Category:Military History

A category for all things military on the wiki. The city of Chester, from its essentially Roman foundation at a strategic crossing point on the River Dee has a strong thread of military history stretching from Roman Chester through the Dark Ages, the Viking period and the Civil War. Close to the border with Wales it has, as befits a border town, one of the best-preserved City Walls in the country, despite them having been fought over on several occasions. The border has fluctuated between the River Gowy, the River Dee and possibly even the nearby mid Cheshire Sandstone Ridge along which even a short walk along will touch on many interesting sites, from hill-forts to a nuclear bunker.

Military History
The Romans left around 400 with the fortress having been the base for Legio II and Legio XX. During the Dark Ages which followed, the Battle of Chester took place in 616. The city was re-fortifed by the Saxons under Æthelflæd in the early 10th Century, her brother Edward the Elder died at Farndon after fighting at Chester and the Battle of Brunanburh was probably fought just north of the city. During the 11th Century it became the home to powerful Saxon earls. Equally powerful Norman Earls of Chester replaced these after 1066, when Chester was the last city to fall to the Normans, who promptly added Chester Castle to the defenses of the city as one of a string of Cheshire Castles along the River Dee. Local legend has it that Harold II survived the Battle of Hastings to live out the remainder of his life at the Hermitage.



During the time of Edward I Chester was an important base for the conquest of Wales. Later it was a much-favored city of Richard II (who was eventually imprisoned in Chester - leaving legends of his Royal Treasure being hidden nearby) and a source of revolt for his successors. Once a major port, Chester declined but was still important during the Civil War when a protracted siege and a further major battle took place. Chester resident Roger Whitley (1618 – 17 July 1697) was a royalist officer in the English Civil War, attaining the rank of Major General (2nd in command of their forces in the battle for the Isle of Anglesey) and was closely involved throughout the 1650s in plans for a royalist uprising against the Interregnum and Protectorate regimes. He had accompanied the young King Charles II into exile and carried the kings orders into Cheshire on the rising of forces, known as The Booth Rising, at the eve of the Restoration.

One often overlooked item of military history in Chester is the grave of Thomas Gould, who is buried under the roundabout between Grosvenor Street and Grosvenor Road. This is the site of the graveyard of St Bridget (since demolished). The grave marker is shaped as a casket and inscribed:


 * IN MEMORY OF THOMAS GOULD LATE OF THE 52ND REGT. OF FOOT LI. DIED IN NOVEMBER 1865 AGED 72 YEARS 46 OF WHICH WERE SPENT IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY. HE WAS PRESENT IN THE FOLLOWING ENGAGEMENTS. VIMERA, CORUNA, CROSSING THE GOE NEAR ALMEIDA, BSACO, PUMBAL, REDINHA, CONDEIXA, FOZ D'AVOCA, SARUGAL, FUENTES DONOLE, STORMING OF CUIDAD RODRIGO AND RADASOS SALMANCA, SAN MUNOS (fallen prisoner), ST MILAN, VITTORIA, PYRENEES, STORMING OF THE FRENCH ESTABLISHMENT OF VERA (wounded), NIVELLE, PASSAGE OF THE NEVE ORTHES, TARBES, TOULOUSE AND WATERLOO. HE RECEIVED THE PENINSULA MEDAL WITH 13 CLASPS AND THE WATERLOO MEDAL. THE STONE IS PLACED OVER HIM BY A FEW FRIENDS

The Grosvenor Museum houses the largest collection of Roman tombstones from a single site in Britain. With a few exceptions, all the stones in the gallery had been reused at some time to repair the City Walls. The tombstones on display tell you something about the lives of the soldiers, slaves, women and children who lived in Roman Chester. Chester has a Military Museum which is particularly concerned with the Cheshire Regiment, the Militia and various associated units including the Cheshire Yeomanry, the 3rd Carabiniers, the 5th Royal Iniskilling Dragoon Guards and the Eaton Hall Officer Cadet School. The Medical Museum contains a permanent collection of curiosities from the world of medicine, nursing, midwifery and social work which features an original letter from Florence Nightingale, written from the Crimea in 1856. The "First World War: Returning Home" exhibition commemorates the 100-year anniversary of the conflict and provides an insight into what a soldier invalided back from the Front would have found on his return to Cheshire. Using local examples wherever possible, the exhibition covers aspects such as the psychological effects of war.

