AFTER many decades away, a King’s Scroll paying tribute to a Sedgefield soldier who made the ultimate sacrifice in the First World War came home last weekend.
The scroll was found in an auction in Alnwick and was presented to Auriel Anderson, the 83-year-old grand-daughter of Lance Sergeant Edwin Banks, who was killed on the Western Front during the German Spring Offensive of 1918.
“Auriel was very moved by it all,” said Norma Neal, of the Sedgefield Local History Society which arranged the ceremony with the James Garnett Foundation. “When I first told her the scroll had been found, she was absolutely silent for a moment, she took a breath and there were tears in her eyes – she was very grateful.”
In 1904, he married Annice, and they lived with their sons, William and Charles, in East End.
Edwin enlisted as a territorial with the 1st/6th Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers at Walker-on-Tyne and, during the course of the war, was promoted to the rank of lance-sergeant.
In 1918, the Fusiliers were in northern France when the Germans launched their Spring Offensive – a last, desperate attempt to turn the course of the war before the American reinforcements arrived on the side of the Allies. In 15 days from March 21, the Allies lost 250,000 men killed, wounded or missing as the Germans advanced 40 miles across a shell-blasted wasteland which had been fought over during the Battle of the Somme.
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However, the advance then stalled and once again a stalemate descended. The Fusiliers, who had done much to stem the Germans, were moved down south for rest and recuperation behind the French lines, near the town of Soissons.
But in the early morning of May 27, the Germans launched a surprise attack on their area: 4,000 pieces of artillery bombarded their lines followed by a drop of poison gas, and then 17 divisions of stormtroopers – Germany’s specialist infantry soldiers – poured forward, tearing a hole 20 miles wide in the Allied defences.
In three days, the Germans advanced 34 miles and reached closer to Paris than at any time since 1914, but their momentum petered out and they came to a standstill.
The Germans had lost 130,000 men, and the Allies 127,000, one of whom was L-Sgt Banks, who had been killed on the first day of the attack.
His body was never recovered, but his officers assumed that he was gone, so Annice in Sedgefield got a brief note saying he was “pres. dead”.
He was 36. His boys were 11 and 13.
In 1918, King George V wished to send a personal message and commemoration to the families of those who had been killed in his service, and so the Memorial Scroll and Memorial Plaque were created.
The scroll had the soldier’s name on it and a facsimile of the king’s signature; the bronze plaque – also known as a Dead Man’s Penny or Widow’s Penny – had his name cast into it. The two items were posted out separately at different times, most not arriving until 1919 or later.
Somehow at some time, Edwin’s scroll became lost. His family treasured his plaque, but were never aware of a scroll – perhaps it never arrived at all.
Members of the James Garnett Foundation recently spotted it going under the hammer in Alnwick. They bought it, framed it and then their research led to the local history society who took them to Auriel.
On Sunday at a ceremony in St Edmund’s Church attended by village Veterans, Guides, mayor, MP, plenty of local people and many members of Edwin’s family down to his great-great-granddaughter Melanie, Auriel was reunited with the scroll by Foundation chairman, Major Martin Smith.
Norma said: “This very moving occasion ended, as has every Sedgefield centenary commemoration of the First World War, with the familiar but always emotional words from Lawrence Binyon’s For the Fallen: ‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old, At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them’.”
The scroll is to remain in the church where it will be displayed next to the Winterton memorial which lists the names of the 10 members of hospital staff who laid down their lives during the Great War in alphabetical order. At the top of the list (below) is “E Banks”.
THE newly formed James Garnett Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation which aims to ensure all who gave their lives for their country is “correctly and adequately commemorated” and that their stories are passed on.
The Foundation is named after an impoverished cotton-worker who was born in Bolton in 1881 – a year before Edwin Banks. James Garnett was orphaned at the age of five, leaving he and his sister Nancy to be brought up by their elder sister, Eliza. She died when James was 11 leaving him and Nancy to fend for themselves.
As soon as he was old enough, James joined the Army and served eight years in China and India. He returned to Bolton market where he became renowned for quietly giving spare food to the poor.
When the First World War broke out, he rejoined the Army, but was partially blinded when hit on the head on the Western Front. He was given a training role but then contracted tuberculosis and was sent home. He died in extremely humble lodgings, with Nancy at his side, and was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave.
“James died as a result of disease contracted whilst on active service for his King and country and is therefore entitled to a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone,” says the Foundation. “He never asked for anything but gave everything, and now he had awaits this final act of dignity. His case now lies in the trusted hands of the CWGC.”
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- For more information and to see how to join, visit jamesgarnettfoundation.com
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