Three men of the Great War buried in Southern Cemetery a long way from home

Now I know there is more of a story here but some of it eludes me.

This is the memorial in Southern Cemetery to three men killed fighting in the Great War and for two of them I will be hard pushed to learn much about their lives because both were from New Zealand.

Alleyne G Webber was killed in action at Bauchops Hill in Gallipoli in August 6th 1915 and is “buried where he fell.”

His brother, Gerard died the following February here in Manchester “of wounds received in action before France on November 14th 1916."

Both men were 27 years old and they were from New Zealand.

Alleyne Webber was a Lance Corporal in the Otago Mounted Rifles which had been formed at the outbreak of the war and left New Zealand in the October for Egypt.

He died on the second day of an operation to capture Chunuk Bair a high point in the Sari Bair mountain range.

His brother who served in the 10th Royal Fusiliers had been wounded on the second day of what was to be the final large British attack during the Battle of the Somme.

I cannot even now begin to comprehend how his parents Emily and Alfred came to terms with the loss of two sons or that both were buried so far from home.

And I wonder also at how Mrs Ross took the news of her son Alan who had died in the July of 1916 just fourteen days after the start of the Battle of the Somme.

He too is on the memorial remembered with the lines “in memory of a splendid Friend and Comrade Alan Hamiliton Ross, 10th Royal Fusiliers Killed in action in France, July 15th, 1916.”

Now in the way these things work it will be far more difficult to uncover the lives of Alleyne and Gerard Webber, but at least I know something of Private Ross.

He was 30 years old was born in Paddington and came from a wealthy family.

His father was a ship owner and Private Ross attended Dover College founded in 1870.

There is something very moving in seeing these three men recorded together in Southern Cemetery but sadly the monument has recorded the year of Lance Corporal Webber’s death wrongly citing 1916 for 1915.

It is a small error and with the passage of a century does nothing to detract from the memorial.

I have to thank David Harrop for taking the photograph and once again point me to his permanent exhibition of memorabilia from the Great War which is housed in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern Cemetery.

Picture; from the memorial to Lance Corporal Webber and Private Weber and Ross, Southern Cemetery, 2015, courtesy of David Harrop

Remembering those from New Zealand and Australia who rest in Southern Cemetery

Now here is a book from the end of the conflict.

Final Campaign Number

It belongs to Allan Dodson who lives in New Zealand and there is something poignant in that banner headline announcing “Final Campaign Number July 24 1919.”

And I am guessing many of those who read the edition were preparing for that long journey back home.

Sadly not all of them for some like Lance Corporal Alleyne Gordon Webber of the Otago Mounted Rifles.*

He was born in New Zealand, died at Gallipoli and he is remembered on a monument in Southern Cemetery.

It is quite humbling to uncover the life of lance Corporal Webber and more so because it has brought together a number of people who have contributed to the story of this young man and his brother and friend.

I first came across Lance Corporal Alleyne Gordon Webber on a photograph of his monument taken by David Harrop.

The memorial

David has a long association with the cemetery and his permanent exhibition commemorating those who participated in both world wars can be seen in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern.

The memorial also records the names of Private Gerard K Webber and Private Allan Hamilton Ross.

Private Ross was killed at the beginning of the Battle of the Somme just fourteen days after it started.

Private Webber was wounded at the last engagement during the Battle of the Somme and died here in Manchester of his wounds just seven months after his brother Alleyne

And it is fitting as we move towards the centenary of the Somme and the special exhibition that David has mounted in the Remembrance Lodge, that Alan also has “a number of stories of men with Porirua & Nelson connections who were at the Somme including a young 2nd Lt who was one of the first ‘Over the Top’ on July 15.”

I hoping that he will share these with me and they can be included in the stories on the ANZAC soldiers who fought in the campaigns at Gallipoli and on the Western Front and are buried here in Southern Cemetery.

Lance Corporal Alleyne G Webber, circa 1914

Nor is that all for Paul Wright has also sent me some fascinating books produced for ANZAC units including “New Zealand at the Front Written and Illustrated in France by Men of the New Zealand Division.”



Location; Southern Cemetery









Pictures; cover of Chronicles of the NZEF, courtesy of Allan Dodson, and other pictures from the collection of David Harrop

*New Zealand, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/New%20Zealand

Lance Corporal Alleyne G Webber, circa 1914

Revealing more of the lives of three men from the Great War remembered in Southern Cemetery ..... and a thank you

Lance Corporal Alleyne G Webber, circa 1914

This is Lance Corporal Alleyne Gordon Webber of the Otago Mounted Rifles.

He was born in New Zealand, died at Gallipoli and he is remembered on a monument in Southern Cemetery.

It is quite humbling to uncover the life of lance Corporal Webber and more so because it has brought together a number of people who have contributed to the story of this young man and his brother and friend.

