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OUR WAR
MEMORIAL: SO MUCH MORE THAN NAMES
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This article was first published by the Pirton Magazine in Febuary 2005, and is provided courtesy of the magazine, the editor Derek Jarrett. Further acknowledgments appear at the end of the article.
FRED BURTON
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By
the autumn of 1917, the massed armies were exhausted in the sea of mud and
futility that made up the Western Front. The situation for Britain was mixed;
USA had finally sent troops into the war, but Italy had collapsed and the
Russians were on the verge of cutting a deal with the Germans. The warlords
blundered on and Britain’s supremo, Field Marshal Haig sent his Chief-of Staff
to the fighting zone for the first time. As his car struggled through the mud,
he burst into tears and cried: ”Good God, did we really send men to fight in
that?” “It’s worse further up”, replied his companion.
Further up, the British soldiers were beyond tears. Somewhere among these thousands of soldiers was a scattering of men from Pirton. Sixteen out of our small village had already paid with their lives. Parents, brothers, sisters and sweethearts of others waited fearfully at home. Among those somewhere at the Front were brothers, Fred and Sydney Burton. Their father had died in early 1916, but sometime in the fateful year of 1917 the two brothers who had been born in the village and attended Pirton School, met at the Front and embraced each other. Sydney cam home on a short leave and told his mother that Fred was safe and well and looked forward to his return to England. Tragically that was not to be; on 2nd December 1917, Fred was killed.
David and Rose Burton, who married in the 1870’s, had lived all their lives in the village but like many other families in Pirton found it hard to earn enough to support their young family. They probably met when Rose’s family, like many others in the village bearing the name Walker, owned the Shoulder of Mutton pub in Hambridge Way (burnt down in1928). David Burton belonged to another well-represented village family, of which Goliath, who lived in Crabtree Lane, was probably the best known.
Not too long after their marriage, David and Rose took over another pub, the Red Lion (now the home of Jill and Jo Charlesworth) raising four children, of whom Fred was the youngest; born on 27th April 1888. The village school had only been open for 14 years when Fred (or Freddy as he was entered in the register) was enrolled as a pupil. Perhaps, surprising to many nowadays, the Pirton children started at the school at an early age, usually no more than three years old.
By 1901, when Fred was twelve, the family had moved to Great
Green Farm where they had a smallholding. In that corner of Great Green (now the
home of Joyce James) was quite a sizeable piece of land stretching back to the
present Priors Hill. The Farm grew and took in ten acres off Holwell Road and
rented further acres in oher parts of the parish . David is shown on the census
at the turn of the century, as a cow-keeper working from his home. Little doubt
that his wife Rose helped him in their expanding farm business as did their
oldest son, Sydney, then 17. He is shown to have worked as a stable-lad.
Beatrice, the oldest of the four children was 20 and Thomas fourteen. Thomas was
the father of Audrey Ford* and Audrey was later to live in a house built in
Priors Hill, previously within the Burton family’s land.
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Fred
may or may not have worked with his father after he left school. indeed, it is
not known how long he stayed in the village after leaving school around 1903.
However, sometime later he moved away to work as a butler. Perhaps he started
this domestic work with a local family, but certainly well before the beginning
of the war he was a butler with a family by the name of Erskin who lived in
Bracknell, Berkshire. He seems to have had several interests, being a keen
cricketer and probably something of a musician.
It was from Bracknell that Fred travelled the few miles to Reading where he enlisted with the Princess Charlotte of Wales Royal Berkshire Regiment. A newly formed battalion was established within three months of the War starting and it is likely that Fred was among its first members. By the start of the Great War, Fred was twenty-six, a deal older than many of the Pirton me who were to lose their lives, and he gained promotion as the war moved on. By 1917 he was Sergeant Burton, 200950, 2nd/4th Battalion o the Berkshires.
His Regiment was one of many who were engaged in the battle for Cambrai, an important railhead and area held then by the Germans. Fred was but one of the thousands of allied troops in the ferocious fighting, gaining little ground but claiming many lives. Between 20 November and 8 December allied losses were 44,207; enemy casualties are estimated at approximately 45,000. These horrendous statistics conceal individual deaths and the consequential grief of loved ones. Battle raged around Cambrai and on Sunday 2nd December Sergeant Fred Burton became another wartime ‘statistic’, killed in action near Marcoing. He was 29. Another death, another letter of sympathy to be written, another Pirton family in grief.
David, Fred’s father, had died some twenty months previously. It may have been a coincidence, but Fred’s mother died less than three weeks after her son – clearly, only a few days after learning of her son’s death. She was only 58; maybe she was another victim of he war.
Sometime after the ‘war to end all wars’ was over, brothers Sydney and Thomas determined to remember Fred and a wonderful memorial card was made.(illustrated on previous page). This card was preserved by his brothers and then passed down in the family, so that it still survives, over 85 years later. We are grateful to Audrey Ford for allowing us to use it, a tribute to her uncle whom she never saw.
Fred’s sister Beatrice and brothers Sydney and Thomas had engraved and erected the headstone in St. Mary’s churchyard which reads: “Husband & father David Burton died 28 Feb 1916 age 58, also wife Rose Fanny died 22 Dec 1917 aged 58, also their son Sgt Fred Burton 2/4 Royal Berks Rgt killed in France 2 December 1917, age 29”.
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Fred was buried in Fifteen Ravine British Cemetery,
Villers-Plouich, Nord, France, Ref VIII D 17. He was the seventeenth Pirton man
to be killed in the War, the last in 1917, but tragically thirteen more were to
be lose their lives in 1918
One final family memory which Audrey heard from her father, Thomas, was that Fred had owned a violin which was subsequently passed on to a family friend, Phil Abbiss, who also lived on Great Green.
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For their help with this article we thank: Audrey Ford, Clare Baines, Helen Hofton, Linda Smith, Denise Marshall and Jonty Wild
*Many who know Audrey Ford - she lived in the village for nearly eighty years and now lives in Oundle.
Points of contact are:
Pirton Website Jonty Wild via jontywild@pirton.org.uk
We would like to ask for your help, if you have any information, photographs or artefacts:
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For the remaining men yet to be included in a magazine article. |
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For any new information on those already published or following publication. |
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For men who survived the war. |
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If you have any photographs of soldiers from that war who you believe may be related to Pirton, but don't know who they are |
Please get in touch jontywild@pirton.org.uk
Also if anyone would like copy of any Pirton WW1 war grave or memorial please contact Jonty Wild, digital copies for personal use will be provided free of charge to relatives, photographs can be provided for a small charge.
