George McDonald Sutherland (1886-1917), architect

Posted on 7 April 2015 by eddiegd

GEORGE MCDONALD SUTHERLAND AND HIS LOST ‘YEARS TO BE’… THE STORY OF A ROBBED CAREER.

George McDonald Sutherland, from a photograph loaned and reproduced with the kind permission of his great-niece.

George McDonald Sutherland, from a photograph loeaned and reproduced with the kind permission of his great-niece.

In his 1914 sonnets (III. The Dead), the war poet Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) wrote of the fallen, the dead, as having given up

‘…the years to be… Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene… That men call age…’.

Architectural mouldings drawn by George McDonald Sutherland. Coll-1319.

Brooke’s words make us think about the working lives and the achievements, and possible greatness that the dead of the First World War – and other wars – would never reach or know. They ‘had seen movement and heard music, known slumber and waking […] Felt the quick stir of wonder […] touched flowers and furs and cheeks’ (Brooke 1914 sonnets. IV. The Dead). They had begun their careers and to make their mark on the world, and, continuing with the Brooke theme – but thinking about the story of George McDonald Sutherland told below – they had smelt sharpened wood pencil, and felt cold, raw mason’s stone.

George McDonald Sutherland (right) with his brothers David (left) and Norman (middle). From a photograph loaned and reproduced with the kind permission of their great-niece.

George McDonald Sutherland was born in 1886, the son of George P. Sutherland and Helen Sutherland of Galashiels in Selkirkshire. His father, who served as an apprentice sculptor in Edinburgh, London and New York, went on to found the firm of George Sutherland & Sons (Galashiels), Sculptors and Monumental Masons, in 1881. The firm operated throughout the Borders, and the carvings on the local Galashiels Post Office building were created by the elder Sutherland in 1886, the year of his son’s birth.

Detail from an oak bench drawn by George McDonald Sutherland in July 1904, during his apprenticeship. Coll-1319.

At the age of seventeen, in 1903, following in his father’s footsteps, the younger George McDonald Sutherland was apprenticed to the architectural practice of Robert Lorimer (1864-1929), later Sir Robert Lorimer, of Edinburgh. After his apprenticeship and after he had become an architect himself, George McDonald Sutherland went to Toronto, Canada, to start an architectural business and bought land there too.

Caroline Park gates, Granton, Edinburgh, drawn by George McDonald Sutherland. Coll-1319.

On the outbreak of war in 1914, George McDonald Sutherland wanted to come back to Scotland and fight, although the family tried to dissuade him. Nevertheless he did return – like many other Scottish Canadians – and joined the 4th Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers and Lothians and Borders Horse.

George McDonald Sutherland in uniform. Photograph reproduced with the kind permission of his great-niece.

At the age of 31, 2nd Lieutenant George McDonald Sutherland, by then of the 7th/8th Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers, was killed at Arras, France, on 9 April 1917 at the start of the opening phase of the British-led Battle of Arras (also known as the Second Battle of Arras), of which the Battle of Vimy Ridge formed a part.

Architectural detail from Melrose Abbey, drawn by George MacDonald Sutherland. Coll-1319.

From 9 April, the day of George’s death, until 16 May 1917, British, Canadian, South African, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and Australian troops attacked German defences near this French city on the Western Front. While there were major gains on the first day – when George was killed – these were followed by stalemate. The battle cost nearly 160,000 British casualties and about 125,000 German casualties.

George McDonald Sutherland noted in the Roll-of-Honour in the work ‘War record of 4th Bn. King’s Own Scottish Borderers and Lothian and Border Horse : with history of the T.F. Associations of the counties of Roxburgh, Berwick and Selkirk’, published in 1920. Edinburgh University Library general collections. D546.5.4th War. (2nd Floor).

George was buried in Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, at Souchez, in the Pas de Calais department of northern France, about 3.5 kilometres north of Arras – a cemetery maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWCG).

From a drawing of urns done by George McDonald Sutherland. Coll-1319.

Drawing of urns done by George McDonald Sutherland. Coll-1319

Back home in Galashiels, in the Borders, the family firm of Sculptors and Monumental Masons continued to operate over several decades, with war memorials and grave stones comprising a large part of the business, and with George’s brother Norman running the Hawick office of the firm.

Architectural mouldings drawn by George McDonald Sutherland. Coll-1319.

