A little bit more on that Burnley mystery

Officers of the B.V.T.C, 1914

Just when you think you are getting to the bottom of a mystery the search takes off in the most unexpected of ways.

Yesterday I was trying to work out what a Manchester man who lived in Stockport was doing in Burnley at the outbreak of the Great War.

He was George Davison who came from Manchester, started his married life in Hulme and went on to live in Romiley in Stockport.

But in 1914 he was in Burnley long enough to be associated with the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps.

And by the end of that year he had enlisted and spent the war in Woolwich, Ireland and later the Western Front.

George's badge, 1914

That he was somehow connected with the Corps is evidenced from two pictures of the unit parading outside St John the Evangelist in Worstholme and an enamelled badge of the Volunteers with his name and the inscription George Davison Company Commander A Coy 1914.

All of which was further confirmed by a postcard with a Burnley address wishing his son Duncan a happy birthday.

The card was sent to Fairholme Road.

Now I couldn’t work out from the handwriting the location of the house but Craig Simpson could and went one better by contacting Burnley Library who then added to the mystery because “all our map, directory, census and electoral registration records show that Fairholme Road was not built until 1922.

There was a Fairholme Street, but the only records we have for this in 1914 show only odd numbers (1, 3 and 5).

Further investigation shows that this is actually one and the same road ....... it changed its name after the opposite row (of even numbers) was built in the early 20's (there is a continuation of residency at Number 5 which can clearly be followed).

The postcard, 1915

So, to clarify – there wasn't a 4 Fairholme (or Fair Holme as it's sometimes written) anything (either Rd or St) in 1914.  Which quite clearly raises more questions than it answers!”

At which point I confess I had not looked too closely at the postcard because the post mark dated it to April 1915, by which time George was in Ireland.

Earlier in the month his wife Nellie had been in Stockport where she seems to have been for most of that year.

But the correspondence for the four years of the war show that she moved out of the cottage in Romiley, spent time back in Hulme and was also for a time living close to George when he was in Woolwich and Ireland.

The family circa 1916

And it may also be that the total absence of any letters in the collection for 1917 was because she had relocated to be near him.

Not that this solves the mystery of Burnley but it does open up the intriguing question of how many other married women followed their husbands to live near them.

Train travel got progressively more difficult during the Great War and there was a continual hike in the cost of rented accommodation but if Nellie did it and did it with her young son others may have also done so.

As for Burnley the address may have been wrong, but that said it did get to Nellie and Duncan because it was in the collection.

Badge, 1914

So I don’t know.

But the family were somewhere in Burnley both in 1914 and again in 1915 which calls for more investigation.
The obvious first step will be to check out Nellie and Georges’ siblings and see who they married and if there was a connection with the town.

And there will also be the Volunteers.

Somewhere there must be a list of who was in the Corps and with that will come more information on the unit itself which will shed local light on the work of those men too old or unfit to enlist but who felt the need to serve.

Now I have every confidence that David and his colleagues at the library and Craig will in the fullness of time turn up more.

Pictures, officers of the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps, the badge of the B.V.T.C., that postcard, and George Nellie & Duncan from the collection of David Harrop

So what was George Davison doing with Burnley Volunteer Training Corps in 1914?

Now I wonder what George Davison was doing in Burnley in the autumn of 1914.

I know he was a clerk who had variously worked for a solicitor and later a “mineral water manufacturer” and that he had moved from Chorlton-cum-Hardy to Hulme and by 1911 was living in Romiley.

All of which makes his presence in the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps a bit of a mystery but that was where he was in 1914.

The Volunteer Training Corps was a voluntary home defence militia made up of men who were over military age or engaged in important occupations and units sprang up all over the country in the months after the outbreak of the Great War.

Although there was a central committee which was recognised by the War Office the individual volunteer training units were not and had to be financially self supporting providing their own uniforms which could not be Khaki.

Later during 1915 these units were recognised as Volunteer Regiments and in the following year the War Office decided to include them into the County Infantry Regiment and they became “Volunteer” battalions of their local regiments.

But by then George had enlisted in the regular army and was in the Royal Artillery first in Woolwich and later in Ireland and then France.

So I am intrigued at his connection with Burnley not least because the family were in Romiley in 1911 and well into the early years of the war

Of course the family may have temporally relocated and later Mrs Davison did sublet the cottage when she moved to London and Ireland to be close to George so it is possible that for a bit of 1914 he or they were in Burnley.

The street directories and electoral roll along with the rate books may provide an answer but that will involve a lot of research.

In the meantime it is another example of just where you can end up.  Until I saw the enamelled badge for the Volunteers I had no idea that the organization had existed or of the part it played during the Great War.

The Burnley Volunteers were active in the early months of the war and this we know from Mr Davison’s participation but also from an advert which appeared in the Burnley News on November 28 1914, in which

“The Committee of the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps have undertaken to Register the names and addresses of those who wish to join a Burnley Pals Battalion.  

To ensure the success of the proposal leave your names and addresses at the Offices, 2 St James Row, Burnley”*

Now that with a bit of digging might offer up a name of an individual linked to the Volunteers and one day I may be able to place that with one of the men from parading sometime in later 1914.

But that for now is about it.

I went looking for the Offices, of 2 St James Row, Burnley but sadly they have long gone, but then until recently the existence of the Burnley Volunteers were unknown to me so who knows what might turn up and with that something more of Mr Davison’s connection with Burnley will come out of the shadows.

Well we shall see.

