Gwenllian Morris - A Brave Aberystwyth Nurse in the Balkans

In October 1914, Gwenllian Morris, a district nurse working in Aberystwyth,  joined the Red Cross  and volunteered to go to nurse wounded soldiers in France. 

Her first post was to St Malo, Northern France, a base hospital organised by the French government and designed to accommodate 15,000 patients that had formerly been a girls convent school. According to a report in The Flintshire Observer of 19 November 1914,  the hospital in St Malo  was the only one in the area at that time which catered for British sick and wounded, having nineteen British patients, though it also was caring for French and Belgian  soldiers.

In one account of her work which she sent home, Gwenllian Morris described how she was one of the staff selected to travel on a Red Cross train sent to the front to collect the wounded. Three hundred and twenty four soldiers were brought back to the hospital and these included - in the description of the time - “Turcos, Zouaves, Cingalees, Moroccos, French , Belgians and British”. 

The British soldiers were from the Lancashire and Yorkshire regiments. Sadly two patients died on the journey back to the hospital. Some patients were battling with typhoid. Many others were suffering from gangrene due mainly to shrapnel, one particularly unfortunate Moroccan having no less than forty nine shrapnel wounds.  In her account Nurse Gwenllian praised the kindness of French people who brought fruit, bread and coffee to the patients on the hospital train. This was particularly valuable as provisions often ran short. She also remarked that the men were all brave and patient and on the whole in good spirits. British nurses like her were very keen to obtain British newspapers as all they knew of the progress of the war was through French reports.

No long afterwards, in February 1915, Nurse Gwenllian herself contracted diphtheria and she was forced to return to London to have treatment.  As soon as she was fit again though, she volunteered to go out to Serbia under the auspices of the Serbian Relief Fund. She travelled in the second unit led by Sir Ralph Paget, whose wife had been instrumental in setting up the aid to Serbia. At this time there were many desperate appeals for medical assistance from Serbia, as the country was in the grip of a terrible typhus epidemic which killed 50,000 people in the first half of 1915 alone, in addition to the plight of many wounded soldiers.

On its way to Serbia, Paget’s unit was ordered to help out at Malta, where Nurse Gwenllian helped to care for some of the first batch of wounded soldiers from the Dardanelles. After that her unit spent a month assisting Russian doctors and nurses at Nish, formerly the capital of Serbia. 

When Nurse Gwenllian finally reached Serbia she was stationed at Pozarevatz  - a camp of 5000 typhus patients. Here she sometimes went out by ambulance to collect soldiers suffering from typhus who had fallen by the wayside and brought them into the hospital. Conditions were extremely hard, not only due to the combined effects of the heat and the necessity of having to nurse patients in tents, but also because of the heavy boots, gloves, overalls and masks  the nurses had to wear to protect themselves from the lice which spread the disease . She remained in Pozarevatz until the Austrian and Bulgarian armies captured the area.

To the consternation of her friends, nothing was heard from Gwenllian for some months. The next news of  her came in the form of a postcard received in January 1916.  On it she said she was well but being kept a prisoner at Villa Zava which was then in Bulgarian hands. Her unit continued to manage to look after typhus patients. After being released by the Bulgarians she was able to travel home, the journey taking two months. 



This photo appeared with the headline below in The Cambrian News dated 11th February 1916. Gwenllian Morris is the second nurse standing on the right and wearing a cross.

Photo courtesy of the Womens' Archive of Wales project website
http://www.womenandwar.wales/

Unfortunately there does not appear to be any further news of what happened to Nurse Gwenllian later in the war or after it, other than that she was awarded a war medal in 1921 where she is described as having the rank of Sister.

Blog by one of our project volunteers
Postcards and letter courtesy of Dr Gwyn Jenkins

Sources: 

Cambrian News

Flintshire Observer

http://www.womenandwar.wales/

Why Read the Dragon?

'Nid Byd, Byd Heb Wybodaeth’

‘A World Without Knowledge, Is No World’

In the same way that our academic knowledge is gained from books, an awareness of our predecessors and an esprit de corps is gained from student magazines; in Aberystwyth, 'The Dragon'.

