General

 

Andrew Buglass arrived at the Royal Naval Barracks, Portsmouth, in mid-February 1916.  From his first letter home, we learn that Andrew hates the Navy and wishes to return home and from there, join the army – as his brother George had done.  The weather does not help his mood.  Neither does the inconsiderate treatment he says he receives from his superiors and the doctor.  On Monday 7th February Andrew writes,

‘I was seeing the doctor this morning & had a lot of lip, said there was nothing the matter with me when I told him my state of mind, and said I was starting badly & said I had better look out or there would be trouble which made me worse than ever, but he gave me some more medicine for my stomach.’

Andrew wrote two letters on 15th February; one to his father and one to his mother.  The letter to his mother is cheerful, stating he is in the Soldiers and Sailors Rest drinking the cocoa which she had sent him.  The letter to his father is much darker, and continues the tone from his previous letters.  He states that ‘…today has been the worst day I have spent yet’, and that he is even thinking of deserting.  By the 17th February 1916, Andrew is in the Sick Bay.  He seems to be increasingly unwell, thinking he may have influenza.  The letter also illustrates Andrew’s fragile mental state.  He writes,

‘…I dread the coming of the night with its sweats and hideous dreams.  I sometimes wish I was dead anything is better than this…’

Ordinary Seaman Andrew Buglass died of pneumonia on 28th February 1916, little more than a month into his training.  He was 22 years old.  He was buried in Cambo Holy Trinity churchyard and is also commemorated on the Rutherford College War Memorial tablet, along with 151 men who were his Masters and fellow pupils.

 

Lance Corporal George Anderson Buglass enlisted on 16th October 1915 at Newcastle upon Tyne, and joined the Kings Royal Rifle Corps, 21st Battalion, designated the ‘Yeoman Rifles’.  This battalion was formed from farming communities in Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland (hence Yeoman).

 

 

 

Training and equipping began after arrival at Aldershot in September 1915.  On 26th April 1916 the Division was inspected by H.M. The King, who was accompanied by Field Marshall Lord French and General Sir A. Hunter.  Entrainment began on May Day 1916 and by 8th May, the Division had completed its concentration between Hazebrouck and Bailleul, France.  Within the collection we have some of the letters George wrote home from the trenches to members of his family.  In one letter, written to his mother, Lizzie, he talks about watching gunfire over the trenches.

‘We sometimes see the flash of the guns after dark and last night at dusk we saw them bombarding an aeroplane but it must have been a long way off as we could only see the flashes but could not hear the sound of the explosion.’

In one of his final letters before going over the top, dated 13th September 1916, and addressed to his father, George makes quite a prophetic statement,

‘…We are going up to the trenches soon and as it is a rather hot corner some of us will be getting “blighties”.’

George and his comrades in the 21st Battalion were involved in the front line, in a support role, at Delville Wood in July 1916.  Their first involvement as an attack formation was in that part of the Somme battle known as the Battle of Flers-Coucelette, 15th-22nd September, which saw the very first use of tanks in battle.  George would have been one of the first to view these tanks, as the first one to advance started from the north end of Delville Wood, close to his position. At Zero Hour, George and his friends left Edge Trench and advanced across No Man’s Land, towards their first objective, which was secured by 07:00 hours.  The advance continued to the second objective, the western end of Flers Trench, immediately south of the village of Flers.  There was further fighting here, but the allotted section of trench was taken by the 21st Division after 30 minutes or so.  There was a delay which caused the advance to the third objective not to take place until mid-afternoon.  After this, there were no more advances this day.  As the troops were consolidating their gains, the German counter-barrage began.  In the evening, there were German attacks which were repulsed, but the shellfire continued. George would have been under machine gun fire as well as German counter attacks.

It seems likely that George was wounded sometime on the 15th, corresponding with his service records, which list that George was wounded, probably by shrapnel, in his neck, right arm, and buttock.  The wet, muddy conditions would have made his, and many others’, recovery very difficult.  George would probably have been taken first to the Regimental Aid Post which would be in, or very close to, the front line.  From there he would have gone to a Main Dressing Station.  He was taken to a Casualty Clearing Station on 16th September, and then on to No. 3 Stationary Hospital at Rouen on the 18th.  On the 19th September he arrived at Richmond Military Hospital, London.

