Rescued from Obscurity: Forgotten of the Great War – Elementary Schoolteacher Sportsmen at the Front
2011; Routledge; Volume: 28; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09523367.2011.547744
ISSN1743-9035
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics
ResumoAbstract During the Great War many elementary schoolteachers volunteered. Some were outstanding sportsmen. The search for these ‘insignificant' men has only just begun. Rescued from Obscurity is a tribute to and an as yet far from complete record of these forgotten of the conflict, trained in denominational and non-denominational colleges and inculcated in both with a period belief in the moral qualities allegedly inherent in games playing. Within the college system, incidentally, not all were loyal to the crown. Some had a different allegiance, a fact that to date has received virtually no attention. Keywords: military drill; training college; war fever; Irish nationalists; athleticism; soccer; schoolmasters Notes 1. Hopkins, Poems and Prose, 60. 2. Battersea Club Year Book, 1915, 52–4. 3. See for example Mangan, ‘Duty unto Death’. 4. Hibberd, The First World War, 4. 5. For various discussions of this topic see, Mangan, ‘Manufactured Masculinity’, and the section, ‘Adjunct’, which brings together a number of J.A. Mangan's publications on the topic in the special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport, 27, 1/2 (Jan./Feb. 2010). See also Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism. 6. Gilmore, Manhood in the Making, 223, emphasis in original. 7. Ibid., 230. 8. Ibid. 9. Mangan, ‘Duty unto Death’, 127. 10. Mangan, Tribal Identities,127. 11. Marwick, The Deluge, 28–9. 12. Randall Thomas Davidson (1848–1930) was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Oxford. From 1877 to 1883 he was chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was the Dean of Windsor from 1883 to 1891 and was successively Bishop of Rochester (1891–95), Bishop of Winchester (1895–1903) and Archbishop of Canterbury (1903–28). 13. Quoted in Wilkinson, The Church of England and the First World War, 32–3. 14. Ibid., 30. For the response of the Baptists see Clements, ‘Baptists and the Outbreak of the First World War’ and for Nonconformist attitudes see Koss, Nonconformity in British Politics; Binfield, So Down to Prayers; and Willey, Spots of Time. 15. Cardinal Francis Alphonsus Bourne (1861–1935) was educated at St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw Moor, Co. Durham, 1867, St Edmund's College, Ware, 1877, St Sulpice, Paris and Louvain University. He was made Bishop of Southwark in 1897 and was Archbishop of Westminster from 1903 until his death in 1935. 16. Reginald Brabazon (1841–1929), 12th Earl of Meath was a diplomat from 1868 to 1877. In 1873 he founded the Hospital Saturday Fund Committee which raised over £100,000 annually by 1929. He established the Empire Day Movement in schools throughout the country in 1906. 17. Bourne, ‘The Paramount Need of Training in Youth’, quoted in Oldmeadow, Francis. Cardinal Bourne, 106. 18. Ibid., 106–7. 19. The colleges were Birmingham (St Peter's, Saltley); Cheltenham (St Paul's); Chester (Chester); Oxford (Culham); Durham (St Bede's); Exeter (St Luke's); London (St John's) and (St Mark's); Peterborough (Peterborough); Winchester (King Alfred's); York (St John's). 20. Adkins, The History of St John's College, Battersea, 207. 21. Ibid., 207–8. 22. St Peter's College was founded in 1850 as the Worcester Diocesan Training School, but quickly became known as St Peter's College. See Mangan and Hickey, Soccer's Missing Men, 1–3. 23. Rev. (later Canon) John Cromwell was born in Macclesfield and educated at Oxford University. He was vice principal of Durham Training College from 1850 to 1857 and principal there from 1857 to 1864. In 1865, he became principal of St Mark's College, Chelsea, and was in post there until his retirement in 1887. 24. Gent, Memorials of St Mark's, 74–5, emphasis added. 25. Fuller, The History of St Luke's College, 390. 26. Rose, A History of King's Alfred's College, 78. 27. Naylor, Culham Church of England Training College, 106. 28. Board of Education Report, 1914–15, 76. 29. Battersea Club Year Book, 1916, 42, emphasis added. 30. H. B. Workman. (1862–1951) was educated at Kingswood School, Bath and Owen's College, Manchester. He graduated with a BA from London University in 1884 and trained for the Methodist ministry at Didsbury College, Manchester. He was Principal of Westminster College from 1903 to 1930 and secretary of the Methodist Education Committee from 1919 to 1940. 31. Pritchard, The Story of Westminster College, 119, emphasis in original. 