Today is the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, which marked the official ceasefire on 8 May 1945 following Germany’s unconditional surrender.  VE Day saw jubilant celebrations in Britain.  The Clay and Baylis Papers, which were featured in a previous blog post, contains an account of these celebrations in London. 

Betty Clay was born in 1921, the youngest daughter of Sir Joseph Miles Clay (1881-1949), Indian Civil Service 1904-1937, Adviser to Secretary of State for India 1937-1942.  In 1945, she was working in London as a physiotherapist.  After the War, she went to India to work in military hospitals, first in Poona, then Jullundur, and finally to the Delhi Indian Military Hospital.  Tragically, she was killed on 2 October 1946 in a landslide while out walking in the hills around Naini Tal.

View of the crowd in front of the Ministry of Health building in Whitehall, 8 May 1945. The Prime Minister addressed the crowd from the balcony. Image:  IWM (TR 2876)

Betty wrote about the day’s events in her diary, and later wrote to her sister Audrey in India describing the celebrations in London.  The day began with a visit to church, then an afternoon spent at the cinema where she saw the new Warner Bros film Hotel Berlin.  At about 8.30 that evening she travelled with friends from her flat in Chelsea to St James’s Park, then walked to Buckingham Palace where a vast crowd had gathered.  It was a warm evening and, as they wriggled through the crowd, people fainting became a common sight: 'It was a sultry evening, which I suppose accounted for the fact that the ‘weaker sex’ were going down like nine-pins all round – I’ve never seen so many women faint, in such rapid success, it was a regular battlefield'.  She heard one ambulance worker comment: 'Oh this is just hopeless! It beats Cup Finals at Wembley'.  The Royal Family came out on the balcony at 9.30pm, and the King’s speech was relayed by loudspeaker all over the square.  The huge crowd listened in silence: 'you could have heard the proverbial pin drop'.  Betty was too far back to see much detail, but noted that 'the King was in naval uniform, the Queen in white, Princess Elizabeth in A.T.S. uniform and Princess Margaret in blue'.

Once the Royal Family went back inside, Betty and her friends walked down the Mall.  Bonfires were burning in the park, fireworks were being let off, and all the main buildings were floodlit.  They wandered onto Westminster Bridge.  At one minute past midnight a solitary gun in the distance fired once, then all the boats on the Thames sounded their sirens.  They wandered along the Embankment to Trafalgar Square where 'people were vying with each other in climbing lampposts', then to Piccadilly where she described the lights as 'magnificent, & made London seem quite a blaze of light'.  On the walk back home, 'any form of conveyance had long since packed up', they saw a huge bonfire outside St George’s Hospital, with a crowd of medical students dancing round it.

Men and women dance the conga around a bonfire in East Acton, London during the evening of VE Day, 8 May 1945. Image:  IWM (EA 65881)

Of the night’s events Betty noted: 'It was the crowds that impressed me the most, they were completely care-free & happy & profoundly good natured.  I expected to see drunkenness & hysterical excitement, but there was none …… just an atmosphere of infinite good-will & renewed pleasure in life'.  She arrived home at 2am, foot-sore and weary, but for her it was 'a night that will live in one’s memory for life – a never to be forgotten spectacle – the fitting climax to London’s long ordeal by fire & high-explosive …. We seemed to be going forward, out of darkness, into the light again'.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Letters written by Betty Clay to her sister Edith Audrey Baylis, 1936-1946, British Library shelfmark: Mss Eur F765/4/5.
Diary of Betty Clay, Jan 1945-Jan 1946, British Library shelfmark: Mss Eur F765/4/1.

 

With the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day approaching, it is a fitting time to revisit one of the British Library’s lesser-known treasures: Children in War-time: Stories and Drawings Printed by Boys and Girls [1941], a two-volume publication created by students at Hay Currie Emergency School in Poplar, London.

Title page for part I of Children in War-time: Stories and Drawings Printed by Boys and Girls. Poplar: The Hay Currie Emergency School, [1941].  BL shelfmark: Cup.410.f.1193.  Featuring a vignette picture attributed to William Reeves (age 11).

