Harry Daniels VC MC: Norfolk's First World War hero

‘The first Norfolk man to be given the VC’ ran the headline in more than one newspaper feature on Harry Daniels. Regular readers of this column will know that’s not right, Admiral Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson of Swaffham was thus honoured more than 30 years before Harry Daniels.

But in many ways the award to Daniels is the more remarkable. Wilson was the son of an Admiral, born into privilege and educated at Eton. Daniels, born in 1884, the year Wilson won his VC, was the son of a Wymondham baker, one, reputedly, of 16 children. One parent died when Harry was 4, the other when he was 6 at which age Harry became the responsibility of the Norwich Board of Guardians and went, with one of his brothers, to live in their home in St Faith’s Lane, Norwich, sandwiched between The Close and Prince of Wales Road. At the time about 40 boys were accommodated there, and Harry was not happy. He ran away, twice. The first time he was found within a few days – having apparently existed on a diet exclusively of turnips. The second time, he planned his departure more carefully, made it to Yarmouth, got a job as a cabin boy on a fishing vessel and was ‘on the loose’ for several months.

Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson, Admiral of the Fleet and Norfolk's first VC recipient. (Image: Newsquest library.) At this stage the board, perhaps despairing at the prospect of the popular Harry influencing other residents ‘boarded him out’. After leaving school he was apprenticed to a carpenter. He did not complete his apprenticeship, leaving to join up in the Rifle Brigade at the age of 19 aware that another of his brothers had died in the service of the Coldstream Guards, during the Boer War. He was clearly a man of spirit, and yearned excitement. After training he was stationed initially in India where he was involved with everything, a musician in the band, and apparently a star in the battalion’s drama club. But sport was perhaps what he enjoyed most. According to several sources he was such an accomplished boxer that in 1920 he was selected for the British team in the Antwerp Olympics. However he doesn’t appear in the official records as a member of the team - whether or not he was an Olympian, he was certainly a good boxer, and regimental champion.

While in India he met and married, in Calcutta, Kathleen Perry, the daughter of a warrant officer. By then he was himself a sergeant. Some nine months after the wedding, in September 1914, they sailed back to England, the war was already six weeks old. He sailed for France in November and was promoted to company sergeant major within a few weeks.

A Victoria Cross medal. (Image: Newsquest library) On March 12, 1915 his battalion was engaged in the battle of Neuve Chapelle. Ordered to advance on enemy trenches his company found themselves severely hampered by an unbroken entanglement of barbed wire and harassed by a continuous stream of machine-gun fire. Without hesitation Harry and his friend Corporal Noble rushed forward and began to cut the wires. They had almost completed the task when Harry sustained a wound in the leg and then Noble was shot in the chest. Despite his own wound, Harry dragged his friend into the comparative safety of a shell hole until they were able to get back to their own lines. Sadly, Noble died of his wounds a few days later; Harry was evacuated, and his wounds treated at the Military Orthopaedic Hospital in Hammersmith. It was while there that he discovered that he had been awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions on March 12. Astonishingly, he only heard about it when he read it in a newspaper! He must have been pleased to learn that Corporal Noble was also the recipient of a (posthumous) VC for the same action. Their joint citation referred to ‘most conspicuous bravery’ and to they’re having ‘voluntarily rushed in front and succeeded in cutting the wires’.

The VC was presented to him by the King at Buckingham Palace, just two months after the action and a few weeks later he came to Norwich, where he was greeted as the hero he was, and presented with a ‘purse of gold’ at a civic ceremony.

In addition to the awards, he became a commissioned officer in July, before returning to duty in France. 1915 had been quite a year for him, but it wasn’t over yet. Just two months later the Lord Mayor of Norwich must have been distressed to receive a telegram reporting that Harry Daniels had been killed in action. Happily, it turned out to have been a ‘Mark Twain moment’ and was ‘greatly exaggerated’. Harry remained fit and well enough to give yet further evidence of his astonishing bravery.

A Military Cross medal. (Image: Newsquest library) A few months had passed since his return to France when, in March 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross for his action in carrying, under very heavy fire, a wounded member of his patrol more than 300 yards back from ‘the edge of the enemy’s wire’. The citation also referred to various other similar forays by Harry. In addition to the VC and the MC he was twice mentioned in despatches. Sometimes, hearing or reading about heroic actions one is struck by the spontaneity and almost unconscious response to circumstances which led to an individual exposing himself to exceptional danger. Harry seems to have acted in this way so often that his instinct must have been extraordinarily strong, even amongst the exalted company of those awarded medals for their gallantry.

In July of the same year Harry was wounded again, fracturing his arm. He was then given responsibility for training both in fitness and the use of bayonets, and he travelled to the USA as part of the 1918 British Military Mission, designed to strengthen cooperation and improve coordination between the armies of the two countries. When the war was over he remained in the army, responsible for bayonet and fitness training at Aldershot, where he was subsequently Assistant Provost Marshal, effectually responsible for discipline and in charge of a number of Military Police, retiring in 1930.

Harry Daniels grew up in Wymondham (Image: Denise Bradley) In retirement he moved into the hospitality business, managing a hotel in Essex. He must have missed the military life because 3 years later, according to the Rifle Brigade’s own website, he re-joined as a recruiting officer, being promoted to Lt Col the following year. He continued in this role right through to 1942, when he retired again. In these later years he had been based in the north of England, and he and his wife (they had no children) decided to stay there. He reverted to his involvement in the leisure industry, becoming manager of the Grand Theatre and Opera House in Leeds. The building of this splendid bit of Victoriana is said to have been sparked by a chance remark by Prince Albert who, while visiting the city reputedly told the mayor that Leeds needed a theatre to improve local culture. Since Albert died in 1861, and the theatre was not built until 1878, there must be some doubt as to whether this story is true, but the theatre itself, now much restored, must have been splendid enough in Harry’s time as manager.

His wife died in 1949, but Harry remained in Leeds. In 1953 he was invited to attend the Coronation, but suffered a heart attack having travelled to London before the event, and died in a Leeds hospital on his 69th birthday in December that year. Even after all those years in Leeds he clearly had retained an affection for Aldershot – he asked that his ashes should be scattered over the cricket ground there.

How does one sum up this extraordinary man? Perhaps it is best left to his obituarist, who had been the subaltern of the company of which he was CSM at the time of Neuve Chappelle. Comparing Harry to a C S Forester hero, he described him as ‘a born leader, gay, light-hearted, and very brave, and terrified me out of my life. Looking back after 40 years, I can still remember his cheerful grin on all occasions, however horrible. He was a fine athlete, and in a fight he was everything a young officer could want’.

What a remarkable life – what a remarkable man. It’s no surprise that in Wymondham his memory is honoured not just with a road named Harry Daniels Close, but also with a commemorative stone placed by the town’s war memorial.