A story from the records of Northumberland Constabulary’s registration of aliens files. 

Today’s guest blog is by Liz O’Donnell, on behalf of  ‘WW1 Enemy Aliens in the North East’, a project that looks at the lives of minority ethnic communities in the North East during the First World War.

Liz is a local historian and project volunteer.

The project is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. If you would like to get involved please contact Northern Cultural Projects,  ncp.cic@gmail.com.

At 11.30am on 22 January 1917, the first of a flurry of telephone messages between several north-east constabularies about the presence of a mysterious foreigner in their midst was received at Northumberland police headquarters. The Newcastle chief constable informed his counterpart in Morpeth of the arrival of one ‘Frans Suplio’, an Austro-Hungarian with a London address.  Described as tall – 5 foot 11 inches or 6 foot – stout, wearing an overcoat and a green trilby hat, the man had made his presence known to the Newcastle police at 9.30 am the previous day but was now heading north, announcing that he was going to see Lord Grey at Howick Hall on important diplomatic business. He carried what was believed to be a letter from Lord Grey and an identity book, but had not obtained legal permission to enter Newcastle before his arrival.

Ordinarily, Newcastle police would almost certainly have prevented him from travelling on to Howick as he was, in law, an enemy alien. That they allowed him to continue on his journey suggests that they were worried about interfering with vital matters of state. Nevertheless, so as to verify the man’s identity, they were contacting the ‘Colonel Kell’s Department’ – the Security Service Bureau (later MI5). They also communicated with Superintendent Bolton at Alnwick police station, who agreed to send a sergeant to Howick to make enquiries.

The Bureau’s reply was swift. The man was known at the Foreign Office and should not be interfered with, although the police should make sure they kept in touch with him. By the evening, a message had come through from Superintendent Bolton, that ‘the Alien left and went to Edinburgh’ But who was he and what had he been up to during his brief visit to Northumberland? And what ‘important diplomatic business’ could he have had with Albert, the Fourth Earl Grey, at Howick Hall?

Some answers to these questions can be found in a handwritten account written the same day by Sergeant Archbold Straughan, the officer sent from Alnwick police station to investigate the man’s movements. He found out that ‘Suplio’, travelling by a car which had been seen waiting at Alnmouth station when the 10.20 am train from London arrived, called first at Howick Hall.  Straughan discovered that Earl Grey had seen him but had no idea who the man was. It became clear that the man had mixed up his Greys as he hurried on to Fallodon Hall, just six miles away, sending his card in to Viscount Grey, the former Foreign Minister. Grey declined to receive him, asking the man to write down what his business was; he told Straughan that he thought his visitor was connected with Slav Societies and that he may have met him about two years previously at the Foreign Office.

The man, who had (according to the driver) claimed to be Russian, returned by car to Alnmouth station and caught the 1 pm train to Edinburgh, having missed the 12.40 pm back to London.

A HINT OR A FRIGHT

The next communication was a telephone call from Edinburgh City Police the following morning (11.35 am 23 January 1917), letting Northumberland Constabulary know that ‘Suplio’ had indeed arrived in their city and was apparently sightseeing (this word was heavily underlined). He had been ‘permissioned by the Government of Russia at Petrograd’ in both French and Russian and it seemed he intended to visit Glasgow next.

 A message from London was passed on to Edinburgh by the Northumberland police. While not suggesting mala fides (bad faith, intent to deceive), the Foreign Office would be glad if the man ‘stopped his running about the country and got a hint or a fright in that direction.’ The Edinburgh officer said he would do this quietly if the man was still in the city.

It was obvious that the mysterious visitor was well known to the Secret Service and Foreign Office, but even so, the Northumberland police force were clearly still unsure about his identity. ‘I am not quite sure’, wrote an officer, ‘whether this man is strictly speaking a friendly alien but presume he is not an enemy?’ ‘Journeys like his are apt to lead to suspicion’ he continued, waspishly, ‘and are a cause of a good deal of work for the police.’

WORKING ON BEHALF OF THE SOUTHERN SLAVS

The penultimate document in Alien file 12/17 is a letter, dated 4 April 1917, from the Home Office to Northumberland’s chief constable, intended to clear up any confusion about the identity of the stranger, albeit over three months since the police had requested more information. It stated that ‘Frans Soupilo’ was indeed well-known at the Russian Embassy and that no difficulty should be made in giving him any permits necessary or ‘any other assistance in his work on behalf of the Southern Slavs.’ Although technically an Austrian subject, he was exempt from internment.