Indeed, the carved ‘Angel of Peace’ on the Galashiels war memorial at the Burgh Chambers – unveiled by Field-Marshal Earl Haig in 1925 – was the work of another of George’s brothers, sculptor David Sutherland (1884-1962), who saw military service in Salonika, Batumi and Baku.

Architectural mouldings drawn by George McDonald Sutherland. Coll-1319.

Because the ‘Angel’ on the Galashiels memorial had been carved leaning slightly forward and with its head dipped, light shining from the side creates shadows giving the effect of Angel’s wings above the statue (though, regrettably, modern street-lighting obscures the effect).

Architectural mouldings drawn by George McDonald Sutherland. Coll-1319.

It seems fitting though that George McDonald Sutherland’s name is inscribed on the Roll of Honour in Galashiels displaying an Angel carved by his brother on the Burgh Chambers designed by the very architect who trained him – Sir Robert Lorimer.

Architectural mouldings drawn by George McDonald Sutherland. Coll-1319.

George Sutherland & Son of Galashiels purchased a Tweedmouth monumental mason’s yard which was to have been run by a younger member of the Sutherland family. However, before he could take over the yard, Lt. John McDonald Sutherland (Cameron Highlanders), a signaller, was killed on 28 March 1945 during the push over the River Rhine.

The wrought-iron gates to dining hall at St. John’s College, Oxford, drawn by George McDonald Sutherland in 1910. Coll-1319.

Although his ‘years to be of work and joy’ were stolen from him and we could never see the mature product of his working life, in 2011 a collection of original architect’s drawings by George McDonald Sutherland was kindly donated to Edinburgh University Library, Centre for Research Collections, by a great-niece living in Surrey, England. These allow us to see the talent of his early years in architecture. Parts of these drawings illustrate this blog-post honouring George McDonald Sutherland (1886-1917). Younger members of the family of George McDonald Sutherland’s great-niece are on their way to following career paths in architecture too.

Architectural detail from Melrose Abbey, drawn by George MacDonald Sutherland. Coll-1319.

But… back to Brooke and to the 1914 sonnet IV. The Dead… and to the life, career and ambitions of George McDonald Sutherland… the dead of the First World War and other wars…

‘All this is ended […] And after, Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance ‘.

Dr. Graeme D. Eddie, Assistant Librarian Archives & Manuscripts, Centre for Research Collections

Charles Sarolea and his relief effort for Belgium during the War

Posted on 9 March 2015 by eddiegd

RELIEF FOR BELGIUM… OFFERS OF AID FROM ALL OVER SCOTLAND

If we are to let our collections talk about the First World War, then surely the story of Charles Sarolea (1870-1953) and his efforts to aid the people of war-ruined Belgium has to be told. His wartime story emerges from the files, folders and boxes of the very large Sarolea Collection of writings and correspondence (Coll-15, Centre for Research Collections). Sarolea’s aid effort continued from the opening days of the assault on Belgium until the last months and days of the War.

Wartime propaganda… National personification of Belgium… Mother Belgium or ‘Belgica’… ‘La Belgique’… ‘La Belge’… on a Scottish booklet published by the Belgian Relief Fund. From file entitled ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund 1914-1916′, in Sarolea Collection 76, Coll-15

Who was Charles Sarolea? Charles Sarolea was born on 25 October 1870 in Tongeren (Tongres) in the Belgian province of Limburg. He was educated at the Royal Atheneum in nearby Hasselt before going on to the University of Liege where he was awarded first class honours in Classics and Philosophy. In 1892 he was given a Belgian Government travelling scholarship, and between 1892 and 1894 he studied in Paris, Palermo and Naples. Still in his early 20s he became private secretary and literary adviser to Hubert Joseph Walthère Frère-Orban (1812-1896) who had been Prime Minister of Belgium (Liberal Party) between 1878 and 1884. This task brought Sarolea early initiation into wide circles of international affairs, both political and cultural. Indeed later, the Belgian Royal Family would be counted among his circle.

In 1894, at the age of 24, Charles Sarolea became the first holder of the newly-founded Lectureship in French Language and Literature and Romance Philology at Edinburgh University, and in 1918 he would become the first Professor of French when that Chair was established at the University. He held a post and Chair at the University for some 37-years, 1894-1931. From 1901, Sarolea was also the Belgian Consul in Edinburgh.

Photograph in Dr. Charles Sarolea author, lecturer, cosmopolitan in the file entitled ‘Biographical and bibliographical material relating to C. Sarolea’, in Sarolea Collection 223, Coll-15.

