Picturing the Great WarThe First World War Blog from Mary Evans Picture Library

The Wartime Tattoo Parlour at Waterloo

While browsing a 1917 volume of The Graphic magazine yesterday, this blogger came across a fascinating article introducing readers to the day in the life of a wartime tattoo artist, along with this lovely illustration.  Mr Burchett, the artist in question, occupied a small studio just a hundred yards from Waterloo Station, a propitious location considering the constant stream of soldiers and sailors leaving for and returning to the Front via the terminal. 

'Quite an unpretentious place,' writes the author, Margaret Chute, 'full of weird pictures and simply furnished with a big clean table, a few chairs and a shelf full of colours in small boxes, cotton wool in big rolls, a jar of vaseline, several cakes of soap and small white china palettes for the ink which is used to decorate human flesh.'  Of the designs and photographs lining the wall (a patriotic British lion, and maple leaf are visible in the accompanying illustration), the writer describes one photograph of a lady, 'gorgeously clad in a series of brilliant figures, flowers, birds and flags, which in reality are pricked onto her skin never to be erased.'  Intriguingly, the lady in question was apparently the wife of one of the most popular military artists of the day, though there is no indication of who exactly it was.  Certainly, it was no unknown for society ladies, particularly those with a bohemian streak, to have tattoos.

Mr. Burchett recounted the changing trends to the interviewer.  Before the war, he was much in demand to tattoo the English aristocracy with crests and monograms, and even carried out cosmetic work; his own wife had her eyebrows and lips tattooed seventeen years previously.  'But the war has changed that,' says the tattooist rather wistfully.  'It's a busy life now - one long rush; but the customers chiefly wear khaki or blue - except a few ladies, who come to have "his" regimental badge put on their arm for keeps.'  Among his stranger requests was a man who asked for a portrait of the King to be tattooed onto his bald head and a small girl of nine, brought to 72, Waterloo Road by her father who was departing for the Front, who received a shamrock and thistle on each arm according to his instructions.  'Without a flicker that child put her little arms on the table,' says the tattoo-man, 'and never even winced.'  Proud as Punch she was when it was all over, because "daddy wanted it done".'

I am told by tattoo historian, Dr Matt Lodder, that George Burchett went on to become the country's most famous and in-demand tattoo artist.  On further investigation, the 'King of Tattooists,' could boast a client roster that included European royalty and travelled the world gathering inspiration for new and exotic designs.  His autobiography, 'Memoirs of a Tattooist,' was published in 1958.   Here, dapper and business-like in a starched collar and waistcoat Burchett is pictured in his modest shop, at work on the forearm of a burly Tommy, while a female customer stands admiring his handiwork on her own arm.   You can almost hear the hum of his electrical brass needle and smell the tobacco smoke curling up from the soldier's cigarette.  The artist (who has initialled the work A.G.) has portrayed an unusual, but everyday occurrence, drawing us in to Mr Burchett's cosy looking studio to the point where it almost tempting to choose a design, take a seat and offer one's own arm for inking.

Read more about George Burchett here http://www.tattooarchive.com/tattoo_history/burchett_george_charles.html

Luci Gosling

 

 

 

Patriotism in the Nursery & Toys of War

We were interested to read last week about the V&A Museum of Childhood's new exhibition, 'War Games,' exploring, according to their web site's blurb, 'the fascinating relationship between conflict and children's play.'  We hope to visit soon but until then, it seemed timely to share some of our own examples of military-themed toys from the Great War era.

Before 1914, German imports had accounted for the majority of toys bought in Britain and even today, names such as Steiff are synonymous with quality.  It is unlikely any Britons would have tolerated their children playing with toys manufactured by the enemy,  but the outbreak of war and the immediate suspension of all trade with Germany meant that the familiar supply of German toys came to a halt.  In response, British manufacturers took to work to prove that their toys were superior in both quality and innovation.

With what seems to be incredible speed, war-themed toys were soon in the shops.  In December 1914, Gamages, the famous Holborn store, combined its annual Christmas Bazaar with a 'Great War Tableaux' and suggested Dreadnought crackers for the festive season as well as a game called, 'Britwar.'  By the following year, it was staging a military pageant and advertising miniature Army and RFC uniforms for children, a horse-drawn Red Cross wagon as well as books filled with tales of wartime derring-do.  Other toys included terrifyingly accurate miniature reproductions of weaponry such as the 'anti-aircraft Maxim gun,' 'a Dunkirk armoured motor-car,' a field hospital or a board game, uncompromisingly called, 'Kill Kiel,' in which players could move dreadnoughts around the North Sea.  Teddy bears in khaki or Red Cross nurse's uniforms offered a gentler but still martially-led alternative.  One board game of 'Trench Football', pictured here, requires the player to dribble a football past shell-holes and a dastardly German defence including, 'a feeble opponent in "Little Willie" at outside right.'  'Loot ball is his speciality,' advises the instructions, alluding to a story where the German Crown Prince was accused of stealing treasures from a French chateau.  With his cartoonish moustache and a ferocious expression at the end of the board is the Kaiser, 'Lord High Everything, Canting Bully Bill in "GOAL" you must keep your eye on, he holds the record for mouth and foul play.'  The manufacturer, R.G & A, who had also made a similar game called, 'The Silver Bullet - Or the Road to Berlin,' proudly declared, 'British Design - British Made,' on each product.  

