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Anglo-Belgian Ambulance Unit – help needed

You will, with us, have watched with interest and sympathy the arduous training at the Jordans Camp, and the accounts of the first expedition of the Anglo-Belgian Ambulance Corps. Eighteen Bootham Old Boys are now serving at Dunkirk and are having a terribly hard and anxious time. They receive several hundreds of men from the front daily, most of them in a shocking condition from wounds and exposure. The only place for them so far is on straw in station sheds, with an entirely inadequate supply of blankets, and no clothing to replace their dirty and worn things. Help is urgently wanted, and I am sending this appeal particularly to those who have a personal interest in Bootham, and would wish to support an undertaking so enthusiastically served by Old Boys. Money is needed, flannel shorts (washed, old or new), “helpless case shirts,” vests, warm bed-jackets, socks, small pillows, blankets, handkerchiefs, belts, etc. Anything of this kind that can be collected by friends of Bootham will be gratefully received by me here and forwarded regularly to Dunkirk.

Ellen H. Rowntree.

P.S.—There are interesting articles in this week’s Friend by H. W. Nevinson (for many years a war correspondent) and Philip Baker. Mr. Nevinson concludes :  “The amount of excellent work which the party has already put in is remarkable—I have never known a whole set of young- fellows so keen, so resourceful, and of such a temper that it is a real delight to associate and work with them.” Old Boys from Bootham are : Joseph Baker, Philip J. Baker, Donald Gray, Will Harvey, Victor W. Alexander, Corder Catchpool, Richard E. Barrow, Stephen Corder, Maurice Stansfield, Charles Gray, Harry Gray, Colin Rowntree, Laurence Rowntree, Donald Eliott, Wilfrid S. Wigham, Basil Priestman, John W. Harvey, Robert H. Horniman.

From ‘Bootham’ magazine, December 1914

See the earlier post about the Anglo-Belgian Ambulance Unit’s arrival in Dunkirk.

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Arthur L. Lean (1886-89) in Germany

Our friend Dr. Henrietta Thomas, of Baltimore, who has paid several visits to Germany to repatriate German girls and bring back English girls, had dinner with Mrs. Lean and himself in their comfortable Berlin flat (some account of her impressions—not of the flat, but of the whole situation—appeared in the Labour Leader for November 12th). Although reliable information all seems to indicate that English have been better treated in Germany on the whole since the war broke out than Germans have been in England, it must be remembered that there are far fewer English in Germany and that these are of a superior class and can easily be kept under supervision. We shall be anxious to learn whether A. L. L. has been interned since the German Government began to adopt this policy by way of retaliation for the English action.

From ‘Bootham’ magazine, December 1914

See the earlier post about Arthur L. Lean.

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A postcard from Corder Catchpool

It will be generally known that our President, T. Edmund Harvey (1887-1891), after preliminary visits of investigation to Holland, Paris, and Bordeaux on behalf of the Friends’ War Victims Relief Committee, is now leading our first party of workers in France. Three others of this first party are O.Y.S., in Hugh B. Clark (1899-1901), F. Herbert Wetherall (1893- 1894), and Arthur B. Webster (1907-1909), all of whom are acting as chauffeurs. There are so many O.Y.S. working with Philip J. Baker (1903-1906) in the First Anglo-Belgian Ambulance Unit in the neighbourhood of Dunkirk that these will probably be referred to elsewhere, so I will be content to quote, by permission of Stephen Hobhouse, a postcard addressed to him on November  11th by T. Corder P. Catchpool (1900-1902) and franked by M. Stansfield (1903-1905) as “Acting Adjutant ” :— ”We are spending long- hours day and night dressing ghastly wounds in the shambles, two huge dark, dirty sheds at the station, where some 300 wounded arrive and leave by boat every twenty-four hours. The sights, sounds and smells could hardly be imagined. Some 20 of our party are out at the firing line, and have already experienced nights under continuous shell fire. We relieve the party weekly, so my turn will come very soon. Our surgeons are busy at an improvised theatre here—we bring out the worst cases from the station, and have some 50 beds at disposal. Many die each night. Some go mad.” Our thoughts go with both parties in the prayer that their work may serve to spread the spirit of love and reconciliation, upon which alone our shattered civilisation can be rebuilt.

From ‘Bootham’ magazine, December 1914

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Oliver Bernard Ellis – Part 2 (Natural History)

This post continues from Part 1 and is a series for Explore Your Archives week.

Next I moved on to his photography and natural history interests. I found a collection of photographs by Oliver Bernard Ellis, which along with the natural history annual reports in the magazine, show the range of work he was doing.

Photograph from O. B. Ellis' Natural History Album.
No. II Whinchat.

