Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

During the war, the Duchy grew increasingly committed to food production. At Home Farm, near Stoke Climsland in the Tamar Valley, the prize-winning Shorthorn cattle were looked after by a celebrity under-herdsman: novelist Charlotte Matheson. 

In her time Charlotte was a well-known writer, with novels including A Generation Between (1915) and Children of the Desolate (1916). Nature and the countryside are themes in all her books, so perhaps it was natural that she joined the Women's Land Service Corps, forerunner of the Women's Land Army. 

During 1917 the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, always looking for a rural viewpoint on war stories, featured Home Farm. Photographs showed Charlotte feeding the pigs, milking the cows and taking the prize bull for his daily walk. The Times too ran a piece on her, commenting that she took 'a share in all kinds of work, heavy and light.'

Although renowned for its livestock, the farm's food-producing credentials were emphasised by the press. The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News reported that of the 400 acres of cultivated land, around a quarter was under corn, 'while potatoes are also being exploited in accordance with the Board of Agriculture's plea.'

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

From mid-1918, personnel from the Women’s Royal Naval Service assisted male ground staff at Newlyn’s seaplane base. 

To protect her uniform this lady is wearing loose cotton wrap-around overalls, used while servicing aircraft and maintaining the doped covering of their fabric skins. Behind sits a Short 184 floatplane; several were based at Newlyn as part of the force constantly hunting German submarines.

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

These women are workers at Nobel's munitions factory, built on the Cligga Head cliffs just west of Perranporth. The site produced grenade ingredients and shell fuses; during the war nearly 1,000 people worked there.

Munitions work was dangerous. The women toiling in especially hazardous areas were housed in small, widely-spaced huts, and had to wear slippers or rubber boots. Each morning before starting, they were searched by a matron for any object which might cause a fatal spark. As well as the strain inherent in their tasks, the women endured frequent sickness and cumulative skin discolouration caused by chemicals used in the explosives. 

This group was photographed at the factory in around 1918. Some of the women are wearing triangular brass 'On War Service' badges, indicating their commitment to munitions work. But sadly we can also see several are in mourning for loved ones. 

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm 
      

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

It seems comparatively little photographic evidence survives of Cornish women’s work during the war. Over the next few days I’ll be exploring this area.

This lady, from Truro, is a member of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. Sadly her name is lost to us, but the studio shot suggests she was keen to have a memento of her service. She wears khaki uniform consisting of a cap, greatcoat and skirt; her boots are protected by spats. Regulations insisted the skirt be no more than twelve inches from the ground.

The WAAC was created in 1917, to free up men from the rear areas for front-line duty. More than 9,000 women served in France near the Western Front. Their tasks included domestic and office work and increasingly, mechanical repairs to motor transport. In April 1918 the service was renamed Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps; by the Armistice 57,000 women had joined.

The WAAC had no officer ranks but instead, so-called 'Officials' with the titles of controllers and administrators. Non Commissioned Officers were replaced by 'Members' known as forewomen. Usually, given society at the time, the controllers had higher or middle class backgrounds while forewomen came from more working class roots.

As part of Britain's mobilisation during the war, this milestone in the push for equal rights formed the basis for women’s service in the British Army to this day. 

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm 
 

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

Above is Royal Naval Air Station Tresco, the Scillies air base from which flying-boats and seaplanes hunted German U-boat submarines. By the main hangar, the station's personnel line up for their group photograph. The date is summer 1918. To the right, just out of shot, is the flying-boat slipway down to the beach. The slip's still there today.

Unusually, the photo shows the women who served at the station.

In the front rank we can make out members of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and Women's Royal Naval Service. Their duties included clerical, domestic and catering tasks but as the war continued they became more involved with so-called 'men's jobs'. Some WRNS staff were trained to service the Navy’s aircraft; their vital work helped keep the aeroplanes fit for patrols over the Channel and Western Approaches.

It seems comparatively little photographic evidence survives of Cornish women’s work in the First World War. Over the next few days I’ll be exploring this area.

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm
   

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

Here's it's August 1914, just after war began. Passengers and crew of German liners in Falmouth harbour at that time were rounded up by the army, and initially interned in Cornish workhouses. 

Under armed guard, the foreign civilians - by no means all German nationals - are being marched up Redruth's Station Hill. They've been detained in nearby Barncoose workhouse, but are about to be sent by train to Devonport. From there, some will be allowed to travel home; others, defined as enemy aliens, will enter long-term internment. 

