Revealing more on the story of Private Jordan .............. from Cheltenham to Cairo

This is one of those sad postscripts, but one that holds the promise of discovering more about a soldier of the Great War.

Cairo War Memorial Cemetery

Yesterday I wrote about Private H F Jordan who spent time recovering from his wounds in the St John’s Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham.*

During his time there he left a message in the autograph book which had been started by Ms Rachel Wattis.

But apart from a record of the medals he was awarded and an entry in the UK Army Register of Soldier’s Effects I could find nothing more about him.

Today I heard from David Harrop who owns the autograph book.  He had also gone looking for Private Jordan and found his grave in Cairo where he was buried in February 1919.

“This cemetery is within the Old Cairo cemetery area, which is situated approximately 5 kilometres south east of the centre of Cairo. 

The cemetery area is on the south side of the road Salah Salem, which runs west/east from the River Nile towards the green park area approximately 2 kilometres beyond and eventually towards the Citadel.”**

And Private Jordan rests close to the Records Office.

The message from Private Jordan, December 1916

We still have no idea how he died but we now have his full name and his date of birth and armed with these it should be possible to find out a little bit more about Frederick Thomas Harry Jordan who died aged 26 in Egypt four months after the end of the Great War.

And in doing so take the story of that message in the autograph book just a little further forward.

Picture; Cairo War Memorial Cemetery, courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commissions, http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/11000/CAIRO%20WAR%20MEMORIAL%20CEMETERY and Private Jordan's message from Blighty, the autograph book of St John's Red Cross Hospital, Cheltenham from the collection of David Harrop

Image from the autograph book, © David Harrop


*Blighty ............. a unique record from the Great War part 2 looking for Private H F Jordan, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/blighty-unique-record-from-great-war.html

**CAIRO WAR MEMORIAL CEMETERY, Commonwealth War Graves Commissions, http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/11000/CAIRO%20WAR%20MEMORIAL%20CEMETERY

Continuing the search for Miss Robertson of Cheltenham ........ born in India, who tended the wounded in the Great War

Now I know I will find out more about Miss Kathleen Roberts, but I fear it won’t be yet.

And that is a shame because I have now seen the medals she was awarded by the Red Cross for her work during the Great War.

The little I do know is intriguing enough.  She was born in Coonar in Maddras which was one of the hill stations favoured by the British during the hot season in India, her maternal grandmother came from Tasmania and was the widow of an Indian army officer who brought her children up in Cheltenham.

So I wasn’t surprised that this was where I found Miss Robertson in the April of 1911 and it made sense that she should be working in a Red Cross hospital in the town.

But that pretty much is it.

There were promising leads.  I found a Kathleen Robertson on the shipping lists for India both going out and coming back in 1934 but on closer inspection this was not her.

I found three of her aunts and an uncle and am still looking for more on her grandmother, Agnes Baker but  the trail stops at 1872.

In that year  Mrs Baker was in India.  This I know because three of her children were born there between 1872 and 1877, while her final child was born in Cheltenham in 1879.

What of course is revealing is the light it shines on those families who served the Empire.  Mrs Baker had been born in Tasmania but lived part of her married life in India briefly coming back in 1873 when she gave birth to her fourth child.

Some of the records for both her and her granddaughter will be in India and so may prove more difficult to access and I have yet to find any references to Miss Robertson’s parents but in time they will tumble out of the shadows.

The real search however is for young Miss Robertson, after all now that I have seen her medals I must go on.

Pictures; the Red Cross medals of Miss Kathleen Robertson, courtesy of David Harrop 

*Red Cross Nurses, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Red%20Cross%20Nurses

Blighty ............. a unique record from the Great War part 6 of doctors and nurses and airman

Some of the doctors and nurses at St John's circa 1917

Now sometime in 1917 one of the patients of the St John’s Hospital in Cheltenham put together an imaginary “meeting” of some of the doctors and nurses.

