World War Wednesdays: The First World War Munitions Industry in St. Thomas and Beyond

Female workers making munitions at St. Thomas Metallic Vaults plant, St. Thomas, ON, during the First World War, Elgin County Archives

     Something I feel like I haven’t written much about so far is the industrial aspect of war and how the Elgin County area was implicated by manufacturing demands. I was a bit disappointed to find that there really isn’t much written on this topic in the local context, and hope to see some more resources in the future. This week, I’ve compiled what I was able to find in terms of the First World War! 

     To begin, I think it's of interest and importance to mention the state of hydroelectric power in Ontario at the time that the war broke out. As an example for all my local readers, the town of Dutton did not get hydro until August 1915, and was the first municipality in the province to receive its power by using the existing telephone lines along the Pere Marquette Railroad. When that was achieved, Dutton became the 121st municipality in Ontario to get hydro. Thus, hydroelectricity in the area was in its infancy at a time when it was on the precipice of its greatest possible demand. Great Britain had declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914 (automatically including Canada as well), and as an historical record compiled by Entegrus observes, "To manufacture weapons of war, munitions factories needed ever greater amounts of power, The demands made on the Hydro Electric Power Commission system increased enormously."

     According to a pamphlet compiled from government records called "Shell and Fuse Scandals: A Million-Dollar Rake-off," "The history of the war shows that the British Government was quite unprepared, at its outbreak to furnish the necessary supply of munitions. Realizing this- strenuous efforts were made to manufacture quickly large quantities of shells to cope with this situation and the enormous reserves which Germany had for years piled up. Shells were of vital importance; shells meant protecting the lives of our Canadian and British soldiers. Shells were the one thing that was needed."

     The pamphlet also observes that "The Canadian Government was asked to assist in the manufacture of shells and were given an initial order of 200,000. The Government appointed a shell committee composed of four military and four civilian members [the Dominion Shell Committee]." doingourbit.ca recognizes that "having a strong industrial base was as important as having good men at the front. Furthermore, Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia, impressed upon the Dominion Shell Committee that all components of the shells to be used on the front be produced in Canada." However, the process of awarding manufacturing contracts was more complex than would be expected. The site highlights that industrial contracts for munitions production "were very difficult to come by as there was a very strict set of conditions and standards that had to be met, but again, the demand was for locally produced munitions." Contracts were secured through the efforts of local politicians and Boards of Trade, who had to impress the Dominion Shell Committee and Minister of Militia. 

     At that time, the city of St. Thomas was among a group of similarly-sized municipalities for manufacturing and industry which included Stratford and Guelph, which were cited as examples of 'organizing cities' whose wartime industrial production secured a viable economic future that would carry on into peacetime. 

     Elgin County Archives holds only one accessible example of a wartime munitions factory in St. Thomas, though I am sure there are others. This is the St. Thomas Metallic Grave Vaults Ltd. plant, which was located at 155 Curtis Street, on the northwest corner of Curtis and St. Catharine Streets (now the site of the St. Thomas Police and Administration of Justice Building). A publication by the Elgin County Board of Trade and Publicity Association from around 1930 describes the peacetime purpose was for the factory: "The St. Thomas Metallic Vault Co., in their large two story brick building, are making vaults of a new type for inclosing [sic] coffins for interment, which are burglar proof, the demand for which is growing apace." Here are some photos of the interior of the factory when it was producing shells for the war, ca. 1917:

     There is very little information regarding that period in the factory's history besides these images, or the rest of its operation. A St. Thomas Times-Journal article published February 18, 1961 was captioned: "St. Thomas Metallic Industries Ltd., a direct subsidiary of H.A. Astlett & Co. (Canada) Ltd. has been sheet metal fabricators in St. Thomas for over 49 years. The principal items manufactured being "ST. THOMAS" metallic grave vaults which are produced in various sizes and distinctive colors. In recent years other products such as roofers' maintenance kettles, road maintenance equipment, portable torches, salamanders, and steel door frames have been fabricated for municipalities, contractors and railroad companies. Equipment for the tobacco industry has also been made and custom machining done for local industries." 

