Skip to main content
All Posts By

Hannah Atherton

Hannah Atherton – Gretna Girl

By Collections blog

Hannah was a munitions worker at Gretna from 1917 to 1918. She heard about the plant from a friend, and they both signed up together, in Tudhoe, which is near Spennymoor.

 

The two travelled by train to the plant, and were initially billeted in a hut with several other girls from the North East of England. She remembers that a lot of the girls came from Sunderland. Unfortunately the hit was not wind and watertight, and many of the girls began to have serious doubts about their decision to come to the plant. However, the next day, they were moved to a complex of huts which varied in size, but which were connected by a communal dining hall. The food provided as of a very hight standard, but the constant repetition of kippers for breakfast led to a half day strike by the girls, until this was varied.

 

Hannah was given a works number, 3-11-39, and was sent to work in the gun cotton plant. There were two sections of this plant, which included a wet and dry area. Her strongest memories are of the drying out process, in which the cotton was removed from the large zinc pans and placed in bags.

 

This was a dusty job, and the workshop had to be continually hosed down. As a result, the girls were provided with rubber boots, and face masks. Due to the impregnation of this dust, on to their clothing, immediately after the shift had finished, the girls’ trousers and tunics were replaced.

 

After a while, Hannah became a chargehand, and supervised a group of girls, including some Gaelic speakers from the Islands. Her main task was to teach them how to dry the cotton. Included in this job was also a section about training in fire fighting by the local Fire Briagde, and the girls were taught to handle hoses, scale ladders etc.

 

Hannah also remebers that she was supervised in turn by a femal supervisor, who was provided with a distinctive khaki uniform, consisting of a wide brimmed hat, belted jacket, skirt and tie, with a shirt and dark stockings, and shoes.

 

Many of the girls obtained late passes, and travelled to Carlisle and Dornock, to attend dances and variety shows. Moreover the girls often entertained each other by producing their own shows, with each girl doing a turn. There were also sporting events, such as the Dornock Hockey Team.

 

Hannah worked at the plant throughout the running down period of 1919, and then returned to Spennymoor, where she went into domestic service prior to her marriage.

A book and some information panels featuring it's pages on display in The Devil's Porridge Museum.

New Object of the Month

By Object of the Month

This months Object of the Month is a fishermans records book from Loch and Dornock dating back to 1899.

Thanks to Stuart Graham, now based in Annan, for loaning us the fisherman’s records for Loch and Dornocks Fishings. Stake net fishing and Haaf netting in Dornock and Eastriggs provided a living for many local men for hundreds of years, right up to the last quarter of the 20th Century when Loch and Dornock fisheries were purchased and closed down by a conservation trust purportedly to protect salmon stocks in our oceans.

Stuart’s great grandfather, David John Graham, was the bookeeper who kept the business’ daily account of the netsman’s hours of work and their wages. His grandfather Thomas (old Tom) and his father, William Shannon Graham, carried on the family’s fishing heritage.

The pages in the book in the years 1898-1900 show the names of the fishermen who toiled in the Solway. Perhaps they are from your family and you may have memories or photos of these or later generations who fished at Dornock. Please let us know.

Halloween activities at The Devil's Porridge Museum in 2020.

October Activities at the Museum

By Archive

We are now doing activities during the October holidays!

 

The Activities will run in a two week block with the first week being called history week with the clubs being themed around history and the second week will be themed around Halloween with the week finishing with the Halloween Haunted House (booking required) . The activities throughout the week are all drop in sessions (no need to book) which will last for 10-15 minutes which allows children time to regroup with their families going around the Museum etc. The full list fo activities is below.

If you would like any more information on the holidays activities or if you would like to book a space for the Halloween Haunted House please email: steven@devilsporridge.org.uk or phone: 01461 700021.

Sten Mag & Reloader

WW2 Sten Gun Magazine & Loader

By Collections blog

This is a Sten Gun Magazine and Magazine Loader which are currently being kept in the Museum’s store. The Sten Submachine Gun was used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout the Second World War and Korean War. They had a simple design and very low production cost, making them effective insurgency weapons for resistance groups, and they continue to see usage to this day by irregular military forces.

The name STEN is an acronym, from the names of the weapons chief designers, Major Reginald V. Shepard and Harold Turpin, and EN for the Enfield Factory. Over 4 million Stens in various versions were made in the 1940’s, making it the second most produced submachine gun of the Second World War, after the Soviet PPSh-41.

