Potters at Waterloo

French cuirassiers charge a British square at Waterloo, painting by Felix Philippoteaux.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

After three days of fighting and manoeuvring between the opposing sides, on 18 June 1815, the Battle of Waterloo ended once and for all the military career of Napoleon Bonaparte. In celebration, it became the first ever action commemorated in Britain with a campaign medal that was awarded to soldiers of all ranks who survived the fighting, and there are records for over 40 men from the Potteries who later received the Waterloo Medal.*

The campaign opened at dawn on 15 June, when Napoleon struck into what is today Belgium crossing the river Sambre at Charleroi with 126,000 men, and securing a pivotal ‘central position’ between Wellington’s Anglo‑Dutch‑Belgian army and Blücher’s Prussians. His plan was to defeat each army separately before they could unite against him. On 16 June, he struck the Prussians at Ligny, while Marshal Ney fought Wellington’s forces at Quatre Bras. Quatre Bras was a scrappy battle with Wellington’s forces arriving on scene in a piecemeal fashion, but they held their ground. Among the several local men engaged, Sergeant Sampson Midlam of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Foot, from Stoke, was wounded in the hand and evacuated to Brussels.

On the 17th, the Prussians, though battered, withdrew from Ligny in good order, marching north towards Wavre. Hearing of this and to keep in contact with them, Wellington then fell back in parallel with the Prussians, northward towards Brussels, to a position he had scouted the year before. Meantime, Napoleon sent a third of his forces under the command of Marshal Grouchy to pursue the Prussians while he shifted his main weight towards Wellington. Indeed, at one point Napoleon, riding at the head of his cavalry, led the pursuit of the Allied rearguard as they fell back, but soon, all pursuit and fighting ground to a halt as a terrific storm broke overhead, drenching both armies. They moved into position on either side of a wide shallow valley, Wellington’s men settled on the northern ridge just south of the village of Mont St Jean, while the French took the opposite heights. Here they spent a sodden night under the rain, while the Duke made his headquarters two miles further up the road at the village of Waterloo.

After dawn on that fateful Sunday 18 June, the rain eased, and the two armies faced each other across the valley. The sodden ground delayed the battle until late morning, when Napoleon opened the action with a bombardment and a diversionary attack on the fortified farmstead of Hougoumont on the Allied right of line. Intended to draw troops from Wellington’s centre, the fight instead became a prolonged and savage struggle that pulled in increasing numbers of French troops without success.

Present day Hougoumont
Author's collection.

Many Potteries men fought at Hougoumont. In the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, Private John Harrison of Burslem, was severely wounded in the neck and left arm. Private Ralph Cartledge (or Cartlidge), also of Burslem, was wounded in the mouth. Sergeant John Simpson of Burslem was shot through the thigh early in the action, and Private John Johnson of Tunstall, previously wounded at Bergen‑op‑Zoom, suffered a serious groin wound. Two others from Burslem, Privates Thomas Grocott and William Waller, escaped without injury.

The 2nd Battalion, 3rd Foot Guards also sent many men into the fight. Private John Copeland of Burslem, formerly of the Stafford Militia, fought first in the lane to the west of the chateau complex and then in the wood, before being driven back into the château; he was badly wounded and later lost his left leg. Two older Burslem soldiers, 40 year old Private William Collier and Private John Oulcott, aged 33, were not wounded.

While the struggle for Hougoumont continued unabated, elsewhere other locals were feeling the brunt of Napoleon’s first grand attack. In the early afternoon following a fierce bombardment, a force of some 16,000 French infantrymen in three giant columns, was sent marching across the valley against the Allied left of centre. With drums beating and flags flying, their progress seemed unstoppable and when they crashed up against the forces on the ridge and opened fire it looked as if the thin Allied line might give way under the pressure. Luckily, Wellington’s second-in-command the Earl of Uxbridge, was on the spot and countered by launching his two brigades of heavy cavalry in a great charge which shattered the French attack and sent it reeling back across the fields in panic. However, many of the horsemen got out of control and crossing the valley attacked the French guns, only to be themselves attacked by French lancers who took a heavy toll. Despite these losses, the charge had done its job and shattered Napoleon’s first gambit.

In the 2nd Life Guards were Private George Ball of Burslem, a veteran of Vittoria and Toulouse; Private James Bott, likely from Longton; Private William Henshall, a Burslem potter; and Private Joseph Walker of Stoke, a 6’2” former miller. Their regiment charged to the east of La Haye Sainte, smashing through a force of cuirassiers, (armoured French cavalry) and then into the French infantry. Nearby in the ranks of the Royal Horse Guards, Private Philip Yates, probably from Hanley Green and also a veteran of Vittoria and Toulouse, was also involved in with the charge. His regiment, acting as reserve, joined the charge but withdrew in good order and suffered fewer casualties as a result.

As the armies paused and reorganised after these dramatic events, movement to the east revealed the arrival of Blücher’s Prussians, who had outpaced Grouchy. Napoleon ordered Ney to seize La Haye Sainte, but whilst so engaged, Ney mistakenly thought that Wellington was retreating. Determined to turn this imagined withdrawal into a rout, Ney abandonned the attack on La Haye Sainte and rode around and gathered every cavalryman he could find and launched the first of several massive charges against the Allied ridge. Wellington, however, was not retreating, and the order went along the Allied line to prepare to receive cavalry.

