So who was Miss Edith Townley of 13 Rectory Place in Woolwich and how did she spend the Christmas of 1917?

Now I went looking for number 13 Rectory Place yesterday which was home to Miss Edith Townley in 1917.

Writing to Edith in 1917

It is there on the old maps of the area, along with the street directories and looks to have been a grand property.

In fact walking up Rectory Place towards St Mary’s Street I reckon I might well have felt quite out of place.

But there is no crime in walking past and looking at a posh house, except that none of them are there now.

Instead there are some blocks of flats which is all a bit of a shame.

Along Rectory Place in 1872

But then Miss Townley also seems to be lost to history.

According to this wartime postcard Fred was expecting to be home on leave and was so confident of Christmas in Woolwich that he told her not to send the parcel.

The problem is simply that I can’t find her anywhere in Woolwich for 1917, and that nu 13 had been the residence of the Rev Charles E Dove as late as 1914 but he was also in the habit of changing his address and can be found at one time or another living in several addresses both in Woolwich and further afield.

Added to which there were a lot of Townley’s living in both London and serving in the armed forces.

"Dear Edith .........."

All of which might seem to make this a bit of a non story but I think not.

There will be someone who can help me with when those blocks of flat went up, replacing the grander properties which included nu 13 and with a bit more patience I might be lucky and identify Fred and in turn come closer to finding Edith.

In the meantime I have to say I have discovered a bit of Woolwich I never knew existed and might get to know more about the postcard which set me off on the search.

It belongs to my old friend David Harrop who recently purchased it as part of a batch he found on eBay.

Miss Edith Townley

I look forward to seeing it and getting to know the picture on the front, which may not help me discover anything more about either of them but will perhaps give me a clue to the type of photograph Fred liked and thought Edith might enjoy.

We shall see.

Location; Woolwich, London

Pictures; postcard, December 1917, from the collection of David Harrop, and detail of Rectory Place, from the OS for London, 1862-72, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Photographs from the Royal Herbert during the Great War ............ a unique album of pictures

The Royal Herbert, date unknown

Now the story of the Royal Herbert has just got a lot more exciting and that has a lot to do with a fascinating photograph album from the Great War.

It belongs to my old friend David Harrop who has a unique collection of memorabilia covering both world wars as well as the history of the Post Office.

And today I am looking through it with the hope that some at least of the men and the nurses in the pictures can be traced and their stories uncovered.

Christmas Day, 1915

In time I might even be able to discover the nurse responsible for the album.

A few of the nurses are named and tantalizingly two pictures are captioned “myself” so the search is on which may be made easier as the Red Cross continues to add to its online data base of those who served during the Great War.

And then there are the large number of photographs of soldiers in their “hospital blues” recovering on the wards, a few party scenes and handful from soldiers who had recovered and left the hospital.

Summer, 1916

Together they help reveal a little bit of life in the Royal Herbert during 1915 and 1916.

Given the quality of the cameras and the age of the pictures some images have not fared so well but even the poorest have a story to tell.

One of my favourites is of Sister Thomson and a group of men on a ward on Christmas Day in 1915 along with a much faded image of the garden in the summer of 1916.

Now these albums were quite common but I suspect not that many have survived.

Album cover

David has two more which contain comments, poems and drawings of men recovering from wounds and illnesses.

One remains a mystery but the other comes from a Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham and it has been possible to track  some of the men who made a contribution.

Their stories are as varied as I am sure will be the ones from the Herbert and include a young Canadian who survived the war and went home to live a successful and productive life and another who is buried in the military hospital outside Cairo.

And like all good stories led my friend Susan who lives in Canada to tell the story of that young Canadian and in so doing brought his drawing and his words  off the pages of the Cheltenham book and back from the past.

Now that I have to say was both exciting and moving.

The Royal Herbert album is different in that it only has photographs but in looking through it I have made a link with a hospital I knew well and which at one point in the 1970s treated our mother.

All of which makes it that bit special.

