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

One Family's War - the Patricia Aubrey Collection

         

A fascinating collection from one of our contributors, Patricia Aubrey, offers a unique insight into the First World War and how it affected the members of one particular family. Patricia's collection, consisting mainly of the Auerbach family’s photo albums and related items, dates from the late 19th century through to the mid-20th century, and the early 20th century material is of particular interest.

Arthur Auerbach (above) was born in London in 1862: his parents, Albert and Amelia, were German emigrants from Stuttgart. As young men, Arthur and his elder brother Julius went to South Africa to work for their uncle's import/export company, Dreyfus and Co. It was there, in King William's Town, that Arthur met and married Ellen Peters (born in Bristol in 1861); a daughter, Lucy (nicknamed Boo) was born in 1890, and a son, Albert, in 1894. In 1895, perhaps for a combination of personal and business reasons, they decided to return to the UK, and went to live in Ealing, West London, near Arthur's widowed mother, who passed away at the end of that year. Over the next few years two more children were born: Patricia's father, Harold, in 1897, and Violet, in 1903. Not long after Harold's birth, the family settled into a large house at 1 Carlton Road, Ealing: early photos show them at home, mostly in the front or back garden, where hoops set up for croquet can be seen, as well as one amusing snap of the paterfamilias in the morning room.

There are some atmospheric images of the front garden in the snow, as well as evidence of how rural-looking Ealing was in Edwardian days, with a long, tree-lined road, Longfield Avenue, seen in summer and winter. Summer holiday photos outside London show the family, together with friends, at various English seaside places, such as Scarborough and Saltburn, both on the North Yorkshire coast, but more often than not in Southwold, Suffolk, where the Auerbachs had a holiday home at 25 North Parade which they visited regularly over the years.

 

As the children grow up, there are photos of them in school uniform, practising cricket, relaxing at a local tennis club, Lucy in fancy dress, Violet with her dolls, and a good number of teachers, pupils and buildings at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, where Albert went to school and took part in Officers' Training Corps activities as early as 1910. Harold and Lucy were both artistic, and went on sketching holidays to Switzerland in around 1910.

Harold (who ten years later studied at the Slade School of Art) recorded visits to various Swiss locations in his sketchbook, while Lucy can be seen in a 'finishing school' group of young women, sketching outdoors with their tutor, George J Flemwell, some of whose Swiss scenery from that same period we also hold in the Library in the form of book illustrations.

After these scenes of seemingly idyllic Edwardian family life, it’s very sad to see signs of war approaching, with the two sons getting into uniform and going off to various places for training.

(Below) Harold (left) and Albert (right) in uniform posed in the garden with their mother, Ellen.

As mentioned, Albert was already involved in military training through his school, which probably made it all the easier for him to join the UOTC (University Officers' Training Corps) on 1 September 1914, the very first day of the war, as a private in the 20th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers. We see him with colleagues at training camps in Woodcote Park, Epsom, and relaxing in the grass during a route march from Clipstone Camp near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. On 20 July 1915 he received his commission as 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st London Regiment, Royal Fusiliers, and there are photos of him marching through a street in Peckham Rye, south-east London, at the head of a column of men. Later we see him overseas in Egypt and France.

Harold, for his part, was held back by a knee injury received during a rugby match at his prep school, Durston House in Ealing, which explains his presence in a bathchair in earlier holiday photos. Despite his Officers' Training Corps activities through St Paul's School, Hammersmith, he found it difficult to enlist at first, as confirmed by two letters, one from the Artists' Rifles in October 1915, the other from the London Rifle Brigade in September 1916, both declaring him unfit for service. But, like his elder brother, he was determined to serve, and he can be seen in Royal Engineers uniform in one or two photos.

