First World War (Commemoration)

Iain Wright Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

This has been an excellent debate, with speeches of knowledge, poignancy and passion from all Members. I do, however, want to single out the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). I, too, came into this House after a long-run by-election, so I know what he has gone through. I wish my maiden speech had been as good as his; it marked him out as somebody from whom we will look forward to hearing more. I think he will have a long and strong period of time in this House and I wish him all the very best.

I am proud that in my maiden speech I mentioned the bombardment of the Hartlepools, and I want to return to that today, because 16 December this year will mark the centenary of that event. At 10 minutes past 8 on the morning of 16 December 1914, three German battle-cruisers started firing shells off the coast of the north-east towards Hartlepool and West Hartlepool. A total of 1,150 shells were fired over a 40-minute period, and 118 people, including 37 children, were killed in the bombardment and many hundreds were injured.

I believe it is right for this House and the country to commemorate that event, because I believe it had profound and historic implications at local, national and international level. Certainly, at the local level my constituency experienced the horror and the carnage. The scene that morning in hundreds of Hartlepool homes will have been replayed countless times before and since: a mad rush to get children to school on time—children who were probably thinking about the imminent arrival of Christmas a mere nine days later. What is not so usual, thankfully, is the confusion and terror that must have arisen after the shells started raining down.

As I said earlier, 118 people in Hartlepool and West Hartlepool were killed, including 37 children. Belk street, which is still standing and is still inhabited, was particularly badly affected. That is where the youngest victim, Benjamin Lofthouse, died; he was just seven months old. Families were torn apart. The Cornforths lost three generations to the bombardment on that day. Peter Whitecross, aged eight, and his brother John, aged six, were killed together. Sarah and Hannah Jobling were aged just six and four. William and Andrew Peart were aged just five and two. The Dixon family lost three children that day: George, aged 14; Margaret, aged eight; and Albert, aged seven.

I hope those names and ages make clear to the House the big scar that the bombardment left on my constituency. Many of the streets where the shells landed are still in existence and still lived in. The families who suffered in the bombardment still live in the town. The list of people who died in the attack—the Cornforths, the Dixons, the Horselys, the Hunters—are strong Hartlepool families with long lineages. They are very familiar to me as long-standing Hartlepool families whose direct descendants are still my constituents. Although the bombardment of the Hartlepools was a century ago, in my constituency it seems much more recent.

The bombardment also has national importance. It was the first attack on the mainland in the first world war. It also saw the first soldier to be killed on British soil since the battle of Culloden in 1746. Private Theo Jones was a local lad who lived in Ashgrove avenue. He enlisted in the Durham Light Infantry, and was one of six members of 18th Battalion DLI to be killed on duty that day. Private Jones was 29 years old. He had left Hartlepool to become a teacher in Leicestershire but had returned home to west Hartlepool to serve in his local regiment. He had been one of the first to volunteer in those heady summer days of August 1914. His pupils had given him a prayer book on his leaving, and a shard of the shell that had hit Private Jones in the chest was found lodged in the prayer book he was carrying in his breast pocket. That prayer book will be included in a programme of events to be organised by the museum of Hartlepool and located at the Heugh gun battery, on the actual spot where British troops, including Private Jones, repelled the German attack. That has been made possible through an Arts Council grant, for which I am very grateful.

The bombardment also has implications beyond local or even national considerations, however. The first world war was four months old at the time of the bombardment, which changed warfare and military tactics massively, arguably for ever. Following the bombardment, the enemy realised the panic and disruption, loss of support for Government and sapping of public morale that direct attacks on civilian populations could unleash. Changing technology meant that warfare was not confined merely to the armed forces in somewhat distant trenches on a foreign field; the full horrors of war could be experienced by innocent men, women and children on civvy street. The bombardment of the Hartlepools was in this regard the unwanted architect of the blitz of the second world war and the terrorist atrocities of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

It is for those reasons that the bombardment merits national coverage and strong recognition through first world war commemorations. I very much hope that the House will have an opportunity to debate and reflect on the bombardment of the Hartlepools on the centenary, 16 December. Each year at 10 past 8 on that day, my constituency holds a ceremony, organised by the Heugh Gun Battery Trust, to mark the occasion of the bombardment. This year, as the House will appreciate, it should be very special. I hope that, at the very least, the Secretary of State for Defence will attend, along with other Members; they will be made very welcome. I also hope that the Government will mark the centenary in a respectful and appropriate manner. In this way, the bombardment of the Hartlepools will be given the national recognition and commemoration that the attack, but most of all the lives lost in my constituency almost 100 years ago, fully deserve.