DLI ledger from Palmer’s shipyard given to The Story

The large volume has been bought at auction by the Friends of the Durham Light Infantry who this week presented it to The Story, the county’s new history centre in Durham City.

A ledger bought by DLI Friends is handed over to The Story, Durham Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT (Image: Sarah Caldecott)

But discovering the full story of the ledger and its names is only just beginning. “We haven’t researched the men yet – it will keep us going for the rest of our lives,” said Sid Patterson, the Friend who did the bidding at auction, “but a lot of them won’t survive.”

A ledger bought by DLI Friends is handed over to The Story, Durham Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT (Image: Sarah Caldecott)

The story began on June 15, 1915, when Zeppelin L10  flew over the North East coast at Blyth in Northumberland at around 11.25pm, and headed south. Zeppelins were a new enemy weapon, first being seen over East Anglia in January 1915 and this was one of the first raids on the North East.

A First World War Zeppelin (Image: Televisual)

The North East, though, was vulnerable with its major industries, vital for the war effort, lined along rivers leading to the sea, and Kapitänleutnant Klaus Hirsch was targeting those along the Tyne.

He dropped his first bombs at about 11.40pm on Wallsend, damaging an engineering works. Then he hit Hebburn Colliery, before approaching the Jarrow shipyards.

A warning of the aerial raid had not reached the yards and, in the black night, all their lights were still burning. Hirsch could hardly believe his luck.

A ledger bought by DLI Friends is handed over to The Story, Durham Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT (Image: Sarah Caldecott)

Palmer’s shipyard bore the brunt of his attack. Seven high explosive and five incendiary bombs hit the Engine Construction Department, killing 17 and injuring 72, starting fires and doing considerable damage.

L10 then followed the river east, hitting a chemical works and killing a policeman before dropping its final four bombs on South Shields. It eluded a couple of British planes by climbing too high for them and it passed out over the sea at 11.52pm.

As well as causing death and devastation to the civilian population, the airship looks to have acted as a recruiting sergeant for the British army.

A poster explaining the Derby Scheme in December 1915. A few months later, conscription had to be introduced (Image: Chris Lloyd)

Men were desperately needed. In the summer of 1915, the Earl of Derby was appointed as Director General of Recruiting, and his “Derby Scheme” started in November, whereby “tactful and influential” canvassers visited eligible men, aged 18 to 41, at home in a bid to persuade them to make a public declaration of whether they would enlist immediately or as soon as they were called.

If they agreed to make the declaration, they had to do so within 48 hours by attending a recruiting office and “attesting” – signing up to serve for the duration of the war. Men who attested were given a grey armband with a red crown on it, a bonus of 2s 6d, and then returned to their workplace until they were called up.

It looks like a recruiting office was set up in Palmer’s shipyard, presumably to capitalise on the feelings engendered by the Zeppelin raid, and the ledger lists all those who signed up between December 8 and 12 – more than 900 names spread across 23 pages.

The ledger bought by the Friends of the DLI (Image: unknown)

It gives their ages (nearly all are between 30 and 40), their addresses in the streets of Jarrow and their religions. Some have their chest sizes and the colour of their eyes recorded. All of their occupations are there – on one page alone there is a driller,  an anglesmith, a painter, a ship rivetter, a shipwright, an ironmoulderer, an engineering toolmaker, a caulker, a greaser, a joiner, a fitter, a rigger, four holderups, three labourers, two blastfurnanceman and two electric cranedrivers. These are all jobs from a shipyard (what would the holderups do?), although scattered among them on the same page are a butcher, a barman and a tripe preparer.

“It’s personally interesting for me because I was born near there – these lads lived just across the road from me in Jarrow and Hebburn,” says Sid Patterson. “Some joined the Northumberland Fusiliers on the other side of the river, others went into the Royal Navy but most of them go into the DLI.”

A ledger bought by DLI Friends is handed over to county archivist Carolyn Ball. Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT (Image: Sarah Caldecott)

Their call-ups started coming through in January 1916, so the fear must be that the men listed on that page – from 5ft 3¾in tall electric cranedriver John Bell to 5ft 8½in barman John McDermott – were destined for the Battle of the Somme.

County archivist Carolyn Ball, who accepted the ledger on behalf of The Story, said: “We have a fantastic archive here but this is the only recruiting ledger that we know has survived locally because they were all supposed to be destroyed after the war, so that makes it very important.”

A ledger bought by DLI Friends is handed over to The Story, Durham Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT (Image: Sarah Caldecott)

How it survived is another part of its mysterious story, but it did, and it was spotted by a builder’s merchant in a car boot sale in Essex.

The ledger’s current owner, a builder’s merchant from Maldon in Essex, said he discovered it lying on the ground at a car boot sale.

“When I saw the word ‘military’ on the cover, I knew it was something special,” he said, and he quickly handed over the £20 asking price.

A ledger bought by DLI Friends is handed over to The Story, Durham Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT (Image: Sarah Caldecott)

From there, it wended its way to Hansons Auctioneers in Derby, where militaria expert Matt Crowson said: “There’s no doubt the Zeppelin raid would have brought home the seriousness of the war to the brave Jarrow workers, many of whom would have wanted retribution.

“Books like this are extremely rare, as records were supposed to have been destroyed after the war. How it came to light hundreds of miles away, we may never know.”

With auction fees, the Friends paid £1,300 for the volume.

“We wanted to save it and keep it in the county because otherwise it might never have been seen again,” said Sid, “and we wanted to make sure these men were not forgotten.”

• The ledger has been digitised and can be seen on the Friends’ website at dlifriends.com. On the last Thursday of every month, the Friends hold a drop-in session at The Story in Durham from 10am to 2pm where they help members of the public who would like to research a family member who once served with the Durham Light Infantry. All are welcome

A First World War Zeppelin (Image: Televisual)

• Zeppelin L10 dropped 2.5 tons of bombs on Tyneside that June night, and although Zeppelin attacks continued for another year with airships probing further and further inland, L10 didn’t prosper. On September 3, 1915, it was on patrol over the North Sea when it was struck by lightning and it crashed into the water. All 19 crew were killed.