The French cavalry first had to endure long‑range fire from the Allied guns spaced along the ridge. The Potteries were strongly represented in the British artillery at Waterloo. Gunner and Driver Samuel Day of Burslem, though belonging to a Royal Artillery company not present at the battle, had been seconded to Rogers’ R.A. battery to help supply small‑arms ammunition. He fought with the battery at both Quatre Bras and Waterloo, positioned in the latter action on the centre‑left near the Brussels road before moving further to the west in the afternoon. Then there was Gunner and Driver Joseph Lightfoot, from Stoke parish, serving in Sandham’s Company, which was placed roughly in the centre of the Allied artillery line on the right of the battlefield and it remained there for most of the day, enduring attack after attack.

Several local men of the Royal Artillery Drivers—non‑combatants responsible for moving guns, limbers, ammunition and spares—also received the Waterloo Medal. Although only four R.A. companies served at Waterloo (employing no more than 300 drivers), over 1,000 R.A.D. men were awarded the medal, making it unlikely that most were present. Even so, Driver Thomas Bolton of A Troop from Burslem; Driver Daniel (or David) Goostree of A Troop from Stoke; Driver William Ellis of D Troop probably from Hanley; and the likely brothers Joseph and Thomas Kirby of F Troop, both from Stoke, may have taken part.

A RHA Troop under attack.

Others served in the Royal Horse Artillery. Gunner Theophilus Harrison of F Troop, possibly from Burslem and Gunner Aaron Wedgwood of H Troop definitely from Burslem, were heavily engaged throughout the day, firing on repeated French attacks. Gunners George Barlow and Thomas Millar both from Stoke parish and Samuel Weaver of Trentham, served in G Troop, R.H.A., which saw some of the fiercest action. Their commander, Captain Mercer, refused to withdraw his men into the infantry squares during the cavalry charges, instead keeping his guns in action and blasting the French horsemen as they charged his position.

When the cavalry finally crested the ridge, they found Wellington’s infantry not retreating but formed into tight squares or oblongs, bristling with bayonets and backed by ranks of muskets that poured heavy fire into the attackers as they appeared. Among the men inside these squares were Private William Hilditch of the 3/1st Foot Guards, a former bricklayer from Stoke, who at some point was wounded in the thigh; Corporal William Walbank of Stoke and Private Joseph Bourne of Burslem, both of the 33rd Foot; Private Aaron Lockett of the 3/69th Foot possibly from Stoke; Colour Sergeant Thomas Scarratt, who was wounded in the right arm, and Private Thomas Wilkinson were both of the 73rd Foot and both from Stoke parish; while further east, near to the Brussels road, the burnt and scarred Peninsular veteran Private John Potts of Hanley was hunkered down with the 3/1st Foot.

Behind the squares, Allied light cavalry waited with swords drawn, ready to strike the French horsemen as they emerged exhausted from their attacks. The 15th Light Dragoons repeatedly charged cuirassiers, dragoons, lancers and gendarmes as they spilled out from between the infantry. Three locals rode with them: Private John Challiner aged about 24, possibly from Hanley, was a Peninsular veteran wounded at Vittoria; Private William Machin aged 26, from Hanley; and Private John Simpson, 28, from Stoke. None appear to have been injured at Waterloo.

Napoleon, distracted by the growing Prussian threat on his right, failed to halt Ney’s increasingly futile cavalry assaults. By the time the charges ended a couple of hours later, the Prussians were fighting for the village of Plancenoit, threatening the French flank and Napoleon committed elements of the Imperial Guard to hold them off. Returning his attention to Wellington, he ordered Ney to seize La Haye Sainte, still convinced it was the key to breaking the Allied centre. With around a thousand men, Ney attacked and captured the farm, helped by the defenders’ running out of ammunition. A mass of French skirmishers then pushed up the slope toward the Allied line and opened a galling fire on the troops there. Opposite them stood the 1st Battalion, 4th Foot, which had spent most of the day in reserve near Mont‑St‑Jean. Now on the front line, they suffered heavily from this fire. Private William Tunnicliff, 21, of Burslem, a veteran of both the Peninsular and North American campaigns, who was shot in the left arm. Many others also fell in the desperate struggle and seeing the damage Wellington’s line was taking, Ney called for reinforcements to attack the battered Allied centre. However, the Emperor, his mind still focused on the Prussian threat, refused to send any more troops. Wellington, meantime, used his enemy’s delay to bolster his line, piling in reinforcements, and gradually the best chance of a French victory faded away.

It was now nearly 7pm and after stabilising the fight against the Prussians, Napoleon knew that to break Wellington’s forces before night fell he would have to gamble all on one final attack. To boost morale, Napoleon spread the false rumour that the troops they could now see to the east were Marshal Grouchy’s men coming to join them. Buoyed up, the French army launched a general attack all along the line, but the main punch would come from the Imperial Guard, Napoleon’s toughest troops, who had never failed in an attack. Ordering forward eight battalions of the Middle and Old Guard, Napoleon personally led them to within 600 yards of the Allied ridge between La Haye Sainte and Hougoumont, before handing command to Ney for the attack. Despite facing intense artillery fire, the Guard advanced steadily in four columns towards the Allied ridge.

At the ridge, a fierce firefight erupted. Some Allied units wavered under the onslaught, but were steadied by supporting cannon fire. The westernmost French column met the 1st Foot Guards head‑on and if he had not already been wounded, Private William Hilditch mentioned earlier, would doubtless have been among those now exchanging volleys with the Guard. The 52nd Foot then wheeled onto the French flank, pouring volley after volley into them and though the Imperial Guardsmen fought stubbornly for a time, the sustained fire eventually broke their formation. As the 52nd advanced, the entire Allied brigade on the ridge surged forward in a bayonet charge, driving the Imperial Guard back down the slope.