In fact, through a combination of enforced necessity and patriotism, the British toy industry went through something of a revival during this time.  At Parkstone Toy Factory in Dorset, dolls' houses were made to customer specifications, including replicas of one's own house.  At other factories, production lines of women workers stuffed teddy bears, smaller cottage industries were encouraged to make toys, having the additional benefit of securing employment for women at home, and at the Lord Roberts Memorial Workshops, where wounded men were rehabilitated and learnt new skills, larger wooden toys such as wheelbarrows and engines were crafted to the highest standards of quality.

Our final picture was featured as a full page in The Graphic in its 25 December 1915 issue and shows a little girl playing with a wooden puppet of the much-maligned "Little Willie".  Perhaps this was homemade rather than mass-produced, but it proves that Britain was more than willing to spread its anti-German message as widely as possible, even into the nursery. 

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=22255

Luci Gosling

  

 

 

'Masbadges', a WW1 cartoonist & THAT poster

Iconic is a much-overused word but in the case of the 'Your Country Needs You' poster featuring Lord Kitchener, it is an apt description.  With 'K of K's' penetrating gaze and pointing finger, this instantly recognisable symbol of the Great War is one of the world's most famous posters having been reproduced on everything from T-shirts to tea towels in the century since it first appeared on the cover of London Opinion magazine on 5 September 1914.  The cover was adapted into a poster by the magazine with the wording changed to, 'Britons - (Kitchener) wants you.  Join your country's army,' and was circulated privately by London Opinion, never part of the official parliamentary recruiting committee's poster campaign.  Nor was it included in a touring exhibition of war posters organised by the newly founded Imperial War Museum in 1917, though it was a popular feature of another exhibition held at the fashionable Grafton Galleries in 1919.  The poster was to inspire the great American artist James Montgomery Flagg who replicated the design, substituting Uncle Sam for Lord Kitchener, and the poster's magic formula was used in other countries, as well as during the Second World War.  Despite the design's stark, uncompromising message, historians of First World War posters claim that its popularity is retrospective and its effectiveness was limited during the war itself.   

Nevertheless, as the centenary of the Great War approaches, the Kitchener poster is more popular than ever.  But less is known about its designer, Alfred Leete.  Alfred Ambrose Chew Leete (1882-1933) was the son of a Northamptonshire farmer and born in Thorpe Achurch.  The family moved to Weston-Super-Mare in 1893 due to his father's poor health where his mother ran boarding houses.  Unlike many of his contemporaries, Leete was never formally trained as an artist.  He attended the Kingsholme School in Weston-Super-Mare and then the School of Science & Art which he left to take up a brief apprenticeship at a surveyors before trying his hand at furniture design.  

His first drawing appeared in the Daily Graphic in 1897 and two years later, he moved to London where he found work as an in-house artist with a printer.  When Punch published one of his cartoons in 1905, he decided to become a full-time freelance artist and soon found work with a number of publications including several we hold here in the archive at Mary Evans Picture Library - The Tatler, The Bystander and The Sketch.  By the First World War, Leete was an established graphic artist.  He created the character, 'Schmidt the Spy,' for London Opinion but his bold, graphic style cartoons appeared frequently in many other magazines.  Leete joined the Artists' Rifles during the war, a regiment which drew from the artistic and theatrical community and also included fellow illustrators such as Harold Earnshaw and J. H. Thorpe.  He saw action on the Western Front, an experience which informed some of his drawings from this period and post-war work involved designing recruitment posters for the tank corps and army.      

The pictures we feature here are part of a series Leete carried out for The Sketch magazine in 1918 called 'Masbadges,' where he created fantastical creatures by combining animal mascots with the badges of various well-known regiments.  Ideas include a leek-nosed goat of the Welsh Guards and a surly looking bulldog representing the Royal Artillery.  The link below includes several other examples of Leete's illustrations and reveals him to a versatile artist with a wider scope than we might otherwise have realised.  His legacy is undoubtedly and inextricably that memorable poster, but Leete's body of work deserves to emerge from its shadow.

