Robin Longbottom examines how one family – together with many others in the same street – served during the Great War

ON April 19, 1914, Tom Baldwin of Steeton sailed out of Liverpool on board the SS Rotorua to join his elder brother in New Zealand. He left behind him in Elmsley Street his father and mother and three sisters – Lena, Maggie and Gladys.

Three months after Tom arrived, Britain and its empire were at war with Germany – and New Zealand found itself raising an army. Neither Tom, nor brother Irwin, joined the first wave of volunteers and it was not until the end of August 1915 that they decided to sign up. Tom, who had already served for three years as a territorial soldier with the 6th West Riding Volunteers, joined the Rifle Brigade, but Irwin was rejected on health grounds. Back in Elmsley Street men had already been mobilising and before the war was over almost every family in the street had members serving in the armed forces or contributing to the war effort on the home front.

In late summer 1916 Tom and the Rifle Brigade arrived on the Somme in France and saw action at the Battle of Flers, where tanks were first deployed. When the battles on the Somme finished in stalemate the British turned their attention to the Ypres Salient in Belgium. On July 31 Tom was again in action at Messines Ridge, the battle that signalled the beginning of the 3rd Battle of Ypres. A week later the Keighley News reported that Mrs Baldwin had received a letter stating that he was missing in action. However, he was trapped in a shell hole in ‘no man’s land’ and after five days was able to make his way back to the lines unscathed. He was not so lucky three months later at Passchendaele. By the time the New Zealanders were ordered into battle it had rained for weeks, the mud was so bad that the artillery were unable to get their guns forward to support the advance and the Germans were waiting for them. Tom was hit by machine gun bullets in both legs. Fortunately, he was rescued from the battlefield and transferred to hospital where surgeons managed to save his left leg but had to amputate his right.

Whilst Tom was at Ypres his eldest sister, Lena, joined the newly-raised Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. The corps was designed to free up men from non-combatant roles such as cooks, mechanics, clerks and administrators. Lena was attached to the Royal Flying Corps, shortly to become the Royal Air Force, and was posted to France where she worked as a driver and rose to the rank of sergeant. Tom’s middle sister, Maggie, played a civilian role. Traditionally men worked as secretaries, clerks and bookkeepers but now that there was a shortage Maggie learned shorthand and typing at night class. She then worked at the Borough Brass Works in Alice Street, Keighley, where the brass nose cones that held the fuses for shells were being made for the National Shell Factory. His youngest sister, Gladys, was still at school.

After learning that his brother had been severely wounded, Irwin once again applied to join up and this time was declared fit, and he too was assigned to the Rifle Brigade. He did not arrive in France until September 1918 and on November 4 fought at the siege of Le Quesnoy. He was hit by shrapnel in the right arm, shoulder and leg. He too had his right leg amputated.

The war ended a week after Irwin had been wounded and the brothers were eventually reunited at the convalescent hospital at Walton-on-Thames in Surrey. Tom had two Steeton cousins killed and of the 40 households in Elmsley Street, a quarter lost sons or husbands in the Great War.