Unlike the ever-popular children’s classics Carrie’s War (1973) and Goodnight Mister Tom (1981), which offer fictional accounts of children and their evacuation, Children in war-time is a scarce record of children's firsthand impressions of war.  In the preface, Headmaster E.G. Porter claims to serve only as a 'compiler' of the volumes, with the children responsible for 'the writing, drawing, printing, reproduction, and book-binding'.  The result is a beautifully crafted collection of vignettes and illustrations that offer a window into the wartime lives of children in London’s East End.

A 1947 study described Poplar as 'probably the most universally poverty-stricken borough of London in the inter-war years'.  While the war brought greater employment stability, proximity to the Docks exposed the area to sustained bombing during the Blitz.  Children were evacuated and later returned, creating unprecedented challenges for the emergency schools tasked with remaining open.  In her contribution to the collection, 'Schools I've Attended in War Time', Dorris Brooks captures this instability, recalling frequent school moves, changing teachers, lessons spent sheltering during air-raids, and the bombing of local facilities.

A playful tone shines through Children in War-time, with students celebrating novelty amid hardship.  Fred Smith writes with pride about a homemade Morse-code buzzer; Alice Conroy recalls differences in wartime Christmases; John Page writes of singing songs while collecting salvage; and Edna McDonald fondly remembers watching Paul Robeson in The Proud Valley (1940), 'a mining picture', after her arrival as an evacuee in South Wales.

Page opening from part II of Children in War-time: Stories and Drawings Printed by Boys and Girls. Poplar: The Hay Currie Emergency School, [1941].  BL shelfmark: Cup.410.f.1193. Features a story 'My Kitten' by Joan Hunt (age 11) and a linocut titled 'Fire fighting' by Ronald Bowyer (age 13).

The Blitz looms over their writing.  One child remembers scavenging tins from the rubble of a bombed house; another writes about the fortunes of a tabby kitten her brother discovered 'on the debris' and saved.  Several children describe their Anderson shelters—the difficulty of building them, their smell and discomfort, how they distracted themselves and passed the time.

With neat layouts, striking linocuts, and the delicacy of private press production, Children in War-time is a feat of craftsmanship produced under unprecedented constraints.  The project speaks to the ambition of Hay Currie Emergency School’s staff.  Historian Stephen Hussey notes disruptions to typical classroom practice from the exigencies of war necessitated improvisation and innovation.  He argues it fostered far more creativity and student collaboration than was present in prewar classrooms.  The meticulous care shown in the book’s production seems designed deliberately to lend authority to the children’s writing and suggests a respect for their impressions.  It reminds me of the British Library’s call for children to make mini books during the pandemic.  Participation in the project clearly stayed with the students; one submitted her memories of making the book to the BBC’s People’s War Archive.

As VE Day approaches, Children in War-time is perfect item to revisit.  A text that stands as testament to educational ingenuity, children's wartime creativity, and the art of bookmaking—brimming with resilience, craft, heart.

Hannah Graves
Curator, Printed Heritage Collections, 20th century

Further Reading:
Children in War-time: Stories and Drawings Printed by Boys and Girls. Poplar: The Hay Currie Emergency School, [1941]. BL shelfmark: Cup.410.f.1193.
Barnett House Study Group. London Children in War-time. London: Oxford University Press, 1947. BL shelfmark: 8367.b.51.
Nina Bawden. Carrie’s War. Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, 1974. BL shelfmark: H.74/127.
Stephen Hussey. 'The School Air-Raid Shelter: Rethinking Wartime Pedagogies'. History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Winter, 2003): 517-539. BL shelfmark: Ac.9234.ry.
Michelle Magorian. Goodnight Mister Tom. London: Puffin, 1983 [c.1981]. BL shelfmark: H.2004/413.

 

Walter Key Haslewood was born on 19 November 1816 in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the son of Reverend John Daniel Haselwood and Hannah his wife.  He was nominated to the East India Company for a Bengal Infantry cadetship in 1835 by Richard Jenkins at the recommendation of his father.

