO 162/26, Letters on Recruits, 1914, Telegram of 1 September 1914 to commanders of the recruiting centres

TNA WO 159/3/22,23, Recruitment returns, September-October 1914

TNA WO 159/18, Letter from Kitchener to Recruiting Officers regarding drafting of NCOs

TNA CAB 1/10, Cabinet Documents regarding the War, No. 10, Recruiting in Proportion to Population, November 1914.

TNA CAB 27/2, Estimate of the Condition of the Industrial Population of the United Kingdom, August 1915

TNA CAB 27/2, Report from the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) on War Policy, 6 September 1915, government analysis of National Registration returns

TNA NATS 1/398, daily recruiting figures, August/September 1914.

TNA NATS 1/85, monthly recruiting figures for cities, September 1914-February 1915

TNA NATS 1/400, Ministry of National Service Papers

TNA RECON 1/832, Board of Trade, 'Enlistment from the Industrial Classes and the State of Employment on Government and other Work in mid-February 1916'

TNA RG 28/1, National Register, August 1915

TNA RG 28/11, National Registration Committee Minutes and Miscellaneous Papers, memorandum of 6 October 1915 analysing National Registration returns

 

The Liddle Collection (LIDDLE), University of Leeds

Letters of Henry Robert Warren, LIDDLE WW1/MES/10.

 

British Library (BL), London

AddMSS/54192-A, documents relating to Parliamentary Recruiting Committee

 

Local Secondary Sources

Books

Bussey, S. Winchester Voices (Stroud: Tempus, 2002)

Grover, C. Hyde: From Dissolution to Victorian Suburb (Winchester: Victorian Heritage Press, 2012)

James, T. B. Winchester: From Prehistory to the Present (Stroud: Tempus, 1997)

Kelly's Directory of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, 1914 (London: Kelly's Directory Ltd, 1915)

Kelly's Directory of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, 1915 (London: Kelly's Directory Ltd, 1916)

Piper, A. C. (ed.), Winchester War Service Register. A Record of the Service of Winchester Men in the Great War, 1914-1918 (Winchester: Warren and Co., 1921)

Stephenson, G. Edward Stuart Talbot, 1844-1934 (London: S.P.C.K., 1936)

Strickland, A. The Hursley Lads: In Honour of the Men of Hursley who fought in the Great War 1914-1919 (Winchester: Sarsen, 2014)

Turner, B. C. Winchester – 100 Years Ago (Southampton: Cave, 1979)

__________ A History of Winchester (Chichester: Phillimore, 1992)

__________ A History of the Royal County Hospital (Chichester: Phillimore, 1986)

Warren's Winchester and District Directory (Winchester: Warren & Son, 1914)

Warren's Winchester and District Directory (Winchester: Warren & Son, 1915)

Williams, C. 111 Years Policing Winchester: A History of Winchester City Police Force, 1832-1943 (Winchester: Hampshire Constabulary, 2012)

Dissertations and Theses

Grover, C. ‘The Suburban Development of Winchester from 1850 to 1912’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Southampton, 2008

Secondary Sources with special relevance to the subject

Books and book chapters

Bell, S. 'The First World War' in Parker, S. and Lawson, T. (eds.), God and War: The Church Of England and Armed Conflict in the Twentieth Century (Burlington: Ashgate, 2013)

Gliddon, G. (ed.), Norfolk & Suffolk in the Great War (Norwich: Gliddon Books, 1988)

Gregory, A. The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008)

__________ 'British “War Enthusiasm” in 1914: A Reassessment', in Gail Braybon (ed.), Evidence, History and the Great War: Historians and the Impact of 1914-18 (Oxford: Berghahn, 2003), pp. 67-85.

Grieves, K. Sussex in the First World War (Lewes: Sussex Record Society, 2004)

_________ 'The Quiet of the Country and the Restless Excitement of the Towns: Rural Perspectives on the Home Front, 1914-1918', in M. Tebbutt (ed.), Rural and Urban Encounters in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Regional Perspectives (Manchester: Conference of Regional and Local Historians, 2004) p. 80

Horn, P. Rural Life in England in the First World War (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1984)

Horne, J. (ed.). State, Society and Mobilisation in Europe during the First World War (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997)

McCartney, H. B. Citizen Soldiers: The Liverpool Territorials in the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Marrin, A. The Last Crusade: The Church of England in the First World War (Durham: Duke University Press, 1974)

Messenger, C. Call to Arms: The British Army 1914-18 (London: Cassell, 2005)

Osborne, J. M. Voluntary Recruiting Movement in Britain, 1914-1916 (New York: Garland, 1982)

Parker, D. Hertfordshire Children in War and Peace, 1914-1939 (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2007)

Parker, P. The Old Lie: The Great War and the Public School Ethos (London: Constable, 1987)

Pennell, C. A Kingdom United: Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War in Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)

Reay, B. Microhistories: Demography, Society and Culture in Rural England, 1800-1930 (Cambridge: Polity, 2001)

