During the First World War, over 240,000 British soldiers lost limbs as a result of the fighting. Of these men a number would be sent to a hospital in East Sussex to learn from the limbless children who stayed there.

In the years before the war there were little educational options or support for children deemed as being handicapped or ‘crippled’ as they were termed at the time. In response to this absence, Grace Kimmins established the Guild of the Poor Brave Things in 1894. The Guild aimed to provide different and positive forms of education to physically handicapped children.

A result of this new movement was the creation in 1903 of the Chailey Heritage Craft School which provided room and board for handicapped children and regular structured lessons. Alongside this, Kimmins also unveiled the Guild of Play which sought to provide an alternative to activities on the rough streets of urban Britain.

Originally the school was only open for disabled boys. However, in 1908 it began to admit non-disabled girls from the Guild of Play who would be taught to become good housemaids and were taught skills such as laundry and midwifery.

When the First World War broke out and the British Army began to sustain heavy casualties, the school began to take on new and unforeseen duties. Following her work as a Patron and fundraiser for the new endeavour the Princess Louise Military Hospital opened its doors to wounded soldiers.

With so many men returning from the front lines having lost limbs, a number were sent to the hospital to learn from the children how best to overcome their injuries. This ‘educative convalescence’ allowed soldiers and children to learn and play alongside each other in a safe and instructive environment. This education included agriculture, forms of industry such as toy making, and artistic classes such as painting.

Further than this, the children of the school helped construct new wooden buildings on the site which, when completed, they then moved into thus freeing up their original building for use by wounded soldiers.

The War Office closed the hospital as a place for soldiers in 1920 but it was shortly afterwards reopened as the ‘Princess Louise Special Pensioners Hospital’ by the Ministry of Pensions, where it continued to allow injured men to work alongside children.

Questions to ask your students

1) What was ‘educative convalescence’?

2) Why were the children at Chailey Heritage useful in helping wounded soldiers?

3) What sort of activities would the soldiers and the children do together?

Images

Click here to download a copy of this resource: First World War – Educative Convalescence – teachers

Images from the Chailey Heritage photographic album pamphlet. (c) All images are courtesy of The Keep 

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In 1918 as a result of the war and German U-Boats sinking ships carrying food, rationing was introduced and a committee was set up to look at the ways of utilising any available natural resource.

Throughout the country, rural schools were instructed to ‘employ their children in gathering blackberries during school hours’ for the Government jam making scheme.

The children of Willingdon School rose to the challenge and supervised by their teachers groups went out into the fields from 9 September to 23 October; to harvest what was obviously a bumper crop. The School Log records 17 days when the children were taken out blackberry picking. The first afternoon 9th Sept – ‘No school this afternoon, the children gathered 73 lbs of blackberries for jam for the Ford Committee.’

The fruit was packed into specially provided baskets of a regulation size and sent immediately by rail from Hampden Park station to the special factories where it was made into blackberry and apple jam for soldiers. Mr Haylock, headmaster, records the amazing weight of 1,869 lbs 3oz being sent from the school. In return, cheques were sent to the teachers who were authorised to pay the pupils.

On 28th October Mr Haylock records receiving a cheque for £23.7.6d in payment, which he shared out among the gatherers, the 123 children on the school roll. This was a good sum of money when compared to the average weekly wage of an agricultural worker, in 1918, who was paid just £1.10.6d for a 52-hour week.

Questions to ask your students

1) Why was food running short during the war?

2) How many lbs of blackberries did Willingdon children collect?

3) How much money did the children make?

Images

Click here to download a copy of this resource: First World War – Children collecting blackberries – teachers

This story was submitted by Rosalind Hodge, Archivst, Willingdon Parish Church

The post Children collecting blackberries appeared first on WW1 East Sussex.

During the First World War, Britain was faced with shortages to various chemicals and components that were useful in making ammunition. In order to keep the army supplied and armed inventive solutions to these shortages were sought.

The chemical Acetone was a vital component of cordite, which was used as a propellant for shells and other arms. Secret factories had been set up in Poole, Dorset and Kings Lynn, Norfolk, which had been producing 90,000 gallons a year. North American maize was the normal source but the increased activity by German U boats in the Atlantic meant there was now a shortage. It was vital to find a new and different source. Research showed the starch in conkers to be a substitute for the maize and so, when the Ministry of Munitions ordered the collection of conkers, across the country, to help make ammunition for small arms and artillery, headmasters were urgently directed to send out pupils during the school day to collect as many conkers as they could find. Vast quantities of conkers were collected, weighed, bagged and sent off to collection centres. Perhaps more were collected than anticipated as unfortunately transport was not always particularly efficient and there are reports of sacks of conkers left rotting on station platforms.

Mr Haylock the headmaster wrote an entry in the Willingdon School Log Book for 30 January 1917: ‘Sent off today 3 bushels of horse chestnuts gathered by children for the Minister of Munitions.’

Over the previous weeks there were notes in the Log that the children had been out in the parish during the school day collecting conkers as part of the war effort. Many of the schoolboys also belonged to the 1st Ratton Scout Troop founded by Lord Willingdon and the scouts were also seen around the parish busily searching in the grass under the horse chestnut trees and filling boxes and baskets with conkers. Once collected they brought them back to the schoolroom to removed the green shells, leaving just the nuts. These were bagged up in sacks, put on a hand cart and wheeled off to Hampden Park Station ready for collection and transportation by train to London and from there to secret locations.

The schools were paid 7 shillings and 6 pence for each hundredweight of conkers collected but a veil of secrecy surrounded the reason why the children were actually collecting them. A question was even asked in the House of Commons but the answer given simply stated that they were required for “certain purposes”. It was said this was for fear that the Germans would discover this ingenious method of acetone production. No one would have thought that the humble conker could play a part in winning the war. Production continued until July 1918 but by the autumn of that year conkers had returned to their normal role, firmly threaded on the end of a string ready for small schoolboys to play their annual matches.

Questions to ask your students

1) Why were supplies of chemicals running low?

2) Who initially ordered the collection conkers?

3) Where did children go looking for conkers?

Images

Click here to download a copy of this resource: First World War – Children gathering conkers – teachers

The information and images for this article were kindly supplied by Rosalind Hodge, Archivist, Willingdon Parish Church

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