Cheshire and The War

Cheshire has a rich military history and Chester itself is home to the Cheshire Military Museum, only a 5-minute walk from Edgar House.

The museum tells the story of Cheshire’s soldiers from the 17th century to the present day. It is built on top of a ruined Norman castle which fell into disrepair after the English Civil War. The building was used as a barracks to maintain law and order in Chester and is now the Regimental Headquarters for the Mercian Regiment.

For hundreds of years, Cheshire soldiers have fought in conflicts which have significantly shaped world history. The museum contains a huge diversity of material to tell their stories, including the pen used to sign the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War.

The Cheshire Regiment was raised in 1689 on the Roodee, Chester for service under William III, but it wasn’t until 1988 that the Regiment served again in their home county. During the 300 years in between, the regiment spent much time on garrison duty throughout the Empire.

At Dettingen, Germany, they won the distinction of wearing the oak leaf whilst parading for Royalty and on certain Regimental days. The story goes that the regiment protected the King (who was commanding the field at the time) from being taken prisoner by the French. The King picked a sprig of oak from a nearby tree and presented it to them, hence the symbolism today.

Prior to 1914, the Cheshire regiment had only one battalion, but to fight in the Great War, they raised 38! At the outset of WWI, the 1st Battalion was exposed to the brunt of two German Army Corps at the village of Audregnies near Mons, Belgium, but their heroic stand saved the British Expeditionary Force from a disaster, and 24th August has since been celebrated as a second Regimental Day. This Battalion was in every major action in France throughout the war and won a total of 35 Battle Honours.

Since the World wars, the 1st Battalion has served in numerous operational areas: Malaya, Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq.

The regiment was amalgamated, with two other regiments (Worcestershire & Sherwood Foresters and Staffordshire) in 2007 and is now known as The Mercian Regiment. Despite being one of the infantry’s newest formed regiments, each of the existing regiments themselves came with more than 300 years’ loyal and professional service to the Crown.

The Mercian Regiment is one of the most operationally experienced Regiments in the British Army today, having been deployed on operations eight times since its formation in September 2007.

The History of the Poppy

The poppy, or the Papaver Rhoeas, to give it its proper name, is the enduring symbol of remembrance of the First World War. It has been strongly linked with Armistice Day for over a century, but the poppy’s origin as a popular symbol of remembrance lies in the landscapes of the First World War.

Poppies were a common sight for soldiers, especially on the Western Front. They flourished in the soil churned up by the fighting and shelling. The flower provided Canadian doctor John McCrae with inspiration for his poem ‘In Flanders Fields’, which he wrote whilst serving in Ypres in 1915. It was first published in ‘Punch’, having been rejected by ‘The Spectator’. In 1918, in response to McCrae’s poem, American humanitarian Moina Michael wrote ‘And now the Torch and Poppy Red, we wear in honour of our dead…’. She was the first campaigner to make the poppy a symbol of remembrance of those who had died in the war.

Artificial poppies were first sold in Britain in 1921 to raise money for the Earl Haig Fund, in support of ex-servicemen and the families of those who had died in the conflict. They were supplied by Anna Guérin, who had been manufacturing the flowers in France to raise money for war orphans. Selling poppies proved so popular that only a year later in 1922, the British Legion founded a factory, staffed by disabled ex-servicemen, to produce its own poppies, and this still continues today, 100 years on.

Other charities sell poppies in different colours, each with their own meaning but all with the same reasoning, to commemorate the losses of war. White poppies, for example, symbolise peace without violence and purple poppies are worn to honour animals killed in conflict.

The poppy continues to be sold worldwide to raise money and remember those who lost their lives in the First World War and in subsequent conflicts.

During the First World War, millions of soldiers saw the poppies in Flanders fields on the Western Front and some even sent pressed poppies home in letters. Over 100 years later, the poppy is still a world-recognised symbol of remembrance of the First World War. Neither Remembrance, or the poppy is about glorifying war, but rather, it obliges us, at least once a year, to face, and think about the consequences of war, past, present and future.

Chester Remembrance Day Parade

The Annual Service of Remembrance at Chester Cathedral takes place on Sunday 13th November this year, prior to which, a Military Parade will step off from Bridge Street, just a stone’s throw from Edgar House, at 9.30am and march to the Cathedral. The Service of Remembrance will take place inside Chester Cathedral at 10.15am followed by the Act of Remembrance outside at 10.55am.

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”