The competition was held yearly in Sledmere, the main event being a timed run round a figure of eight obstacle course, the horses being driven postillion style. There were also competitions which involved dismantling and reassembling wheels and axles together with loading and unloading with fifty pound sacks against the clock. The competitions became a celebrated local event and in July 1913 there were two thousand spectators and fifty teams com-peted. The last competition in July 1914 was so thronged with competitors that heats had to be held and of course it was a good rehearsal for the coming events of war. At this time there were 960 Wagoners, 56 Foremen and 12 Roadmasters.
The Wagoners were mobilized within a couple of days of the declaration of war. It was an exceptionally early harvest that year and not a few were handed their mobilisation papers in the harvest field with orders to report to Bradford Moor Barracks by six o'clock that evening. Eight hundred Wagoners presented themselves in Bradford by the deadline and were put up in schools and church halls. There they were designated to five Army Service Corps Companies:
- 9th Company 1st Reserve Park
- 12th Company 5th Reserve Park
- 20th Company 4th Reserve Park
- 30th Company 2nd Reserve Park
- 34th Company 3rd Reserve Park
and were dispersed to their depots to pickup their equipment and within a matter of days most were in France.
I had the opportunity of talking at length to one of the founder members of the Wagoner's Reserve, a spry and soldierly man of ninety, Mr. William Maltby of Bridlington, formerly Driver W. Maltby 530 CHT who holds the Mons Star and who remained in the ASC as a regular until 1923. He had no difficulty in recalling receiving his mobilization papers whilst harvesting, mid-morning, a couple of days after the outbreak of war. He made his way by bicycle and train from the fields of the Yorkshire Wolds and arrived in Bradford to report at the Barracks by eight o'clock. That evening he slept in a schoolroom, having had with some sense of shock his first army meal of thick bread and cups of tea. After a day's pause he was sent to Aldershot as a member of 20th Company, Army Service Corps, where he picked up his general service wagon, harness, horses, uniform and rifle. He told me that one of the surprising things was that his uniform was already laid out for him when he arrived and it fitted perfectly.
After a brief test of proficiency at driving which he passed with flying colours and some musketry instruc-tions for ten days, he left for Southampton where he and horses and wagons were embarked for Le Havre and once there entrained for the front. Continuing the story, he told me of how the drivers travelled with the horses, four draught horses at each end of the train, with harness and GS wagons in the middle. It took three days from Le Havre to arrive at their destination, Le Cateau by 23rd August. From then on his work lay in helping to supply units of the Cavalry Division during the retreat from Mons. In October he was wounded and temporarily blinded in one eye by a shell burst and was invalided home. After a spell at Netley Hospital he returned to France as a member of the 21st Company ASC serving as a driver with Number 6 Field Ambulance for the rest of the war. During the conversation he told me that the Wagoners were paid as specialists receiving a shilling a day, plus sixpence proficiency and two pence corps pay. After 1916 they received a penny a day extra for each year of service. In 1919 he was in Germany as part of the Army of occupation and he served on until 1923 as a regular soldier.
Sources
Wagoner's Special Reserve Unit History (St. Mary's Parish Church, Sledmere).
Roger Adelson. Mark Sykes: A Portrait of an Amateur (1975).
Driffield Times, 14th August 1964 (50th Anniver-sary Edition].
D.J. Smith, Horse Drawn Transport of the British Army (Shire Publications). Lieut.-General Sir John Glubb, Into Battle: a soldier's diary of the Great War (London, Cassell, 1978).