     Please let me know if you have any more details to help me fill in the blanks! 
     Thanks for reading,
Delany (@DLeitchHistory on Twitter)

World War Wednesdays: "Enemy Aliens" in Elgin, WWI

     Hey there, history buffs! This will be my first official post back in my usual home base, and I'm coming at you live from the Gatineau hills once again. I was quite sad to have to vacate my post at the museum, but of course all good things must come to an end, and my fourth year at university will be over before we know it! In honour of this occasion, I decided to more directly cover a topic we've briefly discussed a few times before, with a local connection, of course.

     During the early part of the First World War, all elements of the German presence in Canada experienced a major backlash. Public schools removed German language courses from the curricula, and some orchestras refused to play German music. When the Lusitania, a civilian ship, was sunk in 1915 with hundreds of civilian deaths, the popular sentiment officially became that Canada was fighting a singularly noble cause against a nation of barbarians. Nasty riots began to explode in cities like Victoria, Montreal, and Winnipeg, with German-owned shops and businesses being targeted.

     While things generally weren't as violent in our own neck of the woods during that time, all things German did receive a harsher treatment. I recently came across a story which highlights this point and sheds some light on the power of popular opinion in wartime.

   

Thomas Brothers, Limited St. Thomas factory ca. 1908

     When the Thomas family emigrated from Germany to settle in Rodney, five of their sons established a successful lumber company on the west side of Furnival Road, south of the railroad tracks. Then, in 1903, the business was moved to St. Thomas, east of Wilson Avenue between Chester and Elm Streets. The brothers also built a number of houses along Chester Street to house factory workers.The 1903 catalog advertises an array of products: pails, washtubs, keelers and refrigerator drips, washbasins, handy dishes, milk pans, barrel covers, bread trays, ice water jars, butter tubs and covers, spittoons, chamber pails (for hospitals and asylums), slop jars, bread and butter bowls, florists' vases, and flower pot saucers. The company used wood fibre to produce their line, which they marketed as the Lily Brand. In addition, the factory was referred to as being a broom factory, and the Backus-Page House Museum has one of their washing machines. The brothers really did manufacture everything but the kitchen sink!

    During the advent of the First World War, however, the company was boycotted due to the brothers' German heritage, forcing the company to close. Ironically, the factory complex was briefly used in 1916 as living quarters for members of the 91st Battalion, and the Battalion also maintained a recruiting office there. Unfortunately, the brothers were unable to recover and resume business after the war was over. Between ca. 1917 and 1923, the factory complex was rented to the Thomas Edison Co. for use as a phonograph company. After that, it stood empty until the 1950s when it was re-purposed for use as the Victor Gasket Co.

     The Thomas Brothers' experience was troubling and unfortunate, but not nearly as devastating for them as it could have been. Anti-German propaganda, stories of German atrocities abroad, and the fear of saboteurs drove many Canadians to expect protection from their government. This came in the form of incarcerating some 8,579 of those"Enemy Aliens" behind barbed wire  and forcing tens of thousands more to register with authorities and abide by strict rules for the duration of the war. 

     The Thomas Brothers story is just one of many to come of that period in our history, and the discourse regarding these issues remains heated to this day. Many thanks to the Canadian War Museum and Elgin County Archives for the content this week! If you want to view the Thomas Bros. catalog, here's the link: http://inmagic.elgin-county.on.ca/ElginImages/archives/ImagesArchive/pdfs/ECVF_B63_F24.pdf

Thanks for reading,

Delany (@DLeitchHistory on Twitter)

World War Wednesdays: Friends in the Fight: WWI Pals Battalions

     Hello and welcome to the latest edition of "It's Totally Possible to Write Weekly Blogs About the World Wars for Almost Two Years and Never Run Out of Topics"! The First World War has been in the news a lot recently, especially in regard to the centenary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, but I wanted to take a look at a unique topic that I hadn't previously heard much about. This week is all about the Pals Battalions, a uniquely British phenomenon whereby men were recruited to serve alongside their friends, relatives and workmates.

