I hope that the people who read about the Stockton International Brigade memorial  – https://foxburg.edublogs.org/2023/06/02/the-stockton-memorial/ understand how much I appreciate what John Christie has done to educate people in the roles the men from Teesside  played in the Spanish Civil War. I hope he understands how much I appreciate him giving me the opportunity to undertake this voyage of discovery; researching and writing about the men and women from my hometown who went to the aid of the Spanish Republic and the victims of Franco’s armed revolt.

The voyage of discovery continues and at times gets spectacularly rewarding. I can hardly contain myself as I type this, I am  that excited about a wonderful discovery.  The most rewarding part of the research is uncovering the links and connections that allow us to connect the pieces to create a clearer picture. There is also the detective work; finding solutions to problems and revealing information that provide explanations for aspects which have until now been unknown.

Five years ago when we began work on the Stockton memorial we feared missing people off, we had a major headache over Norman Howard; in Spain it is recorded that his hometown was Stockton, but we could find no other details and after his repatriation in 1938 he disappears. George Short has Sedgefield as an address  for Norman Howard on his list of invitees to a commemorative dinner held  in October 1986 in The Billingham Arms Hotel to mark the 50th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, but Norman Howard did not attend. Happily I have recently uncovered the curious story of  Norman Howard and will share this later, suffice to say he was born in Stanhope, so my anxiety about missing a volunteer can now end.

Four years ago when writing about the Teesside memorial I was intrigued by the fact that Tommy’s plaque says:

But three of the men listed on the memorial were not Teesside men: Ron Dennison was born in Bellingham, Northumberland, Bob Elliott was born in Cambois; between Ashington and Blyth and Wilf Jobling was born in Chopwell, the same town as George Short.

As Communist Party district secretary Wilf Jobling led the North East men in Spain before his death in February 1937, so too Bob Elliott, he was responsible for the North East men in Spain after Wilf’s death until his own in July 1937. We know that Wilf and Bob were well known to the Teesside Communists who produced the memorial, they worked very closely with George Short, giving us some explanation as to why they are named with the seven Teesside men.

Ron Dennison was the enigma, in Spain he used the alias ‘Bill Meredith’ where he is well documented, in I sing of my comrlades I say :

Bill Meredith, a well know activist from Tyneside, would later command No.2 Company.

 He was well know in Spain: he wrote the Battalion diary, he was promoted to Lieutenant and Commanded a Company; we have a document that shows he carried out his work diligently:

The 10 days in a labour battalion and the loss of five days pay seems pretty harsh when we compare this to Bert Overton’s punishment in the same month; Overton was demoted from Lieutenant and given 15 days in a labour  battalion for drawing the pay of a Captain whilst recovering from the wounds he sustained at the Battle of Jarama. Sadly whilst with the labour battalion Bert was killed, on 6th July 1937, during the battle of Brunete.

Like Overton Bill Meredith made quite an impression in Spain, he wrote the British Battalion diary which Frank Graham quotes extensively. During the Battle of Jarama Bill Meredith was a runner for the Machine-gun Company, he had been sent with a message by Harry Fry, the Company Commander, to Bert Overton who had taken command of the Battalion when Wintringham was wounded. In a first hand account he relates what he saw on his return; he was less than 200 metres away from the Machine-gun company:

As I came closer I was surprised to see a large contingent of fascists crossing the ground between them and ourselves, singing the Internationale and giving the anti-fascist clenched fist salute.
Battle of Jarama – Frank Graham

This is the story Thomas Carter, also of the Machine-gun company relates – https://foxburg.edublogs.org/2022/03/26/t-j-carter/

Bill Meredith can be seen in the British trenches after the Battle of Jarama:

By a remarkable coincidence Bill Meredith was also killed on 6th July 1937 during the battle of Brunete, Fred Copeman, who was commander of the British Battalion at the time describes it for the Daily Worker and later in his memoir.

