Escaped German Lehmann POW 1917

It reminded me of the scene in the film “ Whistle down the wind” when the escaped prisoner is found by the children in a remote barn in lonely countryside. The event that reminded me of the 1960 film happened 43 years before in February 1917 during the depths of winter in the remote Moorland village of Upper Elkstone. It certainly caused a commotion in Leek where crowds turned out to see the prisoner appeared at the local court. It even made newspapers the other side of the world. Some months later the Wairarapa Daily Times in New Zealand reported that a German Naval Sub Lieutenant Emil Lehmann was arrested following his escape from Manchester and charged with sacrilege. It was alleged that he broke into a Methodist chapel and used bibles to make a fire. The account made it out to be a typical “Hunnish” trick

 The chapel in question was a Primitive Methodist chapel at Upper Elkstones where Lehmann must have stayed some time before being discovered by a group of children who saw smoke coming out of the building. The leader of the children Sarah Ann Bricklebank of Royal Farm ,Upper Elkstones was a chapel member and had keys to the building. The German officer was 24 and described in court as having dark hair and was wearing an overcoat with naval waistcoat and a grey soft cap. He had escaped from an escort at Central Railway station in Manchester while being transferred from Knockaloo Internment camp on Isle of Man to Kegworth in the East Midlands. He had somehow had made his way on to the hills above Leek. The Imperial German Navy officer was courteous to the children, one of whom had the presence of mind to run to a local policeman. A chase ensued involving a number of police and locals who pursued Lehmann. He was caught and in a very British way was taken to Onecote Police Station and given a mug of tea and toast.

 Lehmann was taken to Leek and charged with the unusual charge of sacrilege for burning bibles in the Primitive Methodist chapel stove ( understandably as it was February). In court he spoke through an interpreter he said that he did not know that the building was a chapel and that he had previously served on a battleship. The report tried to suggest that he attempted to entice the young girl which Lehmann denied. One gets the impression with Lehmann that he was someone who did not give in and some months later he and a number of other German Prisoners of War attempted a mass breakout from Sutton Bonington Prisoner of War camp in Nottinghamshire. He seems to have been a repeat offender as he also attempted another escape from Chelmsford prison.

Lehmann’s story is just of the hidden stories of the First World War in Leek as is the stories of the Belgian refugees in Bath Street, the raids on the Hippodrome for deserters, the parrot that helped the war effort, the young sailor who went down on the Hampshire with Lord Kitchener and the party for returned prisoners in the Red Lion in February 1919.

The Medieval Forest

Today only fragments of the great forests that surrounded the Staffordshire Moorlands during the Middle Ages remain.  The Peak Forest exists in name only. Delamere is a meagre fragment of what it once was, and Macclesfield was altered massively by the introduction of commercial timber unknown to the medieval verderer. Cannock and Needwood survive but much shrunken by cultivation and encroachment by man. Sherwood, of Robin Hood fame used to cover huge swathes of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. It is much reduced now.

Local place names mark the importance of woods in the landscape with Ashbourne, Oakamoor, Birchall and Westwood marked on modern maps.

In the years after the Conqueror the forests of the King would have stretched as far as the eyes could see. They were protected so that the monarch could indulge their great passion of hunting, and they were determined to protect their interest with punitive laws. King John was famously forced to sign the Magna Carta but alongside the Great Charter he was required to agree to the Forest Charter which enshrined the rights of dwellers in the woods. Both documents were the foundations on which the social structure of England was founded. (The existence of the Forest Charter was used in 2010 by people campaigning against the privatisation of the Forestry Commission)

The forests of the 13^th century were the relicts of the primeval woods of oak, beech, ask and hornbeam, etc that covered the country. By that time game that lived in the forest was protected and harsh punishments were meted out to any peasant who succumbed to temptation. As time progressed the King and the aristocracy became more desperate to protect a vanishing heritage when the woods were alive with much game for the enjoyment of the monarch and his supporters.

There were growing pressures on the landscape as people who lived at the fringes of the forest sought to take advantage of it. Extra meat could be had if you were not caught by the King’s representative, honey was for the taking, acorns could be collected to feed the pigs and wood collected for burning on peasant fires. The needs of the common people could often conflict with the law and the person responsible for maintaining the estate, the Chief Forester.

The records of forest proceedings are full of poaching stories such as the occasion when a group killed 3 deer in the Rockingham Forest in 1255.

“They cut off the head of the deer and placed it with a spindle in its mouth that made it gape towards the Sun in contempt of the King and the foresters”.

