Reconstruction is everywhere on the lips of the people, but not everywhere is it assuming tangible form, as in Spittal. The “Spa Well” is benefiting either by the war or something else, as it is now, and has been for many weeks past undergoing the process of reconstruction. Perhaps after all, the war is not really responsible for all the activity.
BRO 426-451 Spa Well, Spittal
The real reason is probably to be found in the fact that the spiggot from which emanated the diuretic fluid had ceased to attract from the spring quantities sufficient to form a medicinal draught, the liquid having become as scarce as whisky in the village. The new structure occupies a site nearer the public highway than does the obsolete well, and when competed will not at least detract from the appearance of the “green”. It is to be hoped that the supply obtainable will be sufficient to meet the needs of visitors and villagers alike. A little gingering up on the part of the Authority to have the work completed is necessary if some of the visitors are to share in the benefits of the potent beverage.
LOCAL NEWS
On Monday, a great day for Tweedmouth, Lord John Sangers’ Circus visited the Meadow Field, and gave two performances. In the afternoon the audience was composed mainly of children, the schools, being granted a half-holiday in honour of the occasion. Another performance was held in the evening, when the huge marquee was packed. It was an all-round good show thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. The horses are all well trained, and one of the most beautiful animals ever seen in the town was “Lily of the Valley,” a pure white Arabian mare, her dancing to music being most graceful. The displays of Indian trick riding on bare-backed horses was most wonderful, and even the great ponderous elephants seem to make quite docile pupils in the hands of capable trainers. Another good item was the two sea lions “Jack” and “Baby,” trained by Leyland to perform the most extraordinary balancing feats with balls, boxes, etc., after which that were rewarded with liberal supplies of fish, eagerly devoured. There were so many items it is impossible to mention all, but the displays of telephone wire walking, dancing, etc., by the ladies were all very fine. Of course no Circus is quite complete without its clowns, and Alberto and Pimpo supplied merriment all through the performances. Most men would rather resent being described as having no backbone, but when applied to Pimpo with his wonderful somersaults and other athletic feats, the description becomes a compliment. He was not only funny but amazingly clever as well, and seemed to be able to do anything from riding bare-back to wire-rope walking etc. To be a circus hand must be a very tiring life, the men are always on the go, and strains of “God Save the King” marking the close of the performance, had scarcely died away, when the attendants started to strip the place. Turning round as one left the tent, the plank upon which one had been seated but a moment before, was, among others, seen piled up on a waggon ready for removal elsewhere. The life is not without its attractions, however, and during the war, as was evidenced by the number of gold stripes and “Mons” chevrons on the sleeves of the attendants, many circus hands have done their bit for the country. The elephants have also been employed on land work.
On Saturday Berwick’s own particular Tank, which is at present lying at the Railway Station, is to crawl to its appointed destination in Palace Green. During the past few days workmen have been busy preparing the site in the centre of the Old Bowling Green, and the railings and part of the wall on the east side have been removed ready for its reception.
Pictured in this early photograph is the WW1 tank in Palace Green, it was positioned there in 1919.
From what we have heard of the capabilities of Tanks, we should have thought that railings and walls would have offered no obstacle to the monster. The official presentation is to be made by Major General Ernest Dunlop Swinton, C.B., D.S.O., R.E., who played so prominent a part in the invention of these tanks. General Swinton, who comes of the same stock as the Berwickshire Swintons, has had a distinguished military career. Entering the army in 1888, his promotion was rapid, and during the South African War he was awarded the D.S.O., and was also mentioned in despatches. In the Great War he has been also mentioned in despatches on several occasions, and in 1917 was made a C.B. The following year he mead a tour in the United States, where he told of his own experiences in the war. He has a considerable reputation as an author, and writes under the pseudonym “Ole-Luk-Oie. His best known works are “The Defence of Duffer’s Drift” (1904), “The Great Tab Done” (1915), and “A Year Ago” (1916). As will be seen from an advertisement in our columns, the inhabitants of Berwick are to be given an opportunity on Saturday of inspecting the inside of the Tank, if they purchase a War Savings Certificate at the temporary bank to be opened in the Scout Hall.
Lieut Stewart Reid, of Foulden, Lost in the Baltic
MEMORIAL SERVICE AT FOULDEN
On Sunday evening a Memorial Service for the men of the
village who had fallen in the war was held in the Parish Church. An added
element of sadness having come during the past week in the news of the death of
Lieut. J. Stewart Reid, D.S.C., R.N., son of the parish minister, caused the
solemn proceedings to be partly devoted to that officer’s memory.
BRO 1852-2-80 Foulden Parish Church
The pulpit was draped in black and purple, and a
miniature “Jack” hung from the lectern. Behind the pulpit was the White Ensign,
and two lovely floral tributes in the shape of an anchor and cross hung on the
wall at each side. The communion table was also decorated with a profusion of
white lilac blooms.
The tolling of the church bell drew villagers to the
place of worship, and in the pews were several whose families had suffered
bereavement in the war.
The Rev. John Reid, accompanied by his sons and other
relatives, was present during the service.