Rusiecki, P. The Impact of Catastrophe: The people of Essex and the First World War, 1914-1918 (Chelmsford: Essex Record Office, 2008);

Silbey, D. The British Working Class and Enthusiasm for War, 1914-1916 (London: Frank Cass, 2005)

Simkins, P. Kitchener's Army: The Raising of the New Armies, 1914-16 (Manchester: Manchester

University Press, 1988)

Watson, J. S. K. Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory and the First World War in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)

Wilkinson, A. The Church of England and the First World War (London: SPCK, 1978)

Winter, J. M. The Great War and the British People (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986)

__________ 'Popular Culture in Wartime Britain' in A. Roshwald and R. Stiles (eds.), European Culture in the Great War: The Arts, Entertainment and Propaganda, 1914-1918 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002)

Published journal articles

Bailey, C. ‘The British Protestant Theologians in the First World War: Germanophobia Unleashed’, Harvard Theological Review, LXXVII: 2, (1984), p. 195-221

Beckett, J. 'Patriotism in Nottinghamshire: Challenging the Unconvinced', 1914-1917,  Midland History, Vol. 39, Issue 2 (2014), pp. 185-201.

Beeching, N. 'The Provincial Press and the Outbreak of War: A Unionist View in Worcestershire', Midland History, Vol. 39, No. 2, Autumn 2014, pp. 163-84

Bourne, J. M. 'The Midlands and the Great War', Midland History, Vol. 39, Issue 2 (2014), pp. 157-162.

Coetzee, D. 'Measures of Enthusiasm: New Avenues in Quantifying Variations in Voluntary Enlistment in Scotland, August 1914-December 1915', Local Population Studies, Vol 74 (Spring 2005), pp. 16-35.

Seldon, A. 'The Real Eton Rifles: The Heroism of Public School Boys in the First World War', New Statesman, 18 December, 2013.

Theses and dissertations

Batten, R. 'Devon and the First World War', unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Exeter, 2013

Coetzee, D. 'Factors Accounting for Variations in Voluntary Enlistment in Scotland, August 1914-December 1915', unpublished Ph.D thesis, Cambridge University, 2003

 

 

General secondary sources

Books

Beckett, I. F. W. Home Front 1914-1918: How Britain Survived the Great War (Kew: The National Archives, 2006)

Bourne, J. Britain and the Great War (London: Edward Arnold, 1989)

Braybon, G. Women Workers in the First World War: The British Experience (London: Croom Helm, 1981)

Carsten, F. War Against War (Berkeley: University of California, 1982)

Ceadel, M. Thinking about Peace and War (London: Oxford University Press, 1987)

Chickering, R. The Great War and Urban Life in Germany: Freiburg, 1914-1918 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007)

Cline, C. E. D. Morel 1873-1924: The Strategies of Protest (Belfast: Blackstaff, 1980)

Constantine, S., Kirby M. W. and Rose, M. B. The First World War in British History (London: Edward Arnold, 1995)

DeGroot, G. Blighty: British Society in the Era of the Great War (London: Longman, 1996)

Ewart, W. Way of Revelation: A Novel of Five Years (London: 1921)

Graham, J. Conscription and Conscience: A History 1916-1919 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1922)

Green, H. The British Army in the First World War: The Regulars, The Territorials and Kitchener's Army (London: J. Trahern, 1968)

Gregory, A. 'Lost Generations: The Impact of Military Service on Paris, London and Berlin', in J. L. Robert and J. M. Winter (eds.), Capital Cities at War, London, Paris, Berlin 1914-1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Grieves, K. The Politics of Manpower 1914-1918 (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1988)

Ferguson, N. The Pity of War, 1914-1918 (London: Penguin, paperback edition, 1999)

Halsey, A. H. (ed.). Trends in British Society Since 1900: A Guide to the Changing Social Structure of Britain (London: Macmillan, 1972)

Hazelhurst, C. Politicians at War 1914-1915 (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1971)

Hinton, J. Protests and Visions: Peace Politics in Twentieth Century Britain (London: Radius, 1989)

Holmes, R. Soldiers: Army Lives and Loyalties from Redcoats to Dusty Warriors (London: HarperPress, 2011)

Horne, J. Labour at War: France and Britain, 1914-1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991)

Hynes, S. A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture (New York: Collier, 1992)

Liddle, P. Home Fires and Foreign Fields: British Social and Military Experience in the First World War (London: Brassey's, 1985)

McLeod, H. Religion and Society in England, 1850-1914 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996)

Magnus, P. Kitchener: Portrait of an Imperialist (London: John Murray, 1958)

Marcus, G. Before the Lights Went Out (Boston: Little Brown, 1965)

Marwick, A. The Deluge: British Society and the First World War (New York: Norton, 1965)

Millman, B. Managing Domestic Dissent in First World War Britain (London: Frank Cass, 2000)

Panayi, P. The Enemy in Our Midst: Germans in Britain during the First World War (Oxford: Berg, 1991)

Pankhurst, S. The Home Front: A Mirror to Life in England during the First World War (London: Ebury, 1987)

Playne, C. The Pre-War Mind in Britain (London: 1928)