It was a bit of fun but it has handed us a clue to a few of the Red Cross staff who tended to the wounded and it reminded me of that simple lesson that you should always do your research thoroughly for had I done so I would not have made that most basic of mistakes and written something about the hospital which was wrong.

F Wilson, 10th Argyle and Sutherlands

I had assumed that we knew only two of the nurses and they have proved elusive to track down but not so for here now are the names of sixteen doctors and nurses who in the fullness of time will offer up something of their lives.

And that will put into context the book which includes their names and those of some of the men who stayed at St John’s.

It was an autograph book started by Miss Rachel Wattis who hoped that it would be a permanent reminder of the men who passed through the hospital and would still be seen

“When the leaves of this Book are yellow with age,
And the fingers are still that have wrote on this page,”

And just under a century later I am privileged to be able to turn those pages and read the poems and inscriptions along with some fine drawings and water colours.

Sgt J H DeGraves, 1917

Here is a tiny but moving piece of history recording the thoughts of men from every part of Britain and from further away for one of the entries is from a young soldier of the “47 Canadian Infantry Wounded Vimy Ridge January 1 1917.”

And he turned out to be the first whose story came to light after the article was posted on a Canadian site dedicated to British Home Children.

Having read the account of his stay in Cheltenham Susan Brazeau in Alberta went looking for his service records and we now know he enlisted in Vancouver in the July of 1915, and was 31 when he was wounded.

I have every confidence more of the lives of those named in the book will come forward.

Already with the help of one of the archivists at Cheltenham Local & Family History Library it has been possible track Miss Rachel Wattis by following the name of her brother whose name appears below her inscription.

 “The inscription at the bottom of the image says “1st (A?) Wattis , Late 15th Squadron, RFC”…

Rachael Wattis and Harry Wattis, 1916

I’ve looked him up and he was H Wattis 2nd class (or possibly 1st class) Air Mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps, number 3264. 

He saw action in France and was mobilised around 20/12/2015 earning the 15 Star but no later medals. I would assume he may have been injured early in the war as a lot of 15 Squadron were injured flying reconnaissance missions. 

Having looked on the Imperial War Museum site ‘lives of the first world war’ I note there is a Harry Hampton Wattis with the same regimental number who was in the RFC (he’s actually on there twice, also shown as H Wattis). 

The full inscription of Ms R Wattis, 1916

Having looked on the 1911 census I have found him living at 57 Fulham Road Sparkhill B'ham with his mother and sister (both called Rachel) so I think this is likely to be the family in question. 

Worth  a bit more delving maybe…”**

Now that just makes the history jump off the page and of course points to the importance of sharing and working together.

So with that said and a bit more of the lives of the some of St John’s Hospital revealed I will go off and ponder what next.

Pictures; entries from Blighty, the autograph book of St John’s Red Cross Hospital, Cheltenham, courtesy of David Harrop 

Entry from Blighty, © David Harrop

* Cheltenham Local & Family History Library, http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/article/109250/Cheltenham-Local-and-Family-History-Centre

** Rebecca Sillence, Library Customer Assistant, Cheltenham Local & Family History Library

Blighty ............. a unique record from the Great War part 4 setting the story straight

Ms Wattis explains

Now I am no where nearer finding out anything more about Ms Rachael Wattis who in the August of 1916 opened an autograph book for the patients of the St John’s Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham.

It is a unique record of some of the men who spent time in the hospital, comprising 29 entries ranging from poems, and pictures to short passages expressing gratitude for the care the men received

The hospital which wasn't St John's

It comes from the collection of David Harrop who maintains a permanent exhibition of memorabilia from the Great War at the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery.

So far I have been able to find out something about three of the men who made a contribution in the book and in time it should be possible to find out something about the remaining twenty-seven along with the two Red Cross personnel who are also mentioned.

