Remembering Bernard W. T. Wickham (1894-1917)
Posted on 6th Nov 2024 by Thomas McGrath
We are lucky at Archives: Wigan & Leigh to hold to photographic collection of Reverend William Wickham (1849-1929). Wickham was the vicar of St Andrew’s Church in Wigan from 1878-1916, and in his spare time he took photographs of people and places who he came across in his ministerial work, his daily life and his travels. Wickham honed his craft by practising taking family photos too. In 1892 he married Clara Peck (1862-1926), and they had four daughters; Myrtle (1893-1973), Cicely (1896-1989), Monica (1898-1994) and Caroline (1899-1991). They also had one son, Bernard and this blog post will look at his life.
Bernard’s Childhood
Bernard William Theodore Wickham was born on 23rd October 1894 and baptised by his father a few months later at St Andrew’s Church. The Wickham family lived with Clara’s widowed mother at Gidlow Lodge, which stood on Gidlow Lane, until the Vicarage adjoining St Andrew’s was completed in 1895/6.
Bernard enjoyed a typical childhood of a late-Victorian middle-class boy. There were trips into the surrounding countryside to study fauna and flora, roasted chestnuts at Christmas, and servants who helped around the home. However, as the son of a clergyman, all the family were expected to attend church each Sunday. On one occasion, Rev. Wickham thought his son wasn’t paying attention during the service and once home he challenged Bernard to explain the sermon to his sisters. To Wickham’s surprise, Bernard managed to repeat the sermon almost verbatim!
As the only son, Bernard was somewhat doted on by all members of the family. He appears to have been close with Cicely and Monica and his letters to them are amusing to read, particularly when he struggled to think of birthday gifts for the girls. He offered Monica a butterfly collection and a stamp collection, and when he wrote to Cicely he included funny sketches and wrote about typical boy’s books of the era about explorers, battles etc.
School Life
Around the age of 7 Bernard was sent to Mill Mead School in Shrewsbury, a boarding school which was seen as a preparatory establishment for public school. This was not unusual for boys of the Wickhams' social class, and his sisters were likewise sent to similar establishments for girls.
Around 1905 he joined Christ’s Hospital in Horsham, Sussex which he entered by competition, winning first place. The school was founded in 1552 and granted a royal charter in 1553 by Edward VI. Bernard appears to have enjoyed boarding school, along with the camaraderie and activities that went on there but his letters to his parents and sisters also show that he thought of family life often, thanking them for gifts and letters, and writing ‘won’t we have fun in the Christmas holidays?’
The Wickham children were generally kept apart from their contemporaries in Wigan. Mr W. Morgans later recalled: ‘his son [Bernard], whom we rarely ever saw, was an object of curiosity. He was studious-looking, bare-headed, and wore a uniform – white cravat, dark blue cassock, leather belt, shoes and yellow socks.’ It was also noted that because of these yellow stockings that local children would shout “yallar legs” at him.
The First World War
Bernard went to St John’s College, Cambridge in 1913 as an exhibitioner in classics. He had completed his first year when war broke out in August 1914. He had joined the Officers’ Training Corps and volunteered about a month after war was declared, and he fought with the South Staffordshire Regiment. Bernard was not alone. Research by St John’s College has shown that 556 of their students, staff and graduates went to war and almost a third of them did not return.
On 28th July 1916, during the ongoing Battle of the Somme, Bernard was wounded whilst holding a forward trench. He was shot in the leg and received a flesh wound to his shoulder. He and two other men, who were unknown to him, held the trench for over an hour until reserves arrived. Despite his injuries, Bernard continued to search the trench for bombs.
Bernard was awarded the military cross for ‘conspicuous gallantry’ and was promoted to Lieutenant. After his stay in hospital, a nurse wrote to his father ‘we have become quite fond of him […] I am not surprised he has won the military cross, he will go on to do fine things.’ His Commanding Officer wrote ‘it was a plucky deed, but I am not surprised of it knowing the boy […] as long as a commanding officer can count on boys like young Wickham he is happy. They are brave because they think of themselves last, and they make their men brave.’