George’s health seemed to improve whilst at Richmond, and he received some visitors, including his father.  George wrote some letters home whilst in hospital and the childish handwriting is evidence of the wounds he received in his right arm.  Yet, on 6th October, he died, somewhat unexpectedly.  His service records list that he died of ‘haemoptysis’ – the coughing up of blood/blood-stained sputum from the lungs, which is a sign of tuberculosis, respiratory infections, and pneumonia.

 

 

 

 

 

In the Buglass Family blog posts, we will show how one Northumbrian family’s story can be pieced together using various resources.  As well as focusing on family history, we will look at military history in the context of two members of a family who were directly involved in the First World War. The Buglass Collection, NRO 05944, was gifted to the Northumberland Collections Service in 2002.  The collection spans from 1862 to 1978 and comprises records such as letters, sale catalogues, newspaper cuttings, and financial records regarding the Buglass and Anderson families of Northumberland.

By looking at the 1901 Census, we can see that the family are listed as living at East Deanham – New Deanham had been mistakingly recorded. George was the head of the family, a farmer, born in Scotland.  His wife Elizabeth (or Lizzie) Buglass nee Anderson was born in Northumberland.  They had five children:

Andrew, 7 years, a Scholar, born in Kirkharle c.1894

George Anderson, 6 years, a Scholar, born in Kirkharle c.1895

Ralph, 4 years, born in Longhorsley c.1897

Thomas, 2 years, born in Longhorsley c.1899

Elizabeth Ellen, no age on the census, so presumably had just been born in Longhorsley.

Also living in the house are George Buglass’ parents, Andrew and Elizabeth, and there are three workers present at the farm – Isabella Monaghan, general servant; Joseph Johnson, cattleman; and John Gilmore, agricultural labourer.

 

 

This photograph, taken around 1907, shows Lizzie with three of her five children – George, Betty and Andrew – outside their family home at New Deanham.  But the Betty in the photograph is not the Elizabeth Ellen that we saw on the census.  We know from a memorial card in the collection that Elizabeth Ellen died at New Deanham ten days after the census was taken, on 10th April 1901, aged 13 months.

By the time the Buglass family came to occupy the New Deanham property, it formed part of the Bolam Estate owned by Lord Decies, an Irish baronet who owned property in England.  Prior to this it had formed part of the estates of the old Northumberland families of Loraine and Swinburne. An 1893 Inland Revenue Return from the Lord Decies estate papers contains information that was used to calculate death duties payable upon the estate.  The document reveals that the New Deanham property was a freehold and was, at the time of the return, in the tenure of Richard Maule.  The rental value of the properties referred to suggests that New Deanham was the most extensive of the properties.

Although the Buglass family lived in New Deanham from c.1901, they were freehold tenants until the farm was sold in 1934 by Mr. F.B. Atkinson of Newcastle upon Tyne.  The family bought the farm with the help of one of Elizabeth’s brothers.

 

 

The five surviving children all attended Cambo School, and we can find details of their achievements in the school Log Book that is held here in the Archives. From 1904 the children were constant winners of various school prizes, mainly for writing, drawing and attendance.  The image shows a page from the log book which dates from 1894 to 1921.  It shows the two scholarships won by Andrew Buglass in 1908 – the County Council Scholarship and the Trevelyan Scholarship, which he shared with another male pupil.

 

 

Both Andrew and Ralph Buglass went on from Cambo School to attend Rutherford College in Newcastle upon Tyne.  The College Committee were prepared to admit the sons of farmers and farm-workers at nominal fees, and without fees entirely the orphans of farm labourers.  This explains why Andrew and Ralph, who did not come from a family that could obviously afford this sort of education, were able to attend such an institution.  The family may also have been helped by financial assistance received from the scholarships they won at Cambo School.

 

 

Betty, the youngest child, won awards at school for subjects such as sewing.  One of her exercise books is held within the Collection and is full of recipes and traditional cures for illnesses and ailments such as chilblains.  She has also helpfully recorded the cure for a nervous breakdown! As Presbyterians, the children were involved in the Cambo and District Band of Hope temperance organisation for working-class children, which was founded in 1847 in Leeds.  Members took a pledge of total abstinence and the children were taught the ‘evils of drink’, and would attend weekly lectures and activities.