By 1881, Shadrach, now nearing age 20, and his family are living in Gateshead at 13 Union Place, part of the deprived Windmill Hill area. Much like his father and brother, he too is listed as a ‘hawker’. As the Nelsons are not referred to by the term ‘Pedlar’, it seems likely they would have a horse in their usage, although the vagueness around the differences between the various branches of street-sellers and/or travelling salespeople makes it difficult to claim certainty on this. The 1888 Hawkers Act clarifies this confusion of definition by describing the specification of ‘hawker’ as ‘any one [sic] who travels with a horse or other beast of burden, selling goods’. Certainly, as his thieving indicates, Shadrack seemed to have a familiarity with horses, both in terms of handling and riding them and of the potential market value they would hold.
The family’s move to Gateshead from the kind of rural villages and towns that we find them in prior to the 1881 census is in many ways typical of the urban migration many people undertook during the latter half of the 19th century. The strain of piecemeal income generated from the hawking trade, evidently pushed the Nelsons closer towards the urban centre of Tyneside in order to maximise their customer-base. Henry Mayhew describes how, even though the pedlar or hawker is generally by 1861 ‘confined to the poorer districts’ of cities, the opportunity to be ‘the purveyor in general to the poor’ (5) resulted in a dependent relationship within working- class communities upon hawkers and their wares.
By the following year Shadrach had departed from the rest of his family and begun his year or two of horse stealing. Returning to where we first met Shadrach in 1882 in the Hawick area, research shows that from the start of the year he is away from the Gateshead area where we last left his family, suggesting he left home sometime after 3 rd April 1881 when census was recorded. Commencing on the 11th of January in Horton, Northumberland, Shadrach would go to steal horses from Blyth on the 8th of February; Barnard Castle, Winlaton, and Marwood in April; Billingham, County Durham on 15th of May; and Alston in Cumbria on the 8th of July. As these are only the recorded due to his having been caught, it is likely that he committed more thefts of this nature throughout the year also. Several newspaper reports give us little clues as to how Shadrach operated during these crimes: Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail (27th Jul 1883) tells us that during the theft at Billingham, Shadrach had befriended the son of Mr Robert Thompson, the horse-owner that he would go on to steal from. It describes how Shadrach had watched Mr Thompson’s son ‘put the horse into field’ before ‘walking back towards Billingham with him’, later returning that night to take the horse. With all of his thefts, he would go on to try and sell these horses, which was often how he was apprehended. He would usually try to either ‘swop’ (Cumberland and Westmoreland Herald, 8 July 1882) the stolen horses or sell them for anywhere between £5 – £15, which today ranges from about £600 – £1770. Many of the newspaper articles refer to Nelson as a ‘Notorious Horse Stealer’ and also note several of the aliases he used to go undetected, such as John Robinson, John Stewart, and Watson.
After having been caught a total of 7 times through 1882, Shadrach is sentenced in several different trials the following year to 3 different 6-month prisons sentences. He is sentenced to hard labour, which often meant performing such tasks as quarrying or rock-breaking, building roads, treadmill-walking, and/or crank-pulling. These would usually be undertaken in silence and in isolation. Whilst by no means would any of these punishments be considered easy or desirable, it is worth noting that for some, the reality of prison life at this time was in some ways more agreeable than their alternative option of staying in a poor house/workhouse.
Commencing with the Poor Law in 1834, the ‘policy toward vagrants combined a legal recognition of their right to relief with a determination to award this relief under intensely disagreeable conditions.’ (6) These disagreeable conditions in some instances were taken to such an extremity that at ‘The [sic] vast majority of homeless wayfarers preferred to take refuge in dosshouses, charitable shelters, the streets, or even the prisons rather than in the casual wards’ as ‘The prisons were generally held to be less punitive than the casual wards; they offered a better diet and lighter labour tasks than the workhouses’ (7) . This is not to say that Shadrach had an intention of being caught and arrested, but it perhaps throws into relief the kind of options he faced as a young man who had grown up in poverty, likely with no education (illiteracy among Travellers and Gypsies was almost uniform (8 ), and whose alternative for some form security was a workhouse, an option most Gypsies and Travellers rarely partook of (9) , it is perhaps more understandable as to why for Shadrach, he so often relied on theft throughout this period of his life.
Because of the interrelationship between Travellers and hawking, often the profession had commonly been associated with thieving and other nefarious activities. Henry Mayhew expresses this prejudice when he describes costermongers (urban food vendors) as ‘slippery customers’ and later lumps all kinds of itinerant working-class trades together when he writes that ‘beggars, patterers, hawkers, tramps, and vendors of their own manufacture, are mingled with thieves, women of easy virtue, and men of no virtue at all’. The confluence between hawkers/pedlars and criminal activities such as poaching and theft were certainly at times a warranted association. For example, poaching gangs frequently ‘had informal contracts with itinerant vendors or with tradesmen who sold their catch over the counter in shops, stalls and public houses.’ (10) Therefore, it is not unlikely that Shadrach would fall in to this kind of enterprise, in that proximity to criminal activity would oftentimes be a commonplace occurrence for him both as a child and as a young man. Furthermore, his frequency in returning to horse-stealing throughout this year implies that his position within rural society is one of such precarity and suspicion that he regularly would have had no other option in gaining money or food. Interestingly, one article mentions that he was also wanted for desertion of the 3rd Battalion Durham Light Infantry, which indicates that he had dipped his toe in a different stream of employment, though clearly without much commitment or success.
