Archibald Stanley Butler Chorister, 1901-1904

• Matriculated: N/A

• Born: 25 May 1890

• Died: 16 August 1916

• Regiment: Royal Flying Corps

• Grave/Memorial: Lapugnoy Military Cemetery: I.F.60

Family background

b. 25 May 1890 at 86, Moyne Rd, Rathmines, Dublin South, Ireland, as the third son of Charles Dawson Butler (1858–1908) and Emily Jane Butler (née Brewer) (1862–1936) (m. 1885). The family moved from Dublin to England between 1892 and 1895, where Archibald Stanley was born at 356, Station Rd, Stechford, an eastern suburb of Birmingham. By the time of the 1901 Census the family was living at “The Moorings”, 23, Rotton Park Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham (two servants), and at the time of the 1911 Census (after Charles Dawson’s death) they were living at 102, Rotton Park Road (one servant). At the time of Charles Dawson’s death in 1908, they were living at 74, Oakfield Road, Cannon Hill, Birmingham; and later still the family moved to “Roseneath”, Station Road, Thames Ditton, Surrey.

 

Parents and antecedents

Butler’s father was the son of David Butler, the Superintendent of Paisley Poorhouse, Scotland. Charles Dawson was Insurance Manager in the Royal Exchange Co. in Birmingham for ten or eleven years but left after a breakdown in his health. In the three months before his death he worked as manager of the Birmingham branch of the London and Scottish Insurance Company. He committed suicide in May 1908 – ‘a bottle which apparently contained laudanum’ was found near his body. His breakdown was due to intemperance and his suicide note suggests there may have been some domestic issues. The coroner’s verdict was ‘suicide whilst temporarily insane’. He left £714.

 

Siblings and their families

Brother of:

(1) Alfred Dawson (b. 1886 in Dublin, d. 1940); married (1910) Bertha Constance Raingill (1884–1969); one daughter;

(2) Charles Dawson (1888–1963); married (1943) Mary Dronsfield Radcliffe (1905–63); two children;

(3) Annie Gertrude (1892–1963); later Collings after her marriage (1921) to Benjamin Charles Hawkins Collings (1880–1966); three children;

(4) Albert Cecil (later changed to Cecil Albert) (1895–1964); married (1927) Florence Blanche Seward (b. 1903); one daughter;

(5) Wallace (1900–78).

Alfred Dawson began his working life as a clerk, but in April 1904, when he was 18, he signed on in the Royal Navy for 12 years. He began by training as a signalman at HMS Impregnable (the training establishment at Devonport from 1862 to 1929) and HMS Vivid I (the depot ship at Devonport from 1892 to 1912) before going to sea on HMS Victorious (a majestic-class pre-Dreadnought battleship (1895–1923; scrapped) that served in the Channel Fleet from 1904 to 1908). Finally, after three days at HMS Pembroke I (the shore barracks at Chatham, 1903–83), he bought himself out of the Navy on 4 October 1906. He was at one time in printing but later in his life he probably became an accountant. He enlisted in the Army Service Corps as a Private in 1915 and was commissioned temporary 2^nd Lieutenant in 1917 (London Gazette, no. 30,092, 25 May 1917, p. 5,147).

Charles Dawson followed his father into the Royal Insurance Co. in Birmingham, but in August 1916 he was a temporary Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service and in April 1917 a temporary Lieutenant. At one time he worked as a ‘manager’ in South Africa.

At the time of the 1911 Census, Benjamin Collings was a provisions broker. During World War One he served in France from 4 January 1917 and ended his military career as a Captain in the Royal Field Artillery (RFA).