But today this is a correction because in the first of the stories I included a picture of what I thought was the Red Cross Hospital

St John's Red Cross Hospital

It was an easy enough mistake to make given that it showed a group of Red Cross nurses and soldiers and was with the autograph book.

It is a Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham and just maybe Ms Wattis is amongst the staff but it is not St John’s

And this I know because of help from the   Cheltenham Local & Family History Library who kindly supplied me with an image of the hospital along with some more taken from a copy of a local newspaper.*

At which point I do have to express my thanks to local history and studies centres which are often the first point of call when attempting to tell a story, especially when that story takes off all over the country.

Inside St John's

So I owe a special debt of gratitude to the archivist at East Dunbartonshire who helped me solve the mystery of how a photograph of a cinema in Chorlton taken in 1920 could end up in Scotland, a special thanks to the Derby library who brought some of my family out of the shadows and to Greenwich and Manchester who I use a lot and never tell me to go away.

And so to Cheltenham where amongst their records was that picture of the Red Cross hospital from the Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic of July 31 1915.

And there is no way that the picture I originally thought was St John’s can be so because it had been a school which quite clearly my picture is not.

All of which is confirmed by the remaining images from the Cheltenham Chron which show what were either very large classrooms or the school hall, none of which would have fitted inside the grand house on my postcard.

And the added bonus is that the newspaper provided more staff names which can be followed up and perhaps reveal a link to Ms Wattis.

Average duration of patients in St John's, 1915-1919

Nor is that all for there is also the final report on St John’s from the Red Cross covering the four years from when it opened in June 1915 through till its close in January 1919.**

It had been equipped to take 160 patients which were “increased to 180, [and] was exceptionally well adapted for a hospital having no stairs; its proximity to both railway stations ..... and on several occasions individual cases on ambulance trains, too desperately ill to proceed to the North, were detrained in Cheltenham and brought to St John.”**

In time it will be useful to compare this report with the one we have for one of our Red Cross hospitals here in Chorlton, and of course it will send me off into Cheltenham to explore some of those who kept St John going.

Above all the report offers a context for those 29 entries.  I know that 2995 men passed through the hospital and that only 15 died and it may be that some at least of the 29 had stays matching the averages for 1916 and 1917.

It is only a start but we are a little closer to those men and women who spent their time in St John’s

Additional research from Cheltenham Local & Family History Library, http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/article/109250/Cheltenham-Local-and-Family-History-Centre

Entry from Blighty, © David Harrop

Picture; Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic July 31 1915, courtesy of Cheltenham Local & Family History Library, cheltlocalstudies@gloucestershire.gov.uk

* Cheltenham Local & Family History Library, http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/article/109250/Cheltenham-Local-and-Family-History-Centre

**St John’s V.A. Hospital Glos, 108 final Report from the Red Cross in Gloucestershire 1914-1919 quoted from, St. John's VA hospital Cheltenham http://www.angelfire.com/az/garethknight/redcross/stjohns.html

The Man Behind the Autograph

Now I like the way that stories grow and take on a new direction, so here is a post from Susan who took a brief piece on an autograph book and revealed the man behind the comment written  in that Red Cross hospital autograph book in 1917. 

Introduction:  For me, the story of Sergeant John Henry DeGraves begins in 1917 in a hospital in Cheltenham, England, during the Great War.  The story includes a nurse, who had the foresight to think beyond those moments, and an autograph book in which were written the names, or thoughts, or little poems by convalescing soldiers. It was a book that was cherished and preserved, until it reached the hands of others in those beyond moments, who would also preserve and cherish it.

Without Nurse Rachel Wattis, of St. John's Hospital, it is likely that J.H. DeGraves and other wounded soldiers might have been forgotten entirely, as time passed.

Could John possibly have imagined that a short poem he placed in this little booklet was going to be seen and enjoyed by others over one hundred years later; or, that it would prompt a curious seeker, such as me, to want to learn something of his life?

