West Deeping remembers 1914 – 1919

Visit St Andrew’s Church in West Deeping during the next week (until 20th November) to view a display made up of some of the research for “West Deeping remembers 1914 to 1918”, a display put on four years ago In 2018.  That was when we held a Service of Remembrance for descendants of West Deeping men who served in the Great War and re-dedicated a scroll which recorded the names of all the men who had served in the Armed Forces during the Great War.

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One of the display panels tells the story of the restoration of the scroll. Included in the display are the Commonwealth War Graves certificates for each of the 12 men born or bred in West Deeping who were killed in the war.  There’s also a series of posters – stories of some of the men (and a woman!) who served in the Great War. Find out about Joseph Anstee (the miller’s son), Albert Hemsill (a baker, from 1, King Street), George Henson, (a rural postman and keen cyclist, from May Cottages), Lilian Marriott (who enlisted with Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps), “The boys from The Row” (Frederick and George  Beehoo, Edwin Black, Searle Randall, Jim Smart, James Bertie Wright, Charlie and Jack Wright) and others.

 

To find out more about the Great War period and its aftermath, get a copy of West Deeping Remembers 1919.  It contains nearly 200 pages, numerous illustrations including old postcards of the village in the early 1900s and a Roll of Honour of all those who had a part to play in the Great War.  There are details of many more characters who played a part in the life of the village, and details of where they lived, as far as can be discovered from village documents, census records and newspaper archives.

The book is on sale at the Deepings Community Library, or from 32, King Street, West Deeping – for £18.50 (plus postage and packing if required). Email wdheritage@hotmail.co.uk

 

Celebrating 2021 and looking forward to 2022

The end of the year is fast approaching; it’s an ideal opportunity –

• to thank everyone who has supported West Deeping Heritage Group during 2021
• to reflect on what’s been achieved
• to look forward to the new year ahead
• to wish everyone all the best for 2022

There were just two talks in the last year  – in September and November – both well supported, perhaps because they were held in the afternoon rather than the evening.

Lady of Depyng, Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII was presented by local historian and re-enactor Chris Carr.

Margaret Fletcher and Dorothy Halfhide of the Thorney Society gave an illustrated talk on Strangers in Thorney.

Two more talks are planned for 2022 – the first on Tuesday 18th January, when David Mainwaring will present Pease, Puter and Piggs –  a picture of a Lincolnshire village during the Tudor and Stuart period compiled from contemporary inventories and wills. The next talk will be on Tuesday 1st March, Exploring the history of education in West Deeping.

Archaeology has been one of the most popular topics in our programme so it was no surprise that a post about the discovery of a Bronze Age spearhead by archaeologists at the Rectory Farm site caused a flurry of excitement for those who follow the website. In July, the opportunity to get digging and find out more about the site was a sell-out.

The good news is that more visits are planned for 2022, when it is hoped to have an open day along with an outreach programme for local schools.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a Heritage Group outing, but in December, there was a fascinating trip to the Loughborough-based Taylor’s Bell Foundry with the group of ladies who have recently taken up hand bell ringing. Our own village hand bells were bought from Taylor’s in 1904 and have been played by many generations for many different occasions.

A group of us gave a performance (follow the link for a video recording) at a concert to celebrate the installation of disabled facilities and a servery at the village church in October. For the village archivist, it has been most interesting to discover original documents at the Bell Foundry Museum relating to the  tower bells as well as our hand bells.  Expect another website post in the New Year!

There may not have been much face-to-face contact in the last two years, but the number of visitors on the West Deeping Heritage website, since it started in May 2013,  has grown to a total of 14,500 and the number of page views is getting on for 45,000.  There are 77 “followers”, who get automatic updates every time something is posted. As well as the News and Programme postings, the most popular pages by far are the ones about the Stamford Canal, the Welland Navigation and Molecey’s Mill.

A positive effect of the lockdowns imposed during the COVID pandemic has been the increasing number of people have made personal contact through the website and the Facebook page during the last year.

Particular thanks must go to Dale Burton, descended from families in the Deepings but now living in Australia. He has found a whole list of names to be added to the Roll of Honour of servicemen linked with the Deepings who fought in the Great War. He has discovered not only his own relatives, William and Frank Geeves, Thomas Howitt Lambert and Algernon Edwin Lambert, but also two men who had left England before the war began.  Both Walter Templeman and Robert Waltham  served with the Australian Imperial Force and lost their lives in France.  Dale’s research also found service records for William Jibb, the latest name to be added to the Deepings Roll of Honour. 

