With the outbreak of the First World War, it was not surprising that a
number of individuals who were of German decent, and who lived in
Hartlepool and its surrounding areas, were rounded up and detained by
the British military authorities, in the interests of both national
security and for their own personal safety. They were held at the towns
Stranton Ice Rink. Their numbers included the ex-German Consul for the
Hartlepool's district as well as others who had been local residents of
many years standing.
The first soldier with connections to Hartlepool to be killed on foreign
soil during the war, was Corporal 57561 John Robert Richardson, who was
serving with the 54th Battery, Royal Field Artillery, when he was killed
in action on 4 October 1914. He is buried at the Bergen Communal
Cemetery at Mons.
The war came to Hartlepool on the morning of Wednesday, 16 December 1914
in the shape of three vessels of the Imperial German Navy. By the time
their attack was over, more than 1,100 artillery shells had landed on
the town, killing 9 soldiers, 86 civilians and wounding a further 438.
Amongst the dead was 29 year old Private 18/295 Theophilus Jones of the
18th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, making him the first British
serviceman to be killed on British soil as a result of enemy action
during the course of the First World War. Before the war was over, his
brother Alfred, would also be killed, during fighting at the Battle of
Arras, on 3 May 1917.
By the time the war had ended, some 1700 men and women from Hartlepool
and its surrounding areas had paid the ultimate price of having served
their King and country.
