Remembering Private Dancox - Worcester's Victoria Cross Winning
Hero
Early Life | Victoria Cross
| Death | After the War
Early Life
Frederick George Dancox (or Dancocks) is the only winner of the
Victoria Cross to have been born and bred in Worcester. The
confusion over the spelling of his surname arises from the
mis-spelling of Dancox when he enlisted, and this is the spelling
used here for him and his descendents. He was born in 1878 to
Louisa (nee Chance) and William Dancocks, a labourer, the middle of
three sons.
The baptismal entry from St Stephen’s church register is dated 23
November 1878. It does not give the baby’s name, and only lists the
parents surname as Dancox, living in Crown Lane and the father a
labourer. It is registered as a private baptism, which is usually
performed when the baby is sickly. Perhaps this explains why the
baby’s name is left blank: Frederick was hurriedly baptised before
his name had been chosen, or perhaps the entry was written up later
and the details omitted.
We can be sure that this is Frederick’s baptism, because both of
his brothers appear in the same register, William Thomas in
February 1876 and Henry George in January 1881, with their parents
named, and these are the only three Dancocks in the parish
register.
William Dancocks senior died aged 39 in May 1880, when Louisa
was pregnant with their youngest son. She married labourer William
Whittle three years later. The 1891 and 1901 censuses shows
Frederick living with his mother, step-father, two brothers, two
step-brothers (from Whittle’s previous marriage) and several
younger half-siblings at 55 St George’s Lane and latterly at number
59 Hylton Road, both in Worcester city.
It is likely that the Dancocks brothers were educated at St
Stephen’s School (now Northwick), although it is unlikely that the
school records survive from this period.
According to the censuses and contemporary newspaper reports, after
leaving school Frederick worked as a hay-trusser, until he
volunteered for the Army in 1915. The family lived in various
streets in poorer parts of Worcester City including Hylton Road and
Dolday. Those streets were frequently mentioned in the General
Health Committee’s minutes as being dilapidated with insufficient
drainage or sanitary provision, and work was carried out in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century as part of a city-wide
improvement campaign.
Perhaps prompted by his decision to go to war, Frederick had
married Ellen Pritchard on 8th March 1915 in Pershore.
Ellen was living at 28 Dolday in Worcester, but Frederick was
already a soldier based in Norton Barracks. Their eldest child
Frederic was born in 1902, and was followed by Florence (born
1906), Harry (born 1909) and Nellie (Ellen, born 1913). The
youngest child, George, was baptised in All Saints Church in July
1915 but tragically died the following summer aged just one year
old.
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Victoria Cross
Private Dancox had served in France for just under a year
when he was awarded the Victoria Cross, having previously fought in
Gallipoli. On 9th October 1917, during the 3rd Battle of Ypres
(Passchendaele), the 4th battalion of the Worcestershire
Regiment was coming under heavy fire from a German machine-gun
point and were unable to advance. Dancox, was one of ten men
appointed as ‘moppers-up’, but he became separated from them during
the course of the battle. The Supplement to the London Gazette
dated 26th November 1917, describes how Dancox moved
from shellhole to shellhole, approaching the rear of the German
blockhouse, a concrete structure designed to protect the machine
gun point from heavy artillery. The forty or so soldiers inside
surrendered when Dancox threatened them with a grenade. Once the
prisoners were taken to the British line, he returned to the
blockhouse and dismantled the machine gun. His actions,
demonstrating ‘most conspicuous bravery and dedication to duty in
attack’, earned him Britain’s highest military decoration for
valour in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and
Commonwealth forces.
Dancox was granted a fortnight’s leave at the end of November to
collect the award from the King. Worcester prepared to celebrate
the homecoming of the local hero in style: bunting was put up and
alongside the Dancox family waited civic dignitaries, reporters,
and hundreds of local people. He did not arrive.
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Death
Rumours of his death began to emerge in early December. They
were confirmed in the local newspaper on 22nd December,
when Berrow’s Journal printed both a letter dated the
14th informing Mrs Dancox of her husband’s death, and an
account by a Quartermaster Sergeant who had been present at the
battle that took place near Masnieres in France. On the
30th November, the battalion had been mobilised against
the German’s counter-attack. Private Dancox, the eyewitness said,
was killed by a shrapnel wound to the head.
His name is one of 7000 on the Cambrai Memorial to the Missing
(Louverval Memorial), France. He was the second of the Dancocks
brothers to die with no known grave: the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission records show his older brother William Dancocks, son of
Mrs Louisa Whittle, of 6 Court, Carden St., Worcester, had been
killed in action in 1914. Worcester Council recorded the names and
addresses of children who had lost fathers during the war. The
Dancox family is listed as living at 5 Bull Entry in the city
centre. The eldest son, Frederick, was not included on the list,
perhaps because he was no longer a dependent.
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After the War
Ellen Dancox collected the VC on her husband’s behalf. A fund
was set up for the Dancox family for members for the public to
contribute to, with an initial donation from the City Council of
£50. The Mayor and Town Clerk were among the trustees. In February
1918 the General Purposes Committee minuted that ‘subscriptions
were not coming in very satisfactorily’, but eventually a total of
£451 was subscribed (which, in 2007, would have had the purchasing
power of £15,750).
The City Council bought the medal from the family a few years
later. In 1923 it was for a brief period framed and displayed in
the Guildhall before being loaned to the Regimental Museum.
Worcester has not forgotten Dancox’s heroism. Dancox House, a
sheltered accommodation facility in the city centre, is named after
him. All secondary school pupils are required to study the First
World War as part of the National Curriculum, and some local
schools incorporate his achievements into the lessons. In September
2006 the Worcestershire & Herefordshire Branch of the Western
Front Association unveiled a memorial plaque commemorating his
action was unveiled in Belgium, receiving prominent coverage in the
local and national press.
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