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VOLUNTEERISM AND EARLY RECRUITMENT EFFORTS IN DEVONSHIRE, AUGUST 1914–DECEMBER 1915*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2009

BONNIE J. WHITE
BONNIE J. WHITE*
Affiliation:
McMaster University
*
Department of History, Chester New Hall 619, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, CanadaL8S 4L9whitebj@mcmaster.ca
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Abstract

Historians of Britain and the First World War have debated the extent to which there was a rush to colours in August 1914, as well as the consequences of bringing the war effort to the communities and homes of the civilian population. While the historiography has gradually shifted away from accepting that the wave of volunteerism in 1914 was ultimately an expression of patriotism and support for the war effort, there is still little understanding of the impact of the recruitment and propaganda campaigns at the local level. Focusing on newspaper reports and recruitment records, this article offers an examination of how Devonians responded to recruiting agents and their attempts to get men to enlist, and the effect on communities, families, and individuals who were targeted by both civilian and military authorities. This study reveals that Devon's recruitment profile differed from national trends due to occupational and geographical factors, as well as the refusal of small county newspapers to practise self-censorship.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 641 - 666
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Stephen Heathorn, Martin Horn, Pamela Swett, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions in preparing this article. This article is adapted from my Ph.D. dissertation entitled ‘War and the home front: Devon in the First World War, 1914–1918.’

References

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7 Col. M. W. Skinner, ‘National service league’, Express and Echo, 10 Aug. 1914, 6; W. J. Reader, At duty's call (Manchester, 1988), p. 103. See also A. Marwick, The deluge: British society and the First World War (New York, NY, 1965), pp. 309, 10–11.

8 N. Ferguson, The pity of war (New York, NY, 1998), pp. 177, 198–207. See also A. Gregory, ‘British “war enthusiasm” in 1914: a reassessment’, in Gail Braybon, ed., Evidence, history and the Great War: historians and the impact of 1914–1918 (Oxford, 2003), pp. 68–9, 73–81. For complementary studies for France and Germany see, Jean-Jacques Becker, The Great War and the French people (New York, NY, 1986), pp. 1–17; Jeffrey Verhey, Spirit of 1914: militarism, myth and mobilization in Germany (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 12–20, 58, 72–114, 134–5.

9 Cresswell papers, 5 Aug. 1914, DRO, Cresswell of Devon, 4686M/F51.

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12 ‘Plea to Devonians’, 21 Aug. 1914, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L129.

13 Hartland and West Country Chronicle, 25 Aug. 1914, located in Fortescue papers, DRO, lord lieutenancy 1914–18, 1262M/L 129.

14 DRO, lord lieutenant's papers 1881–1914, 1262M/O/LD/112.

15 Qu. in Peter Simkins, Kitchener's army: the raising of new armies, 1914–1916 (Manchester, 1988), pp. 58–9, 59.

16 Ibid., p. 64.

17 Ibid., p. 59.

18 Western Morning News, 24 Aug. 1914.

19 David Silbey, The British working class and enthusiasm for war, 1914–1916 (London, 2005), pp. 116–17.

20 Notice to employees, 14 Aug. 1914, DRO, Heathcoat of Tiverton, 4302B/B/43.

21 ‘Join the war effort’, 26 Aug. 1914, DRO, Fraser's Insurance Company, PR 8661/51; letter to employees, 1 Oct. 1914, DRO, Shell Oil Company, PJ 5496/17. ‘Enlist today’, Great Western Railway Magazine, 30, 6 (1918), p. 3.

22 Speech at Tavistock, 29 Sept. 1914, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L158.

23 Ibid.

24 ‘Men of Devon’, 3 Oct. 1914, DRO, CRC, 1037M/L941, pp. 1–7.

25 Ibid.

26 Dawlish Gazette, 15 Sept. 1914.

27 Salcombe Gazette, 18 Sept. 1914.

28 Wilber Mason to Devon County Council, 17 Sept. 1914, DRO, lord lieutenancy 1914–18, 1262M/L129 Bundle 18.

29 Report for September 1914, 30 Sept. 1914, DRO, Devon County Council, 1262M/L129 Bundle 18.

30 Colonel Symesis to Devon PRC, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L129. Printed in the Western Morning News, 17 Oct. 1914.

31 ‘Unspecified’ refers to retired from business, pensioners, students, scholars, private means, and others.

32 Enlistment records by name, age, and occupation, 1914–18, DRO, 1037M-O/4; voluntary enlistment of men category B, army reserve, 1914–15, DRO, Ref. 1037M-O/1. See Ian Beckett and Keith Simpson, A nation in arms: a social study of the British army in the First World War (Manchester, 1985), pp. 9–10.