He was eventually accepted by the Royal Flying Corps, and sent to Oxford for training in the spring of 1917; he received his graduation certificate, complete with ‘wings’ badge, in November 1917. He was then posted to the Western Front to work in air reconnaissance, using both observation balloons and aeroplanes. There are some detailed official aerial shots of locations in Belgium (Abele and Hollebeke) and Northern France (Villeselve and Clairmarais), dating from 1917 and 1918, showing the local landscape with bomb damage and trenches. Two particularly striking photos show the French town of Bailleul at different stages in 1918, before and after German bombing.

                                                            Harold picture far right (below)

While the two brothers were away fighting, mother Ellen and sister Lucy were making their own contributions to the war effort on the Home Front. There are photos of Ellen in her volunteer Red Cross nurse's uniform: she may well have been connected to one of Ealing's many war hospitals, helping with wounded and convalescent soldiers. Lucy was working at the War Office in London, but occasionally went off to the village of Madresfield, near Malvern in Worcestershire, to help with agricultural and dairy work, and perhaps to give herself a welcome rural break from the stresses of wartime London life. Lucy adored her brother Albert, and the two of them corresponded throughout his wartime absences.

 

Albert & his fiancée, Molly Bowie (above)

Albert's war took him to a variety of places. His first posting was to Gallipoli in November 1915, which seems to have begun in luxury, judging by a menu card from his voyage on board the RMS Olympic, used at the time as a troop transport ship. Once at Gallipoli, however, the real work began, and he was involved in the evacuation of Suvla Bay and Cape Helles. From there he went on to Egypt, then to France, until he was invalided home with shell shock and dysentery on 3 December 1916. He spent some time in hospital, and photos from this extended period of sick leave, for example with his fiancée Molly Bowie in Cheam, Surrey, give an indication of how much his illness had aged him. But eventually he returned to France on 20 June 1918, and here his luck ran out. He was killed by a shell at Bouchavesnes, Péronne, on the Somme, in the early morning of 1 September 1918, exactly four years to the day of his joining up. Albert was posthumously awarded the Military Cross, which was presented to his mother at Wellington Barracks, London, on 10 July 1919. His sister Lucy made her own personal pilgrimage to the Somme area in September 1920 to see where her brother had fought and died.

Despite the constant dangers of his air reconnaissance work, Harold survived the war, and in due course was awarded his Campaign Medal. The medal itself was missing for years, but Harold's daughter recently came across it, up for sale on an internet auction site – it had only just been listed there, after being discovered at the back of a drawer in a piece of furniture in Plymouth. It's a complete mystery how it came to be there, and a miracle that Patricia found the medal by googling at just the right time, before anyone else had had a chance to buy it. It's even possible that Harold, not wishing to be reminded of the war, had never even claimed his medal, as Patricia has no memories of seeing it in the family home. Two photographs of the medal have now been added to the collection on our website, to round off a fascinating, touching, and sometimes sobering tour of one family's experiences before, during and after the First World War.

To see more images from this fascinating collection, follow the link here:

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=38847

 

 

 

© Gill Stoker/Mary Evans Picture Library

Saving Face - Beauty for Women Workers during the First World War

One of the most significant social shifts between 1914 and 1918 was the changing role of women in response to the national war effort.  In France and at home, women sought to make themselves useful in a myriad of different ways.  There are the more  familiar roles - land girls of the Women's Land Army, the munitionettes who entered armaments factories in their thousands or nurses and VADs who tended the wounded.  But women also slid comfortably into many other roles previously the preserve of men - bus and tram conductors, taxi drivers, window cleaners, milk(wo)men, bill posters, theatre managers and canteen workers.  Many others joined services such as the Women's Legion, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps or the Forage Corps.  Some who had enjoyed the privileges of a gilded existence might suddenly find themselves ladling stew in a factory canteen, or scrubbing floors in a hospital ward.  Others found the advantages of salaried employment in factories far outweighed the dangers and exhausting shifts, and were among a recognised section of society who for the first time, enjoyed a certain amount of disposible income.