 Here is what I found out about this Canadian soldier who was wounded in the field of battle and received care, far from home. Coincidentally, this all took place in the very hospital in which my great great grand uncle, fifty years earlier, had advocated for better medical treatment, especially for soldiers.

Early Life:  John Henry Harrington DeGraves was born January 28, 1886 in Albury, New South Wales, Australia, the son of Joseph Michael and Eliza Jane Brooks [Eisenholdt] DeGraves.

At the age of 17 in 1903, he arrived in British Columbia (B.C.), Canada. According to the 1911 Canadian Census, John, who was working as a Brakeman on the railway, his younger brother, Norman, and their mother, Eliza, were all living together at 1150 12th Avenue, in Vancouver. It is not clear if John's father also came to Canada.

John is recorded as being single at this time; however, a B.C. marriage certificate indicates he married Elizabeth White on November 3, 1908.

The next two records found for John were in Ship's Passenger Lists when he and Elizabeth sailed from Vancouver on the Niagara, arriving on September 27, 1913 in Sydney, Australia.

After a visit of five months, they returned to Vancouver on February 3, 1914 on the ship Wangara.  John's occupation, in both instances, was recorded as Captain of the Vancouver Fire Department. This was not to last long, as his life was interrupted by the onset of the Great War in August of 1914.

Great War Years:  John enlisted in Vernon, B.C. on July 8th, 1915.  At the time, he and Elizabeth had been living at 909 Richard St. in Vancouver. On his Attestation Papers, John stated he had prior military service of one year with Victoria Mounted Rifles in Australia.  After coming to Canada, he had been with 6th Regiment, Duke of Connaught's Own Rifles (4 1/2 years) and, also with the 11th Regiment, Irish Fusiliers of Canada. He is described as standing 6 feet, 1 1/4 inches and having a dark complexion, brown eyes and black hair.

John's unit, the 47th British Columbia Battalion (BCRD), sailed on the Missawabie from Montreal, November 13, 1915, arriving in Plymouth, England, November 23rd.  Shortly after, he was promoted to Sergeant and maintained this rank throughout his time of service.

On August 10, 1916, John went to France and was engaged in the field at the beginning of some of the most horrific battles faced by Canadian troops.

It was in "No Man's land" that John was awarded the Military Medal of Bravery for actions he took capturing a German dugout and obtaining vital information that helped the Canadian cause.  Only a few short weeks later, on December 30th at Vimy Ridge, a "whizz-bang" hit the trench in which John was located.

He received gunshot wounds to his head, left leg and right arm that resulted in his treatment in the field hospital in France for three weeks. John was then transferred to St. John's Hospital in Cheltenham at the end of January.

The wounds to his leg and head caused no serious concerns and healed quickly, leaving permanent scars; however, John's right arm had several wounds from the shoulder to below the elbow that never fully healed.

Eventually, he experienced ongoing weakness and pain, losing over 40% of the use of his arm, yet, it is fortunate for this writer, that it did not prevent him from penning a few lines in Nurse Wattis' autograph book.

On July 11, 1917, Sergeant John Henry DeGraves was discharged as being medically unfit to return to active service.  In April, 1918, John sailed on the Aquitania, leaving from Liverpool and arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia  on April 29th. His destination was  Victoria, B.C. where he was officially discharged from the Canadian Expeditionary Forces on June 5, 1918.

After the War: John and  Elizabeth (who was called Lil) are known to have had at least one child, Bessie Brooks DeGraves, born in Vancouver after John enlisted.

Following the war, few records have been located for John; however, he is in the Voter's Lists from 1940 until the year of his death:
1940 Assistant Fire Chief -Living in Vancouver
1945 Now working as an exporter - Living in Vancouver
1949, 1953 and 1957 Retired and living in the Fraser Valley district of B.C.

