Annual Booklist 2021 : Carol Dixon-Smith
Carol Dixon-Smith has worked as an educator and a bookseller, and in her retirement has recently joined the Council of SAHR in the role of Events Coordinator.
Last Post at Mhow by Arthur Hawkey (Jarrolds, 1969, Illustrated, 196 Pages).
As a (now retired) army wife, I’ve developed an interest in the lives of soldier’s wives and their children over the last 38 years. The book that triggered that interest was Last Post at Mhow by Arthur Hawkey. First published in 1969, I read it in 1983, and it has remained embedded in my conscience ever since. The cruelty and injustice meted out to those involved, and the callous shredding of men’s characters at a time when doing so would ruin the lives, was affecting, even with the distance of time.
Lt Col Thomas Crawley took over command shortly after the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons arrived in India at the end of 1858 and were too late to take part in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny of 1857-1858. Under the previous command of Lt Col Shute, there had been discord in the mess between the gentlemen and the ex-ranks officers. At one point is had descended into a physical fight. I believe it is of interest to note that two of the ex-ranker officers involved were recipients of the Victoria Cross after Balaklava. Crawley was ineffectual in his efforts to put things to rights, and in the end took sides in what were described elsewhere as ‘the officers’ petty squabbles’.
This led to Crawley’s obsessed notion that Paymaster Captain Thomas Smales was actively opposing him on all fronts. After several attempts at provoking Smales into indiscretion that would see him put on a charge, he finally had his way when Smales was arrested for failing to provide cash. The subsequent trial of Captain Smales reveals Crawley to be a petty and vindictive man, as evidenced by his treatment of Paymaster Sergeant GW Bennett after the man gave evidence against him.
Crawley also believed that Regimental Sergeant Major John Lilley was, along with two Troop Sergeant Majors, conspiring against him, Crawley had the three placed under close arrest. The Lilley’s had lost 2 young children and Mrs Lilley was slowly dying of consumption. Her husband was caring for her. Their removal to a single room, both being subject to the ordered close arrest and therefore their privacy compromised, the situation was more unbearable in the sweltering temperatures of the hot season. In the end both died.
Bearing in mind that Hawkey was working before the advent of the internet, he has conscientiously and meticulously scoured the archives, and presents an erudite yet very readable and straightforward account of how those ‘petty squabbles’ resulted in the death of Lilley and the court martial of several of the officers involved. While his writing is articulate and clear, the chief characters speak in their own words, using the courts martial records. Hawkey also calls on Hansard, newspaper articles, War Office records and more, allowing not only the characters involved to come alive, but also to reveal what happens in a regiment that is badly handled.
Reading it again, I did so in one sitting as I did in 1983, and even with the benefit of many years learning and research, it evoked the same response. As a social document is it of importance, highlighting through one incident, the variant conditions and standards within the British army of the day. In the end, readers will make their own judgements, but Hawkey is quite shrewd in his summing up, and his Postscript ends the book nicely.
Catherine Exley’s Diary: The Life and Times of an Army Wife in the Peninsular War (Brandram, 2014, 152 pages).
Edited by Rebecca Probert, with contributions from Richard Woodhead (a descendent of Joshua and Catherine) , Prof Charles Esdaile, Naomi Pullin, Prof Giorgio Riello, Elodie Duché, Dr Thomas Cardoza
This is a unique diary, in that it from a woman who followed her common soldier husband through some of the Peninsular War. It’s frightening, heart-breaking, and unputdownable, never mind that it is also a complete gem.
Catherine was 26 when she married Joshua Exley, a Corporal with the 34th Regiment. A month after their marriage the regiment was sent to Jersey, and so begins the hard life of a soldier’s wife. Catherine follows Joshua and the regiment on foot to Southampton. After their first child is born (back in Batley), there was no provision for her return, nor for Joshua to go to meet her and the baby. She had to make her own way to her husband.
The level of deprivation is startling. Catherine was at various time starving, freezing, filthy, vermin ridden, ill, and at death’s door. The women frequently had to flee from the French who gave no quarter for them being female. In one incident, a woman was killed because, when the alarm was raised, she stopped to gather her belongings, whereas Catherine and her companions left everything and fled with the children. Think about that. They achieved their own safety, but were left with nothing but the clothes they and their children stood up in. What I find interesting, is that when the pair married, they could not write, yet somehow as they marched their war through the war, they learned to read and write. Remarkable.
Professor Charles Esdaile (one of several contributors) rightly points out the diary’s uneven quality and muddled chronology, but he stresses that in this Catherine is not unique. Her explicit and candid descriptions of the horrors she faced are more detailed than many. To readers it will be clear that the horror of some events greatly impacted on Catherine, greatly, such as the retreat from Ciudad Rodrigo. We talk and write about what soldiers faced yet forget their wives and children were there too. Catherine suffered starvation with her children, a search for her husband among burned and dismembered corpses on the battlefield, experienced the fear and anxiety of his being a prisoner of war, and through it all she keeps going. Some may say she had no option, but there are stories of women who gave up or returned home if they could. Catherine, along with countless others, stuck with their husbands.
This is a very small book, easy to miss on a bookshelf. It is just 152 pages of text, of which Catherine’s diary takes up a mere 33. Yet, what searing, compelling, and courageous pages they are. The next time you feel the urge to complain about wearing a face mask, queuing, or that your favourite ‘whatever’ is out of stock – READ THIS.
