Edwards - Nottingham in the Great War

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those who endured the Great War, not just the soldiers who gave their lives or those that survived but were damaged, but also to the men, women and children at home who carried on carrying on until the end was reached, ensuring that survivors had a home and work to return to. Without all of those people my life would not be lived with the freedoms I enjoy today.

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
PEN & SWORD MILITARY
an imprint of
Pen and Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright Carol Lovejoy Edwards, 2015

ISBN 978 1 78383 190 6
eISBN 9781473857483

The right of Carol Lovejoy Edwards to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

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I am raising a glass to all of those people who lived during the Great War and whose stories, in part, appear within these pages. Without them I would have nothing to write about!

I am heartily grateful for all the help and suggestions for further research given to me by the staff at Nottinghamshire Archives and Nottinghamshire Local Studies library. I would also like to thank my friends and family for pretending to listen each time I tell them about something fascinating I have found during my research.

Special thanks go to my very own wrinklies, Marion and David Henson, for their food parcels and petrol supplies during this endeavour. Where would I be without you?

Last but not least thanks go to Dr Elisabeth Blagrove and Mum, Wendy, for keeping me sane these last few years. Hello Birmingham, this is Nottingham calling!

In the past, anyone wanting to view the collections of hundreds of thousands of old images in the libraries and museums of Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire would have had to travel many miles to try and track down the ones they were interested in. This proved to be frustrating and time-consuming for researchers, a barrier to anyone from further afield and damaging to the more fragile images due to all the handling. The collections include photographs, slides, negatives, glass plates, postcards and engravings recalling the history of our local communities over the past hundred years and more.

Thankfully, staff in four local authorities got their heads together to solve the problem, and the idea of conserving the images using digitisation, while at the same time giving people all over the world access to the digitised versions, was conceived. With initial funding from the Heritage Lottery at the beginning of 2002, the four partner authorities, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire County Councils and the City Councils of Derby and Nottingham set up the project.

Local studies staff in the libraries and museums started collating images and information ready for inclusion in the project and sent out thousands of letters requesting copyright clearance from the original photographers or their relatives. Nick Tomlinson was appointed as project manager to lead a team of experienced professionals inputting the information into a custom-built database and carefully digitising the images.

The Picture the Past website (www.picturethepast.org.uk) was launched in June 2003 and by the beginning of 2013 over 100,000 pictures had been added. It now attracts well over 15,000 visitors each month from all over the world.

The site is updated on a regular basis and actually gives the user the ability to correct existing information or add more information to those pictures with scant details.

Designed to be as easy to use as possible, the website includes a simple keyword search facility as well as more comprehensive search mechanisms for users looking for images with a particular theme or by a specific photographer. Visitors can print out low resolution copies for their own personal use or study purposes, but for those users wanting to own a top-quality photographic copy the website includes an online ordering service with all the income raised from this service going back into the conservation and preservation of more original pictures.

This book includes just a handful of the images that appear on the website and it is very much hoped that you will go on to enjoy some of the other pictures online.

The website can be viewed at www.picturethepast.org.uk

In June 1914 the King and Queen visited Nottingham. Lottie Martin, aged 15 at the time, remembered, It was in the month of June that Queen Mary and George V made a visit to Nottingham. I remember well standing at the main gates of Wollaton Hall on Derby Road, the bottom of Hill Side, to see them enter the grounds of the residence of Lord Middleton. How lovely she looked in an open landau dressed in a lovely blue dress holding a small parasol over her head. It was a glorious day and both Flo and myself had summer dresses on. I remember mine was pink sprinkled with little blue rosebuds, the skirt was draped. How I loved it. It really made me look good, the pale pink seemed to bring a little colour to my pale cheeks. I remember that material was four pence and three farthings a yard from Meakins and Lottie Harris who had a small shop on City Road made it for me. That dress I shall never forget.()

At the beginning of August 1914 the world was on the brink of war although our local paper, the Nottingham Evening Post , was still optimistic that it would be avoided. News of the imminent war was not shouted from the front page like todays headlines. Not until page five was the crisis revealed. The headline said King intervenes in Crisis and the Post stated that the King had despatched a telegraphic communication to the Czar in reference to the international situation. Consequently a more hopeful feeling prevails. The actual content of the telegram was not revealed. Unfortunately in the complicated political situation that was 1914 Europe, the Kings words, whatever they were, were not enough to halt the storm.

King George V and Queen Alexandra June. Courtesy of Roni Wilkinson.