Wendover Remembers, January 1916

JANUARY 1916

The withdrawal of the Allies from Gallipoli was completed in January – amazingly without a single casualty. By the end of 1915 the flow of volunteers into the British forces was failing to keep pace with the casualty numbers and in January 1916 the Military Service Act introduced Conscription – initially for single men and childless widowers. Zeppelins continued to bomb England.

In January Halton Camp suffered its own bomb explosion. The Bucks Herald of 15 January reported that: “An inquest was held on Friday evening, January 7th, into the death of Private George Cecil Brock, of the Essex Regiment, aged 18. The deceased was killed during a lecture explaining the construction of hand grenades. In his lecture Lieutenant F. Dickinson had taken a grenade to pieces and had put the separate portions on the table which was between him and the men. He went among the men for about ten minutes showing and explaining a diagram. He told the men how to put it together again but he gave no instructions for this to be done and ‘it would be contrary to custom and practice for anyone to do so without permission’. The deceased who had recently come out of hospital was seen sitting by the fire well away from the table but suffered 10 penetrating bullet wounds from the explosion.” The report is silent on how exactly the explosion occurred.

The January 1st Bucks Advertiser and North Bucks Free Press reported the proceedings of the Aylesbury Petty Sessions: “Supt. Wootton stated that about two o’clock on Christmas Day a man named Haynes employed by Mr A. Seaton, Aylesbury, called at the Marquis of Granby, Weston Turville, with a horse and cart. As he entered the house two soldiers left, and directly afterwards Haynes’ attention was called to the fact that the two soldiers were driving off with the cart as fast as they could in the direction of Aylesbury. A motor car came along and Haynes obtained a ride in it but failed to trace the soldiers or the horse and cart. On the same afternoon P.C. Dillow saw the defendants on the Lower Stoke Road in charge of the horse and cart. The constable stopped them, but in consequence of their conduct he considered it wise to obtain assistance. Fortunately he met the Military Police who at the time were also making inquiries. They overtook the accused, who were from Halton Camp, and arrested them. Because their Regiment was ordered to leave the following day an officer from the 24th Middlesex Regiment asked the magistrates to hand the men over to the Military Authorities for punishment”.

The bad winter weather and the heavy traffic played havoc with the roads of Wendover. The surveyor from Wycombe District Council attended a Wendover Parish Council meeting to answer a complaint about the amount of mud left lying on the roads. The surveyor stated that it was impossible to cart away mud in such a liquid state and it must be left for water to drain out. The Clerk for the Wendover Council replied, “regretting that the surveyor could not keep abreast of the work in the same way as it was carried out by surveyors of other towns, but that it should be thought necessary to leave mud as a trap to the unwary”.

At noon on Wednesday 26th of January the Trustees of the Almond’s, Bradshaw’s, Hunt’s, Menning’s, Mallison’s and Saunderson’s charities distributed bread and money to parishioners in the Parish Room. The report in the Bucks Herald noted that the Vicar received 6s 8d from the Almond’s Charity for preaching a sermon in Wendover Church on the Wednesday of Easter week and that rent from Thomas Mallison’s ground was used to buy Bibles and Prayer Books and provide bread for the poor of the Parish.

There were no reports in January 1916 of local Wendover servicemen being wounded or killed as a result of actions at the Front. It was a situation that was to change dramatically as the year progressed.