Occasional Canadian newspaper articles mention John's name when he was assisting in the investigation of serious fires that occurred in his city. Unfortunately, no obituary has been located that might have filled in more of his life.

Death:  John and Elizabeth were living in Mission City, B.C. at the time of his death.  He died July 14, 1957 in Shaughnessy Hospital, Vancouver.  Elizabeth passed away in 1968 and their daughter, Bessie (Hargreaves) died in 1988.  John and Elizabeth are buried side by side in the Haztic Cemetery in the Fraser Valley.

And so, this concludes my brief story of a young soldier who left behind a few unspoken words in a country far removed from both his birth land and adopted homeland; yet, here we are in the year 2015 reading those words and thinking good thoughts of him.  It has been nice getting to know you, John Henry DeGraves.

© Researched and written by Susan [Hillman] Brazeau, BA, MA-IS,

August 2015, Lloydminster, Alberta, Canada

Picture, page from the St John's Red Cross Hospital autograph book, courtesy of David  Harrop and medal supplied by Susan [Hillman] Brazeau

Sources:
1.  Ancestry.ca:  Family research record
                           :  Australian 1891 Census
                           :  Australian Birth Marriage and Death records
                           :  1911 Census of Canada
                           :  Canadian Voter's Lists
                           :  Canadian Ships Passenger Lists 1913, 1914
                           :  Find-A-Grave
2.  British Columbia Vital Statistics (Birth, Death and Marriage records)
3.  Canada Great War Project
3.  Library and Archives Canada (Service Records)
4.  Andrew Simpson's Online Blog: Blighty… [July 9, 2015]

Miss Kathleen Robertson, a Red Cross hospital in Cheltenham and a hill station in India

I am off looking for the story of Ms Kathleen Robertson.

The Nilgiri Hills

She was a nurse with the Red Cross in Cheltenham during the Great War and her medals have just been acquired by David Harrop who has a collection of memorabilia from both world wars.

David was keen to add theses to the collection because they compliment an autograph book from the St John’s Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham which was started in 1916 and ran through to the end of the war.

The book contains poems, pictures and comments from men recovering from wounds.  Some of the men were wounded at Gallipoli and others in the opening weeks of the Battle of the Somme.

Now I think I have found her in Cheltenham in 1911, and already the story has taken a fascinating turn.  She was born in 1897 at Coonoor in Madras which  is the second highest hill station in the Nilgiri mountains. It was a popular summer and weekend getaway for the British during the colonial days.

And I suspect that her mother will have chosen to settle there for Kathleen’s birth.
Now that is a bit of a supposition but in 1911 she was living with her grandmother at 29 Park Place Cheltenham.

All of which would suggest that her parents were still in India.

So there is much still to do from tracking her mother and father, discovering  more about Miss Robertson’s time the Red Cross and what happened to her after the Great War.

This will I hope involve the help of the local studies centre in Cheltenham who may be able to locate the staff list of the hospital.  As yet the Red Cross have yet to digitize all their staff records and I am hoping the centre will be able to find her.


And along the way I might find out more about her grandmother who was born in Tasmania.

In the meantime I await David’s pictures of Miss Robertson’s medals.

Picture; Nilgiri Hills in Tamil Nadu  http://www.flickr.com/photos/enchant_me/144986171/sizes/o/ , his file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en, no changes were made to this image

Blighty ............. a unique record from the Great War part 2 looking for Private H F Jordan

This was the message that Private H F Jordan left in the autograph book of the St John’s Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham.*

He was recovering from wounds in December 1916 and as a mark of his gratitude he wrote a short thank you to the nurse who had cared for him.

He was one of 29 men recovering from wounds sustained in Gallipoli and on the Somme who left a mix of messages from poems, drawings, paintings and short comments.

In the fullness of time it should be possible to find out something about each of these 29 and the nurses who are also mentioned in the book.

So far a search for Private H F Jordan has revealed that he received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal and that he died in March 1920.