32. See Hickey, ‘Athleticism and the London Training Colleges’. 33. Westminster Training College, Monthly War Bulletin, Nov. 1914, 1. 34. Ibid., 2. 35. See for example, Mangan ‘Duty unto Death’,124–49. 36. Westminster Training College War Bulletin IV, no. 5 (1 March 1918), 577. 37. Westminster Training College War Bulletin IV, no. 6 (1 April 1918), 613. 38. Westminster Training College War Bulletin IV, no. 7 (1 May 1918), 637. 39. F.J.R. Hendy, (1858–1933) was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a second in Greats. He then taught in a number of public schools including Fettes before becoming headteacher of Bromsgrove School from 1901 to 1913. He was principal of Borough Road College from 1913 to 1917, when he left to take up the post of Director of Teacher Training at Oxford University. 40. Bartle, A History of Borough Road College, 65. 41. The two colleges were forced to amalgamate because the Board of Education had urged training colleges to pool the remainder of their students. In 1916 Borough Road amalgamated with Westminster at Richmond Wesleyan College. Borough Road was taken over by the Motor Transport Department of the Army Service Corps and Westminster by the Australian Army. 42. The Simmarian, Whit 1914, 27. 43. The ‘Manchester Martyrs’ were William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, and Michael O'Brien who were all members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a movement dedicated to ending British rule in Ireland. The men were arrested after an escape attempt in which a police officer was killed. Although it was claimed in their defence that the officer's death was unintentional, the three men were found guilty of murder and publicly hanged on 23 November 1867, in front of a crowd of 10,000 people. 44. ‘God Save Ireland' was written by Timothy Daniel Sullivan 1827–1914. It was first published in The Nation in 1867. The words of are: High upon the gallows tree, swung the noble-hearted three, By the vengeful tyrant, stricken in their bloom. But they met him face to face with the courage of their race, And they went with souls undaunted to their doom. ‘God save Ireland,’ said the heroes. ‘God save Ireland,’ said them all. ‘Whether on the scaffold high, or the battlefield we die, No matter when, for Ireland dear we fall!’ Girt around with cruel foes, sure their courage proudly rose, For they thought of hearts that loved them far and near. Of the millions true and brave, o'er the ocean's swelling wave, And the friends in Holy Ireland ever dear! ‘God save Ireland,’ said the heroes. ‘God save Ireland,’ said them all. ‘Whether on the scaffold high, or the battlefield we die, No matter when, for Ireland dear we fall!’ Climbed they up the rugged stair, rang their voices out in prayer, Then with England's fatal cord about them cast. Close beside the gallows tree, kissed like brothers lovingly, True to home and faith, and freedom to the last! ‘God save Ireland,’ said the heroes. ‘God save Ireland,’ said them all. ‘Whether on the scaffold high, or the battlefield we die, No matter when, for Ireland dear we fall!’ Never 'til the latest day shall the memory pass away, Of those gallant lives thus given for our land. And on the cause must go, amidst joy and weal and woe, 'Til me make our isle a nation, free and grand! ‘God save Ireland,’ said the heroes. ‘God save Ireland,’ said them all. ‘Whether on the scaffold high, or the battlefield we die, No matter when, for Ireland dear we fall!’ 45. The allegations were raised by W. O'Dea, a former student of the college and a member of the Catholic Education Council. An unsigned letter in the college archives to an unnamed student said that he had received complaints that ‘the Irish element had been going a little too strong and that there was grave danger of action being taken by outside authorities under the Defence of the Realm Act. … I understood from him that such things as – public singing of Sinn Féin songs; cheering disasters to the allied forces and German victories – serious divisions between the Irish and English chaps at the college and generally affairs along those lines’. The matter was investigated by the governors of the college in April 1917 and found to be baseless. 46. The Simmarian, Easter 1917, 46. 47. The Simmarian, Christmas 1915, 4. 48. The Simmarian, Whit 1915, 43. 49. Oldmeadow, Francis. Cardinal Bourne, vol. 2, 108. 50. John Redmond (1856–1918) was born in Wexford and educated at Clongowes Wood School and Trinity College, Dublin. He was the leader of the Home Rule Party and took the view that Home Rule would best be achieved after the defeat of Germany and that Ireland should support Britain in the war. 51. MacDonagh, The Irish at the Front, 4–5. 