From 1891 until the outbreak of War in August 1914, Sarolea had written books on a wide range of international affairs and topics, including: Henrik Ibsen (1891); Essais de philosophie et de literature (1898); Les belges au Congo (1899); A Short History of the Anti-Congo Campaign (1905); The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution (1906); Newman’s Theology (1908); The Anglo-German Problem (1912); and, Count L.N. Tolstoy. His life and work (1912). From 1912 until 1917, he was also Editor of the Everyman magazine published by J. M. Dent – the magazine which features prominently in our story about Belgium.

Everyman, edited by Charles Sarolea 1912-1917.

Many other resources elsewhere can tell the in-depth military and strategic story of Belgium’s stubborn resistance during the early days of the War, but a brief foray into the Belgian experience can do no harm here in a phrase or two. Basically… the Belgian army – around a tenth the size of the German army – managed to frustrate the infamous Schlieffen Plan to capture Paris, and held up the German offensive for nearly a month giving the French and British forces time to prepare for a counter-offensive on the Marne.

The Special Belgium issue of Everyman, November 1914, contained pictures of the war-spoiled country. From a file entitled ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund 1914-1916′, in Sarolea Collection 77, Coll-15.

In this opening phase of the War, many hundreds of civilian Belgians were killed, many thousands of homes were destroyed, and nearly 20% of the population escaped from the invading German army.

Destroyed house in Malines (Mechelen) in the Province of Antwerp, Belgium. From an envelope of ‘Miss Findlay’s photographs’, in the file entitled ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund, 1914-1916′, Sarolea Collection 76, Coll-15.

Goodwill towards Belgian refugees and those Belgians remaining in the country was shown right across the UK, not least in the form of the Belgium Relief Fund launched by The Times, the National Committee for Relief in Belgium, and the Belgian Orphan Fund.

Circular advertising the ‘Everyman Belgian Relief and Reconstruction Fund’. From a file entitled ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund 1914-1916′, in Sarolea Collection 77, Coll-15.

Also, from the very outset of War in August 1914, the Everyman magazine had established its own Belgian Relief and Reconstruction Fund and this was administered by the Charles Sarolea, the Belgian Consul, in Edinburgh, assisted by a Committee.

Collection envelopes issued by the National Committee for Relief in Belgium. The design showing a mother and child was by Louis Raemaekers. From a file entitled ‘Belgian Consular Correspondence, 1915-1919’, in Sarolea Collection 73, Coll-15.

Goodwill was also registered across Scotland where a National Appeal for Belgium was opened, as this item from the Sarolea Collection shows (from file entitled ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund 1914-1916′, in Sarolea Collection 76, Coll-15). The pamphlet issued by the National Appeal provided a summary of the work undertaken in Scotland where the number of Belgian refugees registered in the country in December 1915 was 13,307.

The fact that the Editor of Everyman was of Belgian origin and that he was the Belgian Consul in the capital of Scotland enabled him to be in close touch with events as they unfolded in Belgium and with the conditions of the civilian population. On 13 October 1914, as the British and French troops tried to outflank the German army – and thus establish the general shape of the Front from the Channel coast to the border with Switzerland for the next four years – Sarolea was informed by the Consul General in London (Edouard Pollet) that the legitimate Belgian government had left Ostend in Belgium for the safety of Le Havre, France.

Letter from the Belgian Embassy in London to Sarolea at the Belgian Consulate in Edinburgh indicating the removal of the Belgian government to Le Havre, France. From a file entitled ‘Belgian Consular Correspondence, 1915-1919’, in Sarolea Collection 73, Coll-15.

As for Belgian Relief… Sarolea and the Belgian Consulate in Edinburgh received money and requests for collecting boxes and other means of formalising the collection of funds. From all across Scotland, the Consulate also received offers of hospitality and requests for cooks, kitchen-maids, laundry-workers, nursery-maids, tutors, knitter-mechanics, sewing-maids, gardeners, grooms, house-maids and other domestic servants, and ploughmen and other agricultural workers – jobs for Belgian refugees.

A list of ‘Offers of Hospitality received at the Belgian Consulate, Edinburgh’ in the file entitled ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund 1914-1916′, in Sarolea Collection 76, notified the following generous offers…: From Eyemouth came the offer for a ‘Lad as boots in hotel, permanent’, with ‘Food, travelling clothes, all offered, and 2/6 a week and all tips, say 7/6 per week’ (2/6 was one-eighth of £1 in the old currency). From North Berwick came the offer of a post as ‘Domestic servant £18, with child £12’, and from Dunblane ‘two bed-rooms, each with double beds, for superior refugees, to live with family’, and the same household would also take ‘two Belgian servants to do work and receive wages’.

