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The First VCs
The Moving True Story of First World War Heroes Maurice Dease and Sidney Godley
By Mark Ryan The History Press
Copyright © 2014 Mark Ryan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-5749-6
CHAPTER 1
Privilege and Pain
What makes someone want to join the army? What makes them take a deliberate, carefully considered decision to adopt a career path that could end their life prematurely or traumatise them forever? For Maurice Dease and Sidney Frank Godley, the reasons weren't so very different from some of the motives for young people joining up today. Godley joined because he wanted to belong to something, because he had never quite belonged, not even to his own family. Maurice joined because he already had a sense of belonging, because an admired family member had joined before him.
'I think uncle Maurice always wanted to be a soldier like his uncle Gerald. They were close.' That simple, innocent statement from his nephew, Major Maurice French, a Korean War veteran, explains better than any other why Maurice Dease would find himself in a hail of bullets on 23 August 1914. It could be argued that his uncle Gerald had a lot to answer for, though naturally he wished his nephew no harm.
Gerald had been an adjutant in the 4th Militia Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. He had served in the regiment from 1874 to 1892 and reached the rank of major. Gerald never saw action. So there were no tales of senseless carnage and despair from the influential uncle; no first-hand accounts of almost-impossible bravery either. Neither, perhaps, were there any protective warnings about what could happen if history swept up young Maurice in a tide of international tension and dropped him in the wrong time and place. Even if there had been such warnings, however, you get the feeling that Maurice would probably still have joined up. It is what young men of a certain stock and upbringing did in those days. Some still do.
Gerald Dease was a wealthy, powerful, charismatic figure in Maurice's native Ireland. He was county sheriff for County Westmeath in 1909, and Commissioner for National Education in Ireland. He had applied his natural authority far and wide in his day, becoming ADC to the governor of Tasmania, Lord Gormanston. Therefore, if Uncle Gerald had done something as a young man, it would have seemed to Maurice worth doing himself. After all, Maurice Dease was already linked to his uncle in a very special way.
Although Gerald had married Florence Helen Marley on 3 June 1896, he was almost 42 by then. The marriage was destined to produce no children, so Maurice was his heir. One day Gerald's spectacular stately home at Turbotston, Co. Westmeath, with its glorious hunting grounds, would belong to Maurice, if, of course, he lived that long. There was no obvious reason to suppose he wouldn't because, as the nineteenth century became the twentieth, there was no inevitability of a First World War. There were always tensions, of course, yet no hint that a global conflict was going to engulf almost everything and everyone. If Maurice's time in the army was relatively brief and drew him into no desperate battles from which he couldn't fight his way out, it could be seen as a distinguished stepping stone, a dashing interlude before he returned to the idyllic life in the Irish countryside. A soldier's existence would give him the adventures all young men craved; he might travel far and wide like Uncle Gerald. It sounded manly, exciting, even righteous. When he'd had his fill, the glorious setting of Turbotston awaited him, with its rolling green hills and enchanting woods. You didn't have to stay in the army forever. Show what you could do in your prime, come out before you reached middle age; then you could enjoy the rest of your life and all your lucky circumstances promised you. That seems to have been the general game plan. Put most simply, Maurice Dease had fallen under the spell of Gerald, and it would determine his destiny. They hunted together on horseback, the boy and the powerful older man. They probably talked of wars that Gerald hadn't been in but wished he had, such as the Boer War. You can just imagine Maurice hanging on Gerald's every word, while the boy's father, Edmund, looked on fondly and his mother, Katherine, was left to accept that boys will be boys. Had Maurice fallen under the spell of any relative other than Gerald, things might have been very different. Maurice French explained:
I don't think there were any soldiers before that; there might have been but there certainly weren't any Royal Fusiliers. The soldiers were Uncle Gerald, Uncle Maurice and me. Uncle Maurice was a gentle soul, I think. But that didn't exclude a desire to join the army. The way of thinking was completely different back then.
Maurice Dease was born in Gaulstown, Coole, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, on 28 September 1889. He was the only son of Edmund Fitzlawrence Dease, JP, and Katherine Dease, of Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. She was the eldest daughter of Maurice Murray of Beech Hill, Cork. Maurice Dease's grandfather was James Arthur Dease, JP, DL, Vice-Lieutenant of Cavan. It was a distinguished family from the upper echelons of Irish Catholic society. Indeed, the Dease family tree could be traced all the way back to Thomas More, executed by Henry VIII and well-known even to non-historians after the film A Man for All Seasons came out in the 1960s. While none of their family homes was quite as spectacular as Gerald's Turbotston, all were exceedingly comfortable. At such family retreats Maurice spent many happy years, the first nine of his childhood.
