Red Cross Driver Hugget

Postcards from Wivenhoe

Lesley McCabe (Nottage Maritime Institute)

Red Cross driver William Huggett.
Nottage Maritime Institute 04536p
The front of all the cards.
John Stewart N.M.I 04536a
John Stewart N.M.I 04536b
John Stewart N.M.I 04536c
Walter Crouch's letter
John Stewart N.M.I 04536d
John Stewart N.M.I 04536e
John Stewart N.M.I 04536g

In 1915 a Red Cross Driver by the name of William Hugget was billeted at Merrythought in Hamilton Road, Wivenhoe. (Note: Merrythought Cottage is now No. 3 Hamilton Road – conributed by Dudley Diaper 10/9/16)

A Red Cross van in Wivenhoe caused quite a spectacle in 1915 and the pupils from the Boys School befriended ‘Driver Hugget’ as they called him. When William Hugget left for the Front in 1915 their teacher, Miss Chidwick, asked the boys to write to him.  Some of the letters given him from the boys are shown here.

William Hugget carried these letters with him throughout his time at the Front with the Red Cross Motor Ambulance.   He was awarded the Croix de Guerre at Verdun in 1916 for courage, coolness and devotion to duty whilst evacuating wounded men alone under heavy bombardment.

He returned after the war to carry on farming at Furners Green, Uckfield.

We know he kept all the letters given to him by the Wivenhoe school boys because, when his niece was clearing his farmhouse out after he died, she came across his old kit bag and the letters were all there.

Antoinette Stinson, Town Clerk

This page was added on 26/03/2015.

Comments about this page

  • Merrythought Cottage is now No.3 Hamilton Road

    By Dudley Diaper (10/09/2016)

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