One of the first to fall: John Pepys, 23 August 1914

One hundred years ago today, 23 August, the first young officer from the Lower Otter Valley - possibly the first British serviceman from the area - lost his life in the Great War.

  

John Pepys as seen in The roll of honour. A biographical record of all members of His Majesty's naval and military forces who have fallen in the war (1916) edited by The Marquis de Ruvigny    Image credit:  http://www.mocavo.com

It would have been used to add colour to an officer’s face so that he wouldn’t have looked pale and scared before leading his men out of the trenches.

That was Jeremy Paxman’s explanation given in BBC One’s documentary ‘Britain’s Great War’, broadcast earlier this year, about a pot of rouge.  The TV presenter and journalist had discovered the item while going through the effects of Captain the Honourable 'Tommy' Agar-Robartes MP, the eldest son and heir of the sixth Viscount Clifden, killed by a German sniper on 30 September 1915.

Paxman’s explanation was ridiculed at the time. It was a pot of jewellers’ rouge that he'd found, pointed out the experts, more likely to have been used for polishing brass.

Yet it’s tempting to imagine the understandable fear felt by young, largely public school-educated members of Britain’s landed gentry as they led their men ‘over the top.’ The likelihood of being mown down by enemy machine-gun fire was one heart-thumping prospect that they faced. Perhaps just as terrifying was the possibility of last-minute nerves, of cowardice in front of their men, of failure to defend family honour.

It’s been long accepted that the young officers of Britain’s elite fought bravely and suffered disproportionately heavy losses during the Great War. It’s no surprise to learn that one of its first victims from the Lower Otter Valley to be killed in action came from this class. 
 
 

 

 

Second Lieutenant John Pepys was the eldest of four children born to Captain Arthur Pepys and his wife Margaret, née Lomax. His father was a Captain in the King’s Royal Rifles - nicknamed the 60th Rifles - and is recorded in the 1887 census as living in London. By 1891 the parents had moved to Devon, his father having retired from the military. John was born on 7 May 1890, and was brought up at the family home of Knowle House on Dalditch Lane, seen above.

 

 

 

John Pepys in his final school year at Charterhouse.  Photo reproduced by kind permission of the Headmaster and Governors of Charterhouse
 

He entered Charterhouse School in Surrey in 1904.  Archive records suggest that he was not outstanding at school in either sporting prowess or academic work, and that he was rather overshadowed by his younger brother Francis when it came to sport.  John was certainly an enthusiastic sportsman: he played for the School Cricket 3rd XI, the Hodgsonites House Cricket team and for ‘Maniacs’ (a team that played against local village teams); he also played for the Harpies Football and Cricket teams (the eleven Houses were split between four teams, one of which was Harpies, giving more opportunities for matches) and for his House in the annual inter-house competitions. His recreations were later listed as hunting, steeple-chasing, shooting, fishing, skiing. cricket, and golf. Francis, however, was a better cricketer and had already reached the 1st XI Cricket team before his elder brother John left the School. 

John Pepys, sitting, far left, with the Hodgsonites Cricket Team of 1908.
Photo reproduced by kind permission of the Headmaster and Governors of Charterhouse 

John was placed in the ‘Modern’ or ‘C Forms’ throughout his time at Charterhouse (as was Francis),  which were classes designed for those intended for careers in the Army or business, rather than university,  so there was more emphasis on Maths and Modern Languages and less on Classics to prepare boys for the Sandhurst and Woolwich entrance exams.  On arrival at the School, John was placed in the Upper IV C Form for two terms, but then was moved down a form to Middle IV C for one term before being returned to the Upper IV.  He was promoted to the Remove Modern Form a year later and then to the Under V Modern for his final year.  His annual summer exam results were not spectacular, but he duly gained his place at Sandhurst in autumn 1909.

All three Pepys brothers chose to join the School Rifle Corps - forerunner of the Officers Training Corps (OTC) and the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) and here John excelled, reaching the dizzy rank of Sergeant, whereas his brothers remained as ordinary cadets. He left in 1908 to go on to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and  joined the Second Battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in November 1910.   

 

A British Vickers machine gun crew photographed by Lt Ernest Brooks
From the collections of the Imperial War Museums © IWM (Q 2864)

As war approached, the young officer, still a bachelor, completed a course at the Army’s School of Musketry in Hythe, Sussex. This quaintly-named establishment had been set up in the 1850s; by 1883 it was carrying out tests on the first manually operated machine guns.  On the Western Front, units of the regular British Army’s Expeditionary Force had began to arrive in France from 7 August.  