And sometimes more locally the friction could lead to violence when in Christmas 1325 the Chief Forester of Cannock William Le Wolf was murdered at Hopwas carrying out his duty by Roger de Swynerton.

By the arrival of the Tudors much of the forest had been surrended to the plough. Even today the woods of Anglo Norman England shorn of their dense vegetation and turned into pasture, still speak to the historian of ancient times, the isolated farms, the clumps of trees here or there and the coppice surviving mid field proclaim the primordial forest

Saving the Countryside

I came across a report from 1933 of the opening of the gateway at Hawksmoor nature reserve( near Cheadle) by the Poet Laureate to a kinsman John Richard Beech Masefield, a naturalist of Cheadle who had died the year before and who had created the area.

Masefield had become Poet Laureate 3 years before, he used his speech to attack modernity and its conflict with the countryside. He turned his fire initially on egg collectors- “a multitude of distorted mind”- and the destruction of species among the bird population. He then extended his attack to question the poor layout of zoos and their management of birds in captivity. “We see great and beautiful birds shut in forever, unable to use their wings, and damned never again to lift a 1,000 feet in the air”. He favoured a protection of birds’ legislation as several species were under attack and the main culprits, he believed, were the city dwellers who did not understand rural ways.  Actually, some of the perpetrators of the decline in wild bird numbers may have been in the audience in October 1933.

The 19^th century with its managed upland estates and changes to agricultural practices in lowland areas did much damage to the wild bird population. Moorland estate holders- the preserve for aristocratic shooting parties- sought to eliminate any threat to the game birds. Game keepers were often under instruction to destroy nests and the result was a near or actual extinction of some of the raptors such as Harriers, Red Kites, Goshawks and in Scotland, Golden and White Tailed Eagles. The Red Kite, a large hawk, often seen scavenging among rubbish tips in the 17^th century, suffered sustained persecution into the 20^th century by land owners until its recovery in the last 50 years. Less fortunate was one of the largest British birds the Great Bustard a dweller of the fenland which was hunted to extinction by the 1840s.

Masefield’s desire to see that the wildlife of Britain receive statutory protection was realised after the Second World War when Governments passed laws such as the Protection of Wild Birds in 1954, as well as one of the jewels in the crown of the Attlee Government, and the creation of National Parks, of which the Peak National Park was the first.

Years before Masefield posted a warning to the countryside believing the arrival of the motorcar, and urban day trippers would cause the destruction of the countryside.

It is an argument that is made now by the Countryside Alliance that the city dweller does not understand the countryman. The proportion of urban residents far out numbers the rural community, in fact 1851 census revealed, for the first time more British people living in cities than in the country. It should be said that urban dwellers willingly pay their taxes to help maintain areas of outstanding beauty as well as joining organisations such as the National Trust.

To conclude on a controversial note the Countryside Alliance’s single minded obsession that fox hunting should be restored is not shared by most of the people who live in the country whose major concerns such as jobs, housing and living standards are shared by the rest of the country. In my view, as a former member of the Peak National Park Authority, the preoccupations of the people of Longnor differ little from those of the people of Longton.

Poverty knocks

Some weeks ago I gave a talk to the Caverswall History Society on the old Poor Law which was in place until the changes in the 1830s which led to the widespread introduction of the work house. The workhouse had existed prior to the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act and it was the existence of a “House of Industry” in Caverswall which I saw in an 1800 Staffordshire Advertiser which led me to explore this area of history.

What is remarkable is the similarity of argument that existed in the past about the community response to poverty and now. Recently a storm of controversy surrounded the Channel 4 program “Benefit Street”, but exactly the same viewed was expressed about the feckless in Parliaments of the 18^th century. Our response to what to do about the poor is comparable. The Coalition Government has introduced workfare in which the unemployed have to work for their benefit. In the 1720s the poor were often put to work spinning wool to defray the cost to the authorities of looking after them. The writer Daniel Defoe wrote in 1727 that by doing this you were putting out of work spinners elsewhere “then there must be a skein the less done by some poor family that span it before….It is only transporting manufacture from Colchester to London and taking the bread out of the mouths of the poor of Essex to put it into the mouths of the poor of Middlesex”. Today we have a situation where  putting unemployed people to work for nothing in retail stores means that shop workers face the possibility of being put out of work themselves.

Another 18^th century example was the subsidising of low wages by using bread in the Speenhamland system named after the village in Berkshire where the scheme was pioneered to assist farm labourers whose wages were being cut. It was adopted nationally and proved ruinously expensive as a series of poor harvests and war caused economic hardship. Now the wages of the low paid are made up through the tax payer funded Working Tax Credit system effectively subsidising stingy employers. 