Thanks also to everyone who responded to a question about a photograph of pupils at West Deeping village school taken before its closure in 1971. All the children have now been identified, although we have still to find the first names of the nephews of former headmistress, Miss Day, who attended the school for a short period.  The talk in March 2022 will be combined with a display of photographs and information about the history of schooling in West Deeping and hopefully attract former pupils for a school reunion!

Thanks to descendants of village families – including the Figg-Smiths, the Masons, the Merrishaws, the Neals, the  Coopers, the Hemsills – and to people who have recently come to the village, who have asked what there is to know about where they live.  Their queries have all provided an excuse for sifting through the village archives and their contributions have helped to put pieces of the historical jigsaw together! Watch out for future additions to the Family History and Buildings web pages.

West Deeping remembers 1919

A personal “thank-you” to everyone who has bought and commented so favourably on the book West Deeping remembers 1919.  It even got a press review in the Western Front Association Bulletin earlier this year.  The book title implies that it covers a relatively short time frame but with a cast of over two hundred characters and a village trail of more than fifty buildings, it serves not only as a Roll of Honour but as a record of life in this small South Lincolnshire village a hundred years ago.

That’s enough history and heritage news for 2021, although there’s sure to be something I’ve forgotten to mention.

Finally, it remains to wish everyone, past present and future supporters of West Deeping Heritage, all the very best for 2022.

 

 

 

Remembrance: research uncovers more local links for WW1 Roll of Honour

 

As it has done for over a hundred years, West Deeping recently commemorated its fallen servicemen on Remembrance Sunday.

On November 14th 2021, the list of their names was read by Allan Crowson at the outdoor service in the churchyard of St Andrew’s Church led by Canon David McCormack.

There was two minutes’ silence, just as there was on 11th November 1920 when the headmistress Miss Grassam led the school-children in “a general cessation of all activities” and a two-minute silence “in honour and remembrance of those who fell in the war”.

Stamford & Rutland News 17th Nov 1920

A war memorial was erected in St Andrew’s Church in February 1920 – a brass plaque listing just eight names.  Every year since then, the names of Joseph Anstee. Tom Lunn, Charles Lunn, George Neal, Richard Roffe, Walter Skerritt, Sidney Stokes and John T Wright have been read out during the Remembrance Day service at St Andrew’s, West Deeping or one of the other churches in the Uffington group of parishes.

In 2014, the centenary of the First World War prompted a district-wide collaborative project – The Deepings remember 1914 to 1918 –  to research and put on record the Roll of Honour for the Deepings area.   Many more servicemen’s names, including casualties, were discovered.

For West Deeping alone, researchers found another eight men who were killed in action or who died as a direct result of the war, all with links to the village by birth, upbringing, residence or family associations.  Daniel Lunn was buried and already commemorated locally (at Deeping St James) as were Samuel Wilson (at Market Deeping) and Arthur Skerritt (at Tallington, our neighbouring village).  Bertram Brannon had only a very tenuous connection with West Deeping and never lived in the village, but nevertheless had reason to be included as he was the middle son of Mrs Mary Brannon, the tenant of Cromwell House in 1919.

The other four men – Sapper G W F Fallodown, Rifleman J C Groom, Privates  J H Harrison and A H Hicks  – are admittedly already commemorated in other Rolls of Honour, but further afield, so their names were added to West Deeping’s list to be read out each year at the Remembrance Day service.

There was no room to add their names to the original brass plaque in the church, but commemorative blocks are on display nearby.

It was as important to commemorate servicemen who survived the Great War as those who died.  Thirty- two names  were already recorded on a hand-written scroll compiled in the 1920s and displayed in the church.

But further research for the book West Deeping remembers 1919 uncovered the names and stories of many more servicemen linked to the village, even though they might not have been living here when they enlisted or come back here after the war. Since the book was published in 2020, several more names have come to light – fourteen need to be added.

One of the most recent additions is Joseph Mason. The Mason family lived in one of the cottages in The Row, at the end of The Lane.  Joseph and his four siblings were brought up and must have gone to school in the village, but by the age of 18 – at the time of the 1891 Census –  he had moved out and was working at The Cavendish Arms in Tallington.

West Deeping remembers 1919 includes quite a lot of information about the war years for other members of the Mason family.   Joseph’s father (also named Joseph) had died in 1911, and his mother in 1918.  HIs married sisters – Alice Sefton, Ethel Randall and  Annie Hemsill – all lived in West Deeping around 1919/1920, But Joseph Mason junior wasn’t even mentioned.

It wasn’t until September 2021 that his granddaughter got in touch with more information, which explained why he was no longer in West Deeping in the years leading up to the Great War and why his name would not have been included on the commemorative scroll.