Cecil Albert attested for the Warwickshire Yeomanry, a cavalry regiment in the Territorial Forces (TF), on 18 January 1911, and on 11 April 1915 he and his Regiment, the 1/1^st Warwickshire Yeomanry, became part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF). They landed at Alexandria, Egypt, on 24 April 1915 and after a period of acclimatization and retraining as Dismounted Infantry, they sailed for Gallipoli on 18 August and landed at Suvla Bay on the following day, with Cecil Albert a trooper in no. 2 Squadron. But on 13 October 1915 he was admitted to the Field Hospital, Gallipoli, suffering from enteric fever, and was soon transferred to Malta, where he was admitted to St Andrew’s Hospital on 20 October. By 21 November 1915 he was a patient in No. 3 Southern General Hospital, Oxford, but he was declared fit for duty at Orchard Convalescent Hospital, Dartford, on 21 December 1915. Cecil Albert remained in England until 27 November 1916, but on 22 March 1916 he applied for a Territorial Commission and began his training at No. 1 Cavalry Cadet Squadron, Netheravon, Wiltshire, on 2 August 1916 on secondment from the 3/1^st Warwickshire Yeomanry. He was finally commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 3/1^st Bedfordshire Yeomanry (TF) on 28 November 1916 and spent the rest of the war in France, probably attached to the 19^th (Queen Alexandra’s Own Royal) Hussars. He was promoted Lieutenant on 28 May 1918 and returned to England because of sickness on 23 July 1918. After the war he emigrated to Rhodesia as a planter, where he married and became an insurance manager.

 

Education and professional life

Butler arrived at Magdalen College School on the same day as C.R.C. Maltby, but attended MCS only from 1901 to 1904. He was, however, a chorister throughout his time there, and gained several Junior School prizes. He was also an excellent gymnast, and in March 1902, his first year at the school, he won the annual junior gymnastics competition that was held in the University Gymnasium. In 1903 and 1904 he rowed in the Form IVs rowing competition, and in 1903 he played in the chorister’s cricket team alongside H.H. Dawes when it played home and away against Christ Church choristers. After his voice broke, he left school and became an insurance clerk in the Royal Exchange Insurance Co., Birmingham, his father’s former employer. By March 1915 he had become a Life Inspector in the Royal Exchange Assurance Co., Pall Mall, London W.

 

 

Military and war service

From 21 March 1908 to 8 April 1915, Butler, who was 5 foot 9½ inches tall, served as a Volunteer in ‘B’ Battery, 5^th Warwickshire Imperial Yeomanry (TF), and for seven consecutive summers he went away for two weeks to train. On 1 May 1913 he was promoted Lance-Corporal and he became a Corporal on 15 September 1914. But he then transferred to the 2/4^th (South Midland) Howitzer Brigade, RFA, where, on 9 April 1915, he was promoted from Corporal to Second Lieutenant (field commission). He probably landed at Le Havre with this unit as part of the 61^st (2^nd South Midlands) Division on 22 May 1915, and may even have served with it in France for about six months. But his name does not appear in its War Diary, even when he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. According to his service record and the Army List, Butler did his basic training as a pilot at the School of Military Aeronautics in Reading, Berkshire, from 29 December 1915 to 10 January 1916 and underwent more advanced training as an officer and in aeronautics in No. 3 Reserve/Training Squadron at Shoreham-on-Sea from 31 March to 10 April 1916. Earlier in the year J.R. Philpott had also been on the Shoreham course, and on 14 August, while relaxing there as Duty Officer, he wrote a letter to his Oxford friend, the pacifist Albert Victor Murray (1890–1967), in which he described its purpose in some detail and the point of his being there:

This is a school for officers when they first get transferred from their regiments to the R.F.C. […] We consist of about 30 officers, 18 machines, and air-mechanics and motor transport to match […]. We have about 12 machines for instruction purposes and half a dozen for repelling hostile attacks, etc., to be used by the instructors, who are all instructors back from the R.F.C. at the front.

He also described the course, which seems to have lasted two weeks when Butler took part in it, as “altogether, a delightful summer holiday!” and continued: “We have lectures on engines, rigging, dropping bombs and things, and one takes down notes and has collections on Gnôme [80 hp. rotary] engines [produced under licence in Britain and Germany and used on a wide variety of early aircraft] just as one did on the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals!”

