The artifact
Book of poetry by Jimmie Howcroft, 1st edition 1922
The stories behind the artifact
James (known as Jimmie) Howcroft Junior (22nd May 1893 – September 1936) was born in Bolton, Lancashire. The son of James Howcroft and his wife Margaret, nee Coop. Jimmie’s elder brother Fred was born in 1892. Jimmie’s father taught at the Sunday school at Fern Street Wesleyan Chapel in Bolton.
Fred became a coal miner and Jimmie, who began work at the age of twelve, was apprenticed to an electrical engineer when he was fifteen. He worked as an electrician in various factories and was a keen sportsman in his spare time. After the death of the boys’ father, Margaret re-married. Her second husband was Richard Taylor and in 1901, the family lived at No. 10 Haynes Street in Bolton. Richard and Margaret’s only child, a daughter, died in infancy.
Like the majority of men in the early years of the Great War, the brothers saw it as their patriotic duty to fight, Jimmie joined the Royal Flying Corps as a mechanic and his brother Fred joined The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, and was sent to the Western Front. Like almost a million others, he never came home.
Jimmie, who played football for his Squadron, became an observer, which meant he could accompany pilots in planes, and he, too, was posted to The Western Front. He flew on active service for 23 Squadron as an observer/gunner, flying in Royal Aircraft factory F.E.2b pusher biplanes. On the 14th September, after a reconnaissance mission over the Somme, his pilot hit a telegraph pole on landing, sending the FE cartwheeling, and ejecting Jimmie from the ‘pulpit’ type cockpit. The crash resulted in Jimmie’s back being badly fractured and he was sent back to Britain for treatment. The journey to London took three days, where he was in absolute agony.
For five years Jimmie lay in a hospital bed in The London Hospital, completely paralysed and unable to move. Jimmie’s poems are a testament to his courage. As he could not move his arms or hands, he dictated the poems to his nurse, Phyllis Harding. On 20th May 1921, Jimmie was finally able to leave hospital. Jimmie’s first collection, “Looking on”, with a foreword by John Oxenham, was published in 1920 to critical acclaim. In spite of the cover price of two shillings and six pence – half a crown, as the coin was called, which would be equivalent to the purchasing power of £40 in today’s money – became an immediate best seller, as war poetry was extremely popular. Using the money that the poetry sales had generated, he was able to purchase a cottage, ‘Little Forest Gate Cottage’ in Liphook, Hampshire. Two women also moved with him, the first, his devoted mother, Margaret Taylor; the other, Phyllis Harding, the nurse who had nursed him for his five-year stay in The London Hospital. They were both there to nurse him and attend to his every need.
Jimmie dictated a second volume of poetry, presumably again recorded by Phyllis. This second collection, ‘The Songs of a Broken Airman’, had an introduction by John O’London, and was published by Hodder & Stoughton, London in 1922. The full collection can be read in the download below.
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