………Pte Joseph Mason

Family archives provide the evidence that he had enlisted in the army and served in South Africa with the 16th Lancers in the Second Boer War between 1899 and 1901. He came back to England and married Annie Croud in Kent in 1902.  Presumably they lived not far from West Deeping as the births of four of the couple’s children were registered locally between 1904 and 1907.  But by 1908 the family must have moved south again, to Folkestone in Kent, where five more children were born before the outbreak of the Great War. At the age of 42, Joseph enlisted with the East Kent Buffs and went on to serve in France with the Labour Corps.

He returned to his family in Ramsgate and set up in business as a second-hand furniture dealer, but he had suffered shrapnel wounds during his time in France, from which he never fully recovered, and died in 1931. A photograph taken after his death shows his wife Annie  wearing his five medals – two clasps for his military service in South Africa between 1899 and 1902 alongside his Great War medals.

This story is just one of the family histories that can now added to West Deeping’s Roll of Honour because a 21st century descendant took the time and trouble to go back to their photographs and family records and to make contact through this website.

There are many more personal stories to be found in the book “West Deeping remembers 1919” (isbn 978-1-9162670-0-8, 2019 available to order from wdheritage@hotmail.co.uk at £18.50 (+ P&P) or to buy direct from Deepings Community Library and Market Deeping Antiques and Craft Centre)

The online and most up-to-date version of the Deepings Roll of Honour – listing those who lost their lives as well as those who survived – includes 442 names, as it stands In November 2021.  Although their  stories are not recorded on the Roll of Honour, it is possible to access the personal profiles compiled by researchers for the Deepings remember 1914 to 1918 project. Contact either Deepings Heritage or “Leave a reply” below to request more information or to share your family archives and forge yet more local links.

 

West Deeping remembers them … and 1919

Remembrance Sunday, 8th November 2020, will be marked in the churchyard of St Andrew’s at West Deeping in circumstances very different from anything anyone would be familiar with in 1919, even at the peak of the Spanish ‘flu pandemic – an invitation on social media, masks to be worn, ‘social distancing’ to be observed and contact details to be given! But the purpose – “to remember those who gave their lives for our freedom, to give thanks for their sacrifice, and to pray for those who are suffering today as a result of wars“-  is exactly the same as it was at a ceremony a hundred years ago. This plaque – commemorating eight young men of West Deeping who died in the Great War – was unveiled in St Andrew’s Church on February 22nd, 1920. A scroll listing the 32 villagers who also served in the war was displayed nearby.

“The Bishop of Lincoln said it was well that the people of future generations should know who were the men of the village who gave their lives … We can never be sufficiently grateful to the men, who by their unsurpassable gallantry, steadiness and heroism kept our dear land free from invasion and maintained its liberty.  He concluded a fine address with the words “May the memory of the sacrifice made by the brave men whose names are written on the tablet hallow and bless all your village life”.          

(Stamford & Rutland News 25/2/1920)

In 2014, members of West Deeping Heritage Group began researching the names on the plaque and the scroll.  The stories of some of our village men were written up as posters for The Deepings Remember 1914 to 1918 exhibition and all their names were included in a Roll of Honour [updated in December 2021] for all the Deepings.

WW1 commemorative blocks

With further research over the next few years, it was discovered that several more men with links to West Deeping – by birth, upbringing, marriage, residence or family associations –  could have been included! 

In 2018 four West Deeping names – Sapper G W F Fallodown, Rifleman J C Groom, Privates  J H Harrison and A H Hicks – were added to the list of casualties that is read out each year at the Remembrance Day service in the Uffington group of parishes. There was no room to add their names to the original brass plaque, but commemorative blocks are on display nearby. 

In 2018 there was an extra and special Service of Remembrance and Rededication at West Deeping – to mark the restoration and re-siting of the commemorative scroll.   Descendants of several West Deeping servicemen were in the congregation and it was an ideal opportunity for a display of all the research findings – enough for a book!

West Deeping remembers 1919

That book – West Deeping remembers 1919 – is now available, on sale at £18.50 (plus postage and packing) at Deepings Community Library or direct from the author, Maggie Ashcroft.  (Email wdheritage@hotmail.co.uk to place an order.)

West Deeping remembers 1919 covers a relatively short time frame in the long history of a small South Lincolnshire community but tries to give as wide a context as possible with the evidence that’s available. It includes a directory of more than fifty places of interest in the village and a cast of over two hundred characters, with personal profiles of all the servicemen who have so far come to light.  At the end of the book is a revised Roll of Honour – another 20 names have been added to those recorded on the memorials in the church – bringing the total number to 60.  This book represents another act of commemoration so that we –  twenty-first century successors – recognise, understand and appreciate West Deeping’s heritage.

