The
Life Story of
HARRY BURGESS & MARY ELIZABETH HOLLICK
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
These are the parents of Edna Mary Burgess, who married Charles Roy Skinner at Unley Sth Aust in 1941
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Harry Burgess’s Early Years
c 1884 - Around this time Harry’s parents John Henry Burgess
and Mary Ann Cooper (nee Colston), with her daughter Ada Florence Cooper, set
up a family home in Garston St, Shepton Mallet, Somerset. [guess]
Mary Ann was already married to a William Henry
Cooper, a Railway Guard, who appears to have deserted her about mid 1882, just before the birth of her daughter Ada
Florence, and was never heard of again, there being a suggestion he went to
America.
23/2/1885 – Harry’s brother Frank was born in Shepton Mallet
(at 3am) [c] [j]
23/12/1887 – Harry’s brother Charles John was born in Shepton
Mallet (at 11pm) [j]
11/5/1888 – Harry Burgess was born in Shepton Mallet (at 6am)
[d][j]
23/12/1888 – Harry’s brother Charles John died aged 8
months [j]
1/11/1889 – Harry’s sister Edith was born in Shepton Mallet (at
12.30pm) [c] [j]
16/11/1890 – Harry’s parents John Henry Burgess (28, Bach, Stone
Mason, of Garston St SM, father Isaac Burgess, Shoe Maker) and Mary Ann Cooper
(38, widow, of Garston St SM, father Peter Colston, Plasterer) married in the
Congregational Chapel in SM, witns Charles Robert Talbot and Eliza Jane Talbot
(Mary’s married sister) [b]
It’s possible that Mary Ann had to
wait seven years before she could have her husband declared legally dead, and
be free to re-marry.
1/2/1891 – Harry’s brother Willie was born in Shepton Mallet
[a]
5/4/1891 – Living at No
7 Garston St SM was John Henry Burgess (29, "Stonemason [employed]"
), his wife Mary A (36), “Stepdau” Ada F Cooper (8, Scholar), son Frank (6),
son Harry (2), dau Edith (1), and son Willie (2m), all born in SM [p]
Living in No 6 Garston St was
Isaac Burgess & Caroline Burgess [nee White], Harry’s paternal
grandparents.
27/5/1899 – Harry’s
grandfather Isaac, aged 76 (a `Billposter’ of Garston St SM), died of a heart
attack at his home, in the presence of his daughter-in-law Mary Ann Burgess of
No 4 Quarr [t]
Harry’s family must have moved
house a few times in this period, from No 7 Garston St, to No 4 Quarr – nearby
– and No 8 Garston St.
31/3/1901 - Living at 8
Garston St in Shepton was John Burgess (40) "Stone mason &
Billposter" born SM, his wife Mary (49) born SM, dau Ada (18) "Silk
winder", born Wincanton, son Frank (16) "Billposter" born SM,
son Harry (12) born SM, dau Edith (11) born SM, son Willie (10) born SM. [q]
Still living at No 6 was his
grandmother Caroline, now a widow.
1901 / 1902 – Harry left school and went into local employment at
about age 12. At some time he worked in the local brewery in Shepton. [a] [c]
Sept ¼ 1903 – Harry’s elder sister Ada Florence [now as
`Burgess’] married Walter William Cox in Shepton [k]
6/2/1905 – Harry’s paternal grandmother Caroline Burgess
assaulted Bessie Dunkerton, her neighbour in Garston St, at about 8.30am, over
a disagreement concerning the joint use of a copper. [k]
Caroline would have by then been
in her late 70s! She went to live in the Crickhowell area of Glamorgan in Sth
Wales with her daughter Eliza Ivey not long after this, where she died a few
months later. [c][r].
c 1908 – Harry went to work in the Welsh coal mines (if the
year is about right he would have been abt 20), but hated it and soon came back
home [a]
It’s said that Harry was closest
to his brother Willie, and also that as a young man his favourite watering hole
was “The Kings Arms” at the end of the street, where he used to get his hair
cut in the small barber shop attached, and played his accordion in the
pub. [a] [c] [e]
Harry and his brother Frank
apparently didn’t always get on, and once had a punchup in the street outside
The Kings Arms, and both were arrested and put in the local cells overnight to
sober up, but no charges were laid for either of them. This was Harry’s only
ever brush with the law. [e] )
1908? – Oral history has it that Harry’s brother Willie
went out to buy a pound of salt one day when he was 17 and never came home. He
walked to Taunton and joined the Army (The Duke of Cornwalls). He wanted to
join the Navy but he was too short and they wouldn’t take him, so he joined the
Army instead [c]
Harry’s brother Willie used
to tell his daughter Ivy about his uncle Abraham [Burgess] being an old ‘sea
dog’ – Abraham would have been about 70 at the time, retired, and living over
in Blagdon - who tried to talk Willie into going to sea. He told Ivy that
Abraham said he was a whaler and that he had lost one hand and had a hook in
its place, always presumed lost while whaling. She never knew that Abraham was
ever married, didn’t think the family ever knew this either. [c]
Abraham actually married a
girl from Newfoundland in Canada, and they lived in Wales for a while. [ab]
C. 1912 ? - One version of oral history has it that Harry’s
father John Henry had a drinking problem and, after inheriting his father
Isaac’s billposting and newsvendor business on his father’s death, he “lost it
all”, also that Harry’s mother Mary Ann “was a readhead and had a bit of a
temper” and there were some family arguments at times. After one of these
occasions when Harry was a young man he came home to find his mother the worse
for wear and got stuck into his father, then “left home and never returned”.