33 W. G. Hoskins, A new survey of England: Devon (London, 1954), pp. 30; F. M. L. Thompson, English landed society in the nineteenth century (London, 1963), pp. 327–39; David Cannadine, The decline and fall of the British aristocracy (New Haven, CT, 1990), p. 97; J. V. Beckett, The aristocracy in England (Oxford, 1986), p. 475.

34 Labour on the land, 1 Oct. 1914, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/O/LD/144.

35 James Munson, Echoes of the Great War: the diary of Reverend Andrew Clark, 1914–1919 (Oxford, 1985), pp. 10, 24, 92; Gliddon, Norfolk and Suffolk, pp. 19–20; Becker, The Great War, pp. 125–31; Robert G. Moeller, German peasants and agrarian politics, 1914–1924: the Rhineland and Westphalia (Chapel Hill, NC, 1986), pp. 16–20.

36 W. H. Bolt to Earl Fortescue, 25 Oct. 1914, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L129.

37 Teignmouth Post, 25 Oct. 1914. See also Exeter Flying Post, 27 Oct. 1914.

38 Western Express and Torrington Chronicle, 29 Oct. 1914.

39 Higher Street barracks, 27 Sept. 1914, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L129/57.

40 Alex Duncan to Lord Fortescue, NSL, Devon division, 6 Oct. 1914, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L142.

41 Exeter Flying Post, 5 Nov. 1914.

42 Teignmouth Post, 4 Dec. 1914. For similar sentiment see Clutton diaries, 28 Aug. 1914, DRO, Clutton of Devon, 6258–0.

43 Gerald D. Wasley, Devon in the Great War, 1914–1918 (Tiverton, 2000), p. 32.

44 Simkins, Kitchener's army, pp. 80–7.

45 John Hartigan, ‘Volunteering in the First World War: the Birmingham experience, August 1914–May 1915’, Midland History, 24 (1999), pp. 176–7.

46 John Stevenson, British society, 1914–1915 (Harmondsworth, 1984), pp. 50–2.

47 Population of Devon by parish 1801 to 2001, DRO, census records, Devon Library Local Studies Service, CENSATA.

48 Bruce Coleman, ‘The nineteenth century: nonconformity’, in Nicholas Orme, ed., Unity and variety: a history of the church in Devon and Cornwall (Exeter, 1991), p. 143. Baptists comprised the third largest religious group in Devon with 142 places of worship and 29,939 members.

49 Cornish and Devon Post, 26 Sept. 1914; Western Independent, 23 Sept. 1914; Totnes Times, 24 Apr. 1915; Crediton Chronicle, 5 June 1915; Devon and Exeter Gazette, 5 Aug. 1915. See also Alan Wilkinson, The Church of England and the First World War (London, 1974), pp. 21–4, 33–48, 91–108; Albert Marrin, The last crusade: the Church of England in the First World War (Durham, 1974), pp. 83–4.

50 Exeter and Shebbear district of the United Methodist connection, ‘The church and the war’, Cornish and Devon Post, 19 May 1917, p. 2; church minute book, 16 Mar. 1916, DRO, Torquay-Paignton Methodist 2330/D57; parish council records for Newton Abbot, 28 Nov. 1916, DRO, 3934D/4; Launceston Weekly, 5 Dec. 1914. There were 748 non-Anglican places of worship in Devon with 172,116 members. Coleman, ‘The nineteenth century: nonconformity’, p. 138.

51 David J. Starkey, ‘The ports, seaborne trade and shipping industry of south Devon, 1786–1914’, in Michael Duffy, et al., eds., The new maritime history of Devon (Exeter, 1992), pp. 33–5.

52 Dawson, Michael, ‘Liberalism in Devon and Cornwall, 1910–1931: “The old-time religion”’, Historical Journal, 38 (1995), pp. 425–7.Google Scholar

53 Launceston Weekly News, 7 Nov. 1914.

54 Hartland and West Country Chronicle, 5 Nov. 1914.

55 ‘Rail crisis in Devon’, 29 Oct. 1914, DRO, Great Western Railway, QS/DP/671. See also Hartland and West Country Chronicle, 7 Nov. 1914.

56 Salcombe Gazette, 4 Dec. 1914. Although there were no Pals battalions in Devon, volunteer battalions, or city battalions, were, at times, referred to as Pals by local residents.

