World War One - Photography

A story related to Springwood Historians recently suggested that soldiers serving overseas in World War One were deprived of recording their experiences in photographs.  However, an advertisement in a newspaper and subsequent research has revealed that Australian and indeed British soldiers were entitled to take a 'small personal camera' with them on active service.(1)

An article in the Photographic Collection of The First World War Poetry Digital Archive confirmed three main categories of photographers during World War One; official, press and amateur.  Official photographers - like Charles Bean - were given commissioned status and documented the conflict at home and on the Western fronts.  However, even though photographs were distributed broadly in newspapers and in propaganda material and provided official military records they were still subject to military and civilian censorship. 

Press photographers had a degree of freedom in Egypt and Mesopotamia but rigorously restricted in places like the Western Front.(2) While restricted, these photographs provide evidence of the growing participation of civilians - especially women - and are a valued social history and military resource.

The photographs of the amateur photographer are no less valuable because they provide other visualisations of military life, however, how much or little they portrayed depended on the where they were stationed and the view of their commanding officers.(3) It would appear that Australian soldiers may have taken the Kodak Vest Pocket camera and an advertisement of the day implied that it was simple to use and required no skill or prior knowledge of photography. (4)  The advert suggested it weighed 9 ounces, was made for rough use and most importantly would not rust.

Limitations of the equipment then available limited the quality of the photographs.  Nevertheless, they are an important and extraordinary birds eye account of the conflict and the individual experience.
Pamela Smith
1. Oxford University, The First World War Poetry Archive, The Photographic Collection, http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/photo, accessed 23.10.2012.
2. ibid.
3. Unidentified article, What Every Soldier Needs - the Vest Pocket Kodak.
4. ibid.
Other resources
Camerapedia, Vest Pocket Kodak, http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Vest_Pocket_Kodak, accessed 23.10.2012.
Photographs: Google Images

  

Medical - Pandemic/Spanish Flu

In 1918-1919, when the Spanish influenza pandemic swept the globe, Australians - with their peculiar sense of humour – devised unique ways of dealing with the apparatus and cures popular at the time.  For example, hideous faces were painted onto the face mask, or, kewpie dolls and huge wire spiders hung from the sides.  However, ladies of fashion used the masks as fashion accessories and rather than the small cheese cloth styles that were in general use, the fashionable dames wore flowing gossamer veils - much like a Yashmak - with only their eyes visible.

Cases of mistaken identity were often reported, like the gentleman who escorted his wife’s maid to a picture entertainment thinking she was his wife.  It would seem his wife found the story somewhat hard to believe. The masks came in every shape and size; there were narrow masks, flat masks and even curved masks. Life-long friends were snubbed, while total strangers were accosted.  Moustaches even went out of fashion for a time because the masks were uncomfortable in hot weather.

Closer to home, the Echo newspaper columnist expressed relief that wearing the mask was not compulsory in Katoomba.  She stated:

       “ I spent last week-end in Sydney and my dear  heart bled for the poor souls doomed to wear the disfiguring gauze for the next couple of months.  You never saw such a ridiculous sight in all your existence as those hordes of scurrying human ants, muffled up as though a plague of toothache had suddenly attacked the community.”

Treatments and care were equally bizarre and included the use of Wawn’s Wonder Wool and Wonder Balm, Glaxo, Wood’s Great Peppermint Cure, Heezo and Hean’s Tonic, Nerve Nuts, Bovril, and Dr Morse’s Indian Root Pills. Titan Hot Water Bags and Mac’s boots and shoes were also said to be useful.  Other remedies – equally as strange - were promoted by a ‘Mother of Seven’ in the Echo.  She recommended:

“camphor or aconitum, and if afterwards necessary, arsenicum, if combined with great lassitude, with copious, watery acrid discharge.  Diet and regimen: Beef tea and farinaceous food, with repose in bed, or confinement, warmly clad, in a room with plenty of fresh air.  During fever, loss of appetite etc. toast and water or barley water will be most suitable adopting as the fever abates a generous diet.’