David's permanent exhibition can be seen in the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery, Manchester and currently features a collection of material commemorating the Manchester Blitz.

Pictures; from the Royal Hebert collection, 1915-16 courtesy of David Harrop

*Blighty, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Blighty

When we had a post office on Beech Road

Now I am never surprised at what turns up on eBay, especially when my old friend David Harrop is involved.

At Beech Road post office, 1914

So here with a little bit of our postal history is a reminder that once we had a post office on Beech Road.

During the 19^th century it moved around a bit but by the end of that century was at number 109 Beech Road.

And on October 17 1914 one parcel passed through the post office.

Post woman, circa 1916

I would love to know where it was going and for that matter that was to receive it, but all we have is this section of the parcel.

In time I will check out who the sub-post master was on that day, but I think it could have been Mr Robert Chorley who was doing the business of selling stamps and all things posty three years earlier in 1911. 

The shop was also a stationers and this was clearly the primary business as on both the census for 1911 and the in the street directory he describes himself as a “Stationer and Sub-Post Master” and he was no doubt helped by his wife, Hannah Elizabeth. 

The couple had been married for eight years and had taken over the post office sometime after 1901.

And that is about it for now.

Location Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture; parcel post markings, 1914, and post woman, circa 1916, courtesy of David Harrop

A silk from France .......... postcards from the Western Front

Now I have no idea if the soldier who purchased this embroidered silk postcard was from Eltham.

A message from the 8th London Regiment, date unknown

But given that it carried the badge of the 8th London Regiment the chances are he was from somewhere in the city.

These types of postcards are a favourite of mine.

They were made in France and Belgium and came with all sorts of designs from ones which carried a sentimental message to those with the badge of a regiment.

Many will have been sent in a letter which helped preserve the delicate nature of the embroidery.

To my dear daughter, date unknown

And here I have to thank my old friend David Harrop who has a large collection of silk postcards including this one from the 8th London.

It has has a special connection  with David, because the 8th London were also known as the Post Office Rifles and he worked for the Post Office.

The Post Office Rifles had been formed in 1868 following a bomb attack on a London prison.

After the attack the Government had created a body of special constables to protect public buildings and from a group consisting of postal workers came the request to establish a Rifle Volunteer Unit.

Detail of the London silk, date unknown

The unit saw action in Egypt in 1882 and participated in the second South African War from 1899 through to 1902.

At the outbreak of the Great War the existing Post Office Rifles were redesignated as the 1/8th Battalion, London Regiment.  A second battalion was formed in September 1914 and a third in 1915.*

And it appears that the third battalion was billeted at Blackheath from October 1915 till they went to Fovant in January 1916. **

All of which makes for a possible connection between Eltham and David’s silk.

Location; London

Picture; embroidered silk postcard, date unknown, from the collection of David Harrop

*Post Office Rifles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Rifles

**The London Regiment, The Long Trail, http://www.1914-1918.net/london.htm

Mrs Nellie Davison at Well Hall .......... stories behind the book nu 27 making the connection

An occasional series on the stories behind the book on Manchester and the Great War*

Places Nellie would have visited, the parish church, 1915

By now I shouldn’t be surprised at how what seem random bits of history have a habit of becoming entangled and by degree draw me into the story.

Of course I know that theory that you are only seven handshakes away from  the great and the famous but I was not prepared for just how close I came to a couple who lived in Manchester during the Great War.

They were George and Nellie Davison who were married in 1908 and settled in Romiley after living here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy and in Hulme.

George Davison enlisted in 1914, spent time in Woolwich and Ireland and died on the Western Front in 1918.

Duncan and Nellie Davison circa 1916

Over the last three years I have slowly worked my way through the letters he sent and a collection of his photographs, papers and medals.

Nellie spent time with him both in Woolwich and in Ireland which I thought must have been unusual but perhaps not.

And then yesterday I came across a comment from George that a Mrs Drinkal missed Nellie commenting that “she was lost" without the presence of his wife.  Now that letter was sent from Woolwich which offered up a tantalizing clue as to where Mrs Davison stayed and perhaps where George was billited.