This unusual image is from a Belgian postcard published in 1919 showing a group of men most likely from the 5th Division marching up alongside the Mons-Conde canal through the village of Jemappes, which would be the scene of heavy fighting the following day, when John Pepys was killed
Image credit: Paul Reed http://greatwarphotos.com


John Pepys was sent to France on 14 August 1914, in charge of the machine guns of his battalion. 

   

"A" Company of the 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, resting in the town square at Mons before entering the line prior to the Battle of Mons.    Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org

A total of four divisions of the BEF, commanded by Sir John French, attempted to hold the line of the 60-foot wide Mons–Condé Canal against the advancing German 1st Army.  

 













 

The Retreat from Mons, a photo from the collections of the Imperial War Museums   Image credit: http://media.iwm.org.uk © IWM (Q 51484)

The British could muster only 80,000 men and 300 guns as against the German First Army’s 160,000 men and 600 guns. They inflicted heavy casualties, but were eventually forced to yield, during a retreat generally noted for its good order, which lasted for two weeks. It was seen as an important moral victory for the British, such was the uncertainty as to how the army would perform against superior odds. 

 






















 'Spotting the Enemy Sniper'
 This image is taken from Sniping in France, by Major Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard, published in 1920. The original artist was Ernest Blaikley 

In one important area at the start of the Great War the Germans were recognised as superior by British troops. Their snipers were much feared. Not only were they better trained than the British equivalent, but they were better equipped. Their rifles were fitted with telescopic sights using high-quality lenses. British military advisors, it appears, supposed that the telescopic sights attached to sniper rifles were too easily damaged and thus not well suited for military use.  By August 1915, however, stung by German boasts of the success of their sniper teams, the British military authorities gave the go-ahead to the founding of a School of Sniping in the Pas-de-Calais region of France by the big-game hunter and explorer Major Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard.


John Pepys was shot by German snipers on 23 August 1914, nine days after leaving England and three hours after going into action at Mons.  He was 24 years old.

The cemetery at Hautrage  
 Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission
http://www.cwgc.org
 

He is buried  in the military cemetery of Hautrage, 15 kilometres west of Mons, along with 235 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. The cemetery also contains 537 German war graves.

His brother Francis would die a few months later, killed in action on 12 November. Both men are remembered on the war memorial in All Saints Church, East Budleigh, and on the village war memorial. 

I am much indebted to Catherine Smith, Archivist at Charterhouse School, for information that she kindly supplied.
 

Visit ‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews include: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!!”  

 


 


















 

‘Armchair patriots’?

As the need for volunteers became more acute, the Government launched a campaign using posters such as this one.  Commissioned by the British Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (PRC), and designed by Savile Lumley, it was published in 1915.  

 

Equally effective as a piece of recruitment propaganda was this 1915 PRC-commissioned poster by the artist E.V. Kealey.  While encouraging men to enlist to protect their defenceless womenfolk, it subtly appealed to women to persuade their men that it was their moral duty to serve King and Country. 

 

The East Budleigh and Budleigh Salterton Territorial Army on parade in Rolle Square, Budleigh Salterton, in 1914. Pictured are: (front row) Reginald Ford, George Annis, Andrew Leaman, Frank Steward, G. Sanders, B. West and E. Annis; (back row) Frank Henry Cowd, H. Clarke

Image credit: Fairlynch Museum

A recent University of Exeter PhD thesis has examined the way in which a crucial role in the recruitment campaign was played by the county’s elites. For the author, Richard Batten, they were “armchair patriots”  who became “the self-appointed intermediaries of the war experience on a local level and who took an explicitly exhortative role, attempting to educate Devonians in the codes of ideal conduct in wartime.”

 

 A photo of March 1915 showing the forming of a Volunteer Training Corps at Budleigh Salterton, led by Colonel Milne. The Corps was open to all men who were able to prove that they were ineligible for Lord Kitchener's Army

Image credit: Fairlynch Museum 

In places like Budleigh, retired army officers - and there were plenty of them -  were ready to recruit local men, as Budleigh’s William Cowd recalled:  “Soon came a call for volunteers for military duties, a ‘National Reserve’ was formed, men of all age groups fell in on the South Parade by Raleigh's Wall, known locally as the Quay Wall, and were addressed by a local, Col Baker, who spoke of the need of such an important force.”