[a]
26/3/1912 – Harry’s mother, aged 60 (of 8 Garston St), died of
heart disease at home, in the presence of her daughter Ada (Cox), and was
buried in the town cemetery [t]
13/12/1913 – Harry enlisted in the 1st Somerset Light
Inf at the Taunton Brks (#9694 – Pte)
[aa]
6/1/1914 – Date of entry shown in his Army issue Bible - “C
Company, 9694 Pte, Harry Burgess, 1st Somerset L Infy, Goojerat
Barracks, Colchester Essex” [d]
The 1st
Battalion, (Prince Alberts) Som Light Inf was stationed at Goojerat Barracks
Colchester under Lt Col EH Swayne. Together with The Rifle Brigade and the
Hampshire and East Lancs Regts they formed the 11th Inf Brigade of
the 4th Divn. This peacetime battalion was ap 650-700 men, all
regulars, taken not only from Somerset, but London and Sth Wales. [g]
<<<<
>>>>
Mary Elizabeth Hollick’s Early Years
17/5/1891 – Lizzie’s
parents John Thomas Hollick (22, bach, Labourer, living at Highfield Rd, Aston
Wks, father William Hollick, a Labourer) and Sarah Topley (21, spstr, of Alum
Rock Rd, Aston Wks, father Thomas Topley, a Labourer), were married at St
Saviours Saltley in Aston, Wkshire. [b]
28/10/1893 – Mary Elizabeth [always `Lizzie’] Hollick was born
at Aston B’ham Wks, the second child of John Thomas Hollick and Sarah (nee
Topley). [u]
Their first child was a
son, born about 2 years before Lizzie, but died of pneumonia aged ap 5 months.
Two sisters and five brothers were born after Lizzie, between 1895 and
1911. [u]
1893 to 1895 - The family
moved to Saltley? [b] [q]
1895 (to 1899) – Lizzie’s
brothers John Thomas (“John”) and Robert Victor (“Bob”), and her sister Edith
Kate (“Edie”), were born in Saltley.
[q]
1899 to 1901 – The family
moved back to Aston? [b] [q]
Saltley and Aston are about 2kms
apart, ap 2kms NE of Birmingham city centre.
31/3/1901 – Lizzie’s
family were living at No 22 Reginald Rd Aston in Birmingham. In the house was John T Hollick (32)
"Railway Wagon Repairer" born Saltley, Sarah his wife (31) born
Saltley, and four kids (all born Saltley) Mary E (7), son John T (5), dau Edith
K (3), and son Victor R (1) [q]
As a child Lizzie lived at home
with her parents and went to school in Birmingham. [a]
She told the story of how, as a
small child, she used to love going to stay with ‘her Grandma Bott’ (her dad’s
mother Elizabeth Mary, who she was named after) in Welford. There she
remembered going for the milk to Home Farm across the field, and she would
`pick buttercups on the way home, and occasionally she would have to get a
couple of eggs, but had to make sure that they were brown eggs, because
her grandma always said that brown always tasted the best. [a]
Lizzie always believed her
parents expected her, as the eldest girl, to remain single and stay with them,
as housekeeper and to look after them in their old age. Her remark at this
point was always - “Well, did I have news for them!” [a]
31/3/1901 – Lizzie’s
paternal grandmother (60, widow, charwoman) was living in the High St Welford
Nhnts with one of her grandsons [q]
1901 (to 1911) – Lizzie’s
brothers Alfred William (“Alf”), Frederick Charles (“Fred”), and Clifford
William (“Cliff”), and her sister Hannah Louise (“Louie”) were born in
Birmingham. [u]
Abt 1908 – When in her
teens, Lizzie took a position with their local Anglican parish minister, and
became his Housekeeper. [a]
This was presumably at St
Margarets at Ward End.
<<<< >>>>
Their Life
Together
early 1914? – Harry met John Hollick from Birmingham in the
Colchester Barracks and they became good mates. He took Harry home with him on
leave and it was there that Harry met John’s elder sister Mary Elizabeth
[‘Lizzie’], and the two of them began ‘stepping out’ [a]
A local Shepton girl, Amy
Carter – his dau Edna referred to her as ‘his sweetheart’ Amy - was said to have `had her cap set’ on Harry,
but whether this was mutual or not, when he met Lizzie that was the end of
Amy. [e]
March 1914 – “Grim prospect of war is looming large in Europe
with the arms race threatening to run out of control” [h]
28/6/1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated, which sets
off the inevitable [h]
c June 1914? – Harry (and Lizzie?) must have been thinking
marriage, as Lizzie said she wouldn’t get engaged, but if they still felt the
same when he got back (at that time everyone thinking it would be a short war)
they’d get engaged. At the time Lizzie was still working for the local Anglican
minister as a housekeeper. [a]
29/7/1914 – Preliminary mobilisation of the Regiment ordered,
advance party sent to Felixstowe to guard ferries and dig in, in case of a
German raid, rest confined to barracks, kits packed [g]
4/8/1914 – England declared war on Germany as a consequence of
Germany invading Belgium [h] Harry’s Regiment ordered to mobilise [g]
Oral history has it that
Harry’s brother Frank got arrested for drunkedness when he was supposed to be getting
ready for embarkation to France with his other brother Willie. Frank managed to
get off this charge okay but he decided he just had to go back to Shepton for
whisky instead of heading for the train station, and finished up getting
charged with desertion, something the authorities were having a lot of trouble
with, fairly understandably.
