Remembrance Archives - The Devil's Porridge Museum

Poster for Animals in war Remembrance Service happening at The Devil's Porridge Museum on Monday 11th November 2024 at 11am. Please arrive for this event by 10.45am.

Animals in War Remembrance Service 2024

By Archive

Monday 11th November 2024

11am

Please arrive by 10:45am as the service will start promptly

The Devil’s Porridge Museum will be commemorating Remembrance Day by laying a wreath down at our memorial to animals in war. We would like to invite everyone and their pets to the museum on Armistice Day, Monday 11th November 2024 to mark this event.

We are proud to once again have some local schools attending this event with us.

This event will happen outside The Devil’s Porridge Museum. For anyone going inside The Devil’s Porridge Museum, please be advised that our usual admission prices and rules will apply.

Prior to this on Sunday 10th November 2024, we would like to invite our visitors to join us in a two minutes silence to mark Remembrance Sunday at 11am.

Representatives of The Devil’s Porridge Museum are proud to be laying wreaths at Eastriggs and Dornock war memorial on Remembrance Sunday.

Front cover of Gretna Parish War Memorial book.

PTE Samuel McCarl & PTE William McCarl

By Collections blog

Samuel McCarl, age 22, private (18162) 2nd Battalion, Border Regiment. Born 1893 in Gasstown, Dumfries. Son of the late Samuel McCarl and of Annie Jane (Miller) McCarl of Springfield, Gretna.

Samuel was working as a farm labourer in Appleby, Westmorland when he enlisted in the Border Regiment as Private (15306) in October 1914. Initially he was rejected as unlikely to make an efficient soldier but he was later enlisted as Private (18162) and joined his Battalion in France May 1915.

Missing in Action – 25th September 1915.

Commonwealth War Grave – Loos Memorial, France

His Brother

William McCarl, age 22, Private (23358) 1st Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

Born in 1895 in Gasstown, Dumfries. Son of the late Samuel McCarl and of Annie Jane (Miller) McCarl of Springfield, Gretna.

Killed in Action – 27 August 1917.

Commonwealth War Grave – Poelcapelle British Cemerery, Belgium.

Ken J. Stafford M.C. Lieut. R.F.A.

By Collections blog

This will be the first in a series of posts commemorating those named on the Gretna and Dornock Parish WW1 War Memorials. Today we commemorate Ken J. Stafford M.C. Lieut. R.F.A.

Kenneth James Stafford, Military Cross, age 20, Lieutenant 37th Battery, 27th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.

Born in 1898 in St. Andrews, Fife. Son of the Reverend John Owen Stafford, Minister at Mochrum Parish Church and (for many years) at Gretna Parish Church, and of Mary Anne Tweedie Kerr Stafford.

Kenneth was educated at Carlisle Grammer School and at Clifton Bank School, St. Andrews. He enlisted in April 1916 was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in February 1917 and promoted to Lt. in August 1918. He was awarded the Military Cross.

“Lt. Kenneth James Stafford, R.F.A. (Spec. Res.) attd. 37th Battery, 27th Brigade. For great gallantry and devotion to duty on 4 November 1918 near Beaudignies, when his battery was heavily shelled, he went up to the position and remained there for some hours encouraging the men and attending to several who were wounded. He continued to do so after being badly wounded. Throughout these operation he set a fine example to those with him.

Died of Wounds – 14 November 1918.

Commonwealth War Grave – St. Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen, France. Also named the Mochrum Parish War Memorial in Port William, Wigtownshire.

Kenneth’s father, The Rev. John Owen Stafford was killed on 7 April 1941 in Gretna when a German Bomb hit the town’s Masonic Hall.

What happened at HM Factory Gretna in November 1918? Part One.

By Archive

Armistice Day is approaching and The Devil’s Porridge Museum is very pleased to have teamed up with Gretna Gateway and Poppy Scotland to commemorate the events of 1918 in our local area. We have a display in one of the empty units at Gretna Gateway. It has two of our former exhibitions on display – one looks at Animals in War and the other dating from 2018 has the title ‘The War is Over!’ It looks at what happened in our local area on November 11th 1918 and what happened after the end of the War. This is Part One of a look at the contents of that exhibition…

Some of the war is over exhibition on display in Gretna Gateway.

As we all know, the Armistice was signed at 11am on November 11^th 1918. Word of the war’s end had reached HM Factory Gretna by 12noon and it was closed by one that day. 30,000 people (12,000 of them women) worked at the Factory mixing the ‘devil’s porridge’ (cordite which was later put in shells and bullets).

People must have experienced mixed emotions that day: joy that the War had ended, sorrow at all that had been lost but also uncertainty over their jobs, their status as working women and the future of the greatest factory in the world.

One of the Museum displays features a tuba used by a member of the Factory band,

After the Factory closed, the workers took to the streets and the Factory band led a procession from Eastriggs to Gretna. By the time they reached Gretna, the procession was over a thousand strong and they gathered at Central Hall to sing the National Anthem.

Factory Superintendent J C Burnham gave a rousing speech on Armistice Day in 1918.

The flags of the Allied Nations were then raised and cheers went up. A piano was found and people began to play and dance, bunting was hung up all around. The Superintendent of the Factory, J C Burnham, delivered a speech which included the lines, “The day of peace has come. The glorious day for which we have been striving and hoping for…It is the day for which our noble brothers have died…”

Inside the Border Hall in Gretna where the Armistice Dance took place.

Exterior of the Border Hall.

That evening, the ‘Gretna Girls’ demanded a dance and one was held in the Border Hall (despite some people insisting that a dance was too dangerous due to the ‘Spanish’ Flu).

The full ‘War is Over’ exhibition can be seen at Gretna Outlet Village for free from 1-4pm daily until November 11th. Part Two of ‘The War is Over!’ exhibition coming soon…

Poppy Scotland will also be at Gretna Gateway along with volunteers from The Devil’s Porridge Museum.

Remembrance