The final battle with the Imperial Guard
Author's collection

The sight of the Guard retreating, combined with the realisation that the troops to the east were Prussians, not Grouchy come to save them, shattered French morale. Cries of “The Guard retreats!” and “We are betrayed!” rippled through the ranks. Units that had fought bravely all day, now began to break and fall back, and the panic spread rapidly. Wellington, watching from the ridge, seized the moment. He waved his hat towards the enemy, signalling a general advance. Cheers erupted along the Allied line as thousands of infantry formed line to advance and cavalry swept down from the bloody ridge, driving the collapsing French army from the field. Two light cavalry regiments kept in reserve for most of the day—the 11th and 16th Light Dragoons—now rode over the ridge near to where the Imperial Guard had attacked and hurled themselves into the fight, eager to repay the French fire that had swept over them for hours. The 11th charged a French battery, receiving its final shots before driving the gunners off, while the 16th pursued fleeing infantry. Serving with the 11th were Privates Joseph Hill, Joseph Hulme, James Jones and Samuel Tamms, aged 20, all from Stoke parish; Private George Goodwin of Bucknall or Hanley, rode with the 16th. All five men came through the battle uninjured.

When the French were finally pushed from the field and in full retreat, Wellington’s exhausted army halted as darkness fell, the men bivouacking where they could amongst the thousands of dead and wounded, the pursuit being left to the vengeful Prussians, who drove the French back over the border. The next day, the British followed along behind Blücher’s army, skirmishing briefly with French border guards but taking no further significant casualties. Within days of his defeat, Napoleon had abdicated for the second time and surrendered to the Royal Navy, which soon after carried him into permanent exile on St Helena. With that, the long wars were finally over for good.

The British troops who had fought at Waterloo soon marched into Paris as part of the army of occupation, and many of the Potteries men named above would spend the next few years there. These, of course, are the men we know of, the survivors whose records remain. For there may have been others who were not so lucky. Any soldiers from the district who were killed at Quatre Bras or Waterloo are anonymous now; the records of those who had been killed were usually destroyed as a matter of course when their names were removed from the regimental rolls. Their families would not even have the posthumous glory of a medal to their name and memory, as only living men could receive the Waterloo Medal.

* There were over 200 men from North Staffordshire involved in the campaign, too large a number to be covered here in one go. I hope to publish more posts on these other soldiers at a future date.

Reference: The National Archives: WO 22 - Royal Hospital Chelsea: Returns of Payment of Army and Other Pensions; WO 23 – Out Pensioners: Ordnance; WO 97 - Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records 1760-1913; WO 100 – Cavalry, Wagon Train, Artillery and Foot Guards (Waterloo Medal list) – various entries in all categories. I am greatly indebted to Ken Ray, Ken Baddeley and Gwylim Roberts for their exhaustive original research into the local soldiers who fought at Waterloo and in other conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Into the Valley of Death

Richard Caton Woodville's famous painting of the Charge of the Light Brigade. Lord Cardigan on the far left of picture is dressed as the commander of the 11th Hussars.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

In 1975, a small article appeared in the Evening Sentinel noting that at the battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War, 1358 Private George Turner* of the 11th Hussars, born in Burslem, had been mortally wounded during the Charge of the Light Brigade. According to his records, Turner was indeed from Burslem, and had worked locally as a crate maker until at the age of 18 he had enlisted in the 11th Hussars at Coventry on 24 September 1847. As the paper noted, he was probably the only man from the Potteries to have taken part in that famous but suicidal military action, when on 25 October 1854, a force of nearly 670 light cavalrymen were mistakenly launched in a frontal attack on an extended line of Russian cannon, infantry and cavalry at the end of a valley, that were further supported by other batteries on either side. The results of this colossal blunder were predictable, with some 110 British soldiers being killed and 160 wounded in the attack, a 40 percent casualty rate, while over 300 horses were killed. 

The 11th Hussars, resplendent in their black fur shakos, blue and gold braided jackets and crimson trousers, formed half of the second rank of the Light Brigade, though that did not spare them and they took a severe mauling from the Russian cannons as the Brigade closed on the enemy line. Private Turner was one of those struck down well before they got there, hit on the left arm by a cannonball, his injury being witnessed by Sergeant Major George Loy Smith of his company, who was riding nearby. Loy Smith later wrote ‘… before we had gone many hundred yards Private Turner’s arm was struck off close to the shoulder and Private Ward was struck full in the chest.’ Another Private named Young had received a similar injury to Turner and Loy Smith told him to turn his horse around and go back to their own lines, ‘… I had hardly done speaking to him, when Private Turner fell back, calling out to me for help. I told him too, to go back to the rear.’

The rest of the brigade rode on down the valley and through the line of cannons where they briefly caused havoc in the rear of the Russian line before exhaustion, the decimation of their ranks and Russian reinforcements forced them to retreat. Turner meantime, must have ridden, or been carried back down the valley to the British lines, bandaged up and with others was then placed aboard a transport ship bound for the military hospital at Scutari in Turkey. However, he never made it, his wound was too severe; Private George Turner aged 25 years old died aboard ship on 28 October and was probably buried at sea. 

There was no mention of the fate of Private Turner in the local papers at the time and it took 120 years for his story to finally make the pages of the Sentinel. It was related by Mr W. R. Baker of Endon, who added, 'I ask your readers to spare a moment’s thought to his memory now when tradition has little meaning and patriotism is an outmoded word I make no apology for thinking that he should not be entirely forgotten.’ 