Willie was then told Frank was to be shot at dawn
so grief-stricken Willie said goodbye to him, fully expecting to never see him
again. But there was some kind of confusion on the charge, and once more Frank
was let go, and he duly headed off a while later for France and the hell that
was the front lines. Willie was out on the battlefield and who comes marching
towards him through the smoke and haze but his `dead’ brother Frank! Willie
always swore he thought he was seeing a ghost.
[c]
Apparently Willie finished
up with no less than seven bayonet wounds from the war, and had to be tended
all the rest of his life with special dressings, but the old boy could never
get a war pension, because it was deemed that his wounds weren’t severe
enough! [c]
6th to 16th Aug 1914 – Reservists arriving, training,
marching, kit issues, fire drills, inspections. One soldier there writes
‘Parade at 8am for a route march, quite a hot one. Back at about 11.45am, wash
and clean rifle. Kit inspection after lunch. Pack up sea kitbag. Read and talk,
bed early.’ Another writes ‘…getting steady pay, if we go to the front we get
£5 Blood Money, the Govt offer you that, at the same time hoping you don’t live
to claim it.’ [g]
17/8/1914 – The Som Light Inf (SLI, the ‘Light Bobs’) left
Colchester for Harrow where the rest of the 4th Divn was collecting,
camped on the playing fields of Harrow School
[g]
21/8/1914 – Harry’s dad, aged 52 [shown as a `Bill Poster -
Master)’ of 8 Garston St SM], died of `Malignant disease of the liver and
dropsy’ at home in the presence of his daughter Ada (who lived next door at No
9) and was buried in the town cemetery with his wife [t]
This is the actual day that
Harry embarked for France from Southampton! When would he have been advised? If
it missed him during the turmoil of embarkation and landing in France, possibly
Harry didn’t get to hear about this until he was a POW?
Oral history has it that
Harry’s sister Ada Florence (Cox), who was the informant at both of her parents
deaths, sold the family house while the boys were o’seas, although his will
states that he left `…to my son Willie and my daughter Ada Florence the
household furniture & effects and moneys in Lloyds Bank in equal shares….’.
But the net value of the estate was a whole £20-9-0 and certainly didn’t
include a house! And why didn’t Harry, Frank, and Edith get a share? [c] [n]
21/8/1914 – 4th Divn left Harrow for Southampton
(“...breakfast of bully beef and biscuit ...left camp at 6.30pm and marched to
Sudbury Stn. We were a happy crowd and sang at the top of our voices... could
not have been in better spirits if we were all going on leave. People lined the
streets and cheered us on our way... [that night] slept on the upper deck
packed tightly together like a flock of sheep... so crammed on board we
couldn’t get our feet straight...”), Somersets entrained at 7pm and arr at the
port at 11.30pm, embarked on the Braemar
Castle at midnight [g]
22/8/1914 – “Sea smooth and weather excellent…”, disembarked at
Le Havre having waited till near midnight due to low tides and “…French pilot
made many bad shots at berthing…” [g]
23/8/1914 – About 2am they marched six miles `…through town and
up a steep hill to rest camp [which was] very dirty and rather fruity [smelly?]