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=22063

Luci Gosling

Splints made from sugar bags - the pioneering sculptresses of Mulberry Walk

Whilst women contributed to the war effort in a wide variety of ways, the support offered by the women of the Surgical Requisites Association was of a more literal nature, in the design and manufacture of appliances, such as splints, to physically support injured soldiers. Two pioneers in this field were Elinor Hallé and Anne Acheson  of the Surgical Requisites Depot at No. 17 Mulberry Walk, Chelsea. Both sculptresses, Hallé and Acheson turned their creative talents and knowledge of the human form towards wartime nursing, notably in their innovative use of papier-mâché.

 With wartime demand being high, a more economical alternative was sought to replace the relatively expensive traditional arm cradles made of cloth, which were designed to support a broken limb splinted with wood and bandages. It was Elinor Hallé who first employed papier-mâché as a comfortable, light weight and cost-effective substitute material for arm cradles, with Anne Acheson going on to develop these into splints. The best paper for producing the papier-mâché was discovered to be old sugar bags, which were collected direct from grocers and members of the public, with the help of boy scouts, as well as from appeals in the press. The use of recycled material and free scout labour in this way also kept down the cost, which Hallé estimated at an impressive less than one tenth of that required for the traditional arm cradles made from cloth. 

 Originally set up as part of Queen Mary's Needlework Guild for the supply of surgical dressings, the Surgical Requisites Depot was to become the central orthopaedic branch of the Guild, with both Hallé and Acheson later receiving CBEs for their war work. From being a rather underestimated material, papier-mâché appliances proved to be resilient, versatile and eminently suitable for the pressures of wartime nursing: rather like the women who invented, manufactured and fitted them. 

Lucinda Moore

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=22059

 

 

Canine Collectors - Dogs of charity

 

Fundraising for good causes was hardly a new concept when war broke out in 1914, but within weeks, the British population had gone into charitable overdrive.  Concerts, bazaars, flag days, theatrical matinees, concerts, exhibitions, sales, auctions and dances were all organised in order to raise money for a myriad of worthy charities, from national campaigns such as the National Relief Fund or the Red Cross, to smaller concerns like local hospitals, or homes for convalescent soldiers.  Collection boxes began to appear on restaurant tables, upper class ladies prowled the streets of the West End selling flags to passer-bys and patriotic postcards were produced in their thousands with all profits going to charity.

Some of the most successful fundraisers however, came in canine, rather than human form.  Again, using dogs to collect money for good causes was not an original idea.  Dog care and ownership had flourished during the Victorian era, a time in which there was also an upsurge in philanthropic activity.  What better way to get the public to part with their hard-earned pennies and shillings than by utlising the endearing, and sometimes irresistible, draw of man's best friend?  Some doggy fundraisers became celebrities, such as London Jack who raised hundreds of pounds for the London and South West Railway Servants' Orphanage (his successor, unimaginatively named London Jack II carried on #1's good works after his demise).

Inevitably, the Great War saw more dogs than ever collecting for charity and doing their bit for King and Country.  In busy areas, particularly at rail stations, they were a familiar sight often with harnesses carrying collection boxes on their backs.  We picture a number of them here, from a tiny Italian greyhound being taught to pull a toy Red Cross ambulance, to the biddable Toby, who has obligingly dressed in medical-themed drag, all in aid of the Woolwich and District War Memorial Hospital fund.  'Southville Beau', is a proud looking little Yorkshire Terrier, who had collected three thousand pennies for the Wool Fund to knit socks and balaclava helmets for the boys in the trenches and then there is Laddie, the 'Tommies' Pal,' who had, by the date of this photograph, raised £130 for local wounded.

Those of you who are familiar with Mary Evans Picture Library will know that Mary, the library's founder, was a great dog-lover and we will be no doubt featuring many more dog-related First World War stories as this blog progresses.  In the meantime, click here for more canine collectors 

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=21971

Luci Gosling

 

 

 

 

Kite 'Balloonatics' under attack

Kite balloons, which were used for observation and controlled by a cable attached to the ground, were often known as 'sausages' and first used on the Western Front on 8 May 1915 in the Aubers Ridge area.  They had been used by both the naval and military wings of the air service, but were automatically transferred to the control of the RAF on its formation in the spring of 1918.  Utilised by the Allies and the Germans, kite balloonists undertook an extremely hazardous role.  Most balloons were powered by highly flammable hydrogen gas and, unless securely tethered, they could easily drift out of control.  Furthermore, suspended more than 1000m above ground, they were sitting targets for enemy planes.