There existed, though, another poignant addendum to Turner’s sad tale. Seven months after the battle of Balaclava, the Light Brigade had passed again over the same ground, now deserted of enemy troops and here the upper part of a sabre scabbard, all twisted and mangled, was picked up by Sergeant Major Loy Smith and it became part of his collection of memorabilia. When the collection was put on display in Sheffield in 1981, a card attached to the scabbard’s remains read, ‘This belonged to Private Turner, K.I.A.’

*Despite my best efforts, I have yet to find a trace of a George Turner in the local civil records who fits the available data, raising the possibility that the name is an alias.

Reference: Evening Sentinel, 25 October 1975, p.4; George Loy Smith, A Victorian RSM: From India to the Crimea, p. 132. My thanks to Mr Philip Boys for kindly providing me with background information on Private Turner contained in ‘Lives of the Light Brigade: The E. J. Boys Archive’. 

Camp Meetings at Mow Cop

The stone commemorating the first meeting at Mow Cop
with the 'castle' in the background

Situated smack on the Staffordshire-Cheshire border, the rocky hill of Mow Cop topped with its mock-ruined ‘castle’ folly, holds a special place in the religious history of the region and indeed the country. This dramatic spot was very much the birthplace of the Primitive Methodist movement that originated in North Staffordshire in the early part of the 19th century and the famous ‘castle’ came to stand as its unofficial symbol. The movement's founders, two Potteries-born Wesleyan preachers, wheelwright Hugh Bourne and potter William Clowes, were initially simply hoping to restore a spirit of revivalism to mainstream Methodism. Inspired by tales of American camp meetings which they felt mirrored the outdoor preaching of John Wesley and the early Methodists, the men organised the first in a series of Camp Meetings at Mow Cop on 31 May, 1807, where people could gather to pray, sing and hear inspirational preachers.

The day did not seem too promising at first with some ominous clouds and rain, but this cleared away and by mid-morning the weather was fine and sizeable crowds of people were seen coming in from the Potteries, Congleton, Macclesfield and the Cheshire plain and even far off Warrington to experience and play their part in the evangelical camp meeting. One Captain Anderson raised a makeshift flag on the hill to attract the crowds, while piles of stones were erected to serve as pulpits around the hillside and there were no lack of preachers to use them. These in a wild variety of styles - exhortations, readings, recitals of their experiences, the telling of anecdotes and even off-the-cuff poetry – kept the crowds occupied and inspired many that day. Hugh Bourne in his account of the day mentioned an abundance of preachers and praying labourers of the Old Methodist Connection from Macclesfield and Congleton. From Tunstall there came many workers who stood up to preach and there were also several preachers of the Independant Methodists who added their voices to the throng. Notable amongst them, the aforementioned Captain Anderson told the story of his life in verse, from his youth as a shepherd lad, to his life as a sailor, and an anti-slavery and temperance advocate. He had been shipwrecked, captured by French soldiers and press-ganged before being converted to an ardent evangelist whilst in Liverpool. Another was an unnamed Irish preacher who told how he had been involved in the Irish Rebellion where he lost all of his worldly goods, but the experience led to his spiritual awakening. And ‘Peg-leg’ Eleazer Hathorn of Knutsford, recalled how he had been a Deist (a believer in a god who did not meddle in human affairs), an army officer and that he had lost a leg fighting the French in Africa; he was later converted by the preaching of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow, whose example had likewise inspired Bourne and Clowes to organise the camp meeting.

L to R: Hugh Bourne and William Clowes, the founding fathers of Primitive Methodism.

For most of the day, Mow Cop and the surrounding area was thick in people, but by six o’clock that evening, the crowds began to dwindle as folk started to drift away and make their long way back home and by this time only one preaching stand was needed for the die-hards and locals who remained. As this last gathering closed the day’s proceedings it was clear that the Camp Meeting had been a great triumph and had seemingly resulted in many converts to the Methodist cause but it would later figure large in a far more significant way, as out of the controversy that erupted in the wake this first gathering the Primitive Methodist Church eventually came into being.

Clearly the camp meeting filled a spiritual need that many felt lacking in mainstream religion, but despite this success it soon became clear that the Wesleyan Church frowned on the fervent brand of evangelism employed and refused to recognise these converts, while Bourne and Clowes were reprimanded for their actions. There was probably an element of snobbishness in the censure, as both Bourne and Clowes were uneducated working men and their brand of Methodism was decidedly working class in its following, many of Bourne's and Clowes's early converts being some of the roughest of working class men and women from in and around Mow Cop and the Potteries.

The popularity of the first Camp Meeting, though, led to a three-day event at Mow Cop two months later, followed by a third at Norton-in-the-Moors in August. Bourne and Clowes were again taken to task by the church hierarchy but refused to stop holding further open-air meetings, so both men were dismissed from the Methodist church. After failing to gain re-admittance in 1810 they took the step of splitting from mainstream Methodism, and in February 1812 in a meeting held at Tunstall, they took the name The Society of the Primitive Methodists; ‘Primitive’ here meant ‘simple’, reflecting their belief that they were practising a purer form of Methodism uncomplicated by dogma and more in keeping with its evangelical origins. From these humble beginnings the Primitive Methodists would grow into the second largest branch of the Methodist church with a wide following across Britain and branches in the United States and around the British Empire and they maintained their independence until the Methodist Union of 1932.

Because of its early association with the Camp Meetings, Mow Cop continued to be the spiritual home of Primitive Methodism during the life of the movement and beyond. Anniversary Camp Meetings were held there every year with special celebrations laid on for every 50th anniversary of the first gathering, in 1857, 1907 and 1957, all of which were attended by thousands of people. Today, a memorial stone stands part way down the hill from the castle commemorating the movement and its al fresco origins.

