The Frost’s Return to America
Jackie Tweedale
On February 5th 1915 the Frosts moved out of The Gallows and back to Oldfields. In return for room and board, the family sold the Chandlers their furniture. Edward Thomas was still unsure whether to go to America or stay and enlist. Decisions were also being made about Edward’s son, Merfyn, and whether he should go to America for his education.
John Drinkwater at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre found that the war was affecting the numbers attending performances. The theatre had been fully operational for 18 months but with the war both members of the company and the audience were enlisting. Drinkwater and Barry Jackson managed to put on regular performances and on Sundays the actors and staff worked at the Birmingham Aluminium Casting Company making shell cases.
Frost and his family became more concerned about being able to return to America. The Germans were threatening to impose a naval blockade. On the 4th the German High Command had announced that the waters around Britain were considered a war zone with all ships subject to attack by submarines. Sean Street, in his book ‘The Dymock Poets’, tells how the “men were coming home on leave, or wounded mingled with new young conscripts leaving the orchard fields for the local headquarters in Ledbury, thence to the front”.1 The war was getting nearer. Rupert Brooke was stationed on the south coast and his battalion thought they had sighted a German ship on the horizon. It turned out to be a false alarm but the threat of not being able to return home to America became more urgent. The date of departure was set for the 13th February. Frost had to borrow money from friends to help purchase the tickets. They began to pack and say goodbye to friends.
On the 6th February the Frosts went to visit the Thomas’s at Steep, staying for a few days. A problem arose with Merfyn’s papers. At 15, Merfyn was considered under age by a year and because he was not travelling with his parents, the American immigration authorities were not willing to let him enter the USA.
On the 11th February Helen Thomas left Steep with Merfyn to travel to Liverpool. The issue with his papers were still unresolved. Edward, still recovering from a sprained ankle was unable to go with them. On the 12th the Frost family caught a train from Dymock station, spent the night in Liverpool and sailed on the 13th with Merfyn.
Upon reaching New York, after a 9 day voyage, Merfyn had problems with his papers again. He was detained at Ellis Island, some say for one night and others for several days. Frost managed to get the papers sorted and Merfyn went to stay with Russell Scott, a friend of the Thomas’s from Beadles School, where Helen had taught.
The German blockade came into force 5 days after the Frosts sailed. Their ship, the S.S. St Paul, was part of a convoy guarded by 2 destroyers which set sail under cover of night. The Lusitania also formed part of the flotilla. A few months later on a return voyage to America it was sunk by a German submarine just off the coast of Ireland with the loss of many lives.
Merfyn was to stay only briefly in Amercia. He returned later in the year, to see his father, before Edward went off to war. Edward was to enlist in July 1915.
On the 28th February Rupert Brooke set sail on a troop ship for the Dardanelles.
1Sean Street: The Dymock Poets
Keith Clark: The Muse Colony
