This article was first published by the Pirton Magazine in July/August 2005, and is provided courtesy of the magazine, the editor Derek Jarrett. Further acknowledgments appear at the end of the article.

Private BERT WILSON

In the series of the men whose names appear on our War Memorial, we tell the story of another victim in the last year of that great tragedy

Son of Martha, the ‘Pirton Medicine Woman’

Like so many victims of the Great War, little is known about Bert Wilson. He was one of the millions from the working classes of many nations, ‘conscripted as cannon fodder’, for whom World War 1 meant ‘disaster and death’. Yet in writing what we know, insights can be gained of an underprivileged and poor family in Pirton in the first decades of the 20th century. Through the story of his mother, Martha, we realise life was hard, just to earn a bare living.

Whilst we hear much in our modern society of the term single parent, there is nothing new about it. Whether or not Bert Wilson knew the identity of his father we cannot tell, certainly it is not shown on his birth or baptismal record. For his mother, Martha, life was a struggle to survive and bring him up. In a village with its heavy share of poor people, she was among the poorest, first earning a pittance as a straw plaiter and washerwoman, later as ‘the medicine lady of Pirton’. Bert Wilson’s life of 24 years seemed to pass unrecorded and unrecognised, it is only with his death in 1918 that history makes mention of him.

There even seems a touch of uncertainty about the year in which Martha was born. When a family is desperately trying to earn enough to exist, birthdays perhaps matter little. In spite of other dates shown on later censuses, her birth was registered in June 1872. She was born the second daughter to James and Hannah Wilson. By the time Martha was eight, three younger sisters had been born – Sarah, Ellen and Emma; it seems likely that her eldest sister, Mary, died when young. It was in the ‘Burge End’ area, which on the census simply meant somewhere ‘below The Fox’ that Martha and her sisters worked at home as straw plaiters for supplying the Luton industry – and any other work they could find. Martha’s only brother Charles, whilst attending the village school, seems to have struggled with the overwhelming demands of education; on the 1901 census he is recorded as ‘an imbecile’, earning a crust as a ‘jobbing labourer’.

Martha, when twenty-two, gave birth to Bert, the only child she was to have. He was baptized at St. Mary’s on the 13th May 1894 as Bertram William Newbery Wilson; there is no named father on the certificate. We know that Bert attended the village school although his name seems to have been missed off the school admissions register.

Whilst we do not know exactly where in the village Bert was born, while still young he, his mother, two aunts (Ellen and Emma) and his Uncle Charlie moved to what is now number 79 High Street, (where Harold Massam has lived since 1951).

Life was hard for the Wilson family, for in those early years there were no state benefits. Martha earned what she could mainly as a washerwoman, but always on the look-out for other work in the village. Charlie was only able to do the most simple jobs and Ellen and Emma any unskilled job that was going. After leaving school around 1907, Bert probably worked on the land or did some form of jobbing. As the War clouds gathered more and more of the village lads answered the call for ‘Country and King’ and Bert, then 21, enlisted along with some of his mates in on 2nd March 1915. He became Wilson Bertram

W N, Private 23187, 4th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, although he was later transferred to the 8th Battalion.

Of his war experiences we know nothing; letters, even if written, have not survived nor stories about home leave in the local paper. No doubt his experiences were as harrowing and fearful as the thousands of other in France and the Low Countries. No doubt his mother, Martha, amidst all her work in keeping the family going, feared for her only child.

In March 1918 the Germans mounted a huge assault with over three million men on British lines around Arras in March 1918. Over 80,000 British became prisoners of war. Chaos and confusion reigned throughout the British lines and reports of gains or losses, never mind individual casualties, were often inaccurate. We do not know when Martha received the grim news that her only son was dead. In fact, it is recorded that he was ‘killed in action Wednesday 27 March 1918’.

But it must have been many weeks before Martha knew that her worst fears were realised. In a local newspaper report of 2nd May (5 weeks after his death) three Pirton men were reported as missing: Charles Titmuss, Bertram Wilson and Charles Wilshere. Later still, a report said that Bert was a prisoner of war. Another report said that ‘news is anxiously awaited’. In fact of the ‘missing three’ only Charles Titmuss was a prisoner; Bert, along with Charles Wilshere was dead.

Thus his mother and other relatives and friends were allowed to grieve sometime after Bert’s death in late March. He is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France. Bay 5. When the village war Memorial was erected two years later Bert’s name was recorded as the twenty-first Pirton man to die. Having passed through life without great note, his name was also recorded on a third memorial, the Pirton School Board.

Let us now turn to the story of his mother, Martha, for she forms part of the village’s history, almost folklore. At some point, Martha found a partner, Abraham Weeden a ploughman of Pirton birth. At the insistence of the Vicar, Rev. Thomas Winkworth, Martha and Abraham were married early in the 1920’s. Remarkably enough, 93 year old Grace Maidment, now living in Shillington Road, recalls the wedding. She lived just a few doors down from the Martha and Abraham house, and she can remember that during the celebrations, Abraham sang as a solo ‘ Martha Matilda, the watercress girl.’

Still taking in others’ washing and carrying out a variety of jobs to support the remaining family, Martha took on a new role in the 1920’s and 30’s. Most villagers were registered with Dr William Grellett, a Hitchin doctor, and most subscribed to a regular ‘Doctors’ Club’ which paid for prescriptions and treatment. Villagers brought their ‘repeat prescription bottles’ to Martha’s home and every Tuesday and Saturday she pushed a pram to the surgery in Bancroft Hitchin with all the empty bottles. There the prescriptions were made up, assisted by Martha’s instructions’ in the surgery dispensary. With bottles refilled, Martha dressed in her long black skirt, straw bonnet and tiny buttoned boots, would push the pram back on the three mile journey to our village. She would be seen returning to the village followed by her brother Charlie and husband Abby’. It was often Charlie who would take the medicine to villagers’ homes charging twopence for delivering the medicines and threepence for the ‘Doctors’ Club’ papers. Every Christmas Dr Grellet came to the village and gave Martha a pair of new boots.

However, through hard work and much enterprise, maybe assisted by financial support from Abraham, the house in High Street belonged to Martha. By the late 1940’s, Martha was probably living on her own and when Harold Massam bought the house in 1951, Martha was in Hitchin Hospital; an old lady of 78, tired from a life of hard work. Sadly there is no monumental inscription in St, Mary’s churchyard, although it is almost certain that Abraham, Charlie and Martha are buried there. We do not know the date or whereabouts of Martha’s. We assume it was at St. Mary’s, but graves were numbered and headstones only put in place by some surviving member of the family, Maybe there was no-one left to erect one to Martha; maybe, due to cost, it was not a family tradition.

To the humble Bert, his name is inscribed with pride on our War memorial. Bert was just one of millions who was sacrificed in ‘the war to end all wars’. Memorials seem to have been the only record of his life or death. Maybe Bertolt Brecht’s words from ‘A Mother to her Soldier Son’ could be ascribed to Bert: "Now as you go forth to do your master's bloody business, in front of you the enemy guns, at your back the officer's pistol, remember, their defeat is not yours, and neither is their victory."

*** For their help with this article we thank:; Clare Baines, Grace Maidment, Harold Massam, Rodney Marshall, ‘A Foot on Three Daisies’ (especially Chapter 3 by Val Guess & Helen Hofton), Jonty Wild www.pirton.org.uk, Gary Moyles at the Herts Archives & Local Studies, Brenda Dawson & Lynda Smith www.roll-of-honour.com,

Points of contact are:
Pirton Website Jonty Wild via jontywild@pirton.org.uk

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Please get in touch jontywild@pirton.org.uk

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