A runner from No.2 company reported that Bill Meredith had been killed. I couldn’t believe it. I had only spoken to him a moment before. Bill was very sentimental but had a heart of gold. He was a member of the Labour Party, very conscientious, anxious to become a good officer, and even more anxious to make a contribution to the Republic. He had gone to help a wounded man lying in the road. Bending over in the semi-darkness, he received a bullet in the heart. The lad who reported it was sobbing like a kid. I didn’t feel at all nice myself. . . . A bloke was lying on the road calling. And by now the only light was the flames from the village. Bill Meredith went over to help him and it was one of these fascists, as old Bill bent over to help him the fascist shot him.
Reason in Revolt – Fred Copeman

‘Old Bill‘ was just twenty-four years old when he was killed. I found it curious that a man so renowned in Spain had left no trace back home in the North East. I was unable to find any references to Ron Dennison in archives, Copeman says he was a member of the Labour Party but his file in Spain shows he was a Communist Party (CPGB) member: this may explain why he used an alias. It is more than possible that the CPGB did not wish the Labour Party to know they had a Communist as a member, because The Labour Party were supporting the government policy of non-intervention, thus if Ron Dennison was a member of the Labour Party he was acting illegally as well as defying the proscription of Comminists which had been Labour Party policy since 1924. This did not however explain why a secret Communist from Tyneside was named on the Teesside memorial.

On  Thursday 29th June 2023 Bob Beagrie asked me to remind him which one of the Teesside volunteers was from Hartlepool, as I was at school I quickly replied that it was Thomas Carter and that I’d send some documents that evening because I had an obituary written for him by George Short which had fantastic detail. I had not looked at this obituary for some time so on sending it I began to reread it when a line caught my eye.

 “In a letter from his Commander, also of Teesside . . . “

This got me thinking, I knew of no company commanders in Spain at that time from Teesside except Bert Overton, and I was almost certain that Thomas Carter was not in Overton’s No.4 company. I had evidence that suggested he was in No.2 Company; the Machine Gun Company. Also Overton had not recruited by George Short, he had travelled to Spain with Tony Hyndman, a friend of Stephen Spender and Giles Romilly, I did not believe that George would be corresponding with Bert Overton. It wasn’t a good fit but Bert Overton was the only one of the ten Teesside men in Spain at this time and who would command a Company.

This worry encouraged me to look once again at Bill Meredith, he had arrived in Spain on 14th January and was promoted to Lieutenant after Jarama, he would command a  Company at Brunete, but he wasn’t from Teesside, he was however on the Teesside International Brigade memorial.

In October 2022 I visited Teesside Archives to Study the documents they had on George Short. Amongst these were notes Bert Ward had made of interviews of he had condicted with George Short; at one point Bert had asked George about the men on the Teesside memorial. I found that against Bill Meredith Bert had noted that George had said Ron Dennison had joined the Communist Party after he had been charged with obstruction during a demonstration and the Hartlepool Police had beaten him up, that he:

Owned a taxi fleet in Stockton that included Rolls Royces

This led me to check the births and baptisms in the civil register, I set the parameters pretty wide, selecting Dennison as a surname, and looking for any births between 1905 and 1918. I did not find a single registration of a birth for any child with the surname Dennison (or variations) in the whole of Northumberland. I did however find a cluster on Teesside and North Yorkshire. One very promising lead was a male J R Dennison born in Stockton on Tees in October 1912.

For the past six months Alan Lloyd has been updating the IBMT database (https://international-brigades.org.uk/uncategorized/the-volunteers/) produced by Jim Carmody and Richard Baxell in 2016.

Alan has already updated a few Teesside entries, in fact just a few weeks earlier I had noticed that Bill Meredith’s entry had been updated, the names Joseph ‘Ron’ Dennison had been added to his name (previously the name Ron Dennison was part of the footnotes), the name Joseph was something new. I asked him to double check the data that was used to create the entry and provided him with the circumstantial evidence I had uncovered.

I came home from work on Friday to find an email from Alan Lloyd:

I have had a look at my notes but heaven knows where I got Bellingham from. It is certainly SoT. 1912 Oct-Dec. Best wishes Alan

and then immediately updated the entry – https://international-brigades.org.uk/volunteer/josephdennisonmeredith/ how is that for service!