     A crucial fact which contributed to this concept was that Britain found itself as the only major power to enter the war without a mass conscripted army. After the war began, it became clear very quickly that the British army was just not large enough for a global conflict.

     Thousands of men began volunteering for service in Lord Kitchener's New Armies, propelled by patriotic fervor. It did not take long before it came to be realized that local ties played a major role in enlistment, and that many more men could be enticed to serve if they knew that they would be doing so among familiar faces.

     On 21 August 1914, the first of the Pals Battalions began to be raised from the City of London stockbrokers. Amazingly, 1,600 men joined what became the 10th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers in just a matter of days. The phrase "battalion of pals" was first coined by Lord Derby, and recruited enough men to form three battalions of the King's (Liverpool) Regiment in only a week.

     Soon, Pals Battalions came to be synonymous with Northern British towns. Men from cities including Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Hull, Glasgow, and Edinburgh enlisted by the thousands in 1914 and 1915. In addition, the battalions were also raised from Birmingham to Bristol and from Cambridge to Cardiff.

     After being trained, the first of the Pals Battalions began arriving on the Western Front in mid-1915. However, most of them never saw major action until the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916. Many of these units sustained heavy casualties, which had a major impact on the communities they left behind. As a result, the close-knit structure of the Pals Battalions was never continued after the introduction of conscription in 1916.

Here are some examples of the different Pals Battalions across Britain:

The recruitment of Pals battalions appealed to the complex local and national identities of men in Britain. Here the image of Field Marshal Sir John French, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, is used to appeal to men from Newcastle-upon-Tyne with Irish roots. Four 'Tyneside Irish' battalions were raised, as well as four 'Tyneside Scottish' battalions.

Volunteer recruits of the 'Preston Pals' parade in their civilian clothes in Market Square, Preston, on 7 September 1914. In two days, over 200 Preston men formed a company of the 7th Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. They were joined by volunteers from Blackpool, Kirkham and Chorley.

A group of 'Leeds Pals' at their training camp in the Yorkshire Dales in September 1914, shortly after enlisting. A local benefactor gave the men pipes, but their uniforms did not arrive until November - reflecting how quickly Pals battalions had been recruited. These men became part of the 15th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment.

Recruits of the 'Grimsby Chums' (10th Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment) pose with rifles, September 1914. Access to rifles so soon after joining up was rare due to the shortage of equipment, with new recruits often having to go without khaki uniform for several months.

Infantrymen of 10th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment (Hull Commercials) marching near Doullens, 28 June 1916. While this photograph shows men of a Hull Pals battalion clearly having been encouraged to smile for the camera, it does reflect the sense of optimism among the troops of the British Army on the eve of the Battle of the Somme.

Men of a support company of an assault battalion of the Tyneside Irish Brigade moving forward shortly after zero hour on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916. This significant day was when many Pals battalions experienced their first major attack. The Tyneside Irish attacked near La Boisselle, suffering very heavy casualties.

     Major thanks to Imperial War Museums and their article "The Pals Battalions of the First World War" by Matt Brosnan, from which the majority of the photos were borrowed. This topic stands out to me as one of many heartbreaking stories related to the First World War, especially to the Battle of the Somme, and I hope that keeping the memories alive will do these men justice in some small way.

     Thanks for reading,

Delany (@DLeitchHistory on Twitter)

World War Wednesdays: Profile of a Hero: The Incredible Edith Cavell

     Yesterday, October 12 marked the centenary of a truly unbelievable event that occurred during the First World War. A lot of readers may recognize the name in the title from the name of the prominent Port Stanley Boulevard, which originates from this story, as do countless schools and landmarks around the world. They all serve as tributes to a truly remarkable lady who is an example to all of us.

     Edith Louisa Cavell was born on 4 December, 1865 in Swardeston, a village near Norwich, England, where her father was vicar for 45 years. After a period as a governess, she trained as a nurse at the London Hospital and worked in various hospitals in England. In 1907, she was recruited to be the matron of a newly established nursing school in Belgium. By 1910, Miss Cavell launched a nursing journal and a year later was a training nurse for three hospitals, 24 schools, and 13 kindergartens in Belgium.

