As the First World War entered its second year patriotism was still running high among those left at home, despite the terrible casualties and the ever-growing number of faces of fallen man appearing in the local papers.
Two Salford girls took this idea to its logical extreme – berating the men they saw as ‘shirkers’ or ‘cowards’ who they believed had not enlisted to fight for their country.
In October 1915 Frederick Clark, of Bramley Street, Broughton was walking with his fiancee along Great Clowes Street on his way to Manchester when he was approached by two young girls, Gertrude and Madge Kent who lived at Burgess Street, Broughton.
They shouted at him, “Why aren’t you in the army?”, and “Show us your badge”, calling him a ‘slacker’ and a ‘coward’.
People who were employed in vital services for the war effort were given a badge to wear which read, “King and Country”.
Clark escaped with only his pride hurt.
The very next day the girls lay in wait for the unfortunate man and once again demanded to know why he wasn’t fighting on the Western Front with the thousands of other Salford men.
He explained that he had tried on two occasions to join the Army and had been rejected.
The commotion escalated when he asked them for their name and addresses: both girls turned violent, punching and kicking him about the body and legs.
Mr Clark had enough and contacted the police, however these two young ladies were not finished with him and the very next day they lay in wait for him.
This time he tried to show them a postcard from the Army Medical Board which stated that he was medically unfit for military service; their response was to rip it out of his hand and once again shower him with abuse and attempted to assault him.
Two plain clothes police officers spotted the attack and arrested both Madge and Gertrude on the spot.
Salford Magistrates Court heard that the behaviour of both girls was “calculated to do more harm than good to recruiting”.
Mr Flint, who was defending Frederick Clark, told the court that his client was as anxious as anybody to join the Army and had tried on several occasions to enlist.
Mr Clark took to the witness box, telling the Magistrate that he had tried to join the Army when war broke out in August 1914 and again in June 1915, all to no avail, and that he was still feeling the effects of the beating that the two girls had given him and “had the bruises to prove it”.
Gertrude Kent took the stand and said that Clark had never shown them an Army exemption form and that she had kicked him on the legs as self-defence when he tried to hit her.
Perhaps the true reason for the girls’ outrage came next. Gertrude rather poignantly told the court that she had three brothers fighting in France and the eldest had recently been killed so she didn’t think it was fair for a young man to be walking the streets when they should be in the Army.
The Magistrate listened to both parties, but declared the Kent sisters guilty of assault and they were fined 15 shillings – or five days imprisonment.
It is hard to believe but when the Great War broke out, no less a figure than the highly-decorated Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather.
The organization aimed to shame men into enlisting in the British Army by persuading women to present them with a white feather if they were not wearing a uniform.
Perhaps the most ironic use of a white feather was when one was forced upon a Seaman by the name of George Samson, who was on his way in civilian clothes to a public reception in his honour.
Samson had been awarded the Victoria Cross – the highest military decoration awarded for valour “in the face of the enemy” – for gallantry in the Gallipolli campaign.