Offer of help received by Sarolea at the Belgian Consulate, Edinburgh. From a file entitled ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund 1914-1916′, in Sarolea Collection 76, Coll-15.

A household in Fife offered a placement for a ‘Mother and daughter (past school age) or two sisters as servants’, and the offer extended to ‘£24 for the two and help with their wardrobe’. From Peterhead came the offer to take ‘One little girl for an indefinite period’ and the girl could be taken ‘at once’. And, from the Kinnordy Estate, Kirriemuir came the offer of ‘Two houses’ for up to 44 ‘Cultivated and scientific people’ and this could include work.

Letter with contribution to the Fund from someone who ‘deeply feels for brave little Belgium’ and who had visited Dinant a few years earlier. Dinant had been severely damaged in the first months of the war. From a file entitled ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund 1914-1916′, in Sarolea Collection 77, Coll-15.

Many letters from children were received with money raised in various ways – such as selling flowers from the garden or making pictures made from postage stamps – as these letters show here:

letter from a child in Balerno, 1914. In packet/envelope 'Letters from children for possible publication' in the file 'Everyman Belgian Relief Fund, 1914-1916'. Sarolea Collection 77, Coll-15.

Letter from children in Balerno, 1914. In packet/envelope ‘Letters from children for possible publication’ in the file ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund, 1914-1916′. Sarolea Collection 77, Coll-15.

Second page of the letter. In packet/envelope ‘Letters from children for possible publication’ in the file ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund, 1914-1916′. Sarolea Collection 77, Coll-15.

Picture of ‘La Belge’ by a 14-year old girl from Edinburgh, and made from postage stamps, 1914. In the file ‘Letters from children for possible publication’ in the file ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund, 1914-1916′. Sarolea Collection 77, Coll-15.

Soldiers too benefited from the charitable-giving fostered by the relief effort centred on the Belgian Consulate in Edinburgh. In 1917 an appeal was raised on behalf of Belgian soldiers ‘spending their hard-earned leave in the Edinburgh district’. In a letter from the ‘Edinburgh Consular Belgian Relief Fund’ to the Editor of the Scotsman in October 1917, it was pointed out that the pay of a Belgian soldier was only just over 2d per day (around 50p at today’s levels) and that a soldier could not afford maintenance expenses while in Edinburgh. The Fund made an appeal asking for help from ‘citizens of Edinburgh who would be willing to give those soldiers hospitality or to pay for their maintenance whilst on leave’. The Fund was sure that Edinburgh’s people would help ‘those brave Belgian lads’.

Draft letter to the ‘Scotsman’, 3 October 1917, requesting help from the people of Edinburgh for Belgian soldiers on leave in the city. From the file ‘Edinburgh Consular Relief Fund 1916-1918. Correspondence’, in the wider file ‘Everyman & Edinburgh Consular Belgian Relief Funds. Correspondence & figures, 1914-1918′. Sarolea Collection 78, Coll-15.

In November 1914, Sarolea issued a Special Belgium number of the magazine, Everyman. Illustrated with Albert I, King of the Belgians, on the front cover, the issue was seen as a ‘means of making a wider appeal to the sympathy and generosity’ of readers. Sarolea claimed that from the start of the assault on Belgium in August 1914 until the Special Belgium issue, the magazine’s ‘efforts have resulted in the raising for the relief of Belgian distress and the reconstruction of Belgian prosperity the substantial sum of thirty-one thousand pounds (£31,000)’ – a colossal sum 100 years ago, the equivalent of £3-million today. Until the Everyman effort, no weekly magazine ‘has ever raised anything like so large a sum for the public cause’.

Front cover of Everyman, November 1914. From a file entitled ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund 1914-1916, in Sarolea Collection 77, Coll-15.

The Special Belgium issue was filled with articles and photographs, with many of these describing and illustrating the destruction and suffering experienced by Belgians.

Like many contemporary journals, the Everyman Special Belgium issue contained patriotic advertisements for household shopping – drinks and sweets.

In addition to papers and correspondence specifically concerning the ‘Everyman Belgian Relief and Reconstruction Fund’ within the expansive Sarolea Collection, the files also contain ephemera produced by other charitable efforts. One piece is a copy of a drawing produced by Louis Raemaekers (1869-1956) the Dutch painter and editorial cartoonist for De Telegraaf, the Amsterdam daily newspaper. His drawing was used by the Belgian Orphan Fund which encouraged the contribution of sixpence to ‘Save that Child!’