HMS Chester was a "Birkenhead" class light cruiser (sometimes called a "Town" class) fought as part of the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron at Jutland. Those killed on the Chester included John Travers Cornwell (VC) (8 January 1900 – 2 June 1916), - who died aged 16. Other elements of naval military history in Chester include the "Galeka Bell" which was salvaged from a WWI hospital ship, SS Galeka.

Before the Romans
Hill forts in Britain are known from the Bronze Age (for more see: Before The Romans), but overall the great period of hill fort construction was during the Iron Age, between 200 BC and the Roman conquest. Although there are over 1,300 hill forts in England, they are concentrated in the south of the country, with only a few in Cheshire. Eddisbury is the largest and most complex of the Cheshire hill forts. The Cheshire hill forts differ from the southern hill-forts in one important respect: they belong to the late Bronze Age and the early to mid Iron Age. It has been suggested that the once widespread view that the Cheshire area was a hillfort dominated region at the time of the Roman invasion is false - an alternative view is that the hillforts were built early and abandoned by the Middle Iron Age (i.e after c500 BC).

The Romans
The Romans had a well-trained, well-equipped, professional army who were also well-housed and well-fed. They were characterised by permanent military bases which were well connected by good roads that allowed for supply and troop movements. Bases had such benefits as bath-houses, hospitals, workshops and often associated civilian settlements.

Related Pages

 * Roman Chester
 * City Walls
 * Legio II
 * Legio XX
 * Grosvenor Museum

Early Modern
The formation of a shield wall (scieldweall or bordweall in Old English, skjaldborg in Old Norse) is a military tactic that was common in many cultures in the Pre-Early Modern warfare age. There were many slight variations of this tactic among these cultures, but in general, a shield wall was a "wall of shields" formed by soldiers standing in formation shoulder to shoulder, holding their shields so that they abut or overlap. Each soldier benefits from the protection of his neighbours' shields as well as his own. In the battles between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes in England, most of the Saxon army would have consisted of the inexperienced Fyrd — a militia composed of free peasants. The shield-wall tactic suited such soldiers, as it did not require extraordinary skill, being essentially a shoving and fencing match with weapons.

Related Pages

 * Battle of Chester
 * Battle of Brunanburh
 * Viking

Medieval
It is a bit of a stretch to claim that the Normans were the originators of the use of heavy cavalry in the European context. However, they undoubtedly perfected the concept and made the most of it.

The Normans built a line of defence from the Dee Estuary southwards to defend Cheshire from the Welsh. It ran roughly NW to SE and comprised at least nine castles starting with (1) Shotwick on the North side of the Dee, then (2) Chester Castle, (3) Dodleston, (4) Pulford, (5) Aldford, (6) Holt, (7) Shocklach, (8) Malpas and (9) Oldcastle.

In the Late Middle Ages, the shield was abandoned in favor of polearms carried with both hands (and often partial plate armor), giving rise to the pike square tactics.

Related Pages

 * Cheshire Castles
 * Chester Castle
 * Beeston Castle
 * Royal Treasure

Gunpowder
The later part of the 15th and early-16th centuries was a period of great experimentation and innovation in the technology of gunpowder weapons, something confirmed by the variation in type and size of munitions fired at, for example, the Battle of Bosworth. The Civil War came at a time of transition from armies being equipped with bows and lances to the era of pike and musket, from an army called-up only in time of war to a well-trained standing army and the emergence of the army as a distinct political unit which could defy both Crown and parliament. As was often the case in Chester the course of events was influenced by the peculiar status of the city as a distinct administrative unit from the the county.

Related Pages

 * Civil War
 * Leadworks

Mechanised Warfare
Mechanized warfare, is the employment of mobile attack and defense tactics that depend upon machines, which in some cases increase the rate at which troops can move, often to give a benefit of surprise. In 1867, Chester Castle was the focus of an audacious plot by Fenians (supporters of Republicanism in Ireland) that ended in farce. Their plan was that around 2,000 men would infiltrate Chester and, under American-Irish command (by officers with experience in the American Civil War), seize a cache of rifles belonging to the Chester Volunteers. These arms would be used to storm the castle, at that time garrisoned by only 60 regular soldiers of the 54th Regiment. The castle arsenal contained 10,000 rifles and 900,000 rounds of ammunition, which the Fenians hoped to obtain. Once armed, the plan was to commandeer a train, take the arms to Holyhead, seize a streamer, sail to Wexford and raise a revolt in Ireland. In effect, the use of trains to bring their forces to Chester and to escape by rail and then steal a steamer was an early example of mechanised warfare to gain the benefits of mobility, despite being an example taken from asymmetric warfare.