A Melbourne physician - suggested another correspondent - recommended the use of cinnamon as an effect prophylactic.  As a cure he suggested “one teaspoon of ground cinnamon in whisky.  Stand about half an hour and add milk.”  A Swiss correspondent strongly advised the use of onions as a preventive against influenza.  He suggested that germs could not live on anyone who ate raw onions and that was why the Swiss were a healthy race.  Doctors in inoculation centres were furnished with strict guidance procedures and were advised to paint the entire upper arm with a tincture of Iodine before and after the jab.

The pandemic - thought to have been brought back by soldiers returning from the Great War - caused over 12,000 deaths in Australia.  It peaked in the Winter of 1919 but started to abate by the following February. 

Shirley Evans
* This is a brief account taken from The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 In The Blue Mountains (And Lithgow)
now out of print.

  

  

World War Two

War Memorial  Macquarie Road, Springwood

Fortunately, the names of local men who enlisted for World War One are listed on the Honor Board located in Springwood Civic Centre & their service and history perpetuated in Remembrance Springwood District Honor Roll 1914-1919. Local volunteers for World War Two were not so lucky; their names remain largely unrecorded except in service records and military papers.

The National Archives of Australia took over the work of digitalising service records from the Australian War Memorial Canberra and are making progress on the latter records to make them available to the wider public.  Although all records are not yet digitalised the following is a list of men and women who were born, or enlisted, in Springwood. 

Adamson, Reginald James

Aldridge, Alfred John

Allen, Patrick Lancelot

Anderson, Harold James

Banfield, Norman Hewitt

Bennett, Edwin Harold

Bennett, Percy Steven

Bennett, Ronald Alan

Bishop, Ernest Henry

Blackwood, Lindsay Burns

Cantwell, Michael Joseph

Carey, John Cameron

Cheadle, Walter Gerald

Clay, Herbert

Colless, Charles Gordon

Colless, Roy Lucas

Colless, Rupert George

Cook, John Eric Eugene

Crosland, Jack Frederick

Crosland, Stanley Cecil

Croucher, Keith Mark

Cullen, Leonard John

Davis, John Francis

Dawson, Noel

Dodd, Frank Julian

Dodd, Norman Leslie

Donaldson, Arthur Walter

Dwyer, Douglas Haig

Dyson, Kevin Vincent

Fairfax-Ross, Basil

Ferguson, Archibald Cook

Fitch, Ronald Warwick

Fox, Harry Kenneth

Frost, Leo Lorraine

Grant, John Milton

Gray, George Joseph

Hall, Ernest

Hall, Robert Desmond

Harber, Richard Fearnside

Harris, Maurice Walter

Hartigan, Ronald Keith

Herr, Matthew Judge

Hughes, William Wynne

Hurley, Francis Dudley

Ipkendanz, Edward

Jack, Herbert Ernest

Jay, Arnold John

Jones, William Charles

Judge, Stanley Craddock

Kelly, Harold Nelson

Kemp, Thomas Harold

Leape, Eric

Lees, Robert Australia

Lofting, Hilary David

McDonald, Eric William

McDonald, John Alexander

McMain, Ronald Horace

McPhee, William Arthur

Mann, Norman Kenneth

Mansfield, Charles Vivian

Martin-Yates, Ronald

Masters, Roy Edward

Moody, Ronald Rawson

Morrison, William

Munro, Donald Sutherland

Neville, Raymond Aubrey

Nichols,Charles Henry

Nichols, Leslie John

Powell, Douglas Charles

Pratt, William Norman

Prince, Charles Oswald

Proctor, William Jack

Rafferty, Norman Joseph

Randall, Alma Montrose

Robertson, James

Robison, Rupert Cowper

Rowling, Edward Charles

Ryan, Gabriel Francis

Salter-Gibbs, Henry Leslie

Simons, Donald George

Smith, William Alfred

Speer, John Edward Thomas

Stace, Rupert Octavius

Stratton, Clarence Charles

Stratton, Ernest Clifford

Stratton, Raymond Keith

Sully, Alfred Ernest

Thomas, Owen Furley

Thruchley, Trevor Reginald

Thurgood, Cecil Arthur

Towns, Clarence George

Urquhart, Colin Ernest

Wall, Donald Douglas

Wall, Douglas Lawrence

Wallace, Donald Kendall

Way, Harold James

Webb, Lewis Harry

West, Reginald Joseph

Wheatley, James Eric

Wheatley, Leslie William

Whiteman, Randall Harland

Wiggins, Elizabeth May

Wiggins, Frederick George

Wiggins, Stanley Norman

Wilson, John Nathan

Wimhurst, Albert Edward

Winchester, Selwyn

Young, Eric Charles

This does not claim to be a definitive nor correct list and omissions or corrections are welcomed.   

