Untold lives blog

Shocking contemporaries and participants alike by the scale and carnage of the battle, Waterloo ended Napoleon’s imperial ambitions and helped to shape the political map of modern Europe. To commemorate the bicentenary of this momentous battle, leading academics and writers, in partnership with History Today, will discuss its legacy, from the forging of a British identity to the rise of a cult of Napoleon.
 

Evan.2510  Online Gallery 

Paul Lay (editor, History Today) will chair a discussion between

• Michael Broers, Professor of Western European History at the University of Oxford
• Robert Eaglestone, writer and Professor of Contemporary European Literature and Thought at Royal Holloway, University of London
• Alan Forrest, Emeritus Professor in Modern History at the University of York
• Jenny Uglow, biographer and historian.

This event will take place at the British Library on Monday 8 June 2015, 18:30 - 20:00.  See more details here.

Amid the many accounts of VE Day, I was interested to find the name of Henry Treece - perhaps now most familiar as the author of historical novels for children, certainly so to me, since three of his children’s books are on my shelves at home. In the Second World War he served with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and in Leaves in the storm, a collection of diary entries and recollections of the war, which he edited with Stefan Schimanski, he included his own account of “The end of the war in Europe”.

In the final entry, dated 9 May, Treece describes his arrival at King’s Cross in North London on VE Day in 1945. In a day of mixed emotions he is moved by a fanfare for service personnel, stands proudly with others in uniform for the National Anthem and later joins the crowds in front of Buckingham Palace to see the King, Queen and Princesses on the balcony. His account evokes a sense of the overwhelming number of people on the streets, in restaurants and pubs, and the unfamiliar sight of lights blazing from shops and public buildings. Yet he also conveys his shifting moods and ambivalence towards the celebrations as he walks back from the station against a backdrop of fireworks, bonfires and singing – because “The war is only half-over, and many who are dancing and singing to-night will dance and sing no more”.

VE-Day celebrations, Trafalgar Square, London, England, May 8, 1945 - Lieut. Arthur L. Cole. Canada. Department of National Defence. Library and Archives Canada, PA-177086       Some rights reserved

For Treece himself, the end of the war meant an eventual return to teaching. In the 1940s he was primarily a poet, part of the New Apocalyptics or New Apocalypse, a slightly notional grouping of poets named from an anthology, The New apocalypse [1940], to which he contributed prose, criticism (relating to Surrealism) and several poems. In the 1950s, however, he turned to works of fiction, and one of his earliest books for children was Legions of the eagle (1954). His many tales of the Vikings, Romans and Celts, were illustrated by Charles Keeping, Christine Price and William Stobbs, among others. He died in 1966 and The Dream-time, his last, more experimental, book, was published posthumously in 1967 with a postscript by Rosemary Sutcliff.

Alison Bailey
Lead Curator, Printed Heritage Collections 1901-2000

Further reading:

Leaves in the storm: a book of diaries. Edited with a running commentary by Stefan Schimanski and Henry Treece. London: Lindsay Drummond, 1947. Shelfmark: 09101.b.10.

Dorian Cooke, J.F. Hendry,…Henry Treece, The New apocalypse: an anthology of criticism, poems and stories. London: Fortune Press, [1940]. Shelfmark: 12299.b.11.

Henry Treece, The Dream-time. With a postscript by Rosemary Sutcliff. Illustrated by Charles Keeping. Leicester: Brockhampton Press, 1967. Shelfmark: X.990/1217.

To find other works by Treece in our collections – search under his name in our online catalogue.

This week the 50th anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill is being commemorated.  There has been a flood of articles analysing his role in British history.  Untold Lives would like to highlight three little-known files in the India Office Records which show Mr Churchill’s generosity to men who had been his servants when he was a young officer in the British Army.

Churchill sailed for India with his regiment, the Queen’s Own Hussars, in October 1896.  He was stationed initially at Bangalore. In July 1943 the India Office set its administrative wheels in motion on behalf of Prime Minster Churchill who wished to send a personal gift of 100 rupees to his former servant Mr S Joshua. Mr Joshua was an inmate of the Friend-in-Need Society’s home in Bangalore.  Officials in London and India liaised to transfer the money through the Resident in Mysore to Mr Joshua after he had shown proof of his identity.  Churchill conveyed his thanks from Quebec where he was attending an Allied conference. He sent a cheque for £9 6s 9d made out to ‘Accountant-General India Office’ to cover to cost of the gift and a telegram to India.

