What did you collect in the Great War?

It is of course a play on that recruitment poster from 1915 where a child asks her father “Daddy what did you do in the Great War?”*

Daddy looks in the distance with a thoughtful expression which you can interpret as guilt at failing “to do his bit” or reflecting on what he saw and did in the service of his country.

Either way the authorities were quick to exploit that tendency of kids and even grown ups to collect stamps and cigarette cards to further interest in the war.

Not that this is an original observation just an introduction into a 1915 album of 126 stamps which feature some of the leading personalities of the period.

So here are the King and Queen, a collection of soldiers, sailors, politicians and foreign statemen.

Some are from Britain and others from the former British Empire.

Amongst the lot there are not only Lord Roberts who had been Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, but also the New Zealand Corporal Cyril Bassett who was awarded the VC in 1915 and the nurse Edith Cavell who had been executed by the German army in the same year.

The album was acquired by my old friend David “Posty” Harrop who has a huge collection of memorabilia from both world wars along with a heap of material charting the history of the Post Office.

And as so often happens mixed up with the acquisition was a letter from Lord Roberts to the Reverend A.T. Humphreys of Cromford.

It was dated September 1914 and thanked the Reverend for making a contribution to the “appeal for field glasses [which] will be of the greatest possible service to our Non-Commissioned Officers in the Field”.

I am always surprised at just how much almost all armies in conflicts are reliant on the public for support whether it be “comforts” or in this case essential war equipment.

The letter is also slightly poignant given that Lord Roberts died just two months later of pneumonia at St Omer, France, while visiting Indian troops fighting at the Front.

Just what the Reverend A.T. Humphreys of Cromford thought of his letter is lost and nor do we know who carefully collected the stamps or what conclusions they drew from the collection.

But together they are two of those tiny bits that make up the story of the Great War.

Pictures; from an album of stamps, circa 1915, the letter from Lord Roberts, 1914 and that poster,  from the collection of David Harrop, and Daddy what did you do in the Great War?”1915, Imperial War Museum, Art.IWM PST 031

*“Daddy what did you do in the Great War?” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daddy,_What_Did_You_Do_in_the_Great_War%3F#:~:text=a%20commercial%20product.-,%22Daddy%2C%20What%20Did%20You%20Do%20in%20the%20Great%20War%3F,less%20direct%20in%20its%20messaging.