KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA’s The exhibition is assisted GREAT WAR by funding from ensington and Chelsea, like every London borough, played a major part in supplying soldiers and Ksupporting the war effort. Kensington and Chelsea archives hold two unique collections - the Chelsea Scrapbooks, collated by librarians, which have yielded an excellent collection of posters and the Broughshane Scrapbooks, created by the Mayor of Kensington. These present a rich cross-section of life in the borough This exhibition is ordered during the First World War, from tank factories in North geographically by linking items of interest which Kensington to riots outside The Electric Cinema to the relate to the First World War National Kitchen in Chelsea. to specifi c locations in the Royal Borough. KENSAL GREEN 1 CEMETERY 2 This exhibition is intended to Kensal Green to Ladbroke Grove We hope this will give you L Ladbroke GroveAD to B RO K Westbourne Park E the widest possible picture be a jumping off point for GR OV E AY W of the diverse activities ST E W residents and people connected which took place during the AY W ST war while also allowing E with Kensington and Chelsea to W LA D B you to root yourself in R 3 4 O 5 K share their memories and family E Latimer Road HollandG Park to Central R O a particular locale. V NottingE Hill Kensington GATE ILL mementos and photographs. G H K TIN E T N NO S I N UE G EN AV T RK O A N D AN C OLL H H U R C 9 You can also fi nd our website H S T R E Knightsbridge to E HOLLAND T PARK at Sloane Square T www.kcworldwar1.org.uk EE TR GHS HI N S O L 6 GT 7 8 O N I AN KENS Kensington High Street Chelsea and E S EA TR R E L Olympia to Kensington to South Kensington E S D T C ELL ROA O CROMW Earls Court Queen’sU Gate R D T OA R R OA D WELL M D RO A C RO N O BROM T 12 D A R O E R Royal Hospital D C M L A IF H F L L U E F ROYAL HOSPITAL GA SOUTH GROUNDS AD R O D R B E S C R N G O N E S I T M M K MEN E P NK T T MBA E O EA E Exhibition boards R N ELS 10 Y 11 CH MES THA West Chelsea Central Chelsea RIVER LK WA E N EY CH The exhibition is assisted by funding from St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery The German invasion of Belgium on 4th August 1914 and rumours of atrocities carried out prompted Britain’s entry into WW1. This is a memorial to seventy Belgian soldiers wounded in combat, who had been evacuated to Britain but died in hospital. GREAT WAR WAR GREAT KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA’s KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA’s Marylebone Infirmary With men away at the front, the strain on hospitals during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic was terrible. Basil Hood, the Medical Superintendent, described trying to deal with 900 extra cases with a skeleton staff as one of the worse experiences of his life. He wrote, “The [unreadable] labour and distress of that time hardly bears thinking about”. Nine nurses died and doctors and porters over the age of seventy had to be recalled to help with the workload. Barlby Road, Clement Talbot Car Factory This had been a car factory but workers quickly threw themselves behind the war effort. Clement Talbot worked to design the first mobile bacteriological unit in late 1914. It was equipped with autoclaves, incubators, stills, baths and sterilisers to allow doctors to identify diseases at the battle front. Barlby Road, Clement Talbot Tank Factory Marylebone Infirmary Winston Churchill was the head of a committee set up to The Matron of the Hospital, S. J. Cockrell, solve the problem of how to get closer to the enemy in the served in France during World War One. trenches. This modified tractor was the answer and became She was mentioned in despatches and a prototype tank. Here it is being tested at the Clement was awarded the Royal Red Cross First Talbot sports field. Class for her efforts. Afterwards, she gave the following testimony to the War Office Committee of Enquiry into ‘Shell-shock’: “I have seen them all sitting at dinner quite quietly, and perhaps there would be a clap of thunder, and immediately they would all go under the table or tumble down”. She is commemorated on a stained glass window in what was the laying in rest chapel at St Charles Centre of Health & Well Being. The exhibition is assisted AKensalrea name Green to toarea Ladbroke name Grove by funding from Image credits and permissions - Photograph of Mobile Bacteriological Unit - ©Wellcome Library Image of Basil Hood with patient - ©Wellcome Library Image of Matron Cockrell - ©Wellcome Library Image of Matron’s Memorial Window - ©Dave Hucker 46 Southam Street Bill Fahey was twenty-one and had recently married his childhood sweetheart, Mabel, when war broke out. He worked for the Gas, Light and Coke Company just off Ladbroke Grove. Many of its employees had already joined the 13th Battalion but Bill opted for the 22nd. He was taken prisoner by the Germans during a bombing raid in February 1918. Bill wrote to the Mayor, “Well, sir, I was with the Battalion when it was formed in 1914 and went through every engagement with it, without a day’s illness, GREAT WAR WAR GREAT KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA’s KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA’s and when returning from my second leave I was informed that I had to join the 24th Royal Fusiliers, and [on] my first tour in the Golborne Road trenches with them I was captured”. Mabel also wrote to the Mayor thanking him for his In May 1917 mobs of up to 500 people kindness towards Bill. smashed the windows of German bakers Bill was only released after the Armistice. and pork-butchers and assaulted the He had been assured that his job would proprietors. These attacks on German be held for him while he was away fighting shops were a reaction to the sinking of the but when he returned home, he was told HMS Lusitania on 7th May 1915. 1,201 there were no vacancies. Instead he took to civilians died when the ship was torpedoed buying and selling second-hand goods from by a German submarine. The magistrate, a hand barrow, eventually acquiring a horse who presided over these cases of disorderly and cart and a stall on Portobello Market. conduct, seems to tacitly condone the mob’s behaviour, commenting, “I can quite understand it. It is very dreadful and it is all due to the horrible and abominable conduct towards our unarmed defenceless people on board ships”. The medal was struck by German sculptor, Wornington Road Karl Goetz, Here it shows Death issuing Lottie Meade was poisoned to death in Cunard Line tickets to a crush of English October 1916 by the TNT in the munitions and American passengers. 300,000 British factory where she worked. Here you can copies were subsequently issued as see she is wearing a triangular brooch – the propaganda pieces to show the sinking of women’s version of the ‘On War Service’ the Lusitania was a deliberate attack and to badge, which allowed cheaper travel highlight the Germans’ callous indifference on public transport. She and her fellow to the plight of these dead civilians. ‘canaries’ had been working at full capacity to make enough high explosives for the Somme. Her husband was away fighting on the Western Front. She left behind five children under seven. Over 200 women factory workers died during the war due to accidents, explosions or being exposed to dangerous substances. Oxford Gardens Regulations against ‘enemy aliens’ living in Britain were extremely tight during the war and German citizens could expect to have laws against them enforced fiercely by police. This newspaper article tells the story of Frederick Thies, who was stopped at Shepherd’s Bush station and charged with being in possession of a camera. Enemy aliens were not allowed to possess these during World War One, however, it seems here that his intentions were innocent and he was simply trying to make a living through tourism. The judge bound him over to keep the peace. The exhibition is assisted Ladbroke Grove to Westbourne Park by funding from Credits/permissions ©Imperial War Museum – Image of Lottie Meade Courtesy Bill Fahey – Image of Bill Fahey ©Kensington News - Image of newspaper article – A German and his Camera ©Kensington News - Image of Newspaper article – Anti-German demos ©Dave Walker – Image of Lusitania Medal.