Well Hall Road, 1915

And with the help of my friend Tricia from Bexleyheath we think we know where that house was.

Having found one link to a Mr Drinkal I passed the task over to Tricia who came up with the goods

He was she told me “living at 7a Elmbrook Street which appears to be hutments on the site of where the Well Hall Odeon later stood.

William Henry Drinkal and Hilda May Garrod were married in 1916 at Dunmow in Essex and had their first child in 1917.”

All of which fits because a W H Drinkhall witnessed George’s will in March 1918.

Now I know the spelling is different but the coincidences are too close and so I can now place our Nellie in Eltham in 1916 on Well Hall Road.

And the real prize for me is that the Drinkal home was just minutes from 294 Well Hall where our family lived from 1964.

294 Well Hall Road, 2015

So there you have it.......  half a century may separate me from George and Nellie but there is the link.

It would be easy get a bit silly about the connection but for someone who has spent the last few years getting to know Mr and Mrs Davison, sharing their ups and downs and his final fate there is something powerful in knowing that we share the same place.

All of which just leaves me to thank Tricia, and remind  those who live in Manchester that the George Davison collection will be part of the exhibition in July to commemorate the Battle of the Somme in the Remembrance Lodge in Southern Cemetery.

Research by Tricia Leslie

Location, Well Hall, Eltham, London

Pictures; from the collections of David Harrop and Andrew Simpson

Painting; 294 Well Hall Road, © 2015 Peter Topping

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*A new book on Manchester and the Great War http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

The first Christmas card of December

Now if like me you are old enough to remember those letters to the Times on hearing the first cuckoo of spring, here is another.

In this case it’s the first greetings card for Christmas.

A first in that  we are only just in to December and also because it is the earliest David has shown me from his collection.

It dates from December 1916 and although I know he has much older ones this is still a first for me.

Somewhere in the collection I have some Victorian ones and perhaps it’s time for them to see the light of day.

David tells me this one was also a a Valentine's mailing novelty card so a double first.

And that is it.

I shall   leave you with this one, and no I don’t feel that I have brought Christmas in too early given our local supermarket has had advent calendars for a month and the first TV advert for the season aired sometime ago.

All I will say is that David continues to amaze me with the extent of his collection of memorabilia from the two world wars along with that of postal history.

Still that’s it for now.

Picture; Christmas card 1916, from the collection of David Harrop 

Two pictures and four years of war .................

We are on Oxford Street sometime on November 11 1918 amongst the crowds celebrating the end of the Great War.

Many standing there will have their own personal story of the war and for some the euphoria of Armistice Day will be tinged with the loss of someone close to them.

But on that Monday just over a century ago there is no doubting the relief that it was all over, a feeling echoed again just twenty-seven years later on the evening of VE Day and summed up by the diary entry of a young woman who wrote “tonight everyone I know will be safe.”*

The day was well documented as was August 4th four years earlier and contrary to the received account of the declaration of war the mood was not one of universal acclamation.

Across the country in the run up to the war there had been opposition expressed in letters from church organisations, newspaper editorials and motions passed at trade union conferences, and on the streets there was not always that spontaneous outburst for a war with Germany.

Robert Roberts remembered that in Salford “there was no great burst of patriotic fervour.  Little groups of men and women together stood talking earnestly on the shop or at the street corner, stunned a little by the enormity of events.”

And yet once the war had begun recruitment centres across the country were overwhelmed by volunteers, so much so that here in Manchester many wanting to join the Colours were turned away and in the first months of the war the City raised a full eight battalions of volunteers complementing the battalions of reservists who had already been sent to the Front.

And that neatly brings us to the second picture which is dated August 4th 1914 and was taken in Brook Street in Macclesfield with a group of men from the Cheshire Yeomanry.

Together they span the Great War and I am grateful to David Harrop from whose collection theyare from.

