Butcherd Brothers
Article
Emilia Hoareau (BA History Graduate, 2014)
On choosing ‘Life in the Trenches’ as my special subject for my final year of university, it became immediately apparent to me that this would be an excellent opportunity for me to tell the stories of my great-grandfather and his five brothers who all served during the First World War. Or so I thought.
The story I thought I would tell turned out to be quite different to the one I wrote. One thing that was certain from the start was that the journey to discovering the truth about the Butcherd brothers’ experiences of the war would be long, difficult and emotional.
The first thing I did was discuss the idea with my Great Aunt Vivienne and set up an interview. It was obvious from our discussion that the brothers were affected by their experiences, physically if not emotionally. What was also clear was that the facts about their experiences were very limited. Though my research did not lead me to uncover the truth about all of the six siblings, I was able to explore three of them. John Garbriel Reich Butcherd, the eldest, was part of the 5th battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment.
The next two brothers Thomas and Henry had emigrated to Canada at the start of 1914 and so they served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Thomas being part of the 19th battalion and Henry in the 84th. Alas, soon after discovering Henry’s battalion it became apparent that the war diary was only accessible from Canada, and so Henry’s story was largely untold. Finally, Stanley Butcherd served in the 6th battalion of the 63rd division of the Royal Naval Division and lost his life on the Turkish shores at the battle of Gallipoli in 1915.
John served large portions of the war in General Headquarters, spending the entire four years on the Western Front. Thomas’s story fascinated me, he emigrated to Canada in 1914 in what I presume was hope for a better life, no small feat during the time in which they lived. At the outbreak of war, both brothers felt compelled to fight for the country they had chosen to leave. Whether this was out of patriotism or fear, their bravery, in leaving their country and in volunteering, inspired me. I discovered from Thomas’s battalion’s war diary that he was involved in the battle for Vimy Ridge, undoubtedly the most significant military achievement in Canadian history. I felt a strong sense of attachment to Thomas and his story when we visited the site of the battle on our trip to the Western Front in April 2014.
Stanley’s story was always going to be the most important to tell as his was the only life lost of the Butcherd family. Having known that he served in the Royal Naval Division and known nothing about the battle of Gallipoli, I had previously presumed that Stanley lost his life at sea. In fact, he signed up underage in order to follow in his elder brothers’ footsteps. He was sent to Gallipoli, which was undoubtedly the most horrific, needless and poorly executed battles of the entire war. He survived several weeks on the beaches of the peninsula and according to his battalion’s war dairy, lost his life on a relatively quiet day in the trench. His experience of war in a distant, alien country was in itself moving, but reading the war diary and seeing how his death was insignificant and part of a passing number was exceptionally affecting in its meaninglessness. Stanley’s story seems to me to be the pinnacle of our imaginings of the war; loss of life for little purpose.
The First World War remains one of the most significant events in British history, one hundred years on. The British public, myself included, has always been extraordinarily emotional about the subject and I suspect that we all shall be for many years to come. Despite the largely false prejudices and assumptions we conjure about the war that historians are now attempting to disprove, the war remains a subject that touches our everyday lives, in the war memorials we pass, the literature of the war poets and in the annual remembrance on 11th November. I discovered some truths about the experiences of the Butcherd brothers during the war, and still, more than ever, I feel a great emotional attachment to a war I can only read about, and I cannot help but feel that this is rightly so. For Stanley.