57 Hartigan, ‘Volunteering in the First World War’, p. 178.

58 Recruiting in north Devon, 25 Nov. 1914, DRO, Town Clerks Office Okehampton, 3268A/13/76.

59 Recruiting report, 18 Jan. 1915, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L153.

60 Report from Charles Sprague, 7 Aug. 1915, DRO, Devon PRC, Tavistock DEC, 3248A/13/76.

61 Bideford Gazette, 26 June 1915.

62 Letter to Lord Fortescue, 15 Jan. 1915, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L112.

63 Bideford and North Devon Gazette, 23 Feb. 1915.

64 Meeting of the Devon County Council, 5 Nov. 1914, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L143.

65 Ibid. See also Hiley, Nicholas, ‘“Kitchener wants you” and “Daddy, What did you do in the Great War?”: the myth of British recruiting posters’, Imperial War Museum Review, 11 (1999), pp. 40–3.Google Scholar

66 First World War, correspondence, posters and appeals relating to the war effort, 3 Sept. 1915, DRO, Ford family of Branscombe, 1037M-0; correspondence and papers concerning recruiting, 1914–15, DRO, lord lieutenant papers, 1262M/O/LD/153.

67 Hiley, ‘“Kitchener wants you”’, 40.

68 Gullace, Nicoletta F., ‘Friends, aliens and enemies: fictive communities and the Lusitania riots of 1915’, Journal of Social History 39 (2005), p. 350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69 Internment at Dartmoor, 25 June 1915, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L151.

70 Crediton Chronicle, 22 May 1915. For more on the impact of propaganda on morale see Hans Speier, ‘Morale and propaganda’, in Daniel Lerner, ed., Propaganda in war and crisis (New York, NY, 1972), pp. 3–16.

71 Beckett and Simpson, A nation in arms, pp. 139, 135.

72 ‘A short history of Devon volunteerism’, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/MM12.

73 Territorial force association for Devon, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/O/LD/156; Territorial force association for Devon, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/O/LD/119; Territorial force association for Devon, DRO, local government 17/5C/TA2-5. See also Wasley, Devon in the Great War, pp. 34–5.

74 Volunteers for May 1915, DRO, local government, 1037-O/LG/4/7/25.

75 Western Morning News, 10 June 1915.

76 L. McKeen to Lord Fortescue, 24 May 1915 DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L129.

77 Gisela C. Lebzelter, ‘Anti-Semitism – a focal point for the British radical Right’, in Paul Kennedy and Anthony Nicholls, eds., Nationalist and racialist movements in Britain and Germany before 1914 (London, 1981), p. 96.

78 Exeter Flying Post, 17 Apr. 1915, 24 Apr. 1915.

79 Exeter Flying Post, 11 June 1915.

80 Exeter Flying Post, 17 May 1915.

81 Western Morning Post, 27 Aug. 1914.

82 Western recruiting report, 31 Mar. 1915, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L129.

83 C. A. L. Fursdaus to Lord Fortescue, 31 May 1915, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/L153.

84 Mr Hughes-Buller to Lord Fortescue, June 1915, DRO, Devon PRC, 1262M/L153.

85 Simkins, Kitchener's army, p. 104.

86 Paul Ward, Red flag and Union Jack: Englishness, patriotism and the British left, 1881–1921 (New York, NY, 1998), pp. 4–6, 121–3; Franz Coetzee, ‘English nationalism and the First World War’, History of Contemporary Ideas, 15 (1993), pp. 363–6; Silbey, The British working class, pp. 106–16.

87 Gullace, Nicoletta F., ‘White feathers and wounded men: female patriotism and the memory of the Great War’, Journal of British Studies, 36 (1997), p. 182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

88 Tiverton Gazette, 4 Sept. 1914, 9 Sept. 1914.

89 Lady Fortescue on the White Feather Brigade, 30 Aug. 1914, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/O/LD/141.

90 Illustrated Western Weekly News, 3 July 1915.

91 Gullace, ‘White feathers and wounded men’, pp. 184–91.

92 Exeter Flying Post, 6 Aug. 1915.

93 Crediton Chronicle, 19 Sept. 1914.

94 Teignmouth Post, 7 May 1915.

95 Gullace, ‘White feathers and wounded men’, pp. 193–4.

96 Dawlish Gazette, 3 Oct. 1914.

97 White Feather Brigade, 5 Oct. 1915, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/O/LD/141. White Feather Brigade, 16 June 1915, DRO, Fortescue of Castle Hill, 1262M/O/LD/141.

98 Order of the White Feather, 3 Nov. 1915, DRO, Devon PRC, 1262M/L153.

99 Illustrated Western Weekly News, 5 June 1915.

100 E. C. Gerrard, ‘Duty's call to men who will not go’, Western Express and Torrington Chronicle, 12 June 1915, p. 2.

101 Dawlish Gazette, 19 Sept. 1914.

102 Paignton Chronicle, 29 Sept. 1915.

103 Nicoletta Gullace, The blood of our sons: men, women, and the renegotiation of British citizenship during the Great War (London, 2002), pp. 83, 84.