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm
 

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

Here's an image from Falmouth docks, taken late in the war. Motor ambulances are lined up on the waterfront. They're awaiting an incoming hospital ship bringing casualties from the fighting overseas. Among the drivers preparing for hospital runs are two women. Numbers of wounded men became so severe that temporary hospitals were established all over Britain.

Cornwall's biggest military hospital was created in Truro's old workhouse. Several auxiliary hospitals were also formed:

• Camborne Auxiliary Hospital, Tregenna  
• Redruth Officers’ Auxiliary Hospital, Scorrier
• Penzance V.A. Hospital, Morrab Road, Penzance
• Auxiliary Hospital, Launceston
• Auxiliary Naval Hospital, Truro
• Auxiliary Hospital for Officers, Fowey
• Trefusis, Falmouth
• Convalescent Hospital for Discharged Sailors and Soldiers, Newquay. 

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

Here's Castle Class armed trawler John Kidd, Admiralty Number 3508, seen in Mount's Bay. Built on the Tees at Smith's Dock Company, Middlesborough, she was launched in February 1917 and completed three months later. 

John Kidd served as a minesweeper; usually she had a crew of 15. She was armed with a 12-pounder gun amidships, and stern-mounted depth-charges used to attack U-boats. As we can see from all her elaborate aerials, to help co-ordinate her activities she was fitted with wireless.

Happily John Kidd survived the war, and was renamed Rotherslade. She went on to serve in the Second World War. Any further information on her would be much appreciated.

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm  

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

For much of the war, Cornwall had its own defence force: the Volunteer Training Corps. Here’s a relic from those times, a cap badge from a Cornish VTC officer’s uniform.

The Duchy’s long coastline, mostly isolated and dotted with small bays, was felt vulnerable to possible enemy incursion. To help protect exposed and sensitive areas, by mid-1915 VTC contingents had formed in many Cornish towns and villages. Generally its men were ineligible for front-line service: old soldiers, essential war workers, members of the clergy. Among other duties they helped protect national treasures, including precious state papers which had arrived for safe keeping at Bodmin Gaol.

The Corps was a national body, the forerunner of the Second World War Home Guard, and given similar tasks. Its members wore a red brassard emblazoned with the initials GR (Georgius Rex), which led to unkind nicknames: God’s Rejects, Gorgeous Wrecks, Grandpa's Regiment.

But for Cornwall’s VTC men, guarding military centres and protecting key resources such as the railway network was deadly serious. They worked as orderlies at the Duchy's Red Cross hospitals, provided sentries for the explosives factories at Hayle and Perranporth, and volunteered with local fire brigades.  
 
My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

Here's an image of Royal Naval Air Station Newlyn, taken in 1917. The photographer is standing with his back to Newlyn's south pier and the narrow apron of waterfront land on which the base was built is still there today, though its profile has changed over time.

In the foreground are rails bearing a trolley, on which the station's floatplanes were moved to the water's edge and launched onto Mount's Bay. Two canvas Bessoneaux hangars accommodate mostly Short 184 floatplanes, but in the centre of the image is a small Parnall-built Fairey Hamble Baby floatplane, a rare sight in Cornwall.

Just behind the station is a cottage used as the officers' daytime lodgings. Taken over from local rope-maker Tommy Tonkins, it's had a new window let into the east-facing side to give a view of the base and across the water.

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

Here's an image from August 1914, the month Britain declared war on Germany.

With deeply unlucky timing, just as war came two German liners sailing for America put in at Falmouth. The Hamburg America vessel Prince Adalbert (Captain Schonfeldt) arrived on 4 August, closely followed by Kronprinzessin Cecilie. Their crews and several hundred passengers classed as aliens were transferred to Custom House Quay by the tug Victor and detained, some in stinking quayside fish-houses.

Both vessels were seized; the aliens, harmless and by no means all Germans (some were Americans), were temporarily moved to workhouses at Falmouth, Helston, Madron, Redruth, St Columb Major and Truro. Later, most were permanently interned east of the Tamar.

In the image, a line of aliens have been marched up Redruth’s West End hill, escorted by policemen. They're on their way to detention at Barncoose workhouse. Local children join in the procession.

My new book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

This is 2nd Lieutenant W H G Jessup, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Order on 20 August 1916 during the Battle of the Somme.