The photograph above is from the collection of photographs (which is titled “O.B. Ellis Natural Science (Illustrations) Upper Senior 1914-15”) and is labelled “No. II Whinchat. Photographed half way to Skipwith in June 1914. It had a nest close by.”

Oliver was mentioned several times in the January 1915 Annual Report of Bootham School Natural History, Literary & Polytechnic Society. He won the Old Scholars’ Exhibition “with his interesting observations on the protective colouring of eggs and young.” He gave a talk on the subject, with lantern slides, at the Christmas Show. Later on the report mentioned that he showed “a number of bones collected from owl pellets, with the object of ascertaining the nature of the food of the owls of a particular district and of discovering whether they were responsible for an unusually high death rate, which had been observed among the young birds of the district.”

The Ellis family produced volumes of copies of letters and diaries by Oliver Bernard Ellis, and we have a copy of the two volumes in the archive. There is an enormous amount of material contained in the letters, more than I have yet had time to study properly. I did however notice a reference to bird photography in the diary entry of June 20th 1914. He got up when it was just light and cycled to Skipwith (just over 10 miles) to photograph a young cuckoo. He got back to school by 5.30am, and had an hour of sleep before getting up time.

The series continues tomorrow with the station buildings.

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Oliver Bernard Ellis – Part 1 (Athletics)

This week will see a series of posts about Oliver Bernard Ellis as part of Explore Your Archive week.

I noticed his name when going through the lists of diaries that we hold, and recognised it, both from the work I have recently been doing on the First World War, and also from the athletics medal that was given in his memory. I was looking for a story to investigate to create a virtual ‘story box’ for Explore Your Archives, so decided to see what else I could find about him.

The first port of call when finding out about individuals in the Bootham archive is generally the Bootham Registers. These are books which were printed in 1914, 1935, 1971 and 2011. They list all the students who had attended the school until that date, and include dates at school, names of their parents, spouse and children, as well as details of education, occupations and interests.

From the Registers I could find out that Oliver was born in Leicester in 1898, and his parents were Bernard and Isabel Ellis. Looking at the other people named Ellis in the Register, it turns out his father and brother (Colin Dare Bernard Ellis) also attended Bootham. The 1914 Register mentions that Oliver won the 3rd Prize for Natural History Diary in the Interschool Diary Competition in 1913. The 1935 Register includes the details that he joined the Flying Corps during the First World War, and was killed in action in 1917.

I checked the ‘Bootham’ magazine for 1912, and found that he was listed on the Summer Term 1912 List of Boys as entering that term (as number 86 in the school).

List of Boys, Summer 1912, from "Bootham" magazine.

The next place to check is the ‘Bene Decessit’ which is a paragraph written about each leaver in ‘Bootham’ magazine. Oliver’s (in the October 1916 edition) mentions that he was an excellent athlete and a “brilliant and daring gymnast, weathering all hurts”. He also helped to command the school fire brigade, and “was a wonderful practical photographer, and was very patient over his ornithological excursions with the camera.”

After noticing that he was noted for athletics, I looked at the catalogue for our sports records, and found the book of athletics results that started in 1916 (unfortunately we don’t have an equivalent book for pre-1916). (The work I’ve done recently to add detail to the catalogue entries for the sports records is now paying off!) Oliver’s name was listed in the top three in every senior race, and the open mile, and he was joint first for the senior cup.

Page from Athletics Records 1916.

There was also a photograph in the sports records of him doing a high dive in 1915, using an unconventional technique.

Photograph of O. B. Ellis's High Dive in Athletics competition, 1915.

Finding an article in the November 1976 ‘Bootham’ magazine that was written by Alexander Mowat, one of his contemporaries, helped to shed some light on the story behind the photograph. Checking the Athletics notes in the June 1915 ‘Bootham’ magazine, the notes about the sports day include: “O. B. Ellis came forward with a remarkable High Jump, consisting of a dive and somersault, which the judges regarded with considerable suspicion. Subsequent consulting of the rules of the A.A.A. has ruled it out, to the regret of many who thought it a very pretty and skilful feat. Our sympathies go out to Ellis, who is thus deprived of first prize.”

Part 2 continues tomorrow with natural history.

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Explore Your Archive

This week (10th -16th November) is ‘Explore Your Archive’ week! It’s a week to talk about how interesting and brilliant archives are, and what you can do with them.

Throughout the week, I’ll be writing posts and tweeting (@BoothamJennyO) about my research into one Old Scholar, Oliver Bernard Ellis, who attended Bootham between 1912 and 1916. He joined the Flying Corps, and was killed in 1917.