Pictures, Armistice Day in Manchester November 11 1918 and August 4 1914 with the Cheshire Yeomanry at Macclesfield, courtesy of David Harrop

*Of course the war in the East against Japan would go on till the August and it would be many more months before my family learned of the death of my uncle who had died in a POW camp in 1943.

“At present we do nothing at all other than parade” ......... sharing a day in 1915 with George Davison at Woolwich Barracks*

Mr and Mrs Davison and their son, 1916 Ireland

Now I went looking for anything that might have happened on October 27 1915 but the databases proved unrewarding.

“Unfortunately” according to one “there are no historic events for this date” other than it was the day that Herschel Saltzman was born and as everyone knows he  “was a Canadian theatre and film producer best known for his mega-gamble which resulted in his co-producing the James Bond film series with Albert R.”**

So a day of little significance which was pretty much how George Davison of the Royal Artillery described that Monday in 1915 to his wife in a letter home.

Woolwoch Barracks circa 1914

He had enlisted the year before had spent Christmas and most of 1915 in Ireland before briefly being posted to Woolwich and judging by his comments the army was not quite ready for his arrival.

There were no beds but he had managed to “find two blankets and use my coat and trousers for a pillow – the floor is the only bed and it is abominably draughty.  Our German friends (?) chipped pieces off the barracks the other day and part of the roof is being temporarily held up by wooden joists.”

And time hung heavily “at present we do nothing at all other than parade at 6 o clock am 8 am and 1.45 pm to see if any clothing is available.  There are no knives forks or spoons to eat with so you can imagine the result when fingers have to be used.”

George's letter to Nellie, October 27 1915

His experiences were no doubt echoed by his companions and conditions must have been grim given “that there are 1500 more men than the place will accommodate” which accounted for meal times being “something approaching a football scramble.”

Added to which he was still unable to “send a complete address [because] there are about 1000 other recruits to be dealt with before I get posted to any Battery.”

But there were compensations and George had managed to get the pendant and chain his wife had asked for.

Now on the surface it is an unremarkable letter but of course that is what makes it so important, for here stuck in Woolwich was George Davison biding his time as the army coped with the huge numbers of men who had volunteered since the outbreak of war.

For anyone who knows Woolwich Barracks George’s description of his time there will be of special interest more so because of the reference to Zeppelin raids.

And here I have to own up to a personal connection because just under a year after the letter was written the house two doors down to ours on Well Hall Road was destroyed by a Zeppelin bomb.

History of War, Part XXIV October 27 1915

Nor is that the only link with Mr Davison because for a while he lived here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy just a short walk from our house on Beech Road.

But even if there were not these personal links I have over the last year become close to the man as I work my through the collection of letters he sent home to his wife.

The George Davison Collection is a wonderful insight into how one family coped with the Great War and is a neat contrast to a contemporary account of the war issued by the Manchester Guardian every fortnight.***

And by sheer chance the first volume I have is dated October 27 1915 and covers the Italian Campaign, Russian Domestic Politics and the war on the Western Front with the added bonus of a series of adverts for everything from A Sun Bath to Valkasa the Tonic Nerve Food and the Manchester Guardian Christmas Gifts Fun known as "Tommy's Christmas which was “open again for the supply of Comforts for Lancashire and Cheshire Regiments at the Front.”

I will never know if Mr Davison read the history or if he benefited from “Tommy’s Christmas.”

By November 1915 he was back in Ireland and there he would stay till he was posted to the Western Front.

Pictures; of George Davison his wife Nellie and son, the extract from his letter, postcard of Woolwich Barracks and over of the History of War, courtesy of David Harrop.

*The George Davison collection is a unique record of material held by David Harrop and includes letters postcards, official documents many personal items from when Mr Davison was born in Manchester to his death on the Western Front in June 1918 and continues into the middle of the century. George Davison, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/George%20Davison

**HISTORYINDATES, http://historyindates.com/27-october-1915/

***The Manchester Guardian History of the War

Woolwich in 1915, a Manchester soldier and a love letter from Chorlton

The Herbert Hospital circa 1900

“Arrived safely today. No settled address at present.  Best wishes George.”

