Remembering the Somme Battle of Thiepval 1916

 

Routledge is one of several British zoo staff with no known grave are remembered amongst thousands on the Thiepval Memorial on the Somme (Image: CWGC website)

Remembering today the thousands who died on each side of the Somme Battle of Thiepval  including 100 years ago today on 26 September 1916:

Wilfred Omer Cooper, writer and naturalist,  FLS Fellow of the Linnean Society, died Somme 26 September 2016

Alfred Routledge, Belle Vue Zoo Manchester staff, died 26 September 2016  September 1916

1. Wilfrid Omer Cooper
Born 1895, he was killed in 26 September 1916. He had been involved with the Bournemouth Natural Science Society, studying isopods.

Elected to the Linnean Society only in Spring 1915, Cooper  was still a private G/40113 in the 12 Battalion Regiment, Middlesex Regiment when he died aged 21. He has no known grave and is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing of the Somme battles.

He is listed on the CWGC website as the son of the late John Omer Cooper (died 1912) and Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Thompson Cooper, 6 Queensland Road, Boscombe, Bournemouth.

On the listing for Soldiers Died in The Great War (SDGW) he is listed as born at Boscombe, Bournemouth, Hants and resident at Bournemouth. He enlisted at High Beech, Loughton and was originally listed as formerly B/23290 Royal Fusiliers. He is the author of several papers and books including The Fishing Village and other writings (Literary and Scientific) posthumously published in Bournemouth by H.G.Commin 1917, the author one Wilfrid Omer-Cooper.

Read more about Cooper and the Linnean Society losses in WW1 here:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/lost-fellows-the-linnean-society-roll-of-honour-1914-1918/

http://thebournemouthian.co.uk/2016/07/01/bournemouth-school-and-the-battle-of-the-somme/

Taken from the ‘Bournemouth School and WW1’ website

 

 

2. Alfred Routledge, Belle Vue Zoo Manchester staff, died 26 September 2016

He died serving with the 11th Battalion Manchester Regiment on The Somme, aged 23 on 26 September 1916. He was killed in an attack on Mouquet Farm which was part of the final and successful British attempt to capture the village of Thiepval.

The village occupied high ground in the centre of the battlefield and had been a British objective on the first day of The Battle of The Somme on 1 July 1916.

Alfred Routledge is one of the many “Missing of the Somme”  listed on the Thiepval memorial, having no known grave. Routledge was  killed in the  final days of taking Thiepval village, one of the original objectives of the 1^st July 1916, the first disastrous day of the Battle of The Somme two months earlier.

CWGC lists him as the son of the late Alfred and Emily Barton Routledge of 504 Gorton Lane, Gorton. Married. Routledge and fellow Belle Vue Zoo staff Sidney Turner and Ralph Stamp are remembered on the St. James Parish Church war memorial at:  http://gortonphilipsparkcemetrywargrave.weebly.com/st-james-church-gorton.html

Read more about Routledge and the Manchester men of Belle Vue Zoo in WW1:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/remembering-the-lost-ww1-staff-of-belle-vue-zoo-manchester/

http://gortonphilipsparkcemetrywargrave.weebly.com/belle-vue-war-memorial.html

Sydney Cobbold of the 8th Battalion, Rifle Brigade died 3rd October 1916, Somme area (Kew Guild photo)

William Dexter, ZSL London Zoo keeper killed in WW1 (Photo: Courtesy of Nova Jones, digital clean up Adrian Taylor ZSL)

Sydney Cobbold of the 8th Battalion, Rifle Brigade died 3rd October 1916, Somme area (Kew Guild photo)

William Dexter, ZSL London Zoo keeper killed in WW1 (Photo: Courtesy of Nova Jones, digital clean up Adrian Taylor ZSL)

Late September  and early October 1916 was a bad few weeks for British zoo and botanic gardens staff. No doubt the zoo and gardens community was equally affected by the losses in Germany.

Kew Gardens staff

The follwing Kew Gardens men will also lose their lives in the closing months of the 141 days of the Somme fighting:

Sergeant Sydney George Cobbold, S/12906, 8th Battalion, Rifle Brigade died on the 3rd October 1916, aged 28. He has a known grave in a small Somme cemetery.