The view often expressed by commentators of “Benefit Street” is the anger directed at the scrounger who will not work and is a drain on the country’s resources. We see past comments such as “sturdy beggar” directed at the 17^th century wandering vagrants- the scrounger of his time. However in the reports of the overseers of the Leek Poor Law in 1808, one can glimpse the circumstances that can bring people low. Decisions were made to support an elderly widow, a deserted family or a disabled army veteran.

In the welfare debate we seem to be constantly replaying the old arguments about deserving or undeserving poor. Perhaps we should be looking at other ways to provide support as well as freeing people from the bureaucratic complexity of the present benefit system? I have always favoured the Basic Income approach. It has a long history and has been championed by people as diverse as Thomas More, Tom Paine and Martin Luther King.

The impact of Shakespeare

It is St George’s Day and it is also the 450^th birthday of Germany’s National Poet. Before you think I am confused, Shakespeare for a time in the early 19^th century was venerated by German writers such as Goethe as having qualities that they believed that Germans  should aspire to. Of course although Shakespeare is English Midland born he has been adopted by many different cultures and is flexible enough to be turned into “West Side Story”, a Japanese film epic of Kurosawa such as “Ran” or modified and set as a recent “Julius Caesar” production in contemporary war torn East Africa. And he may have had North Staffordshire roots as Doug Pickford, a former editor of the Post and Times claimed he had ancestors who moved from Trent Vale to Warwickshire during the 15^th century. Perhaps he was a Stokie after all! As a form of proof I came across the word “sneap” in “Henry IV Part 2”.

I began to appreciate Shakespeare from an early age. I was first exposed to him through a BBC production of the “Age of Kings” and the very funny portrayal of Falstaff by Robert Hardy in 1962. I was given the” Complete Works” for my 10^th birthday and earlier this year when my daughter a volume when she reached that milestone. I hope she treasures it. It could be for her the beginning of a life long passion. Over the years I have seen many memorable productions, Robert Stephen in “King Lear”, Emma Thompson in “Midsummer Night Dream, Simon Russell Beale in “Richard II” as well as some of the infrequently performed plays such as “Pericles” or “Henry VIII”. I firmly oppose the argument that the plays have no relevance to the modern day a view expressed by a Stoke Councillor at a meeting I attended a few years ago. He cited “Romeo and Juliet” as having no significance, a poor choice, as it is a play that features arranged marriages, gang warfare and the relationship between the old and the young. What a fool!

It’s impossible to say when the people of the Moorlands first saw Shakespeare’s play. My guess is that during the 18^th century with improved roads touring companies would have visited. There is a playbill  I have seen of a production of “Othello” at the Red Lion in Leek in the 1840s as well as a 1877 “King Lear” at the Swan where one of the actors was accidentally stabbed. The Mechanic Institute in Russell Street would have had lectures and talks on the plays a tradition that carried on into the next century with courses put on by the Workers Educational Association. Shakespeare before the First World War would have been well embedded into the culture of Leek.

The “Complete Works” I bought for Phoebe contained an essay by the great Victorian actor Henry Irving rubbishing the theory that the provincial, low born Shakespeare could  not have written the plays, but they were created by the well- placed Oxford educated Francis Bacon 1^st Baron St Albans. I have always thought that this belief is founded on pure snobbery.  Three great cultural figures living in the 17^th Century Shakespeare, Newton and Bach all came from provincial towns- a fact that we who live and work in a provincial town should hold on to this April 23^rd.

Bees in Staffordshire

One of the pleasures of rooting around the William Salt Library is coming across an arcane article in the many volumes of deliberations of the Staffordshire Field Club. I found a piece on the history of bee keeping in Staffordshire, the article dated from the 1930s.

It seems that the first reference to bee keeping in the county occurs in the reign of King Stephen in the 1130s when travelling expenses for the king’s entourage through Staffordshire includes sums of money for local honey for the production of mead. It also seems to have been important in Leek, with 5s. raised by the sale of honey from the manor in 1185 .  Honey bees were also maintained by religious communities in monasteries such as Croxden mainly for the wax they produced. From this beeswax candles were produced; these were far superior to the candles made from tallow used by the general population. By the time of the Tudors two early writers on agricultural practice in Staffordshire commentated on bee keeping. Fitzherbert in 1534 is quoted “he that hath sheep and swine and hyve slepe he, wake he, thrive he”. During Elizabeth’s reign William Harrison described local hives as being made of “rye straw and wattled around with bramble quarters, but some are made of wicket”. One of the first historians of Staffordshire Doctor Robert Plot writing in the 1680s believed that Staffordshire hives differed from those elsewhere as they were made from osier twigs woven into basket like shapes and covered with dried mud and cow dung. In the 17th century one of the principle apiarist of the area John Rudyard of Dieulacres near Leek had many hives in the area covered by a straw hackle to keep off the rain.