52. Ibid., 5. 53. Ibid., 11. 54. For a consideration of colleges and clubs see Mangan and Hickey, Soccer's Missing Men and Kerrigan, Teachers and Football. 55. A notable exception is Mc Cartney, The Hearts and the Great War andThe Sport in War. See also British Sports and Sportsmen. 56. For the relationship between Whitehall and the Football Association see Mason, Association Football and English Society, 251–7; Walvin, The People's Game, 92–5 and 118–9; Holt, Sport and the British, 276–7. 57. For the history of the Middlesex regiment see Wyrall, The Die Hards. The 17th Battalion's War Diary can be found in the Public Record Office (PRO): WO/1363. See also Riddoch and Kemp, When the Whistle Blows. 58. See for example, Mangan,‘Duty unto Death’, 124–49. 59. An ‘exception to the rule’ has recently been provided. See Hickey, ‘“For All That Was Good, Noble and True”’, 722–44. 60. In this article a schoolteacher footballer is one who was associated with the first-class game as a player, official or administrator. A first-class club is defined as a Football League, Southern League or Isthmian League side. 61. See for example, Parker, The Old Lie; Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory; and Graves, Goodbye to all That. 62. See Mangan, Athleticism, but especially 9 for a detailed definition. 63. See Hickey, ‘A Potent and Pervasive Ideology’. 64. Godfrey-Turner, ‘Cricket Field or Battlefield?’, 6. 65. Battersea Club Year Book, 1916, 42–5. 66. Ibid., 42–5. 67. Ibid. 68. Gettins played ten league games for Middlesbrough between 1899 and 1903, scoring two goals. The club won the FA Amateur Cup in 1895 and the Northern League in 1897. Gettins also played in its first ever Football League fixture against Lincoln City in 1899. For details of Middlesbrough's early history see Appleton, Hotbed of Soccer, 77–87. 69. For details of Gettins's career see Haynes et al., 100 Years of Brentford, 353–5. Although he only played a few games for Brentford, Gettins supplied the club with one lasting legacy: ‘The “Bees” of Brentford got this name from the cry of encouragement given by students from Borough Road Teachers College to watch one of their number. ‘J.H. Gettins, long ago’: Fabian and Green, Association Football, vol. 2, 340. 70. Gettins, ‘Football’, 52. 71. London Gazette (Supplement), 3 June 1918. 72. Gettins’s obituary was published in The Times, 8 June 1954, and the Surrey Comet, 12 June 1954. See also Who Was Who, vol. V (1951–60), 414. After his retirement Gettins became a member of the Council of the British and Foreign School Society and became chairman of the College Committee in 1942. See B's Hum, Whitsun 1955, 42 for details of his work for Borough Road. 73. The Association Footballers' Union was one of a number of names for the embryonic trade union for professional footballers and its various name changes are worth recording as they were so similar that they can easily cause confusion. The first was the Association Football Players' Union (AFPU) founded in 1897. By late 1898 it had officially changed its name to the Association Footballers' Union (AFU). However, the union collapsed in 1901 due to its inability to secure better conditions for its members. It was revived in 1907 again with the name Association Football Players' Union although it was commonly referred to as the Players' Union. By 1918 it had changed its name to the Professional Football Players' and Trainers' Union. See Harding, For the Good of the Game. 74. Lancashire Evening Post, 29 Oct. 1898, 2. 75. Mangan and Hickey, Soccer's Missing Men, 52–5. 76. Details of Lintott's international career can be found in Lamming, An English Football Internationalists' Who's Who 1872–1988. 77. Markham and Sutton, The Bradford City Story, 37. 78. The 17th Earl of Derby (1865–1948) was born in 1865. He served in the Grenadier Guards between 1885 and 1895 when he became Lord of the Treasury until 1900, after which he became Financial Secretary to the War Office and then Postmaster General. He was created a Knight of the Garter in 1914. The following year he was made Director of Recruiting for the army, rising to Secretary of War in December 1916. Between 1918 and 1920 he served as Ambassador to France. In the 1930s he sold vast tracts of land to the Liverpool Corporation which was used for housing developments in Kirkby, Halewood, Huyton and Roby. During his 40 years as Earl of Derby he was well respected for his public service. 79. Yorkshire Post, July 1916. 80. Quoted in Brown, Tommy Goes To War, 146. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid. 84. Between 1869 1920 the college produced over 20 first-class players and referees, some of whom played for England. The following list is not definitive: 85. See Mangan and Hickey, Soccer's Missing Men, 636–40. 86. Football Chat and Athletic World, November, 1902 87. Carter, Birmingham Pals. 88. London Gazette, May 1918, 4692. 89. Bradford Star, 23 December 1999. 90. Full details of Bell's playing career can be found in Hartley and Chapman, The Avenue. 91. Tom E. Maley (1869–1935) was born in Portsmouth. His father was a soldier in the British Army and the family moved to Glasgow. He was one of the founder-members of Celtic Football Club, playing in its first fixture in 1888. He trained as a teacher at St Mary's College, Hammersmith, from 1885 to 1886. He managed Manchester City, Bradford Park Avenue and Southport. For a full consideration of his career see Mangan and Hickey, Soccer's Missing Men, 664–7. 92. Quoted in The Westminsterian, Autumn 2000, 14. 93. Yorkshire Observer, 11 Sept. 1916, 5. 94. Harris and Whippy, The Greater Game. 95. Quoted in Harris and Whippy, The Greater Game, 60. 96. Ibid., 52. 97. Harrogate Herald, 19 July 1916. 98. Ibid., 61. 99. Yorkshire Observer, 11 Sept. 1916, 5. 100. Ibid. 101. Harrogate Herald, 2 Aug. 1916. 102. Quoted in Mortimer, Fields of Glory, 52. 103. On 9 July 2000 a 5ft Yorkshire cross was erected on the spot where Bell was killed. The cross was commissioned by the Professional Footballers' Association and the Green Howards Regiment (who absorbed the West Yorkshires when they were disbanded). The memorial has the badges of the two organisations with an account of Bell's actions. 104. Harris and Whippy, The Greater Game, 52. 105. Ibid. 106. Harrogate Herald, 26 July 1916. 107. Harrogate Herald, 3 April 1917, emphasis added. 108. Harrogate Herald, 27 June 1917. 109. Sir James Yoxall (1857–1925) was born in Redditch and educated at the Wesleyan Elementary School in Redditch and as a pupil teacher at the Bridgehouse Wesleyan School in Sheffield. He trained as a teacher at Westminster College 1876–8. After college he became headteacher of Sharrow Lane Board School (1887–95). He was elected to the general executive of the National Union of Teachers and was president in 1891. He became the editor of The Schoolmaster from 1909 and was elected MP for Bassetlaw, Nottinghamshire, a post he held until 1918. He was knighted in 1911. 110. ‘Our Schools and the Trenches’, The Schoolmaster, 2 Sept. 1916, 261. 111. See Mangan and Hickey, Soccer's Missing Men, and especially the discussion on Walter Holmes, 65–83. 112. Sir George Newman (1870–1948) was educated at Bootham School, King's College, London, and Edinburgh University, where he qualified as a doctor in 1892. He was the Chief Medical Officer for Finsbury from 1900 to 1907 and Chief Medical Officer at the Board of Education from 1907 to 1935. He was knighted in 1918. 113. Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education, 1917, 118. 114. Other soccer schoolmasters include Joe Dines (1886–1918) who was born at King's Lynn and played for Lynn All Saints Church Lads' Brigade and subsequently Lynn United, ‘then one of the strongest junior combinations in the district’. He played for King's Lynn against Ilford in the Amateur Cup Final in 1903. In 1908 he entered Peterborough Training College and was selected for the England Amateur Team to play Wales. After college Dines taught in King's Lynn and then at Highland Boys' Council School, Ilford. He represented numerous clubs including King's Lynn, Queens Park Rangers, Ilford, Millwall, Walthamstow Avenue, Norwich City, Woolwich Arsenal and Liverpool for whom he made one league appearance in 1912. He was selected for the England football team in the Olympic Games in Stockholm, when England won the gold medal. In all he was capped 23 times for England's amateur side between February 1910 and the close of the 1913–14 season. Dines volunteered immediately at the outbreak of hostilities, not for front line duty but as an instructor in the Army Physical Education Corps. The rejection of Dines by the Army School of Physical Education brought a furious response from W.S. Torbitt, secretary of the Ilford Education Committee to the War Office, who wrote of Dines: ‘His service with us was everything to be desired. He is the type of man we had pleasure in releasing; and who the army authorities have now seen fit to turn down.' He then served in the Ordnance Corps and later in the Middlesex Regiment, the Machine Gun Corps, the Tank Corps, and finally, the King's (Liverpool) Regiment, where he received his commission as a Second Lieutenant. Having finally received his much-sought-after