Tumult and Tears

by Vivien Newman

  When hostilities were declared, Edward offered to meet the cost of clothing and personally equipping the men of the embryonic Leeds Pals Battalion. The Mayor and Lady Mayoress watched the new recruits swearing their oath of allegiance at Leeds Town Hall in September 1914. On 1 July 1916, a battalion that had been ‘two years in the making was’, according to Leeds Pal Private A V Pearson, ‘10 minutes in the destroying’ at Serre during the opening day of the Battle of the Somme.

  French-speaking Dorothy also worked tirelessly for Leeds’ Belgian refugees. Her sister’s fiancé, her brother-in-law, Victor, with whom she had previously been romantically involved, was killed on 1 July 1916.

  CONSTANCE ADA RENSHAW (1891-1964)

  A Sheffield University graduate, Constance was also a talented actress, artist and sportswoman. In 1913, she began teaching, mainly at Sheffield City Grammar School and also at the Sheffield Teacher Pupil Centre; ill-health forced her retirement in 1937. A well-respected poet, her war poems were widely reproduced. Unusually, she also broadcast some of her poetry, including on Armistice evening 1925. Her writing won significant praise and indeed prizes during the War. ‘The Lure of England’ was awarded first prize for the best war poem in Poetry Review in November/December 1915, the first of a number of poetry prizes she received.

  LADY MARGARET SACKVILLE (1881-1963)

  Daughter of the 7th Earl de la Warr and a cousin of Vita Sackville-West, she became a well-respected poet in 1897, when her first collection was published. Like her mother, she was an active campaigner for women’s suffrage and in 1900, commented that poetry was one of the few arenas in which women could engage on identical terms to men. Friendly with W B Yeats, she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in May 1914.

  Lady Margaret joined the Union of Democratic Control, which was founded in August 1914 to oppose the War and also counted the Labour leader, Ramsay Macdonald amongst its founding members. The anti-war The Nation published much of her poetry and her lengthy The Pageant of War (1916) received considerable critical acclaim. She was unafraid of pointing the finger of blame at those, including women and mothers, who allowed the War to happen and condoned its continuance.

  She worked hard to alleviate the plight of Belgian refugees and throughout the War featured in newspaper society pages, interest in the aristocracy being keen in early twentieth century England. Her uncle, the 8th Earl, was a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR); he died on 16 December 1915 following service in the Dardanelles. The title passed to his son, 16-year-old conscientious objector Herbrand, who finally agreed to serve in the Royal Naval Reserve (trawler section). He amazed his fellow Etonians, and the gentlemen of the Press, by enlisting as an able seaman as opposed to an officer. Herbrand was the first hereditary peer to support the Labour Party.

  Despite having been engaged in 1909 to a man considered highly suitable, Margaret never married. She had a 16-year, passionate affair (lasting until 1929) with Ramsey Macdonald, the first Labour Prime Minister. She declined to marry him, however, largely because he was Presbyterian and she Roman Catholic. She became the first president of the Scottish PEN (the worldwide association of authors).

  ETHEL TALBOT SCHEFFAUER (1888-1976)

  In 1912 Londoner Ethel Talbot married Herman Scheffauer, the American-born son of a German immigrant father who had lived in Kensington for several years. Although trained as an architect, Herman was a minor poet, writer and translator of Thomas Mann’s work. In May 1915, Ethel applied for an American passport as the couple were moving to Germany.

  By 1921, they were living in Berlin with their daughter. New Altars (1921) was published by a Berlin press. It is anti-war and reconciliatory, seeking to ‘bury the gods of war for only then can the world know peace’. According to The Bancroft Library, at the University of California, having murdered his secretary, 49-year-old Herman committed suicide in 1927. By 1939, Ethel and her daughter were living in Woolwich, South-East London, where she earned her living as a German/English translator until her death. Contrary to popular belief she is not the Ethel Talbot who was a prolific author of children’s books.

  AIMÉE BYNG SCOTT (1867-1953)

  Born in India, Aimée was an Indian Army officer’s daughter. By 1881, like so many such children, she, her mother and four siblings were living in England – her father may have remained overseas. In 1895, she too became an Indian Army wife through her marriage to Major-General Arthur Scott. He served on the Somme at Ovillers and also in the first great tank battle at Cambrai (1917). She wrote crime novels, appearing in A Comprehensive Bibliography of Crime Fiction.