The Tennyson’s Arms – one of West Deeping’s three pubs

West Deeping’s pub, the Red Lion, is well-known; but fewer people remember the George and Dragon and even fewer have heard of the Tennyson’s Arms!

The building is no longer there – it was demolished in the 1940s – and on the site, at the north end of King Street, are now two pairs of semi-detached bungalows built by the council not long after the end of World War 2.

With the help of  various archival resources, but mainly thanks to the memories and photographs of Bernard Roffe, who was brought up at the Tennyson’s Arms, we can piece together some of its history.

The Tennyson’s Arms, West Deeping – painted by Karl Wood in 1939                                       Courtesy of the Usher Gallery, Lincoln

The Tennyson’s Arms  is the first one to be written up since the page Village Buildings 
was launched.  Follow the link to read the whole article.
Any further information about the Tennyson’s Arms would be welcome from readers.

Midsummer Heritage opportunities

It’s “Midsummer Magic” in West Deeping from 17th to 25th June – and it’s a great opportunity to get to see some of our fascinating village heritage.

• Open Gardens

Starting with the weekend of 17th to 18th June, there will be fifteen village gardens open to the public.  All of them have history attached and five of them incorporate parts of the former Welland Navigation or Stamford Canal which cannot normally be seen.

• Heritage Walks

In the following week, there will be two Midsummer Heritage Walks – on Wednesday 21st June along part of the route of the canal and on Saturday 24th June, following the “Figg trail”!

Fun and games in West Deeping – past and present!

Past: from the 1960s until 2009, a highlight of the week for some West Deeping residents and visitors from neighbouring villages was the Evergreen Club’s meeting every Tuesday afternoon.

Their annual scrapbooks (kept from 1973 to 1985) bring on waves of nostalgia for those of us who are old enough!

One of their members would send a report of the meeting to the Stamford Mercury each week. Very often it would start with:  “The usual table games were played …”. Whist drives and games of rummy, dominoes and scrabble brought out the competitive spirit in this group of over 60s, most of whom have now passed on.  Every so often, there was  “Prize bingo”  and every week without fail there was a raffle – to raise funds for good causes, members’ birthday parties, outings and celebratory lunches.

These are just two of the photographs we have of members of the Evergreen Club –  at a Christmas concert (we’re not sure where) and on a club outing, (perhaps to Sandringham, with the rhododendrons in the background?). We don’t know the dates but we do know a few of the names – Mr and Mrs Fisher, Mrs Goodliffe, Mr and Mrs Neale, Mrs Griffin, Mrs Shipp and Mrs Walker – for example.  If anyone has more photographs or recognises parents or grandparents, please get in touch!

Present: on a Sunday afternoon in February 2017, we had a go at re-creating the fun and games that used to go on in the Village Hall, for all ages  – with a Beetle Drive and Vintage tea to follow.

“Beetle drives” were particularly popular during the 1950s and 60s as fund-raising events. Many of us will remember, as children, playing the game of Beetle at family parties – our frustration at not getting a six on the dice before we could draw the body and collect the wings and legs; our hasty efforts at drawing a recognisable beetle with a blunt pencil!

It was just the same on Sunday: the noise levels got higher with the furious throwing of dice, the groans as people got the wrong number yet again and the cheers when they successfully got the number they needed – then the yell of “Beetle” and everyone stopped and counted up their score. The final winner was one of our most senior citizens, Myrtle Cummings and the runners-up were the youngest there, Emma and James.

After all the fun and games, everyone was ready for their vintage tea – no-one took photos until it was too late and there was nothing left of Annie’s sandwiches (crusts cut off, of course) Gill’s cream scones, Maggie’s filled bridge rolls and the cakes donated by several home bakers .

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We had a raffle, of course, which raised over £100 for the village’s Jubilee Fund , set up in 2002 to fund events like the Jubilee celebrations and village fetes and pay for village amenities like the bench and daffodils in the Tinsley Field.

May the village fun and games continue!

West Deeping remembers Joseph Anstee

This morning, July 1st 2016, a dozen of us gathered in the porch of St Andrew’s Church at West Deeping.

At 7.30 a.m., Brian Marsden, a staunch supporter of the Royal British Legion, Langtoft, Deepings and Districts Branch, blew 3 short blasts on his ARP whistle.  This was the signal for ‘zero hour’ for the British troops lined up along the trenches in Picardie in Northern France, exactly 100 years ago.

We remembered all those 19,240 killed and 35,493 wounded on July 1st 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme  but West Deeping particularly remembered one of its own soldiers who fought and died on the first day on the Somme, July 1st 1916.