In fact, the mysterious visitor was none other than Frano Supilo, described later in 1917 as ‘one of the ablest political brains, not merely of his own nation, but of warring Europe as a whole.’ (The New Europe, vol. IV, no. 51). Born in Cavtat, Croatia, in 1870, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was involved in politics from his youth; after protesting against a visit by Rudolph Habsburg to Dubrovnik in 1883 he had been banned from all educational institutions throughout the Empire. Despite his lack of formal education, he became, following a stint as a journalist on anti-Habsburg publications, one of the leading Croatian politicians of the early twentieth century who had been elected to the Sabor (Croatian Assembly) in 1906. Above all, Supilo worked tirelessly for the freedom of all Slavs from Austria-Hungary and the recognition of a Serbian-Croatian-Slovenian nation, lobbying for and promoting the idea in all major European capitals.

A few months after the outbreak of the Great War, in April 1915, having fled from his homeland, he co-founded the Yugoslav Committee in Paris (it immediately relocated to London). Its main goal was to liberate Croatia and Slovenia from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and to unify with Serbia and Montenegro to form a single state. Supilo was an idealist, advocating a federation – a ‘national and political community in which there would be no conquerors and no conquered’.[1] Grey had been correct when he recalled having dealings with Supilo; just over two years before he turned up at Fallodon, Supilo had sent Grey a memorandum, arguing powerfully that a Yugoslavian nation would be an obstacle to German eastward expansionism.[2] The Yugoslav Committee had also published an Address to the British Nation and Parliament in May, 1915, which claimed that, by bringing peace and order to the volatile Balkans, the proposed new nation would be operating in the interests of the British Empire.

GROSSLY INSULTED

The final document in the file of ‘Frans Suplio’ / Frano Supilo is a typed extract, dated January 1923, from a book called Queer People written by Basil Thomson in 1922. Thomson, as Assistant Commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police was head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at New Scotland Yard and as such had overseen several high-profile espionage cases in the Great War. He introduced the reader to

a certain Jugo-Slav lawyer-journalist who came I do not quite know why and left I do not quite know whither. He talked unceasingly about nothing in particular. He assured me that he was a frequent visitor to the Foreign Office and that he was a person to be reckoned with.

The condescending tone of Thomson’s portrayal of a distinguished politician reiterates that of the Foreign Office when they suggested that Supilo should ‘get a hint or fright’ to stop him ‘running about the country.’ Thomson continued:

I consulted a friend who knew him well, and when I remarked that he did not quite seem to know what he wanted and that his discourse was sometimes incoherent, my friend assured me that all Jugo-Slav journalists are like that and that everything reasonable should be done to encourage him. And so when he called again and again I did not attempt to interrupt him: my time was a sacrifice laid on the altar of our international relations.

The last paragraph in the typed excerpt was annotated by an indignant hand. Thomson wrote of hearing the ‘awful news’ that the ‘journalist’ was under arrest in Northumberland (‘not correct’). He had gone to Fallodon without telling the police but Lord Grey was away (‘not correct’) so the housekeeper contacted the police who escorted him back to London (‘not correct’). The next time Thomson saw him, he claimed that Supilo was furious at having been ‘grossly insulted’ by this treatment and could not be calmed down by being told that even the most distinguished foreigner must comply with the law as it applied to aliens. The last words about Supilo describe his demise: ‘I was shocked some few weeks later at learning that the poor man had died of general paralysis of the insane.

While allowing for the probable inaccuracies in Thomson’s report, Supilo might well have felt ‘grossly insulted’ by his treatment in Northumberland. It is telling that throughout the eight documents in the alien file, his name has been consistently misspelled (as SUPLIO). The north-east constabulary – perhaps unsurprisingly – had no idea they were tracking the movements of an eminent Balkan politician. Had Grey’s rebuff helped to edge him towards a nervous breakdown? Or had he simply been worn down by years of campaigning with no end in sight? Whatever the cause of his final illness, Frano Supilo was sufficiently self-possessed on 20 July 1917 to sign the Declaration of Corfu, a formal agreement between the government–in-exile of Serbia and the Yugoslav Committee that pledged to unify the Southern Slavs in a post-war Yugoslavian state.