when the sun got up …great welcome from the French people …giving us flowers…’
Then back to the station in the evening and `… the
Colonel read to us the Kings message to his troops also telling us that not
many hours distant we should be facing the enemy... cheered and the noise
frightened the Colonels horse which reared up and threw him…’
The troops then re-boarded the trains `… forty men to
a wagon which does not give much room… men packed in [apparently open]cattle
trucks but made the best of it, imitating the bellowing and bleating of oxen
and sheep…’ [g]
24/8/1914 – Finally away about 2am `…not much prospect of
getting any sleep with someone’s boots in my face… 20 mins rest at Rouen… coffee
and a nip of brandy… bully beef and biscuits … [after] 17 hours crammed in
cattle trucks we marched 8 miles to a village… slept the night in a shed …the
leave atmosphere has evaporated [!!] but we are all very chirpy. What is
happening? No one had any idea!’ [g]
The bigger situation on Aug
24th was that, after holding the Germans at Mons, the British
Expeditionary Force (the BEF, the “Contemptible Little Army” according to the
Kaiser) and the French were falling back towards Paris at the mercy of artillery
and cavalry, commanders decided to make a stand in the Le Cateau area to enable
them to regroup. At this time the 4th Divn (inc Som LI) was in
process of arriving from Le Havre, and had begun deploying, coming into contact
with the enemy, and they had no choice but to make a stand, even though not
fully assembled, lacking cavalry, ambulances, engineers, heavy artillery, and
the ammunition train. [g]
25/8/1914 – This day, and the following day when Harry appears
to have been wounded, the SLI was in the thick of of this battle around Le
Cateau, trying to hold the line so that other forces could regroup as a
consequence of the overall `Retreat From Mons’, but it’s unclear from the
reports and diaries who was specifically where. Midday thunderstorm made the
ground and trenches boggy, trail of refugees from the towns, some German
shelling, everywhere digging in, Somersets stripped to the waist, steam rising,
putting up barb wire defences. [g]
26/8/1914 – Before dawn “rifle, machinegun, and shellfire… the
Rifle Brigade [and the] Somersets were pushed forward to the southern end of Beauvois [2kms NW of Caudry] to hold
the enemy… while the other two Battalions moved south… men rather nervous at
this first experience of shrapnel fire…”
Sections of the SLI (inc Harry’s ‘C’ Company under
Major Thoyts) then occupied “the eastern end of the quarries [near La
Carriere]… German infantry and machineguns advanced to close range… Huns
started a systematic traversing fire… three shells burst over us in quick
succession and hit three men and alarmed the rest horribly…”
Some units then advanced “in extended order in spite
of the heavy machinegun fire, up a slope [to a] hedge where we lay down and
opened fire on the advancing Germans… as taught on the ranges… only difference
was now we had something alive to fire at… strangely enough none of us minded
killing another human being… we too were taking casualties, men being killed
right and left of me…”
“…it was shocking to hear and see the shells bursting
all around us. My God, we could see thousands of Germans swarming out of a
wood… in front about a thousand yards ahead… started dropping them like wheat
before the scythe but still they came… but it was not the the thousands of
infantry that were doing the damage, it was the shrapnel. They had the range
splendidly… shells bursting all around us and expecting to get your head blown
off at any minute.”
“The Somersets withstood the onslaught… but lost
heavily… our chaps kept dropping and some of the sights were awful… a youngster
saying to me `I don’t think the beggars could hit me if they tried’ and at that
instant a shell caught him in the forehead and his head was shattered.”
Nearby “…they suddenly opened up a heavy shrapnel fire
on us with perfect range. A small part of our men got up and ran but I am sorry
to say were mostly knocked out. Their attitudes struck us as grotesque but
[their] moaning and cries of pain were terrible as we could do nothing for them
except bandage a few and leave them.”
‘C’ Company was then pulled back and the Brigade took
up position along the Carriere Ridge, then just after midday “…nobody left on
our left flank and our supports gone… we started to crawl back the 50 yards to
the old quarry… of the 49 that I took into action I had only 12 [able bodied?]
left, 37 killed or wounded, so no disgrace in retiring.”
At about 3pm “…it was seen that to hold the Carriere
position any longer would lead to the Brigade being taken [from behind]…
instructions to retire to Ligny(*)
[3kms SW of Caudry]… Somersets to the east of the village… shrapnel fire on our
troops was very severe… took up defences… attacked by German infantry twice but
on each occasion was repulsed with heavy loss. Casualties were collected and
placed in the church. Unfortunately the Divisional Field Ambulances… had been
held back by GHQ and were at St Quentin. The wounded could not be evacuated,
altough Capt holden… managed to collect a few carts in which he placed some of
the worst cases and despatched then southwards towards St Quentin, For some inexplicable
reason these carts were turned back to Ligny under the direction of a staff
officer…”
“There was not a man in my section hit till about five
o’clock, when the Germans opened upon us with their machineguns. This was about
the time when Major Thoyts was severely wounded by a shell, killing his horse
outright…”. Then, at about 6.30pm the Germans “…made another another attack
with their machineguns, and at this moment they swept the whole lot of us out…
I was wounded in both legs, twice in the left arm, and clean through the mouth
which left me helpless on the ground… unable to move. Just getting dark and the
Germans came through us and handled us very rough. Then a German officer spoke
to me in good English and said `You are a prisoner in our hands [and we will]
send you back to hospital, where you will be treated and then sent to
Germany.” [g]
Major Francis Thoyts died the same
day of his wounds and is buried in a War Cemetery in France.
(*)Ligny – see
the .PDF file on Pte C T Holder of the SLI, also captured that day.
26/8/1914 – This is the
date that Lizzie said Harry was wounded in the hip in Belgium from machinegun
fire and taken POW. As she had a very reliable memory for a whole host of dates
of other things, it has to be presumed that this was correct, which would
possibly make the above segment the very action and circumstances in which
Harry was captured, as the commanding officer of ‘C’ Company was Major Thoyts.
Harry always said he was fixed up by a German doctor (who was ‘very good’), then
taken to Cassel POW camp in Germany, later transferred to Baden POW camp where
he spent (“4 years”?) the rest of the war.
