Status:
On original site
Type:
Non freestanding
Location:
Internal
Setting:
Inside a building - public/private
Description:
Board/Plaque/ Tablet
Lettering:
Inscribed on a plaque
Conflicts:
- First World War (1914-1918)
About the memorial:
Introduction
The history of the Lincolnshire Regiment in the Great War would not be complete without reference to a contingent of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps, which was attached to the 1st Battalion and served with it from June 1915 to the end. It will be remembered that the 2nd Battalion was quartered in Bermuda when war broke out. When the local volunteer Rifle Corps volunteered for service, application was made that it might be attached to the Lincolnshire Regiment.
The 1st Bermuda contingent consisted of one officer, Capt. R. J. Tucker, V.D., and eighty-nine other ranks, and joined by the 1st Battalion in June 2015. The 2nd contingent, Lieutenant Trimmingham, and thirty-six other ranks, all trained machine gunners, joined in September. These contingents lost forty other ranks killed or died of wounds, whose names are recorded in the “Roll of Honour” of the Lincolnshire Regiment deposited in Lincoln Cathedral. Their casualties, in killed and wounded, were over seventy-five per cent, of their strength.
Tucker was promoted and awarded the O.B.E. The present commanding officer (1930), Major R. C. Earl, was a Colour Sergeant in the 1st contingent, and recommended for a commission for work in the field. Others were also promoted to commissions. Amongst those who specially distinguished themselves were Corporals Noble, Church, Maderiot, Ingham and Marshall.
The contingents left France in March, 1915, and returned to Bermuda in May 1919.
The connection of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps with the Lincolnshire Regiment, has, since the War, been made permanent, as it is now, with the sanction of His Majesty the King, appears in the Army List as an “Allied Regiment”
Extracted from the “History of the Lincolnshire Regiment 1914-1918, page 52-53.
Roll of Honour
The follow thirty-three names abstracted from "The History of the Lincolnshire Regiment 1914 – 1918", edited by Major-General C.R.Simpson. C.B. Colonel of the Regiment. page 423
History of Memorial Tablet
The Bermuda Rifle Volunteer Rifle Corps arrived in Grimsby and were billeted at Weelsby Camp, as they were attached to the 1st Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment. Many of their number attended church service at St James Parish Church, in Grimsby, where they were greeted warmly by many members of the congregation.
In July 1915, the vicar recorded in the church magazine “Bermuda is the oldest English Colony. It is a small island, about 20 miles long halfway between Canada and the West Indies, largely used for naval purposes. There are not more than 7,000 English there and about twice that number of coloured people. The English were determined to send a contingent to fight and about 90 of their local volunteer rifle corps accordingly arrived in England and were attached to the Lincolns at Weelsby Camp. They were a splendid set of fellows as we noticed them in Church a good deal – with their black buttons and Riflemen’s badges”
The Church magazine of September, 1915, from the Grimsby Central Library reflects this welcome in an article entitled
“The Bermudians”
The vicar, A.A. Markham wrote ‘Many of us have received delightful letters from the Bermuda soldiers, and it is evident that our box of mementos and tobacco was much appreciated. ‘The Souvenirs which you sent were at once despatched for home, fearing lest they should be damaged’, wrote one of them. ‘Our mail is full of booklets to send home to sunny Bermuda’ wrote another. This is exactly what we hoped would happen. “Our wives and parents will be delighted to receive them” wrote a third person “and our making history for Bermuda will make any mementos treasured”. Another tells the vicar “I am glad I was able to attend Holy Communion at the Parish Church. What a contrast to some other temporary places of worship when we attended the Holy Sacrament. Once we were at the Church Army Huts and held the service while others were reading and writing at the other end of the hut! On two occasions we attended Church Parade in an old barn and there one could see the contrast, an old tumble-down barn with doors “hanging out and inside an improvised altar composed of a box, a clean white cloth, a Crucifix and table candles completed the arrangements; the floor was covered with loose straw, and the walls were mud. The Communicants were some ‘Liverpool Scottish’ and five of them Bermuda V.R.C.” Another writes expressing his gratitude for all the kindness he and the boys received in Grimsby, and how much he enjoyed seeing the Parish Church, and how he and his friends managed to get over to Lincoln and see the Cathedral, to their great joy. He concludes “On behalf of the boys I would like to thank both yourself and all who helped to give us such pleasure. Some day I hope I have an opportunity of thanking you in person. Trusting you are all well, and asking a remembrance when you are at the Altar”
In February 1923, the same Church Magazine records “An interesting item of agenda at the meeting (War Memorial Chapel Committee), was the desire for a Memorial Tablet to be erected by the Bermuda Rifle Volunteer Corps in memory of their 40 comrades who died in France. The Bermuda contingent is remembered by us all. We did our best to make them welcome and help them feel at home. To most of them Grimsby was their first experience of the old country and they made hosts of friends. It is with remembrance of all this and their links with the Lincolnshire Regiment that they desire to erect a tablet in our Memorial Chapel.” Certainly the Parochial Church Council approved the Faculty at its meeting in 9th April, 1923.
Faculty
To provide and place on the North wall of the Sanctuary of the Chapel of Resurrection a memorial tablet of Caen Stone (Jurassic Limestone) about four feet ten inches by about three feet five inches with the following inscription thereon namely:
"In proud and loving memory of the forty men of Bermuda who came over the sea with their comrade in 1915-16 and died for their King and Motherland in France"
Requiescant in Pace
The Offices and Men of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps place this tablet here in grateful remembrance of the association of their Corps with Grimsby and the Lincolnshire Regiment"
Approved by the Parochial Church Council 9th April 1923.
Faculty Book 14.
By October, 1923, the Memorial Tablet had not been erected though plans were in hand to do so. The Memorial was unveiled by Captain E.F.O. Richards, M.C. on Sunday November 11th, 1923, at the Remembrance Sunday service, in front of a large congregation. A Mrs Harry Lamming, who took a great deal of interest in the men from the Bermudas, placed a wreath at the foot of the memorial. The mayor of Grimsby also placed a wreath at the foot of the memorial.
After the Second World War, in 1948, the same Colonel Earl, came to Grimsby and laid a wreath in the Memorial Chapel in memory of the Bermuda Riflemen, and the following year, the same association gave £65 to aid the church’s restoration fund, following the bomb damage of July 1943.
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