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

Portraits of Power by Lieutenant Percival Anderson

In October 1917, The Tatler announced it would be featuring a series of portraits by the artist, Lieutenant Thomas Percival Anderson.  Anderson, who was serving as an officer in the Royal Army Service Corps, had been born in York in 1885.  He studied at York School of Art, Frazer College of Arbroath and in Paris after which he worked primarily as a portrait painter of, as The Tatler enthused, 'beautiful women.'  A handful of Anderson's oil portraits can be viewed at the BBC Your Paintings website here http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/thomas-percival-anderson

His series for magazine concentrated instead on senior staff of the British Army and other prominent personalities attached to the War Office.  We have so far found around twenty of Anderson's pictures in the magazine, though there may yet be more.  Considering the fine quality of the pencil portraits, it is remarkable that there is very little biographical detail about this talented artist.  Certainly, he must have been well-known enough in his day - The Tatler even featured a photograph of him in his uniform.

His sitters include General Sir Nevil Macready (1862-1946), who as adjutant-general of the British expeditionary force was responsible for registering graves and the burial of the dead, activity that was to lead to the establishment of what is now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.  Macready was also a fervent advocate of the deployment of women in the workforce.  

There is also Lieutenant-General Sir Francis Lloyd (1853-1926), who as General Officer Commanding the London District was responsible for the defence of the capital from Zeppelin attack.  A particuarly jovial portrait is that of the railway expert, Sir Sam Fay, who was director of movements at the War Office from January 1917 to March 1918, then director-general of movements and railways, and a member of the army council.

The founder of the British Legion, Major-General Sir Frederick Barton Maurice is another sitter and one of three female portraits we have found is Lady Londonderry, formerly Edith Chaplin.  Lady Londonderry, who was made Dame of the British Empire, was President of the Women's War Services Legion, providing cooks and drivers to the Army and particularly specialising in economical mass catering.

Anderson's excellent portraits serve to remind  us of the vast and complicated network of administrative departments and organisations underpinning and augmenting the British armed services during the First World War.  

We'd be delighted to hear from anyone with more information on the artist's life and work.  To see more portraits, follow the link below:

 

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=22583

 Luci Gosling

 

 

Salvation for blinded men - the work of St. Dunstan's Hostel

Sir Cyril Arthur Pearson (1866-1921) was a successful proprietor of a number of magazines and newspapers including the Standard and Evening Standard, when he began to lose his sight as a result of glaucoma in 1910, at the age of forty-four.  Not a man to be beaten by such a disability, Pearson immediately set out to discover the possibilities and opportunities open to the blind and by 1912, had become President of the National Institute of the Blind.  

A great believer in enabling the blind to acquire skills which would allow them to lead self-sufficient lives, Pearson set up a hostel for blinded soldiers in February 1915, at first in Bayswater before moving a month later to spacious premises in Regent's Park.  At first, sixteen men were admitted but such was the number of men whose sight had been destroyed, that by the end of the first year, 1500 men had been in residence.   St. Dunstan's Hostel for Blinded Soldiers and Sailors offered a detailed programme of care, guidance and training for men who had lost their sight as a result of war.   Volunteers with the charity would visit hospitals in France and England, tracing blinded men and registering them for St. Dunstan's.  The first stage of their rehabilitation would be movement to the London General Hospital in Chelsea where principal wards were devoted to the care of blinded soldiers and sailors.  Through a kind of outreach scheme, men would be given help in writing letters and received their first lessons in reading braille and using a typewriter.  Women volunteers would visit to read books and newspapers to them daily and patients would be kept busy with craft activities such as making string bags.  Cars would be sent from St. Dunstan's so that the men could visit the Regent's Park hostel and familiarise themselves with the environment before being discharged and becoming inmates, though the charity was keen to encourage men to visit their homes, and to bring their families to stay for short periods.

At St. Dunstan's, men could choose to learn a number of different trades including basket-making, mat-making, carpentry and boot-repairing.  There was a model farm where poultry farming skills were acquired and in another classroom, massage was taught.  Others trained in shorthand, typing and as telephone operators.  Those who passed a typewriting proficiency test became the proud owner of a new Remington typewriter and braille machines were presented when pupils reached a certain standard.  While training, men were paid 5 shillings a week which was invested at an interest rate of 10% and entertainment was provided almost every evening - the men themselves even took part in revues which then toured London hospitals.

