These two Memorial Death Plaques or ‘Death Coins’ from WW1 were given to the families of George Sloan Brown and Alexander Cumming for their sacrifices during the First World War.
It was in October 1916 that the British Government set up a committee for the idea of a commemorative plaque that could be given to the next of kin for those men and women whose deaths were caused by the First World War from 1914-1918. The first a family would know of the death of a family member was the arrival of a telegram from the War Office. This would then be followed by the First World War Death Plaque and any medals the serviceman would have earned serving his country.
Production of the plaques, which was supposed to be financed by German reparation money, began in 1919 with approximately 1,150,000 issued. They commemorated those who fell between 4th August, 1914 and 10th January, 1920 for home, Western Europe and the Dominions whilst the final date for the other theatres of war or those who died of attributable causes was April 30th 1920.
The next of kin of the 306 British and Commonwealth military personnel who were executed following a Court Martial did not receive a memorial plaque.
When HM Factory Gretna was built in WW1 they needed a place to house all of their workers, they came up with the idea to build two new townships near the Factory site. These two townships were Eastriggs and Gretna, many houses and hostels were built to house all of the workers during WW1 some of which you can see in the photo below of Dunedin Road in Eastriggs.
The photo below shows the temporary wooden huts which were eventually converted into proper houses using brick after the war built in Gretna along with some of the permanent hostel buildings which have now been converted into houses.
Below is a photo of the girls reading room which would be used some of the 12,000 female workers who worked at HM Factory Gretna during their spare time. The interior looks very nice but some reports we have of girls who worked at the Factory say that it was very cold inside during the winter as there was no heating.
Built at first by Rene Hanriot and Pierre Dupont at Billancourt, Paris, this attractive French fighter found little interest with the Aviation Militaire, who did not use it operationally. The Italian Air Force thought otherwise; producing large numbers at the Nieuport-Macchi factory at Varese and adopting the aircraft as its most widely-used fighter, in Italy, Albania and Macedonia. it also equipped the Belgian Aviation Militaire and was used by the French and United States Navies.
Fokker E-111
During the early months of the Great War the Dutchman, Anthony Fokker, supplied three monoplane designs to the German Army. In April 1915 Fokker was asked to develop one of these to be armed with a fixed machine gun firing forwards through the propeller. Three months later an interrupter gear was devised by Fokker and Lubbe and fitter into the Fokker M5k single-seat monoplane already in service. The airplane was then given the military title of Fokker E-1. The E-1 was powered by the 80hp Oberursel rotary engine and was soon replaced by the E-11 and the E-111 both with the 100hp Oberursel. At first, armament was a single Parabellum gun but the standard equipment soon became the Spandau. The E-IV, a larger machine, powered by the 160hp Oberursel was armed with two Spandau’s. The Fokker Eindecker entered service in later 1915 to start the ‘Fokker Scourge’ that gave German’s air superiority. 258 were built and used by the German’s, Austro-Hungarians and Turks. Production ended in July 1916 when the airplane had become thoroughly obsolete.
These old postcards show what life was like in these local towns and villages and how much they’ve changed. We do not have exact dates from when the photos were taken but they show a very different time.
This postcard shows the Scotch Express leaving Carlisle Train Station which as you can see looks very different in this photo than it does today.
The Central Hotel in Annan looks a lot different here. Shame that it has now fallen into disrepair. This postcard also shows how different the roads were back then with no road markings and the roundabout not yet in place.
This postcard shows what Powfoot looked like quite some time ago. The old sandstone house now being part of the Powfoot Golf Hotel.
This postcard shows The Rand in Eastriggs and what it looked like with all of the houses built for the workers of HM Factory Gretna and used as hostels. These hostels were all purpose built to house the workers of HM Factory Gretna during the First World War.
This WW1 Trench Art from the Museums store shows what soldiers could create with used objects while they were stuck in the trenches.
The first item is an Ash Tray which has been made from the bottom of a shell. As you can see some of the pieces of the shell have been melted and folded outwards to fit cigarettes in them.
The next item is what we think is a lamp or heater. But could also possible be another ash tray looking at the design.
Trench art is any decorative item made by soldiers, prisoners of war or civilians where the manufacture was directly linked to armed conflict or its consequences. It offers an insight into not only their feelings and emotions about the war, but also their surroundings and the materials they had available to them.
Not limited to the World Wars, the history of Trench Art spans conflicts from the Napoleonic Wars to the present day. Although the practice flourished during World War One, the term ‘trench art’ is also used to describe souvenirs manufactured by service personnel during World War Two. Some items manufactured by soldiers, prisoners of war or civilians during earlier conflicts have been retrospectively described as trench art.
The Devils Porridge Museum Podcast has been created as part of an inter-generational oral history project. The project is now available for you to listen to online.
Through conversations and interviews, our volunteers and others from the local community will be sharing their personal stories and memories with The Devils Porridge Podcast Team.
In this weeks podcast we talked to David Dutton about Oswald Mosely and fascism in South West Scotland. David was meant to give a talk at the Museum about this subject but it was cancelled due to COVID-19 so we decided to get him on the podcast to tell his story instead!
At least in the early part of the decade Fascist ideas were not entirely beyond the political pale. Recent research suggests that the BUF made some progress in Scotland and that the south-west of the country was briefly a Fascist success story. Against this background this talk assesses the visits to Dumfries made by Sir Oswald Mosley and his Director of Propaganda, William Joyce, later notorious as Lord Haw-Haw.
