Up The Hammers!

My family history research often goes off on a tangent. For over 150 years, my Poysers and Hunts were Plaistow/Canning Town residents, and (as a young man) my great-grandfather, Sam Poyser, and many of the male members of his family, worked at the Thames Ironworks, the largest shipbuilder on the Thames. 

West Ham FC began when employees formed a works team that became the Thames Ironworks Football Club. In fact, a lot of the social life centred around the company, as it employed so many local people, families, neighbours and friends. The sense of community in those days was very prevalent. I have often wondered how my family members may have been involved in WW1 and WW2, and when I saw this book, I thought it might give me some answers. Thus far in my reading, I've not found any of them named. The book is very interesting though and has taught me a lot already, about the mentality around those WW1 years.

I did not realise that the Kitchener posters instigated a volunteer army that was looked down upon by the regular army. I would have thought they would have been grateful to have had so many men and boys willing to swell their numbers, but apparently, there was a snobbishness by the regulars and a disdain for the volunteers.

Apparently, it was not the army itself that recruited and trained those who signed up. Local authorities and major companies formed their own groups of volunteers - and it then fell to the communities to outfit these groups with uniforms, weaponry, and money for billeting and food.  

Growing up, myself, in Leytonstone, and spending a lot of time on Wanstead Flats, I was totally unaware of it's history as a training ground for the Thames Ironworks volunteers. They learned how to dig trenches there (and practiced over and over), learned how to shoot, and more.

This book is an excellent resource. It really explores the coming together of the West Ham Battalion, and tells the stories of various people, and battles, during the First World War.  I am hoping to find one of my Hunts or Poysers in the pages somewhere, but even if I don't, this is an awesome book and a brilliant history of that time.

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