Having researched a family, we normally include military records on the page about the family, linked from the Families index and (where applicable) from the War Memorial page. But we haven’t completed the long and complicated history of the Leivars family in Sawley yet. So, for Armistice Day, some of the wartime records for the family have been extracted and set out below.
John Leivars (1844-1926) known as Jack, was a regular solder in the 1860s and 1870s, serving with the 45th Regiment of Foot (which became the Sherwood Foresters). He took part in the 1868 Abyssinian Campaign. In 1879, Jack qualified for an Army (Chelsea) pension and returned to Sawley, where he married Ann Catliff. In 1924, General Smith-Dorien chatted with him at the Sherwood Foresters Old Comrades Annual Dinner. By 1914 Jack and Ann had 12 children and were living in Chantry Place.
Their eldest son John William Leivars (1882-1916) served with 9th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters during the war. In late September 1916 they took part in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge, one of the later stages of the Somme campaign. In mid-November they were at the Battle of the Ancre Heights. A week later, on 26 November 1916, John was killed in action, aged 36. He has no known grave and is listed on the Thiepval Memorial and the Sawley War Memorial.
Their eldest daughter, Harriet Ellen Leivars, married James William Rose. He was killed in action on the Northwest Frontier during the 3rd Afghan War in 1919.
Another son, Frederick Leivars (1894-1916) was serving in 1st Battalion, Sherwood Foresters when WWI broke out. The battalion joined the British Expeditionary Force in France on 5 November 1914 and took part in the battles of Neuve Chapelle and Aubers in 1915. In October 1915 they were attached to a New (Kitchener’s) Army division to provide some experience. Frederick was wounded in action and died of wounds on 4th January 1916. He is buried at Sailly-Sur-La-Lys Canadian Cemetery near Armentieres.
John and Ann’s second son was James Leivars (1884-1955), known as Jim. He served with the Royal Garrison Artillery 1902-1910 and then returned to Sawley where he married Harriet Perkins (1886-1961). During WWI he was called up from the reserves but was later discharged and returned to work as a railway labourer.
In 1939 they were living on Tamworth Road, between the Nags Head and East End. They later moved to Towle Street. At least three of their sons served in WWII:
The oldest was James Arthur Leivars (1912-1993). After 4 years at Wilne Mills he became a regular soldier in about 1930, serving with the Sherwood Foresters in India, Sudan and Jamaica. After leaving the army in 1937/1938 he married Elsie Hough. At first, they lived in Long Eaton, where he worked as a storeman (probably at Chilwell depot), whilst she was a machinist making haversacks for the army.
During WWII, Elsie moved to 22 Reedman Road, the home of her brother Arthur Hough and his wife Dorothy, who was James’ sister!
James was called up in October 1939. He was in France for 8 months, returning in June 1940 (probably via Dunkirk). By 1941 he’d been promoted to sergeant when he was sent to the Middle East with 1/5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters. They were sailing to Egypt the long way around Africa, but whilst they were approaching Capetown the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and invaded British-run Malaya. The battalion was diverted to Singapore, arriving at the end of January 1942, just before it was overrun. Around 100,000 troops were captured and held in the barracks next to Changi gaol. They were marched through the jungle to Thailand, where they were forced to work on the Burma railway. They worked on a bridge over the River Kwai (the 1957 film was about a different bridge, although their experience would have been similar, and their commanding officer showed similar resolve to the Alec Guiness character in the film). A third of the battalion died in captivity but James survived to return to Long Eaton.
The next son was William Alfred Leivers (1917-1944). He was working on a farm in late 1940 when he was called up. He was sent to 14th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters, which became part of 1st Armoured Division in the Western Desert of Tunisia.
In January 1944, with the advance from the south of Italy stalled around Monte Casino, the allies tried to jump forward to Rome by landing at Anzio. Despite early gains, the Germans held firm (the Italians had surrendered in September 1943). 14th Sherwood Foresters were sent to help reinforce the bridgehead but Private Leivars was killed in action and is buried at the Beach Head War Cemetery.
His younger brother, John Thomas Leivars (1918-) had joined the Sherwood Foresters as a regular in 1937. During the early part of the war, he was in Guernsey, Cyprus and Palestine. He was wounded in the leg and captured during the fall of Crete in June 1941. He spent the rest of the war in POW camps in Germany, where he was made to work on a railway, then in a factory.
Two months after being released in 1945 he married Ruth Perriam at Sawley. She was from Guernsey and was serving in the ATS.
Another of John and Ann’s sons was George Leivers (1894-1965). By the 1930s, George and his wife Minnie (1891-1963) were living in Arnold Avenue. They had 8 children (plus 3 more who died in infancy).
One of their sons, Cyril Leivers (1922-1943), was killed in 1943 when his merchant ship was torpedoed in the North Atlantic.
Cyril had attended the National School in Sawley and the Baptist Sunday School. He left school at 14 to work for Clutsom & Kemp in Long Eaton. He then moved to Kastone concrete works in Sawley. He joined the local Home Guard when it was formed in 1940.
He’d only been in the merchant navy for 9 weeks and was on his first voyage, on the steamship ‘North Britain’. As a ‘trimmer’ Cyril’s job was to shovel coal, for the (better paid) firemen to stoke the boilers. It was one of the hardest and dirtiest jobs onboard. The ship joined convoy ONS-5, from Glasgow to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
In the early hours of 5 May 1943, the ‘North Britain’ had boiler trouble and had dropped 5 miles behind the convoy, which was now off the southern tip of Greenland. The convoy was being shadowed by several German submarine wolf packs. As the Royal Navy escorts struggled to keep the convoy safe, any stragglers were particularly vulnerable. At 2.20am she was hit by a torpedo fired by U-707, one of the 57 German submarines that eventually attacked the convoy. She sank within two minutes taking 31 men down with her. Fifteen of the crew managed to get into a lifeboat and a raft, but four more died of exposure before they were picked up by a Royal Navy trawler. Cyril was one of those who died. The fight between convoy ONS-5 and the U-boats lasted several days, and many more ships and submarines were lost. U-707 was sunk by the RAF six months later.
Cyril’s brother Jack Leivers (born 1925) became a leading figure in the local Salvation Army. In 1962 he raised the alarm after spotting a fire behind the White Lion. He later moved to Carlisle. In the 1980s he wrote to the Historical Society with some memories of Sawley in his childhood.
