Sikh the truth on the role of men from India who fought in World Wars
Next week sees the unveiling of a memorial to the Sikhs who served in both World Wars. Here, local historian Clive Burlton goes looking for traces of them in Bristol in WW1, and makes some interesting discoveries.
ASIKH memorial and garden of remembrance is due to be opened next Tuesday, April 2, in Castle Park,
There are few objects, stories or photographs relating to Sikhs in the collections of Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives. Few of the Empire troops who joined the forces came through Bristol on their way to training or fighting, although many came here to one of the war hospitals after being wounded.
A detachment of the 128th Canadian Infantry Battalion (Moose Jaw Corps) visited Bristol in March 1917. They came to deposit their Regimental Colours in Bristol Cathedral for safekeeping for the duration of the war.
Most of the 71,000 men from Africa and the West Indies who joined the British Army never came to Britain, but fought in Africa (against Africans) and in the Middle East. There was a colour bar even in wartime. The British Government worried about arming and training Black men and encouraging ideas of independence. Indian troops were allowed to fight on the Western Front where they took part in some of the fiercest fighting and suffered heavy losses.
Although not expecting any great revelations, I found an intriguing connection linking the site of the new memorial garden to an autograph book that used to sit on the bar of the Standard of England pub at 71 Castle Street during the First World War.
The pub was destroyed during the blitz on Sunday November 24 1940 and it was located just a stone’s throw away from where the new memorial garden is being unveiled.
The Standard of England was bought by George Williams in the late 1800s and during the early years of WW1 he encouraged passing soldiers, sailors and recovering wounded to jot down some verses or sketch a cartoon in the black leather-bound album that sat on the bar.
The illustrations and poems date from 1915 and 1916, and there’s a cartoon of a Sikh soldier captioned ‘India to Berlin’. Unfortunately, it’s unsigned and undated, so we don’t know who did it and whether it is a portrait of a Sikh soldier who visited the pub. Intriguing nonetheless!
George Williams sold the pub to Bristol United Breweries in 1917 and his family continued as licensees until that fateful bombing raid in 1940. It is appropriate that the new memorial should be just a few feet from where the album used to sit on the bar.
The album was found in the Social History collection at Blaise (RefNo TD3164).
Moving across town to Bristol Archives at B Bond Warehouse, I made another discovery.
During WW1 various Bristol Lord Mayors kept scrapbooks of their periods of office. Lord Mayor Barclay Baron who wore the civic chain of office for two of the wartime years, kept a very full account of press clippings, photographs, programmes and so forth (RefNo 36819).
Hidden within the pages of February 1917 is a small photograph of what appeared to be Sikh Officers outside a building. Unfortunately, the scrapbook was silent about the image, but the full story was found in the Western Daily Press of February 10, 1917. The headline read: “Visit of Indian Officers – Favourable Impressions of Local Sites”.
Ten Indian Officers from various cavalry regiments visited Bristol the day before with Major Edwin Corbyn of the 18th Lancers as their guide. They were met off the train at Temple Meads by the Lord Mayor’s private secretary J H Reed.
A whistle-stop tour of Bristol included visits to a shell manufacturing factory (probably the one at St Phillips); WD & HO Wills in Bedminster; Redcliffe Church; St Peter’s Hospital and the Council House. On the way to Clifton, the party stopped off at Royal York Crescent to be photographed outside of the house where Lord Roberts – former Viceroy of India - spent part of his youth, and where his father, Sir Abraham Roberts, lived and died.
Next up was a visit to Avon Gorge and Clifton Suspension Bridge before lunch at the Mansion House with the Lord Mayor, the Lady Mayoress and their daughters.
Apparently, in spite of some difficulties caused by the prohibition of meat and wine, a meal was pro- vided which the visitors much enjoyed.
One of the Lord Mayor’s daughters, Freda Barclay Baron, wrote an account of the 1915-1917 period called, ‘The Lighter Side of the Life of a Lord Mayor’s Daughter’. (Bristol Archives – RefNo 217881/1).
Writing in 1965 she recalled: “In February 1917, a Major Corbyn brought a coachload of Indian Cavalry Officers to lunch and Oaten (the butler), put all the Mansion House silver out on display, which interested them very much. An officer asked my father how old he was and when asked to guess, said ‘something like 104’, which Major Corbyn said was a mark of respect and honour, rather than a real guess and he told the officer it would not be polite to ask my mother her age!
“I think I was sitting next to a Sikh, rather fearsome, with his hair tucked up under his turban and his black beard. We could not, unfortunately, speak each other’s language, but by dint of smiling at each other constantly, I felt we were friends by the time lunch ended …”
After lunch, the party bid farewell to the Lord Mayor and his family and continued on their whirlwind tour of Bristol and took in the Aeroplane Works at Filton. There wasn’t time to visit J S Fry and Son in Union Street on the way back to Temple Meads, but gifts of Fry’s and Packer’s chocolates did make their way onto the return train.
In summing up their visit to Bristol one of the Sikh Officers and “one of the handsomest of the Indians, who spoke good English”, highly praised the objects of interest they had inspected during the day, and amused everyone by adding that the thing that impressed him the most was the wonderful way in which the cigarettes dropped out of the machine at Messrs WD & HO Wills.
The fate of the Sikh Officers in the war is not known, but Major Corbyn who organised the trip when stationed at Salisbury Plain for a while, was killed in France in December 1917.