3962 Private Christopher Barclay was a patient at Beechland House (Beechlands), Newick in July 1916. His entry in Nurse Oliver’s album is a drawing of a rural idyll framed by a maple leaf. The wording reads:
Wishing you Prosperity and Happiness
Signaller Chris Barclay
3962
2/10th Liverpool Scottish
Convalescent Hospital
Beechlands
Newick 14th July 1916
Christopher enlisted with the King’s Liverpool Regiment in Liverpool on 6th November 1914. He gave his age as 20 years and nine months and his address as 24 Bowood Street, Dingle, Liverpool. He appears on the 1901 census of England and Wales living with his family at 51 Wallington
(or Wellington) Street, Toxteth, Liverpool. The household comprised: William
Barclay (head, married, aged 31, a general labourer), his wife Sarah Barclay (aged 28) and two children: Christopher (aged
eight) and Marian Barclay (aged five). Also living with them were William Barclay’s
26 year old sister in law Mary Barclay and her two children: Mary (aged six) and Edith Barclay (aged three). All the family members are recorded as having been born in Liverpool.
Little is known of Chris Barclay’s military service. The National
Archives holds a medal index card for him as 355813 Private Christopher Barclay of the Liverpool Regiment. This number would have been given to him when the Territorials were re-numbered in early 1917. Strangely though, his earlier TF number is not given and I suspect – though I cannot be sure about
this – that this is because he did not go overseas with the 10th Liverpool Regiment until after the Territorial Force
had been renumbered.
To back-track slightly: the 1/10th King’s Liverpool Regiment was also known as the 1/0th (Scottish) Battalion
or simply, “The Liverpool Scottish”. It was formed in Liverpool in
August 1914 and by 2nd November that year was already in France, attached to the 9th Brigade in the 3rd Division. The 2/10th Battalion – also known as the 2/10th Scottish – was formed at Liverpool in October
1914 and later attached to the 172nd Brigade in the 57th Division and subsequently to the 166th Brigade in the 55th Division.
On 30th April 1918 it was absorbed by the 1/10th Battalion.
I am unsure why Christopher Barclay was at Beechlands but his album entry dates his time there precisely. The British Red Cross Society (BRCS) archives in London also holds a letter written by him to Nurse Oliver the following month. (The letter was sent to the BRCS by Nurse Oliver’s
nephew, Joe Oliver many years later).
Writing on YMCA stationery from 95 Camp, Mytchett. Aldershot and signing himself as Signaller C Barclay, ‘D”
Company, 2/10th Liverpool Scottish, he writes:
Dear Nurse
I must thank you very much for your kindness to me whilst at
Chailey and Newick. One does not realize at the time what it means to devote one’s
time to the sick, it is only when you are blessed with health and strength once more that you begin to realize the sacrifice
made by you nurses. I will always remember my days at Chailey and Newick; the
fun we had and the patient way in which you stood all our noise. I think you
must have had a splitting headache, especially when my melodious voice was singing?
Fellows generally have their favourite nurse, and so I especially thank you Nurse Oliver, but you would greatly oblige
me if you conveyed my sincerest thanks to all the other nurses who were so kind to me whilst at Convalescent Hospital. I hear you have a number of new faces up at Beechlands (lucky fellows). It will be a ‘grand old war’ for them.
The fact that Chris Barclay refers to Chailey and Newick suggests that he may have been a patient at Hickwells when Sussex 54 VAD upped sticks and moved to Beechland House a few hundred yards away.
He continued serving with the 1/10th King’s when the 2/10th was subsumed by it in April 1918 and survived the
war.
Sources and Acknowledgements
· The National Archives: Medal Index Card
· Joe Devereux for providing enlistment information about Christopher Barclay
· The British Red Cross Society Archives: ACC 383/85 (1)
· The Long, Long Trail
