Margate and Ramsgate during the first world war. For some reason or another while Ramsgate was very heavily bombed Margate came through virtually unscathed. The two pictures of schools here one shows Margate school for the deaf during world war 1 and the other shows Chatham House school in Ramsgate, I'm assuming this photograph shows it when it was the Canadian convalescent home during world war 1, it could be at some other time so please correct me if you think I'm wrong.
Here in Michael's bookshop in Ramsgate we publish the personal diary of a man who commuted between Westgate and Ramsgate every day during world war 1.He lived in Ramsgate and worked in Westgate.
Here is an excerpt from the diary and I have also put a picture of Westgate gas works as it features in the text.
“Cockburn's Diary Ramsgate Life in the First Word War”
Sunday June 17th 1917
This morning Ramsgate has been pretty heavily “strafed” by a zepp. I was awakened about 2.10 a.m. by a heavy explosion followed almost immediately by a second one and I was just wondering whether it was the monitor practicing or the “real thing” when I saw the windows lit up by a star shell or searchlight. Heard a loud shrieking as of a shell or aerial torpedo, a terrific explosion and the glass of my bedroom window tinkled out onto the roof of the bow window below. I decided that it was the “real thing”! I hurried on a few clothes and ran out of the room and Father, Mother, Maud (their maid) and I descended to the dining room. The noise of the explosions was almost continuous by this time, and we thought at first it was enemy ships at sea and our ships were engaging them, so fast and furious was the noise. Presently Maud said that in her excitement she had left her bedroom candle alight on the chair by her bed at the top of the house and as we did not want any accident to happen, I volunteered to go up and put it out. It wasn’t very nice going up there when the house was being shaken by constant explosions, but I got up there and back without any mishap. Coming down again I peeped through one of the front blinds and saw the red glow of a big fire in the direction of the seafront. (I ought to have said, that before this, we had descended to the breakfast room.)
The explosions went on for at least half an hour and when all seemed quiet again and we had all had a cup of tea, Father and I went out to investigate. Outside we saw Stock [greengrocer 32 West Cliff Road] and Rumney [tailors, 14 West Cliff Road] the later telling us that all the glass in his shop and house, in West Cliff Road was shattered and the street literally full of broken glass. In Albert Street, several houses were wrecked completely, and the police and ambulance men were busy digging out those who were buried in the ruins. The big Canadian Motor ambulances were already busy taking the wounded to the hospital. When we got on to the front, near the searchlight at the top of Jacobs ladder, we saw where the fire was. It was the old fish market, which the Naval Authorities had used as an ammunition store, and the noise, which we had taken for a naval engagement was the shells exploding in the store as the fire reached them. The remains of the place were still burning merrily. This was a lucky hit for the zepp! Afterwards I went to Grammie Ports, Uncle Wills and Aunt Kate’s to see if they were alright, and then I came back and went to bed to see if I could get a nap, as I was expecting to go on parade at 9.15 a.m. for a route March to Vincent Farm. However as there was now no glass at all in one sash of my bedroom window and people kept streaming past and talking excitedly all the time, I only got “cat naps” so to speak. We all had breakfast early and I went round to Glenthorne where I found the only damage was two panes of glass gone from the back bedroom window. Tucker, at Glenvalon [Elms Ave.] got it worse, as he tells me that his back bedroom window and a lot of glass in his greenhouse has gone and the folding doors from the backroom into the greenhouse were forced open, the glass broken and the woodwork broken away from the bolt. Our folding doors were forced open but not broken, so I think they could not have been securely bolted, which has turned out to be a good job.
Coming out of Glenthorne, I met one of the Corporals of the K.V.R. who gave me instructions to report at Headquarters for duty at 9 o/c as we were to relieve the Special Constables, who had been on duty since 3 a.m. From the Drill Hall, we were marched to the police station and thence up the Western Approach Road, through Addington Street and down Queen Street, posting men at various points as we went along. I was stationed at the bottom of Cliff Street, with orders to let no one pass up that street unless they lived there or had urgent business. We were relieved about 2.30 p.m.
As we were marched to our posts we had a fleeting glimpse of the havoc caused. All along the front, Addington Street, Queen Street and Harbour Street, as far as the L.C.& D.R. [London, Chatham and Dover Railway] Station, nearly every window in every house was broken. The amount of broken glass was enormous and the corporation men were sweeping it up and taking it away in horses and carts nearly all the morning. It is estimated that 10,000 windows were broken in the town.
To be brief, what really appears to have happened is this – a zeppelin which had been known to be hovering about in the neighbourhood since midnight, came in over the harbour just after 2 a.m. and started dropping bombs or aerial torpedoes. Our anti-aircraft guns and the monitor opened fire on the intruder, and the gunners on the monitor claim to have hit and crippled her but it is not certain if she came down later on in the sea or not.
One of her first missiles hit the old fish market on the cross wall and set it alight. As this building was filled with explosives of one sort and another, there was a series of big explosions and this was evidently the noise we took for a naval engagement. The fire Brigade, I am told, turned out very smartly, but could not for a long time get nearer than the bottom of York Street, owing to the force of the explosions, and even then nearly all the firemen were knocked off their feet at one time or another. The Margate and Broadstairs engines came over, but none of them could get very near the fire for the same reason, and eventually, from what I saw of the ruins this morning it must have practically burned itself out.
From the Harbour the zeppelin seems to have come inland and dropped another torpedo in Albert Street where 2 or 3 cottages were absolutely demolished, several people being buried in the wreckage. It is here where the three deaths occurred and most of the injuries were sustained.
The air ship must then have come across the town, passing close by Oak Villa (between that house and the bottom of Vale Road) and dropped another explosive in Crescent Road, where 3 houses near the top of that road had the fronts blown out. I don’t think anyone was killed here but one or two had slight injuries and all had exciting adventures.
Ivy Lane
Another bomb was dropped in front of Southwood House (Lady Rose Weigall’s Home) [St. Lawrence] where two trees were uprooted and the whole of the glass in the front of the house smashed and a hole 14 ft wide blown in the lawn.
The raider then passed over Manston (dropping a bomb between St. Lawrence Church and the level crossing in Manston Road and another in Manston itself), and over Westgate Gas Works, where it was seen by one of our stokers to turn and head out to sea, passing the coastline in the direction of Margate.
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