Merton Court History

Private Frederick Wright

SN: 6778 1st Battalion Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment

Case file written by Ellie Grigsby (Not an old Mertonian)

Even with hindsight it is not easy to project our current mindset and cultural values into the world of 1916/17 and the vortex of messianic jingoism which must have permeated the whole of society. Nonetheless, cases like Wright inspire fury when here lies an extreme example of penalty for what was probably felt by millions of others serving in the trenches, here is his story.

Wright was charged with desertion of his majesty’s service, to which he pleaded not guilty. Wright was tried and found guilty, sentenced to suffer death by being shot: signed by Field Marshall D. Haig on 24th January 1917. Wright absented himself from his battalion during the afternoon/evening of December 9th1916 in the neighbourhood of Le Priez Farm as he and his comrades marched back to the trenches. These trenches were reportedly in a dreadful condition; ‘falling in many places,’ no doubt due to the un-relentless bad weather of awful rainfall which apparently undid any maintenance work undertaken. War diaries provide us with the vivid imagery of men having to be dug out and pulled of the trench after spending a few hours in the treacherous mud and finding themselves unable to move. It is no surprise that 65 men were sent to hospital the same week Wright absented himself, ‘suffering in the most cases from trench foot.’

A week before Wright goes missing, orders were warned the battalion would soon be providing relief as the forging of an attack was imminent on Baritska and Mirage. Hit by heavy machine gun and rifle fire, heavy casualties were suffered on the 3rd, with just under 200, killed, wounded or missing, and so the companies had to withdraw.  Although Wright’s belly was full of ‘hot soup’ on the first night, getting rations to the battalion in front lines at such time was ‘difficult.’ Although each man did go in with 2 days of rations, ration/war parties ‘frequently lost their way,’ owing not only to the poor trench conditions, especially after enemy fire, but the awful weather. Three days before Wright goes missing, he and his battalion were relieved but reportedly ‘exhausted.’

Wright was apprehended by the military police at Maricourt at on 12th December 1916. Wright was spotted by a Lieutenant Corporal who was on duty at Maricourt. In the trial, he recalled, that on that day, at around 2pm, he ‘saw the accused in full battle kit.’ He asked him where he was going, and Wright exclaimed he had ‘lost his regiment.’ Wright was handed over to the Sergeant Major of MMP division and held in detention awaiting his court martial on 10th January 1917.

The repetitive fixation on what numerous witnesses of the trial understood to be Wright’s rotten character is tangible. Statements such as: ‘bad from every point of view,’ ‘the accused is quite valueless,’ and ‘a very bad example to the men in the battalion’ ascertain the notion that Wright was punished as so to be a grave warning to others. Given the size of the army, it is paramount to understand something about the nature of the society from which the men were drawn, which no doubt influenced attitudes towards military service, from both the soldier’s points of view, and the military officials’. Britain’s rapid industrialisation saw workers adapt to the rigours and boredom of often-harsh factory life, which may have prepared men for the front. The crucial element of considering the societal dynamic at this time however, is that with industrialisation, a social cohesion shadowed: with an acceptance of paternalism, an inheritance of this conceptual behaviour of command and control can be seen reflected by-in-large with the good officer to ranks relations. Thus, when this dynamic was threatened, seemingly how Wright’s characteristic actions appear to have been interpreted, the man in question found himself challenging more than just the Rupert Brooke expectation of the soldier, but established law and order.

On oath, Wright states he ‘had letters from home saying that things were not well (and) this had played on (his) mind’ adding he did not know what he was doing. It comes to light that Wright’s brother was discharged from the navy because ‘of unsound mind’ and therefore ‘no use in helping’ their mother, thus explaining Wright’s consternation. Wright lived on the Old Kent road but was unsure of his mother’s living arrangements at such time, explaining she may be there also, or in Walworth with his sister. Wright was allotting what appears to look like 4d (pence) per day for his mother and she did apparently write to tell her son she was receiving the money: something he had been doing for the previous 15 months. Women ‘giving’ their sons to the war effort became the quintessential emblem of feminine sacrifice: these were the celebratory tones of pride and worth which reverberated through society. It is estimated that throughout the war around 2/3 of the men killed were single, whole some 40% were under 24 years old and for the ‘war generation’ mothers were the key link to normal life beyond the war. The action of a son protecting his mother was not just natural of such a kinship tie, but it was masculinity defining and a mother’s attachment to her children in the early 20th century was the most profound in her life purely because her entire existence was confined to the domestic environment. It has been argued that the characteristic responsibilities for mothers for their sons, were the ones men on the front mostly craved. It is argued that soldiers in extremis harked back to the earliest relationships of their lives, thrown back to the memory of those who had cared for them from the earliest moments. Perhaps Wright not only felt the wrench to care for his mother but in fact hankered for the soothing maternal care that could have anchored his psychological stability during a turbulent time in the trenches. Through the lens we begin to understand Wright further, and so the rupturing of the maternal relationship could well have had devastating effects on both mother and son.

Wright’s defence is perhaps the most desperate part of the entire case; we become acquainted with the concept of the duality of duty, in Wright’s instance: the soldier versus the son. Duty and social ranking meant more then than today; civil society was far less liberal in its mind, especially in a time of collective consensus in relation to a major conflict. Duty for Private Wright lay in his conscience, not in the manuals of military law. Yet there was no duality in regard to duty in the collective mind, given the hard decision of the court: ‘shooting him is recommended because he is a very bad character and the state of discipline in this battalion is not good, an example is needed.’ Private Wright made a major mistake in being sensitive to the needs of his family, the crime, being that of compassion and duty to home, and his mother. This story may have been partly subterfuge upon reflection of his grave error and on account of fear of the trenches as Wright does mention shelling in his defence immediately, and the truth may lie elsewhere, which is something that we will never know, but judicial system of military law rolled on in an irresistible way pour encourager les autres. When cross-examined by the prosecution Wright repeats ‘I did not think what I was doing when I went absent nor whether it would help things at home or not.’ He concludes his defence by revealing what he avowed to be as some sort of realisation, stating: ‘I have been out with this battalion for 15 months and I realise that my duty lies out here, that it cannot be done in more than one place.’ Wright appealed that he was ‘lost’ on the day of the 9th and could not find his way back to the part of the front line his battalion was positioned at. Wright called no evidence nor made no further statement to this.

Priez, to Maricourt, depending on where Wright left his battalion and was specifically found, is some 70 miles. Wright, in less than three days, covered tens of miles each morning and night until his capture, which can only demonstrate sheer desperation of a young man riddled with anxiety of his mother and brother’s welfare, as well as most days, jeopardising his own.

At 06:45, 28th January 1917, Frederick was executed by firing squad.