Now at first glance there isn’t anything special about George’s message to his wife Nellie even given that it was sent from Woolwich to 146 Bedford Street, Hulme in Manchester.

Thousands of young men every year leave the family home in search of work and until things are settled will not have a permanent address.

But what makes the card just a little more interesting is the date and time for George sent it on October 25th 1915 just in time for the late evening collection.

From George at Woolwich  to Nellie in Hulme, October 1915

He was in the Royal Artillery and over the course of the next three years was to serve in Ireland and on the Western Front where he was killed in the June of 1918.

I can’t yet establish when he enlisted but Woolwich may have been one of the first posting after he left Manchester.

And just four days after our post card he sent another to Nellie with the request not “to send any letters to Woolwich until further notice.  Expect leaving this weekend for unknown destination.”

During those few days be bought a number of cards depicting Woolwich but never sent them and they now form part of the George Davison collection.

In all there must be a hundred postcards, letters and official documents from 1915 till 1955.  Many are from George to Nellie and after his death there is correspondence from the War Office, the pensions department and his commanding officer.

Woolwich, 1915

There are also his school reports, details of his first job along with the social club he joined and his membership of the Independent Labour Party.

And if that was not enough there is a series of charming letters he wrote to young Nellie before they were married.

The first dates from 1904 when she was just 16 and talks of his recent proposal of marriage and his wish to meet her parents on the following day.

Others follow during the course of the next two years and are the usual love letters sent in the age before the telephone.

But it would be a full four years before they married and another three years before the birth of their son.

This is a wonderful collection of material spanning the last decades of the 19th century and well into the next.

And for me there is a very personal connection which links me to George.

During the years before he was married he lived just a few minute’s walk away at Barway House on Edge Lane here in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, the first marital home was close by in Hulme and we shared a similar political outlook.

Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich circa 1900

All of which then just leaves Woolwich.  He was stationed there briefly in 1915 and I grew up close by separated by just forty years which in the great sweep of things is not much.

I suspect that the Woolwich he knew was still the one I was familiar with in the 1960s and which has now pretty much vanished.

I doubt that he would recognise Beresford Square or Wellington Street any more than I can today, and I am sure would be equally hard pressed to make sense of the area around the Arsenal or for that matter the water front.

Odd that two people separated by those four decades should still have more in common than I would have thought.

But then that is sometimes how history pans out, which is less by grand design and more by a series of hiccups.

Location; Woolwich, London


Pictures; from the collection of David Harrop

A tank, a souvenir, and the soldier far from home in Woolwich

Now the romantic in me would like to think that George Davison bought one of these as a souvenir for his wife Nellie and their son Duncan.

The Woolwich Tank, circa 1918

He was in the Royal Artillery and was stationed in Woolwich during the Great War, first in 1915 and then again in 1917, and 1918 while they were living in Manchester.

That said Nellie spent time with him in “digs” in Ireland and Woolwich so it is very possible that she would have come across this piece of crested china, and took it home from London.

Pieces like this were very popular during the Great War and were turned out in their thousands.

The coat of arms of Woolwich

The porcelain companies, seeing the potential of war souvenirs switched from models of Blackpool Tower and Ann Hathaway’s cottage to tanks, battleships and ambulances.

They turned out identical ones, with just the name of a different town or city and coat of arms to distinguish them.

Sometimes in their zeal to market across the country they got it wrong, so while you could have bought an ambulance or tank with Manchester’s coat of arms, you could also have bought a model battleship, despite the fact that there was no such ship in the Royal Navy during the conflict.

The Davison's, 1916

Our Woolwich tank is in perfect condition, and bears the name Shelley China, which was a Staffordshire pottery company founded in 1862, only ceasing as an independent business in 1966.

