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Key dates over March 1918

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Lives lost on this day: 0

9th March 1918 - Womens Land Army Minimum Wage

Rolling casualty count: 8537

War Front:

2nd Batt: Batt finding working parties.

4th Batt: All Coys working on the Divisional reserve line (Kronprinz to Waterloo Line), X and Y early and W and Z after mid-day.

Home Front:

County Food Production: There was an informal discussion with the Military Representatives about German prisoner labour, a Staff Officer from the Southern Command being present to ascertain the views of the Committee on certain matters. He stated that Worcestershire had employed German prisoner labour more than any other county. The Labour Sub-Committee reported that the War Office had been requested to send an additional 40 prisoners to the camp at Peopleton as soon as accommodation could be made available. There were 800 soldiers working in the county with 775 for the previous week, and there were 153 women workers on the land. The Chairman asked the Committee to solve the question of whether they would encourage the employment of conscientious objectors or not. Mr. Lambert asked if it was wise to employ conscientious objectors. Mr. Walker said that they had a very bad influence in the county. Mr. Dixon said he had had three and two of them had slunk back into munitions. The third left last week and he had informed the Malvern Tribunal and he dared say that he also would go on munitions. The Committee ought to see that they remained in their employment. Mr. Lambert moved and Mr. Potter seconded, that the Committee give no facilities for the employment of conscientious objectors and it was unanimously carried.

County Food Production: Mr. Roberts read a letter from the Food Production Department stating that women in the Land Army must be paid not less than £1 a week and those who had passed an efficiency test should receive a wage of 22s. and upwards. Mr. Dorrell said the result would be that people would not employ them. The Chairman said, on the other hand it was difficult for the women to live on a wage of 18s. Mr. Dorrell said that might be so, but how did their work compare with the labour paid at 25s. per week? It bore no comparison to it. Mr. Dixon suggested that the Committee should recommend that of 140,000 women now being sent out of munition works; those who had been drawn from the land should be returned.

County Food Production: The Executive Officer reported that about 11 bakers were now using potatoes in the manufacture of bread and he was directed to communicate with the other bakers urging them to adopt the like course and offering to assist them in any way he could in obtaining priority for potato-grinding machinery, if necessary, and to point out to them that it was the intention of the Controller to make the use of potatoes in bread compulsory, at an early stage.

Sergt. J.W. Crump, Worcestershire Regt., (formerly of Kempsey), was killed in August last by a shell. His Commanding Officer said that he had known him since the previous January. In April he took Sergeant’s stripes and went through an N.C.O.’s course of instruction. He did extremely well there, so well indeed, that there was a good chance of his being made an instructor at the school. Two months after his death it was announced that he had been awarded the Military Medal for gallantry and on February 21 his father went to Pembroke Docks to receive it from a General. Mr. Crump was also presented with a large picture of the Worcestershires landing at the Dardanelles (where Sergt. Crump was wounded.)

Mr. and Mrs. W.H. Sutton, of 14 The Bull Ring, St. John’s, have received official notice from the War Office that their only son, Pte. C.W. Sutton is presumed killed. He was reported missing on May 3, 1917, at Oppy Wood. He formerly worked for Messrs. McNaught and Co., The Tything, and afterwards at Messrs. G. H. Williamson and Sons, Providence Works. When a boy he attended St. Martin’s School. Mr. and Mrs. Sutton have also received a letter of sympathy from the King and Queen in their bereavement.

Information researched by The Worcestershire World War 100 team