Sydney Cobbold of the 8th Battalion, Rifle Brigade died 3rd October 1916, Somme area (Kew Guild photo)

Rifleman John Divers, service number 7056, 1st / 9th Battalion, London Regiment (Queen Victoria Rifles) and also County of London Cyclists, died on 9th October 1916.

June 2016: Kew staff commemorate  John Divers near where he was killed on the Somme  in 1916.  

 

Rifleman / Corporal Herbert Martin Woolley, “Essex Regiment”  is most likely to be Rifleman 3844, 1st / 5th Battalion, London Regiment (London Rifle Brigade), died 9 October 1916.

Herbert is commemorated on Panel Reference Pier and Face 9 D, Thiepval Memorial, along with fellow Kewite John Divers.

I will blog post 100 years on the anniversary of each of their deaths. In the meantime, read more about them at:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/such-is-the-price-of-empire-the-lost-gardeners-of-kew-in-the-first-world-war/

London Zoo

ZSL London Zoo lost the following young keeping staff (‘Helpers’)  in the latter part of the Somme battles in September and October 1916.

15.9.1916        Arthur G. Whybrow      2547, 19 Bn. County of London Regt.  ZSL Helper.

05.10.1916      Gerald P Patterson       19th County of London Regt.     ZSL Helper

and an older Keeper whose grand-daughter I met whilst researching at London Zoo:

23.10.1916      William Dexter  Kings Royal Rifles, Rifleman    ZSL Keeper 

I will blog post 100 years on the anniversary of each of their deaths. In the meantime, read more about them at:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/remembering-lost-wartime-staff-of-zsl-london-zoo-in-ww1/

A lucky wounded survivor  who went on to found an amazing zoo …

George Mottershead (of the BBC ‘Our Zoo’ fame) of the Manchester Regiment will be severely injured on the 15th October 1916, surviving a spinal wound that nearly killed him and left him paralysed for several years bfeore he struggled to walk again and create Chester Zoo in the 1930s. He would lose several brothers or family members in WW1.

Remember all these men and their families  100 years on.

Scheduled blogpost for 26 September 2016 by Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo / World War Zoo Gardens project.

San Diego Zoo 1944 postcard

Message on the back reads:

I hope Lieutenant H.J. Eiland (?) survived his war service. A great address to post a card to “John Burks, c/o Voice of Victory, Wade City, Florida”

Close up of the 19 November 1944 Postcard shows a little wartime life at San Diego Zoo – GIs / US  servicemen in uniform peaked caps (tinted green) and a sailor in bottom left hand corner, hopefully with his gal.

An amphitheatre like this still exists at San Diego Zoo in 2002.

In my Post 9-11 visit in 2002, they played a patriotic anthem, naming all the states in the Union just before the animal ambassador show started. People were invited to cheer or join in when their state was mentioned. Service  veterans or Service families were also mentioned and applauded whilst the Stars and Stripes flag was displayed very prominently everywhere.

I can’t quite imagine this in Britain, starting a zoo talk or animal encounter with a cheery proud song listing all the shires, even post BREXIT …

Interesting postcard, proof of the entertaining, patriotic  and morale boosting role  of the zoo in wartime.

Posted by Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo

 

Elsie Widdowson and WW2 rationing

World War Zoo Gardens sign, Newquay Zoo, Cornwall, UK

It’s August. The schools are on 2016 holiday break and Newquay Zoo is lovely and busy with families. http://www.newquayzoo.org.uk/

I am also lovely and busy, preparing, repairing and refreshing schools and college workshop materials for September.

For the new City and Guilds 2016 syllabus  on animal managment delivered at  Newquay Zoo and Cornwall College Newquay,  I have been preparing new sessions for my new 16-19 year old students on animal feeding and nutrition.

https://www.cornwall.ac.uk/campus/cornwall-college-newquay

http://www.newquayzoo.org.uk/education-clubs/cornwall-college

One of the challenging new elements is a bit of biochemistry (and it’s a long time since I did my O levels!)

In the course of finding simple enough ways for me to understand and explain the new nutrition bits such as the  chemical structure of amino acids, protein bonds and suchlike,  I came across this great BBC clip on Elsie Widdowson from CBBC’s Absolute Genius team Dick and Dom:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/zf9rkqt

Dr. Elsie  Who?

