Cannon takes a soaking
A column about days gone by in Melksham by local historian Lisa Ellis
For nearly 60 years, John Henry Gray had been climbing the attic ladder once a week to wind the town hall clock. He never noticed the German rifles.
In 1956, when workmen entered the attic to install new lights for the council chamber below, the six rifles were discovered, carefully arranged but covered in dust. Gray stated that when he would go to service the clock, he went directly to his work point with the aid of a torch and was only aware of “a big space” in the attic.
The mystery of the rifles, seeming to date between 1907 and 1918, baffled police and they believed they might have been taken from prisoners during World War I.
They only needed to look in newspapers of that time to solve the mystery.
In December 1919, chairman Frederick Henry Knee spoke to the town council, talking with pride about the cannon that was temporarily moved to the Market Place. He’d personally selected it after visiting the Devizes barracks. There, they had a good number of cannons on show that had been captured by the Wiltshire Regiment in France during World War I. This particular cannon was in good nick and had not been fired very many times, which proved it hadn’t been used against too many English soldiers. It just needed a lick of paint.
The collections of German booty were being distributed to towns to put on display. Besides the canon, Knee requested a package of small arms so that the children of Melksham might see them. He received ten rifles.
At this time, a permanent resting place for the cannon had not been agreed and in the ensuing weeks, much debate took place. If settled in the Market Place, they would need to surround it by railing, which would cost about £40.
Henry Davis of the town council argued that it should be logically placed in Canon Square, near the newly erected memorial cross. He maintained the 20-foot-long cannon in the Market Place would interfere with traffic and cause problems during market day.
But if put in Canon Square, it was argued that many people who had lost sons and other relatives in the war would not wish to see this instrument of death near the memorial.
The council vote ended 5-4 in favour of the Market Place location. They then determined the fate of the German rifles. The ten would be divided into pairs, with each going to the four primary schools (National, Lowbourne, Sandridge and Shaw), and the last pair being exhibited in the town hall.
A ceremony was planned for Friday 18th February 1921, to officially welcome the cannon to its permanent residing place. A cement slab had been prepared as a base, and nearby was an inscription recording that it was captured by the Wiltshire Regiment during the Great War. Except on the day, the slab was empty.
During the Thursday night before, the cannon was seized and dumped into the Avon, next to the Hurn Bros. sawmills, leaving it to lie there with the muzzle and one of the wheels showing out of the water.
Newspapers stated at the time that discharged soldiers were incensed at the fact that Melksham was contenting itself with this gun as a memorial and doing nothing as a town to commemorate the sacrifices of Melksham men who fought and fell in the war. They, therefore, vented their indignation by dropping the gun in the river.
However, the culprits, the “discharged soldiers” mentioned above, and the reasons given were taken from text in a Bath Chronicle article, Saturday 19th February 1921. The explanation given didn’t match the timing because the War Memorial in Canon Square was dedicated on 23rd August 1919, which did, and still does, commemorate war sacrifices.
Since then, family stories passed down generations reveal a possible different scenario – that the cannon was dumped by drunken hooligans who were not happy when Chippenham got a tank and Melksham only got a canon.
The cannon was thought to have been melted down for scrap metal during World War II. Has anyone seen the rifles?
Pictured below: Melksham Market Place with WWI canon in place day(s) before the ceremony
Pictured below: Onlookers at canon dumped in River Avon by Hurn Bros sawmills (present-day view – standing on Avon bridge looking toward Sainsbury’s car park