Photograph of the 1916 Leavers. Ellis is second from right on the front row.
1916 Leavers photograph – Ellis is second from right on the front row

His life takes us through photography, the high jump, and climbing the railway buildings in York. A series of letters home paint a vivid picture of his experiences. Hopefully I’ll show how the variety of records that are held can be brought together to tell the story, and how there are almost endless avenues to find once you start exploring an archive.

There is lots going on around the country – check the main website for details, and look at the National Archives blog for a week of hashtags on Twitter.

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An update from the Anglo-Belgian Ambulance Unit in Dunkirk

On the passage from Dover to Dunkirk the vessel Invicta assisted in rescuing- the survivors of the sunken cruiser Hermes. The members of the party rendered aid by manning the boats, by dressing one or two wounds, by artificial respiration for the partially drowned, and by stretcher work.

On arrival at Dunkirk the larger number of the party proceeded almost at once to the station sheds, where the wounded are laid out on straw. The work there, which is described by Dr. Nockolds, has continued, with the exception of half of Monday night, ever since. It is mostly carried on by relay parties of six to twelve persons, who work day and night in shifts of four hours. As the stream of wounded is almost continuous, and as it requires at the least six in a shift, and usually more, to cope with the need, it is clear that for a party of less than fifty the work has been heavy. This has been accentuated by the necessity of utilising a considerable number of the party in other ways. But the work has been well done, and the British Consul here has volunteered the opinion that our presence and efforts have done much towards improving the general organisation, order, and cleanliness of the clearing sheds.

In addition to this, men have been detailed to supervise and organise the loading of hospital ships which transport the wounded from Dunkirk to Cherbourg and other centres. On Sunday 750 cases were loaded on the British hospital ship Rewa between 6.30 a.m. and 11 o’clock; on the same day 600 were loaded on the Plassy; on Tuesday and Wednesday the same boats were filled with a complement of 900 and 690 respectively; on the Monday 1,200 were put on a French boat. Fleet-Surgeon Datton, of the Rewa, expressed great satisfaction with the way the work was carried out. Six hundred blankets were obtained, after much effort, from the French authorities for the use of the wounded on the Rewa. Some transport work with the motor ambulances has been accomplished, but up to the present no great necessity for it has arisen, as at Dunkirk there is a large fleet of military ambulances, and the ambulance trains are usually shunted right down to the quays; the cars have, however, been in constant use for taking the surgeons and dressers rapidly to and from the clearing sheds and the hospital ships.

There is more work to be done in Dunkirk than can be handled by the present party; that is to say, more men can be immediately and profitably employed. Further, we have hopes of establishing in a day or two a dressing station in a Belgian military hospital at Ypres, which will require a complement of twelve men or thereabouts. And, lastly, as part of a larger scheme, we hope to establish a small clearing hospital where operations necessary to save the lives of some of those who come into the station sheds can be safely carried out. It is hoped that the French military authorities will allocate to us an apartment which is admirably suited to the purpose, and which is only a few hundred yards from our present headquarters at Malo-les-bains, just outside Dunkirk.

At the moment of writing the party is provided with eight motor ambulances, one motor-lorry, and a motor bicycle. If the present plans mature, more motor ambulances and more unconverted “scouting” cars will be urgently needed. The morale of the party is very good.

PHILIP J. BAKER. Dunkirk, November 6th, 1914.

From ‘Bootham’ magazine, December 1914. Philip J. Baker was at Bootham between 1903 and 1906. He was later known as Philip Noel-Baker, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959.

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1914 Annual Report: self-sacrifice and earnestness

The 1914 Annual Report was approved by Committee, and included the following statement by Arnold Rowntree: ‘It will be the desire of all that Bootham shall take its right part at this critical period in the history of our country. We hope that something of the spirit of self-sacrifice and earnestness which is manifesting itself in the nation in so many ways will be found amongst the boys. Special ambulance lessons are to be taken, there is a desire to sacrifice personal pleasures for the sake of those who are in need, and the School are making themselves responsible for the maintenance of a Belgian family. But beyond the mere desire to relieve present anxieties, we trust there may be amongst the boys the determination to work hard that they may equip themselves for the great task of reconstruction that lies before us, reconstruction based upon a truer understanding of God’s will and a greater determination to carry out that will in every department of life. It is the earnest desire of the Committee that strength and wisdom may be given both to the staff and to the scholars to meet this time of stress in a courageous spirit, and to turn it to good purpose.’

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Term restarts, and the school decides to support a Belgian family

Term restarted on Tuesday September 29th 1914, rather than the planned date of September 17th.

At the beginning of the term it was decided that the School should “keep” a Belgian family. After a committee had been elected, a house was provided at New Earswick, which was furnished by the Furnishing Committee. Each boy was to give as much as he thought he should, to be paid weekly or in a lump sum.