Drawing by Louis Raemaekers and used by the Belgian Orphan Fund. From a file entitled ‘Belgian Consular Correspondence, 1915-1919’, in Sarolea Collection 73, Coll-15.

Even in November 1914, those behind the Special Belgium issue of Everyman were looking ahead to the end of the War which many believed would be of short duration. A piece by the Belgian-British Reconstruction League talked of the ‘tremendous task’ ahead. ‘A whole country will have to be reclaimed from devastation. A whole people will have to be repatriated and resettled’. As the War ground on though, Sarolea travelled extensively during 1914 and 1916 – across France and to Switzerland and Italy – as his passport shows.

Passport issued in December 1914 to Charles Sarolea, naturalised British subject of Belgian origin, travelling to France... but not vaild for travel in Army zones. In the file entitled 'C.S. personal documents, Passport etc'. Sarolea Collection 222, Coll-15.

Passport issued in December 1914 to Charles Sarolea, naturalised British subject of Belgian origin, travelling to France… but not valid for travel in Army zones. In the file entitled ‘C.S. personal documents, Passport etc’. Sarolea Collection 222, Coll-15.

The ‘Everyman Belgian Relief and Reconstruction Fund’ was wound up towards the end of 1917, and real reconstruction across Belgium would be well underway by the early 1920s. By the end of the war, some 200,000 Belgians had sought refuge across the UK – 17,000 in the Glasgow area alone – and around £6-million to £7-million had been contributed to all of the Belgian charities (circa £400-million today), and these figures were used by Sarolea in his defensive ‘open letter’ to an English correspondent who had criticised the effort.

Sarolea defended charitable giving to Belgians in 'open letter' written in May 1917. From the file 'Belgian Consular Correspondence, 1915-1919'. Sarolea Collection 76, Coll-15.

Sarolea defended charitable giving to Belgians in this ‘open letter’ written in May 1917. From the file ‘Belgian Consular Correspondence, 1915-1919’. Sarolea Collection 73, Coll-15.

Immediately after the War, in March 1919, in Edinburgh, Charles Sarolea was presented with an illuminated scroll by grateful Belgians honouring his wartime work for aid to Belgium. Heading the signatures on the scroll was that of the Rev. O. M. Couttenier a Belgian priest in Edinburgh.

Scroll presented to Charles Sarolea by grateful Belgians. Sarolea Collection 222, Coll-15.

Professor Charles Sarolea resigned his Chair in 1931 but continued to reside in Edinburgh and remained as Belgian Consul in the city until his death in 1953. In 1954, his papers and correspondence were purchased for Edinburgh University Library.

Detail from the front cover of Everyman, November 1914. In a file entitled ‘Everyman Belgian Relief Fund 1914-1916′, in Sarolea Collection 77, Coll-15.

Dr. Graeme D. Eddie, Assistant Librarian Archives & Manuscripts, Centre for Research Collections

Edinburgh’s first geneticist: Arthur Darbishire (1879-1915)

Posted on 10 February 2015 by towardsdolly

In 1911, the University of Edinburgh appointed its first Lecturer in Genetics. The Lectureship was the first academic genetics post in Britain – the Balfour Chair in Genetics at the University of Cambridge did not come into existence until a year later. The incumbent of the Lectureship was a man called Arthur Dukinfield Darbishire, a scientist who had already caused a stir in the so-called ‘Mendel Wars’.

Darbishire was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied zoology. But in 1899, a discovery (or, rather, rediscovery) was made which changed the face of science forever. Three scientists independently stumbled across the findings of an Augustinian monk, Gregor Mendel, who had conducted a perfectly-designed study of inheritance and transmission of characteristics by cross-breeding peas growing in his monastery garden. Mendel’s ideas – his discovery of the 3:1 ratio of dominant to recessive types (terminology which he coined) and his hypothesis of invisible ‘factors’ – which we now call ‘genes’ – causing certain traits in predictable ways, were published in 1866, but remained virtually unknown for over three decades. When they were finally rediscovered, the science of ‘genetics’ was born.