 
World War II propaganda poster featuring Winston Churchill ©De Agostini/The British Library Board Images Online

Mr P Muniswamy wrote a letter to Churchill from Bangalore in December 1946 and again in May 1947 after he heard about the 100 rupees sent to Mr Joshua.  He claimed to be an ‘old old Servant’ who had worked for Churchill when he was stationed in India.  Churchill thought that he did remember a servant of that name some 50 years earlier and asked the Private Secretary to the Maharaja of Mysore to help investigate Mr Muniswamy’s character and circumstances so that he could judge whether or not to send him a gift of money.  Information was gathered locally and sent to England. Mr Muniswamy was about 68 years of age and bore a good character. He was earning 40 rupees a month as a bearer in the officers’ mess of Queen Victoria's Own Madras Sappers and Miners but likely to be discharged in August 1947 when the British officers left Bangalore. His five children were grown-up and his wife was his only dependant.  The three sons were prepared to help their parents financially but Mr Muniswamy ‘wanted a gift from his old master for personal requirements’. Churchill sent a cheque for £5.

 
IOR/L/PJ/7/14249 

In December 1948 Churchill received a letter from M A Ranookapathy whose father K M Anthimoolum had been Churchill’s dressing boy and butler. Churchill asked the Commonwealth Relations Office to ensure that a letter in reply reached Mr Ranookapathy safely and forwarded a cheque for £5.  Arrangements were made for the money to be paid into Mr Ranookapathy’s savings account in Bombay.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this story is the personal attention given by Winston Churchill to his former servants in India.   He took time to ensure the gifts reached the intended recipients even when he was carrying the burden of being Prime Minister of a nation at war.

Margaret Makepeace
India Office Records

Further reading:
IOR/R/2/Box26/214 Mysore Residency files
IOR/L/PJ/7/5735
IOR/L/PJ/7/14249

Today, 24 January 2015, marks 100 years since the death of colonial officer and Arabian explorer and photographer, Captain William Henry Irvine Shakespear, who died in a battle at Jarrab between the forces of Ibn Saud, the founder of modern-day Saudi Arabia, and his adversary, Ibn Rashid.

Shakespear was well aware of the dangers he faced on his Arabian explorations. A day before his final departure, he wrote to the officiating Political Officer at Kuwait:

‘In case I should get snuffed out in the desert, would you be so good as to post the enclosed two letters as soon as you hear [...] As far as my kit is concerned, it might remain until you hear from my brother - he is my executor […] I think I have left everything squared so as to give as little trouble as possible [...]’.

Left: Portrait of Shakespear, courtesy of Imperial War Museum. Right: Letter from Shakespear to Grey, dated 11 December 1914 (IOR/R/15/5/88, f. 33)  

His death was first taken as rumour, but was confirmed by Ibn Saud in a letter dated 4 February 1915: ‘[…] it is a source of regret that our cordial friend and a rare well-wisher Captain Shakespear, was hit from distance by one of the enemy’s shots and died. I offer you my condolence on his death’.

Concerning Shakespear’s presence at the battle, he remarks: ‘We had pressed him to leave us before the incident; but he persisted in refusing to do so […] Amongst other remarks, he said “I have been ordered to be with you. If I leave you it would be a blemish to my honour and the honour of my Government. Therefore excuse me. I must certainly be with you”. Accordingly we allowed him (to come) in compliance with his wish’.

On 17 February, Thomas William Holderness, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for India, wrote a letter of condolence to Shakespear’s father expressing ‘sincere sympathy on the death of [his] son in action in Arabia […] on an important and delicate mission’ and conveying praise for ‘an able and gallant officer’ from the Secretary of State for India. On 22 February, Shakespear’s father responded on black-edged writing-paper thanking him for the ‘kind message of sympathy on our irreparable loss’.