Reference: Arthur Wilkes and Joseph Lovatt, Mow Cop and the Camp Meeting Movement: Sketches of Primitive Methodism, (Leominster, c.1942) pp. 54-62.

A Tale of Trafalgar

A Royal Marine private in 1815
Source: Wikimedia Commons

In the pages of M. H. Miller’s interesting compilation, Leek: Fifty Years Ago, can be found the story of one Joseph Mottershead from Leek, who served as a Royal Marine aboard HMS Dreadnought at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Joseph was born in Leek in early 1778, the son of Josiah Mottershead and Ann nee Milner. He had an older brother named William and by account also had a sister. According to the story in Miller’s book, Joseph Mottershead had run away from home after falling out with his family and gone off secretly to enlist, joining a recruiting party on the Ashbourne Road. He was away from his family for the next 17 years and though Joseph wrote to them, the letters were few and far between.

The account had no doubt that Mottershead had ‘been in many a scrimmage’ from early in his career at sea, but Trafalgar would overshadow them all. By 1805, he was a serving Marine aboard HMS Dreadnought, a 98 gun second-rate ship under Captain Conn, part of Nelson’s force in full pursuit of Admiral Villeneuve’s Franco-Spanish fleet. Mottershead recalled how, ‘… when the combined fleets of France and Spain were signalled a great shout went up. On that day he [Mottershead] had nothing on but his shirt and trousers and said that he and seven others made a hasty breakfast out of one dish. Owing to the line of battle taken up by the fleet the Dreadnought was late in coming into action and so was not so hotly engaged as some of the ships, but, nevertheless, they captured one of the Spanish vessels.’

This was the San Juan Nepomuceno, whose fire-eating captain had nailed the ship’s colours to the mast and refused to surrender, despite taking a pummelling from half a dozen circling British warships. As already noted Dreadnought joined the fray late and opened fire at two o'clock then fifteen minutes later boarded the Spaniard and forced her crew to surrender after their captain had been killed in action. Dreadnought then turned in pursuit of the Spanish flagship Principe de Asturias, firing several broadsides and mortally wounding the Spanish Admiral Gravina, but was unable to catch the enemy vessel which slipped away and succeeded in reaching Cadiz. Captain Conn consoled himself with his initial prize, the San Juan Nepomuceno being one of only four captured enemy ships to survive the great storm that followed on after the battle. 

HMS Dreadnought suffered 7 crew killed and 26 wounded in the fighting, but Mottershead was lucky and seems to have come away unscathed. Not that his family back in Leek were to know that and when a Mr Beadnall was passing the Mottershead’s home near Belle Vue, he spotted Joe’s sister and asked her what ship her brother was serving on. On being told it was the Dreadnought, he informed her that the ship had been in a great sea battle and the British fleet had won. The news drove the family frantic with worry, wondering if Joe had been killed and it was not until several weeks later when they received a letter from him stating that he was safe and well, that their fears were finally allayed.

Mottershead’s account of his career added a few more details of his time at sea. He had stated that his ship was once ice-bound for a long period and the men were put on short rations. When they finally got free and returned to Portsmouth, Mottershead said ‘they could almost see through each other’. He also recalled that he once saw a group of his comrades hung from the yardarm for breach of their duty. When these incidents happened, though, is not made clear.

Joseph Mottershead was discharged from the Royal Marines in either 1814 or 1815. Servicemen of the period were usually provided with the fare back to the town where they had enlisted, but otherwise had to make their own arrangements to get back to their real home. His low-key return to Leek was recounted in Miller’s book.

‘One very wintery day about the year 1815, Gaunt’s work people had been paid for their work and were getting “a glass together” at the Cock in Derby street, when the coach from Derby drew up and a soldier got off and came into the house. He stood by the fire warming himself, and presently he asked “Is ------ alive,” naming his father. One of the people, a woman of the name of Nixon, eyed him for a moment, then rapping her snuff-box and turning to one of the men (Mottershead’s brother) said, “By Jove, Will, it’s your Joe!” Yes! Joseph was come back and received a hearty welcome.’

A replica Naval General Service
Medal with the Trafalgar clasp.

When the 1841 census was taken, Joe was still alive at 63 and living at Mill Street, Leek, his profession given as a ‘silk doubler’ employed in the town’s notable silk and lace industry. Two other names are listed at the same address, Hannah Mottershead aged 61 and 34 year old Sarah Mottershead. At first glance we might think Joseph had settled down to a married life, but the 1851 census lists Hannah as his ‘infirm’ sister and Sarah as his daughter, though if this is the case there is no indication of who her mother was. By this time Joe had retired and was listed as a ‘Greenwich Pensioner,’ reaping the albeit meagre rewards of his service at sea all those years before. He had also received further recognition for his service a couple of years before when he applied for and was awarded the Naval General Service Medal with the ‘Trafalgar’ clasp.

Joseph Mottershead, North Staffordshire’s most notable Trafalgar veteran died on 4 December 1855 aged 77 years old and was buried four days later in St Edward’s Churchyard. His death and claim to fame was mentioned briefly in the pages of the Staffordshire Sentinel,  where it was noted, ‘He fought by the side of Nelson, at the Battle [of] Trafalgar.’

Reference: M. H. Miller, Leek: Fifty Years Ago, pp.150-151. Staffordshire Sentinel, 8 December 1855, p.5.

