Bexhill-on-Sea, 1917–1919: A Maple Leaf Empire?

ABSTRACT

The centenary of the First World War has brought about increased scholarly interest in the Dominions and their contribution to the war effort. It is now time to ask what impact the many Dominion soldiers had on the British towns where they were garrisoned. This article will focus on Canadian soldiers based in the Sussex town of Bexhill-on-Sea. Drawing on local newspapers, the article utilises the Maple Leaf Empire paradigm developed by Johnathan F Vance. It seeks to understand how the Canadians were perceived by the locals and whether the Canadians, in Vance’ words, “reverse-colonised” the town leading it to resemble a Canadian enclave in Britain. The article suggests that the Maple Leaf Empire typology has credence, but it is a stretch to say that it applies to Bexhill in any meaningful way. While the Canadians had an impact on the town, it was not wide-ranging enough to claim reverse-colonisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Canada
• Sussex
• reverse-colonisation
• Canadian identity
• interaction during the First World War
• Jonathan F. Vance

Notes

1. See Jean-Jacques, Becker, The Great War and the French People (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1985); Krista Cowman, ‘Touring Behind the Lines: British Soldiers in French Towns and Cities during the Great War’, Urban History 41, no. 1 (2014): 105–23; Christophe Declercq, Belgian Refugees in Britain, 1914–1919, in I Died in Hell – (They Called it Passchendaele). The Great War 1914–1918, ed. Luc Devoldere and Sophie De Schaepdrijver (the Flemish-Netherlands Association Ons Erfdeel: Rekkem, 2014), 56–55, http://www.onserfdeel.be/frontend/files/userfiles/files/BelgianRefugees%202.pdf; Craig Gibson. Behind the Front: British Soldiers and French Civilians, 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

2. ‘The Cost of Canada’s War’, https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/after-the-war/legacy/the-cost-of-canadas-war/ (accessed August 8, 2018).

3. Canada’s war effort was administered by Britain until May 1916 when a Minister and Ministry for Overseas Military Forces of Canada (OMFC), based in London, was established.

4. See for example, Michael George, ‘The Canadians in Folkestone during the Great War’, 2010, http://www.stepshort.co.uk/downloads/Canadians.pdf; ‘World War One at Home’, 2014, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01yn8bh; Bramshott and Liphook Preservation Society, http://www.hampshire-history.com/bramshott-and-the-canadians-in-wwi/ (accessed August 8, 2018); ‘World War One at Home’, 2015, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gx68g.

5. This is a theme explored by Craig Gibson in Behind the Front.

6. Tim Cook, ‘The Top 10 Most Important Books of Canadian Military History’, Canadian Military History 18 4 (2015), http://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1611&context=cmh (accessed August 8, 2018).

7. Craig Gibson ‘Relations between the British army and the civilian population on the Western Front, 1914–18’ (PhD diss., University of Leeds, 1998), 107, 108.

8. Cowman, ‘Touring Behind the Lines’, 108.

9. David. A Love, Call to Arms: The Organisation and Administration of Canada’s Military in the First World War (Winnipeg: Bunker to Bunker Books, 1999), 83.

10. ‘On Dit’, Bexhill Chronicle, September 8, 1917, 1.

11. ‘Cadets Back Again’, Bexhill Observer, September 15, 1917, 3.

12. Jonathan F. Vance, Maple Leaf Empire: Canada, Britain, and Two World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 96.

13. Ibid, 4.

14. Ibid, 96.

15. Ibid.

16. ‘20 Per Cent of Canadians Will Bring Back British-Born Brides’, Toronto Daily Star, November 12, 1917, 13.

17. See National Film Board of Canada, ‘Canadian Training School in Shorncliffe’, Images of a Forgotten War: Building a Force, http://www3.nfb.ca/ww1/building-a-force-film.php?id=531245 (accessed March 5, 2014); Diana Beaupré, ‘En Route to Flanders Fields: the Canadians at Shorncliffe during the Great War’, London Journal of Canadian Studies (2007): 45–66.

18. Terry Copp, ‘The Military Effort, 1914–1918’, in Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Gordon, ed. David MacKenzie (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 37.

19. L.C. Giles, Liphook, Bramshott and the Canadians (Liphook: Bramshott and Liphook Preservation Society, 1986), 6.

20. Alan Hodgkinson, Bexhill Voices (University of Sussex, Centre for Continuing Education, 1994), 81.

21. Vance, Maple Leaf Empire, 88.

22. Luke Flanagan, ‘Canadians in Bexhill-on-Sea during the First World War: A Reflection of Canadian Nationhood?’, British Journal of Canadian Studies 27, no. 2 (2014): 131–48.

23. See Flanagan ‘Canadians in Bexhill’, 135–6.

24. Julian Porter, Bexhill and the Two Minute Silence, 2014, http://www.eastsussexww1.org.uk/bexhill-two-minute-silence/.

25. ‘Cooden Camp (Past and Present)’, Princess Pat’s Post 1, no. 1 (1918): 4.

26. Alfred Critchley, Critch! The Memoirs of Brigadier-General A.C. Critchley C.M.G., C.B.E., D.S.O (London: Hutchinson of London, 1961), 73.

