Into the picture podcast: Battlefield Butler скачать в хорошем качестве

Into the picture podcast: Battlefield Butler

Sewerby’s Soldier Servant In 1915, the Butler’s Pantry at Sewerby Hall was the sitting room and office of Mr John Graham, the butler. We don’t know exactly when he joined the Domestic staff, but John was certainly resident at the house in 1907 and by 1911 he was working as the butler. Somewhat unusually for a man in his position, John was married, having tied the knot with Margaret Greenwell in that same year. As a rule, employers preferred single men as Butlers as it was felt that there would be no conflict loyalties if a man had no family of his own. But by the spring of 1912, not only did John have a wife, but also a son, Robert. What the living arrangements for John and his family were at the hall we do not know, but a house on the estate or in Sewerby village is probable. Following the start of the Great War in 1914, men from Sewerby, like so many other towns and villages across the country, began to volunteer for the forces. John, an older man with a wife and child, he was 28, did not join the first rush to war, but instead, in November 1915, signed up as part of the Group System, or Derby Scheme as it came to be known. He was enlisted into the Royal Garrison Artillery at Great Yarmouth in the following April and from there he was posted to 169th Siege Battery and on 5 October, along with his unit, he landed in France. Within days the battery was in action on the Somme. It was whilst on the Somme that John was promoted to Acting Bombardier to take charge of the Officer’s Servants and Mess kitchen. At this time every officer in the Army was assigned a servant, often known as a batman. In a speech in Parliament, that same year, Winston Churchill suggested that there were some 200,000 officer’s servants in the army and another 50,000 grooms. These were the men who looked after the officer’s needs. Often living in the same dugouts or billets as their officer. When in the front line they would cook the officer’s food, clean their kit, and act as bodyguard. Behind the lines they would become mess staff and waiters and whilst travelling between the two they would ensure the safe movement of their officer’s belongings. Although, it might seem obvious to give a Butler this type of duty and it is probably his background in Domestic Service that led to John’s particular appointment. This was not generally the case. Officers would choose their servant’s, or dismiss them, for many reasons. Some officers took their personal servant’s with them when they joined up. Other’s opted for battle hardened veterans who made better bodyguards than cooks, one officer admitted to taking a man as a servant in an attempt to keep him out of trouble. But the majority of officers chose men who could act on their own initiative, were resourceful and could find useful things amongst the battlefields debris and who were particularly good at scrounging. In July 1917, John, by that time very ill with trench fever, was sent home. He would never go back to France and in September he was posted to Catterick where he remained till his discharge in December 1918. After the war he seems to have only briefly returned to Bridlington and it is not known if he ever came back to work at Sewerby Hall, but by the end of the 1930s he had left the area to work as a butler in Northumberland. He never he really recovered from his illness and died in 1957 aged just 66.