First published in 1878, six years after the founding of the university, the Dragon served as the student mouthpiece for sharing views, informing the student body and raising awareness of current issues. It was how the students conveyed their opinions on issues as diverse as the segregation of education and socialising to commemorating the students who lost their lives in World War One.

Researching the role of Aberystwyth in the First World War was my introduction to the Dragon and the first time I sat with the hundred year old document in the Aberystwyth University Hugh Owen library was a revelatory experience. The words written by our academic forebears capture the resolve of the students and the gravity of the situation in a way that it would be impossible to capture if writing retrospectively.

“The Session has begun amid circumstances of unprecedented gloom; death has been amongst us and War overshadows us increasingly. .. Nevertheless we feel that it is the duty of every one of us to maintain a cheerful courage and to fail in nothing in the zest and enthusiasm which is the very soul of our college life.  Though our 'great task of happiness' is somewhat harder than usual we must not falter in it, but pursue it with even greater vigour than in normal times. Such at least shall be the aim of The Dragon.”

The opening paragraph of volume XXXVII, above, is from November 1914, less than four months after the declaration of war and at a time when students, the same age as current undergraduates had left the university to fight in France. The resolve of the students remaining in Aberystwyth and the ones editing 'The Dragon' is shown throughout the war years and should be seen as particularly important as it shows the war from the perspective of students, at a time when none had a knowledge of what the war would entail. There was, at this point no conception in anyone's mind of the scale of the first industrial war, or the previously unknown effects of technological advances upon the scale of destruction and suffering seen.

Although the officially sanctioned magazine of the university, the Dragon could be contrarian in its views and maintained its integrity in the face of opposition from the university's governance. When issues divided the management and the students, such as the desire for mixed gender social areas, the Dragon agitated for what was right, not the party line. The nature of the magazine, with student editors and student contributors, all for students to read contributed to an atmosphere of camaraderie and the view, from the students' perspective that their years in Aberystwyth would be the best of their lives.

The annual change of editorial staff meant that no agenda was pursued and the magazine was able to maintain editorial enthusiasm because the staff were volunteers for a year, and doing it because it was what they wanted to be doing with their time.

The Dragon offers possibly the most revealing written insight into the history and culture of  Aberystwyth University and its alumni available. The fact that these archives exist and can be accessed by students and staff of the university for research or even to gain an awareness of the students who went before us should not be taken for granted or forgotten. Thanks to the dedication of the student contributors and editors, as well as the decades of archivists caring for the collection, Aberystwyth's future generations have this link to their past.

Blog by Otto Jones - AberForward Project Assistant

Bibliography
'The Dragon' Volume XXXVII. Various contributors. Aberystwyth University Archives, online at: 
https://cymru1914.org/en/view/journal/4127592

The Billeting of Troops in Aberystwyth 1914 – 1915

In November 1914, Aberystwyth Town Council was informed that the town had been selected as a training centre for the reserve units of the Welsh Division, Territorial Force. The news was greeted with “great satisfaction”, particularly by lodging and boarding house keepers, as business had been poor over the summer and the payment for billeting troops was a means to recoup their losses.

A handbill was distributed to householders giving details of what they would be expected to provide if they were going to billet a soldier:

Reproduced with the kind permission of the 

National Library of Wales 

The plan was to billet 10,000 troops in Aberystwyth, though this number was dependent on the success of recruitment campaigns. After an initial visit to Aberystwyth by Lieutenant-Colonel Jones-Roberts, Commander of the Welsh Division, meetings were held with town dignitaries and the Chief Constable of Police was given the responsibility of finding billets. Many people were very willing to provide accommodation for soldiers but unsurprisingly some were reluctant.

The Welsh Division sent to Aberystwyth consisted of three infantry brigades, each with three battalions:

• The Cheshire Brigade which had battalions from Macclesfield, Birkenhead and Chester

• The North Wales Brigade (The Royal Welsh Fusiliers) which had battalions form Carnarvon, Flint and Newtown

• The Welsh Border Brigade which comprised the 1st and 3rd battalions from Monmouthshire and one from Herefordshire.

In addition there were some units of the Royal Engineers, the Royal Army Service Corps and the Royal Army Medical Corps.

