City people’s stories of the war are told at last

Like many other cities, Wolverhampton suffered significant losses. More than 4,000 men and women – both frontline soldiers and civilians – were killed during the conflict and many more were injured.

Yet very little has been written about the city’s contribution to the war effort and what life would have been like for its people at this time.

Now the stories of Wulfrunians, from the ordinary folk to the national heroes, have been recorded in a new book published by The Wolverhampton Society.

Quintin Watt, who has edited Wolverhampton’s Great War, 1914-21, says it’s the first known attempt to produce a history of the city during The Great War.

“There have been books written about other cities such as Birmingham and Coventry but there are no books about Wolverhampton.

“A lot of cities have their own books that were written in the 1920s and 30s but no one in Wolverhampton decided to write one,” he explains.

“This would have been the best time as there would have been lots of sources and eyewitnesses to interview who aren’t around today. It should have been done at the time but it wasn’t so we’re trying to remedy this with this book.”

The retired history teacher believes there a few reasons that could explain the gap in the city’s history books.

“I always think people from Wolverhampton were underwhelmed by the war. They didn’t feel they had made a big contribution because they didn’t have the big munitions factories that other places had even though they did have some factories here. They didn’t acknowledge that Wolverhampton was making a contribution.

“After the First World War there was a big economic depression and people were bitter – they had fought in a world war but what had it achieved? There was quite a lot of disillusionment so Writing a book wasn’t a priority.

“In those days, people living in places like Tettenhall and Penn didn’t think of themselves as living in Wolverhampton. They were much more conscious of their local identity. People living in Bilston would never have considered themselves as Wulfrunians so we’re dealing with a small geographical area.

“The size of the populations in places like Birmingham and Leicester that did have books written would have been much larger, “ explains Mr Watt.

The Wolverhampton Society was keen to ensure this period of history and the mark it left on the city were recorded.

“We started talking about the book in autumn 2017 as the society’s contribution to the city’s centenary commemorations of the Armistice in 2018.

“We’ve obviously missed that deadline but it was important to us that we produced something that was of high quality and something that we were proud of.”

The book was a team effort with different writers contributing articles on a range of topics such as how local hospitals treated battle casualties, the impact of the ‘Spanish ‘flu’, the wartime experiences of members of the Sankey family and the planting of trees as war memorials.

Many of the contributors were inspired by their own family’s connections to events, such as Mick Powis who was told about the Zeppelin air raids by his grandmother.

“I call it a patchwork quilt of micro-histories,” says Mr Watt. “I realised there were people in the community that had interests in certain topics but I was very keen that people who didn’t regard themselves as writers also had the chance to tell their stories.

“It’s what we call citizen history – everybody has the right to pass on stories relating to their own families.”

He has contributed two articles to the book, which is available from Waterstones.

The first, titled The Midland Railway at War, was inspired by brass plaque commemorating 68 employees of London and North Western Railway’s goods department who were from the Wolverhampton District and died made the “supreme sacrifice” during the war.

Today thousands of commuters walk past it every day at the city’s railway station. After it sparked his interest Mr Watt decided to research the experiences of the men from the area who worked for the Midland Railway, for whom no such memorial exists.

“Sadly no comparable memorial exists to honour the sacrifice made by the local men of the Midland Railway,” says Mr Watt.

He has also written about brave sailor Able Seaman Douglas Harris, who was born in Penn in 1898 worked as a baker before joining the Royal Navy for fight for his country.

After being stationed on HMS Admirable, his communication skills led to him being drafted in Italian drifter Floandi as a wireless operator. On the night of May 14, 1917, Floandi came under heavy attack in the Adriatic Sea from the Austrian Navy. He stuck to his post in the wireless room on the crippled drifter and continued to send messages and make entries in his log until he was hit and killed by a piece of shrapnel.

A memorial, which now stands in Wolverhampton’s St Peter’s Gardens, was paid for by public subscription.

As part of his research, Mr Watt tracked down Able Seaman Harris’ log book at the Imperial War Museum in London.

“He was hit by shrapnel and killed while writing in the log book. I had to wear gloves to handle it. It was very emotional seeing the last thing he wrote and seeing the pencil line where his hand had jerked as he was killed,” says Mr Watt.

As well as being a historical record and educational tool, he hopes the book will inspire other people to carry out their own research.

“We want it to be first of many books on this subject, not the last,” says Mr Watt.

Wolverhampton’s Great War 1914-1921 is available priced £11.95 from Waterstones. See wolverhamptonsociety.com