One of the giants of 19th century bee keeping was Edward Bevan who was born in London in 1770 became medically qualified and served as a doctor in Stoke in the early 19^th century. He later moved to Congleton, but his “magnum opus” on apiary and their upkeep was published in 1827, “The honey bee; its natural history, physiology, and management”. Later editions were dedicated to a great admirer and fellow bee keeper Queen Victoria. Like Izaak Walton on fishing or Augustus Whiffle on pigs it is a book that has never been out of print. In his obituary Bevan was described as resembling Mr Pickwick. “He will always remain a shining example of excellent work done by the shy, retiring man”. I am surprised that the work of this sterling character is not more widely recognised in the Potteries. His fame has lasted 150 years after his death. I wonder if any of the celebrity names that are banded about now such as Robbie Williams will be known by the cognoscenti 150 years after they leave the stage?

Today the tradition of bee keeping is kept alive with a local bee keeping association meeting monthly in Leek. There are serious issues around the collapse of bee numbers which is a matter of concern as the insect role as a pollinator is vital for the growth of food on which humans as well as other species need to survive.

The fugitive priest 1581

I came across a reference in a history of Catholicism in Staffordshire to a clandestine visit made by St Edmund Campion to Throwley Hall near Ilam in January 1581.  The Old Hall is a picturesque ruin set in the beautiful Peak District, but once it was a home to the Meverall family who were keen to maintain their Catholicism. The terrible pressures that many believers especially priests like Campion faced in maintaining their faith is a cruelly overlooked aspect of history. Campion’s story is a vivid commentary on this persecution. He first came to prominence while a student at Oxford. He was considered one of the most brilliant scholars of his generation chosen to deliver a homily in Latin in praise of Elizabeth 1^st to a delighted queen when she visited the University in 1570. In the decade that followed he converted to Catholicism, trained as a priest and undertook a dangerous mission to England to give support to the Catholic community.

It was a perilous time to be a priest. By the end of the 16^th century in a time of Protestant Ascendancy life for Catholics was becoming increasingly difficult. The Elizabethan establishment feared them. England was threatened by a militant Catholic Spain, in France at the St Bartholomew Massacre of 1572 scores of Protestants were slaughtered in the streets of Paris, the Pope urged Catholics to kill Elizabeth and a number of attempts were made on her life. Under the circumstances repressive measures were passed making it an offence punishable by death to persuade people to join the Church. The State issued fines and seized the property of Catholics who did not attend Church of England services drawing up lists of believers on a county by county basis. In 1590 in Staffordshire listed Catholics included Richard Biddulph of Biddulph, Thomas Cotton of Grindon,William Whadyere and Margaret Grey of Cheddleton and Elizabeth Beardsley of Draycott who received  sanctions. Investigators appointed by the Government were sent in to root out priests and their supporters. Among them perhaps the most loathsome man in English history Richard Topcliffe  torturer, sadist, rapist and MP. He regarded Staffordshire as a “backwood” and he clashed with William Basset of Blore fellow MP and Sheriff of Staffordshire who was a secret Catholic. Bassett may have been aware of the visit of Campion in January 1581 who toured Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Lancashire preaching to the faithful. The priest was eventually caught, interrogated and led through the street of London wearing a sign “ Campion, seducer of the people” before being publicly eviscerated. He was canonised by Pope Paul in 1970 along with Ralph Sherwin of Derbyshire, who I might be distantly related to through my Mothers Sherwin family.

Commentators have cited the similarities between the treatment of Catholics in the 16^th century and Muslims now. Both were regarded with suspicion, both beliefs have been regarded as “outlandish” and agents of foreign powers. A few Catholics during the 16^th century carried out attacks against the State as have a few Muslims now. Some Catholics were seized and tortured and some Muslims have been the victim of “extraordinary rendition” removed and tortured with the knowledge of the British Government. But  most 16^th century Catholics wanted to live their lives peaceably with their neighbours as do most Muslims today. It took Catholics 200 years to achieve full civil rights in Britain.