Page from Notebook of Arthur Darbishire (c.1902), Edinburgh University Library Special Collections, EUA 1N1/ACU/A1/3/6

Excitedly, Darbishire soon deviated from pure zoological studies to pursue problems of heredity. In the first few years of the twentieth century he began a series of breeding experiments, crossing Japanese waltzing mice with albinos to demonstrate the variability in the distribution of inherited coat colour. One of his research notebooks (pictured) from around this time, which exists in Edinburgh University Library Special Collections, reveal his neatly outlined hybridisations and notes from research and reading. At this point, Darbishire’s interests lay in the biometric rather than a Mendelian approach to heredity (the premise that heredity relies on continuous rather than discontinuous variation), but when he became Demonstrator in Zoology at the University of Manchester in 1902, he began to reassess the Mendelian approach. He continued his experiments with mice in the light of his earlier biometric position, and concluded that the supposed contradiction between the two theories was due more to differences of opinion rather than inherent theoretical incompatibilities, despite the heated and bitter debates between various scientists from both theoretical camps. Caught in the crossfire, Darbishire cut himself adrift from both schools of thought, maintaining an independent and critical distance.

Darbishire in uniform (1915), Edinburgh University Library Zoology collection

Darbishire left Manchester for a spell as Senior Demonstrator and Lecturer in Zoology at the Royal College of Science before his appointment to the University of Edinburgh. Once he took up his position as Lecturer in Genetics, Darbishire had the run of the University’s Experimental Farm for his breeding experiments. By 1914, Darbishire was delivering lectures at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and was so successful that he was offered professorships from two American universities. However, Darbishire felt he could not leave England after the outbreak of war. Upon returning, he was pronounced unfit for the Army (due to ‘physical delicacy’) but in July 1915 he tried a second time at a recruiting office, where he was accepted and enrolled as a private in the 14^th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. His sister Helen wrote that ‘[h]e devoted himself to his duties as a soldier with the same zest and the same meticulous attention to detail that marked his work in other spheres, and he won the love and admiration of his comrades.’ However, within less than six months, Darbishire contracted cerebral meningitis whilst in military camp at Gailes. He died on Christmas Day 1915. Three days after his death, he was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery.

Had he lived, Darbishire would doubtless have taken on the directorship of the Animal Breeding Research Station, established in 1920 to apply the new science of genetics to the practical improvement of the farming and livestock industry. The directorship of the Station (later the Institute of Animal Genetics) passed instead to one of Darbishire’s students, Francis Crew, who transformed the Institute into one of the foremost centres of genetics research in the world, and laid the foundations for Edinburgh’s continuing excellence in the biological sciences. Edinburgh University Library Special Collections holds various items relating to Arthur Darbishire, many of which have been catalogued as part of the Wellcome Trust-funded ‘Towards Dolly’ project. As well as his notebook, there are some photographic portraits and his collected offprints, many bearing his signature. These items are intimate souvenirs of the life and legacy of Edinburgh’s first geneticist.

Helen Darbishire, who was later Principal of Somerville College Oxford, wrote of her brother in 1916:

All who knew him will keep in memory a personality alive and young to a rare degree, fulfilling itself in a passion for music, much laughter, a perfectly disinterested love of truth, a delight in producing delight in others, and the keenest possible interest in life itself whichever way it led him.

Reference:
Helen Darbishire, Preface to An Introduction to Biology and other papers by A.D Darbishire (Cassell and Company Ltd, 1917)

Clare Button
Project Archivist ‘Towards Dolly: Edinburgh, Roslin and the Birth of Modern Genetics’

‘Doing their bit’: the remarkable life of nurse Yvonne FitzRoy

Posted on 12 January 2015 by lwillia5

Today’s blog is by Louise, archivist at Lothian Health Services Archive (LHSA), as she looks into a very singular wartime life:

On the surface, Yvonne FitzRoy (1891 – 1971) seemed an unlikely nurse. A privileged socialite (daughter of Sir Almeric FitzRoy and Katherine Farquhar), progressive and actress, she was in fact to serve on the battlefields of Russia and Romania as a nursing orderly to Elsie Inglis between 1916 and 1917 with the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (SWH).

The Scottish Women’s Hospitals were set up as soon as war broke out by Edinburgh clinician and suffragist Dr Elsie Inglis, with the financial support of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).

Dr Elsie Inglis (LHB8A/9)

The all-female SWH units were formed in order to offer medical support to front-line troops, and by the end of the war there had been units based in France, Corsica, Salonika, Serbia, Russia, Romania and Malta. Although rejected by the War Office in Scotland (the famous rebuke to Dr Inglis was that, as a woman, she should ‘go home and sit still’), the aid of the SWH was accepted first by the French Red Cross, and a hospital was set up in Calais to treat Belgian troops. A hospital in the abbey of Royaumant soon followed.

