We are very grateful to the late Vivian Frost (nee Dade), granddaughter of (George) Fred Briggs, who was so supportive of our First World War project and provided us with a treasure trove of photographs and postcards, several of which are featured here. They had belonged to her mother (Fred’s daughter, Claudia,) and are a wonderful record of the Briggs family – some of their descendants still live in Carleton Rode today.
George Fred Briggs was born in the summer of 1889 and was known simply as ‘Fred’.
His parents were Robert Briggs, a farm labourer from Bunwell, and Georgianna Self Wright – born in Carleton Rode but baptised in Bunwell Church. The two families had lived in neighbouring cottages on Bunwell Hill during the 1870s and when the couple married in the late summer of 1884, they continued to live there.
Fred had an older sister Alice Maud (born 1886), and four siblings followed – Nelson (1892), Eliza Leonora Mary Ann – known as Nora – (1898), and Leslie Hubert (1902).
By the turn of the century, Robert and Georgianna had been able to afford to move to a property and smallholding in Flaxlands, Carleton Rode (electoral register for 1900) where they farm on their own account.
Fred would have left school around the same time and probably worked with his father on the farm – and we know from later newspaper accounts that he became a very good ploughman. At the age of 22, on the 1st August 1911, Fred married eighteen-year-old Ellen Marion Ramm, the daughter of a Bunwell pork butcher and shopkeeper, usually known as Nellie. Their daughter, Claudia Ena Vivian Briggs, was born on the 11th October the same year and christened in Carleton Rode Church.
This photograph shows the extended Briggs family taken the following year.
Left to right; Back row – Alice, Nelson, Nora, Fred
Middle row – Robert, Ellen, Georgeanna (with baby Claudia on knee) with Hubert seated in front
Four years later Fred and Ellen had their second child, a boy, who was born on the 31st July 1915 and baptised Jack Joffre Briggs. His intriguing name is the link that connects us to the next part of Fred’s story; the First World War.
Fred and Ellen had named their son in honour of the Commander-in-Chief of the French forces on the Western Front – General Joseph Jacques Joffre.
Although his service record does not survive, we know from the Absent Voters Lists that Fred joined the Machine Gun Corps, Private 104667, probably when conscription was extended to include married men (from May 1916).
As part of the 23rd Brigade Machine Gun Company, Fred would have seen action on the Somme in France as well as Passchendaele, Ypres in 1917 and actions back on the Somme in 1918.
It was from here that Fred sent a postcard home to Nellie when he was taken to a military hospital from the Front line. He wanted to let her know that he ‘is about the same’ but frets that he has had to write to his Company because letters were not getting through to him – a poignant glimpse into his life at that time. He sends them all fondest love and signs off ‘your loving husband’.
Fred was demobilized in February 1919 and returns to life on the farm with his father and brothers. He and Nellie had their third child, Eileen, born on the 11th April 1923.
A photograph taken during the following interwar years shows the Briggs menfolk standing proudly in front of a traditional thatched stack that they would have constructed at either Greenways or Sunset Farm in Carleton Rode.
Fred was a very good ploughman and had been involved in ploughing matches since he was a young man before the Great War. However, it was during the interwar years that the local competitions were revitalised, and he would often compete as well as suppling horses from his farm on Flaxlands (EDP report 1932).
Fred served on the Carleton Rode Drawing Match committee which met at the Farriers Arms. This had been restarted in 1927 and grew in strength and popularity over the next ten years. Many names from the village who were recorded in the newspaper reports were also ‘old soldiers’ (including James Scott and Arthur Sturman).
Perhaps the most prestigious of the local competitions was held at Banham, the British Legion ploughing match. Fred was highly placed in 1932 (out of 83 competitors) but it would be the following year when, at the same event, he won First Prize and was presented with a Silver Cup for achieving top marks – an outstanding achievement when you consider that there were 97 competitors who entered from all over the surrounding villages. He also qualified to compete in the National Championship in 1937.
Fred’s wife Nellie is also mentioned in the local papers, winning a prize for her geese at the Forncett Christmas Poultry Sale in early December 1933.
The extended Briggs’ family – including Fred and his brothers, together with their wives and families, were very active in village life throughout the 20th century, especially in attending and maintaining the Church, serving on the vestry committee, and participating in various fetes and festivals – and for Nellie, restarting the Mother’s Union in the parish.
Fred died in the summer of 1970, and Nellie in the autumn of 1979. They are buried together in Carleton Rode Cemetery.