1154/55: Following the death of Abbot Martin de Bec, 'all the congregation met to choose a man among them who should be their father and shepherd, and guardian lest by reason of their delay some stranger should make his way in by payment of bribes'. They chose William de Waterville. All formalities and procedures were followed and on this first Sunday of Lent, 'with a great procession he was welcomed into his own home of Burch (the name of Peterborough at that time)'. (Mellows, W.T.,The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, Peterborough Museum Society, 1980)
Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press,2014.
It was in 1910 that Frederick Sage & Co. Ltd, an expanding company of shopfitters and woodworkers, opened a large factory in Walton. The position of the factory, close to the Great Northern railway ensured easy transport of its finished products.
In the First World War the company branched out into the making of aeroplanes, initially under sub-contract, making a sea plane, the Short 184, but later designing and building their own aircraft.
After the end of the First World War the company closed down its aircraft design department and returned to cabinet making and shop fitting, having prestigious commissions from, amongst others, Harrods, Selfridges and Peterborough Town Hall! During the Second World War they again turned to aircraft production, building forward fuselages for Airspeed Horsa gliders, and after the war again returned to their original products.
The Walton factory left the ownership of Sage & Co. in 1936. During the Second World War it became the Royal Ordnance Factory, making air launch torpedoes. Perkins Engines used the factory from 1957 for twenty two years. The site later lay unused for many years until it was demolished in 2010, except for its Grade II listed water tower.
References:
www.frederecksage.co.uk/history
Secret Peterborough, Bull, June & Vernon, Amberley Publishing, 2018
Noel Keeble was born in Thorpe Road on 6 April 1891. He was a flying ace of the First World War and is credited with six aerial victories. Keeble joined the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and in 1915 was assigned to a squadron in No. 1 Wing. They were based at Saint-Pol-sur-Mer, Dunkirk, France. In January 1916 he gained his first victory while flying a Nieuport single-seat plane. He managed to force down a German seaplane. In October 1916, flying a Sopwith Pup, he destroyed another seaplane. For this he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. His citation read:
Distinguished Service Cross. Flt.-Lieut. Noel Keeble, R.N.A.S. For conspicuous gallantry on the 23rd October, 1916, when he attacked four German seaplanes and brought one of them down in a vertical nose-dive into the sea.
On 1 April 1918, the Royal Naval Air Service was merged with the Army's Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force. Keeble became part of No. 202 Squadron RAF and flew a two-seat plane. His observer/gunner was Captain Eric Betts who went on to become an Air Vice Marshal in World War 2. He went on to bring down four more planes. His other great achievement, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, was to obtain 1000 valuable photographs of enemy positions behind enemy lines. His citation read:
Distinguished Flying Cross.Lieut. (T./Capt.) Noel Keeble, D.S.C. (Sea Patrol). This officer (with an observer) has obtained 1,000 invaluable photographs of enemy positions miles behind the lines, and has brought home extremely important new information during this period. He has destroyed eight enemy machines, including one biplane during the past month. Captain Keeble is a most capable and gallant Flight Commander.
Keeble remained in the RAF with the rank of flight lieutenant until August 1934, when he was placed on the retired list. He returned to RAF service during the Second World War and finally returned to the retired list with the rank of Wing Commander on 31 October 1945.
Sadly two of his three sons, who had followed him into the RAF died in combat missions during the Second World War.
Noel Keeble died in 1963.
The London Gazette, 11 May 1917
The London Gazette, 20 September 1918
Peterborough & The Great War project
Jimmy the Donkey was born in the early Twentieth Century and used to raise money for the RSPCA. He is commemorated in Central park, where he was laid to rest in 1943. His journey to Peterborough, however, is either one of heroic endeavours or a great hoax.
Jimmy was supposedly born in the trenches of World War I in 1916. He was rescued from No-Man's Land and adopted by the Cameronian Scottish Rifles who cared for him with their rations. He supported the soldiers by pulling and carrying what he could. So valuable was he to the regiment, that they made him a Sergeant and gave him three stripes.
After the war the donkey was bought by local RSPCA inspector, Mrs Heath, who took pity on him. The Cameronians were based in Peterborough for a short while in 1920 and that was when she bought him. She wanted to give him a good life and use the war hero to raise money for the charity. They offered rides in a small carriage pulled behind Jimmy and raised a huge amount for the RSPCA until his death in 1943.
However, George Wilding the son of a horse dealer, revealed that Jimmy's story had been a hoax. His father had bought the donkey and was having difficulty selling it, so he created its back story in the hope of a sale. This called into question whether Jimmy was the celebrated hero, or just an average donkey. But the donkey raised so much money for charity over the years, that he should be remembered, regardless of his birth.
The memorial is accessible in Central Park every day
The 1918 influenza pandemic also known as Spanish flu, was a deadly influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza virus. It infected 500 million people around the world killing 50 million but possibly as many as 100 million people. It was one of the deadliest epidemics in human history. Where it originated is unclear but it certainly spread to Britain from France with returning soldiers, with Peterborough suffering as much as the rest of the country.