________ Society at War, 1914-1916 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1931)

Ponsonby, A. Falsehood in War: This Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations during the Great War (New York: E. D. Dutton, 1929)

Pottle, M. (ed.), Champion Redoubtable: The Diaries and Letters of Violet Bonham Carter (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1998)

Reader, W. J. At Duty's Call: A Study in Obsolete Patriotism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988)

Robb, G. British Culture and the First World War (Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2002)

Robert, J. L. and Winter, J. M. (eds.), Capital Cities at War, London, Paris, Berlin 1914-1919 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Robbins, K. The Abolition of War: The Peace Movement in Britain, 1914-1919 (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 1976)

Smithers, A. J. Fighting Nation: Lord Kitchener and his Armies (London: Leo Cooper, 1994)

Stevenson, D. 1914 1918: The History of the First World War (London: Penguin, 2005)

Strachan, H, The First World War: A New Illustrated History (London: Simon & Schuster, 2003)

Summers, A. Angels and Citizens: British Women as Military Nurses 1854-1914 (London: Routledge, 1988)

Swartz, M. The Union of Democratic Control in British Politics During the First World War (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971)

Thompson, J. Lee Politicians, Press and Propaganda: Lord Northcliffe and the Great War, 1914-1919 (Kent: OH, 1999)

Turner, J. British Politics and the Great War: Coalition and Conflict 1915-18 (Yale: Yale University Press, 1992)

Verhey, J. The Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth and Mobilisation in Germany (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Waites, B. A Class Society at War: England 1914-1918 (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1987)

Wall, R. and Winter, J. (eds.) Capital Cities at War: Paris, London and Berlin, 1914-1919, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Watson, A. Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918 (London: Penguin, 2015)

Watson, J. S. K.  Dissent or Conform: War, Peace and the English Churches 1900-1945 (London: SCM Press, 1986)

Wilson, T. The Myriad Faces of War: Britain and the Great War 1914-1918 (Cambridge, Polity, 1986)

Wrigley, C. Lloyd George and the Challenge of Labour (New York: St Martin's Press, 1990)

 

Book Chapters

Aldrich, R. and Hilliard, C. 'The French and British Empires' in J. Horne (ed.), A Companion to World War I (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)

Audoin-Rouzeau, S. 'Children and Primary Schools of France, 1914-1918', in J. Horne (ed.), State Society and Mobilization in Europe During the First World War(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Purseigle, P. 'Introduction, Warfare and Belligerence: Approaches to the First World War' in P. Purseigle (ed.), Warfare and Belligerence: Perspectives in First World War Studies (Lieden: Brill, 2005)

Winter, J. ‘Paris, London, Berlin, 1914-1919: Capital Cities at War’, in J. Winter and J-L. Robert (eds.), Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin, 1914-1919(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)

_________ 'The Practices of Metropolitan life in Wartime' in J. Winter and J-L Robert (eds.), Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin, 1914-1919, Volume 2: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)

________ 'Popular Culture in Wartime Britain' in A. Roshwald and R. Stiles (eds.), European Culture in the Great War: The Arts, Entertainment and Propaganda, 1914-1918 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002)

 

Published journal articles

Adams, R. 'Asquith's Choice: The May Coalition and the Coming of Conscription, 1915-1916', Journal of British Studies 25 (1986)

Dewey, P. 'Military Recruiting and the British Labour Force During the First World War', History Journal, 27, 1, (1984)

Gregory, A. 'Britain and Ireland' in J. Horne (ed.), A Companion to World War One (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), pp. 403-417.

Hopkin, D. 'Domestic Censorship in the First World War', Journal of Contemporary History 5, 4 (1970)

Millman, B. 'A Note on British Home Defence Planning and Civil Dissent', War in History, 5, 2, (1998)

Monger, D. 'Soldiers, Propaganda and Ideas of Home and Community in First World War Britain', Cultural and Social History, Vol 8, 5, pp. 331-33

 

Online articles

Allan, S. 'Is the Territorial Force a Sham?' Were the Territorials a Militarily Capable Organisation Prior to the Great War, 1908-1914: Are there Lessons to be Learned? University of Huddersfield Repository, 2014, Postgraduate Perspectives in History, 1 (1), pp. 2-19. ISSN 2055-7787

Batten, R. J. Remembering the Home Front of the First World War, 22 January 2014,

http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/humanities/201401/22/remembering-the-home-front-of-the-first-world-war

Purseigle, P. Warfare and Belligerence: Approaches to the First World War, https://www.academia.edu/237894/_WarfareandBelligerence_Approaches_to_the_First_World_War

________________ Violence and Solidarity: Urban Experiences of the First World War, 21 October 2012

http://www.pierrepurseigle.info/violence-and-solidarity-urban-experiemces-of-the-first-world-war/

Tattersfield, D. Did Kitchener's decision to raise his 'New Armies' carelessly wreck the pre-war plans to achieve a smooth and effective British military expansion?

Todman, D. The First World War in History.

http//ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk/war-as-revolution/the-first-world-war-in-history