The Battle for High Wood, 20th July 1916: Frank and Jack Cook, 20th Royal Fusiliers

Today’s post links neatly to our guest post of last week, which was provided by a local work experience student, Arthur.  The subjects of today’s blog – also written by a guest blogger, but this time one with professional interest in military history – are a pair of brothers from the Knights-Whittome collection, whose story particularly resonated with a previous work experience student, called Emily, who undertook a placement with us in 2016. The blog produced by Emily gave only brief details of these men, but Emily was profoundly moved by their story, which is reflective of the kind of experience endured by many families during the period. Her engagement with the collection was touching to see, but it is reflective of a pattern of similar experience felt by most people who come into contact with the photographs. The extraordinary value of photographic portrait collections like this is that in their intimacy, the eye contact they enable with subjects, and the connections they initiate,  they break down the barriers and objectivity put in place by history books and textbooks, and enable us to imagine ourselves transposed into the narrative which they represent. They are a powerful reminder to us all of the real lives behind the history we learn at school.

Paul Nixon, today’s guest author, has been working on identifying and researching the miltary portraits of the collection for some time.  Many of the men pictured in the collection were soldiers of the University and Public Schools Batallions, posted to the Woodcote camp on Epsom Downs. Today, on the anniversary of the tragic battle for High Wood on the 20th July 1916, a battle which claimed many hundreds of UPS lives during the Somme, he looks at Frank and Jack Cook of the 20th Royal Fusiliers and offers us a deeper look into their lives and experience.

Frank and Jack Cook, 20th Royal Fusiliers
by Paul Nixon

PS/4669 Lance-Corporal Frank Eaden Cook, on the left, and his brother PS/4671 Pte John (Jack) Eaden Cook both sat for their portraits in one of David Knights-Whittome’s studios on the 19th April 1915. 

The brothers were the sons of Frederick Lilley Cook, a self-employed wool and woolen waste merchant, and his wife Eleanor Beatrice Cook. The 1911 census shows the family living comfortably in West Huddersfield in  a nine-roomed house that was  looked after by a 21-year-old housemaid in partnership with a 17-year-old cook who catered for the family of four. Frank, aged 20, was a commercial traveler in the same business as his father while John, a year younger, was a designer, also in the wool trade. Both boys had been born in Huddersfield and both had been educated at New College, Harrogate, an independent preparatory school. Had Britain not gone to war with Germany in August 1914, there is nothing to suggest that the brothers would not have enjoyed the same successful career as their father, the older brother presumably taking over the family business of Messrs Cook, Sons and Company (established in 1819) at some point in the future.  Sadly, this was not to be.

Frank and Jack both enlisted with the 20th (Public Schools) Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers on the 1st September 1914 and so they’d been in uniform for around eight months when these photos were taken. Research conducted by the late J Margaret Stansfield, and published in Huddersfield’s Roll of Honour 1914-1922 shows that Frank had been appointed lance-corporal in October 1914 and would be promoted to corporal in October 1915. Both brothers arrived in France  on the 14th November 1915.

Frank was wounded at La Bassee on the 11th March 1916 and may therefore not have been fit enough to return to his battalion in time for the action at High Wood on the 20th July 1916. Jack did take part in the attack, however, and was one of – according to the war diary – 375 other rank casualties killed, wounded and missing. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission provides more detail: 139 men killed on the 20th July 1916 and a further 30 men dying over the next 11 days, most if not all of these men as a result of wounds sustained on the 20th. Of the total 169 casualties recorded, 114 men have no known grave and are commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

Jack Cook is one of those men on the Thiepval memorial. According to Margaret Stansfield, he was noticed by his officer to be wounded and on his way to the field dressing station, and he was also seen by a fellow private further down the line. That, though, was the last that anyone ever saw of him. Initially presumed to be dead, his death on this date was later confirmed.

Frank Cook, meanwhile, was promoted to sergeant in July 1916 and commissioned in the 1/10th Manchester Regiment in November 1916. He married Nora Richardson in January 1918 and in April that year he was promoted lieutenant. On the 30th August 1918 he was awarded the Military Cross for the part he played in the capture of a village. The citation reads, “This officer, minding that the platoon on his left was held up, after reconnoitering the hostile position, successfully pushed on with his platoon, with great gallantry and skill drove the enemy from his position, thus enabling the platoon on his left to gain its objective. Twice he led his platoon forward at critical moments. This initiative and determination greatly assisted towards the success of the operation.” 

Frank was presented with his medal in the Field on the 7th October 1918 but then, on the 20th October and with the Armistice almost in sight, his luck ran out and he was killed in action. He was 28 years old and is buried at Belle Vue British Cemetery, Briastre. Both Frank and Jack were also commemorated on the Roll of Honour in the New North Road Baptist Church in Huddersfield, the church subsequently demolished in 1971 to make way for the town’s ring road.

Paul Nixon is the owner of https://britisharmyancestors.co.uk/, a free resource comprising over 100,000 images of soldiers within a database of over 12 million names. Frank and Jack’s portraits, along with many of their compatriots in the Royal Fusiliers public schools battalions have, with the permission of Sutton Archives, been re-published on this site.