His Superb Fighting Spirit

Lance-Sergeant J. D. Baskeyfield VC

Operation Market Garden, launched on 17 September 1944, was an Allied attempt to seize a series of strategic bridges through the Netherlands to break into Nazi Germany and end the war sooner. The plan was for three giant airborne raids, consisting of thousands of paratroopers and glider borne troops, to seize and hold the bridges, while an armoured column would punch its way north through the intervening German troops and link up with the lightly armed airborne forces before they were overrun. American paratroops dropped at Eindhoven and Nijmegen succeeded in capturing and holding their positions until the armoured column arrived. However, the British 1st Airborne Division, assigned to capture the furthest target, the road bridge at Arnhem, faced difficulties from the start, with many paratroopers and gliders landing far from their target. Only one battalion, under Major John Frost, reached Arnhem, but they could not secure the bridge. The rest of the Division, including several battalions of the Paras and the 2nd Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment, all under the command of General Roy Urquhart, were stuck outside the town, facing transport and communication issues and fierce enemy resistance.

On 19 September, General Urquhart attempted to reach Frost and his men in Arnhem, but the British suffered heavy losses against German armour. Urquhart therefore pulled his men back to Oosterbeek, a suburb of Arnhem, hoping to establish a bridgehead against the river until ground forces arrived. The Paras and South Staffords created a perimeter at the edge of Oosterbeek, bringing in artillery to cover the main roads and snipe German tanks when they came. At 11:15 a.m., eight anti-tank guns from the South Staffords were moved forward, with two of their 6-pounder guns positioned at the T-junction of Benedendorpsweg and Acacialaan to take on any German armour moving in from the north-east, while other guns covered their flank and troops in trenches and nearby buildings prepared to support the gunners and confront any enemy infantry.

In charge of the two guns facing up Acacialaan was 21-year-old Lance-Sergeant John Daniel Baskeyfield of the South Staffords’ Anti-Tank Platoon. Born on 18 November 1922, ‘Jack’ Baskeyfield was the eldest of five children born to Daniel and Minnie Baskeyfield of Burslem. Educated at Burslem St John’s School and Christ Church, Cobridge, for several years he was a choirboy at Cobridge Church. Starting work as an errand boy, he later trained as a butcher and briefly managed a co-op butchers in Pittshill. He was called up for the army in February 1942 and served with the 2nd South Staffords in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy before participating in Operation Market Garden. No stranger to peril, during the North Africa campaign, a glider that Jack was aboard crashed into the sea and he spent 8 hours in the water before being picked up by a launch. Evidently a good soldier, he had achieved the rank of lance-sergeant through merit and during the ferocious battle that would take place around his guns the next day, his ability to lead and inspire those around him would prove him worthy of the rank.

The statue depicting Jack Baskeyfield at Festival Park, Etruria

By nightfall on the 19th, British forces in Oosterbeek had been heavily pounded by artillery and mortar fire, resulting in significant losses. On the 20th, German forces attacked the eastern side of the perimeter with infantry, tanks, and self-propelled guns, aiming to overrun the weakened British position. Despite the heavy fire, the British airborne soldiers fought back fiercely, particularly Baskeyfield and his crew, who are said to have destroyed two Tiger tanks and a self-propelled gun. Their success, though, came at a heavy cost, the gun crew being either killed or badly injured in the fighting, Jack being seriously wounded in the leg. In the lull that followed the initial German attack, Jack refused to be carried off to the Regimental First Aid post and instead manned his gun alone, shouting encouragement to the men in nearby buildings and trenches. When the Germans returned with even greater ferocity, Baskeyfield fired round after round until his gun was finally put out of action.

Pulling himself away from the wreckage and under intense enemy fire, Jack crawled across the road to the other gun, Corporal Hutton's 6-pounder, the crew of which now lay dead around it. Again, he manned the gun alone, though another soldier tried to crawl across the road to help him, but he was killed almost immediately. Undaunted, Jack carried on, engaging another enemy self-propelled gun that was moving in to attack. He managed to get off two rounds, one of which scored a direct hit on the vehicle, rendering it ineffective, but, sadly, whilst loading for a third shot, he was killed by a shell from a supporting enemy tank.

There is some question over the number or type of ‘kills’ that Jack and his men gained, but there is no disputing that the terrific stand he made inspired nearby troops and bolstered that part of the perimeter. This undoubtedly helped in preventing the Germans from cutting the 1st Airborne Division from the Rhine, across which the survivors of Urquhart’s forces escaped several days later. For by 25 September, the desperate struggle for Arnhem was over, and Major Frost's men had been forced to surrender. Hundreds of soldiers and over 400 Dutch civilians had been killed, thousands more wounded and Arnhem and its suburbs were wrecked and littered with bodies, many mangled beyond recognition. Corporal Raymond Corneby and other captured troops were working to gather up bodies where Baskeyfield and his men had fallen, when he found just such a corpse, a battered, headless body by the wreckage of a gun, which he buried in a nearby garden. From the evidence Corneby found on the body it seems very likely that this was Jack Baskeyfield, whose remains now lie in an unknown grave. His name appears on panel 5 of the CWGC Groesbeek Memorial to the Missing. 

The modern day juction of Benedendorpsweg looking up Acacialaan - which was then much more open - from where the German tanks were approaching. Baskeyfield's final position was on the left where the 'Jack Baskeyfield Tree' now stands.

Source: Google Earth

Despite his body being lost, Jack's deeds were not forgotten, and word of his bravery spread quickly. A week after the battle, war artist Bryan de Grineau drew a sketch of the action for the Illustrated London News and official reports were made on Baskeyfield's behalf, with the recommendation that he be posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. This was granted, and the London Gazette carried the official citation for his award five days after what would have been his 22nd birthday. This outlined the action and Jack Baskeyfield’s doggedness in carrying out his duty in defending the road junction, his determination to carry on even though badly wounded and it praised ‘his superb fighting spirit’ which inspired all who witnessed his stand. Back home, though his parents and siblings were devastated by the news of his death, they were immensely proud at the news that Jack had been awarded the Victoria Cross. At an investiture at Buckingham Palace on 17 July 1945, Daniel and Minnie Baskeyfield received their son’s medal from King George VI and soon after the war they took a trip to the Netherlands to see where their son had died. Jack Baskeyfield’s VC is today in the keeping of the Staffordshire Regiment Museum at Whittington near Lichfield.

