Thursday 8th October 1914

Just as some men had been transferred away from 10th Battalion to join the ASC, so some others were transferred to join the 23rd Divisional Cyclist Company. The date of their transfer is not clear, but it would appear to have been effected at an early stage in their training and certainly a number of men were selected and transferred together, as witnessed by their near consecutive service numbers. Certainly in other newly formed divisions the transfers had taken place by mid-October, as reported by a letter from a Craven recruit to another Division who found himself transferred to a cyclist company. His letter, published in the Craven Herald on 16th October, described his new role:

"I am attached to a cyclist battalion, whose main functions are scouting in advance of the main army, but we have also to learn everything the infantryman knows. Generally speaking, we have physical drill at 6.45, which is very trying to some of the married men, but with a little practice they can often put the youngsters through it. It is often accompanied with about a three mile march. From 9.30 to 12.30 generally squad, section or company drill, following about a four mile march. In the afternoon it is generally skirmishing, which is the most exciting and sometimes the hardest of all drill, such as rushing a heavy cycle across a ploughed field behind a hedge bent half double in order to avoid capture or to get into a position to successfully repel the oncoming enemy. The outskirts of Colchester are literally intersected with bye roads and lanes, and it is very difficult for an opposing force to move on without being found and checked".

It seems likely that a similar regimen would have been followed by the six men from Tunstill's original recruits who transferred. They were James John Angus; Walter Dinsdale; Henry Clifford Harvey (for whom see 29th September); Joseph Parker; Wilson Pritchard and Sam Shepherd.

Wednesday 7th October 1914

A further round of medical examinations saw more men discharged from the army.  Most of these men were simply described as being ‘not likely to become an efficient soldier’ or ‘medically unfit’, though in some cases (see below) more specific reasons were given. Pte. Samuel William Foster was a 20 year-old blacksmith’s striker; originally from Shipley, he had been living in Bradford. He was discharged as having ‘flat feet’. Pte. Samuel Procter was a 21 year-old railway platelayer from Colne; he was discharged on the grounds of ‘general debility’. Pte. Francis Sharkey was a 29 year-old labourer from Bradford; he was discharged on account of having “bad varicose veins”. Pte. John Thornton (12317) was a 23 year-old warehouseman from Bradford; he was discharged on account of having “bad varicose veins”. Pte. Edgar Walters was a 27 year-old collier from Pontardulais in South Wales; he had a ‘chronic cough; probably pulmonary tuberculosis’. Within a week he would attempt to re-enlist, with the Cheshire Regiment, but would again be discharged after just 13 days. Pte. Joseph Simpson Wardman was a 33 year-old card grinder from Cleckheaton; he had ‘displaced semi-lunar cartilages in left knee’.

At some point, most likely in early October, two of Tunstill's original recruits were transferred to become drivers with the Army Service Corps. Both Thomas Edward (Ted) Askew and William Henry (Harry) Metcalfe became drivers in the horse transport section of the ASC and both were on active service in France before Christmas 1914, while the remainder of Tunstill's volunteers remained in training at Frensham. Both men had extensive pre-war experience of working with heavy horses and it seems clear that there expertise was valued and put to good use at the first opportunity.

Little can currently be said about Ted Askew's war service other than the fact that in November 1918 the Craven Herald reported that he was home on leave for the first time in more than three years.

For Harry Metcalfe, on the other hand, information from his grandson, Alan Metcalfe (to whom I am most grateful) has shed some light on his military career and on his life after the war. Harry arrived in France on 15^th December 1914 to rendezvous with the 2^nd Indian Cavalry Division, which had left Bombay on 19^th November 1914 and arrived in France on 14^th December.  It has not been possible to verify Harry’s personal war service record but something can be said of the Division as a whole. At times during the war the division served in the trenches as infantry, each Cavalry Brigade once dismounted formed a dismounted regiment. The 2nd Indian Cavalry Division (which was renamed 5^th Cavalry Division from 26^th November 1916) served in France and Flanders until March 1918 when the Division was broken up and reformed in Egypt as the 2nd Mounted Division. 

Harry and Ethel Metcalfe, taken late in Harry's Army
career (the overseas service chevrons visible on his
right sleeve were only authorised by an Army order
in December 1917.
 

What part Harry played personally and where exactly he served cannot be established, though some family anecdotes suggest that he may, at some point, have seen service in connection with the Canadian forces on the Western Front. What is clear is that Harry served throughout the war. He was home on leave when he was married on 23^rd January 1917 to Annie Ethel Wooler at St Mary’s Church, Long Preston. Harry returned to service and was not finally discharged to the Class Z Army Reserve until 21^st April 1919. 

