Untold lives blog

On Remembrance Sunday, we are sharing a story about librarians who lost their lives serving in the First World War.

In 1923 The Library Association commissioned the calligraphers Edward Johnston and H Lawrence Christie to design a roll of honour commemorating the British librarians who fell in the Great War.  Johnston, a renowned calligrapher best-known for designing an alphabet used on London Underground signs until 1980, was familiar with the British Museum Library having studied its manuscript collections as a young man.  Christie was one of the co-founders of the Society of Scribes & Illuminators and had already designed other memorials to the 1914-1918 war, including the bronze panel in the House of Commons commemorating the five Committee Clerks who were killed in action.

Letter from H Lawrence Christie to W R B Prideaux, Secretary of the Library Association, showing the 1923 design for the roll of honour

The original design was for a roll of honour on a series of vellum panels behind glass and framed in oak, to be written and gilded by Edward Johnston and H Lawrence Christie, and framed at the Hampshire House Workshops in English Oak.  The Library Association contacted libraries across the United Kingdom asking for information about staff killed during the First World War.  When the replies came in it soon became clear that there were too many names to be easily accommodated by the original design.  Following the advice of Christie, it was decided that the entire memorial would be made of a series of wood panels incised in gilt.  English oak was chosen because, in the words of Christie “the wood seems to be thoroughly British and to symbolise Britain”.  The memorial was made by the workshops of Harry Hems and Sons of Exeter, ecclesiastical sculptor and wood carver.

The memorial, which was erected in the corridor leading to the Round Reading Room of the British Museum, was officially unveiled at a ceremony in Museum on the evening of Friday 24th October 1924.  The memorial remained at the British Museum until 1998 when it was moved to its current site in the British Library.

What is less well-known is that the Library Association also collected service details for each of the librarians named on the memorial.  Many of the forms returned included photographs, which are now held in the British Library Corporate Archive.  A selection of these has been made available on the BL Facebook pages.  More will be added during the coming week.

Unfortunately, we have very little information about the memorial or the librarians mentioned on it, and only have images for 30 of the 142 people named.  Please help us to tell the stories behind these ‘untold lives’ by using this blog or our Facebook gallery pages to share any information you have about the memorial or the librarians named on it.

Lynn Young
British Library Corporate Archivist

A story for Armistice Day...

The India Office Records holds the Reports of the Censor of Indian Mails in France, 1914-1918. The Censor was concerned with letters to and from Indian troops in France and England, and his reports include translated extracts from soldier’s letters. The Government’s fear which led to the censoring of mails was that uncensored letters could provide military information to the enemy and that accounts of Indian soldiers suffering in France could distress their families at home and so lead to political instability in India. Touching, funny, sad and at times bawdy, the letters describe vividly the suffering the Indian soldiers endured and their longing to return to their families back in India.

This letter, originally written in Urdu, was from an Indian Muslim soldier writing from Marseilles, France to Moradabad, United Provinces, dated 14 January 1915. In passing it the Censor, Captain E B Howell, commented in his report that it read like an extract from the Arabian Nights. The soldier writes that he has been in France for a year and a half, but has heard that they will be leaving by the end of January or February at the latest. He says that his family must be very distressed at his long absence, and it reminds him of the following story.

IOR/L/MIL/5/828/1 ff.110-110v

He writes that it is told that the Caliph Hazrat Umar used to make a tour of inspection every night, and that on one occasion he passed near a house where a woman was reading some beautiful verses. The next day he returned to the house and asked the woman what she had been reading. The woman replied that she was reading odes of love and affection to her husband who was absent at the wars. The Caliph returned home and asked his daughter for how long a time a woman could remain continent. The daughter raised her hand and showed three fingers. The Caliph understood that a woman could remain separate from her husband for three months, and he forthwith issued an order that whenever soldiers were sent to the wars they should be returned to their homes every three months.

The Indian soldier concludes by asking the recipient of the letter to pray that his difficulties may be removed and he may soon return safely with honour.

 
John O’Brien
Curator, Post 1858 India Office Records

Discover more documents and books on this subject.