FATHER & SON'S WWI ITEMS, A.I.F. & UNIQUE REUTERS WAR CORRESPONDENT EPHEMERA

Herbert William Henry Russell was born on 28 March 1869, the son of journalist and novelist William Clark Russell. Educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Russell began his career as a journalist with the Newcastle Chronicle before joining the Daily Express when it was launched by Arthur Pearson in 1900.

Russell became Reuters News Agency’s special foreign correspondent and was selected as one of just five official accredited war correspondents for Britain during WWI. Herbert Russell (Reuters) joined Philip Gibbs (Daily Chronicle, Daily Telegraph), Percival Phillips (Daily Express, Morning Post), Henry Perry Robinson (The Times, Daily News) and William Beach Thomas (Daily Mail, Daily Mirror) at General Headquarters at St. Omer in June 1915.

Billeted in a chateaux near the village of Tatinghem, the journalists were provided with army vehicles, servants, conducting officers and censors. They received officer’s uniforms bearing green armbands, until then only used for intelligence services, and War Correspondent insignia with the rank of Captain. Each written article was reviewed by the mobile censors who also checked with chemicals that no messages were concealed by invisible ink. The reports were then taken to St. Omer and, after further adjustments from High Command and figures such as Charles Edward Montague, transmitted to the War Office by the Army signal department.

Russell was posted to Gallipoli 1915 to cover the landings and the ongoing campaign, before returning to the Western Front to deliver perhaps the most famous press dispatch of the entire war on the First Day of The Somme; Russell’s telegram of 1 July 1916 read as follows:

“Good progress into enemy territory. British troops were said to have fought most gallantly and we have taken many prisoners. So far the day is going well for Great Britain and France’.

Not simply a consequence of over-zealous censorship, such reports embodied  a country’s interests from a countryman’s perspective, as detailed by fellow journalist Philip Gibbs:

“We identified ourselves absolutely with the armies in the field. We wiped out of our minds all thought of personal scoops and all temptation to write one word which would make the task of officers and men more difficult or dangerous. There was no need for censorship of our dispatches. We were our own censors.”

Russell was photographed meeting George V in 1917. His son, Sidney Russell, was killed serving with the Australian Infantry the following year. After the war, Russell was knighted for his news coverage in Gallipoli and France, and in 1921 he accompanied the Prince of Wales on his tour of India and Japan. After publishing several military and maritime works in the 1930s, Russell died on 23 Mar 1944.

Son's Military Medal Gazetted 16 Nov 1916

Sidney Henry Ernest Russell was born in Standish, Gloucestershire in 1896, the son of Herbert W.H. Russell and Lucie M. Russell of 4 Lonsdale Villas, Mannamead, Plymouth, moving to Alstonville, Northern Rivers, New South Wales.

Sidney was too young to join his father who was serving as Reuters War Correspondent in Gallipoli in 1915, instead serving with the 9th Battalion, Australian Infantry from 1916, awarded the M.M. for bravery at Pozieres Ridge and commissioned Lieutenant on 29 Nov 1917, further put forward for the award of the Military Cross for overcoming ten German soldiers.

Sidney was Killed In Action on 20 July 1918 and is buried at Borre British Cemetery and remembered on the Campbell, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.