[a] [f]
26/8/1914 – The date of Harry’s capture. [aa]
In the same German POW
records set there is also 9675 John Hollick, Pte, Somerset LI, ‘C’ Coy, capt at
Le Cateau 26/8/14, and “Doberitz”, born 31/7/93 Birmingham, father John
Hollick, 646 Washwood Heath Rd, Ward End Bham.
Ex WIKI – Doberitz was a
large camp 8 miles from Berlin holding Russian, Polish, French, and British
prisoners. It attracted worldwide press attention after British Private William
Lonsdale punched a German guard in November 1914 and was sentenced to death.
Lonsdale and 250 fellow captives had failed to assemble quickly enough for the
Germans and a general fracas then erupted between British prisoners and the
guards. Bowing to international pressure, the death sentence was commuted to
20-years in January 1915, followed by an outright pardon from the Kaiser,
seizing the propaganda opportunity.
12/10/1914 – German POW records show (the index is under
“Burggees, Harvy”) 9694 Harry Burgess, Pte, Somerset Light Inf, ‘C’ Coy, born
11/5/88 Shepton Mallett Eng, captured
on 26/8/14 “Camtrai” (should this be “Cambrai”, the place where they were marched
to on Aug 26, before being trucked away on Aug 28 – see Pte Holders diary .PDF
file). [aa]
12/10/1914 – One POW card shows this date, and the words
“Bethuicotes”(?), “Res.Laz.Cassel”, “Abt.Burgerschule” (means ‘citizen
school’), “Philosopheweg” (philosophy), and “u.Tischbeinstr(asse)”, (which is a
main road in the centre of Kassel). [aa]
9/11/14 – Also on the card it shows what looks like his entry
into (translated) Detention Camp “Cassel”, captured “Harcourt”, and
“Neiderzwehren”. [aa]
Ex WIKI - Neiderzwehren is
a small town in Germany notable for its First World War prisoner-of-war camp.
The town lies between Kassel city centre and Oberzwehren. The camp was begun
around December 1914 and held British and French prisoners captured on the
western front. Early in 1915 Russian prisoners from the eastern front also
arrived with numbers peaking at around 20,000. The German staff contolling this
number probably totalled around 150 men. The camp operated beyond the armistice
of November 1918 and was only finally closed in the summer of 1919.
Ex Wiki -
“Mannschaftslager” (typical soldiers camp)...
These were the basic
soldiers’ camps, made up of wooden barrack huts 10m wide and 50m long, covered
with tar on the outside. Each hut held around 250 prisoners. A central corridor
provided access on each side to bunk beds, with straw- or sawdust-filled
palliasses. Furniture was kept to a minimum, and generally limited to a table,
chairs or benches and a stove. The camps also included barracks for guards, a
Kantine (cafeteria) where prisoners could sometimes buy small luxuries and
supplementary food, a parcels office, a guardhouse, and kitchens. Some camps
had additional amenities, including sanitary facilities, or cultural facilities
such as a library, a theatre/concert hall, or a space for worship.
All around the camp, there was
barbed wire three metres high; the wires were spaced fifteen centimetres apart,
a wooden post every three metres, and across other barbed wires every fifty
centimetres, forming a mesh.
Prisoners on work details
often spent longer or shorter periods of time away from their parent camp:
those engaged in agriculture, for example, might be housed in village assembly
halls.
1915 (?) - Lizzie went to work at the “munitions factory
during the war because it paid better, and by the time Harry came home she had
a tidy sum saved for both of them” [f]
This factory was most
probably Longbridge just SW of Saltley in B’ham, had been building Austin cars
but went over to armaments. “By 1917 … trebled in size … over 22,000 workers …
many of them women … Between 1914 and 1918 made 8m shells, 650 guns, 2,000
planes, 2,500 aero engines and 2,000 trucks” – a 1914-18 website.
Sept ¼ 1918 – Harry’s brother Frank married Amy Willcox in
Shepton Mallet [r]
c Nov 11 1918 – The story that Harry brought home with him (re-told
by Harry’s daughter Dorothy in 2018) was that one morning Harry and his mate
noticed that there didn’t seem to be any guards, so they took a chance and
escaped by swimming the nearby river [probably the Fulda], only to be told that
the war was over! So they swam back again! Presumably gaining nothing except
getting extremely cold and wet!
late 1918 / early 1919 ? – Harry was repatriated from
Germany, but remained in the Regular Army, being listed as “of Taunton
Barracks” at the time of his marriage in December [b]
Lizzie told in later life
that it was just presumed by her parents that, Lizzie being the eldest and a
girl, as was the general custom even then in working-class families, that she
would be the one to never marry but stay at home and help raise the younger
children, and tend to her parents in their dotage. In Lizzie’s own words – ‘Did
I have news for them!!’ – although as it turned out, the dotage bit was true.