The first contingent to arrive in Aberystwyth were the Cheshires, consisting of about 500 men who arrived by train. They wore smart khaki uniforms but “only half a dozen carried rifles”. They were billeted in the South Road area. The other brigades followed soon after and were lodged in the Marine Terrace and Queens Road areas.  The photograph below shows householder, Mrs Rowe, with members of ‘E’ Company,  7th Cheshires, in front of a house in Market Street. 

Reproduced with kind permission of William Troughton, NLW

The troops quickly settled into a daily routine of drills, usually on the Promenade or along the main streets, and route marches, for example to Lampeter and back.  Some lectures and classes were provided by the University College in subjects such as economics, military history and French. Weapon training was slow to start because of lack of equipment.  By the end of their time in Aberystwyth in 1915, some battalions had started to learn about digging trenches, building bombproof shelters and also signalling, sending messages from the Castle Grounds to Constitution Hill.

After only one week the newspapers reported that the town was adapting well even though troops were outnumbering local people. Plans were quickly made by a variety of organisations including the Town Council and local churches to provide entertainment and recreation for the soldiers. The Rink which was in Portland Street and run by the YMCA was a popular venue for concerts and rooms were provided there for the troops for various social gatherings and also for letter writing.  In March 1915, the treasurer of the YMCA stated in a letter that as many as two thousand letters were being written by soldiers each day, with all the writing materials provided free of charge. 

On Christmas Day 1914 a special concert was arranged for the troops followed by an eisteddfod on Boxing Day. On the whole the townspeople were impressed by the behaviour of the soldiers and enjoyed having them around. They were impressed by the Monmouthshires’ full band, the bugler band of the Cheshires and the goat belonging to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers which was sometimes paraded through the town. 

In February 1915 the military authorities declared that they would be reducing the allowance paid to householders for each soldier from 3/- a day to 2/6, a move greeted with dismay by townspeople particularly as food prices were constantly rising. Unfortunately, there was a stark choice to be made as, if the town were to refuse to accept the lower rates, the troops would be moved elsewhere. 

However, around the same time in early 1915, there were strong indications that the troops were soon to be moved anyway. The 1st and 3rd Monmouthshire battalions and the 5th Cheshire battalion left for Cambridge on 25th February 1915. Touchingly the 3rd battalion sang the hymn “Jesu, Lover of My soul” (Tune: Aberystwyth) at the station before leaving.

By April 1915, the last troops had left Aberystwyth to continue the next stage of their training elsewhere. The longest billeted troops had been in the town for just five months. A large crowd turned out to cheer them off at the station and many were disappointed to see them leave.

Later the Mayor received letters of thanks from Lieutenant Colonel Anthony saying how his men had thoroughly enjoyed their stay in the town and benefited in both health and discipline.  A letter from Lieutenant Colonel Abercrombie of the 5th Cheshire echoed the same sentiments and added that the troops had left Aberystwyth with feelings of considerable regret.

Blog by one of our project volunteers

Source: Cambrian News 

Aberystwyth’s Freemasons and the Great War

The Masonic Great War Project was established to provide a searchable database of Freemasons who died in the course of their duty during the First World War. The website (www. masonicgreatwarproject.org.uk) lists two members of the Aberystwyth Lodge of Freemasons, both killed in 1915. Autumn 1915 should have been something of a celebration for Freemasons in Aberystwyth as 30th November marked fifty years since the consecration of the Lodge. However it is likely that Autumn 1915 meetings at Aberystwyth Lodge (No. 1072) were sombre affairs with tributes paid for Captain George Owen Green and Lieutenant William Henry Kenrick Owen, both serving with the 9th Battalion Welsh Regiment. Captain Green, a well-travelled mining engineer in civilian life was the victim of a sniper near Laventie, Pas-de-Calais on 23rd August whilst 21 year old Cambridge educated Lt. Owen was killed in the Battle of Loos on 1st October.

William Henry Kenrick Owen
Image from West Wales War Memorial Project
https://www.wwwmp.co.uk

Published in 1965 to mark the centenary  of Aberystwyth Lodge  “ A Brief History of the Masonic Lodge Aberystwyth On Attaining it’s One Hundredth Birthday” records the loss of these two members as well as the tantalising comment that  in January 1916 “six other brethren were in the forces and many more were waiting to be called up.”

