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The Friends' War Victims' Relief Committee

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The Friends' War Victims' Relief Committee The Friends’ War Victims’ Relief Committee Contents Page Introduction 3 The Friends’ War Victims’ Relief Committee 4 Hilda Clark and the Re-Formation of the FWVRC 5 Beginnings in France 6 Maternity and Medical Work 7 The American Friends’ Service Committee 8 Refugee Camps in Holland 9 Serbian Refugees in Exile 10 Refugees in Russia 11 Germany - ‘almost more than one could bear’ 12 Feeding Germany 13 Quaker Relief in Austria 14 Vienna - ‘a city of the dead’ 15 Illness and Industry in Poland 16 Florence Barrow in Poland 17 Return to Russia 18 Publicising the Cause 19 Interwar Legacies 20 Another World War 21 An ‘appeal to the hearts of Friends’ 22 Further Reading 23 Acknowledgements 23 2 Introduction Faced by the First World War, Quakers wondered what should they do – ght against Germany, ght against killing, or nd another way? The decisions they made would in uence the Religious Society of Friends for decades to come. The Religious Society of Friends This booklet is one of a series by the – whose members are known as ‘Quakers & the First World War: Lives Quakers or Friends – believe that & Legacies’ collaborative project, everyone can experience God and run by Central England Quakers and that there is something of God in the University of Birmingham and everyone. The belief that all life is supported and shaped by volunteers. precious has informed the group’s historic commitment to peace Like the other booklets in this series, and peacemaking. When the First it highlights connections between World War began in August 1914, Birmingham and the central England these values were tested and within area and national and international eighteen months were under even events. Funded by the Arts and greater strain. Humanities Research Council’s Voices of War and Peace First World War This booklet gives an overview of Engagement Centre, the project the international humanitarian relief builds on the 2015 exhibition Faith & work of the Friends’ War Victims’ Action: Quakers & the First World War Relief Committee (FWVRC) during the held at Birmingham Museum and Art war itself, and in the interwar period. Gallery. It provides a brief introduction to the complex subject of how Quaker relief developed in di erent national contexts. Friends conceived of their relief activities as part of their witness for peace, and the work inspired a long legacy, cemented by the connections made across borders and between Quakers and the people with whom they worked. 3 The Friends’ War Victims’ Relief Committee Friends have a long history of involvement in humanitarian relief. In addition to their well-known activism on behalf of enslaved people, Quakers were active in several con icts and emergencies before 1914. This included relief work in Germany Wars of 1899-1902, and for those during the Napoleonic Wars, 1805- caught up in the Balkan Wars of 16, and in Greece during the War 1912-13. During this latter con ict, of Independence from 1822. In the Warwickshire North Monthly Meeting, same year, famine in Ireland saw the like Quaker meetings elsewhere, beginning of Quaker aid initiatives raised funds to support Friend, Ann there that would continue until the M. Burgess’ work in Constantinople. end of the nineteenth century. Quaker relief in Finland began during the The Warwickshire War Victims’ Relief Crimean War in 1856 and lasted for Committee raised over £1,300 by over ten years. the time it was stood down in March 1914. This gure would pale into The Friends’ War Victims’ Relief insigni cance when compared with Committee (FWVRC) was formally the amount raised in the Central constituted in 1870 during the England area for relief work during Franco-Prussian War, and adopted the First World War. the Quaker star as its emblem. It was revived to provide aid in Bulgaria in 1876, and relief work continued in various forms in Eastern Europe for several years. In the period immediately before the First World War, Quakers provided relief during the South African ‘Boer’ 4 Hilda Clark and the Re-Formation of the FWVRC Hilda Clark (1881-1955) was the youngest child of the shoe manufacturer William Stephens Clark of Street, Somerset, and his wife Helen Priestman Clark. Hilda trained in medicine at Birmingham, before moving to the Royal Free Hospital in London, from where she graduated in 1908. In London Hilda met her lifelong and a committee was appointed. companion Edith Pye, who would Hilda went on to undertake relief join her in relief work work in France and during the First World Austria (see p. 6 and p. War and in subsequent 14). Her sister, Alice, a con icts. Only a month historian at the London after war was declared, School of Economics, on 4 September 1914, became secretary Hilda and Quaker to the FWVRC Member of Parliament subcommittee dealing T. Edmund