  MAY SINCLAIR (1863-1946)

  By 1914, women’s suffrage supporter May Sinclair was a respected author and friend of a number of the prominent literary figures of the day. Interested in Medico-Psychological Research, in psychoanalytic and psychic ideas, in 1914 she donated to a ‘Fund for Nerve-Shocked Soldiers’. When she heard that an Ambulance Unit was being formed by an acquaintance, Hector Munro, she eagerly offered her services.

  At this early stage, voluntary units were fighting each other to get to the war zone. May’s 1915 Journal of Impressions in Belgium gives a vivid, if uncomplimentary, view of some early volunteers rushing hither and thither around London, desperate not to miss out on the war that would be ‘over by Christmas’. She recognises that danger can be a magnet for both genders.

  In September 1914, the Belgian Red Cross accepted the Hector Munro Ambulance Corps’ offer of service: Sinclair and twelve other well-meaning individuals left for Ostend. Her ill-defined role included being keeper of the funds, a position for which she was, by her own admission, ill-suited. Her Journal reveals how painfully her dream of helping the wounded disintegrated. Whilst thousands of women found themselves admirably able to cope with what she refers to as the ‘horror of bloody bandages and mangled bodies’, May could not.

  Despite the thrill of being in ‘a military hospital under military orders’, her short-comings soon became painfully apparent and she was eventually left floundering, ‘feeling like a large and useless parcel which the Commandant had brought with him in sheer absence of mind, and was now anxious to lose or otherwise get rid of.’

  Unceremoniously returned to England, she published her Journal and poems demonstrating admiration for those who were able to deal with the horrors and chaos of the early weeks of the War, and bitterness towards those who had taken advantage of the money she had given to the Unit, gone overseas, and successfully stolen her ‘dream’ from her. Her sense of rejection runs counter to much uniformed women’s poetry, which frequently celebrates women’s commitment to the cause they themselves visibly represent. She was deeply aware of and concerned for the plight of Belgium and her citizens and the fate that awaited them at the hands of the advancing Germans.

  MARJORIE KANE SMYTH (D.1936?)

  An Australian, Marjorie lived in New South Wales; her father may have been a clergyman because in 1904 she passed Junior examinations at a Clergy Daughters’ School in New South Wales. She was one of the earliest Australians to volunteer as a VAD, arriving in Egypt on 12 October 1915; some ninety-two Australian women served in this capacity. She worked at No. 1 Australian General Hospital, ‘Heliopolis Palace’ a huge complex which, according to the Hospital’s own records, was in ‘the land of the Pharaohs’ as a 750-bed hospital from January 1915 to March 1916. Marjorie would have cared for patients from Gallipoli.

  The hospital then transferred to France, with bed capacity increasing to 1,040, and Marjorie served there until June 1917. She was awarded the 1914-1915 Star as well as the British War and Victory medals. She may have died around 1935, as that is the last year she appears on the NSW electoral roll.

  VIOLET SPENDER (née Schuster) (1878-1921)

  The only daughter of a German-born barrister father, Violet was close to her brothers and grieved deeply when her brother Alfred was killed in November 1914; his name is on the Menin Gate. Following Violet’s own death in December 1921, her husband c
ollected and published her poems in The Road to Caister. Just as poetry was a form of grief work for her during the War, compiling the collection was ‘a sacred task’ for her widower, who took comfort from her last words, “I have had a happy life.”

  In his Foreword, Harold Spender explains how Violet ‘wrote poetry because she could not help it.’ Although poetry was often fun for her, Harold selected ‘graver poems inspired by the events she lived through for the last ten years of her life. The Great War filled her mind with deep perplexities: She looked out on its waste and desolation with agonising pity for all men: and like many of her generation, she often sought relief in poetry.’ Their son, Sir Stephen Spender, became a key literary figure in the Modernist movement.