 

 

George seemed to follow in his forefather’s footsteps and was preparing to become a shepherd.  In April 1914 he writes to his father from Shepherd Shield in Wark that he has been delivering lambs and feeding cattle.  This seemingly tranquil traditional lifestyle was to be shattered by the beginning of the war on 4th August 1914, and the subsequent involvement of the family.

This story will be continued in part two of this blog.

 

 

 

 

On the morning of Sunday 13^th August 1916, an explosion ripped through the Main Seam at Woodhorn Colliery.  A party of men working on a ‘repair shift’ were working to set steel girders as roof supports, and as the work was of a special nature, the shift was composed of eight Deputy Overmen, three Stonemen, a Shifter and a Putter.

The men received their instructions in the Low Main Seam at 6am from the Master-shifter, and then proceeded up the drift to the Main Seam.  About half an hour after the men left, the master-shifter was aware that something had happened, and he and others went up the drift.  They found two men alive but unconscious in the drift below the Main Seam workings; the other eleven men had been killed outright by the explosion.

At the inquest held on 12^th, 13^th and 21^st of September at the Harmonic Hall evidence was gathered from witnesses and the result showed that a catalogue of failures at the colliery had made the disaster inevitable.

The air compressor, which sends a current of air into each working, was not at work on the Sunday morning, this was usual practice at the weekends. On the previous Friday night through to Saturday morning the Capell Fan, the ventilating fan for the underground seams had been stopped for overhauling and repairs. A furnace had been lit to draw the current of air but this method is not so effective for ventilation. On Saturday morning, the fan was turned back on to maximum capacity, but by the night shift, steam power to drive the engine was only at fifty percent its normal capacity as the number of firemen required was down by two, instead of four, this was repeated on Sunday morning when another two firemen were absent from the six needed. This drop in ventilation made any gas present, less likely to be safely dispersed.

Up until the explosion, gas had never been seen in this seam. It seems likely that no thorough inspection for gas was made before the shift started; no written records of any reports were found for this shift, or any of the previous working Sundays.

The Jury of the inquest reported its findings in this way:

“That the 13 men whose names have been repeatedly read – the said deceased men were accidentally killed on the 13^th day of August 1916, while working in Woodhorn Colliery by and explosion of gas in the Main Seam, and that such gas had accumulated through want of sufficient ventilation, and exploded through contact with a naked light and before any fall of stone took place. The jury are of the opinion that the management should see in the future that written reposts should be made for every shift, special or otherwise. The jury are also of opinion that there has been a certain amount of laxity on the part of the management for not seeing to sufficient ventilation being maintained”.

Woodhorn Colliery was, even before this time in a state of crisis. The First World War had a massive impact, with 778 men of the 2337 employees leaving Woodhorn Colliery to fight in the conflict. Men were working extra shifts to fill the roles of those fighting and to maximise coal production for the war effort, but this in turn led to illness and absenteeism. Posters issued by the Ashington Coal Company had little effect on absenteeism at any of their collieries and power to prosecute repeated offenders was discussed on 26^th July, prior to the explosion. E. W. Milburn, Manager of Woodhorn was in France fighting with the 7^th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers, while the colliery worked under the guidance of J.J. Hall, Agent to the Ashington Coal Company. On 11^th August, two days before the explosion, the Ashington Coal Company reported that an application had been made to the Minister of Munitions for the demobilisation of Major Milburn to return as Manager of Woodhorn Colliery.

 

 

At the Petty Sessions held at Morpeth on 10^th January 1917, charges were brought upon Joseph John Hall, temporary Manager of the Colliery, and Charles Bennett Howe the engine wright, with a failure to provide proper ventilation. The case against both men was dismissed, and the subsequent appeal by the Northumberland Miners Association at the Divisional Bench was also lost.

The Ashington Coal Company was at the time enabling the families of those fighting in the War to stay in their colliery houses; this resulted in fewer houses available to new workers. The Coal Company especially needed the houses of the families of the Deputies who died in the explosion for the new Deputies to move into. As housing was difficult to come by during wartime, wrangling with the families in vacating the houses carried on until the following February, and talk of withholding compensation to the families was mooted by the coal company to force the families out.