His first application for the 1835/6 season has an annotation in red ink that Haslewood had forfeited his appointment as he had not proceeded to India in line with a Standing Order of the Court dated 21 May 1828.  This order stipulated that cadets had to apply for embarkation orders within three months of being passed and sworn. However a second application submitted later in the same season was accepted and he was entered as a cadet for the Bengal Infantry.

In June 1836, prior to his departure for India as an ensign, he was presented as to King William IV by Lord Duncannon at the King’s Levée, the event being reported in the newspapers of the time.

Walter Haslewood arrived in Fort William on 7 December 1836.  Within a few weeks he had been appointed for duty with the 73rd Native Infantry before being transferred to the Left Wing of the 1st European Regiment of Fusiliers on 27 February 1837 and promoted to Lieutenant on 10 August 1838.

Bengal Army Service Record to 1841 for Walter Key Haslewood - British Library IOR/L/MIL/10/31, p.31

In 1839 the 1st European Regiment were involved in the capture of the fortress at Ghuznee.  Haslewood was severely wounded on 23 July 1839 by sabre cuts received from the enemy during the capture but recovered from his injuries sufficiently to continue serving in the Bengal Army.  He was described by his superiors as ‘an intelligent young officer’ and on 10 January 1840 was appointed Aide de Camp to the Governor-General Lord Auckland.  In February 1840 he was granted a Wound Pension, as his injuries were considered equivalent to the loss of a limb.

Announcement of the marriage of Walter Key Haslewood to Georgina Brice Ruggles-Brice, Bell's New Weekly Messenger 5 February 1843

On 13 January 1841 Haslewood applied for furlough to Europe, and whilst in England he was married on 31 January 1843 at Finchingfield, Essex, to Georgina Brise Ruggles-Brise, daughter of John Ruggles-Brice Esq. of Spain’s Hall in Essex.

Captain Walter Key Haslewood sailed once more for Europe on 6 February 1853 on medical furlough on board the Prince of Wales.  He may however have had more reasons than just the recovery of his health which prompted the return to England.

Notice of court proceedings for insolvent debtors, case of Walter Key Haslewood – Morning Herald 15 November 1853

On 17 September 1853 Haslewood was imprisoned in the Queen’s Prison as an insolvent debtor.  His case was heard before the Court on 14 November 1853 and he was discharged as a debtor the following day.  The report on his insolvency notes that his creditors had made inquiries as to whether the property left to his wife by her late father could be used to pay his debts, but the Court discounted this, along with an application for part of his pay as a Captain in the Bengal Invalid Establishment.

Haslewood continued to serve in the Invalid Establishment, rising to the rank of Major, until his death at Chandernagore on 29 August 1870.  Georgina returned to her family home of Spain’s Hall, where she died on 21 May 1880.

The Ruggles-Brice family had owned Spain’s Hall since Samuel Ruggles purchased it on 5 December 1760.  The estate remains in the family’s ownership to this day, although the manor house was sold in 2022 to the chef Jamie Oliver.

Karen Stapley
Curator, India Office Records

Further Reading:
IOR/E/4/768, p.683 – request for wound pension by Walter Key Haslewood, 21 December 1841
IOR/L/MIL/9/183 ff.191-194 Cadet Papers of Walter Key Haslewood 1835 season (1)
IOR/B/181 Court 21 May 1828 – Standing Order concerning cadets’ embarkation
IOR/L/MIL/9/184 ff.495-498 Cadet Papers of Walter Key Haslewood 1835 season (2)
IOR/L/MIL/10/31/31 Bengal Service Army List, Walter Key Haslewood
British Newspaper Archive e.g.
South Eastern Gazette 21 June 1836, page 4 – announcement of Walter Key Haslewood’s presentation to the King
Bell’s New Weekly Messenger 5 February 1843, page 7 – announcement of the marriage of Walter Key Haslewood & Georgina Brice Ruggles-Brice
Morning Herald (London) 15 November 1853, page 6 – Court proceedings for Walter Key Haslewood, insolvent debtor