So who were these six? Can we determine who they were and what do we know about them? The above-mentioned book mentions only two by name - Dr. Abraham Thomas and John Rea.

Dr. Abraham Thomas was the county medical officer, a popular man in the town and surgeon to the Cardiganshire Battery, Second Welsh Brigade the Royal Field Artillery, ie the Aberystwyth branch of the Territorial Army. He served with them on the Western Front, in Egypt and Palestine ending up as a Major. He presided over the St David’s Day Eisteddfod in Egypt in March 1919, no doubt kicking his heels along with thousands of other Welshmen waiting for the troopship home. One of his close companions was John Charles Rea, who served in the same unit and finished the war as a colonel. Though a member of Aberystwyth Lodge he gave his address at the start of the war as being in Cardiff. His father was landlord of the White Horse Hotel in Terrace Road. The name Rea is still prominently displayed there today. During the 1880s  J C Rea had been a highly rated soccer player and was capped nine times by Wales.

The four remaining members of the armed forces are more elusive to track down but searching the, Welsh Newspapers Online website and the archives of Aberystwyth Lodge (held in the National Library of Wales) they have been identified.

Before the war Joseph Baird of Annandale, Queens Road was involved in numerous community activities, served as Secretary of the Golf Club and was Assistant Secretary of Aberystwyth Lodge. Signing up for military service he was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in October 1915 and landed in Salonika on 15th July 1916.  By now a Lieutenant he was wounded in April of the following year necessitating transfer to hospital in Alexandria, Egypt. He seems to have made a full recovery and proudly announced in the Cambrian News of 31st October 1919 he was opening a business at 29 Great Darkgate Street as merchant tailor, draper and outfitter. According to the afore-mentioned book Joseph Baird was living, presumably in retirement in Faversham, Kent in 1965.

The records for the Aberystwyth Lodge of Freemasons reveal that in October 1915 Captain Stanley Charles Wakeling of 168 Brigade Royal Field Artillery had been initiated into the lodge. His father was the popular ex-soldier and University Proctor E J Wakeling.

Dr Gilbert Morgan from Pontrhydfendigaid also served with the Cardiganshire Battery, but in capacity of Lieutenant, his medical training no doubt proving invaluable.  Shortly after the outbreak of war he was transferred to the Royal Army Medical Corps and promoted to Captain. By September 1915 he was serving in Gallipoli and wrote home to his parents:

“Here we are in the middle of the fighting, and it is simply hell let loose. It is not going to be an easy thing and not many here will live to tell the tale. It is something stupendous. We landed under shell fire (our baptism of fire) and went straight to the battlefield. Right well did our boys do. If I am spared, I can give you a very vivid description. One shell burst right at my side, and I turned a complete somer-sault. I was unhurt, but it quite un-nerved me. I lost six of my stretcher-bearers out of sixteen, but we have got over it for the time being and are doing good work. Guy Harries[1] got an explosive bullet through his thigh and he was glad to see me, poor boy as I found him and sent him on board ship.”

The following month Dr Morgan was laid low by an attack of dysentery. In July 1918 he was awarded the Military Cross for distinguished service. The official description of the act reads: 

"When the advanced dressing station had been ordered to withdraw he went forward with a party of bearers and successfully cleared a number of wounded from the regimental aid posts. The operation was carried out under continuous shell and machine-gun fire.” 

Otherwise he appears to have come through the war unscathed.

E. Tudor Jones from Llanbadarn also served as a Lieutenant in the Cardiganshire Battery, though in civilian life he was, like George Green, a mining engineer. He was also a member of Aberystwyth Angling Association. Again he seems to have come through the war unscathed having seen service on the Western Front, then Egypt and Palestine. He was one of the named officers who left Aberystwyth in August 1914 with the Cardiganshire Battery. By May 1917 newspaper reports referred to him as Captain, but this may be erroneous.

Many other Freemasons from Aberystwyth went on to play their part in the war effort, whether in the Merchant Navy, in the field of recruitment, such as Reverend Noah Jones of Devils Bridge or in the services, such as Lieutenant (later Captain) Bertie Taylor Lloyd who was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry on the battlefield. He had seen action in the Ypres Salient and the Somme and was initiated into Aberystwyth Lodge in March 1917. By July 1919 he too was back in Aberystwyth and presumably settling back into life as a chemist and pharmacist in Great Darkgate Street.

