Remembrance Day 2013

Today (11th November) is Remembrance Day.

Remembrance Day (also ‘Armistice Day’ or ‘Poppy Day’) is the memorial day observed in the UK, Commonwealth and also non-Commonwealth countries since WW1 to remember all service personnel killed in action. Remembrance Day is observed on the 11th November to commemorate the ending of hostilities of WW1 ‘at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month’ in 1918, in accordance with the Armistice which was signed on that day. (WW1 officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on the 28th June 1919.) The 11th November was dedicated by King George V in 1919 as a day of remembrance.

Today the Trust completed the first part of our temporary display in the ground-floor corridor at Roman Circus House, about the modern military history of Colchester garrison. Roman Circus House was built as the Regimental Institute of the Artillery (Le Cateau) Barracks in the garrison, and housed the barracks NAAFI. The Trust discovered the site of the Roman circus within the area of the old garrison ahead of its redevelopment. (The Army in Colchester is now based in new barracks to the south of the town.) This part of the display is about the Artillery Barracks and some of the people who were stationed here, and includes old postcards, family photographs and a plan of the barracks. The temporary display will be replaced by a small permanent display which will include some audio-visual material which we have discovered. The display will be our small memorial and tribute to all the people who passed through the old garrison. Thousands of people were stationed at or worked at the old garrison during its history; people enlisted or were called up here, trained here, left here to go to war/on active service; service families lived here; wounded servicemen were returned here to hospital and returning servicemen were demobbed here.

WW1 began in August 1914. In late August 1914, the three batteries of the XIV Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery here at Artillery Barracks left the barracks and travelled to France. On the 26th August 1914, the XIV Brigade took part in the Battle of Le Cateau, at which the British Army suffered heavy losses. The commanding officer of 88 Battery of the XIV Brigade was killed. At some point, we think between 1917 and 1920, the Artillery Barracks were renamed the ‘Le Cateau Barracks’.

A few buildings of the Artillery Barracks survive, and it is possible to walk round the outside and have a look at some of them, ie the former Officers’ Mess, the Sergeants’ Mess (originally the canteen), the school room, two barrack-blocks, the water tower, the perimeter wall and the main gate, and even some of the kerb of the barracks’ access road in front of  Roman Circus House (all 19th century), and the NAAFI (1937; now Roman Circus House) and the cook-house and dining hall next door (1935). The XIV Brigade probably rode out of the barracks along the access road, alongside the surviving kerb, on their way to the war in France and the Battle of Le Cateau.

Next year, of course, is the centenary of the start of WW1 in 1914.

The images show the start of the new display, and part of the historic kerb in front of Roman Circus House.

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