Herbert Philp

Early Years and Education

Herbert Philp was the oldest of three children born to William Philp, a musician, composer and singing instructor, and his second wife, Mary Elizabeth (née Leadly). He had 11 half-siblings from his father’s previous marriage to Henrietta (née Sweeten), who died in 1885. As a musician, William Philp led an itinerant lifestyle. The family lived in several communities, including London, Waterloo, Winnipeg and Charlottesville, Virginia, before finally settling in Guelph, where he became bandmaster for the Guelph Musical Society. (See also Music in Guelph.)

Herbert Philp learned to play the trumpet, cornet and clarinet from his father, and he played in the Guelph Musical Society Band. He attended the Guelph Collegiate Institute and enrolled in the local militia unit, the 30th Regiment, known as the Wellington Rifles, for which he was a trumpeter.

After graduating from secondary school, Philp studied journalism at the University of Toronto, but he did not complete a degree. He returned to Guelph and worked as a reporter for the Guelph Herald. He was transferred to Stratford, Ontario, to work as a subeditor at a sister publication, the Stratford Herald. (See also Newspaper in Canada.)

Military Career

At the outbreak of the First World War, Herbert Philp was among the earliest volunteers for military service. He enlisted on 12 August 1914, and by 24 August, he was in the new army training camp at Valcartier, Quebec, where he was assigned as a trumpeter for the 1st Divisional Signals Headquarters.

On 30 September, Philp sailed from Quebec with the flotilla that took the first contingent of the CEF to England. He spent the following months camped out on the Salisbury Plain, where the Canadians endured a cold, wet winter in substandard accommodations.

In February 1915, Philp went to France with his regiment. Over the next three years and nine months, he was often in the front-line trenches on the edge of no man’s land (see Trench Warfare). He also participated in several major engagements, beginning in May 1915 with the Second Battle of Ypres, where the Germans first used poison gas. (See also Canada and Gas Warfare.) Because his duties as a trumpeter were limited, Philp was assigned duties as a spotter and observer, which meant that he had to position himself in a location where he could guide artillery fire and report to field commanders on forward movements of the troops. For “conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty on Aug. 15th 1917,” during the Battle of Hill 70, Philp was awarded the Military Medal.

After the Armistice of 11 November 1918, Philp was among the Canadian troops that marched into Germany. There, he fell ill and was hospitalized.

Return Home and Death

Herbert Philp was declared medically unfit for further military service and invalided back to Canada. He arrived in Guelph in July 1919 but was not officially discharged from the army until 17 October. The Mercury hired him as an editor, but he fell ill again in early January 1920 and died soon after. (See also Newspapers in Canada.)

Philp’s Letters

From the time of his arrival at Valcartier, Quebec, in 1914 until his last known correspondence as a soldier, dated 9 January 1919, Herbert Philp wrote letters about his wartime experiences. He was, therefore, one of the relatively few members of the CEF to record an eyewitness account for the entire period of the war. Most soldiers wrote letters home, and it was common for families to have the letters published in local newspapers. (See also Newspapers in Canada.) In keeping with this practice, Philp’s family shared his letters with the Guelph Mercury. Philp also sent letters directly to the Mercury, as well as to the Stratford Herald, The Canadian Courier and other Canadian publications. Because Philp was a journalist, he wrote with the eye for detail and polished skill of a professional, providing readers with detailed, compelling accounts of life in the camps and the trenches (see Trench Warfare).

Like official press coverage, soldiers’ letters were subject to military censorship out of concern that they might contain information that would be useful to the enemy or negative reports that would undermine morale on the home front. (See also War Measures Act.) Philp’s letters somehow got through the censors unedited. Thus, The Canadian Courier could say of Philp’s account of conditions on the Salisbury Plain, dated 16 November 1914, that “this narrative, written by one of the men in the ranks, is a vivid description of weather, people and conditions never before furnished to the Canadian Press.” The story discussed taboo matters, such as the smuggling of liquor into the Canadian camp. Information of that nature contradicted news in official media reports.

Philp wrote about the monotony of camp life between battles, the joy of receiving gift boxes from home and his participation as a musician in regimental bands. His letters are vivid accounts of daily life on the Western Front. Philp also wrote in detail about the horrors of war, as in this passage from an undated letter that appeared in the Mercury on 5 June 1915, describing the Second Battle of Ypres:

“The enemy is shelling us furiously … One man has half his face blown off. Another is stretched out, his head filled with shrapnel slugs … Outside, on stretchers, men with their legs and arms shattered and their bodies full of lead are shivering in the chilly air.”

On 27 June 1915, Philp was subjected to disciplinary action, which family historian Richard B. Philp speculated might have been for violating the rules of military censorship.

Legacy

Herbert Philp’s correspondence is preserved in the Mercury archives in the Guelph Public Library and Mills Memorial Library at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Philp’s letters and details from his experiences in the First World War have been gathered by historian Edward Butts and included in his book This Withering Disease of Conflict: A Canadian Soldier’s Chronicle of the First World War (2021), published by the Guelph Historical Society.