This week is Armistice Day, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, marking the end of the First World War, so it seem appropriate to reflect on the massive impact this had on so many families in Britain and around the world, including our Gibbs family.

Many of the Wraxall branch of our family, centred around Tyntesfield, were very actively involved with the North Somerset Yeomanry. This photo of seven Gibbs brothers and cousins, taken around 1911, seems particularly poignant; that would have had no inkling of the horrors that some of them would face three years later as a cavalry unit heading to Europe.

7 Gibbs Brothers and Cousins in North Somerset Yeomanry
Left to right: Lionel, Guy, Hughie, George (later Lord Wraxall), Eustace, Ralph, Rev.Jack c 1911

Of the 7 Gibbs in the photo only Captain Eustace Lyle Gibbs did not survive the war, killed in action on February 1915 near Ypres in Belgium, where he was buried. I was advised by someone recently about “The Memoires of Percy Withers” (published in 2015) who was a pre war territorial in the Wells troop of ‘C’ Squadron and went out to France with the regiment. He recounts:

“ Most of us had been relieved by some Lancers and were waiting by the dugouts to get orders to march off when we heard some dreadful news. A Sergeant Rawlings, who was a signaller on Regimental HQ, was packing up the signallers kit which he kept in a small dugout when he accidently discharged his rifle, killing Captain Eustace Gibbs and also Trooper Stone, a signaller who belonged to our second Troop. Of course, it was entirely an accident but Sgt. Rawlings, who had been actively disliked as a noisy bully, was now hated ; and we were glad when he asked for a transfer to another unit “

Inside one of Christopher Gibbs’ books I came across a list of 45 “Relations of Henry Lord Aldenham serving in the War” compiled from Army List of 30th November and Navy Lists of 18th December 1915. Already 4 are marked as Killed in that first year, and others lost their lives, or were severely impacted, in the following years.

David Hogg, an avid researcher and author of books about the Gibbs Family, wrote “In Memoriam – Tyntesfield and the First World War” dedicated to the young men from Tyntesfield whose lives were sacrificed during the First World War.

One of the first members of the family to cross the Channel to France was Lancelot Merivale Gibbs. He wrote an extraordinary Diary of the First World War, together with letters from the Western Font. There are also letters from Gallipoli, where William Gibbs and Jack Merivale served; indeed Jack died in this conflict. John Evelyn Gibbs was taken Prisoner of War at Gheluvedt in October 1914 and only released in January 1919. Later that year he married Lady Helena Cambridge at Windsor Castle.

in addition to the extensive letters and diaries from the Front, the book also recounts the lives of some of the women back home. Victoria de Burgh Gibbs (Lady Wraxall) was Vice President of the Somerset Red Cross and helped establish hospital wards in Flax Bourton and Portishead, equipped with furniture from Tyntesfield and supplying vegetables from the gardens. Via also directed the Bristol Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Help Society. She sadly succumbed to the flu epidemic shortly after the war. Ursula Lawley (later Last Wraxall) was a VAD nurse in France, together with her sister Cecilia, and were awarded the Royal Red Cross.

On the other side of the world, after the demise of guano, Antony Gibbs & Sons had become heavily involved in the nitrate business in Chile, which led the British government at the outbreak of war in 1914 to ask the firm to take over the purchasing, shipping, and financing of all nitrate requirements for munitions; to see to its storage, and its delivery to factories. These services the firm rendered without charge to the government.