Whether a 'society' lady or a newly-solvent munition worker, there was one thing that advertisers of the period insisted united women of all classes - the fundamental need to keep up appearances.  'War strain' - and its effects on women (usually resulting in a 'war face') was perpetually cited as an evil that must be vanquished by the use of beauty creams and lotions.  Brands such as Vinolia, Pomeroy and Pears all began to replace the elegant floral femininity of pre-war advertisements with business-like and patriotic images of women war workers whose fresh-faced appearance reminded consumers that the inconveniences of war need not interfere with a beauty regime. 

                          

"Does your reflection give you quite the same satisfaction it gave you in 1914?" asks one 1916 advertisement from beauty mogul, Helena Rubinstein, whose London salon was based in Grafton Street.  "Perhaps time and trouble have ploughed lines, where before, the skin was smooth and taut; or the complexion is dull and unattractive?  In fact it is probable that the whole face is an index of the cares and war worries that are the lot of 99 women out of 100 in these troubled times."

Above all, it was essential that women must not 'let the side down' and that caring for one's complexion was a national duty.  "Even if your social or professional life does not demand it, your patriotism demands that you keep your face bright and attractive so that you radiate optimism," lectured Helena Rubinstein, while Royal Vinolia echoed similar advice, insisting in its tagline that, 'Beauty on duty has a duty to beauty."

      

Harlene hair tonic (above left), a preparation which had been in production since the 19th century, warned women that that 'alarming epidemic of hair loss' was without doubt the result of war troubles, and included an illustration of contented looking munition workers with gleaming hair - clearly disciples of Harlene's products.  Those suffering from a lack of bounce and vigour in the hair department could write to Harlene for a four-page advice leaflet.  

As well as helping women look their best at work, many products claimed to have protective or medicinal purposes and were ideally suited to factory work or nursing.  According to an advert for Royal Vinolia Talcum Powder, 'a little of this delightful powder dusted on the face protects the pores from dust and dirt,' while a little dusted on the feet, 'will keep them cool and comfortable.'  For nurses, the company's cream was a panacaea to a wide variety of occupational hazards, claiming, as it did to 'quickly soothe and heal all cuts and abrasions of the skin.'

What is most interesting about the vigorously healthy wartime beauty market is how fragrance, creams and hair treatments were acceptable but cosmetics (as we understand them today) were still considered 'fast,' and products such as rouge and lipstick were slower to be accepted.  It would certainly be some years before advertisements for lipstick and nail polish would be seen in the quality weekly magazines we hold in the archive here at Mary Evans.  The emphasis instead was on a subtle improvement and enhancement of the face rather than anything overtly colourful.  

‘There was a time, not so very long ago, when making-up was socially both a crime and a blunder,’ wrote Efemera in The Bystander in 1916, ‘It was an offence even more heinous than to be smartly dressed, or fanciful in the matter of under-linen.  It was looked upon as “French” – therefore foreign and reprehensible.’  But she went on to say, ‘We have lost all sense of false shame in the matter…(the young woman) now takes out her vanity-bag and touches up her face where she may happen to find herself.’  Her advice was that you could 'improve' cheeks, lips, eyebrows, and hair, ‘but once you touch your eyes you are finished.’   The fact that the predominantly working class munition workers adopted lipstick with enthusiasm, was probably enough to discourage ladies of gentler birth – at least until after the war when cosmetics increasingly become part of the new woman’s arsenal.     

          

However, Icilma advertised its foundation cream (above right) during the war, using the image of a lift girl, and there is something alluring about a particular pin-up painted by Raphael Kirchner (t0p of page) during the war - of a slender nurse powdering her face.  Finally, this lovely illustration by Mackenzie (above left), published in The Sketch magazine in January 1917 is a tongue-in-cheek homage to both the wartime working woman - and her new devotion to keeping up appearances, whatever the circumstances!

Click on the link below to see more Great War beauty images:

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=25186

 

Luci Gosling