I feel I should know the name, as I have been looking at wartime gardening and rationing since 2009 as part of the World War Zoo gardens project workshops for schools.

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/world-war-zoo-gardens-workshops-for-schools-at-newquay-zoo/

 

Reading the story brought back very vague memories of this story being noted in passing in histories of food in wartime, rationing and gardening.

So who was Elsie Widdowson?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Widdowson

A trip to the kitchens at King’s College Hospital, London, brought her into contact with Professor Robert McCance, who was carrying out research into the best diets for people with diabetes. The two bonded and started on a research partnership that was to span 60 years.

They studied the effect poor nutrition has in adulthood and their book The Chemical Composition of Foods, published in 1940, became the “bible” on which modern nutritional thinking is founded.

Soon after the war started, she and Prof McCance lived for weeks in the Lake District eating the diet which they thought the British should consume during World War II to maintain basic health.They also cycled round Cambridge to study the importance of energy expenditure on diet. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6228307.stm)

There’s a new volume for the World War Zoo gardening bookshelf – The Chemical Composition of Foods, published in 1940 – and the 7th edition (2014 version) is still in print on Amazon from the Food Standards agency today.

Delabole Co-op and Camelford stores in Cornwall for meat, registered with Haddy’s for other rationed items, (is Haddy’s still going?) this well used (light brown adult RB1) Ration Book from Cornwall is part of our wartime life collection (copyright: World war Zoo gardens project, Newquay Zoo).

Widdowson and McCance headed the first mandated addition of vitamins and mineral to food. Their work began in the early 1940s, when calcium was added to bread.  They were also responsible for formulating the wartime rationing of Britain during World War II. (Elsie Widdowson’s Wikipedia entry)

Elsie Widdowson, wartime rationing star and Mother of the modern loaf as this BBC report named her – that’s one to chew on when you’re eating your lunchtime sarnies!

Elsie Widdowson and her scientific partner, Robert McCance, oversaw the first compulsory addition of a substance to food in the early 1940s, when calcium was introduced to bread. They were also responsible for formulating war-time rationing – some experts say that under their diet of mainly bread, vegetables and potatoes, that was when Britain was at its healthiest.(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6228307.stm)

A biography  of sorts exists – McCance and Widdowson: A Scientific Partnership of 60 Years, 1933-93  A Commemorative Volume about Robert McCance CBE, FRS and Elsie May Widdowson CBE, FRS   published / edited by  Margaret Ashwell in 1993.

Interesting medical history blog entry by Laura Dawes about early  wartime food security concerns in Britain with a brilliant wartime photograph of McCance and Widdowson:

https://doctorthen.wordpress.com/2013/10/04/fighting-fit/

and its Guardian article version

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/sep/24/fighting-fit-britain-second-world-war

Rugged Science: McCance left, Widdowson centre, Andrew Huxley (student volunteer) right, testing our rations and nutrition ideas in the extremes of the Lake District, winter 1939. Source of image: Doctorthen blog

They also served … Thanks Elsie Widdowson and Robert McCance for keeping my family fit and healthy throughout World War Two and beyond!

Lunchtime calls…

Blogposted in lunchtime by Mark Norris, World War Zoo gardens project, Newquay Zoo, 18 August 2016.

The Wall: Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Back in 2002, shortly after 9/11, I was in the USA visiting zoos including the one at Washington D.C.

The Three Servicemen statue with red white and blue floral tributes and unit badges left by visitors.

 

I came across “The Wall”, a striking and stark war memorial to the lost servicemen and women of the Vietnam conflict.

The text reads:

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial honors the courage, sacrifice and devotion to duty and country of the men and women of the armed foces of the United States who served in America’s longest war. By virtue of its design, the memorial inspires a contemplative experience and puts a human face on a divisive conflict. Veterans, their families and others find the memorail a place for reflection and healing.

“On the granite walls of the Memorial are more than 58,000 names of those listed as missing or killed in action. They are listed chronologically according to the date of death or loss.”

“As you approach “The Wall” on the path on your left you will pass the Three Servicemen statue. It reflects the shared experience of Vietnam veterans.”

“The Vietnam Women’s Memorial is located to the path on your right. More than 11,00 American women served in the military in Vietnam.”