Pride was felt across the Potteries at Jack’s incredible bravery. A memorial fund was set up, a mural was raised in his honour at one of his old schools and his name continues to be used proudly around the city in streets, buildings, an Army Reserve Centre and for a while a local school. In 1966, a local amateur film maker Bill Townley began filming a well-produced cinematic depiction of Jack’s deeds entitled ‘Baskeyfield VC’, which received it’s first public airing in 1969 and is still available to buy on DVD. Official memorials also appeared. A plaque dedicated to the town’s medal winner sits near to Burslem’s war memorial on Swan Bank, but surprisingly the most notable memorial was erected not in Burslem, but at Festival Heights in Etruria. Unveiled in 1990, the twice-life size statue of Jack Baskeyfield sculpted by Steven Whyte and Michael Talbot, has him in action, shell in hand in the act of loading his gun; a brave man, defiant to the end. 

Reference: Andy Saunders (Ed.),Victoria Cross (magazine), pp.96-99; Evening Sentinel, 24 November 1944 p.1 and p.4; Evening Sentinel, 18 July 1945.

An Awful and Melancholy Accident

An appalling family tragedy occurred in Hanley on Saturday 1 August 1807, when Robert, John and James Wilson, three sons of David Wilson, a respectable local pottery manufacturer in the town, prepared for the forthcoming Hanley Wakes by setting up three small cannon in Robert’s garden. There was a general gathering of friends and family there for the celebration, one of these was a friend of Robert Wilson named William Jervis, who nine years later described how the incident had unfolded. The whole group it seems were in high spirits, perhaps they had been drinking as they were certainly in a reckless mood. Jervis for instance, at one point went up to John Wilson, who would be setting off the cannons and said that he wanted to place his own child astride one of the barrels when it was fired, but John refused to let him do so and likewise refused to set the cannon off while his brother Robert and infant niece were so near. The first two cannons were loaded with powder and cabbages while the third was loaded with powder and an old sack for wadding which was provided by Robert himself.

Along with Jervis, Robert Wilson with his infant daughter in his arms then retired a safe distance to a nearby arbour to watch the show, but Robert was still feeling full of bravado and now made a terrible decision. Turning to Jervis he asked him whether he dared to pass in front of one of the cannons while it was firing? Jervis understandably refused to do so. Meanwhile, John Wilson, oblivious to this conversation fired off the first cannon, then the second, which with loud bangs sent gouts of smoke and showers of shredded cabbage leaves blasting out across the garden to the delight of those watching. As he was applying the match to the third, though, Robert came out of nowhere and ran in front of it with the child in his arms. The cannon went off as he did so and both were caught in the blast and it killed them. Robert Wilson got the worst of it, the sack wadding took the back part of his head off, and he died instantly. His daughter survived the initial blast but died of her injuries 20 minutes later. Their mangled remains were said to be a horror to behold and if it could be any worse, all of this occurred in front of a large group of family and friends including the little girl’s mother and grandmother; the grief and horror they all experienced can easily be imagined.

The authorities were alerted to the tragedy and a coroner’s inquest was convened on the following Monday. This quickly returned a verdict of accidental death and the two were buried on 5 August in the same coffin in the family tomb, their funeral being watched by many spectators. Newspapers of the time reported that the deaths cast a gloom over the Potteries that the amusements of the following week were unable to fully dispel.

In his book People of the Potteries, local historian Henry Allen Wedgwood attributed this accident to the mischievous folly of John Wilson who fired the cannons. John, despite his respectable background, later became notorious as ‘Mad Jack’ Wilson, the leader of the Rough Fleet, a gang of drunks, gamblers, street thugs and ne’er-do-wells, who for several years terrorised the Potteries. There are some significant differences in the story that Wedgwood relates, he says that the accident occurred after 1817, that there was only one cannon and that only Jack’s brother was killed when the gun went off. His act of folly, Wedgwood claimed, left ‘Mad Jack’ a broken man who then turned to the bottle for solace. However, despite his undoubted criminal career, if we believe William Jervis’ account the accident was actually due to the macho stupidity of Robert Wilson (it seems to have been a family trait) and John was the sensible one that day. John Wilson wasn’t broken by the tragedy, though it could be argued that coupled with subsequent events it perhaps unhinged him and turned him bad. Certainly it remained a very ‘tender point’ with him and nearly a decade later he took a man to court for slander after he had supposedly accused ‘Mad Jack’ of murdering his own brother that day. It seems however, that by 1816, John Wilson received little in the way of sympathy from the townsfolk, his thuggish reputation was against him as he lost the case, the jury easily finding for the defendant.

There may have been more immediate tragic sequels to this sad story when just over a month after the accident, and within only a few days of one another in late September and early October, the following death notifications appeared in the Staffordshire Advertiser. The first on 26 September 1807, seems to record the death of Robert and John’s mother, ‘On Wednesday last, at Hanley, in the Potteries, in her 46th year of her age, after a lingering illness which she bore with exemplary fortitude, Mrs Wilson, wife of Mr. David Wilson, at that place.’ Then, the following week, there was one apparently noting the death of Robert’s wife.

