Zeppelin scare in Halifax

As can be seen from the headlines of this article the Courier had adopted a defiant tone to the possibility of air raids. It would suggest that the reaction of the public and the authorities to this threat was calm and considered. The contents of the full article, which took up no less than four complete columns of the page shows that this was far from the case, particularly in Halifax itself. Although the Zeppelins attacked mainly the East coast or London and never came to Halifax the authorities saw fit to raise the alarm. The fire alarm buzzers on two local mills (Willey and Pearson Ltd, Trafalgar Works, Haugh Shaw and Oates Brothers, Ryburn Mills, Hanson Lane) were ordered to be sounded by the acting chief of police, Chief Inspector Gledhill, to warn the public to take cover. As nobody had seen fit to inform the public that the buzzers were acting as an air raid alarm their sounding actually achieved the opposite to what was intended as many people gathered in the street to discover what was happening. In fact it was believed by some that there was a fire and the fire station was contacted by a street telephone causing the motor tender under the command of Superintendent Collins to attend Trafalgar Works where it was realised that it was a false alarm. The electricity and gas were also switched off causing the streets and buildings to be plunged into darkness and the trams to stop working stranding many of them in mid-journey. Places of entertainment were telephoned and told to evacuate their premises leaving theatre goers to find their own way home in complete darkness and without any means of public transport. Other parts of the district such as the Calder Valley, Brighouse and Elland had little inkling that an air raid was in progress on the East Coast and most people slept soundly in their beds, al- though in Brighouse theatres and picture houses were evacuated without excitement. It seems that the Zeppelins had in fact scared the authorities despite what the Courier was saying. Private J Goldthorpe to ‘kill a German for her’. J Goldthorpe was probably the James Goldthorpe mentioned in the following article due to the close proximity of her address in Ovenden to Holmfield. Prior to the war he lived at Baker Street North, Holmfield, with his family, he was probably a pre-war regular soldier as he was posted to France in November 1914 but survived the war. He had three brothers, one of whom was killed in action in April 1918 aged 21 while serving with the York and Lancaster Regiment. and they landed at Le Havre on April 14, 1915. They remained on the Western Front for the remainder of the war and their exploits will be regularly reported upon.