27. Library and Archives Canada, ‘Views Taken at Bexhill, Command School. Gas Drill and Gas Masks on,’ MIKAN 3404353.

28. Library and Archives Canada. ‘Groups taken at O.T.C. Canadians, Bexhill-on-Sea. [No. 4 Co],’ MIKAN 3397665; Library and Archives Canada, ‘Groups taken at O.T.C. Canadians, Bexhill-on-Sea [No. 4 Co.],’ MIKAN 3397667; Library and Archives Canada, ‘Groups taken at O.T.C. Canadians, Bexhill-on-Sea [No. 4 Co.],’ MIKAN 3397668.

29. ‘Canadian Training School in Bexhill’, Images of a Forgotten War: Building a Force.

30. ‘Inspections of the School: Inspection by Field Marshal H.R.H The Duke of Connaught’, Chevrons to Stars, October 1917, unnumbered pages.

31. ‘Canada at War: Chaplain at the Pulpit’, Bexhill Observer, April 14, 1917, 8.

32. For more on this aspect see Luke Flanagan, ‘Knights of Columbus Catholic Recreation Clubs in Great Britain, 1917–19’, in Transnational Actors in War and Peace: Militants, Activists, and Corporations in World Politics, ed. David Malet and Miriam J. Anderson (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017), 24–41.

33. I.J.E Daniel and D.A Casey, For God and Country: A History of the Canadian Knights of Columbus Catholic Army Huts (Ottawa, 1922), https://archive.org/details/histcanad00dani/page/n5, 23.

34. ‘Ye Old Trench Club’, Chevrons to Stars, October 1917, unnumbered pages; ‘Soldiers Institutes and Clubs,’ Chevrons to Stars, November 1918, unnumbered pages.

35. ‘Ye Old Trench Club’, Chevrons to Stars, October 1917, unnumbered pages.

36. Clarence Reginald Gass, ‘Letter to Lillian’, February 7, 1918. http://www.canadianletters.ca/content/document-3108?position=23&list=77Ljv0B5FhwE3ymcyM7pyWI4ydev7ntXtpFEaBVWZ-A (accessed 6 February 2015).

37. Digital street directory of Bexhill, information provided courtesy of Bexhill Museum.

38. Ibid.

39. Vance, Maple Leaf Empire, 96.

40. Library and Archives Canada, ‘(Rugby – Football) Views of final rugby match between Witley and Bexhill O.T.C,’ MIKAN 3385979.

41. ‘The School Sports Gala Day in Egerton Park’, Chevrons to Stars, October 1917.

42. Ibid.

43. J.G. Fuller, Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies, 1914–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 90, 92.

44. ‘School Championship Sports’, Chevrons to Stars, November 1918, unnumbered pages.

45. ‘On Dit’, Bexhill Chronicle, March 31, 1918, 1.

46. Ministry of Overseas Military Forces of Canada, Canadian Officers Training School, Bexhill-on-Sea (London: Ministry of Overseas Military Forces of Canada, 1918), 1.

47. ‘Pithy Points’, Bexhill Chronicle, October 27, 1917, 2.

48. Declercq, Belgian Refugees in Britain, 58.

49. Ibid.

50. Canadian Officers Training School, Bexhill-on-Sea, Ministry of Overseas Military Forces of Canada, 1918, 1.

51. ‘Cadets Back Again’, Bexhill Observer, September 15, 1917, 3.

52. ‘A Real Empire Day’, Bexhill Chronicle, May 26, 1917, 1.

53. ‘Pithy Points’, Bexhill Chronicle, May 26, 1917, 4.

54. ‘Well Done, Canada’, Bexhill Observer, April 1, 1917, 3.

55. Joseph Barker-Wall, ‘A Real Empire Day’, Bexhill Observer, May 26, 1917, 8.

56. Thorold F. Dickson, ‘Empire Day’, Bexhill Chronicle, May 26, 1917, 7.

57. ‘The Canadians and Empire Day’, Bexhill Chronicle, June 2, 1917, 9.

58. Thorold F Dickson, ‘Empire Day Celebration’, Bexhill Chronicle, June 9, 1917, 8.

59. See Randall Hansen, ‘The Politics of Citizenship in 1940s Britain: The British Nationality Act’, Twentieth Century British History 10, no. 1 (1999): 67–95.

60. ‘Us Colonials’, Princess Pat’s Post 1, no. 6 (1918): 123.

61. Ministry of Overseas Military Forces of Canada, War Diary of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Red Cross Hospital, January 17, 1918, 4.

62. ‘New Names for the Kursaal’, Bexhill Observer, August 21, 1915, 3.

63. For more on the link between Bexhill and the Kings German Legion see the website of the Bexhill Hanoverian Study Group: http://www.bexhillhanoveriankgl.co.uk/.

64. ‘Foreigners to Go: Council and the Colonnade Band’, Bexhill Observer, May 4, 1918, 3.

65. Ibid.

66. ‘Bexhill Town Council’, Bexhill Chronicle, February 23, 1918, unnumbered pages.

67. ‘American Band: US Patriots in Bexhill’, Bexhill Observer, May 12, 1917, 3.

68. ‘Bexhill Day’, Bexhill Chronicle, August 18, 1917, 9.

69. Ibid.

70. Ministry of Overseas Military Forces of Canada, ‘Historical Narrative of the Canadian Training School’, War Diary of Canadian Training School, January 1–31, 1919, 1.

71. ‘Canadians Leave Bexhill’, Bexhill Observer, November 23, 1918, 8.

72. Bexhill Council Minutes, ‘Appreciation of Canadian Forces’, December 1918.

73. Bexhill Council Minutes, ‘Maple Trees’, April 1928.