-------------------- MARRIED ------------------
24/12/1919 – On Xmas Eve Harry Burgess (31, Soldier, of Taunton
Brks, father John Henry Burgess a “firestone mason” – curious that his dad was
not shown as `the late’ or `deceased’) married (by banns) Mary Elizabeth
Hollick (26, of 646 Washwood Heath Rd, Ward End, father John Thomas Hollick, a
wagon repairer) at St Margarets Anglican parish church at Ward End (in
Birmingham). Witnesses were Robert Victor Hollick and John Thomas Hollick [b]
Robert and John were
Lizzie’s brothers, and it was John Hollick who as Harry’s unit pal had brought
Harry home to meet his family in the first place. Apparently Lizzie’s parents
were so against the marriage from the start, they wouldn’t attend the wedding,
and one of her brothers give her away.
1921 –
It was told by Lizzie (in later life) that Harry, still a Regular Army soldier,
did service in Ireland during this year. Her observations concerning mythical
Galway Bay was that she “...didn’t know what all the fuss was about, there was
nothing there”. [a]
Ex Wiki - During the Irish War of
Independence 1919–21, Galway was the western headquarters for the British Army.
Their overwhelming force in the city meant that the local Irish Republican Army
could do little against them.
There is no record that the
Somersets were ever stationed at Galway, but only in Belfast. Harry may have
been assigned to another Regiment, but unclear without his Army Service files,
which were lost in the ‘39-‘45 Blitz.
29/9/1921 – Their son John Henry was born in Duddeston, Aston
Birmingham Eng (about 2kms NE of the B’ham CBD) [a] [d] [r] [v]
The story goes that it was
Harry who registered Jack, and he was supposed to be `Leslie Robert’. But Harry
“mistakenly” registered him as `John Henry’ [presumably after his father? – and
much to Jack’s relief!], and by all accounts Lizzie was not amused! [e]
30/11/1923 – Their daughter Edna Mary was born in Duddeston,
Aston B’ham Eng. They were living at No 50 Wright Rd, and Harry was described
as a “Builders Labourer”. [a] [d] [r]
As a 19/11/1924 attachment to a copy of Edna’s birth
certificate has a stamp “Infantry Record Office Exeter” on it, Harry must have
still been in the Army (or Reserves?) at the time of her birth, presumably each
dependant child’s certificate having to be lodged with them at the time for pay
purposes.
1923-24 ? – Lizzie said once that after his Ireland posting,
his regiment was due to go to India, but she was adamant she wasn’t going
there, and presumably it was then that Harry left the Army.
1926 –
Lizzie’s three elder Hollick siblings, including Harry’s best mate John, emigrated to SA ahead of their parents [f]
1926 –
Lizzie’s parents John and Sarah Hollick, in their mid fifties emigrated, along
with their four youngest children, Louise (24), Alf (20), Fred (18), and Cliff
(15), on the “Largs Bay”, following the elder boys to Adelaide. [s]
17/10/1926 – Harry and Lizzie’s daughter Dorothy Sarah born in
B’ham South, Eng [a] [d] [r]
?/12/1927 – Harry and Lizzie and their three kids packed up and
emigrated to Adelaide Sth Aust on the “Barrabool”, not realising that the elder
Hollick boys were already on their way back to England. [s]
5/2/1928 – The family arrived in Adelaide and went to live
probably with Lizzie’s parents at 30 Ethel St Forestville [a]
1/11/1930 – Their last child, daughter Elsie Florence was born
in Adelaide, SA [a] [d]
1930 to 1940 – These are the notes of their grand-daughter Jan
(Skinner) from what she remembers her grandmother Lizzie (“Nan”) telling her
about their times during the Depression.
[f]
“The Depression fragmented the Hollick’s, scattering
Lizzie’s brothers and sisters, as she and Harry and their three kids were
already on the boat to Australia when the two eldest boys (inc Harry’s best
mate John) went back to England, swearing that if they were going to be
unemployed and miserable then it might as well be at home. They actually cabled
Harry and Lizzie to not come out at all, but they were already on the way and
didn’t get the telegram.
“After that Nan’s family was never again all together
in the one place, as her two sisters then went on to New Zealand, leaving the
three youngest boys and their parents in SA.
“In time Harry also would’ve liked to go home, but
with the Depression and everything, it’d be many years before there was ever a
spare bob or two, and certainly no chance to save the fare back home. But the
story goes that every Friday night back in Shepton Mallet, when Harry’s brother
Willie Burgess finished filling in his Pools coupon, he’d say - “There you go
Harry, if I win the Pools I’m bringing you home”. [c]
“In desperation Harry even went to Sydney to work for
a while, when they first arrived, while Nan and their three small children
stayed with Nan’s parents. But he couldn’t stand being away from them, and he
soon came back and chased whatever bits of work were going, one more face in
the labour queues.
“They lived in a string of rented rooms and houses
across Adelaide’s suburbs right through the 1930s — Cumberland Park, Black
Forest, Prospect for a while, always moving around, grabbing what they could,
till they drifted out into Castambul (up the Torrens River valley from
Athelstone), where Harry had found work as a labourer on the small mixed farm
of the Hersey family, not for wages of course, but gave long back-breaking
hours in exchange for a house and all the vegetables and milk they needed. This
was a good deal then, and hard to find, and it kept them going for two years,
until the farmer lost his struggle with prices, and the banks, and the times,
and had to let them go.
