Doncaster Times Issue 1 - June 2016

Top and right: images by kind permission
of Joanna Skipwith
the world. Amy included her name and
address with the packages she sent, and
began ‘pen-pal’ friendships with many
of the soldiers and sailors who received
socks and scarfs from her. The letters
these men sent to Amy range in date
from 1915-1919, and come from men
serving in France, guarding the coast
of England, undertaking training and
on ships in the Mediterranean. One of
these men, Able Seaman James Henry
Norman of the Royal Naval Division
received socks from Amy and sent her
a warm thank you letter. Even Norman’s wife
wrote a letter to Amy thanking her for her kindness,
enclosing a brooch as a token of her thanks.
Amy treasured these letters and kept them safe
before they were passed onto English Heritage.
Unfortunately, the wartime contribution of many
of Doncaster’s country houses was the lives of
their sons. Redvers Bewicke-Copley, the heir to
Sprotbrough Hall, shared an officer’s mess with
Raymond Peake of Bawtry Hall while they served in
the Coldstream Guards. Raymond died of wounds
in September 1916, and Redvers was killed in
action, shot by a stray bullet, a few months later in
December 1916. Flora
Skipwith of Loversal lost her son Granville to the
war when he was killed in action in June 1915
while serving with the Royal Field Artillery.
For the most part, these houses were never to return
to the grandeur of the pre-war period. The end of
the war marked the beginning of a period of decline
for most of Doncaster’s country houses. From the
beginning of the First World War in 1914 a myriad of
factors came together to contribute to the decline of
the country estate; changing social structure, heavy
taxation and death duties, a lack of staff due to war
•
15 •