Blog by W Troughton, author of Aberystwyth and the Great War
Available from Waterstones, Amberley Publishing website, and bookshop. Also available on Amazon and Ebay, links below. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aberystwyth-Great-War-William-Troughton/dp/1445642905

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=aberystwyth+and+the+great+war+&_sacat=267

---

[1] Lt. Guy Harries of Grosvenor House, Aberystwyth was wounded on Chocolate Hill on 10^th August 1915 and died seven days later.

Jack Watkins: An ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances

When studying World War One, it is easy to just focus on the large scale nature of the conflict. As the name suggests, it spanned the entire world, from Tsingtao in the far east to the fields of Flanders in Belgium. But when we look at this period, it would be remiss to ignore the human stories of the individuals dotted around the world, and how they saw what was then the deadliest conflict in human history.

Figure 1:A desolate battlefield in Flanders, Belgium. This is the sort of image of WW1 that most people think of when the think of the conflict, though it was one of many disparate locales in which the war was fought.

Figure 2: British and Japanese Troops participate in the siege of Tsingtao, a German port in Northern China. This was over 8,000 miles away from the western front of WW1 in Belgium.

One such individual who told an engaging story was Gunner Jack Watkins. Born in 1896 and raised in Aberystwyth, he was well off growing up, having been born into a quite mercantile family; his father was a wine merchant. At age 14 he enrolled in Aberystwyth County School along with his brother Leslie, to whom he entrusted his diaries to upon his death. Whilst at the school, he met Ivor Morgan, who had enrolled two years earlier; the two fought together in Palestine, where they became friends.

Figure 3:A photo of Jack Watkins, found in the Cambrian News in July 1917. As the photo suggests, and like many soldiers in the war, he was very young.

Having enlisted in 1915, Jack had to wait until July 1917 to be deployed to the Middle East, travelling through France and across the Mediterranean, becoming part of the British 75th Division. Created in Egypt in 1917, it took soldiers from Britain, South Africa and India, and mostly saw action fighting against Ottoman forces in Palestine. 

From 1917-1919, he wrote several diaries documenting his time in the military. These diaries give a day-to-day insight into his life, letting us peer into his war. While many of his entries are mundane, some of them describe in detail the battles in which he fought, including his account of the Sinai and Palestine campaign, between 19th and 25th September 1918. Whilst in Palestine, Jack found himself in a division with Ivor: in his diary Jack repeatedly mentions going to the soldiers’ club with Ivor, and it seems that they were very firm friends within their unit; Ivor’s name is mentioned very regularly, especially towards the end of his life.

Figure 4: Above is a page from near the front of Jack's original 1918 diary, which starts with a poem that paraphrases a poem of the same name ‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ by Thomas Babington Macauley, published in 1842. It is followed by several places he was encamped during his time in the middle east. Below this a doodle of a pyramid, a palm tree and camel. Scattered throughout his diaries are doodles such as this one.

Figure 5: Next image shows his 1918 diary and his newer, rewritten diary. At some point these two were stuck together and cannot be prised apart.The newer diary is much more legible and hence easy to read, but excludes some key passages from the originals. (Used with permission of the Ceredigion archive)

Interestingly, Jack decided to rewrite his diary after the war, most likely due to the small size of the original, which meant his handwriting had to be very small, and in some places practically illegible. In this newer edition, he chooses to omit some of his entries, which can tell us a lot about him as a person. The key omission he makes is anything related to Ivor, who died in battle on 18/19^th September 1918, during the final British offensive. It seems that the closeness of their relationship made it too hard for Jack to write about his friend after the war, even if he was just copying out his diary. Even the comment in the original diary was brief, simply writing ‘Haversack lost, Ivor Morgan killed, was speaking to him late last night'. We know from his diary entries and from letters to family that Jack wrote to Ivor’s father, Bunce, to inform him of his son’s untimely passing and to express his condolences; the fact that he shouldered this responsibility speaks to close friendship Jack and Ivor shared.

Figure 6: Ivor Morgan's obituary in the Cambrian News, Late Sept-Early Oct 1918. Bunce would likely have heard about his son's death from Jack Watkins.