What I particularly like about this one is that it has been acquired by my old friend David Harrop, who is the also the custodian of the George Davison collection which is a fascinating archive of letters, personal documents and pictures, spanning the period from George’ birth in 1886, through to his war service and into the 1950s.

Mr Davison was killed on the Western Front in June 1918, but his wife continued to add to the collection throughout a big chunk of the century.

And what makes the collection just that bit personal for me, is that he appears in the book I wrote about Manchester and The Great War, but more than that he was at one point in 1918  living just down from our family home on Well Hall Road prior to embarkation for France.*

This I know because we have his will he made out in March 1918, witnessed by a Mr Drinkwater who lived on what is now the old Well Hall cinema.

And in a letter to Nellie he refers to her stay at the house which was just minutes from ours.

Nor does the connection end there, because before he married Nellie, he lived in Chorlton-cum-Hardy just a short walk from where we live now.

And while there, at Barway House on Edge Lane he wrote a series of courting letters to Nellie.

Shelley China

All of which makes the tank and the story very personal.

When David told me he had the tank the message just said “Tank coming home” and while it is not going back to Woolwich it will be joining the George Davison collection, and was  pride of place in a major exhibition to mark the end of the Great War, which was on show at Central Ref from in 2018.

Location; Woolwich, Manchester

Pictures; the Woolwich Tank, circa 1918, George Davison, his wife Nellie and son Duncan, 1916 from the collection of David Harrop

*Manchester Remembering 1914-18, Andrew Simpson, 2017, the History Press, 

https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-great-war-how-we-remember-it.html

Collecting for the Ancoats Hospital in the summer of 1924

I belong to that generation which was the first to grow up with the National Health Service.

School Daisy Day, date unknown

It over saw my birth in the General Lying In Hospital in Lambeth went on to look after me through the succeeding decades and is all the more a friend as I pass into my 66th year.

And for most of what I have needed it has continued to be free at the point of need offering the best medical care I could ask for.

But of course had I been born just a decade earlier my parents would have been expected to pay for my care not through their taxes but directly out of their pocket and like many would no doubt have been forced to dig deep from the family income.

All of which is a powerful reminder that there was a time when medical care was neither automatic nor a certainty for a large section of the population and that funding for our hospitals was still reliant on charity and big annual events.

Ancoats fancy dress day, date unknown

These ranged from The Alexandra Flag Days to local events and all were geared to raising cash which brings me back to a series of postcards from the collection of David Harrop and The Daisy Day Parade.

This was a regular event which began in June 1913 to raise money for Ancoats Hospital and consisted of selling artificial daisies and a fancy dress parade.*

All of which brings me back to the post cards.

An invitation, July 1924

Now I have no idea when the photograph was taken which means it could date from the 1920s and perhaps even from the events planned at the General Meeting held on July 17th to which Miss Miriam Buckley of 18 Dawns Street was invited.

It was held in the Out-Patients Department of the hospital and was the General Meeting for the Ancoats Daisy Day’s Hospital.

In time I might be able to track down the minutes and discover if she attended.

There is a reference to a Miriam Buckley aged 10 living with her parents at 59 Herbert Street, Ardwick in 1911 but after that the trail goes cold save for a  reference to her death in 1974.

The Manchester Guardian reports, July 21 1924

Either way I think she would have pleased with the events of the day which the Manchester Guardian reported “took the form of a fancy dress parade on the lines of the student’s procession on Shrove Tuesday.

In this case, however the industrial areas rather than the business centre of the city were tapped by the collecting boxes.  

The better to cover as large an area as possible the parade divided forces, one party going through Ancoats and by way of Ashton Old and New Roads to Belle Vue Gardens, the other combining Chorlton-on Medlock, Hulme, and Ardwick.

Fancy Dree, 1924

Numerous prizes were awarded for figures in the processions and there were prizes for those who collected the largest amounts.”**

I doubt that I will ever be able to confirm a date fo those young people in their Daisy Day fancy dress, but if I were to slip into speculation and fastened on July 1924, then some of those staring back at me may well have become proud parents in an NHS hospital in the years after its creation in 1948.