  M STONE

  No personal information has been located. Members of the Women’s Volunteer Reserve would have been predominantly middle/upper class, if for no other reason than the uniform which, according to the organisation’s newsletter cost £2 (around £180 in 2016), had to be paid for out of personal pockets, placing it out of poorer women’s reach. The skirts were intended to be ‘serviceable and sensible, and could be worn at any time.’ Members spent considerable amounts of time drilling, as the Corps’ objective was to create a body of disciplined women to act as dispatch riders, signallers, telegraphists, motorists, and trench diggers who nevertheless remained ‘womenly women not second-class men’.

  MURIEL STUART (1885-1967)

  Born in London, Muriel’s barrister father had Scottish ancestry. Hugh Macdiarmid considered her the ‘best poet’ of the inter-war Scottish Renaissance’, whilst Thomas Hardy called her poetry ‘superlatively good’. In 1926, American editor Henry Savage went so far as to say that with ‘Alice Meynell being dead, there is no English poet living today who is Muriel Stuart’s peer.’

  Nonetheless, her wide-ranging poetry is now largely forgotten. As well as writing poetry with a religious theme, both during and after the War, she poetically addressed the violation of women in the Occupied Areas of France and Belgium, and also the opprobrium heaped upon women who gave birth to ‘bastards’. During the War she worked for publishers Herbert Jenkins and also Heinemann (see publishers section). In 1921, she became a founder member of PEN to promote literature and freedom of expression. Her post-war poetry explored the need for equal partnerships between men and women.

  SARA TEASDALE (1888-1933)

  A prolific, critically acclaimed American poet, Sara was part of the poetry circle surrounding the American Poetry magazine edited by Harriet Monroe. In 1918 she was awarded the Columbia University Poetry Society Prize, subsequently renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Having suffered bouts of depression and lived as a semi-invalid following her divorce in 1929, she committed suicide with an overdose of barbiturates in 1933. Her wartime poetry, whilst retaining the lyrical voice commented upon by critics, shows a deep awareness of the travesties of war.

  [Alice] EVELYN TOLLEMACHE (1872-1941)

  One of eight children, Alice’s younger brothers, Harold and Lyonel served during the War and both survived. In the 1911 census she does not give a profession and The New Crucifixion appears to be her only published collection of poetry.

  SARAH TOYE (1869-1951)

  On the 1901 census, Sarah’s semi-literate husband gives his occupation as a shipyard worker. By 1911, she was a widow with seven children living in Londonderry. Her eldest son was a baker, whilst two other sons are listed on the census as ‘cabinet makers’. Her son John, known as Vincent to his family, enlisted with the Royal Iniskillings Fusiliers early in the War. He was killed in Gallipoli on 2 July 1915 and, like countless others of the ill-fated campaign, he has no grave; his is one of the 20,878 names inscribed on the towering Helles Memorial.

  ALYS FANE TROTTER (1863-1961)

  Born in Ireland. In 1886 she married civil engineer Alexander Pelham Trotter, editor of The Electrical Magazine. The couple lived with their young daughter and son in South Africa between 1896 and 1898, as Alexander was electrical advisor to the Cape Colonial Government. She published and illustrated a book about the Old Cape, which the family had explored by bicycle. Upon returning to England, Alexander became electrical advisor to the Board of Trade and Alys contributed prose and poetry to middle-brow periodicals.

  Nigel and Other Verses (1918) is dedicated to her 20-year-old Regular Army Officer son, who was killed near Béthune on 12 October 1914. On the family’s return from South Africa, she appears to have divided her time between Fittleworth in Sussex and London, ending her days in Wiltshire.

  KATHARINE TYNAN (1861-1931)

  A renowned and prolific Irish writer and poet, Katharine was closely involved with the Irish Revival. W B Yeats proposed to her in 1891, but she was secretly engaged to classical scholar, Henry Hinkson whom she married in 1893. They settled in London where their two sons and daughter Pamela (q.v.) were born. Tynan’s writing successfully supported the family. In 1911, mainly through ‘networking’, she acquired the position of Resident Magistrate for County Mayo for her now lawyer husband and the family returned to Ireland remaining there throughout the War.

  Her wartime poetic output was considerable: she wrote condolence poems for bereaved friends, personalising these with details of their dead sons’ life. Belief in the holiness of the War underpins all her poetry, soldiers are New Crusaders. With her sons serving with the Royal Irish Regiment in Gallipoli and France (they survived), she could empathise with mothers’ fears and anguish.