His citation reads: 'For conspicuous gallantry during operations. When the enemy launched a heavy bomb attack on the flank of our attacking troops, he met them with a party of eight men and drove them back. The whole party except himself and one man became casualties. But collecting another party he held on for 24 hours under continuous enemy fire in his isolated position.'

The action took place in Delville Wood while Lt Jessup was serving with 6th Service Battalion, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. It was most unusual for a 2nd Lieutenant to be awarded a DSO and this must have been a special feat of bravery and leadership.

In 1918, Captain (as he had become) Jessup, who by then had also been awarded the French Croix de Guerre, was wounded. Sent home to Britain, he later died from his wounds.

The oil painting above of Lieutenant Jessup, by Stanley Llewelyn Wood, hangs in Cornwall’s Regimental Museum. The museum tells the story of the Duchy's Regiment from 1702 until the present date; its displays cover the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, the volunteers and volunteer militia and the successor Regiment, The Light Infantry: http://www.cornwalls-regimentalmuseum.org

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

This image is courtesy of Redruth historian Paddy Bradley. During December 1914 an army recruitment team came to the town searching for volunteers. To cover as much ground as possible, they commandeered one of the trams connecting Redruth with Camborne. The garish adverts carried on the tram's side were covered over with red, white and blue bunting, while on the top deck a military band played stirring patriotic music to attract recruits.

The tramway had opened in 1902, a three-mile single track with eight passing points, connecting Redruth’s West End with Trelowarren Street, Camborne, via Barncoose, Illogan Highway, Pool, Trevenson, Tuckingmill, Roskear and Wesley Street. Along the route were mines employing thousands of men: mighty Dolcoath, East Pool and Agar, North and South Crofty. Industry too was close by, including the Climax Rock Drill Works, Holman’s Foundry, and the Bickford-Smith dynamite fuse factory.

The recruiters foresaw rich pickings, but apparently there were few takers. By that time the first zeal for joining up had faded, in the face of a war which had already consumed thousands of men and showed no sign of ending. 

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

Here, we're actually at the Isles of Scilly, on Tresco. It's summer 1917; the Royal Naval Air Station built for anti-submarine patrols is receiving its new aircraft hangar. Men from the RNAS Air Construction Section have arrived, and in the background is a Curtiss H.12 flying-boat used by the service to hunt German submarines. 

The hangar was painstakingly transported across the water as a huge kit of parts. Tresco's flying-boats gave good service but after the war, in the summer of 1919 the station closed. 

Today the place is largely made over to a leisure complex, but you can still spot signs of the old base: the slipway, rails down which the flying-boats were launched, a few hut bases. The former ammunition store has been converted to three peaceful holiday cottages.

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm
 

Cornwall in the First World War

During this month, each weekday I'm posting a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War.

Here, it's the summer of 1918. His Majesty's Motor Launch ML319 has been taken into N Holman and Son's dry dock at Penzance for maintenance. ML319 was one of around a dozen armed motor launches based at Newlyn, its job to carry out anti-submarine patrols in local waters.

N Holman's waterfront premises had been requisitioned by the Royal Navy back in 1915; over the offices a White Ensign was raised, the base commanded by Lieutenant Commander David Blair of the Royal Naval Reserve.

My book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available through Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Cornwall in the First World War

During last month, each weekday I posted a photograph showing Cornwall's First World War. People were kind enough to come forward with comments and information, so I'm going to continue posting during September. Many thanks for your support and interest.

Here, it's 1914 at HMS Defiance, Cornwall's naval establishment at Wearde Quay near Saltash. The month is January, before war broke out. Not really within our time frame, but the story of British submarine A.7, seen alongside her pontoon, shouldn't be lost to us.

That month, a terrible accident befell A7. One of Britain's earliest submarines, the tiny craft suffered from poor seagoing qualities and on the surface would roll at the slightest provocation.

During dummy torpedo attacks in Whitsand Bay against HMS Onyx and HMS Pigmy, A.7 failed to surface. She gave off an oil slick and the spot was marked, while naval and local vessels searched frantically for survivors. But the 11 crewmen aboard all perished; the submarine was never recovered. Cornish people were shocked by the tragedy, and contributed to a public fund set up to help the families left behind.

Attempts to salvage A.7 failed; today she still rests in Whitsand Bay. The vessel contains the remains of its crew, a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.

My new book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available on line through Waterstones, with free UK post: http://bit.ly/I47c9p