Jack’s diary also features several much less tragic stories. Simple, humdrum day-to-day issues like believing that someone had stolen his bivouac or his mail getting lost, populate most of the diary, with other activities such as Jack learning to swim, or teaching his Sergeant Major to speak French interposed.

Ultimately, Jack’s diary allows readers looking back and properly engage with the human nature of the war. It is easy to look at the war in the big picture as the industrial slaughter that it was, though this angle is very impersonal, and doesn’t allow us to really comprehend the impact the war brought. Through the death of Jack’s friend Ivor, we can really understand the profound sense of loss that many soldiers and families felt back home, something he felt duty bound to write home to Ivor’s father about. 

It also paints us an image of a radically different day to day life that he experienced in comparison to the life he would have led in Aberystwyth before the war. When we study the war from the bottom up, looking at the stories of individuals, and then think about the fact that millions of men and women had stories like this all over the world, only then can we grasp the big picture of the world changing and tragic event that was the First World War.

Jack survived the war, but sadly died in the 1920’s of a respiratory disease he had developed while in the Middle East.

Bibliography:
‘Flanders Fields’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders_Fields, (September 25 2018), fig.2, accessed 23rd January 2019
'The Siege of Tsingtao’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tsingtao, (December 20 2018), fig.6, accessed 23rd January 2019
Jack Watkins’ Diary, Reference ADX/1652, Ceredigion Archives
The Cambrian News

Blog by Nathan Davies, AberForward Project Assistant

Bravery, Determination and Warfare

Henry John Ballinger, a second Lieutenant of the Monmouthshire Regiment, was the son of John and Amy Amelia Ballinger of Sherborne House, Aberystwyth. Henry enlisted as a volunteer in 1914 for the Royal Welsh Fusiliers but on the 22nd April 1915, he was sent to the Monmouthshire Regiment and went to France on 19th July 1915 as a part of the First Battalion.

On the 3rd September 1915, he joined the 46th North Midlands Division and on the 13th October 1915 the Division was sent to assault the Hohenzollern Redoubt. This Redoubt was considered by the British to be the strongest and most well-defended Redoubt on the whole of the Western Front. This strong point was positioned very close to No Mans Land and protected the important flat-topped slagheap that the British named ‘The Dump.’ The Redoubt gave the German infantry scouting information for miles and allowed for fields of fire across every single direction. 

It is important to recognise that Redoubts were temporary fortifications but had the potential of being incredibly strong points of defence that were difficult to break.The Hohenzollern Redoubt was no different to this and was an incredibly well defended position.

After vicious fighting involving mass bombardment and back-and-forth combat, the 26th Brigade of the 9th Division took the Redoubt first after awful losses due to poisonous gas, enemy fire and enemy barbed-wire. But the Germans realising its importance had already made plans to retake it and, although the British were resolute in their stand, they eventually lost much ground. 

The 46th North Midland Regiment, that Henry John Ballinger was part of, then attacked the Redoubt on the 13th October 1915 after more gas had been released. The division suffered awful losses, 3,643 to be exact, and most of these were in the first ten minutes. The only gain for their losses was the capture of the western face of the Redoubt. The strategy was too basic and poorly thought out, the Division was supposed to overwhelm the German defence with its numbers, but it was overly reliant on this, and as a result, men were acting as cannon fodder for the German machine guns. Private Sidney Richards summed up this day, where many Welsh soldiers had fought bravely and died, by being an "absolute hell with the lid off. Dying and wounded all over the place. Shall never forget this day."

Henry was trying to hold his position in a German trench, after bravely capturing German machine guns to try and use against the enemy, but whilst manoeuvring them through fearful odds he was shot by a German rifleman and killed. He was just 19 years old. He has no known grave and is commemorated in the Loos Memorial, France.

The layout of the assault by the British forces that Henry would have been a part of

Photo: https://derbyshireterritorials.wordpress.com/the-great-war-1914-1918/1915-2/loos/

Blog by Jack Atherton, project volunteer

Sources :
https://www.wwwmp.co.uk/ceredigion-memorials/aberystwyth-ww1-war-memorial/
https://britainatwar.keypublishing.com/2017/10/02/the-hohenzollern-redoubt/
https://derbyshireterritorials.wordpress.com/the-great-war-1914-1918/1915-2/loos/

“Hello! I’m Julian and this is my friend Egbert...”