 Pamela Smith

  

Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth David

Many notable politicians, successful business people, war heroes, and inspiring educators have lived in the Blue Mountains at one time or another. One of these was renowned geologist, polar explorer and university lecturer Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth David K.B.E., C.M.G., D.S.O., D. Sc., F.R.S. with wife Caroline.

The couple purchased twenty-six acres of land at Woodford in 1898, naming the two-roomed cottage they built ‘Tyn-y-Coed’ (meaning house in the wood).  The name reflected Sir David’s Welsh birth.  Born in 1858 at the rectory of St Fagan’s in Wales, he was the eldest child of Rev. William David a fellow of Jesus College Oxford.  Sir David graduated B.A. from Oxford in 1881.

He arrived in New South Wales to take up the position of assistant geological surveyor following the disappearance of Lamont H. Young (his predecessor) on a field trip to Bermagui in 1880.  Sir David arrived in Sydney in 1882 and in July 1885, married English born Caroline Martha (Cara) Mallet whom he met on the voyage to Sydney.  There is a suggestion that Cara emigrated for reasons of health, however it is more commonly suggested that she came to NSW to take up an appointment as founding principal of Hurlstone Training College for female teachers.  Interestingly, she is thought to have been appointed by Sir Henry Parkes. 

Cara, an orphan from a working class family, received her education by scholarship from Whiteland College London and later, she trained as a teacher.  She was a lecturer at the college prior to applying for the position at Hurlstone.  Cara, a bright intelligent woman, became interested in and assisted with the introduction of the free kindergarten movement in the inner suburbs of Sydney.  She was aided by other early feminist educators like Louisa Macdonald and Maybanke Wolstenholme.  Sir Edgeworth David was appointed professor of geology in the University of Sydney in 1891.

Sir Ernest Shackleton appointed him as leader of the scientific team accompanying him to the South Pole in 1907-9.  Sir David led the party that discovered the South Magnetic Pole and he and his team scaled the active volcano Mount Erebus.  At the outbreak of the First World War, Sir David recruited and formed the Australian Mining Corps that was composed of tough individuals from the gold, copper, coal and silver mines of Kalgoorlie, Bendigo, Tasmania and South Australia.  Although little is known about the corps the most successful operation carried out by the men serving under Lieut-Colonel David was the mining under and explosion of Messines Ridge, in 1917.

Edgeworth David

In the early part of the twentieth century the Blue Mountains and ‘Tyn-y-Coed’ became the David’s main place of residence.  The cottage was expanded to meet the needs of the family and orchards and gardens were established.   In 1909, following his return from the Antarctic, the Davids entertained the crew of the polar expedition ship, Nimrod.   The Davids were community minded and sociable and members of the local Woodford Anglican Church.  In August 1934 the media of the day announced the death of the world famous scientist.  Sir David was given a State funeral.  It is unfortunate that the crumbled chimney stack of ‘Tyn-y-Coed’ (destroyed by fire) is the only reminder of the David’s time in Woodford.

Pamela Smith

References:

* The Journal of the Women’s College, Vol. 26 No. 1, winter 2010-11-09, p. 8.

* T.G. Vallance & D.F. Branagan, ‘David, Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth (1858-1934),’   The Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8, Melbourne University Press, 1981, pp 218-221.

* Ken Goodlet, Hazelbrook & Woodford, Ken Goodlet, 2006, p 40.

* The Argus, 29.8.1934.

* Jennifer Carter, Portrait of a Lady: Caroline Martha David, National Library of Australia, September 2002, Vol. XII No. 12.

* Daily Telegraph image

This article appeared in The Mountain Blueberry, Dec/Jan, Issue 26, p. 20.