Wipers Times

Formed as part of Lord Kitchener’s ‘Third New Army’ the 12th (Pioneer) Battalion, Sherwood Foresters was a Pioneer unit raised in Derby on 01 October 1914. By August 1915 they found themselves in France. It was in early 1916 that the group made the “…chance discovery of a battered printing-house in the ruined town of Ypres”¹.

That group included a printer, a Sergeant who “…in a former existence, as the editor humorously puts it, had followed the craft.” Resurrecting the press and with two Officer Editors and Journalists, they set about printing a news sheet.

This in itself wasn’t novel, even though the story itself is tremendous. In the Boer War, the Bloemfontein Friend was the first armed forces newspaper, under the editorship of Rudyard Kipling.

What was new was the humorously ironic style of the Wipers Times, the title reflecting soldiers’ slang for the town of Ypres.

Issues and Circulation

Around 23 issues were created, the first being 100 copies, but some later issues expanding to 250². The first two issues printed on the press found near the Cloth Hall in Ypres, with the amount of type limiting the setting and printing to one page at a time. This had to end when German shelling destroyed that works³. Later issues were printed on a newly-found press.

Nos. 1 and 2 of ‘The Wipers Times’ will always be our own particular pets because of the circumstances under which they were done. They were produced on the original press up by the Cloth Hall, in the days when the air was generally full of shells.

Editor, Wipers Times, quoted in Tatler 12 December 1917

Content included adverts covering shows and improbable tourist attractions, small ads, articles about daily life, and poetry. You can see some examples hosted by the Wikimedia Commons project.

Reception

The Wipers Times was well-received from the first issue. The production team regretting their decision to print only 100 copies. It was reported that in 1916, offers were made of £10 — around £890 in 2022 — for copies of that first issue.

The men issued copies to ‘the colonel, second in command, adjutant and all the officers’. This led to requests for the paper from the general commanding the division and GHQ to be sent copies.

Back home in the UK, national and local coverage was positive while reflecting the fact that the paper included solemn memorials to fallen friends.

… it is a sign and a symbol of victory. The men who produced such work under the conditions which prevailed during its production could never be beaten.

Pall Mall Gazette 23 November 1917

Resurrection

In 2013, Ian Hislop and Nick Newman created a screenplay for the BBC based on this story. The 90-minute film was produced in Belfast. The BBC looks to have assumed the press found was a Liberty press, and contacted the British Printing Society to find a suitable examples. The BPS’s Enquiries Officer suggested Tim Honnor be contacted and he offered his c. 1905 Arab to play the starring role⁴.

This, in turn, led to the theatre production of the same story in September 2016.

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Update: 11 February 2022

With thanks to Alistair Hall, who pointed to a 2015 article in we made this, on Recreating the Wipers Times with some lovely details of Matt McKenzie’s involvement using some very slightly more civilised equipment than the Sherwood Foresters would have used.

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References

1. Quoted from British Printer, July 1930. Trench Printing and Journalism.
2. Letter from QMS Leslie W. L. Tyler, quoted in Nottingham Evening Post 22 March 1916.
3. Leeds Mercury, 17 December 1917
4. Printing History News, Autumn 2013

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Location

Ypres, Belgium

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