If you would like to get involved in the project to share your own stories and memories or if you would like to find out more about joining our production team please contact: steven@devilsporridge.org.uk
Today’s website post is a little different as it does not relate to either World War One or World War Two but it is an item we have in the Museum store that we found interesting. The item in question is a Britain’s First Decimal Coins set which explains the changeover to decimal currency and what date it will be happening, it also includes five of the new coins which were being introduced.
The five coins which it includes are the Half penny, one pence, two pence, 5 pence and the ten pence. The day the United Kingdom changed to decimal currency was called Decimal Day and was on Monday 15th February 1971 and was nicknamed D-Day. These coins include designs which were made by Christopher Ironside who won the competition to have his designs on the new decimal coins.
Inside the booklet includes a list of information about how and when the new coins will be introduced into circulation and what the new system means with 100 pennies making up the new pound. Although the new coins were released from 1968 onwards the planning of the decimal coins started in 1961 when a special committee was set up by the Government to think about whether Britain should introduce a decimal currency. The committee decided in favour of decimalisation. So, on 1 March 1966 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, James Callaghan, announced that pounds, shilling and pence would be replaced by a decimal currency, with a hundred units in a pound.
The Caudron G4 came into service during the spring of 1915 as a bombing reconnaissance airplane with a good useful load of about 220lbs, an extraordinary rate of climb and even equipped with a wireless set. G4s were assigned to 38 escadrilles of the French Air force and used extensively throughout the war. At first they operated on reconnaissance duties then, in November 1915, they undertook daytime bombing sorties attacking targets beyond the Rhine. By the autumn of 1916 they were withdrawn from this duty because of the greatly improved German fighter defences. The RNAS used the Caudron G4. 43 were imported from France and 12 were built in the British Caudron plant. They were used to raid the German Zeppelin, submarine and seaplane bases along the Belgian coast. The G4 was also built in Italy and used by the Italian Air Force while 10, acquired by the American Army Air Force, were used as training aircraft.
Vickers F.B 5
Vickers Ltd were one of the first companies to design fighter aircraft. Their Type 18 ‘Destroyer’ was featured at the 1913 Aero show at Olympia armed with a belt-fed Maxim gun. The production aircraft, the FB 5, was bought by the RFC armed with a drum-fed Lewis Gun. No.11 Squadron RFC was the first specialised fighter Squadron to be formed with FB 5s in February 1915 and was soon in action with its ‘Gunbus’ used as a fighter, ground-strafer and sometimes a bomber. On 7th November 1915, 2nd Lieutenant G.S.M. Insall of No.11 Squadron RFC won the Victoria Cross for an action in a Vickers FB 5. This slow airplane, with a meagre performance, remained in service until July 1916, by then being no match at all for the German Fokker monoplanes.
These two objects are being kept in the Museums store so I thought I would do a bit of research on them. One of the items are .303 British shell casings from WW1 and the other is an officers side arm holster also from WW1.
The .303 British bullets were first developed in Britain as a black-powder round put into service in December 1888 for the Lee-Metford rifle. In 1891 the cartridge was adapted to use smokeless powder. It was the standard British and Commonwealth military cartridge from 1889 until the 1950’s when it was replaced by the 7.62x51mm NATO. During a service life of over 70 years with the British Commonwealth armed forces the .303-inch cartridge in its ball pattern progressed through ten marks which eventually extended to a total of about 26 variations. The bolt thrust of the .303 British is relatively low compared to many other service rounds used in the early 20th Century. During World War One British factories alone produced 7 billion rounds of .303 ammunition. Factories in other countries greatly added to this total.
The other item is a leather WW1 British Officers sidearm holster which we believe used to hold a Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver which was used by British Army officers as their side arm. The Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver was designed in 1895 and was produced from 1901-1924, the revolver is easily recognisable by the zig-zag grooves on the cylinder. Though Webley viewed this weapon as an ideal sidearm for cavalry troops, the Webley-Fosbery was never adopted as an official government sidearm. Several models of the Webley-Fosbery revolvers were produced, and the type saw limited action in the Boer Wars as well as World War One, where some privately purchased examples were carried by British Officers in the .455 service bearing. Reports from the field suggested that the Webley-Fosbery, with its precisely machined recoil surfaces, was more susceptible to jamming in wartime conditions of mud and rain than comparable sidearms of the period.
The Devils Porridge Museum Podcast has been created as part of an inter-generational oral history project. The project is now available for you to listen to online.
Through conversations and interviews, our volunteers and others from the local community will be sharing their personal stories and memories with The Devils Porridge Podcast team.
This week on the Podcast we talk to David Ramshaw – author of ‘The Carlisle Ship Canal’. He was due to give a talk on the book in July but it was cancelled due to lockdown.
The Carlisle Ship Canal had a very short life compared to most canals. Construction work began in 1819 and the canal was closed in 1853. As a result there is probably less known about it than many other canals which still exist today.
More episodes will follow over the coming weeks, so please come back and listen to more installments throughout the summer.
If you would like to get involved in the project to share your own stories and memories or if you would like to find out more about joining our production team please contact: steven@devilsporridge.org.uk
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