Sadly, Frano Supilo did not live to see the fulfilment of his dream. On 1 December 1918, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was established, but on 25 September 1917, following a mental collapse, he had died in London at the age of 47. 

LIZ O’DONNELL

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This guest blog is written by Lindsey Gibson, Archive Conservator at Durham County Record Office, who with fellow conservator Zoe Ross carried out the conservation work.

This project involved the conservation of an interesting and significant collection of 758 early deeds, charters and papers of the Swinburne family of Capheaton covering the period, 1172-1714. The documents had been bound into seven volumes in the 19^th century.  Earlier posts on this blog have given an insight into the context of the collection, this blog will discuss the conservation of the collection.

The decision was taken to treat this collection after a conservation survey identified it as high priority for conservation. This was due to the historical importance and poor physical condition of some of the documents and the degree of interest in them. 

The purpose of conservation treatment was to physically stabilise the documents so that they can be  digitised and made more readily available without the need for repeated handling of the originals. Bespoke archival housing was also to be provided to protect the documents whilst in storage.  

Conservation treatment 

Prior to being bound the documents must have had a varied history; many had been damaged by mould growth, insect and rodent activity, and had been stained by rust, wax, oil and  water amongst other things.

Whilst the bound format had kept the collection together and protected the paper and parchment documents, the seals attached to many of the documents had been damaged and were at risk of further damage while they were in (or protruding from) the volumes. Many of the seals were already very fragile and crumbling due to deterioration of the very old wax.

We also suspected that there was text on the back of a number of the documents that could not be read because the parchment was stuck to the pages of the volumes. As many of the paper documents were sewn into the binding much of the text at the gutter edge was also obscured.

My colleague Zoe Ross and I in the conservation department at Durham County Record Office, in consultation with Sue Wood, the Head of Collections  at Northumberland Archives, agreed on a Conservation treatment plan for the collection. The treatment we agreed upon included disbinding the volumes in order to address the issues caused by the bound format.

Our treatment also included surface cleaning the documents using a soft brush and museum vacuum to remove the surface dirt and mould, and removing the discoloured, acidic adhesive residues from the paper and parchment.

Losses, tears and areas of extreme weakness had resulted from the action of mould, rodents and insects. These were repaired where necessary, to prevent further damage or loss and to allow the documents to be read and digitised. We try to use similar materials for repair: parchment and paper for the damaged documents and new beeswax to repair the cracked and fragmented seals.

Some of the ink on the parchment documents was powdery or flaking  and required the introduction of gentle humidity to help re-adhere the ink to the parchment.

After the documents had been flattened out using magnets to ease out the folds and creases, they were rehoused in folders and boxes padded with an archival foam which was cut to fit around the seals.

Challenges!

Conserving the Swinburne collections proved to be both challenging and very rewarding.

Estimating how long it would take to complete complex treatment of such a large collection was difficult, particularly as this was the largest collection that we have worked on to date. Some of the parchment was severely damaged and removal of some of the documents from the cumbersome volumes proved difficult in itself.

However the challenging nature of the project also gave rise to opportunities and we were able to undertake training in repairing wax seals and parchment. We  have since been able to share our new skills and experience with conservation students doing work placements at DCRO.

In addition to the excellent training, we also learned about medieval deeds and charters, for example: Some of the documents exhibited herringbone cuts to the parchment or appeared to have had the seals cut from the tags. When we researched this we discovered that these alterations were made to void the documents. Understanding why a document has been created or altered in a particular way affects our conservation treatment decision making. For example, many of the parchment documents have a long thin ‘tongue’ of parchment at the bottom of the document, these were invariably tightly curled and folded. We discovered that these thin strips of parchment were used to tie around the rolled or folded documents so did not attempt to flatten them as they provided evidence of how the document would have been secured.

Similarly several of the documents had historic repairs, unless these were obscuring text, or causing damage to the document we would not remove them as they show evidence of the document’s history. 

Overall working on the Swinburne collections was a very rewarding challenge and Zoe and I both learned a lot from it. We have also had the satisfaction of seeing the fragile documents stabilised, made safe for handling and digitisation; the text on the back of many of the documents has been revealed; and  the documents are now housed in protective archival packaging to ensure that they are preserved for the future.