In other parts of Devon the picture was rather different.  Results in the remoter north-west parts of the county have shown, according to recent research, that the recruitment campaign failed to convey the true gravity of the country’s position and that residents were sluggish in responding to the war effort.

Even in the more populated areas of the county, the recruitment figures were disappointing. In frustration at the relative lack of volunteers, retired Major-General Joseph Laye bitterly attacked his home town of Dawlish at a local recruiting rally. A veteran of the Zulu Wars of the 1870s, he was quoted in the Dawlish Gazette of 15 September 1914 as observing that “Devonians are too content  away from the war in the sunshine.”

In a letter to the Western Morning News in the autumn of that year written under the synonym of  Devonian, one resident pointed out that whilst “we all sing and shout ‘Glorious Devon’ but is it not humiliating to know, so far that not one in every hundred of the population in the county have volunteered their services?” 

Devon’s Lord Lieutenant, Earl Fortescue, was equally unhappy about the county’s poor record of achievement in attracting young men to the battlefield. In the matter of recruitment,  Devonians “had nothing to be proud of”, he was quoted as saying in The Western Times of 24 November 1914. “It was time they applied themselves to a new effort to make up for their shortcomings of the past.”

But it seems that the ‘armchair patriots’ had extremely limited success. By April 1915, the rural 9th Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment could boast of only 80 local men and was forced to fill up with Londoners and Midlanders.

In January 1916 the Military Service Bill was introduced in Parliament, providing for the conscription of single men aged 18–41.

It was a grim move, confirming that the slaughter being carried out worldwide by a relentless war machine was now on an industrial scale. The Western Times of 1 June 1917, reporting on the wedding of Corporal W.H. Eales and Miss M. Curtis at St Peter’s Church in Budleigh Salterton, noted that a Mr Park Perriam was best man “in the absence of the bridegroom’s and the bride’s brothers, who were all on active service.”

Their names do not appear on any local war memorials. They were the lucky ones. 

Visit ‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews include: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!!”  

 

The Home Front in Devon during 1914 - Dr Richard Batten

This Great War recruiting poster was one of hundreds produced by the authorities during the 1914-18 conflict to encourage people to ‘do their bit’.  It was designed by Robert Baden-Powell, later ennobled as Baron Baden-Powell, founder of the Scouting Movement

Image credit: Museum Victoria

Visitors who have enjoyed The Great War at Fairlynch exhibition will be interested in hearing what an Exeter University researcher has discovered about Devon’s readiness for war 100 years ago.

 











World War One specialist Dr Richard Batten, from the University of Exeter

From August 1914 to December 1914, Devon’s population witnessed the transformation from peacetime to wartime.  The residents of Devon were encouraged to participate with the war effort which ranged from recruitment efforts to war charities.  Richard Batten’s talk, presented by the Otter Valley Association, will explore how Devonians responded to the circumstances of wartime on the Home Front in 1914.

“The commemoration of the Western Front should not wholly overshadow the wide-ranging activities of the men, women, and children of the British Home Front,” says Dr Batten. “Devon’s local tendency toward charity over service reflects the unusual autonomy of its citizens as they attempted to navigate the different challenges of the war.”

The talk will take place on Tuesday 7 October at 7.30 pm in East Budleigh Village Hall.  Admission costs £2.00 for OVA members and £2.50 for non-members.

Visit ‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews include: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!!” 

WW1 competition success for Budleigh pupils

Local schools have responded enthusiastically to projects commemorating the 1914-18 conflict. One of them did especially well in a special competition sponsored by the Chairman of East Devon District Council to mark the centenary. 

Pupils at St Peter’s Primary School in Budleigh Salterton were asked by their teachers to choose a World War One assignment based on links to the local area. Some chose to research a name from a local war memorial or to write about the local impact of the conflict.

This is what nine-year-old Sophia Rehbock did:

 At EDDC’s Annual Council Meeting on 14 May 2014, Council Chairman Graham Godbeer awarded certificates to the winning schools. Sophia’s school came first in the Primary School category.

Many of Fairlynch’s volunteers work all-year round even when Fairlynch is closed. They are always ready to investigate the archives and offer information, especially to young people with school projects like Sophia. 

Visit ‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews include: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!!”