2nd Lieut. Joseph Anstee  was the younger son of William Anstee, the miller at West Deeping Mill, just next to the church. He had grown up in the village and judging by frequent mentions in the local newspapers seems to have been talented as a singer and pianist. He was often complimented for his flower decorations in the church and was involved with activities at the village Reading Room. He was in his early 20s when he signed up for a short military training with the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps in Berkhamsted and in October 1915 he was commissioned to the 2nd Lincolnshire Regiment. It is possible he went to France soon afterwards as the Army had an urgent need for troops after their losses at the Battle of Loos. 

2nd Lieutenant Joseph Anstee 2nd Lincolnshire 1890 – 1916

The 2nd Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment was part of the 8th Division when the British Army attacked the German front near Albert, in Picardie, Northern France. Together with the 2nd Royal Berkshires, they were at the centre of the line, leading the attack on the village of Ovillers-la-Boisselle.

 Joe,  a 26 year-old subaltern, would have been the one responsible for getting his men out of their trench and forming them up to set off across ‘no man’s land’ towards the German front line, 800 yards away. Charging into the full weight of an artillery barrage, the attack halted before it even got half way.

It’s most likely that 2nd Lieutenant Anstee died in the first hour of the first day of the battle that was to last another 140 days.

 “One of the cheeriest and best boys”

Joe’s parents, William and Mary Anstee read about their youngest son’s death in a letter from his commanding officer who had the eye-witness account of comrade Lieutenant Hubbard. “2nd Lieutenant Anstee was hit with shrapnel half-way across during the assault. I bandaged him up, and whilst awaiting him to be taken back behind the line he was hit again in the chest and died almost instantaneously. We were moved out of the trenches into another area that afternoon, so were unable to collect our dead and wounded… I can’t express what his loss is to us. He was a splendid officer and loved by all, and one of the cheeriest and best boys I have ever met, and can well understand what a terrible loss he is to you, as he is to us.”

Thiepval Memorial, Pier 1, Face C

Anstee family grave in King Street Cemetery, West Deeping

One of 72,194 men who have no known grave, he is commemorated at Thiepval (Face C of Pier 1). If you go almost to the end of the King Street Cemetery in West Deeping, you will find an Anstee family memorial not far from the right hand fence. Joseph’s parents are buried here but the inscription on the gravestone also commemorates ‘Lt J Anstee Killed in action in France July 1^st 1916 Aged 26′.

A Remembrance Cross was placed by the grave this morning.

If there are any Anstee descendants reading this, we would be most interested to hear from them.

Not just the AGM!

West Deeping Heritage Group’s last meeting of the season is on Tuesday April 19th at the Village Hall, King Street, West Deeping. With refreshments from 7 p.m., the Annual General Meeting will start at 7.30 p.m. The aim is to deal with the Agenda as quickly as possible! Then we can spend time looking at some of the village archives.

Take your pick from the collection including old photographs, newspaper cuttings, West Deeping Burial Board registers and the minutes of the first Parish Meeting.

Undertaker, William Ackland’s Ledger

Another example is the Ledger of William Ackland  who was Parish Clerk from 1919 to 1969 as well as the village wheelwright, carpenter and undertaker. Some people might consider it rather lugubrious or even inappropriate to read the details of funeral arrangements but others will be fascinated – this is village history!

The burials recorded for 1944 appear on page 63 – a boy of 11 who had fallen from a train, and Susanna Smart, who lived in The Row and died  at the ripe old age of 89. We have her photograph too.

Have you any requests? Have you any village archives to share? Send an email to wdheritage@hotmail.co.uk

 

Wade relative sets the record straight for Deepings WW1 Roll of Honour

Now the list of names, regiments and dates is online, relatives from all over the world can check to see whether members of their family are listed in the Deepings Roll of Honour. They can also put the record straight if the details are incorrect or if a photograph has been wrongly identified!

A photograph of Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, Francis Rowland Wade (1899 to 1982) from Market Deeping, has just been added.  We had a picture which we thought was Richard Wade, but we are most grateful to the relative who corrected us.

Francis Rowland Wade

Not Richard Wade but Francis Rowland Wade

Francis’ grandson, William Wade has been in contact with Liz Parkinson of Deepings Heritage to send photographs and a newspaper cutting. Richard and Francis were the sons of Richard Wade, a well-known and respected solicitor in Market Deeping during the First World War period. Owner of Wade Park and the house which became The Deepings Library, Richard Wade senior was one of the prominent townspeople who supported Lord Kesteven’s army recruitment drive.

Any amendments or queries about the Deepings Roll of Honour can be forwarded by leaving a Comment on this post.