I know he served in the Essex Regiment and that there is an entry for him in the UK Army Register of Soldier’s Effects and that is all.

But there will be more.

Already I know  a little more about the hospital and in time with the help of Cheltenham Local Studies Centre we should have a series of photographs which will give a greater context to the time he spent in Cheltenham.

Picture; the entry of Private H F Jordan, December 1916 from Blighty, the autograph book of St. John's Red Cross Hospital, Cheltenham from the collection of David Harrop

*Blighty, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Blighty

Blighty ............. a unique record from the Great War part 1 with a bit more from Canada

I am looking at a picture of the staff and patients of the St John’s Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham on July 1915.

And somewhere on the photograph maybe Rachel Wattis who in the following year later bought a sketch pad from J.J.Banks & Son which became an autograph book used by the men convalescing from their wounds.

They contributed poems, comments and sketches and reading them on this warm sunny day in June is to be taken back in an instant to that hospital and to the men recovering from wounds received the year before at Gallipoli and many more from the Battle of the Somme which was still in full swing.

In the fullness of time I will go looking for Rachel Wattis.  As yet the Red Cross have not completed their mammoth task of putting all their personnel from the Great War on line and so far a search for Ms Wattis has revealed only a possible candidate leaving in Birmingham in 1911.

Likewise I will also look for the identities of the men who left a contribution partly to satisfy my own curiosity but also because I think it is important.

After all by sheer luck the autograph book has survived a century and it is important that the men and women who made the book should be recorded and something of their lives before and after 1916 brought out of the shadows.

So this is just the first of a series of posts which tries to explore the stories of these people caught up in one of the great events of the last century.

And from those pages I have selected two entries, neither of which I have researched yet.

I could have chosen others including that of Private A E Dunn of the Border Regiment whose poem on Gallipoli was written in November 1916 and recorded the exploits of the 11th Division “who landed at Sulva Bay

They were part of Kitcheners Army
Some left children and wives
To fight for England’s freedom
And they fought for their very lives”

But for today it is the sketches of J Wilson who like one of my uncles was in the Argyle and Sutherland Regiment and a Sergeant from the 47th Canadian Infantry wounded at Vimy Ridge on January 3rd 1917.

He too has a personal connection because my great uncle was also serving with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

And there I think is one of those simple and obvious observations that most of us will have a relative who served either in the armed forces, the Red Cross or another of the voluntary organisations during that conflict.

It is luck that this book has survived but also a tribute to David Harrop who acquired it and has kindly lent it to me so that some of the stories of those who filled its pages can be researched and told.

And soon after this was posted I recieved a message from a fellow Canadian researcher who had gone looking for the young soldier from the 47th Canadian Infantry.

Barb Torres discovered that he had enlisted in 1915, was 30 years old, from Vancouver and because the records of men from Canada who fought in the Great War are intact it will be possible to uncover his full military record.*

Now apart from the excitement of taking the story one step further it points yet again to that degree of co-operation between researchers and historians which advances our common knowledge.

I rather think Ms Wattis would be pleased and endorses her comments on the opening page of the autograph book, "When the leaves of this Book are yellow with age and the fingers  are still that have wrote on this page, those sweet to remember the dear ones of old whose friendship you prize more than silver or gold." 

Picture; St John’s Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic July 31 1915, courtesy of Cheltenham Local & Family History Library, cheltlocalstudies@gloucestershire.gov.uk and pages from Blighty, the autograph book of the men recovering in the hospital, from the collection of David Harrop and the Attestation Paper, courtesy of Library and Archives Canada,

With additional research from Barb Torres

*Library and Archives Canada,
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/image.aspx?Image=286018a&URLjpg=http%3A%2F%2Fdata2.archives.ca%2Fcef%2Fgpc002%2F286018a.gif&Ecopy=286018a

And a thank you to Cheltenham Local & Family History Library, cheltlocalstudies@gloucestershire.gov.uk