The Sten emerged while Britain was engaged in the Battle of Britain, facing invasion by Germany. The army was forced to replace weapons lost during the evacuation of Dunkirk while expanding at the same time. Prior to 1941 (and even later) the British were purchasing all the Thompson submachine guns they could from the United States, but these did not meet demand, and the Thompsons were hugely expensive, costing anywhere from $70-200, whereas a sten only cost $11.

The Mark II was the most common version of the Sten with two million units produced. It was a much rougher weapon than the Mk I. The flash eliminator and the folding handle (the grip) of the Mk I were omitted. A removable barrel was now provided which projected 3 inches (76mm) beyond the barrel sleeve. Also, a special catch allowed the magazine to be slid partly out of the magazine housing and the housing rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise (from the operator’s perspective), together covering the ejection opening and allowing the weapon and the magazine both to lie flat of it’s side.

5 Million Marks banknote.

German Mark Note from 1923

By Collections blog

This is an example of a 5 million German Mark note from 1923 when Germany was going through hyperinflation after the First World War when trying to pay off their repatriation debts. The hyperinflation was caused by the German Government printing too much money to try and pay off their debts this caused the money to be worthless which then caused the hyper inflation.

 

To pay for the Large costs of the ongoing First World War, Germany suspended the gold standard (the convertability of its currency into gold) when the war broke out. Unlike France, who imposed its first income tax to pay for the War, German Empoer Wilhelm II and the Riechstag decided unamimously to fund the war by entirely borrowing, a decision criticized by financial experts such as Hjalmar Schacht as a dangerous risk for currency devaluation.

The government believed that it would be able to pay off the debt by winning the war and plundering the defeated allies. This was to be done by annexing resource-rich industrial territory in the west and east and imposing cash payments to Germany, similar to the cash idemnity that followed German victory over France in 1870. Thus, the exchange rate of the mark against the US Dollar steadily devalued from 4.2 to 7.9 marks per dollar, a preliminary warning to the extreme postwar inflation.

 

This strategy failed as Germany lost the war, which left the Weimar Republic saddled with massive war debts that it could not afford, a problem exacerbated by printing money without any economic resources to back it. The demand of the Treaty of Versailles for repatriations further accelerated the decline in the value of the mark, with 48 paper marks required to buy a US Dollar by late 1919.

In April 1921, the “London Payment Plan” ordered the German Government to pay repatriations in gold or foreign currency in annual installments of two billion gold marks plus 26% of the value of Germany’s imports. The first payment was made when it came due in June 1921, and marked the beginning of an increasingly rapid devaluation of the mark, which fell to approximately 330 marks per dollar.

 

By December 1922 the value of the mark fell to 7400 marks per US Dollar. The hyper inflation increased the prices of everyday items drastically, for example, a loaf of bread went from costing around 160 marks at the end of 1922 to costing 200,000,000,000 Marks by late 1923. By the end of November 1923, the US Dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German Marks. This meant that very large notes had to be created which ranged from 50,000 to 50 trillion by 1923.

 

The German Government decided that the only way to solve this was to create a new currency called the Rentenmark which was backed by bonds indexed to the market price of gold. The gold bonds were indexed at the rate of 2790 gold marks per kilogram of gold, the same as pre-war gold marks. The plan was adopted in monetary reform decreaces on October 13-15, 1923. By 1924 one dollar was equivelant to 4.2 Rentenmarks.

Lincolnshire Regiment badge.

WW1 Regiment Badges

By Collections blog

Suffolk Regiment

The Suffolk Regiment was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army with a history dating back to 1685. It saw service for three centuries, participating in many wars and conflicts, including the First and Second World Wars, before being amalgamated with the Royal Norfolk Regiment to form the 1st East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk) in 1959 which, in 1964, was further amalgamated with the 2nd East Anglian Regiment (Dutchess of Gloucester’s Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire), the 3rd East Anglian Regiment (16th/44th Foot) and the Royal Leicestershire Regiment to create the present Royal Anglian Regiment.

Royal Lincolnshire Regiment

The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on 20th June 1685 as the Earl of Bath’s Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. In 1751, it was numbered like most other Army Regiments and named the 10th (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot. After the Childers Reforms of 1881, it became the Lincolnshire Regiment after the county where it had been recuriting since 1781. After the Second World War, the regiment was honoured with the name Royal Lincolnshire Regiment, before being amalgamated in 1960 with the Northhamptonshire Regiment to form the Second East Anglian Regiment which was later amalgamated with the 1st East Anglian Regiment (which the Suffolk Regiment was a part of), 3rd East Anglian Regiment and the Royal Leiscestershire Regiment to form the Royal Anglian Regiment. A company of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglians continues the traditions of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment.