Now that would round the story off nicely.

Pictures; School Daisy Day, date unknown and invitation to Miss Miram Buckley, July 14 1924 from the collection of David Harrop, and Manchester Guardian, 1924, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* A Daisy for Daisy Day, A History of Ancoats Dispensary in 100 Objects, https://ancoatsdispensary100.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/17-a-daisy-for-daisy-day/

**Fancy Dress Parade for the Hospitals, Manchester Guardian, July 21 1924

Letters from the Western Front

Mr and Mrs Davison and their son, date unknown

I am rereading the letters of George Davison.*

It has been a moving experience and one that has taken me from his first letters and postcards to his death on the Western Front just five months before the end of that war.

And taken me to Woolwich, Ireland and finally France.

But the collection is bigger than even this because it starts with his school records, includes the letters he sent to his future wife and finishes with the terse official correspondence from the War Office and along with all these is a series of further documents taking us into the 1950s.

They cover his enlistment in Manchester, his time in Woolwich and Ireland before his arrival in France and also reveal the changing addresses of his family.

I have yet to read them in detail but as I move to scan the last letters of May and early June I know that I will soon record his last letter because he was killed on June 17 1918.

And nothing quite prepares you for the knowledge that soon there will be no more letters from George and that the link with his wife of seven years will be severed.

His final letters talk of the irritations of moving around the Front including the loss of personal equipment and the varying quality of the accommodation and on June 15 wrote

The last letter from George to his wife, June 15, 1918

“You would be surprised to see some of our living places – at present we have an excellent dug out about 20 feet below the surface. 

It has however two drawbacks – poor ventilation and only artificial (candle) light.  

Compared to some it is a Palace.”

And this was where he died on June 17 when the dugout received a direct.  All three men in the dug out were “killed instantly” and according to the Royal Engineers who inspected the position “it was not considered safe to recover the bodies.

The dug out was then filled in and is marked as the resting place of your brother in law and his comrade. ”**

Now I have read and reread those last few letters and they still have the power to move me.

I was prepared for the fact that he was killed but you can never quite shake off either the manner of the death or that the description in the letter of July 6.

And that I think is all that needs to be said.

Picture; of George and Nellie Davison and additional material courtesy of David Harrop

*George Davison, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/George%20Davison

*extract of the letter sent to Bdn W.F.Evans, R.A.F, July 6 1918

The history of Eltham in just 20 objects ........Nu 7, down at the Arsenal

Now there is every chance that none of these eleven women came from Eltham or even lived here, but on the other hand they might have done.

The Progress Estate is testimony to the many people who came from all over the country to work at the Arsenal.

And as we uncover more personal stories of the hutments it is fitting that this picture should be included in the 20 objects

There is no printed caption and it has been left to someone to write “Woolwich Arsenal Girls.”

Location; Woolwich

Picture; Woolwich Arsenal Girls, date unknown, from the collection of David Harrop

More from the Royal Herbert and that unknown nurse

"Myself" date unknown

Now while I am pretty sure where this picture outside the Royal Herbert  was taken I am no nearer to finding the identity of the nurse.*

The caption just says “myself” and while there are plenty of others in which she appears none have her name.

They all come from collection of photographs she compiled into an album of the staff and patients of the Royal Herbert during the Great War.

These picture books were an important part of the life of the hospitals and cover both military hospitals and those run by the Red Cross and St John Ambulance.

Some like this one are just photographs, but others contain comments, poems and drawings from men recovering from wounds and illnesses.

"Sister Heard and myself"

They represent an important part of the men’s recovery and while many of the names of the staff and patients are lost some are recorded and can be tracked.

In the case of John Henry Harrington De Graves of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who appears in an autograph book for a Red Cross Hospital in Cheltenham my friend Susan researched the Canadian side of his life both before and after the Great War.**

In time I am sure we will be able to do the same for some of the men and nurses of the Royal Herbert.