He adored the countryside and the pursuits that went with it. From his earliest years he went riding, and had a beautiful grey pony called Kitty. Maurice French, his nephew, still had all the photos in 2013 to illustrate what a lovely childhood Maurice had enjoyed over a century earlier. Major French had heard all the stories from his mother, Maud, Maurice Dease's sister:
When he was a boy he was mad keen on hunting. His father was the man who ran the Westmead Hounds, so my Uncle Maurice grew up on ponies. His Uncle Gerald was very keen on hunting too. Maurice loved riding the ponies and horses above all. And he enjoyed shooting, partridges and that sort of thing, I expect. And I think, because my mother used to fish, he would have fished a bit too. Maurice was very much a country boy.
At the age of 9, he was suddenly transported into a very different world, at least during term time;, he was sent away to a preparatory school in Hampstead. There was nothing callous about it; this was simply the done thing among many in upper-class Irish society. Major French explained, 'It was the norm for well-to-do Catholic families to send their children across to English public schools to be educated.'
Maurice's first English school was St Basil's, Frognal Hall – afterwards known simply as Frognal Park School. The Deases were related to the Liddells, who already had a boy called Aiden at the same prep school. Like Maurice, Aidan Liddell would go on to win a posthumous Victoria Cross as machine gun officer of his battalion. While such terrible tests of character were still a world away, the process of toughening up had already started with their separation from their parents at such a tender age. Fortunately, figures of authority at such schools were also capable of remembering just how young their charges were. Before long Frognal was taken over by a certain Miss Maloney, who later became Mrs Ware. Maurice considered her to be so warm and caring that he never forgot her kindness. And he was in particular need of such qualities in 1899 and 1900, after he contracted scarlet fever and measles, and spent weeks in the school infirmary.
He was already resilient enough to get over these setbacks, and more than ready to idolise those whose bravery on far-flung battlefields captured the imagination of many a schoolboy. From a postcard he sent to his father on 2 October 1900, it is clear that he was already attracted to matters military. The postcard is a picture of an infantryman directing a cavalry officer during the Boer Wars. Maurice, who had just turned 11, is brief and to the point:
Thank you very much for your letter and chocolates you sent me for my birthday. We played football yesterday morning and it was a very good game. I have very little news to tell you now as I told it all to mother yesterday. MD.
The year 1902 was a landmark in the childhood of Maurice Dease. He experienced his first hunt on the back of his pony, Kitty, on 13 January. The Westmeath Hounds met at Turbotston, the home of his beloved Uncle Gerald, and they rode the hunt from Pakenham Hall, the beautiful home of the Earls of Longford. The military pasts of important family and friends couldn't be forgotten, and the way the Pakenhams led their lives might also have influenced Dease to make decisions which would cut short his life. Major French reflected:
A lot of those Irish boys at that time went into the Royal Fusiliers for one reason or other. The Pakenham family was another who chose that route. They were neighbours in Mullingar, and Pakenham Hall became known as Tullynally Castle. They weren't Catholics at that stage; they'd been Catholics and then lapsed, but a lot of them were Royal Fusiliers.
The fact that Maurice was a page boy at the wedding of Lord Longford – who was also destined to be killed in the First World War – indicated the strong relationship between the families. And such established families weren't going to shy away from playing their part when the fighting began. Men who could in theory have stayed out of the war on the safer side of the Irish Sea chose instead to put themselves in the firing line, and paid the ultimate price.
Maurice always seemed to follow his conscience; he was a staunch Catholic from beginning to end. He took his first Communion on 14 June 1902 at the Dominican Church, Haverstock Hill, London. But it was back in Ireland during the summer holidays that he was confirmed in the private chapel of the bishop's palace in Mullingar. Even someone so deeply religious had no trouble reconciling army life with his Catholic faith. Sometimes you had to fight for what was right. And in the eyes of the British and the English-educated, Britain was always right.
If Maurice Dease was well on the way to becoming a Royal Fusilier even before he reached his teens, it could be argued that Sidney Frank Godley was destined to join him in the regiment because of things that had happened to him when he was even younger.
The Godly family (the spelling of the surname only changed when Sidney joined the army and the recruiting officer put the 'e' in it) was no stranger to extreme violence – at least George Godly of the Metropolitan Police wasn't. George, Sidney's first cousin once removed, worked on the most famous case in history. Indeed, Detective Sergeant George Godly's efforts on the 'Jack the Ripper' investigation team enhanced his reputation considerably. They never caught the murderer, of course, the mystery man who butchered eleven women horribly in the East End of London between 1888 and 1891, mutilating them in various indescribable ways. But it was said by a colleague at the time that 'Mr Godly's knowledge of these crimes is perhaps as complete as that of any officer concerned.' The Whitechapel Murders, as they were known back then, still fascinate amateur and professional sleuths today. And George might have become the most celebrated policeman in history had he actually detained the world's most notorious murderer. There was a moment during the investigation that his boss thought George had earned just such a claim to fame. For Inspector Abberline, who led the investigation, declared at one point during the hunt that Godly had managed to arrest the Ripper and the case could be solved at last. Sadly he was mistaken and the culprit never was locked away, which must have caused sleepless nights for Godly and the rest of the team.