The group of three servicemen and the groups of nurses and servicewomen with wounded represent many of the different racial or ethnic backgrounds of  Americans serving in Vietnam. A look at the names on the wall suggests this too.

I think it important that the signage or interpretation also acknowledges the controversy and opposition at the time to this draft or conscript war, and possibly even by extension to the Vietnamese losses? “By virtue of its design, the memorial inspires a contemplative experience and puts a human face on a divisive conflict.”

Vietnam Women’s Memorial

 

Vietnam Women’s Memorial

 

Particularly poignant, like the poppy crosses and wreaths at WW1 and WW2 memorials in Britain and the Somme, are the fresh flowers, unit patches and other personal touches from friends, fellow vets and relatives.

Again as its interpretation suggests: “By virtue of its design, the memorial inspires a contemplative experience and puts a human face on a divisive conflict.”

That was certainly the quite and contemplative atmosphere when I was there (6 months after 9/11).

View of the Wall in the distance

A website about the Wall can be found at http://thewall-usa.com

and at http://www.vvmf.org/memorial

Photographs by Mark Norris, scanned from 35mm film / photo prints.

Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project, Newquay Zoo

Country Life 1986 article on WW1 Wartime Gardening

Not my usual read but these two pages are  an interesting article from a thirty year old copy of Country Life  (Jan 23, 1986) that was passed to me because of my interest in WW1 and wartime gardening.

This is an interesting article by Audrey Le Lievre , especially for me having been involved with Kew Gardens wartime stories and also researched their staff war memorial stories. Audrey Le Lievre as a garden writer is a new name to me but wrote Miss Willmott of Warley Place: Her Life and Her Gardens (Faber, 1980).

Lots of interesting links and names for garden historians to follow up here (the Worcester Fruit and Vegetable Society?) through the online scans of garden journals. The photographs have come from the Lindley Library.

I came across  information about WW1 food shortages, rationing and dig for victory style campaigns of WW1, focussed around researching former Kewite and  garden writer Herbert Cowley. Invalided soldier gardener Cowley worked as an editor and garden writer, as garden photographer and friend of Gertrude Jekyll and at one point for Country Life.

Full circle back to Country Life there…

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More on WW1 Gardening here:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/remembering-ww1-in-zoos-and-gardens/

and also an article I wrote for a local village in Cornwall about WW1 life and food: https://devoranwarmemorial.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/life-in-wartime-devoran-in-world-war-1/

WW1 Ration books (Author’s collection)

 

Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo gardens project, Newquay Zoo.

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering Allan Beard of Kew WW2 died 1946

Kew Gardens lost 14 staff on active service in WW2 including a postwar casualty Allan Beard who died around 6 August 1946, 70 years ago today.

Kew Gardens WW2 staff War memorial part 3  (photo:  Mark Norris)  

The 14th and last name on the Kew Gardens staff war memorial is Allan Beard, who served as a despatch rider with the Middlesex Regiment and died aged 31 a “tragic death” just after the war, possibly from injury related to war service.

His obituary http://www.kewguild.org.uk/articles/1855/ appeared in the 1946 Kew Guild Journal.

Beard had been a gardener on the Parks Staff at Stamford Park, Ashton Under Lyne until he joined up in 1939. http://www.tameside.gov.uk/parks/stamford/history

Along with several garden colleagues, he had joined Hyde Company, Territorial Army section of the 6th Cheshire Regiment in early 1939; this would see him very quickly called into service three days before war broke out. By October 1939, he was serving with the Middlesex Regiment and fought through the campaigns of 1940 in Northern France and Belgium, eventually being evacuated from Dunkirk.

Back in Britain, instead of promotion Allan Beard chose to train as a despatch rider partly from a love of motorbikes.

Sadly he was the victim of a wartime traffic accident (not surprising with blackout etc), being struck by an army lorry in Canterbury in 1943.

By June 1944 he had been discharged from the army on medical grounds and returned to his previous garden job. Stamford Park by then had lost its railings in wartime, collected as salvage metal for the war effort, but had been maintained as a public park, popular like Kew Gardens with people encouraged in wartime to “holiday at home”.

Allan Beard entered Kew in August 1946 under a Government assisted training scheme. His obituary is reported in the 1946 Kew Guild Journal but not listed on the CWGC website as his death occurred as a civilian after military service. It may have been linked to his earlier accident.