What makes this book just that bit more interesting is that the pictures include some from Gallipoli showing our unnamed nurse at Salonika.

So there you have it, a history book all on its own, which just leaves me to say I will be doing more research and to thank David Harrop from whose collection the album comes.

The Royal Herbert, date unknown

Location; Woolwich, London







Pictures; from the Royal Hebert collection, 1915-16 courtesy of David Harrop

*The Royal Herbert, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Royal%20Herbert%20Hospital 

**The Man Behind the Autograph,http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-man-behind-autograph.html

The envelope that told the story of the Manchester Blitz

Now of all the records, the photographs and stories of the Manchester Blitz this little envelope is as powerful a reminder of the destruction that was heaped on the city on the nights of December 1940.

It was sent to W Marsden of 11 St Mary’s Gate but was returned to the Vicarage in High Wycombe, and the various official stamps tell the story.

It had been sent on August 20 1941 but according to the stamp the building was “Gone No Address” and to confirm the fact there was a hand written message “War Damage of property.”

Now number 11 was entirely destroyed during the Manchester Blitz along with all of the buildings opposite on the south side from Deansgate up to Cross Street.

I have yet to track down William Marsden.  I know that in 1911 the address was listed as the Union Bank of Manchester but more than that will need more research.

That said even in wartime the Post Office was more than efficient returning the letter just two days.

All of which just leaves me to go back and look at the directories for 1940 to be exactly sure what business was being conducted just before the blitz and also to look for who was living at the Vicarage.

Location;; Manchester








Pictures; from the collection of David Harrop

Mr George Dansie of Barforth Road Peckham Rye ......... currently residing in Manchester

Now recently I came across one of those fascinating links that connected my current city of Manchester with where I grew up in Peckham on Lausanne Road.

George writes home, 1917

And the connection was a Mr George Dansie of Barforth Road Peckham and a picture postcard he sent from Manchester in the November of 1917.

The card was of the Manchester YMCA in Piccadilly which was a temporary wooden building erected in the grounds of what had once been a hospital.*

It was also known as the Khaki Club and although meant for soldiers recuperating from wounds and shell shock was open to any servicemen and became a popular club.

I have yet to find out what Mr Dansie was doing in Manchester but given that he had been born in 1890 it is more than likely that he was stationed in the city.

There are a few men with his name in the military record and one in particular who was in the Royal Army Service Corps could be him.

The Manchester YMCA, 1917

Sadly George doesn’t give too much away in his message home.

He writes that he “will be writing a letter to you tomorrow” and that he had been to two theatres last week and was planning to visit another.

But what caught my eye was a sentence he added as an afterthought and squeezed into the top of the card where he wrote that the Manchester YMCA “is very like the Camberwell hut.”

And that took me on a journey which ended with the Camberwell hut or at least a painting of the building.

The Camberwell YMCA, 1917

The picture is in the collection of the Southwark Local History Library and Archive and according to the background notes was painted in 1917 by "the artist Russell Reeve who was born in Norfolk and lived in Hampstead. 
He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal Academy of Art. 

In 1916 permission was granted for the building of a YMCA hut on Camberwell Green for the use of passing troops."

The Camberwell building is not unlike its Manchester companion and leaves me wondering what its fate might have been.

Interior of the Manchester YMCA, 1917

I don’t remember it but then we left Peckham for Eltham in 1964.

The Manchester YMCA was demolished sometime around 1920 when the site was turned into a public park.

So the hunt is now on to discover more of the history of the “Camberwell hut.”

Location; Manchester, Peckham and Camberwell

Pictures; YMCA Hut on Camberwell Green, 1917 Russell Reeve, GA0325, courtesy of Southwark Local History Library and Archive, the Manchester YMCA postcard from the collection of David Harrop and the picture of the interior from the collection of Bill Sumner

* Piccadilly Gardens ....... the early years nu 1 The YMCA Hostel 1917,

** Southwark Local History Library and Archive