This holistic approach extended to an After-Care department where the hostel remained in touch with former inmates once they had found employment, and even children of blinded soldiers or sailors each received 5 shillings a week up to the age of sixteen. Testimonials from employers or from men themselves confirmed St. Dunstan's effectiveness as an institution which offered rehabilitation, practical skills - and hope - to men who may have originally felt the future offered them very little.

One advertisement in The Tatler in 1918, which appealled for funds, gave the example of one man, 'Rifleman H. Colville of the Queen's Westiminsters, a shorthand writer who had returned to his job at the Asiatic Petroleum Company and had since been promoted twice.  The company wrote to St. Dunstan's anxious to point out that, "he is treated entirely as one of the normal members of staff.'  Another, Private Harry Cook of the East Lancashire Regiment successfully trained as a masseur at a salary of £3 a week and reported that he was about to commence a course at Liverpool University on advanced anatomy, physiology, massage and electricity.  

Celebrities and society enthusiastically supported St. Dunstan's.  The actress Lily Elsie, best known for her role in the Merry Widow was a regular visitor to the hostel, lighting cigarettes for the men and acting as cox in the rowing team. In fact the rowing team were tremendously successful.  In July 1914, they were victorious in a regatta where they beat students of Westminster College in two out of three races, a feat all the more remarkable as none of the men had ever rowed before prior to coaching.

Arthur Pearson never considered blindness an 'affliction.'  Instead, he thought of it as a handicap which through patience and perserverance could be surmounted.  It was a maxim that was embodied in the spirit of St. Dunstan's and led to Pearson being lauded, 'the blind leader of the blind.'  Today, St. Dunstan's is known as Blind Veterans UK.  Their motto is one which Sir Arthur would have approved - Life beyond Sight Loss.

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=22519

Luci Gosling

 

 

The Dog Wool Spinners of the Royal Academy

We wouldn't normally bother to scan a picture of such poor quality for the library, but in the case of this particular photograph, which featured in a 1919 issue of The Queen, the subject was so fascinating, we just had to share it.

The British Red Cross and Order of St. John Central Workrooms were housed at Burlington House, home of the Royal Academy during the war.  Taking over seven of its galleries, the headquarters accommodated over four years of war, more than twelve hundred voluntary workers, none giving less than four half days weekly.  These workers, sewing to a standard pattern, produced an incredible 73,216 garments and 700,102 bandages for distribution to the sick and wounded.  Employees of neighbouring firms would meet at the workrooms in the evening to knit 'comforts' for the troops, there was a coordinated registration of home workers and sewing patterns were even designed, reproduced and sold via Burlington House.

When the difficulty of obtaining wool became a serious problem, a new industry was started at the headquarters - spinning dog's hair into yarn.  The four ladies pictured at their spinning wheels here under the auspices of none other than the British Dog Wool Association, are working with hair from Pekingese, Chow, collie and Pomeranian breeds.  We can also identify a Borzoi in the pictures displayed on the back wall - presumably another breed prized for its soft, silky hair. 

How the recipients felt about receiving a scarf of pure Pomeranian, or socks made from Samoyed wool, we can only guess at - and hope they didn't have an allergy to dog hair!

Luci Gosling

Native Americans on the Western Front

We were surprised to come across these three small photographs in a 1917 copy of The Graphic magazine the other day showing a group of Native Americans serving at the Front.

On further investigation, we discovered that 13,000 Native Americans served in the war - representing between 20% and 30% of those eligible to serve.  Compare this to the 15% of American men who enlisted and the proportion is particularly impressive.  Out of these 13,000, it is thought that somewhere between 2000 and 4000 Native American soldiers went to fight in France serving in all branches of the Army from cavalry to engineering, gaining special renown for their skills in scouting and reconnaissance. 

The portraits shown here are of Lieutenant Onondeyoh Loft, ('Beautiful Mountain'), Sergeant Fox and their squadron in a camp somewhere behind the lines.  They appeared on a page in the magazine entitled, 'From the Ends of the Empire - Some Overseas Fighters and Helpers,' which also included black staff of the South African Hospital as well as Australian V.C. winners Sergeant J Whittle and Private T. Kenny. Frustratingly, there is no further information about Lieutenant Onondeyoh Loft and his men.  

One of the biggest contradictions of the participation of Native Americans in the Great War is the fact that many of them volunteered out of patriotism for a country,which their forefathers had fought against only thirty years previously.  And while we may associate the Western Front and Gallipoli with the British Tommy, the French Poilu, the Anzacs and the Doughboys, these pictures serve to remind us of the surprisingly cosmopolitan mix of nationalities among the Allied forces.  