I first came across Lance Corporal Alleyne Gordon Webber on a photograph of his monument taken by David Harrop.

David has a long association with the cemetery and his permanent exhibition commemorating those who participated in both world wars can be seen in the Remembrance Lodge at Southern.

The memorial also records the names of Private Gerard K Webber and Private Alan Hamilton Ross.

The memorial, in Southern Cemetery, 2015

Private Webber was wounded at the last engagement during the Battle of the Somme and died here in Manchester of his wounds just seven months after his brother Alleyne.

Private Ross was killed at the beginning of the Battle of the Somme just fourteen days after it started.

I doubted that I would ever discover much about the Webber brothers and assumed that it would be Private
Ross whose life would be easier to uncover.

He had been born in Paddington in London, and attended Dover College and came from a wealthy family.

His life had been researched by one of his descendants and I am indebted to Genevieve who kindly allowed me to share her research.

But during the course of yesterday I came closer to knowing much more about the Webber Brothers.

Dee who read the original story* went looking and found a shed full of references to the Webber family which in due course I am hoping she will share, but that would be to steal her thunder so instead I shall return to Genevieve who also went looking for references to Alleyne and Gerard and discovered that

The Life Class - A Sketch Club Night, G K Webber, circa 1910

“Gerard Webber painted this scene at a sketch club meeting at the Canterbury College School of Art. 

Typical of the day, the class is dominated by male students. 

Subdued interior studies such as this were common and, although slightly sketchy in treatment, Webber has accurately captured the details in the room and the effects of the falling light in the foreground. 

This work was presented to the Canterbury Society of Arts by Webber’s father, Alfred, in 1919. 

Webber was born in Auckland and attended the Elam School of Art before studying at the Canterbury College School of Art from 1910 to 1913. 

He was awarded the Brangwyn Scholarship to study at the Slade School of Art in London c.1914 but enlisted with the British Armed Forces serving in the 10th Royal Fusiliers.”

Detail of the monument, showing Private A H Ross, 2015

Now that will explain how a young ma from  New Zealand ended up in a British Regiment and how he met the “splendid Friend and Comrade Alan Hamiliton Ross, [of the] 10th Royal Fusiliers."

Genevieve also uncovered the 1916 college magazine for The Auckland University* which featured Alleyne.

And in the magazine there was a photograph, and a short entry on this “quiet and retiring ........ capable and conscientious young gentleman [who] was an exceptionally strong swimmer and was well known in yachting and rowing circles.”

Detail showing the Webber brothers, 

The account detailed his career before enlisted, his bravery at Gallipoli and commented that just a “few days before [he died] he had been recommended for one of the first commissions in the regiment.”

I have no doubt that in the fullness of time I will return to the lives of all three men and especially to the college magazine which reveals much about the sacrifice made my New Zealand during the Great War.

But for now I think it is enough to reflect on what has been learnt by the joint efforts of four of us from David who lives in Stockport, Dee in Wythenshawe and Genevieve in Australia.

Pictures; Lance Corporal Alleyne Gordon Webber, 1914 from The Kiwi, The Life Class - A Sketch Club Night, G K Webber, circa 1910, courtesy of Genevieve Kang, and the memorial to Lance Corporal Webber and Private Weber and Ross, Southern Cemetery, 2015, from the collection of David Harrop


Research by Dee Leetch and Genevieve Kang


*The Kiwi, The Auckland University Magazine, August, 1916, Vol 11, www.thebookshelf.auckland.ac.nz/docs/Kiwi/kiwi_011_01.pdf

Remembering them ...... 100 years after the Battle of the Somme part 8 ...... a moving ceremony in Southern Cemetery

Major Charron salutes the fallen

Today’s ceremony of Remembrance was a moving tribute to the men who took part in the Battle of the Somme and by extension all those who did their bit during the Great War.

It was attended by members of the British Legion, two MPs, three councillors, and young people from local schools as well as  the staff of Southern Cemetery.

And because today is also Canada Day it was fitting that Major David Charron of the Royal Canadian Army had been invited to lay a wreath for those men of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who are buried amongst their comrades from other Commonwealth armies.

Many of those present will have a personal reason for attending the ceremony.

In my case I can count six close family members who served in the Great War, including one who enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1915, as well as others who served in the German armed forces.

Members of the Northenden British Legion

All of mine survived and none are buried in Southern but that does not diminish the power of the service which was conducted by the Reverend Tim Nicholls, and included a reading and prayers, the poem In Flanders Fields and the Kohima Epitaph** and finished with O Canada! And “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.”

It was an elegant and poignant act of Remembrance made the more powerful by the mix of people who had chosen to attend.

The youngest will have been no more than ten, the eldest well into retirement, along with serving soldiers and ex servicemen and servicewomen as well as politicians and those who maintained the graves.