“After that they settled in a cottage off Lincoln
Lane, just back from the parklands in Lower North Adelaide, so Nan could get
cash work as a domestic over at Medindie, and out around Walkerville, which was
how it was in many cases, the women able to find cleaning and laundry for a few
precious shillings, from the big houses that are always at the top.
“It was about then she latched onto a regular two
mornings a week, up in Jeffcott Street in Upper North Adelaide, doing housework
for a ‘hoity toity madam’ who had inherited a boiling-down works out in the
stink belt of Cavan, and spoke with an acquired Oxford accent, and patronised
Lizzie with gifts of things she was going to throw out. It’s hard to imagine
how much hard swallowing Lizzie had to do, of her substantial pride and
self-respect, to take that kind of charity and still say thank you.
“At this time Harry did his bit by walking into the
city every day, to have his main meal in the soup kitchen, to take some of the
pressure off food at home. And he’d always go via his own collection of
circuitous routes, so he could shake an almond tree or two in passing, a habit
he would never break, as he loved almonds, and there was always a sugarbag of
them hanging from the rafters in his shed. And he turned every square inch of
their back yard into a vegetable garden in those couple of years, and that was every
square inch, with pumpkins growing on the fences, climber beans and
passionfruit on the shed. He even dug up the path down to the old outside brick
loo, and put in a line of narrow boards, up on blocks, so going to the toilet
was always to ‘walk the plank’ amongst their kids.
“It was an era that delineated a generation of working
people, that chipped out the shape of their fundamental approach to life, the
stance from which they conducted their daily affairs. Some withdrew into
stitch-pinching mean-ness, shrivelling under the weight of poverty and fear.
Others, like Nan and Harry, developed a kind of measured generosity, as the
best of the battlers learnt to stick together, to make their own welfare
system, as God only knows there was no other safety net. This is so well
exemplified by the following story.
“The remnant of a family lived in a place nearby,
behind Lincoln Lane, a woman and her young daughter, a neglected kid, her
mother drunk most of the time, surviving on men and washing. The girl hung
around Nan’s like a stray kitten looking for leftovers, a slice of bread and
dripping, a scrap of affection, and Nan just quietly eased her into the
household, by degrees. She sat in at a few meals to begin with, slept over some
nights, then started going into the bath with the rest of the kids on
Saturdays, to the weekly invocation of — "Just because you’re poor you
don’t have to be dirty." The girl’s mother simply disappeared one day,
‘did a bunk’ owing rent, still had somebody’s washing on the line, plates in
the sink. Nan said that the abandoned daughter never said a word at the time,
tried to be invisible, mould herself into the woodwork.
“Another lasting family story that demonstrates the
impact of those bad days came from their son Jack. They were renting half a
house in Goodwood, a once modest, even genteel middle class suburb from the
turn of the century. The family was jammed into two-rooms-and-share, in a
cracky old brick bungalow in a back street, by the forever rumbly train-over
tram-under subway, opposite the starkness of the Sisters of Mercy’s St Vincent
de Paul Children’s Home.
“They had hit the bottom, with their four kids in tow,
plus the old couple, and not even cleaning to be had. So, with cap in hand
(this image alone just has to be the sharpest measure of their despair) Harry
went to their local Anglican minister, only to be told the Poor Box was as
empty as the pollie’s promises, and suggested he at least put their eldest two
(Jack and Edna) into the Orphanage for a while, just till he’d found something.
This shocked and appalled Nan and Harry, but young Jack only overheard the
first bit, about ‘Orphanage’ (the Badboy Depository in young Jack’s mind), a
foreboding great brick mausoleum of a place, the one he had to walk past every
morning for school, with the constant fear that if he was in any way ‘bad’ he’d
be in there for sure.” [f]
11/4/1938 – With the Depression easing a little, but war on the
horizon, the family was living at No 30 Carter St Prospect, still with Lizzie’s
parent’s in the house to share the load. [v]
Between Apr 1938 and Nov 1939 – The family moved into a rented
house in 49 Esmond St Hyde Park, a lovely old stone villa in a quite jacaranda-lined
street, a home that they loved the best and would stay in for the next ten
years, one they would’ve been happy to see out their days in. Here Harry once
again set about turning the whole back yard into a vegetable garden [f] [v]
3/9/1939 – Great Britain declared war on Germany, and so
Australia was also at war. [w]
11/11/1939 – Their son Jack enlisted for active service in the
Navy [v]
Jack served out the whole
war as a Stoker on quite a variety of ships, several of which were shot out
from under him, earning him something of a family reputation as a ‘Jonah’. [v]
4/12/1939 – Harry, not wanting to miss out on the action,
enlisted in the AIF. The story goes that he actually wanted full active
service, but because of his age – he was 51! – he was taken into the 25th
Garrison Batt (#S.212730 Pte) and was stationed at Loveday in the Riverland as
a POW guard for 2 years, through to Nov 1942.