Philpott was promoted Lieutenant in the Army Service Corps on 20 April 1916, and then became a member of 41 Squadron, RFC, from 27 to 28 April 1916 and 28 Squadron, RFC, from 29 April to 3 May 1916. But on 19 June 1916 Butler graduated as a Flying Officer, arrived in France on 28 June 1916, and was attached on the following day to 25 Squadron, RFC, which he joined as a replacement pilot when it was stationed at Auchel (Lozinghem) in France, about nine miles west of Béthune, preparing for the Battle of the Somme and taking an increasing number of casualties. One of the Squadron’s Flight Commanders was Captain Arthur William Tedder (1890–1967) who became Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Britain’s highest-ranking RAF officer during World War Two.

By July 1916 Butler had been posted to 25 Squadron which had been formed at Montrose, Scotland, from No. 6 (Reserve) Squadron on 25 September 1915 and was stationed on a grass airfield to the north-west of the town, next to a railway junction. On 31 December 1915, the Squadron moved to Thetford, Norfolk, where it was equipped with the two-seater F(ighter) E(xperimental) 2(b) that had been in production at the Royal Aircraft Factory since May 1915. The pilot sat in a high-sided compartment forward of the aircraft’s rear-mounted (pusher) engine and the observer/gunner occupied the front compartment, from which he could fire one Lewis Gun forwards, in a 180-degree arc, with relative ease, but in which he had to stand up, with his heels locked on the nacelle’s edge, in order to fire his second Lewis Gun backwards at a pursuer over the top wing. Powered by a 120 h.p. Beardmore (pusher) engine that was mounted behind the rear cockpit nacelle, it could reach 81 mph at 6,500 feet and had a service ceiling of 11,000 feet.

 

 

The first FE2(b) to go to France had arrived with No. 6 Squadron on 20 May 1915 but was obsolescent by the time that it began to fly over the lines in large numbers several months later. This was due in no small measure to the single-seat Fokker E(indecker)1 (Monoplane) which had come into service with the German Air Force in mid-summer 1915 and carried a single Parabellum machine-gun that was synchronized to fire a stream of bullets through the aircraft’s propeller. In response to their revolutionary new weapon, German pilots, foremost among whom were Arnold Boelcke (1891–1916), “the Father of Air Fighting Tactics”, and Max Immelmann (1890–1916), the first two German pilots to be awarded the Pour le Mérite, Imperial Germany’s highest military honour, developed a tactic which used the Eindecker to great advantage and began to patrol the front at a height from which they could dive down on their slower opponents, aiming and firing during the descent.

 

Peter Lewis summarized the situation as follows:

Fortunately, the arrival of the D.H.2 and F.E.2(b) units at the Front early in 1916 soon had a marked effect so that, by May, the position had improved greatly. Reorganization by Trenchard in the early part of the year had resulted in the withdrawal of fighter units from the brigades and in the concentration of the machines in wings which were then attached to each army. The fighters were thus available in compact groups for their primary purpose as offensive weapons, enabling the best use to be extracted from the numbers available.

So when, on 19 February 1916, 25 Squadron flew to Folkestone on the Kent coast and thence, on the following day, to St-Omer in France, it was already an aspect of this new strategy and used right from the outset to protect vulnerable reconnaissance aircraft from the new threat when they were flying over the front line. The Squadron’s first escort mission took place on 8 March 1916, and on 1 April 1916 it was transferred to Auchel (Lozinghem) as part of General Sir Charles Moore’s 1^st Army, and here it stayed until the following year. Everyday life in the RFC was considerably more comfortable than everyday life in the trenches and the official history of 25 Squadron paints the following picture of the Squadron’s time at Auchel: “Flight Clubs were formed; they consisted of a room or rooms rented in a private house near the airfield and were intended as ante-rooms where Pilots and Observers could go between ‘shows’ or when standing by.” Such clubs became “very popular and considerable rivalry sprang up between Flights as to which could furnish and decorate their Club Rooms the best”. Moreover, at Auchel, “Recreation Rooms were built, Bath Houses installed, Tennis Courts laid out, [and] a small stage erected complete with footlights, drop curtain, screens, wings and orchestra pit. […] All scenery was painted by members of the Squadron, several Revues written by members of the Squadron were produced.”