A moment of reflection

Some may well have gone on to the Cenotaph and in the Cathedral later in the day and will be attending the events in Heaton Park this evening as well as other services across Greater Manchester.

Each will have a part to play in that bigger act of Remembrance.

But for now my thoughts are back in Southern Cemetery with men like of John William Ingham of the 46th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.  

He enlisted in 1916 was wounded at Vimy Ridge the following year and was buried in Southern Cemetery.

But he had died of his wounds in Sheffield at the Wharncliffe War Hospital and was brought back to Manchester because his wife lived in Longsight.

Jeff Smith MP and Councillor Mat Strong

And not far away is the memorial to Alleyne G Webber who was killed in action at Bauchops Hill in Gallipoli on August 6th 1915 and was “buried where he fell.”

His brother, Gerard died the following February here in Manchester “of wounds received in action before France on November 14th 1916."

Both men were 27 years old and they were from New Zealand.

Alleyne Webber was a Lance Corporal in the Otago Mounted Rifles which had been formed at the outbreak of the war and left New Zealand in the October for Egypt.

He died on the second day of an operation to capture Chunuk Bair a high point in the Sari Bair mountain range.

Major Charron

His brother who served in the 10th Royal Fusiliers had been wounded on the second day of what was to be the final large British attack during the Battle of the Somme.

Our own family loss came in the Second World War, and involved my uncle who died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

He had survived the Fall of Greece, was bombed at Basra and was captured in 1942 in the Far East.

And the twist is that he had been born in Cologne in 1922 two years after my German grandmother had married my grandfather who was a soldier in the British army of occupation after the Great War.

The wreaths

So a mixed day of emotions today in Southern Cemetery.

Location; Southern Cemetery







Pictures; today in Southern Cemetery, July 1 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*Remembering the Battle of the Somme, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Remembering%20the%20Battle%20of%20the%20Somme
**When you Go Home, Tell them Of Us and Say, For their Tomorrow, We Gave our Today

Remembering those from New Zealand buried in Manchester and an appeal for help

New Zealand at the Front

Yesterday and for most of the rest of June I will be reflecting on those men of the Commonwealth forces who are buried in Southern Cemetery in south Manchester.

All of which has a special significance as we head towards the centenary of the Somme which will be marked with a ceremony to commemorate the event.

This year the High Commissioner of Canada will be present along with the Lord Mayor, in recognition of the 26 members of the CEF who are buried here.

But there are also members of the ANZAC forces who died in Manchester and rest not far from their Canadian comrades.*

Some of these have already featured on the blog but I want to research the rest and in the process also share some stories of those soldiers from New Zealand and it is good to have had offers of help and encouragement from Paul Wright and Alan Dobson.

Southern Cemetery

Those buried here will have died of their wounds in one of the military hospitals under the command of the 2nd General Hospital.

Some may even have been in the Nell Lane Hospital which which stood close by the cemetery.

Many of the war records of British servicemen from the Great War were lost to enemy action in 1940, but the Canadian archives are intact and through the Library and Archives of Canada  are being digitlized.

And with Paul's help I also now know that a similar excercise is being undertaken in New Zealand at  www.archway.archives.govt.nz 

Location; Southern Cemetery

Picture; New Zealand at the Front, courtesy of Paul Wright, and Southern Cemetery, 2015 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*New Zealand, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/New%20Zealand

**Library and Archives Canada, http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/search.aspx

Looking at the Great War from New Zealand with a nod to this Sunday's remembrance event in Southern Cemetery

A G Webber remembered in  Southern Cemetery

It is easy to view events from a European perspective; after all I was born in Britain, and have family in Italy and a grandmother who was born in Germany.

All of which means I tend to see the Great War as a European tragedy, more so because it and the war that followed were in a sense a family civil war for us.

So while I can count on six immediate members who fought in the first of those world wars and two in the second, I know that there were also some who fought in the armed forces of Imperial Germany and three who stare back at me in German army uniforms from 1938.

But that is to ignore that both conflicts were really world wars which saw the fighting spread out to other continents as well as the oceans of the world and drew in men and women from everywhere.

And so it is fitting at a time when we remember the fighting at Gallipoli and the contributions made by the ANZAC forces and French colonial regiments that I focus on the feelings of one group in New Zealand in 1916.

Now the date is important for the conflict was now into its second full year and much of the optimism of a short war had vanished under the weight of the casualties on the Western Front, and the Middle East along with those on the high seas.

In Auckland at the University there was much to ponder on, ranging from those amongst the staff and students who had enlisted, to all manner of shortages.

And so in the August of 1916 the editor of the college magazine was in reflective mood commenting that

“Looking back over the last twenty months we cannot but be struck at the change that has come over the College. 

This change is none the less noticeable for the fact that it seems scarcely a definite alteration in any specific thing or things, but rather a feeling that we are not the same as we were a short time ago.

