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