“Derby’s gone mad! Crowds round th’ recruiting-office! Crowds in th’ grocers’ shops! Nothing doing anywhere else! … Bands playing! Flags flying! Women and children crying! And lads in khaki everywhere!”
So said one of the men in Emma Pearson’s novel ‘Judge Not’ about the outbreak of the First World War in Derbyshire. In the thinly-disguised fictional village based upon Cromford, Emma documented the changes that the War brought to the close-knit communities of the Derwent valley.
Cromford was a sleepy village at the turn of the twentieth century. The life dramas of its occupants were those that surrounded them ‘plant life, animal life, human life, in every stage and aspect’. Daily newspapers were a luxury. The villagers relied for national news upon the evening journal at the local pub and their own Sunday papers. So when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914, the news came first to the evening drinkers.
One by one the young men of Emma’s neighbourhood left to fight in France. Arthur Biddulph, a clerk at the Via Gellia Colour Works, enlisted in September 1914 in Matlock soon after War was declared. Joseph Tomlinson enlisted at Derby where he worked at the paintworks. Thomas Worthy who worked at Cromford Brewery enlisted at Matlock. George Kirk, a worker in a hosiery factory, and Thomas Keighly a quarry man, both enlisted at Chesterfield.
With their sons gone the women organised the war effort in the village. Local dignitary Mrs Arkwright sat upon committees and held meetings at Willersley Castle to organise the work of the Red Cross. From 1914 to 1916 Emma joined a Cromford working party to sew shirts and knit socks and scarves for soldiers.
As well as being involved in working parties the women of Cromford volunteered as nurses. VAD Hospitals were Red Cross convalescent homes attached to military hospitals and supported in the local community. The volunteer nurses came from the surrounding areas. Many of the nurses volunteered part-time while holding down other jobs.
In this and many other ways the War came close to Cromford. For Emma reading the names of the fallen in the papers ‘struck on the ears like blows’. Men from Cromford families were among the missing, wounded and dead. Joseph Tomlinson was killed in action in March 1915. William Sherratt in May 1915 and George Kirk in February 1916.
1916 was a turning point for Cromford, according to Emma. With the passing of the Military Service Bill the numbers of men in uniform increased. War fever had vanished and a ‘tenacious endurance’ took over. Old soldiers returned on leave with haunted eyes. New Soldiers were billeted in the cottages in the village and became friendly with the local girls. ‘A laxity and freedom prevailed that would have been impossible a few years earlier.’
When the Armistice came on November 11 1918. Emma’s writing suggests she did not see it as a cause for celebration. 1917 had brought more deaths to the village. Arthur Biddulph and Thomas Keightly both died on the same day in April 1917, Thomas Worthy in October 1917. Walter Robert Knowles a family friend from Starkholmes died in action in December.
Then in 1918 Walter’s brother Charles was killed along with 7 other Matlock men on the first day of a major German offensive on the Somme. The German Army launched Operation Michael, their Spring Offensive or Kaiserschlacht against the Allies on 21st March 1918. The Sherwood Foresters suffered heavy losses during fighting which was to last throughout the Spring.
After the War, the country raised Memorials to these fallen sons. The Cromford men have a memorial overlooking the mill pond and Market Place. The Knowles brothers are listed on both the Starkholmes and Matlock War Memorials. For the ceremony at Starkholmes Mrs Knowles was one of several mothers who laid white garlands.
A postcard of Crich Stand from Emma’s photograph collection was taken in 1923, shortly after it was dedicated as the Sherwood Foresters memorial. In my imagination Emma bought this card after attending the opening ceremony. It reminded her of the loss of the children of Cromford.