 

Illustration of a Lohner L plane.

Short 184 & Lohner L Postcards

By Collections blog

Short 184

The Short 184 was designed to meet a requirement for a torpedo bomber. It was developed from the Short 1913 circuit of Britain airplane with a 225hp Sunbeam Maori engine and was notable for its rearward folding wings and three-float landing gear. A major production programme began in the spring of 1915 involving 9 contractors in addition to Short. A variety of engines powered the Short 184 including the 240hp Renault and Sunbeam units. Production totalled more than 900 aircraft of which 300 were still in service at the end of the Great War.

Lohner L

The Lohner L, a slender, elegant flying boat, was produced by the Jakob Lohner Werke of Vienna. Powered by either a 140hp Hiero or by an Austro-Daimler of 140 or 180hp, this two-seater aircraft could carry up to 200kg of bombs or depth charges and also operate quite effectively as a fighter armed with a Schwarzlose machine-gun on a rotable mounting. It was used in the Austro-Hungarian Navy against Italian targets from 1915 until the end of the war in the reconnaissance, night bombing and anti-shipping roles.

Illustration of Aero 504 plane.

WW1 Plane Postcards

By Collections blog

Rumpler Taube

The Taube or ‘Dove’ was so-called because of its swept-back wing tips and long fan-shaped tail. It had inherent stability, was pleasant to fly and had a reasonable performance. The Rumpler company took over the manufacturing rights from the designer, Etrich, and many makes of Taube were produced by the Albatros, Gotha and Rumpler firms. All civilian versions were pressed into service at the outbreak of the war and, on August 30th 1914, Paris was bombed from Taube with five 6.6lb bombs. In the same month a Rumpler Taube was instrumental in saving the day for the German 8th Army at the Battle of Tannenberg by observing an unexpected Russian advance. Approximately 500 Tauben were built for the German armed forces.

Avro 504

The Avro 504 first appeared in 1913, an airplane considerably in advance of most of its cotemporaries in design, construction and performance, despite this, only 13 Avro’s were used by front-line units in France. One Avro of No.5 Squadron RFC was the first British machine to be brought down by the enemy while another, from the same squadron, armed with a Lewis gun, made the first ground strafing attack of the war during the first Battle of Ypres, October 22nd 1914. The most audacious action by this type occurred two days later when four Avro’s bombed the Zeppelin sheds at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. Later marks saw some operational service until the Avro 504 came into its own as an excellent training aircraft.

 

A D-Day medal.

WW2 Medals

By Collections blog

The 1939-45 War Medal is a campaign medal which was instituted by the United Kingdom on 16 August 1945, for award to citizens of the British Commonwealth who had served full-time in the Armed Forces or the Merchant Navy for at least 28 days between 3rd September 1939 and 2nd September 1945.

The duration of the Second World War in Europe was from 3 September 1939 to 8 May 1945, while in the Pacific Theatre it continued until 2 September 1945. Foreign citizens commissioned or enlisted into the British forces, who did not receive a similar award to the War Medal 1939-45 from their own Governments, were also eligible to qualify for the award of this medal.

This D-Day Commemorative badge was made in Paris to remember the soldiers who laid down their lives in an attempt to end the War.

The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War Two. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of German-occupied France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the allied victory on the Western Front.

Botchergate Carlisle with trams running.

Old Postcards of Carlisle

By Collections blog

It is always very interesting to view old postcards of what the local and surrounding areas looked like in the past and how much they have changed throughout time. These postcards of Carlisle date from different time periods showing different parts of the city throughout time.

 

The first postcard shows Botchergate Street in Carlisle sometime around WW1.

 

This shows Carlisle Cathedral from the North Side.

 

The Museum keeps many postcards of the local area and has many more of other towns and villages nearby showing what it might have been like living there during and after the First World War.

 

This  shows the entrance to English Street.

 

These postcards show some of the most recognisable streets in Carlisle that anyone who has been there or lives there would recognise which is why it is so interesting to see how they have changed overtime.

 

 

This postcard is a more recent overview photo of the Citadel and Carlisle Train Station. This postcard also shows the more updated roads and the removal of the tram system, which can be seen in the Botchergate postcard.

Translate »
BOOK NOW