Pictures; enamelled badge for the Volunteers, and the BVTC C Company on parade, circa 1914 from the collection of David Harrop

*Rushton William, The Accrington Pals, 1993

The mystery of what the Manchester man who lived in Stockport was doing in Burnley

George, Nellie & Duncan, circa 1915

I am no nearer knowing the mystery of what George Davison was doing in Burnley and I think I am going to need some help.

He was born and grew up in Manchester, began his married life in Hulme and then settled in Stockport where the family pretty much lived for the rest of the 20th century.

And when George was sent to Woolwich and later Ireland during the Great War his wife Nellie and son followed him for short periods.

But the family home was from 1911 in Stockport which makes their time in Burnley in 1914 a bit of a mystery.

Now I know he was there because during the winter of 1914 he was in the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps and we have one letter addressed to number 4 Fairholme Road, Townley, Burnley.

The letter to Mrs Davison in Burnely

Sometime during the end of 1914 he had enlisted and by January he was in Woolwich.

Nellie appears to have moved back to Hulme for short periods but always retained the home in Stockport although at times she sub let it.

The obvious conclusion is that he was working in Burnley and given the later practice of sub letting the Stockport cottage that would seem reasonable.

But to be sure it will be a matter of checking out the electoral registers and rate records for Burnley and here it would be useful to have someone on the ground to do the research.

Of course there will be those who mutter that it is all very small beer but I think it is important because we do have a large amount of material much of it written by George to Nellie during the war along with some courting letters, school reports and official documents which follow him from his entry into school to his death on the Western Front in 1918 and continue into the middle 1950s.

St John's

There is also the chance that it will shed some more light on the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps which was the Home Guard of the First World War.

So far I have come across little about the organization other than newspaper reports, an enamelled badge and two pictures of the men on parade.

When one of these pictures was posted the church behind the men was identified as St John the Evangelist in Worsthorne which is just outside Burnley.

There are references to the Corps parading there and so it was nice to have a location for the picture.

And that is the value of local knowledge.

So I hope someone out there will help with finding out more about George and Nellie’s stay in Burnley

Picture; of the Davison family circa 1915 & St John the Evangelist date unknown from the collection of David Harrop

On locating the spot where the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps paraded in the winter of 1914

Now I like the way that stories are picked up and added to.

So when I posted two stories on the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps in 1914 I vaguely knew of the connection with Worsthorne but this was confirmed by Craig Simpson who identified the location of  this picture of the Corps on parade.

It “was taken in front of St. John the Evangelist Church in the village of Worsthorne on the edge of Burnley.”

And sure enough the location today is still pretty much the same even down to the lamppost, which I think may have moved marginally in the century since the picture was take,

But that said it is possible to stand on that open space in front of the church exactly where the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps stood in 1914 which is a powerful link to that group of men a full hundred years ago.

Picture; the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps, from the George Davison collection, courtesy of David Harrop

Who will pay for the uniforms of the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps in December 1914?

Now I know that there has always been a strong tradition of voluntary support for our armed services during war time.

Officers of the Burnley Volunteer Traiing Corps circa December 1914

There are plenty of examples of wealthy individuals recruiting and equipping military units to go off and fight bestowing their name in the title of the regiment.

And I suppose for some at least the early months of the Great War were no different.  

Across the country Voluntary Red Cross hospitals were established which were staffed and supported by the efforts of the local community.

Here in Manchester private companies undertook to support families of men who were enlisting in the Pal’s regiments and promising to guarantee jobs after the war.

All of which brings me to the Volunteer Training Corps which was a  home defence militia made up of men who were over military age or engaged in important occupations.

They  sprang up all over the country in the months after the outbreak of the Great War and 

although there was a central committee which was recognised by the War Office the individual volunteer training units were not and had to be financially self supporting providing their own uniforms which could not be Khaki.

On parade, circa December 1914

Later during 1915 these units were recognised as Volunteer Regiments and in the following year the War Office decided to include them into the County Infantry Regiment and they became “Volunteer” battalions of their local regiments.

Now I didn’t know of their existence until recently and have yet to explore those based in Manchester, but I have begun to discover something of the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps.

This was the unit that George Davison joined soon after the war began.  So far all I have are some photographs an enamelled badge and a series of newspaper stories which appeared in the Burnley newspapers.

And the first of those comes from the Burnely News for December 1914 which reported on the first inspection of the Volunteers by a Captain Renham who “was impressed by the military bearing of those on parade.”

But the article is far more revealing about attitudes towards the corps and in particular to how they were to be funded and equipped.

Enamelled badge

From the outset there was concern that some of military age might use enlistment in the Volunteers as a way of avoiding joining the regular army.

“The committee have been most particular about the admission of men of military age, without very good reason being first given why they have not enlisted.”

A similar concern had exercised some in Manchester at the young men who had become voluntary medical orderlies in Red Cross hospitals and led to the Red Cross patiently explaining the role of these men and the fact that many did go on to serve.

That said the newspaper reported that "the Central Association had decided upon a grey green cloth [for a uniform] ........ and it is probable that the Burnely Corps will have grey green fatigue uniforms with brown buttons and the letters B.V.T.C. on the shoulder.”

And this would involve “a large sum of money.”  To this end an equipment fund had been opened with a target sum “of a 100,000 shillings.”

Now I have to confess that in the early months of what would eventually become a war where the whole nation was mobilized, either through conscription in 1916, rationing a year later and subjected to new regulations and the vast amount of propaganda this seems odd.

But that maybe to judge the outbreak with modern eyes.

Pictures; of the Burnley Volunteer Training Corps from the George Davison Collection courtesy of David Harrop

*Burnley News December 19 1914, courtesy of Sally Dervan