Army Wives: From Crimea to Afghanistan: The Real Lives of the Women Behind the Men in Uniform by Midge Gillies (Aurum, 2016, Illustrated, 392 pages)
A remarkable book that is as entertaining as it is informative. It is a sensitive and evocative portrayal of soldiers’ wives whose experiences span almost two centuries worth of conflicts across the globe. It shines a light on army life behind the net curtains and proves that ‘they also serve who only stand and wait.’ Yet, they don’t. Wives have been the social bulwark of army life. They have nursed, cooked, cleaned, mended, and so many other chores that freed their men for duty. So many women have entered military life with absolutely no idea of what it is like, and their struggles are hilarious as they make mistakes, and heart-breaking as they decide it is not for them and walk away.
I like that Gillies doesn’t pull her punches, painting some wives as rude, while others are polite, some as uninterested in their duties as a senior officer’s wife, while as others fulfil their duty unstintingly. We are presented with wives who range from the sycophantic to the irreverent, and in writing without compunction, the author the deeply heart-rending with kindness and consideration (two vey poignant chapters are The Damaged Husband and The Changed Husband), while also balancing the narrative with humour (and there is plenty).
What the author makes clear is that, although military life has changed with each succeeding generation, much remain the same; parcels of ‘goodies’, letters (despite modern technology), coffee mornings, and more. Perhaps one of the biggest changes is that the spouse at home may be the husband as women fight at the front.
I applaud the three-page Cast List of Army Wives at the start of a book that is a tribute to army wives of all generations and wars.
A Soldier of the 71st: The Journal of a Soldier in the Highland Light Infantry 1806 – 1815, edited by Christopher Hibbert(Leo Cooper, 1975, 2 maps, 121 pages).
This is a book that has been around for quite some time, first published as it was in 1819, and has been in and out of print ever since. As an historian interested in the men rather than the battles, it is a remarkable and invaluable resource. Sir Charles Oman described it as a little volume that ‘stands out from all the rest for its literary merit – it is the work of a man of superior education, who had enlisted in a moment of pique and humiliation to avoid facing at home the consequences of his own conceit and folly’.
In fact, the author came from a very different background to his fellow soldiers. Although he was in the ranks, he was educated, intelligent, and a great observer. The journal starts with Whitelock in South America and ends post-Waterloo, in a career which takes him from disaster to triumph and back again. He is held captive during the South American failure, survives the retreat to Corunna, during the Walcheren expedition he falls ill and recovers from fever that killed thousands of others, survives many battles and skirmishes of the Peninsular War including Fuentes d’Onoro, Albuera, and Vittoria, and crosses the Pyrenees. Of the original 650 men who sailed to Portugal in 1810, by June 1814, he is one of 75 survivors. At Waterloo, a cannon ball hit the ground in front of him, threw him head over heels backwards, and shattered his musket. One could argue that he had something of a charmed existence.
Our soldier writes a powerful and uncompromising account of his career, sharing the privations and harsh reality of hard fighting. He makes no bones about feelings dispirited and low, and often cannot enjoy the amusement of his companions who found him rather dry and moralistic. Yet his character comes through clearly as a decent, thinking man.
This is a real jewel, coming as it does from an educated common soldier. Like Catherine Exley’s diary, it should be on the bookshelves of every historian of the period.
Zulu Hart by Saul David (Hodder & Stoughton, 2009,396 pages
My final book is for relaxation and enjoyment).
I was a bookseller when I first read this and as part of my job, reviewing books at a rate to make your eyes boggle. I wanted something just for fun, without any expectation of having to review. This book was it. To be honest, who can resist a tagline that says ‘Part British. Part Zulu. All warrior.’ Who doesn’t want a hero that’s ‘all warrior’? (Ladies, is this the part where we are supposed to swoon in true historical fiction fashion?)
Saul David is an historian and Zulu Hart was his debut novel. Set during the Zulu War, the eponymous hero is George Hart, the illegitimate son of an Irish/Zulu actress and a ‘pillar of the military establishment’. George has to fight the bullies and prejudice at school, in Victorian society, and within his regiment, the King’s Dragoon Guards, which he is forced to leave. George heads to South Africa where he finds himself caught between the politics, his love of soldiering, and war. It’s a fast paced, highly entertaining novel, that in so many ways keeps the reader’s attention to the end.
Zulu Hart is a rollicking good read. Yes, there are errors, but quite frankly if you can suspend that pendant in you, this is great fun.
Book I’d like to see written? To be honest, every time I think of something I find a book has already been written about it. So let me cheat and recommend a book that was published this year, but that I haven’t finished reading yet. So far, it's excellent.
Redcoats in the Classroom: The British Army’s Schools for Soldiers and their Children during the 19th Century, by Howard C Clarke (Helion, 2021, 414 pages, illustrated, 4 maps, 25 tables).
While there were many schools for those who could afford them, the education of the poor was not deemed to be a ‘good thing’. Dame schools, ragged schools, and the Sunday School Movement were all that became available, but none were funded by government. It’s a little-known fact that the army had been educating soldiers and children since 1812, long before the government decided to get involved in 1833. Brilliantly researched, well written, and an excellent and absorbing read.