     When the First World War broke out in 1914, she was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk, England. She returned to Belgium, where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross.

     After the German occupation of Brussels in November 1914, Cavell began sheltering British soldiers and funneling them out of occupied Belgium to the neutral Netherlands. Wounded British and French soldiers and civilians of military age were given false papers and sent through various guides to the houses of Cavell and others in Brussels, where they were given money and guides to reach the Dutch frontier. This placed Cavell in violation of German law, which made German authorities increasingly suspicious of both her actions and outspokenness.

     On August 3, 1915, Cavell was arrested and charged with harboring Allied soldiers. She had been betrayed by a man who was later convicted by a French court as a collaborator. She was held in a prison for 10 weeks, the last two of which were in solitary confinement. She made three depositions to the German police admitting her role in conveying about 60 British and 15 French soldiers and about 100 French and Belgians of military age to the frontier and had sheltered most of them in her house.

     In her court-martial she was prosecuted for aiding British and French soldiers, in addition to young Belgian men, to cross the border and eventually enter Britain. She admitted her guilt when she signed a statement the day before the trial, and stated that the soldiers she had helped escape had thanked her in writing after their safe arrival in Britain. The penalty, according to German military law, was death.

     While the first Geneva Convention ordinarily guaranteed the protection of medical personnel, the protection was forfeit if used as a cover for any belligerent action. The British government could do nothing to help her, but since the U.S. was not yet in the war, they were in a position to apply diplomatic pressure. Hugh S. Gibson, First Secretary of the U.S. legation at Brussels, made clear to the German government that executing Cavell would further harm Germany's already damaged reputation. He later wrote:
     We reminded [German civil governor Baron von der Lancken] of the burning of Louvain and the sinking of the Lusitania and told him that this murder would rank with those two affairs and would stir all civilised countries with horror and disgust.
   
     Despite not being a German national, Cavell was arrested not for espionage but for treason. When in custody, she was questioned in French but minuted in German, which gave the interrogator the opportunity to misinterpret her answers. Despite this, she made no attempt to defend herself.

     The night before her execution, she told the Anglican chaplain who had been allowed to see her that, "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone." Her final words to the German Lutheran prison chaplain were recorded as, "Ask Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country."

     At 7:00 AM on October 12, 1915, sixteen men forming two firing squads carried out the sentence pronounced on Edith Cavell and four other Belgian men at the Tir national shooting range in Schaerbeek.

     In the months and years following her death, she became an iconic propaganda figure due to her sex, nursing profession, and heroic approach to death. Her death was represented as an act of German barbarism and moral depravity.

A poster showing Edith Cavell

A stamp commemorating her death

A postcard featuring Cavell's story

Her story was used extensively for recruitment

     As part of the ceremony for the centenary of her death, a bust in her honor was unveiled in the park of Mountjoie in Uccle, Belgium by the city's mayor, as well as Princess Anne of Britain and Princess Astrid of Belgium.

     Among many other memorials around the world in her honor, the one in Paris was ordered to be destroyed by Adolf Hitler during his 1940 visit to the city.

     100 years later, the story of Edith Cavell still incites a sentiment of grave injustice and a cold absence of humanity. However, her bold sense of duty and profound bravery in the face of death remain just as enduring. In this day and age, it seems hard to imagine such an act of absolute selflessness, but as long as her story is told, there are small pieces of Edith Cavell still alive in this world.

Thanks for reading,
     Delany

Behind The Scenes Sunday - Horseless Carriage Club

If you weren't at Backus-Page House Museum on Friday, August 14, 2015 between 9-11 am then you missed seeing these beautiful horseless carriages on our front lawn!    

Approximately 60 people took a tour around Lake Erie and stopped in for museum and barn tours, plus coffee and muffins (thanks Betty Ann Bobier). 

To participate these cars have to be from 1915 or before. 

Thank you Horseless Carriage Club for visiting Backus-Page House Museum!!!