[v]
Ex Wiki etc - Initially
Loveday was two camps a mile and a half apart, rectangular compounds enclosing
39 buildings and a hospital... each holding 1,000 prisoners... ready in Aug
1940... but internees did not arrive... but a new party arrived on 23rd
May 1941 to receive POWs... first prisoners [nearly 1,000 Italians] arrived
during June... given activities outside the compounds, POWs received 1/- a day
[for local work]. After Pearl Harbour [7 Dec 1941] Loveday Aerodrome became a
third camp... 20ft guard towers, high fences, lit by 72 powerful flood lamps...
533 Japanese Internees, from Dutch East Indies, arrived Jan 1942... by March
1942 Loveday had 3,951 POWs. [y] )
6/9/1941 – Their daughter Edna married Charles Roy Skinner at
St Augustines Unley, but Harry was so against him that he refused to attend the
wedding, let alone give Edna away, and Lizzie’s brother had to step up. [f]
7/12/1941 – Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese, and two
months later they bombed Darwin, and the Australian Forces were brought home
from the Middle East to protect the North.
[w]
29/10/1943 – Lizzie’s dad died aged 74 at their home in Esmond
St Hyde Park. Her mother remained with her, later in her care. [f]
May & Aug 1945 – Germany, and then Japan, finally surrender. [w]
1946 ? – There’s a wonderful photo of Lizzie & Harry at
their daughter Dorothy’s wedding to Stan Seaward, with “The Old Firm” hand
written across the back [z]
25/4/1947 – An Anzac Day March photo was taken by The
Advertiser, of Harry and his mates of ‘The Old Contemptibles’, marching down
King Wm St [w]
Mid-late 1940s – There’s a postcard of the 10-storey AMP Soc Bldg in
Kg Wm St that Harry sent to his brother Willie (who he apperently always called
‘Bill’), and Harry originally wrote `1½ minutes nonstop’ but had second
thoughts and stepped up the speed by scratching out the ‘½’ and the ‘s’ off the
end of minutes, to read...
“Bill, The building you see
AMP Society where I am working driving electric lifts, from the road Ground
Floor to the top is 135 feet, it takes just 1 minute nonstop, 10 storey bldg,
so you see my Boss he believes in travelling fast, it’s the fastest lift in
South Australia. From Harry. ps – send Rose & the Girls for a ride.” [z]
1949 ? – The family had to move to another rented house, a
few streets away at 90 Opey Ave Hyde Pk, when their old place in Esmond St went
up for sale. Harry was working a 5½ day week at the Kelvinator Refrigerator
factory at Woodville Nth at this time, daily taking the tram into the city and
then the train down to Woodville. [f]
late 1940s to early 1950s – Several holidays were taken at
their son Jack and his family’s small rural holding at Moorak, about 3 kms SW
of Mt Gambier. There’s a great ‘fun’ photo of Lizzie & Harry on Jack’s
motorbike there. [z]
25/4/1950 – Another Anzac Day photo taken by The Advertiser, of
Harry and his mates of ‘The Old Contemptibles’ marching down King Wm St [w]
------------
WIDOWHOOD ------------
6/11/1953 – Harry died of a heart attack on the train on the
way home from work one Friday night, died so quietly that his mates just
thought he’d napped off. Harry was buried at Centennial Pk. [a]
Dec 1954 – With her marriage broken down, daughter Edna and
her four girls moved in with Lizzie in Opey Ave. [f]
2/8/1955 – Lizzie’s mum died at their home in Hyde Park [f]
c 1965 – After about 15 years in the old place behind the
grocer shop in Opey Ave, where in latter days she had sub-let rooms to get by,
Lizzie moved in with her daughter Edna and her second husband Ted Bridges (and
their combined 7 kids), in their new home out at Beefacres. During this time
she visited her sisters in NZ (the only time in her life she ever flew,
although family history would have it that she never used an escalator in her
life, not trusting the ‘moving staircase’, nor did she ever use a public
telephone). In the years that followed she moved with Ted and Edna to Tea Tree
Gully and Mt Pleasant, as her eyes began to fail, although her memory remained
as sharp as a tack fairly much right to the end. [f]
16/1/1983 – Lizzie died, aged 89, at the Trevue Nursing Home in
Gawler [f]
==========================
SOURCES...
[a] Oral history ex Mary Eliz Burgess (nee
Hollick)
[b] Marriage certificate
[c] Oral history and notes ex Rose & Ivy
Burgess of SM
[d] Harry’s Army Bible
[e] Oral history ex Burgess children Edna, Dot and
Jack
[f] Oral history ex granddaughter Jan Edmonds (nee
Skinner)
[g] “Good
Old Somersets” by Brian Gillard
[h] “Chronicle
Of The 20th Century” - Viking
[j] John Henry Burgess’s handwritten record
[k] Newspaper clipping ex `Shepton Mallet
Journal’
[m] Harry’s mother’s death certificate
[n] John Henry Burgess’s Will
[p] 1891 Census
[q] 1901 Census
[r] FreeBMD online
[s] Maritime Museum database
[t] Death certificate
[u] Database printouts from David Hollick
[v] War Service records
[w] Newspapers
[x] Previous generation(s) file
[y] “The
Loveday Camps” by George Woolmer
[z] Memorabilia on file
[aa]
“Grandeguerre” POW website
[ab] 1871 Census
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