Historic Perth County
Perth County’s Own Battalion
THE “WAR TO END ALL WARS” BEGAN ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO THIS SUMMER. While a century sounds like a long time, it’s really not that long in terms of generations. Not very long at all. But it was certainly a very different world. Reflecting on it at the end of the millennium, local reporter Ron Carson pointed out that in August of 1914, “the world met the 20th century. For the next four years, thousands of communities like Stratford and Perth County would be swept into an era of mass destruction, mass production and massive social change… And before it was over, Canada would become a full-fledged nation, thousands of young Canadians would be dead or maimed, women would don trousers and enter factories, wage earners would pay income tax and motorized vehicles would replace the horse.”
Within days of the war being declared, the 28th Regiment had set up a recruiting office for Perth County at the Stratford Armoury. Some of the local men who enlisted were among the first Canadian soldiers to leave for England that October.
By November 1915, a Perth County battalion, the 110th, was being raised. It was one of the first county battalions authorized by the Department of Defense. The new unit operated out of the Kemp Factory on Ontario Street in Stratford. (This was later Khroehler’s furniture factory and is now the site of the Arden Park Hotel.) Recruiters visited towns across the county and there were platoons from Mitchell, St. Marys, Listowel and Stratford. If appeals to patriotism failed, appeals to manly pride were made. The 110th had a newspaper called the Range Finder. The April 14 1916 edition reported that:
110th soldiers Lloyd Mitchell, Listowel; Earl Fry, Stratford; Gordon Brown, Listowel; and Angus Cawston and Albert Davis, both from Mitchell relax near Lake Victoria in Stratford.
As we pass through the streets, we still see many physically fit young men who should be working. We are tired of asking them to come and join us, but we would like to see them employed at some work by which they can help the allied cause. We would suggest that the Recruiting League supply them with a few pounds of yarn and some knitting needles, so that if they will not answer the call of the Empire, they might at least knit a few pairs of socks for the heroes who are doing their bit for them.
May 22 1916 was the day that the “Pride of Perth”, marched out of Fort Kemp to leave Stratford. Thousands of people came from across Perth County and lined the streets but the newspaper reported that “it was not a wildly cheering throng that bade farewell to the men. It was a tearful but proud gathering in which women, with reddened eyes, heads erect and stout hearts, predominated, striving hard to keep up under the severe test.” It was a gloomy, rainy day, causing the reporter to note that “even the skies wept.” About 800 men and officers marched from Fort Kemp to the Stratford City Hall and from there to the Grand Trunk railway station. After further travel and training, the 110th embarked for Great Britain on October 31 1916. On January 2 1917, its personnel were absorbed by the 8th Reserve Battalion, CEF. Casualties were mounting and it was necessary to send troops where they were needed.
ONE SOLDIER’S STORY
Two worn library books called Letters from the Front at the Stratford-Perth Archives record the “part played by officers of the bank in the Great War.” The two volumes were published as a set by the Canadian Bank of Commerce around 1920. Parts of letters from soldiers to their loved ones are published along with short biographies and photographs. One of the most eloquent writers was Ralph Egerton Norris Jones who was born in Perth County. According to the local newspaper, Jones’ parents were married in St. Marys on August 8, 1866. His father was Charles S. Jones, Barrister and his mother was “Miss Ellen Amelia, third daughter of Daniel McDougall, Esquire.” By the time of the 1871 census, they had two sons, Frederick and William. Another brief notice appeared in the Stratford newspaper when their fourth son, Ralph, was born on June 3, 1877. In 1881, the family was living in Toronto where Ralph attended Upper Canada College before launching his career in banking. He appears on the 1901 census as a bank clerk living in New Westminster, British Columbia. When he enlisted in February 1915, Jones was single and managing a Bank of Commerce branch in Winnipeg.
A letter from Jones dated October 6 1915 describes his life in the trenches.
Some of the volunteers for the 110th parked in front of the Arlington Hotel, Listowel. Driver is Harold Twamley with Dick Osborne, Sam Chamley and Max Parks in the back seat. Behind the car are Joel Godsell and Fred Seeheafer. The front passenger is identified as Mr. Hamilton.
"I am sitting in my own special little dugout, the walls of which are lined with sand bags. There are two small tables about two feet by two feet square, made of rough pieces of board and parts of boxes, and my door has even got an old fashioned handle and bolt, the latter on the outside and workable from the inside as well. The window is about two feet by eight inches wide and simply a hole. The roof is well covered with corrugated iron sheets, on top of which sand bags are piled, then dirt, and the whole supported by four stout timbers, none squared except the front one. The space I have inside is about four feet by seven fe“et and mostly taken up by six feet by two feet bed…the only danger being from shrapnel, “Jack Johnsons” and stray bullets. They shell our immediate surroundings frequently, and while one bombardment was going on in response to an awakening our guns gave the Gerboys, I wrote a couple of letters indoors while listening to the big fellows whistling and half wheezing and shrieking as they passed. It was most uncomfortable at times too, as one could not help wondering where, say, that one just this moment which is hovering hesitatingly, it would seem just overhead, would land. The very big ones come up something like steam engines and make an awful row when they crash to earth scattering steel, mud and twigs in every direction…Most of the men seem to like trench life better than the huts or dugouts in rear, from which they have come down here as fatigue parties often when they would sooner rest up.
What amazes me is how easily we get used to all. My desire now is to get over a front line parapet and crawl along between the lines in search of annoying snipers. Others have done it and are doing it every night and meeting with success occasionally, when there is much rejoicing."
written by Betty Jo Belton, Archivist, Stratford-Perth Archives
illustrations courtesy of Stratford-Perth Archives
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