Harvey with France. brought forward a concern to Meeting The FWVRC’s overall for Su erings, an secretary was Ruth Fry executive committee (1878-1962), who held of Quakers in Britain, the post until 1923. that relief work Ruth was the daughter should be undertaken of a Quaker judge, with civilian non- and her sister Margery combatants. Fry was also actively involved in relief work Hilda proposed that (see p. 6). Ruth went the Meeting should on to write the history ‘support a movement to give medical of the FWVRC, which she entitled A and ambulance help to the non- Quaker Adventure. combatants in France or Belgium’, Hilda Clark in France, LSF PH 89 A217 © Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain 5 Beginnings in France In early November 1914, the rst party of 33 FWVRC workers crossed to France led by Hilda Clark and T. E. Harvey. By 1918- 1919 there were over 500 workers in 45 centres in France. Hilda Cashmore of Bristol established shortage. By 1916 ‘garden villages’ the rst eld post at Vitry-le-François, had been developed at Pargny and in an area of north-eastern France Sermaize, and a workshop for making devastated during the First Battle of prefabricated wooden homes was the Marne. opened at Dole in the Jura. The workers also provided occupation for local women through needlework and embroidery schemes. Agricultural relief and reconstruction formed a large part of the work. Seeds and plants were distributed, including some 24,000 fruit trees, and rabbits, goats, chickens and bees were reared. Agricultural tools and machinery were supplied, and teams of workers toured the villages with threshing machines. From early 1915 until the end of 1917, the French relief work was led At the end of the war, the work by Margery Fry, formerly Warden was concentrated in the Verdun of the University of Birmingham’s area in North Eastern France; land Women’s Hostel, from her base at was ploughed in readiness for the Sermaize in Northern France. Friends returning civilian population and distributed clothing, bedding and communal kitchen gardens were furniture, and wooden homes were planted in several villages. rebuilt to address the housing Relief workers at Sermaize, LSF FEWVRC Pics 8/1/3 © Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain 6 Maternity and Medical Work The Quaker team in France also undertook medical work as civilian hospitals had been turned over to the military. The rst initiative was the opening of a maternity hospital at Châlons- sur-Marne in December 1914. As a trained nurse and midwife, the and Le Chateau, Sermaize. It also task of running the maternity hospital helped run convalescent homes at fell to Edith Pye, who remained there Bettancourt, Samoëns, Entremont until the end of the war. After the war and Saint Rémy-en-Bouzément. she joined Hilda Clark in Vienna. In addition to institutionally-based In addition to the maternity wards, work, the team also ful lled ‘district the hospital also provided a crèche nursing’ functions in villages, and for the children who would otherwise optical and dental work was also be alone whilst their mothers were performed. in hospital. Treatment facilities for children and a weekly clinic were In July and August 1915 the added later. In the period that the Birmingham Quaker Barrow Cadbury hospital was run by the Quaker visited the relief workers in France, mission, there were 981 births, and including those at the hospital at care was provided for 1,909 older Châlons. As he prepared to return children. home he wrote in his journal: ‘And so with the homeward journey ends In 1919 the maternity hospital was this sadly interesting visit which has handed over to a French committee given me insight into the sorrow, the to administer. A new building was devastation and destruction of life constructed, designed by Melvin and property by this awful war, which Cawl, one of the American workers I have seen in France and of which I who joined the relief work, and can imagine the result in Belgium. I formally opened in 1922. am thankful that there has been an opportunity for the Society of Friends to During the war, the Quaker Mission take some share in the alleviation of the supported hospitals at La Source sorrow and su ering.’ 7 The American Friends’ Service Committee On 6 April 1917 the United States joined the war. In response, American Quakers formed the American Friends’ Service Committee (AFSC), and relief work became a joint undertaking between them and the FWVRC. Following America’s entry into sailed in September. In France, the the con ict, representatives of the Americans were o cially under the various US Quaker branches met in auspices of the American Red Cross. Philadelphia on 30 April. Their aim was to evolve a common response The AFSC subsequently went on to the war, and to nd an alternative to work in Russia, Serbia, Austria, to military service for young Quaker Germany and Poland.
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