 
Letter from W Shakespear to Sir T W Holderness, dated 22 February 1915 (IOR/L/PS/10/88)

The death made news in the United Kingdom, with the Manchester Evening News reporting: ‘The intrepid Arabian explorer, Capt. Shakespear, whose death is officially announced is believed to have succumbed to wounds received in this encounter on a mission to Anglophile Ibn Saud’. Indeed, Shakespear’s death was significant enough that a question was asked about it in the House of Commons by Liberal MP Sir John Jardine.

Parliamentary Notice regarding Shakespear’s death (IOR/L/PS/10/88)

In the official account of Shakespear’s death written by Sir Percy Cox on 27 July 1915, he admits ‘[w]e shall probably never know more precisely than we do now how he actually met his death’. However, further information from an eyewitness was received and reported in May 1917 by the Arab Bulletin, an official military intelligence magazine founded by T. E. Lawrence. Shakespear was ‘with Ibn Saud’s artillery, looking through his field glasses and very conspicuous, since he was wearing full British uniform and a sun-helmet […] He was therefore easily picked out, and was shot at long range’.

Further, the political significance of Shakespear’s death in the context of the conflict between Ibn Saud and Hussein bin Ali, the Hashemite Sharif of Mecca, is mentioned: ‘His [Shakespeare’s] helmet was taken into Medina, and publicly exhibited as proof to all Moslems that Ibn Saud was a traitor to Islam, and he had permitted Christians into his country. There were great demonstrations in Medina, and the hat is still displayed in the Serai, with an inscription pointing its moral’.

Shakespear’s memorial at the Old Jewish and Christian Cemetery, Kuwait (photo by Julia&Keld)

Daniel Lowe
Arabic Language and Gulf History Specialist  (@dan_a_lowe) 

Further reading:

The Death of Captain Shakespear on the Qatar Digital Library

Shakespear of Arabia  BBC Magazine 

 ‘File E/8 I Ibn Sa‘ūd’ IOR/R/15/2/31

'File 32/6 Estates of British subjects; accounts of death of Capt Shakespear, 1915' IOR/R/15/5/88

'P 632A/1915 The War: death of Captain Shakespear; text of Bin Saud's letter' IOR/L/PS/11/88

‘Fighting in Persia. Enemy Fail and Retire’, Manchester Evening News, 13 March 1915

‘Fighting in Arabia’, HC Deb 09 March 1915 vol 70 c1248

Peter Sluglett, ‘Shakespear, William Henry Irvine (1878–1915)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

H. V. F. Winstone, Captain Shakespear: A Portrait (Jonathan Cape, 1976)

Tales from the other Shakespears

In 1943 it was decided to hold a Christmas party in London for the evacuated children of British prisoners of war in Malaya.  It was funded by the officers and men of HMS Malaya and held in the Royal Empire Society’s Hall in Northumberland Avenue off Whitehall on the afternoon of 4 January 1944.  Nearly 200 children aged between four and sixteen attended, including six sons and daughters of the ship’s crew who lived in London. The crew members’ children wore tickets bearing the name HMS Malaya so they were easily distinguishable. 

From Lizzie Lawson and Robert Ellice Mack, Old Father Christmas. Picture-Book (1888) British Library flickr 

The party was deemed a great success. It started with cine films of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Ferdinand the Bull.  Music was provided by Mr E J Smith’s Orchestra. After a very good tea, the children were entertained by conjuror Col Ling Soo with a performance of Chinese magic.

Col Ling Soo was the alter ego of Herbert J Collings (1881-1958). He told the party organisers that his fee for performing would be five guineas and no lower as he was sure of several other enquiries about bookings.  Collings was well-known, a founder member of the Magic Circle who was President for two terms.  He served in World War One as a soldier in the Artists Rifles Officer Training Unit.   The Artists Rifles gave a ‘splendid’ fundraising concert in Chelmsford in May 1917 and Corporal Collings contributed his ‘Merriemysticisms’.   Collings appeared before the King and Queen on more than one occasion and newspaper advertisements for his shows refer to a demonstration of Chinese magic given by royal command at Windsor Castle.