Each balloon, which was maintained and tethered by a team of 48 highly-trained men, carried two passengers, known light-heartedly as 'balloonatics' - a commander and an observer, who, via a telegraph wire down to the ground would send back information on troop formations and artillery locations.  Each basket was equipped with telecommunication equipment, binoculars, a long range camera, maps, sandbags, pressure gauge, code book, a barometer, an air speed indicator and, more onimously, two sheath knives, two life savers and two parachutes.  

These parachutes, known as the Spencer Static Line Automatic parachute, and nicknamed 'acorns,' were fitted to the outside of the basket and offered a rather unreliable exit strategy if the balloonists ran into trouble.  The idea was to grap the end of a static line as you leapt over the edge of the basket, hoping very much it would open and you would manage to jump free of any potential entanglement.  Sadly, parachute failure led to the fate of West End actor, Basil Hallam, who had left the stage and his legions of adoring fans to join the Kite Balloon Section in 1915.  In August the following year, in an attempt to escape his balloon as it drifted towards enemy lines, Hallam became tangled and fell to his death.  His story is told in 'Casualties of War,' in our latest edition of ME & You magazine which can be read via this link  http://www.maryevans.com/meandyou.php 

The popular artist and cartoonist Lawson Wood (1878-1957) was another member of the Kite Balloon Section and was decorated by the French for his action over Vimy Ridge.  

The pictures we show here are by Sidney James Jessett (1885-1961), an artist who is believed to have also been attached to the Kite Balloons and made a number of sketches and paintings around the Salient in 1917.  The desperate scramble of the basket's inhabitants, and the sight of their equipment tumbling through the air to the ground as they come under attack is a chilling reminder of how vulnerable kite balloonists could be.

The two paintings are a taster of what is to come from one of our newest contributors, David Cohen Fine Art.  David and his wife Judith have been specialising in the art, ephemera and memorabilia of the Great War since 1984 and we are delighted to be representing such a prestigious collection which comes with the benefit of David and Judith's expert knowledge.  We plan to feature many more images from the collection in this blog in the coming months.  To learn more about David Cohen Fine Art visit www.dcfa.com

 

 

More kite balloon images here

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=21872

Luci Gosling

 

Bullet proof clothing, barbed wire resistant gloves & life-saving shaving soap!

 

Turnbull & Asser, shirt-makers and tailors by appointment to the Prince of Wales, was founded in 1885 and has been situated on a corner spot in London's prestigious Jermyn Street since 1903.  Throughout its long history, it has dressed royalty, world leaders, film stars and style icons including Mr James Bond.  But in 1914, as with many gentlemen's outfitters, attention turned from civilian finery to sturdy, well-made military garb.  Officers, depending on their means, could buy their uniforms from Turnbull & Asser or perhaps Burberry's of Haymarket, Frederick Gorringe of Buckingham Palace Road or Wilkinson Sword of Pall Mall.  Waterproofs could be bought from country clothing specialists, Cording's of Piccadilly, established in 1839 and still going strong today.  

As well as tailoring, there were accessories and other paraphenalia devoted to making life in the trenches more bearable, and in some instances, safer, such as these anti-barbed wire gloves.  Priced at 7 shillings and 6 d., they were thick, insulated against electricity and lined with antiseptic wool.  

There were other forms of protective clothing too - the bullet-proof jacket from Wilkinson Sword for instance, lined with highly-tempered steel.  'The bullet-proof jacket will resist a 455 Government revolver bullet' claimed the advertisement; 'No longer a experiment, but of proved effectiveness and utility, BODY SHIELDS are now a recognised and indispensable part of military equipment. They constitute a PRECAUTION that should be taken by EVERY OFFICER. So to be equipped is a duty he owes to his family, and to himself.'   A more mass-produced item was the Crossman body shield made by Tyler and Tyler of Leicester, from the same steel as the standard issue British army helmets and designed to deflect rifle and machine gun fire.  As the war progressed, there is some evidence that the Army distributed similar body armour but probably in limited numbers.  It is likely that many men decided to invest privately in some form of protective clothing - or, since many of the magazines these advertisements appeared in were read by women, they may have been bought by wives and mothers, anxious to do anything to preserve the lives of their loved ones. 

How effective these items of clothing were is debatable.  In the case of some body shields, their design was such that a bullet could be deflected inwards towards the centre of the chest rather than away from the body and it still left large parts exposed, including the head.  Bullet-proof vests had been commercially available since the late 19th century, usually made of silk which slowed bullet velocities and penetration capabilities.  Ironically, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was wearing one when he was shot and killed in June 1914.

The abitrary nature of battle, and of human survival, is perhaps conveyed perfectly by our final picture here. Although not immediately obvious, it is a picture of a stick of Erasmic shaving soap, belonging to a private of the 2nd Middlesex Regiment. On closer inspection, a German bullet is embedded in it. This lucky soldier's grooming habits ended up saving his life!

Luci Gosling