Doncaster Times Issue 1 - June 2016

Estate of War
for socks, shirts and other comforts to be made by
local people and sent out to troops on the front line.
Doncaster’s Country Houses
1914-18
In the years before the First World War,
Doncaster’s country houses were experiencing
a ‘golden age.’ The rigid social hierarchy of the
country house represented a miniature society
within the estate. Local estates were known for
their lavish events of local and national importance
and the families of these Halls were well known in
the town as charitable citizens. However, with the
outbreak of the First World War in August 1914,
these estates were shaken to their core. Halls were
used as hospitals and fundraising centres and the
men of the estates, workers and tenants as well
as the heirs, were called up.
Hooton Pagnell Hall was opened by Julia Warde-
Aldam as a hospital for wounded soldiers soon after
the outbreak of war. Traditionally, the matriarchs
of country houses given over to use as hospitals
during the war would serve as the commandant,
overseeing the running of the hospital. However,
Julia also served as a matron and general
administrator. Patients at the hospital played
billiards, took walks around the grounds, made bead
necklaces, painted, wrote poems and went fishing
as part of their convalescence. However, there
were strict rules laid down by Julia that were to be
observed by patients at all times, including a rather
odd rule of no bicycle riding at any time. Despite
these rules the patients leaving the Hall, many to
return to the Front, were fond of Julia and enjoyed
their stay. They wrote messages of praise and
thanks in the hospital’s visitor books. The soldiers
expressed their thanks for the genuine kindness
and care shown to them by Julia and the nurses
at the Hall, with some of them writing poems
or sticking post cards into these books. As well
as overseeing the running of the hospital, Julia
maintained regular contact with her ex-patients,
sending hundreds of letters and gifts to those who
had passed through the doors of the Hall. Topics
in these letters ranged from goings-on at the Hall,
the men’s families, their experiences on the front
line and even a request for Julia to send musical
instruments out to bored soldiers in the trenches.
Julia also administered two war working parties
for Hooton Pagnell and South Elmsall, organising
Julia Warde-Aldam and nurses outside Hooton Pagnell
by kind permission of Mark Warde-Norbury
Another Doncaster matriarch, Flora Skipwith of
Loversal, (later called Loversall) Hall, opened her
home as a hospital for wounded soldiers in late
1914. At Loversal Hall, the whole family became
involved in the war effort. Flora served as the
commandant of the hospital, with her twin
daughters Blanche and Helen working for
her, serving interchangeably as nurses and
quartermasters, looking after the hospital stores.
Even Flora’s step-daughter Mary Effie, her
husband Grey’s daughter from a previous
marriage, served at Loversal, assisting the nurses
and doing pantry work. Flora’s son Granville
served with the Royal Field Artillery on the front
line. It was not just the Skipwith family who
supported the hospital at Loversal. Other notable
families around the Doncaster area pitched in to
help. Two of the Ross sisters from Wadworth Hall
and Albreda Bewicke-Copley from Sprotbrough
Hall worked at Loversal in various roles.
Brodsworth Hall was not used as a hospital, but
was home to a branch of the Queen Mary’s
Needlework Guild. The Guild was supported by
the Thelluson family who lived at the Hall and
coordinated the women of the estate and village
to knit and sew garments to send out to troops at
the Front, with Mrs Thelluson keeping an eye on
proceedings. Within the collections at Brodsworth
Hall is a notebook from 1915-16 which details 129
local women and men who contributed to the
scheme and lists over 2,000 garments made by
them, mostly socks and shirts. A young girl named
Amy Tyreman, along with her sisters, sent many
comforts from Brodsworth to soldiers around
•
14 •