We do not hesitate to ascribe this feeling-this atmosphere of change-to the war and its direct effect upon us.  

And when we think of the number of students who were with us a few months ago and who are now thousands of miles away taking part in the great world-struggle that is convulsing Europe, do we wonder that the College is not as it used to be?”*

That said the College while it had seen some of its members go off to fight had received new students, so that in one sense the editor could say that in sheer numbers the place was much as it was.

But the College was missing many of its experienced and older members, added to which most of the magazine was given over to photographs of those who had left and descriptions of what had happened to them.

Some had died others invalided home and most were still far.

And that is what makes this magazine such a powerful insight into the impact of the war on New Zealand.

The numbers at the college may not have been big and we are dealing with a very small community but for me it is the start of the journey into discovering how other people thought about that war fought out on my continent.

And that is perhaps the point to draw attention again to this Sunday when David Harrop will be in attendance at the Remembrance Lodge on Sunday April 26 which houses his collection of memorabilia from both world wars, but given that this is the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign David will have items which reflect the campaign.**

Pictures; Lance Corporal Alleyne Gordon Webber, 1914 and R W Lambert, 1914 from The Kiwi, The Auckland University Magazine

*The Kiwi, The Auckland University Magazine, August, 1916, Vol 11, www.thebookshelf.auckland.ac.nz/docs/Kiwi/kiwi_011_01.pdf

**New Zealand, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/New%20Zealand

Two New Zeland Soldiers .............. another story from Tony Goulding

On a recent trip to Manchester’s Southern Cemetery, searching for another grave, I observed this pair of headstones. 

They mark the final resting place of two New Zealand soldiers of the First World War, Trooper Andrew Gordon Herbert and Private Richard Ibbotson. The poignancy of their bodies lying so far from their homeland moved me to find out what I could of their stories.
     

The New Zealand Archives website provided me (free of charge) with a rich vein of information. There were a number of similarities in the stories of these two men – both were born in Dunedin in the Otago district of New Zealand’s South Island  and were part of the initial wave of New Zealand’s volunteers in 1914. Wounded at Gallipoli less than a month apart each after partial recovery was transported back to England only then for them both to die at the 2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester within weeks of each other. Finally occupying the two adjacent graves pictured above.

Private Richard Ibbotson:-
(D.o.W. 17-11-1915)
     
Richard Ibbotson was born in Dunedin in 1882. His parents were Walter Ibbotson and his wife Martha (née Sampson). They lived at 8, Pine Hill Terrace, North East Valley, Dunedin.

On October 24th, 1914 Richard enlisted into a field ambulance section of The New Zealand Medical Corps, prior to joining the army Richard had been working as a salesman for “Mollisons”, a firm of drapers and clothiers, George and Frederick Streets, Dunedin.

He sailed from home on 14th December, 1914 and arrived at Alexandria, Egypt on 2nd February, the following year joining the forces preparing for the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign which began on 25th April, 1915. Almost exactly three months later on 24th July Private Ibbotson suffered shrapnel wounds to his back and thigh.

After initial treatment on the battlefield he was evacuated on a hospital ship to Malta where he was admitted to a shore facility and placed ‘on the danger list” on 14th August. Three weeks later he was taken of the list and on the 9th October, 1915 was thought to have sufficiently recovered to be repatriated to England, arriving in Manchester (Ducie Avenue) on the 23rd.  Less than a month later he finally succumbed to his wounds on 17th November, 1915.

Trooper Andrew Gordon Herbert
(D.o.W.19-10-1915)

Trooper Herbert was born in Dunedin in 1886 to John David Herbert and his wife Mary Lane (née McKinnon).

His father passed away in 1903 and his mother in Dunedin’s hospital on 23rd October, 1907, consequently on his enlistment into The Otago Mounted Rifles on 15th December, 1914 he had to cite his elder brother David Andrew, a telegraph operator at Nelson, New Zealand, as his next of kin.

The enlistment form also gives is civilian trade as butcher and his former employer as Elliot Brothers of South Dunedin. Andrew Gordon embarked for Europe on Valentine’s Day (February 14th) 1915 and arrived in Egypt on 28th March, joining the ANZAC force about to land on the Turkish beaches.
 
On the 21st August Trooper Herbert was badly wounded in the thigh and a week later on the 28th was placed on a hospital ship bound for England where he was admitted to the 2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester on 17th September dying just over a month later on 19th October, 1915.
   

Apart from their deaths occurring far from home and at relatively young ages what is also so sad is the fact that their wounds seem not to have been immediately life threatening. It is highly likely that if these men had received similar wounds in later conflicts their chances of survival would have been much greater thanks to advances in both surgery and the treatment of infections.

© Tony Goulding, 2019

Pictures; supplied by Tony Goulding