Addendum:  After posting this, @evangelineh on Twitter helpfully got in touch to share information on Lieutenant Loft from the Canadian Dictionary of Biography from which this excerpt is taken:

After the outbreak of World War I, Loft, a loyal supporter of Britain, had visited reserves throughout Ontario to promote recruitment. In 1917, with three years of active militia service in Toronto, he was commissioned a lieutenant in a "forestry draft" on account of his early experience in the lumber industry. To qualify for overseas duty he had reduced his age at enlistment from 56 to 45. The examining doctor accepted him at his word; he stood just over 5 feet 11 inches, weighed 170 pounds, and was in good shape. All his adult life he had taken excellent physical care of himself. He never owned a car, always walked, and, according to his daughter Henrietta, exercised every morning.

Although Loft went to Britain with the 256th Infantry Battalion, which then helped man the 10th Railway Battalion, he was later transferred to the Canadian Forestry Corps. In France, he liked the area and the people where the corps was stationed. "I have fallen in love with the country, its people and the language which I'm making every possible effort to familiarize by nightly study," he wrote on 6 Dec. 1917 in a letter to a civil-service friend in Canada. On 7 August, during his half-year absence overseas, the Six Nations Council had conferred on him a pine tree chieftainship, an honour given only to the most outstanding members of the Grand River Iroquois Confederacy. As the council's representative, he met with King George V at Buckingham Palace on 21 Feb. 1918, just before leaving for Canada.

Click here to read his full biography   http://www.uppercanada.info/doc/dcb_nbr_8419.html

Luci Gosling

 

From Belfry to Battlefield - Church bells & their part in the war effort

In the drive to source more metal to create munitions, hitherto unconsidered resources were investigated by both sides, and the possibility of plundering the church bells of the enemy was not ruled out. Russia, fearing the German advance in 1915, felt the threat was significant enough to take the laborious precaution of removing 300 of her bells for safety from churches of all denominations. The Illustrated London News reports that bells of all sizes were relocated to Nikolsy Monastery, just outside Moscow, to prevent their metal from being melted down and used for shells. These two recently discovered pictures from The Illustrated London News of the bells outside Nikolsy Monastery throw a spot light on the role that church bells inadvertently played in World War One, and here we take a further look at other ways in which church bells contributed to the war effort. 

Outside of Russia, the church bells of Europe did not have an easy war either. Apart from the threat of sacrilegious looting and recasting to make shells, church bells on the Western Front also became the unintended casualty of the shells themselves. The height of bell towers gave commanding views of the local area, and made for good observation posts. Unfortunately for the bells, this worked the other way too, with the towers becoming a high visual target of shellfire, intended to disable the enemy’s vantage point, but inadvertently destroying or dislodging the bells as well. These fallen bells were not to go to waste though, as ingenious wartime creativity found a new role for them, taking them beyond the belfry, and on to the battlefield.

These fallen or plundered church bells could be heard striking in the trenches: not as an army padre’s call to worship, but re-used as a warning against enemy gas attacks. Sometimes gas alarms were simply improvised gongs in the form of any sonorous material, such as clanging a frying pan suspended from a rope, but they also took the form of salvaged bells from felled church towers. The once holy sound of these bells became a sinister portent for soldiers, and must have formed a terrifying part of soundscape of life in the trenches. Smaller gas bells also acted as coveted trophies of the battlefield, as to capture enemy gas bells was a significant blow, rendering them vulnerable to stealth gas attacks. 

Away from the battlefield, the symbolic power of bells as psychological currency for victory and freedom was employed by countries on both sides. When America entered the war in 1917, the Liberty Bell was used on propaganda as a symbol of American freedom, and employed on posters to promote the purchase of Liberty Loans. Germany also used images of bells in this way to gather support for their war loans, and bells even featured in distorted early reports of the rape of Belgium at the start of the war. News that the monks of Antwerp refused to ring the church bells to celebrate the German invasion became embellished to the extent that by the time the story was reported in ‘Le Matin’ in Paris, it has morphed into a sensationalist tale of gratuitous German violence, with the bells of Antwerp being rung regardless, but with the defiant monks hung up inside the bells and used as human clappers…

These are just a few ways in which the substance, sound and symbolism of church bells played their parts in World War One in the potential creation of munitions, in offering an early warning system against chemical warfare, and on the mental battlefield in the struggle to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the people. The church bells of Britain mostly escaped unscathed to ring out in celebration when the Armistice was declared, but their Russian and European sisters on the front line were not so lucky…

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=22370

Lucinda Moore