Bernard kept in communication with his parents and sisters during this time, and there are lovely photographs taken of Bernard by his proud father on his visits back to St Andrew's Vicarage in Wigan when he was on leave. He wrote to Monica in June 1916 thanking her for her last six letters, which presumably had arrived all at once. He also noted ‘I am awfully relieved to find you don’t ask any questions.’ In November 1916 his parents had moved from Wigan to a rectory in Ampton, Suffolk. By February 1917 Bernard’s belongings had been sent to them from Cambridge and he wrote to his father, whom he always addressed as ‘daddy’, asking for him to send out ‘my small fat copy Homer’s Odyssey.’ It is telling how Bernard wanted his book to temporarily escape from the death and destruction around him.
Unfortunately, Bernard died on the night of the 13th-14th April 1917. He was on a wiring mission when he was shot in the head by a sniper. His death was almost instantaneous. Bernard was just 22 years old. Three days later his father received the dreaded telegram informing him of his son’s death. He carefully kept it in its envelope and noted the time it arrived it on the back.
A few weeks later, in May, Clara Wickham wrote one of her ‘round robin’ letters to her daughters. She had received a letter from a Captain Browning who gave her more information about her son’s death and his burial. From the content of the letter, it seems as though William and Clara had pressed him for as much information as possible, which is understandable as they attempted to process their loss:
‘We heard from Captain Browning again to-day. Bernard was buried in the clothes he was wearing when he was killed. He (Browning) thinks it was a German sniper – a bullet – although he was wearing his steel helmet. Before burial he was wrapped up in a Union Jack flag. He – (Browning) – is not quite certain, but believes, that at our request the Graves Representative people will send us a photograph of the grave. He also says that before he left he had a large cross erected.’
Bernard was buried at the Railway Dugouts burial ground in Leper, Belgium. Plot VII, Row J, Grave 32. A permanent headstone was erected by the War Graves Commission in 1928.
Remembering Bernard
The loss of Bernard was keenly felt by the whole Wickham family, but it is this loss which has allowed us to know so much about him over a century later. Like many grieving families after the First World War, the Wickhams attempted to preserve anything belonging to Bernard that they could. His letters, his baby hair, and of course the dozens and dozens of photographs of him from every stage of his life.
A rather unique set of circumstances led to preservation of much of the tangible material of Bernard’s life, which we now hold at Archives: Wigan & Leigh. The wealth and status of the Wickham family meant that during Bernard’s life they were writing more letters to him and receiving them from him, because he spent a lot of his childhood away from home at school. Likewise, his father’s hobby of photography means we can see Bernard and his siblings posing, at play, both candid and formal. Also, because Bernard was an only son, his loss was acutely felt by both parents and his siblings. The final unique reason these collections of Bernard’s letters, photographs, the lock of his baby hair and the papers about his death have survived is because none of his sisters married and they lived long lives. By the time Monica Wickham died aged 96 in 1994, Bernard’s death had occurred 77 years earlier, and was therefore his belongings were deemed justifiably old enough to be classed as important historical archives.
If you are visit the Cenotaph in Wigan, the church in Ampton or see the rolls of honour from Mill Mead or Christ’s Hospital, then you will spot Bernard’s name amongst his contemporaries - a generation lost in the First World War. Although Bernard lived a short life, thanks to his father’s photography and his family’s collection of letters, we have a somewhat unique multi-aspect record of his life from start to end, and a chance to remember him.
Additional Reading:
- The Great War and St John's | St John's College, University of Cambridge
- Roll of Honour - Shropshire - Shrewsbury Mill Mead School Old Boys
- Roll of Honour 1910s
- The Wickham family papers and photographs are available to view at Archives: Wigan & Leigh, D/DZA/398