The SWH are perhaps best known through their units in Serbia (work that still links Scotland to the area today). However, the Serbian army’s defeat by Austrian troops forced their withdrawal – Dr Inglis was captured and was returned to Britain; others who could escape chose to retreat in treacherous conditions with the Serbian army. However, in 1916, the London Suffrage Society financed another SWH unit of 80 women to support the Serbian army in Russia and Romania, of which Yvonne FitzRoy was one. LHSA is lucky enough to hold two letter books (LHB8/12/6 and 7) and one scrapbook (LHB8/12/8) that trace Yvonne’s work on this eastern front.

Yvonne’s appointment letter to the SWH (LHB8/12/8)

Luggage label from Yvonne’s journey to serve with the SWH on a captured Austrian ship (LHB8/12/8). According to her memoirs, her luggage consisted of ‘one kit-bag, one haversack, and a rug.’

Although SWH archives are held by Glasgow City Archives and The Women’s Library, the pivotal role played by Elsie Inglis means that we have some intriguing material across LHSA collections (of which more as the weeks go on!): SWH work is reflected in archives from the Bruntsfield Hospital (where Dr Inglis was a surgeon), in the papers of the Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital (opened as a memorial to Dr Inglis in 1925 with the remainder of the SWH funds) and in the personal collections of campaigners who fought to keep the memory of Dr Inglis alive. The letters and scrapbook created by Yvonne FitzRoy can be found in LHSA’s Bruntsfield Hospital collection.

Although not solely covering her time at the front, Yvonne’s scrapbook is dominated by the War and its aftermath. Reflecting her artistic and social life as well as her military one, the book is pasted with typed quotations, theatre scripts, postcards and programmes, indicating a love of words, the London stage and the idiosyncratic:

Memorabilia in Yvonne’s scrapbook (LHB8/12/8)

However, the levity of costume design, exhibitions and drama is soon punctuated by newspaper clippings of events in the theatre of war as European tensions grew in 1914.

A typical ‘text heavy’ page in Yvonne’s scrapbook (LHB8/12/8).

As a result of her services to the Russian sick and wounded, Yvonne FitzRoy was awarded a Russian medal for meritorious conduct, the ‘Order of Service’, which she was given government permission to wear:

Certificate of Yvonne FitzRoy’s ‘Order of Service’ medal (LHB8/12/8).

Her service throughout the war was also recognised by the British Red Cross and Order of St John organisations, which worked together during the war after forming a Joint War Committee:

Yvonne’s certificate for wartime services with the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John of Jerusalem in England (LHB8/12/8).

Like others who served with SWH, Yvonne FitzRoy seemed to have been involved with the Voluntary Aid Detachments, women (who came to be known as VADs) who volunteered in county Red Cross hospitals. Yvonne seems to have used her literary skills in work for a hospital magazine, the Egginton Howl, the magazine of Egginton Hall Red Cross Hospital near Derby.

The Egginton Howl was even praised in this December 1916 article by The Spectator: http://bit.ly/1Ki26lQ. The letter by Rudyard Kipling mentioned in the article is in fact pasted into Yvonne’s scrapbook, indicating that at this time she must have been closely involved in the magazine’s production:

Letter from Rudyard Kipling to Yvonne FitzRoy (LHB12/8/8).

Not content with one literary autograph, Yvonne managed to collect another trophy, in the shape of a questionable pun and endearing sketch from author HG Wells:

HG Wells caricature (LHB8/12/8).

Following the war, Yvonne (like other SWH medical staff) chose to write a memoir of their experiences working on the front line. Her memoir, With the Scottish Nurses in Roumania, was published in 1918, giving an account of her life at the front – it was dedicated to Dr Inglis, who died from cancer on 26^th November 1917 just as she had returned to Britain. Yvonne’s adventures did not end with peacetime, however. In 1921, she was appointed as Private Secretary to Alice, Marchioness of Reading, wife of the British Viceroy in India, a post that she occupied until 1926. Yvonne’s life in India can be pieced together through another memoir, Courts and Camps in India: Impressions of Viceregal Tours 1921 – 1924, or through her personal papers from this time held at the British Library. The cuttings and correspondence in her scrapbook also reflect this period of her life:

Greetings card sent from the Viceroy’s Camp, c. 1924 (LHB8/12/8).