After the war Harry and Ethel set up home on Church Street in Long Preston and Harry worked as a goods porter on the local railways, most likely at Hellifield, until at least 1924. He later worked as head horseman for Mr. Robert Preston, who was a major local landowner in Long Preston, and also as gamekeeper. Harry and Ethel’s first son, Jim (James Henry) Metcalfe was born on 14^th April/1920. Two other sons followed: William Edward in 1922 and John Wooler in 1924.

 

Annie died on 12^th April 1946 at the family home in Long Preston and Harry died on 17^th December 1956, aged 67, at Raikeswood Hospital in Skipton; they are buried together (along with their son Jim and his wife, Joan) in the churchyard at Long Preston.

Tuesday 6th October 1914

Two of Tunstill's recruits, George Clark and John Thomas Cockerill, both of whom were from Settle, were reported as being absent without leave from the training camp at Frensham.

Monday, 5th October 1914

Pte. James Leach was appointed Corporal. He was a 25 year-old textile worker from Bingley; he was married with four children.

Harry Harris (see 11th September), then serving as a Private in the Public Schools' Battalion, Middlesex Regiment at Kempton Park, completed his application for a temporary commission. He was to become one of the original officers with Tunstill's Company.

Sunday, 4th October 1914

J.B. Priestley wrote to his family to inform them about recent events at Frensham (Priestley was a member of 'B' Company, 10th Battalion). He professed himself to be "dog-tired" and described a routine day in training as consisting of:

• Breakfast at 7 am
• Physical exercise from 8 – 9.45 am
• Squad drill from 9.45 – 12.15
• Skirmishing drill from 1 - 4.15 pm
• Route march from 5 - 6.30 pm

He also confirmed that he had received his first Army pay (10 shillings, of which he enclosed 5 shillings with the letter). He went on to confirm the general pre-occupation with the food provided to the men; he described Lyons catering as, ‘scarcely satisfactory. Breakfast is alright – tea, bread and butter and a slab of brawn or ham. Dinner is far from good and we have to fight for the grub. Tea consists of the eternal bread, butter and jam. We spend something every day on buns, on fruit and chocolate, to fill up.”

The rigours of Army life were also taking hold; “I take very good care of my feet, because the strain put on them is enormous, and an infantryman with bad feet is useless. I wash them constantly and rub any sore places with Vaseline every night”. 

Finally he passed on information which he had been given by his Company Captain that there would be a move into winter quarters at Whitley in about 6 weeks; following that he had been told that by late February or early March the Battalion would then be “due for special service at the front”.

 

 

Saturday, 3rd October 1914

Gilbert Tunstill was commissioned Temporary Lieutenant (he had applied for his commission on 23rd September). He had made it clear from the outset that he would only accept a commission if he were allowed to remain with his own Company and he now took his position as second -in command of the Company to Captain Hildyard.

Following a round of medical examinations, a number of men were discharged as being "not likely to become an efficient soldier". Pte. Fred Bentley was reported as having a “dilated and irregular heart”; he was a 30 year-old coal miner from Liversedge and was married, with one daughter. Pte. Arthur Overend had enlisted in Keighley on 20th September and had been among the local men who had been attached to Tunstill's Company when they arrived in Keighley the following day. Arthur was 30 years old and originally from Farnhill, near Keighley. He had married Mary Ellen Shackleton in 1905 and the couple had lived for some time in Cononley before moving to Keighley Road, Cowling; by 1914 they had four children. Arthur had been working as a bus driver. He was discharged due to having a "dislocated cartilage in his right knee". Pte. Ernest Campbell was a 20 year-old carter from Settle and was found to "have bad varicose veins". Pte. George Thistlethwaite (see 8^th September) was suffering from "general debility" (his brother, John William, remained a member of the Company). Pte. Joseph Webster was a 49 year-old labourer from Huddersfield and was married with one daughter. He had previously served a total of 18 years in the Army, with the Dukes and the Yorkshire Dragoons. No specific ailment was cited in his case.

.

Friday, 2nd October 1914

The weekly edition of The Ilkley Gazette referred to a letter which had been sent from Pte. J.C.B. Redfearn to his father in Ilkley. It was said that Redfearn, "intimated that the Wharfedale men are making the best of things and getting accustomed to their new mode of life and circumstances generally. They are well provided with blankets and underclothing".