The name Spanish flu arose because Spain, being neutral in the First World War, did not censor the news to maintain wartime morale, so the epidemic’s effects were freely reported, falsely making it appear that Spain was particularly hard hit.
This particular pandemic had a very high mortality rate because of several factors including malnutrition due to the war, overcrowding in hospitals, lack of hygiene and the movement of troops all around the world. The pandemic also came in 2 waves, the first in the spring of 1918 producing a more usual ‘Three Day Fever’ followed by recovery except in the very vulnerable, the very old and very young, but the second wave, peaking in October 1918, was more virulent and targeted particularly young adults; nearly half of all deaths were people aged between twenty and forty years.
By the summer of 1919, the flu pandemic came to an end, as those that were infected either died or developed immunity.
References:
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed The World, Spinney, Laura. Vintage 2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
Images (in the Public Domain)
A chart of deaths in major cities, showing a peak in October and November 1918
World War 1 ( also known as the Great War) was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. It led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel and directly resulted in an estimated nine million combatant and seven million civilian deaths. It completely changed the world, politically, economically and socially.
The immediate cause for World War 1 was the assassination in Sarajevo of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his pregnant wife Sophie on June 28th, 1914. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was the nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the throne of Austria and Hungary. The assassin was a Bosnian revolutionary called Gavrilo Princip but the assassination was [planned by a Serbian terrorist group called The Black Hand.
Though the assassination was the trigger for war there were many political factors that led up to it. Before the onset of war there were a number of defence alliances between the major European countries, which meant that if one country declared war on another, the other allied countries would also have to enter the conflict. Germany was allied with Austria-Hungary, known as the Central Powers, whilst Britain, France and Russia were part on an alliance called the Triple Entente.
After the Archduke’s assassination Austria-Hungary threatened to go to war on Serbia, Germany supported Austria-Hungary and the Russians supported Serbia. One month after the assassination, on 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia with the backing of Germany and on 1 August 1914 Germany declared war on Russia then, on 3 August 1914, on France.
On 4 August 1914, German troops marched on France through Belgium and, as Britain had guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium, Britain declared war on Germany. The first clash between British and German forces was on 23 August 1914 at the Battle of Mons in Belgium.
In Peterborough as soon as war was declared there was a rush of volunteers to a recruiting office established on Cathedral Square, in the first week over 160 men signed up. Peterborians joined local regiments like the Huntingdonshire Cyclists Battalion. 'Pals' units were made up of men from the same town or factory; men who worked for Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins (now Baker Perkins) were recruited into 'Werner's Own' and ‘Whitsed’s Light Infantry’ was also made up of Peterborough men. Both of these were part of the Northamptonshire Regiment.
Image:
The Official Visits To the Western Front, 1914-1918
Troops of the 1st Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment marching past Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught, at his inspection of the 2nd Brigade. Near Bruay, 1st July 1918. The Imperial War Museum.
References:
See links
World War 1 ended at 11am on 11 November 1918. Germany surrendered and the fighting ended with an armistice, an agreement to stop the conflict, while the terms of the peace were negotiated. On June 28 1919, Germany and the Allied Nations (including Britain, France, Italy and Russia) signed the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the war.
Why did Germany lose?
At the start of 1918, Germany was in a strong position. Russia, one of Britain's allies (the Triple Entente), had left the war after the Russian Revolution and the seizure of power by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks in November 1917. Lenin wanted to concentrate on building up a communist state and wanted to pull Russia out of the war. He accomplished this by agreeing to the Treaty of Brest-Litvosk with Germany on March 3, 1918.
However, despite this, events moved against Germany. In April 1917 the powerful United States joined the war, American troops went into action just over a year later on the side of the Triple Entente. There was unrest at home for Germany, the population becoming tired of the war and the shortages it caused.
Germany and its allies knew that they had to launch a big offensive if they were to win the war before too many US troops arrived but this ‘Michael Offensive' failed and on 8 August 1918, the French and British armies launched the Hundred Days Offensive - a counter-attack, which pushed the Germans back.
By the autumn of 1918, Germany and its allies realised it was no longer possible to win the war and the allies began to withdraw, so that by the start of November, Germany was fighting alone. Kaiser Wilhem, the German leader abdicated on 9 November and on 11 November the armistice was signed.
The Treaty of Versailles
The leaders of the United States, Great Britain and France met in Versailles to decide on the terms of the peace, Germany, Austria and Hungary were not given the opportunity to negotiate and were presented with what the allies had decided. Though Germany protested they had little choice and it was signed on 28 June 1919.
This treaty was very harsh and it contributed to the reasons for the next World War twenty one years later. In it Germany had to accept total responsibility for the war, it lost large amounts of territory including Alsace-Lorraine, was banned from having an army larger than 100 000 men or having submarines or an air force. Germany also had to pay vast reparation of 132 billion gold marks, an impossible sum. The anger and privations this treaty caused helped form the groundwork for the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party and the Second World War.
References:
https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/how-the-first-world-war-ended
https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-end-at-11am-on-11-november/
Jimmy the Donkey was born in the early Twentieth Century and used to rai…