At the end of the party Father Christmas appeared and each child was given a present from under a beautifully decorated tree.  A message of thanks was drafted for HMS Malaya:
'The children of Malaya send their greetings to the battleship.  They wish the officers and men of H.M.S. Malaya could be with them this afternoon.  Everyone is enjoying the party and we, one and all, send our heartiest thanks for this splendid entertainment'.
The celebration ended with three rousing cheers for HMS Malaya.

Margaret Makepeace
India Office Records

Further reading:
India Office Private Papers: MSS Eur F168/53
British Newspaper Archive for Herbert Collings/Col Ling Soo

What is it like to be a diplomat’s wife?  The cover of the diaries of Lady Doris ‘Dodo’ Symon provides a ready answer: ‘Never a dull moment.’

Dodo Symon (1899-1987) followed her husband Sir Alexander Symon (1902-1974) in all his diplomatic missions for over thirty years.  They were globe trotters who were able to see much of the world before the advent of mass tourism.  They lived in style in luxury hotels and sumptuous ambassadorial residences with an impressive army of servants.  They moved in high society circles, entertaining royalty, visiting exotic resorts, meeting people of different customs and religions, all in the name of ‘furthering the good relations’ between Britain and the country of their diplomatic mission.

   
India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F669 

Lucky Dodo enjoyed a wonderful life until an advanced age without experiencing any major personal crisis.  Her diaries spanning  the 1940s to the 1960s read like a long catalogue of entertainment: never a day went by without socialising.  During the 1940s, while the rest of the world broiled in conflicts and tragedies, the Symons escaped the Second World War by being posted to the United States to represent the Government of India.  They lived there and travelled around until the end of the war.  Alexander Symon was then posted to India at the end of the turmoil of Independence.  A few years after the closure of the India Office, he was appointed as the High Commissioner in Pakistan and stayed in Karachi for seven years during which time they visited Afghanistan, Nepal and other neighbouring countries.  Their long diplomatic career did not end there.  Symon was later sent to Nairobi on an economic mission and visited several other African countries.  

As for the wives of diplomats, apart from accompanying their husbands in meeting dignitaries and attending ceremonies, their daily life seemed to be filled with playing with their pet dogs, participating in dog shows, going to horse races, attending concerts, enjoying dinner parties, visiting interesting places, gardening, and shopping.   Every day for them was like Christmas Day, festival after festival, and indeed, “never a dull moment.”  Dodo was particularly talented at organizing events.  Her duty consisted of drafting lists of invitations and preparing menus for lunch, dinner, or cocktail parties, making sure the servants strictly observed the decorum of high society, with the dining room elegantly decorated and flowers suitably arranged.  An energetic woman, Dodo was also a highly efficient journal keeper who made meticulous entries of their daily activities in her cheerful diaries.  She was perhaps her husband’s best secretary. 

The highlight of her husband’s illustrious career was the Queen’s visit to Pakistan in 1961.  This exciting event was recorded in minute detail in her diary accompanied by photographs.  Dodo’s happiness was clearly visible in one of the photographs in which she was shaking hands with the dashing Duke of Edinburgh.     

These diaries, together with 37 reels of 16mm cine films made by Dodo herself, are testimonials of the daily life of an ordinary British diplomat, basking in the carefree optimism of the British post-war period.

Xiao Wei Bond
Former Curator, India Office Private Papers

Further reading: India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F669 Papers of Lady Doris Olive Symon (1899-1987)

The contribution of women during the First World War, whether as munitions workers, members of the Women’s Land Army, determined knitters or sustaining correspondents, is commemorated in our current exhibition Enduring war: grief, grit and humour. One of the individual women featured is Albinia Wherry (1857-1929) whose collection of posters and postcards, donated to the Library, includes material relating to the Women’s Emergency Canteen in Paris which you can see in the exhibition.  (Now extended until 26 October!)

During the First World War she worked at the Women’s Emergency Canteen beneath the Gare du Nord in Paris. Opened in April 1915, initially as an initiative of the Women’s Emergency Corps (a suffrage organisation), with a staff of mostly British women, it was also known as the Cantine Anglaise.