  Widowed in 1919, her sight, which had started to fail her at the age of seven, deteriorated to near-blindness. She died of cerebral thrombosis in April 1931 and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, close to her friend Alice Meynell (q.v.). Although her poetry has fallen out of favour, during much of the War it struck the right chord with the public and received considerable critical acclaim.

  MARGARET TYRRELL-GREEN (1863-1942)

  Her husband, the Reverend Edmund Tyrrell-Green was Professor of Hebrew and Theology at St David’s College, Lampeter (now the University of Wales). He wrote widely on Christian doctrine and Church architecture as well as, unusually for a father at the time, a text that explores paternal grief.

  Their Cambridge educated elder son, Denis (b.1894) volunteered in September 1914, being commissioned Lieutenant with the Royal Sussex Regiment. He survived the Gallipoli campaign, where, according to De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour, he was commended by the General Commanding the Division for doing valuable reconnoitring and map-drawing work.’ Invalided home, he returned to action in Egypt and Palestine. He was killed on 26 March 1917 at El-Shelluf and is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial, Jerusalem War Cemetery, as well as on three UK War memorials. Denis’s Padre wrote of a delightful, devout young officer whose men referred to him as ‘splendid’.

  More Poems is dedicated to ‘my son Denis in gratitude for a loving and lovely life laid down in the service of God and of his country.’ One touching piece composed in memory of a friend’s sons, brothers Duncan and Gwion Bowen Lloyd, who were killed in Gallipoli within a week of each other in August 1915, appeared in The Cambrian on 15 February 1916.

  VIVIANE VERNE (1864-1921)

  The only known piece of information about Viviane is she also published lyrics during the War. In the Western Daily Press of 14 August 1916, the music reviewer felt that there was ‘tenderness and simple expression’ in her ‘We Cannot Forget’.

  ALBERTA VICKRIDGE (1890-1963)

  One of three sisters born into a strict Methodist household, as a young child, Alberta’s literary talent was already apparent. By 1914 she was establishing a name for herself in the local literary and art worlds. Due to their mother’s ill-health, the family frequently left their native Yorkshire and holidayed in Devon.

  In 1914 VAD Vickridge joined the Red Cross Town Hall Hospital in Torquay. Like hospitals across the land, it published its own magazine often featuring her poetry. VAD Agatha Christie was the magazine editor. Almost fanatical about poetry, Vickridge confessed to reading ‘poetry w
hen she ought to be asleep and dream[ing] it when she ought to be awake!’ She won several poetry prizes. Arguably, her most significant achievement occurred in January 1918 when her ‘Out of Conflict’ won first prize in a Poetry Review competition for the ‘Best Poem’ by a poet On Active Service whilst the now world-renowned war poet Wilfred Owen came second with ‘Song of Songs’.

  She continued to win poetry competitions post-war and also edited The Jongleur a quarterly magazine of verse, as well as publishing several collections of poetry, including one in World War Two.

  JESSIE WAKEFIELD (1881-1946)

  Born in Barnsley, her father was a surveyor and sanitary inspector. Her husband Edward was a buyer with the Co-operative Stores in Barnsley and it is tempting to surmise that they met in the town, as they married in 1909, two years after his arrival there. During the War a few of Jessie’s pieces were published in magazines such as the Westminster Gazette. Post-war, she had two volumes of poetry published, one edited by Alberta Vickridge (q.v.) as well as several humorous sketches ‘for co-operators’ and she was closely involved with the Co-operative movement.

  KATHLEEN MONTGOMERY WALLACE (1890-1958)

  The daughter of a Cambridge lecturer in Mathematics, Kathleen’s twin sister died in infancy. Educated at the Perse School, Cambridge and at Girton College, she achieved a degree in English in 1914. Her brother Basil Coates was killed in 1915 and he is remembered on the Ploegstreet Memorial.

  She wrote for a number of women’s magazines as well as novels and poetry. Her elegiac war poems published in Lost City, Verses explore her sense of a doomed world and the War’s devastating effects on her generation and on Cambridge itself. In February 1917 she married Major James Hill Wallace, OBE, (attached to the Canadian Mounted Rifles). With their four sons they lived first in Canada and then China (which provides the backdrop for a number of her adult novels), before returning to England in 1927. She also wrote children’s fiction.