To read more about Kew Gardens in WW2:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/the-lost-gardeners-of-kew-in-world-war-two/

Allan Beard of Kew Gardens, remembered 70 years on.

Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens Project, Newquay Zoo.

Digging For Victory

Fairly random WW2 photographic postcard from our World War Zoo Gardens collection entitled “Digging For Victory”, the name of the Government backed drive to encourage all from schools, scouts, workplaces, families and even zoos to grow their own food.

The back gives really not much more for information, other than the jokey family tone and the cub scout hat.  It reads “Your daft-in-law, doing his turn. Good Scout”.

Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens Project. Newquay Zoo

 

Kew & CWGC Re-unite for Somme 100

Richmond's First World War

Article Courtesy of James Wearn

Kew’s First World War Centenary project this year focuses on the 100^th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. Reinvigorating an historic collaboration, three Kew staff (Dr James Wearn, Andrew Budden and Sarah Veniard) accompanied by photographer Paul Little, re-visited the battlefields accompanied by Commonwealth War Graves Commission Director of Horticulture, David Richardson, and Head of Horticulture for Western Europe, Gareth Hardware.

There were three components to their activities: (1) commemoration of three former Kew staff who lost their lives on that battlefield, two of whom remain ‘missing’; (2) assessment of the post-war regeneration of the flora; and (3) consideration of Kew’s longstanding collaboration with the CWGC, which began even before the Somme battles, as well as looking forward to modern opportunities and challenges in commemorative horticulture.

The last resting place of Kewite John Divers, MIA in fields near Les Boeufs. Image Courtesy of…

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Royal Artillery War memorial

49,076 men remembered on the Royal Regiment of Artillery memorial, WW1, Hyde Park Image: Mark Norris

Visiting Kew Gardens for their Somme100 talk with The Commonwealth War Graves Commission on 6th July 2016, I passed en route this striking memorial to the Royal (Regiment of) Artillery at Hyde Park Corner, sculpted by Charles Sergeant Jagger.

http://spartacus-educational.com/ARTjagger.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sargeant_Jagger

http://www.c20society.org.uk/war-memorials/london-royal-artillery-memorial/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Artillery_Memorial

Striking relief panels of a trench howitzer. Image: Mark Norris

Royal Artillery memorial Hyde Park; Another relief panel of gunners, one wearing the winter goatskin warmers. Image: Mark Norris  

Further details of Jagger’s relief panels, Royal Artillery Memorial, Hyde Park.  Image: Mark Norris

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Unusually Jagger depicts a dead draped gunner or Artilleryman on this 1914-19 section of his Artillery memorial at Hyde Park. The small carved inscription beneath the figure writing notes  that a Roll of Honour of all who served in The Royal Regiment of Artillery is housed forever inside this memorial. Image: Mark Norris

Another of Charles Sergeant Jagger’s “gunner” memorial figures, Royal Artillery Memorial, Hyde Park. Image: Mark Norris

The huge stone howitzer tops this impressive memorial, Royal Artillery Memorial, Hyde Park. Image: Mark Norris

Several of the Kew Gardens and London Zoo WW1 casualties were in various branches  of the Royal Artillery. Many others of their surviving staff would have served in the Artillery  as well. They are all remembered on this Memorial.

Henry Peavot, Albert Staniford, William Perkins, ZSL staff casualties in the Artillery:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/remembering-lost-wartime-staff-of-zsl-london-zoo-in-ww1/

C.H. Brown, J.W. Clark, F.T. Pursell/ Purssell, Kew Gardens staff casualties in the Artillery:

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/such-is-the-price-of-empire-the-lost-gardeners-of-kew-in-the-first-world-war/

Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project, Newquay Zoo.

Poppies at the Zoo Wartime Garden

Field poppies in the World War Zoo Gardens, Newquay Zoo July 2016 (Image: Mark Norris)

A busy schools week of education workshops, looking at animal enrichment and nutrition,  so I have been raiding our World War Zoo Wartime Garden for scented herbs or  enrichment scatter feed for monkeys such as edible Nasturtium flowers and leaves, globe artichokes  or colourful Ruby and Yellow Chard.

Mixed in amongst these flowers and leaves were some beautiful Field Poppies.

Posted by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project, Newquay Zoo