Yvonne’s letters home to her parents are more directly focused upon her SWH period, covering September 1916 to January 1917, when she travelled between Russia and Romania with ‘Hospital A’, headed by Dr Inglis. From her journey east to life treating patients at the front and retreating and advancing in the wake of Allied campaigns, Yvonne’s collected letters cover her friendships, leisure time, daily life and the business of staying warm, including frequent mentions of ‘Swedish drill… all of us flat on our backs… waving our grey legs in the air’ (6^th September 1916). Frequent references to the ‘Russian censor’ preclude any detailed references to military manoeuvres, victories or defeats, but on some occasions working conditions are mentioned in more detail:

‘Now we are about 10 miles from the firing line, and Hospital B has gone off to act as our clearing station. I am really glad to be in A. B won’t probably see more of the fighting than we shall, and from the medical point of view our work will be the most interesting as they simply dress the wounds and send the men straight on. Here they only stay a day or two if they are well enough but anyway that give us enough time to cope with things a little. Also I am with Dr Inglis and have got the pick of the sisters in my Ward headed by a Bart’s nurse – my word what a difference a big hospital training makes! We arrive just in time for the biggest rush of wounded they’ve yet had and got 100 in before we were half ready. Every soul worked like bricks but the first few days were just terrific. Now, in all the confusion, we are beginning to see daylight and in a day or two shall have our next two Wards open.’ (10^th October 1916)

As the extract above hints, Yvonne’s letters also give her personal insight into Elsie Inglis. In a 1919 letter to Eva Shaw McLaren, who was to publish a history of the SWH and a biography of Elsie Inglis, Yvonne wrote:

‘You know it wasn’t at least an easy job to win the best kind of service from a mixed lot of women – the trained members of which had never worked under a woman before – and were ready with their very narrow outlook to seize on any and every opportunity for criticism. There was a tremendous amount of opposition, more or less grumblingly expressed at first. No-one hesitated to do what they were told – you wouldn’t with Dr Inglis as a chief, would you – but it was grudgingly done. In the end it was all for the best. If she had been the kind of person who took trouble to rouse an easy personal enthusiasm the whole thing would have fallen to pieces at the first stress of work – equally if she had never inspired more than respect she would never have won the quality of service she succeeded in doing.’ (9^th November 1919)

Weighing up Dr Inglis’ ‘loveable personality that lay at the root of her leadership’ with her ‘strength and singleness of purpose’ (which did not always endear her to those around her at first sight), Yvonne provides a counter to the ‘fanatics’ (as she describes them) whose awe at the work of the SWH coloured their perceptions – also revealing Yvonne’s own individuality and strength, which must have carried her through a particularly harsh Russian winter.

Yvonne in her SWH uniform (LHB8/12/8).

Louise Williams, Archivist, Lothian Health Services Archive

Untold Stories

Posted on 5 December 2014 by Grant Buttars

When deciding on what to do in relation to marking the centenary of the First World War, we opted to let our collections talk. By that we mean letting stories emerge from the collections without trying to manipulate them to fit any agenda. This means that the only given in this will be the time frame. We will be posting a principal article at least once a month but interspersing these with smaller posts on a more ad hoc basis.

To kick things off there is the design, specifically the graphic we have used. This is taken from a set of linocuts made by the artist John Abell, as illustrations to Arthur Graeme West’s Diary of A Dead Officer.

West joined the army in February 1915, straight from Oxford. He had been turned down for an officer’s commission for his bad eyesight, so joined as a private and served in the trenches. He was one of the first poets to write about the front line from direct experience – an experience by which he was soon disillusioned with the war. His disillusionment was completed by a period of officer training in Scotland, being ordered about by bullying NCOs. A loss of his religious faith followed.

West had been at school and at Oxford with Cyril Joad, who, by the time West was training in Scotland, when they met again, was a well-known pacifist. West was greatly influenced by Joad and the pacifist movement. He went so far as to write, but never posted, his resignation from the army. Instead he returned to France, to be killed by a sniper in April 1917.

His diary was edited for publication by Joad, and issued as pacifist propaganda by the left-wing Herald newspaper and Francis Meynell’s Pelican Press.

John Abell’s powerful linocut images, in response to reading the diary a century on, but himself about the same age as West when he wrote it, have been published by the Old Stile Press, in a very fine, limited edition

Grant Buttars & Elizabeth Quarmby Lawrence

Welcome to the Untold Stories blog

Posted on 1 May 2014 by Grant Buttars

This blog has just been set up. Please click on ‘About’ above to learn about what will appear here and check back for updates.