Remembrance

This month marks the 105th anniversary of the tragic and untimely death of Nurse Caroline Maud Edwards during the First World War. In this guest blog post, SSN member and author Andrew Hemmings shares her story.

In this guest blog post, SSN member and author Andrew Hemmings tells the story of Amy Johnson - a pioneering pilot who sadly lost her life in the Second World War.

SSN member and archivist Heather Needham provides advice on researching local war memorials, based on her work at Hampshire Archives and Local Studies.

SSN member Tayler Cresswell shares details of a project working with young people, to explore women’s experiences of the First World War and how the War affected their mental health.

The chance find of an evocative photograph launched SSN member and researcher Dr Frances Hurd on a quest, to trace the lives and deaths of ten men and their family before and after the First World War.

An overview of IWM's new Digital Portal for the First World War Centenary.

North Head Quarantine Station has been a place of quarantine for those wishing to enter Australia since the 1830s. Situated on a headland to the North East of Sydney Harbour, it is ideally sited to monitor maritime and naval traffic. During the deadly ‘Spanish’ influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 it was particularly heavily used, to quarantine both military and civilian vessels and personnel. While held here, many passengers engaged in an activity that had been happening at this site for decades; they marked their time and presence there by inscribing on the sandstone cliffs.

As the first official photographer on the Home Front, Horace Nicholls documented the impact of total war on the British people during the First World War. After the war, Nicholls photographed the unveiling of the Cenotaph and the burial of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey. However, underlying these records of national mourning and collective remembrance there is also a story of personal loss. One hundred years ago, on 9 April, Easter Monday, 1917, Nicholls’ eldest son, George, was killed on the opening day of the Battle of Arras. He was just 22.

I was invited to speak at a workshop on 15 October at the Imperial War Museum, London, on black people’s involvement in the First World War. I was honoured to be part of a panel where the work of each speaker complemented one another. I was asked to present my findings on research into the commemoration of African and Caribbean servicemen after the war ended. I was also asked to give my thoughts, along with the panellist Anna Maguire, one of IWM’s PhD students, on photos from the IWM’s collection on soldiers from the British West Indies Regiment, the South African Native Labour Corps, and the Nigeria Regiment, and finally a session with questions to the panel.