While at Auchel, the Squadron was tasked with patrolling the front line from north of Fromelles, where the 1^st Army began a diversionary offensive on 16 July 1916, to just south of Souchez in order to prevent photography by enemy aircraft that were attempting to spy on the British artillery. On 21 June 1916, a member of 25 Squadron, Second Lieutenant George Reynolds McCubbin DSO (1898–1944) – not to be confused with the air ace James Thomas Byford McCudden VC (1895–1918) – shot down Immelmann, the originator of the deadly aerobatic manoeuvre known as the “Immelmann turn” who, by that date, had been credited with 15 victories. By 25 June, the Squadron had been enlarged from 12 to 18 aircraft, and in that month its casualty rate increased threefold, largely because of the advantage in combat enjoyed by the Eindecker. On 26 June, the RFC in France began an aerial offensive which involved attacks on kite-balloons (from which enemy observers could watch military movements in the run-up to 1 July) and bombing missions.

On 19 July 1916, the first day of the two-day Battle of Fromelles, the Squadron, which now included Butler, supported Lieutenant-General Richard Haking’s (1862–1945) XI Corps, part of 1^st Army, when it started to undertake offensive patrols over the line of trenches that extended from Fauquissart to La Cordonnière Farm. The Battle, which was intended to divert attention from the Battle of the Somme, 50 miles to the south, was a joint attack by the British and the Australians and the first time that the Australian Imperial Force had seen action on the western front. Unfortunately, the attack was a disaster: it cost the British 1,500 casualties and the Australians 5,533 casualties, and caused much public outrage in Australia. An equally important task undertaken by 25 Squadron was the bombing of German aerodromes, like those at Provin, Phalempin and Lille, together with railway junctions, billets and munitions dumps along the railways. But the very nature of such tasks gave the flyers relatively little opportunity for aerial combat, and during his seven weeks with 25 Squadron, Butler’s name does not appear on a single combat report.

The Squadron history lists Butler as having died in an accident. But on 16 August 1916, Butler was on a bombing patrol in an FE2(d), a slightly more powerful version of the FE2(b), when he flew into a cloud, lost visual contact with the ground, and became disoriented. As a result – as frequently happened in the early years of flying when the physics of spinning were not understood and techniques of spin recovery were not taught to fledgling pilots until about 1917 – his aircraft went into a vertical spin – colloquially known as a “graveyard spiral” – and crashed into a wood. He was still unconscious when the wreck was found but died soon afterwards, aged 26. His Observer/Gunner, Air Mechanic Eric Burslem Brotherton (1898–1965), was injured in the same accident but survived the war. Butler was buried on 18 August 1916 in Lapugnoy Military Cemetery (west of Béthune): Grave I.F.60. The inscription reads: “Underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27). He left £364 2s 6d.

 

 

Bibliography

For the books and archives referred to here in short form, refer to the Slow Dusk Bibliography and Archival Sources.

Printed sources:

[Anon.]. ‘Suicide in a field: City Insurance Manager takes poison’, Birmingham Daily Gazette, no. 12,222 (20 May 1908), p. 7.

[Anon.], ‘Local Casualties: Birmingham Aviator Killed’, Birmingham Mail, no. 15,806 (25 August 1916), p. 3.

[Anon.], ‘Roll of Honour: A.S. Butler’, The Lily, 11, no. 9 (November 1916), p. 109.

Lewis (1967), pp. 52–3 and 72–3.

Morris (1967), pp. 36–40.

Bebbington (2014), pp. 85–7.

 

Archival sources:

RAFM: Casualty Card (Butler, Archibald Stanley).

AIR 1/690/21/20/25.

AIR1/1221/204/5/2634.

AIR76/70.

WO95/3044.

WO374/11395.

WO374/11400.

 

On-line sources:

‘Spin (aerodynamics)’, Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(aerodynamics) (accessed 8 March 2018).