‘DIED... On Sunday evening last at her house in Newcastle-under-Lyme after a few days illness, Mrs. Wilson, relict of Mr. Robert Wilson late an eminent manufacturer at Hanley in the Potteries; - in her life and conduct was exemplified every virtue which dignifies the christian character; a sincere lover of and a liberal benefactor to the cause of truth; an affectionate relative; a true friend to the poor and distressed, and a promoter (so far as Providence had enabled her) of every benevolent institution within her sphere of action.’

As there is a lack of documentation regarding the Wilson family at this period, it is difficult to say conclusively that these were the mother and wife of the dead man, but if so it is not too great a leap to suppose that the two women had been crushed by the loss of their son, husband and daughter through Robert’s signal act of foolishness, that their mental and physical health had suffered and they had wasted away as a result.

Reference: Staffordshire Advertiser 8 August 1807, p.4; 26 September 1807, p.4; 3 October 1807, p.4; 16 March 1816, p.4; Henry Allen Wedgwood, People of the Potteries pp. 65-72. Local press coverage was thin on the ground at this time, only the Staffordshire Advertiser being available. Likewise, church records that might have added more details are lacking, due to the near wholesale destruction of St John’s records during the Pottery Riots of 1842. These (save for a single baptismal register) were lost when Hanley Parsonage was burnt to the ground.

The End of the Rough Fleet

The Rough Fleet, an amorphous gang of street thugs under the leadership of John ‘Mad Jack’ Wilson were a terror to the locals, notably in and around Hanley, for many years at the very beginning of the 19th century. Born in 1787, Wilson was the eldest surviving son of David Wilson, a respectable pottery manufacturer who ran the Church Works, Hanley, which stood on ground between St John’s Church and what later became Hanley Deep pit, ground now given over to the swirl of roads and traffic islands where Town Road coming out of Hanley joins the Potteries Way. John Wilson was also the man who accidentally killed his brother and niece when he was firing off cannons to celebrate the Hanley Wakes in 1807 (see ‘An Awful and Melancholy Accident’ above). Maybe this family tragedy had in some way adversely affected him and set him on the criminal path he henceforth followed, but it is easy to look for excuses for bad behaviour and there is too little information on John Wilson’s early days to know for sure what started him on his criminal career; perhaps he had always been a bad lot who just got worse over time.

The approximate site of the Church Works just outside of the centre of Hanley
Source: Google Earth

Concrete information on the early origins of the gang is likewise thin on the ground. Writing in the early 1840s and thus well within living memory of events, John Ward in his history The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, noted that ‘In the years 1808 and 1809 a gang of reckless young men, some of whom were respectably connected, carried on a system of nocturnal outrage, rather from a wanton and mischievous spirit, than for the sake of plunder, which greatly annoyed and terrified the peaceable community. They obtained the name of The Rough Fleet, from their daring and buccaneering-like exploits’. This may have been when they started their reign of terror, but if so it seems that they continued causing trouble and dodging any real justice for the better part of a decade before the gang’s chief members were finally brought to book. 

Between 1816 and 1818, The Staffordshire Advertiser noted that the gang or its individual members were involved in several brushes with the courts for assaults, riotous behaviour and attempted shootings. At the Swan Inn in Hanley’s Market Square in early 1816, John Wilson was confronted in the bar by one outraged local, potter John Sheridan of Cobridge, who accused him of threatening his life and shooting at him, describing Wilson as ‘the terror of the neighbourhood’ and ‘the Captain of the banditti’. Wilson took Sheridan to court for slander when the latter accused Mad Jack of murdering his own brother, but he lost the case perhaps as a result of the growing ill-feeling towards him and his confederates. Incidents continued to be reported through to early 1818, while in the same paper John Wilson’s financial fall was also chronicled. His father David Wilson had died suddenly in 1816 and as John was his heir, the Church Works and family business had passed to him. Little good he did with it, though, being more interested it seems with his incessant drinking, partying with his gang and trouble-making and by July 1817 he was declared bankrupt and as numerous notices in the papers showed, his pot bank and other properties quickly passed out of his hands.

The end for the gang followed shortly after this in early 1818, when as Ward put it, ‘several of them were ultimately prosecuted at the Sessions, and convicted of various misdemeanors, which at length broke up the lawless confederacy.’ It came about as the result of an attack on a local constable Ralph Barton, who was left wounded by the encounter. Eight members of the Rough Fleet including John Wilson, were arraigned on a charge of riot and assault at the March Assizes at Stafford, being committed to Stafford gaol in June with the case being deferred until October; and it was there, doubtless much to the relief of the locals, that they finally got their comeuppance. 

‘John Wilson, Samuel Shelley, Thomas Shufflebottom, John Clews, Henry Brereton, John Wallbank, Wallace Lockett, and Samuel Earnest, were convicted of riot, and of assaulting a constable in the execution of his office at Hanley. These prisoners are part of a corps too well known in the Potteries by the name of the Rough Fleet. Wilson (the Captain) was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment; Shelley (Lieutenant) to ten months; and the other six to four months; each of them to find security for a year longer. The three first-named pleaded guilty.’ 

Following this conviction as Ward noted, the Rough Fleet seems to have been broken and it disappeared from the streets of the Potteries. Certainly that infamous title does not seem to crop up in any further stories in the contemporary press, save as a bad memory and the fates of its former members remain unknown.

Reference: John Ward,  The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent (1843) p. 369; Staffordshire Advertiser 16 March 1816, p.4; 5 July 1817, p.4; 18 October 1817, p.4; 31 January 1818, p.4; 21 March 1818, p.4; 13 June 1818, p.4; 24 October 1818, p.4.