 We are all well aware by now of the terrible cost in human lives of war – but there is also a cost in pounds, shillings and pence. Guns and bombs have to be made and paid for. How does a government find the funds to finance a long and bloody war? It borrows of course.

During World War I the government instituted a War Savings scheme – people could either buy certificates or bonds, basically lending money to the government. Interest would be paid – a single certificate (launched in June 1916) cost just 15/6d (77.5p) but one pound would be repaid in five years, interest of 5.5% p.a. The idea was that everyone could contribute, no matter how little they had. The bonds were for people with more to invest.

 [This is a bit unusual to modern eyes – look in the top right hand corner! The swastika is an ancient religious symbol, used in many cultures.]

Obviously more was needed than just an announcement that the scheme was open. A heavy advertising campaign ran continuously, with weekly adverts in the local newspapers. But something more was needed, and the idea of a concentrated War Weapons Week was born. These took place in different towns at different times. The idea was to encourage everyone to invest every penny they could spare to help pay for the essential supplies that would ensure Victory. One advert (29/11/1918 – two weeks after the Armistice!) encouraged contributions with these words:

Feed the Guns with War Savings Certificates and help to end the War. Do not think that because Guns and Shells cost hundreds of pounds your savings are too small to count. One 15/6 War Savings Certificate would pay for 18 lbs. of High Explosive or 124 Machine Gun Cartridges. Three War Savings Certificates would pay for a round of our terrible 18-pounder Shrapnel

But even this idea of a concentrated campaign need a little extra something – how about a Tank?  

And so a couple of tanks (Julian and Egbert) were spared from the front line to tour round South Wales encouraging contributions. 

Anyone contributing at the tank would get a special souvenir stamp!

The War Weapons Week in Aberystwyth ran from 8th to 13th July 1918. The plan was that each town would have a ‘quota’ to raise - £2/10/0 a head – and, if the quota was reached, then a gun, plane or tank could be named ‘Aberystwyth’. In the case of Aberystwyth this meant a target of £22,500. Could it be done?

Well, perhaps with the aid of a Tank to attract the crowds it might just be possible. So Julian duly arrived in town (by train) on Monday 8th July. He (not she) came with a crew of three and an officer in charge, all recuperating from wounds. Julian then drove through the streets (no evidence is noted of any damage caused!) and ended up on North Parade, where he tackled piles of earth, stone and barbed wire. He spent several days in town, encouraging investors to dig deep into their pockets.

Julian was a ‘male’ tank – which meant that it carried a six-pounder cannon and three  machine guns, as opposed to the five machine guns of a ‘female’ tank. To quote the Cambrian News “It is a real tank returned from the Western Front, and showing signs of having been in action.”

Julian was commanded by Lt. Latch D.S.O.:

People even composed poems:

Tank Julian came to Aberystwyth 

The great War Loan to assist with 

The men of the town 

Planked all their bunce down 

To combat the Hun's mailed fist with.

But why “Julian”? According to the Carmarthen Weekly Reporter “Julian, the tank, is named after Sir Julian Byng, and not after the Roman Emperor of that name.” General Sir Julian Byng was commander of the Canadian Corps at the battle of Vimy Ridge. He was later Governor-General of Canada and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and became a viscount and Field Marshall.

Was Julian successful? Did Aberystwyth meet its target of £22,500. I think it’s fair to say it did. £682, 448 was raised during the week. £76 per head, and it was the highest amount raised per head anywhere in the Empire (with the possible exception of Singapore). So much for the tales of Cardis being ‘careful’ with their money! And were the Huns later terrified to see a tank called ‘Aberystwyth’ rolling towards them, guns blazing? We don’t know, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that any tank was ever named ‘Aberystwyth’. Presumably the war ended before it could happen.

And the Savings Certificates? Over £207 million was raised from them. After the war they continued to be issued (debts needed to be repaid), but were renamed to the more familiar National Savings certificates.  And they were so useful:

Blog by Nigel Callaghan, Project Volunteer

Source: Cambrian News