These women are doing their bit: learn to make munitions. Poster [London, 1916]  

Over the course of the war, it provided meals, drinks, cigarettes, magazines, washing facilities and sleeping accommodation for Allied troops. An illustrated account of the canteens in France compiled by Josephine Davies (Work of the Women’s Emergency Canteens in France) gives a flavour of what life was like and the hectic nature of the work especially in the period when the ambulance trains were routed through the Gare du Nord. The chapter on the Paris canteen includes a description of the wonderment of a soldier when he descends the gloomy stairs to find a huge hall, hung with flags and bunting, the inviting smell of sausages and a ready welcome. This sense of the warmth of the welcome is also reflected in the comments quoted by Davies from the Visitors’ Book which include the following accolade: “the most homely place I’ve been in since leaving my home in 1914”.

Albinia Wherry worked at the Paris Canteen from 1915 to 1918 and is recorded in Davies as one of the Paris workers who had been awarded a badge for her service there. Postcards from her collection relating to that period feature both in Enduring war and in the related display Postcards, stamps and covers from the First World War (in the Philatelic Exhibition space on the Upper Ground Floor) and colleagues have posted in our European Studies blog about some of the French posters and Russian postcards from her collection.

Albinia was the daughter of Robert Needham Cust the orientalist (whose diaries are held by the Library: Add MS 45390-45406) and Maria Adelaide Hobart. In 1881, she married George Edward Wherry, a surgeon at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and a member of the Alpine Club. Her own wide range of interests is reflected in her pre-war publications, including several about art which were aimed squarely at both school children and the lifelong learner. Some biographical material, including a photograph and a family tree, can be found in The Albinia book (about women named Albinia descended from Albinia Cecil), a work she compiled with her cousin Albinia Stewart but which was published posthumously, with the assistance of her brother Robert Henry Hobart Cust, following her death in a car accident in 1929.

See our blog about Sophia Duleep Singh to learn about another remarkable woman who worked for the welfare of soldiers during the First World War.

Alison Bailey
Co-Curator, Enduring war    

Further reading:

The Albinia book…Compiled by Albinia Lucy Cust (Mrs. Wherry). Illustrations and genealogies collected by Albinia Frances Stewart. London: Mitchell Hughes and Clarke, 1929. British Library shelfmark: 10824.b.7.

The Work of the Women’s Emergency Canteens in France 1915-1919. Compiled by Josephine Davies. [London]: [Women's Printing Society], [1919] B.L. shelfmark: YA.1989.a.3456.

Explore over 500 historical sources from across Europe, together with new insights by World War One experts in our World War I online resource

Some readers of this blog will know that we at the British Library have spent the last few years developing an integrated catalogue for our archives and manuscripts collections which is made available online as Search our Catalogue Archives and Manuscripts.  A bonus of having all the catalogue records in one system is that we can now share them with projects en masse beyond the British Library, and this includes the 300,000 or so records of the people who were involved in the creation of, or who are the subject of, the archives and manuscripts.

These records then have been included in the US based Social Networks and Archival Context project – more memorably known as SNAC.  Part of this is looking at how to help researchers find all the relevant material relating to a particular person, both archives and publications and so has developed a ‘Prototype Research Tool’  with this in mind: 

 

 
The British Library’s records are included alongside those from many US institutions and data is being loaded from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and university repositories in the UK. Anyone can click one of the ‘featured’ images on the front page or search for an individual they are interested in. The result will be a page for an individual such as this entry for Robert Clive:

 Here information about related archive collections is presented with links back to the originating repository’s catalogue, where details of how to get access to the material can be found. There are also links to publications and other resources relating to the person with links to WorldCat  which again can help with accessing the material.

The project is also interested finding out if the links between people found in catalogues when they are brought together in this way might help researchers navigate around all this data, so as well as providing links to related people the project provides a visualisation for the social and professional ‘network’ of individuals in a ‘radial graph view’ such as this one again for Robert Clive:

 

Given the richness of the catalogues and the millions of records included links can be found to the humble individual as well as the ‘great and the good’, so here can be seen a link between Lord Clive and one Mrs Bayly Brett, whose commonplace book includes a copy of a letter written by him to his mother in 1757.

Please have a look at SNAC and tell us what you think. Happy hunting!

Bill Stockting
Cataloguing Systems & Processing Co-ordinator