It is very doubtful whether Sidney Godley would have been exposed to any of the horrific details of the case as a child. The murders happened just before he was born or while he was still a toddler. Besides, Sidney's immediate family had enough of their own problems to worry about, such as how to make ends meet. Such factors closer to home would deny Sidney the sense of stability all children crave. But it wasn't lost on his grandson Colin that Sidney lived much of his adult life in a general area of the East End which had been notorious for its violent cases – and would be again. 'We've got Jack the Ripper and the Krays all within a mile of here, we're in the middle of it really,' said Colin from the comparative safety of Stepney Green in the twenty-first century. But Sidney's birth certificate shows that he didn't start out in the rough, tough East End:
BIRTH CERTIFICATE:
Birth in the Sub-District of East Grinstead in the Counties of Sussex and Surrey.
Fourteenth August 1889, Northend, East Grinstead, Sussex, U.S.D.
Sidney Frank
Boy
Father: Frank Godly
Mother: Avis Godly formerly Newton.
Father's profession: Painter Journeyman.
Informant Details: A. Godly. Mother. Northend. East Grinstead.
Thirteenth September 1889.
Registrar: W.H. Wood.
The voting list for 1889 gives Sid's father as living in Imberhorne Lane, East Grinstead. He had married Avis Newton and at first life in Sussex looked promising for them, though their happiness was to be short-lived. Frank's family had lived in the East Grinstead and Felbridge area for generations. Sidney's grandfather was William Godly, a pit sawyer. That meant he would saw wood at the mines, to create the framework to bolster the tunnels and prevent fatal collapses of the structures. Much later in Godley's life, he was destined to end up working in a mine too – through no choice of his own. For now William Godly provided the only link to mining, and he lived in the wonderfully named local village of Mount Noddy in 1881.
Sidney's paternal grandmother was Harriet Pattenden, from a large family in nearby Horne, and there was no immediately obvious reason why the young boy shouldn't have been able to benefit from the stability of wider family links and a sense of long family history in the area. Like Sidney's grandfather William, his great-uncle John Godly also worked with wood. But John showed a finer, more artistic touch, and even carved the pews at St Swithun's church in East Grinstead. Sidney's family line can be traced back to a George Godly in 1770 and it is believed the family had been around East Grinstead since the 1500s. But sad circumstances were about to uproot the future hero from an area which had provided so much security and continuity for his forefathers.
The 1891 Census has Frank Godly, aged 24, living with Avis Godly, aged 29, and her mother, Harriet Newton, aged 69. Frank and Avis have two children by then – Kate 'Kit' Godly, aged 3, and 1-year-old Sidney Godly. Harriet would probably have acted as a nanny to the children and have done all she could to earn her keep. But it might not have been easy for Frank Godly to live with his mother-in-law, and there are suggestions that he became unsettled. He may have looked elsewhere for an outlet for his domestic frustrations; and domestic tensions didn't make for the happiest of environments for the earliest years of Sidney's life.
Eileen reflected, 'I think he envied people who had a relationship with their mum and dad. His dad wasn't all a dad should be. I'm sure part of the reason my dad was such a lovely dad was because he didn't have an easy upbringing. He was born and brought up in Sussex for the first part of his childhood. He was the second eldest after his sister Kit, and then there was his younger brother Percy, and another sister, Ella. And that was the first family.'
Poor Sidney wasn't able to enjoy a relationship with his mother for very long because she died in Hailsham, Sussex, in 1896, when he was just 6 years old. 'We're not sure but we think she may have died during childbirth,' said Colin. Eileen said, 'I don't know what his mum died of, I don't know what happened to her. But my dad always said that his father had the next wife waiting in the wings. His father married again, and I don't really know much about that part of his life. If anyone started talking about it, my dad would quickly move onto something else. He would change the subject, you see, I think it was a bit of a sore point for him.'
When Sidney lost his mother, the consequences were far-reaching. Since Frank was a painter and decorator struggling to make a living, there was no way he could work and look after all his children at the same time. So Sidney was sent away from his own home, to live elsewhere with anyone who could be found. Records show he was fostered locally by the Wren family at one stage, though little is known about them. Sidney was then passed between relatives whenever they felt they could help to raise him. Colin explained:
When Sidney's mum died, he lost his family, because his father couldn't look after him and he got moved around. I don't know why Frank Godly couldn't make a living and find a way to look after him, but it didn't happen that way. So when his mum died when he was only six and his father moved him to relatives and the like, it couldn't have been easy at all. The first lot he went to, he stayed with a police inspector at Redhill for a short while, a distant relation. Then he went to Leigh in south London, and on he went from there.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The First VCs by Mark Ryan. Copyright © 2014 Mark Ryan. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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