Pelsall during The Great War

Although on the outbreak of war Pelsall-born George Robotham was not a regular soldier, he had previously served three years with the 3rd Battalion, the Grenadier Guards, before going into the reserve and joining the Police Force in Stafford in November 1911. Recalled to the army on 5th August 1914, 24 year-old George joined 2nd Battalion of the Grenadiers, fought at Mons, the Marne and the Aisne, and by late October had reached the hard-pressed Ypres Salient. On 21st the battalion was committed to the Battle of Langemarck where their losses were thankfully light; four days later, casualties were heavier in the Battle of Gheluvelt when 63 men were lost and between 1st and 5th November another 85 guardsmen were killed or wounded. Friday, 6th November was, ‘another critical day at Ypres’ (Official History, 1914 vol.II). A day of thick fog, heavy shelling and persistent infantry assaults saw the Germans advance to within two miles of the Ypres town walls and, ‘…by noon the effect of the shelling on the Irish Guards and 2/Grenadier Guards was reported to be serious. Nevertheless, the front was maintained unbroken until 2:30 p.m. The Germans poured into a gap formed by the withdrawal of a battalion of French Zouaves and forced back the Irish Guards battalion to the support trenches and beyond. The right company of the 2/Grenadier Guards next felt the force of the attack and, as the day wore on, almost every man of it was killed or wounded by shell fire,’ (Official History). During this grievous day, George Robotham was killed without trace somewhere north of the Menin Road, thus his name is recorded on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Ypres. George, as one of the legendary ‘Old Contemptibles’, is one of the few Pelsall lads entitled to the 1914 ‘Mons’ Star.

As Christmas 1914 approached, the British Expeditionary Force’s casualty list had become unsustainable but the numbers of volunteers for both Kitchener’s ‘New Army’ and the Territorial Force were impressive. So to were the lists of volunteers for the regular army and in particular for the guards regiments – between November 1914 and February 1915 five Pelsall lads (James Riley, Albert Hickin, Charles Clayton, Edwin Breakwell and Bert Whyley) joined the elite Grenadier Guards, one (William Thompson) joined in December 1915 and one (J.T.H. Owen) in October 1916. Another lad, Edward Edgerton, volunteered for the Royal Army Medical Corps in February 1915 but transferred to the Coldstream Guards in October 1918. Their war exploits were to live up to the outstanding reputation of the Guards’ long history.
In August 1915 all five guards regiments, Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh, were brought together from their various divisions to form a new, elite Guards Division that was soon tested at the Battle of Loos in September and October. Two former miners, Charlie Clayton of Birchley Cottages, Heath End and Edwin Breakwell of Cross Street, Heath End, were both in action with the Grenadiers at the German strongpoint known as the Hohenzollern Redoubt – as a result Breakwell, who said the battle was, “…like walking into death but I came out all right”, was recommended for the Distinguished Conduct Medal; Clayton ultimately found himself evacuated to, ‘…hospital at Winchester, invalided through strain of bomb-throwing with the Grenadier Guards,’ (Walsall Observer). He underwent a serious operation that left him in hospital for the better part of a year before returning to France in April 1917.
On 16th March 1916, Edwin Breakwell’s 4th Battalion of the Grenadiers moved north to the dreaded Ypres Salient and immediately set about improving the badly waterlogged trench lines astride the notorious Menin Road. Three days later, on 19th March, while working in the trenches, 25 year-old Edwin was hit by a German shell – the former miner at Aldridge Colliery was fatally injured and he was buried just behind the lines in Menin Road South Military Cemetery. The ‘Walsall Observer’ edition of 15th April 1916 reported that a memorial service was held at Pelsall Wesleyan Church for both Private Breakwell and his close mate, Private John Wooldridge who was killed by a trench mine while serving with the South Staffords at Ecoivres on 3rd April. Tragically for Edwin’s family, his younger brother, Jack, would be killed in June 1917 with the Royal Field Artillery just a few miles south of Ypres, on Messines Ridge.