Genealogical war memorials of Bournemouth’s fallen
Shaiba: April 14th, 1915
Introduction
Tales from the Front (29) recounts the life of William Arthur Andrews, a native of Victorian Bournemouth, who fought in World War I. Andrews had joined the Second Battalion, Dorset Regiment, serving with them in India. The 1911 census placed him in Poona. He shipped out as part of the IEF ‘D’ force, tasked with protecting British oil supplies in southern Iraq. His story ends at Shaiba, the site of a hard-fought battle in April 1915, but begins in the shifting social landscape of a resort that draws labourers from across the West Country.
Tales from the Front (29): always on the move
Roots in motion
On his father’s side, Andrews descended from brickmakers. His grandfather, a native of Verwood, moved 50 miles west to Hilton, a village located near Blandford. Here, he married a local glover. For a while, they lived in her village. A man of his name spent a week in Dorchester prison during 1875, convicted of drunkenness, a frequent affliction in labouring families. By the 1880s, he had followed the well-worn path to Bournemouth. During the Victorian period, a steady trek had brought many rural labourers from Dorset to the apparent employment opportunities afforded by the rising resort. Here, his son Eli, Andrews’s father, married another immigrant, the daughter of an agricultural labourer from Glastonbury. After their marriage in Moordown, they had several children, Andrews the eldest. Before his tenth birthday, however, catastrophe struck the family. In 1896, his mother died. The next year, his father remarried. More children arrived.
Young man abroad
By the time of Andrews’s birth, his parents had moved from Winton to Springbourne, from one labouring suburb of Bournemouth to another. Here, they lived at 58 Victoria Road. A decade later, the family, still in Springbourne, had moved to Boscombe Grove Road, a little further east. Andrews, then aged 13, worked as an errand boy, contributing to a household of siblings and half-siblings. At some point, perhaps when 18, Andrews enlisted with the Second Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment. This step took him thousands of miles eastwards, to India. The 1911 census places him in the Poona barracks, one of nearly twenty Bournemouth men serving in the battalion. It seems plausible that Andrews came to Lower Mesopotamia when the IEF ‘D’ left Mumbai for the expedition to protect the British oilfields near Basra. He would have experienced two difficult encounters towards the end of 1914 before the decisive battle that followed.
Tales from the Front (29): Shaiba, April 14th, 1915
Early in April, British intelligence warned that Turkish troops and Arab irregulars planned to seize Shaiba, a fort 11 miles distant from Basra. At 0500 on April 12th, Turkish artillery began their assault. Reports suggest that they attacked in a pincer movement. The 2nd Dorsets, stationed at the fort’s south point, helped repel the attack here. Later, they moved to defend its northern entrance. Two days later, Wednesday, April 14th, the British headed south towards Barjisiya Wood. The Turkish forces had regrouped here. The Dorsets led this attack in very hot conditions, during which they came under heavy fire and ‘suffered severely’. The troops responded to a call for another effort and carried the Turkish trenches. At bayonet point, the Dorsets assisted the clearance. Many Ottoman soldiers surrendered; others fled. On an expensive day, the Dorsets had a casualty rate of 23%, William Andrews one of the fallen.
Tales from the Front (29): aftermath
The Andrews family survived the war otherwise intact. Andrews’s parents lived on until the 1930s. His brothers made their living either as labourers or skilled craftsmen. At least one sister worked in service for a while. Another married a telephone engineer. Thus, the family retained a similar social position before and after the war. The Expeditionary Force remained at Shaiba for a few days, consolidating their position. Within ten days, they returned to Basra. The routine of parades and patrols reinstated itself. Flotillas maintained a presence on the waterways. As the temperature rose, so did the number of sick. The Dorsets’ numbers had now shrunk to around 400, but reinforcements arrived in May, almost doubling the size. It became clear that the Turkish forces had moved far away, posing no immediate threat. The British and Indian troops had won an important battle at Shaiba, establishing a permanent presence at Basra.
Tales from the Front (29): dreams and disaster
Later in the war, the Turkish General Staff reviewed the campaign fought in Lower Mesopotamia in 1914 and early 1915. Their report suggested several reasons for failure. Most of the soldiers suffered from a lack of equipment, training, and logistical organisation; desertions happened every day. A failure to anticipate the Tigris floods marooned units on islets. Arab tribesmen proved untrustworthy, motivated by ‘gifts and success’. They attacked the retreating Turkish troops. The ‘accursed, mirage-ridden battle of Shaiba’ became a catastrophe. The Mesopotamian General Headquarters ignored the War Office in Constantinople. Delusions of grandeur clouded the local commanding officer. He envisaged sweeping the British into the Persian Gulf before invading India. A dream also transfixed the British command. To them, Baghdad, a city of fabled past, represented a glamorous conclusion to their invasion, but it led them to disaster. In these competing dreams, ordinary soldiers like Andrews bore the cost.
Takeaway
Tales from the Front (29) has explored the background, life, and military career of William Arthur Andrews (1888-1915). William Arthur Andrews’s life traces a path from Dorset’s brickfields to Bournemouth’s labouring suburbs, then across empire to India and finally Mesopotamia.
He fell at the Battle of Shaiba, perhaps in the afternoon of the action in Barjisiya Wood, the day of the Dorsets’ bayonet charge.
‘Tales from the Front’
A collection of personal stories honouring the natives of Victorian Bournemouth who gave their lives on the battlefield and the regiments with which they served. Blending social and military history with genealogical insight, it explores their roots, families, occupations, and the ultimate sacrifices they made for their country.
The posts weave genealogical data together with eyewitness accounts found in war diaries, contemporary press coverage, and official military histories. The series offers a powerful and intimate portrait of Bournemouth’s wartime heroes offset with live accounts of battlefield action.
Serving as a companion and continuation of Victorian Bournemouth, Tales from the Front forms part of News from the Past: History for the Rest of Us.
References
For references and engagement, please get in touch. Main primary sources: here and here (subscriptions needed). For War Diaries, go here. See also here. The featured picture shows an imagined scene—genealogical information based on available sources.
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