promotion, Dines was quickly sent to the front, but after having survived so much of the war he was killed in action less than two weeks later on 27 September 1918, before the end of the hostilities. William (Billy) Edward Peake (1889–1960) was born in Bolton and trained as a teacher at St John's College, Battersea, from 1907 to 1909 and played as an amateur for Northern Nomads and Eccles Borough before joining Sheffield United as a professional in July 1910. He was transferred to Bury in 1912 for whom he played 168 games, scoring 35 goals. On the outbreak of war he volunteered for active service in the British Expeditionary Force. He was quickly promoted, first to corporal in October 1915, and then to lieutenant a year later. In October 1917 he suffered a shrapnel wound and was sent to England to recuperate, firstly at the Siege Training Centre in Aldershot and then to the Cadet School in Manchester, where he saw out the war. After the war, Peake resumed his football career with Bury until 1921, when he retired from the professional game. He played out his career in non league football for Newcross, Macclesfield and Manchester North End. He remained a teacher throughout his playing career and worked in a number of schools in the Manchester area – St Thomas's, Crumpsall, Seymour Road, Clayton, and Blackley County School – before finishing at Ardwick Central School in 1953. Peake was awarded the OBE for his service to education. Joseph Pearson (1877–1946) trained as a teacher at St Peter's, College, Saltley, from 1902 to 1903 and was in the same FA Cup-winning side as Joseph Windmill. He made 117 appearances and scored seven goals for the ‘Villa’. He became head of Pensnett Elementary School before the war and head of Wollaston Church of England School from 1919 until his retirement in 1941. After his playing career was over, Pearson, like many schoolteachers, turned to refereeing and was a Football League referee from 1913 to 1922 and was a linesman for the England v Scotland international in 1922. He was active in local politics and was a Conservative councillor on Stourbridge Council from 1922 until 1943 and Mayor of Stourbridge from 1941 to 1943. Percy Robert Sands (1881–1965) was born in Norwood, south London and educated at High Street Board School in Plumstead in south-east London. He trained as a teacher at St Paul's College, Cheltenham and played for Cheltenham Town. After college he worked in south-east London and signed for Woolwich Arsenal (subsequently Arsenal) as an amateur in 1902, eventually becoming the club's first-choice centre half in the 1903–4 season. He continued his teaching alongside his playing career. He played for Arsenal in unofficial wartime matches before leaving to serve in the Royal Army Medical Corps on the Western Front, reaching the rank of sergeant. He joined Southend United in 1919. Frederick George Wheatcroft (1882–1917) was born in Alfreton, Derbyshire. He played for Alfreton Town, Derby County, Swindon Town, Fulham and Reading. When war broke out Wheatcroft, enlisted in the 13th East Surrey Regiment and was killed in 1917. 115. Educational Record XX, no. 62 (Nov. 1921), 154. 116. Ibid., 155. 117. Ibid., emphases added. 118. Salter was not alone in his beliefs, nor was Borough Road alone among the colleges. At Westminster College a letter was sent to every ‘Old W’ asking for support for a memorial. Two memorial boards were erected with the names of former students who had died in the war and a Service of Dedication was held in the college chapel on 10 July 1921 with two inscriptions in the college chapel: ‘Dedicated by Former Students of Westminster College to the Memory of Their Comrades Who fell in the Great War 1914–1921, 9th July 1921. / Justice, Truth, Freedom. / Floreat Westminsterinese Collegium / In Tentationi Inventi Fideles Corpora Ipsorum In Pace Sepulta Sunt, et Nomen Eorum Vivit In Generationem et Generationem / Ecclesiasticus, Cap. XLIV / Hope, Victory, Peace’. 119. Jordanova, History in Practice, 149. 120. Vertinsky, ‘Memory and Monument’, 18. 121. In his consideration of the building of the Cenotaph and the nation's treatment of the unknown soldier, Neil Harrison reveals that on Armistice Day in 1921 ‘Several thousand unemployed men marched to the Cenotaph wearing pawn tickets in place of campaign medals. … There was a brawl in Dundee High Street between ex-servicemen and Communist demonstrators and in Liverpool 200 unemployed men interrupted the Great Silence with cries of “Anyone want a medal?” and “What we need is food not prayers”’: Hanson, The Unknown Soldier, 481. 122. NUT War Record, 1920.
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