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

“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

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

Stories of the Great War from Eltham and Woolwich ............. nu 4 a fitting memorial

How we chose to remember the Great War was varied.

Some families erected their own memorial plaques in the local church, or parish graveyard subscribed to collective tablet or fashioned their own very personal tribute.

Private Shepherd

The one for young John Edmund Shepherd who died on May 30 1915 aged 19 during the Gallipoli Campaign is made of paper on card and measures 37.5 cms by 24.5 cms.

It carries the flags of the six allied nations either side of an oval insert which contains his picture and has the simple inscription “Duty Called, Duty Done, He Died a Noble Death.”

During 1919 discussions on the form of memorials that should be adopted by the churches led to “a crucifix at the ‘Church in the Square’ for all visitors to the Market to see, a Cross of Sacrifice at Eltham Parish Church, another crucifix at Holy Trinity, Southend Crescent with the Gallipoli Memorial inside the church and at Christ Church, Shooters Hill combined with a cross, that unique milestone.”*

The milestone had originally been erected by the New Cross Turnpike Trust and was adapted to carry a powerful memorial.**

The Shooters Hill Milestone

But for some a more fitting mark of remembrance would be the creation of a new hospital to replace the small cottage hospital which stood close to the Red Lion on Shooters Hill.

It had been opened in 1890 and like the one in Eltham had dome sterling service.

There had been plans for a new hospital in 1912 but these were postponed during the war.  But with the end of the conflict preparations began again and in an age before the NHS much of the cost would be met by subscriptions and fund raising.

In 1920 the Building Committee having visited a number of hospitals accepted plans for a design which would be completed in three stages staring with accommodation for one hundred and twelve beds and admin block and ancilliary buildings.

The ground was broken in February 1923, two years later the foundation stone was laid and in 1927 the hospital was opened under the title,

The Woolwich and District Memorial Hospital with the first patients being received in March 1928.

"In 1948 it joined the NHS as a general hospital.

In 1953 a new Out-Patients Department was opened by Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, who was Patron of the Hospital.  The X-ray Department was completely refurbished in 1955, with two new X-ray sets installed.

The memorial at Eltham

Although originally dealing with general cases, by 1965 the Hospital began to specialise in surgery.   It had a Casualty Department, but it was felt that its facilities were too limited to deal with the increasing number of road traffic accidents in the area.  
In 1969 the Department closed when the new Accident Centre opened at the nearby Brook General Hospital.  The acute wards were transferred to the Brook General Hospital and St Nicholas' Hospital in Plumstead.

In the 1970s  the Memorial Hospital became a geriatric hospital, with 128 long-stay beds.  A Day Hospital was built in 1975." 

Since at least 2005, it has been run by the Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust and mainly functions as a day centre for the elderly while also offering facilities for psychiatric patients.

Pictures; the Shepherd memorial courtesy of David Harrop, and the Shooters Hill memorial stone and Eltham memorial from the collection of Ryan Ginn

*The Woolwich Story E.F.E. Jefferson, 1968

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