John Charles Brison Redfearn was born on 24^th July 1891 at Gosport, Hampshire; he was the only child of John and Elizabeth Redfearn. His father had been born in St John’s, New Brunswick in 1854 and his mother was a native of Guernsey. John senior had spent many years in the Army and the family moved in accordance with his career; in 1901 they were in Orkney where John was serving as a Company Sergeant Major in the Royal Garrison Artillery. Ten years later John senior had retired from the Army and he and his wife were living in Ash Grove, Ilkley, while John junior was training as a teacher at York Training College, Lord Mayor’s Walk, York.

 

John junior had completed his studies by the time that war broke out and on 11^th September 1914 he completed his attestation papers at Ilkley. He was one of the Ilkley contingent who had joined Tunstill's Settle recruits on Monday 21st September.

 

 

News of other letters from men of 'A' Company were also referred to in the pages of The West Yorkshire Pioneer. The newspaper reported that,

"Amongst those who have recently shown their patriotism is a group of well-known Barnoldswick gentlemen who have joined the Keighley Pals (sic.). They are Messrs. Tom Pickles, Harry T. Pickles, Harry Widdup, J. Bargh (a native of Bradford, but associated for some time past with the Craven Bank) and J. Birley. These friends are camping, together with their regiment at Frensham, near Farnham, Surrey, and in recent letters home they state that they are well and on the whole enjoy the new life. It is a singular fact that as yet there is not a rifle in the camp and many of the men are without uniform. Route marches, manoeuvres and drill appear to be the order of the day, but these, coupled with good wholesome camp food and the healthy atmosphere of the Surrey Downs are agreed on all hands to form excellent preliminary work for the more serious business of practical warfare to come".

 

This group of Barnoldswick volunteers were drawn from among the middle-class mill-owning families of the area. Three of them (the two Pickles and Widdup) were attached to Tunstill's Company before leaving Halifax.

Harry Thornton Pickles

Tom Pickles and Harry Thornton Pickles were cousins. Their fathers (Henry and Stephen respectively) were sons of Stephen Pickles snr., who had established a successful cotton spinning business in Barnoldswick after spending a brief period (with his family) in Massachusetts in the 1850’s.

Tom Pickles (aged 25) worked in the family business whereas Harry Thornton Pickles had pursued a legal career. He had been educated at Silcoates School, near Wakefield before attending The Victoria University, Manchester, where he completed both B.A. and M.A. qualifications. In 1910 he began to study law, and was articled to Messrs. Goulty and Goodfellow, solicitors, Manchester. Early in 1914 he secured the University degree of LL.B., with first-class honours. Shortly after leaving the University the authorities had selected him for a vacant lectureship in English Law and Jurisprudence. However, on the outbreak of war both he and cousin Tom had volunteered for the Army.

Harry Widdup’s father, John, had originally run a business as a coal merchant, but more recently had established a cotton weaving business. John himself had recently retired and Harry, along with his brothers, Ellis, Frank and John, had taken over the running of the business.

John Bargh was a 26 year-old bank clerk from Bradford. As yet I have been unable to make a positive identification of J. Birley.

An article was published in The Brighouse Echo describing conditions at Frensham Camp: 

YORKSHIRE TROOPS IN SURREY – SLEEPING ON HEATHER

The training of Yorkshire troops on Frensham Common, near Farnham, Surrey – amongst whom are the ‘D’ Company West Riding Regiment of Lord Kitchener’s Army – continues under very enjoyable conditions. During one or two nights last week there was a bite in the air which told of frost and of the approach of cooler days but a beaming sun from an almost cloudless sky has been the rule by day and the task of preparing troops for the field is carried out from 6 am until 6 pm with but little intermission except for meals which, by the way, continue to be first class. The tramp of so many feet is wearing the common bare of grass. Heather is also disappearing from the immediate vicinity of the camp, being cut and taken by the men to their tents to form a softer couch than a waterproof sheet affords. Of heather, however, there is enough and to spare, hundreds of acres of the Common being knee-deep of it. The beds of the men are being built up with more blankets, which have been generously given by residents of the neighbouring villages and townsa and from friends in Yorkshire, but stil more would be acceptable. The troops have been befriended in many ways, and by no-one more than by Mr. Morton Latham, of Hollow Dene, Frensham, who has presented cart-loads of fruit and through whose influence schools, institutes and various public buildings have been thrown open to the men of an evening. The weather on Sunday was Summer-like and the Common was thronged by large numbers of the general public, many attending in the hope of seeing the King, who was expected to pay a visit from Aldershot, but His Majesty did not appear. In the afternoon a drum head service was conducted by the Rev. F.G.D. Webster, the Chaplain, and, although attendance was not obligatory, a large percentage of the troops were present. The singing was hearty and reverential and was accompanied by a local brass band. Non-Conformist services were also held on the Common by local ministers at the same time.