Bottesford in the Great War - David Middletun

23rd March 2023 Bottesford in the Great War – David Middletun

David is involved with the Bottesford Community Heritage Group, as well as one of the editors of the Bottesford Living History website (www.bottesfordhistory.org.uk) His presentation drew on research conducted as part of the Bottesford Parish 1st World War Centenary Project. This has been running since 2014 to the present and was funded initially by Heritage Lottery Funding and involved 25 volunteers. Their basic drivers were: Who served and How did the community cope? They researched, gathered family information and memorabilia, worked with schools and hidden history revealed unexpected findings.

230 served in the combined Bottesford and Muston parishes from a community of 1300; 41 died up to 11/11/1918. Giving an 18% mortality rate compared with the National average of 11.6%, with many dying in 1918 in the German Spring Offensive. Much data was gathered from the Grantham Journal and the Bottesford School Log book.

The children held 18 Flag days in the year 1914 to 1915, collecting £33.0s.04d (equivalent to £300 today!) They also collected oranges for sailors, horse chestnuts to produce acetone for explosives and blackberries to produce syrup, rich in vitamin C for the troops. As normal they were involved in potato picking and harvesting, waste paper recycling.

There was also War Saving Association which had 34 families saving in 1916 rising to 127 families by 1918, raising a grand total of £648 (equivalent to £50 k today) There was also the National Egg collection with H M Queen Alexander as its Patron.  By 1915 they were collecting 1 million eggs per week with 2000 depots interlinked by FREE railway transport, they even had “Eggograms!” and the two local organisers proudly declared “only 0.5% breakages”. David showed a cartoon with the vicar preaching about ladies when visiting church could lay their eggs in the font.

He next covered Memorials, which became a contentious issue, but eventually they found a list of the 186 who lost their lives at the Leicestershire County archive at Wigston, and were recorded by regiment, but not rank. He then covered two war biographies (of the 250 produced):

Montagu Vincent-Jackson, a Lieutenant in the 11^th Battalion Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment), who died on 5^th February 1916 west of Armentieres, Flanders.  The research revealed that Montagu had been part of a group of friends at Oxford University, all of whom had given up their studies to volunteer for war time service. Vera Britain was one of those friends. Vera went on to write the celebrate book ‘Testament of Youth’ where she documented the loss of all those friends including her fiancé. There was an interesting twist. Montagu’s service records contained a letter written in 1919 by a young German officer called Karl Brand. It became clear that Karl was present when Montagu had died of his wounds and he wished to contact Montagu’s parents to give them details of his death and to return his pocket watch which had been damaged by a bullet. Sadly, Montagu’s parents had both died before the letter arrived.

The other biography was for Pte Charles (Charlie) Pacey, who served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force. One of his letters home was a poignant reminder of how important it is to reveal the details of the lives of those who fell. Or as Charlie Pacey put it in a letter home to his family ‘it’s a pity how a man is soon forgotten though. A fellow that we slept with, worked with etc., and now just an occasional thought reminds us.  Or we would forget they ever existed.’

Gail provided a warm vote of thanks, expressing as someone who lived in Bottesford what a fascinating and informative presentation it had been and members joined in with appreciative applause.                           AR