"Preparing
for war”
The diary
of Alphaeus Abbott Casey (1895-1916, soldier, Sheffield) (MS 312) is held in Special Collections, University of Sheffield Library
Dates:
January-March 1915, July, September, November, December 1915-February 1916.
Alphaeus
Abbott Casey (Private, 12/69) was a student of the University of Sheffield who
joined the Sheffield City Battalion (12th Bn. York and Lancaster
Regiment), which was formed in September 1914, partly at the behest of members
of the University of Sheffield, and recruiting from both university and
commercial men. He was killed in action on 1st July 1916 at the age of 21 at
Serre (on the Somme), along with many other
members of the Battalion. The author John Harris, in A covenant with death, his fictional
story of a recruit in the Sheffield City Battalion, describes the battle thus:
“Two years in the making. Ten minutes in the destroying. That was our history”.
Casey is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial (Pier and Face 14A and 14B).
The diary
covers January to March 1915, when the Sheffield City Battalion were being
trained at Redmires, on the outskirts of Sheffield.
Written in pencil, it details daily events, training routines, family visits
and leisure activities. There are short entries in July, September and November
1915 noting the Battalion’s movements between various camps. It also includes
very brief entries (under the date of March 19th 1915) for the Battalion’s posting to
Egypt
between December 1915 and February 1916. At the beginning of the diary are
personal details, addresses, notes from 1914 and the words of Casey’s school
song. The rest of the diary is taken up by a handwritten alphabetised index of Arabic/English
vocabulary. Tucked in the back cover is a newspaper cutting dated 29th October 1914
of an English translation of a German poem “of hatred against Great Britain”.
[Notes
compiled partly from Richard A. Sparling, History of the 12th
Service Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment (Sheffield: Northend, 1920)
and Paul Oldfield & Ralph Gibson, Sheffield City Battalion
(Barnsley: Barnsley Chronicle, 1988)].
The University of Sheffield Library also holds a framed
memorial scroll of Alphaeus Abbott Casey. These scrolls were presented by the
King to the nearest relative of each service man and woman who gave their life
during the First World War. (AR 13).