After serving his time for these horse-thefts, Shadrach gets married in the December quarter of 1884 to Charlotte Maria Drummond, born in the Ford area and similarly hailing from a family of hawkers. The marriage record lists the couple as living in Newcastle with two other people, Bridget Horan and James Croney, likely sharing a single room. Though he does return to stealing, at least as far as the records show, he is indicted and fined £2 11s for resisting police arrest in June of 1886 in Berwick, along with 3 others, one of which is likely to be his wife. Though the incident is not described, it is worth noting that the relationship between Travellers and the rural police force was a long one of tension and, at times, harassment on the behalf of the police. (11)
By the time we find him at the next census, aged 29, the couple were living in the Freeholders Quarter in present day Longhorsley with their two-year-old son, Shadrach jnr., born in Wooler. By this time, both Shadrach and Mary are listed as a ‘licenced hawker’ on the census records. With his history of convictions earlier in the decade, it is notable that Shadrach is evidently working within the requisite legal framework for a hawker. As required, a licenced hawker was expected to be of ‘of good character and a proper person’ as judged by a local constabulary’s inspector, clergy, or justice. We can somewhat assume, then, that family life had made Shadrach a little bit more law-abiding, if only on paper.
Nonetheless, life would remain challenging for the family and they found themselves living in slum accommodation at 16 Liverpool Street in Newcastle by 1901.
Liverpool Street used to be located at the corner of where the Percy Arms now stands on Percy Street, west of Haymarket, and stretching up towards Leazes Park, before it was knocked down in the 1930’s as part of the city’s slum clearances.
Above, a picture of the Jesmond Presbyterian Church’s Liverpool St. Mission gives a glimpse at the kind of cramped lodgings the Nelsons were now living in.
By this time, Charlotte had given birth to Anne and Margaret and the family were once again inhabiting a single room. Life in Newcastle evidently proved somewhat stable for the Nelsons as they are found 10 years later living in the same street, this time at number 7, indicating a pattern of movement that often saw them returning to the city. This is typical of the kind of routes that Traveller and Gypsy communities operated within at this period, usually drifting back into urban areas during the winter months before moving back through the countryside as the weather improved and seasonal work began to pick up again in the spring. (12) In the 1911 census, Shadrach and Mary’s daughter Ann, now 17 is recorded as assisting in the business of her parents, although it is assumed that Margaret, 16, is similarly involved in the business, as no other profession is otherwise listed. By this time, Shadrach jnr. had left the family environment and simply recorded as absent.
Shadrach jnr.’s own relationship to the law is similarly as fraught as his father’s was in the 1880’s. An article in the Jedburgh Gazette, 23 Feb. 1907, describes how Shadrach jnr., now aged 18, was ‘sentenced to seven days imprisonment for stealing seven sheepskins and nine lbs of wool from the premises of Elliot, Taggart & Company’, of which he shortly ‘brought them back and sold them to the same firm.’ Clearly, the brazenness of some of his father’s earlier exploits had been passed on to his son. He would go on to be fined in 1922 for poaching salmon in Kelso, arrested for a burglary at Norham in 1924, and in 1929, would be sentenced to six months imprisonment for theft of ‘a quantity of horse hair, an overcoat, and seventy empty sacks’ from a farm in Earlston, Berwickshire. His name would further come up in association with the theft of some wool in 1930 in Ancrum.
Records suggest that he was married in 1915 to a Sarah Anderson in Hawick, who would go on to give birth to another Shadrach in the September quarter of that same year in Newcastle. Shadrach III would also have several brushes with the law, including burglary in Wark-on-Tweed in 1931, an assault on a policeman in Alnwick in 1939, and a further assault on a policeman and car theft in 1955. What happened to Sarah is unclear; whether Shadrach jnr. and herself separated, divorced, or whether she died, it is unknown. Regardless, he remarried in 1948, after having cohabited in Alnwick with Eva Mills since at least 1939. Perhaps the most startling crime in Shadrach jnr.’s lifetime is his accidental murder of Eva in 1950. Evidently, Shadrach jnr. was playing target practice with his nephew when the gun misfired and fatally hit Eva in neck. He was cleared of intent by a jury, though the judge did admonish him for his senselessness and negligence at firing a shotgun indoors. Sharach jnr. would die 6 years later at the age of 67.
Returning finally, to his father’s life, Shadrach would manage to survive into his early 80’s. This is remarkable when considering the way in which his life was spent in between many places, devoid of much comfort. Henry Mayhew, although steeped in class-prejudice, describes hawkers of the mid-1800’s as living roughly to the point of eventual collapse: ‘Many of these hawkers drink hard, and, being often men of robust constitution, until the approach of age, can live “hard,”—as regards lodging, especially. One hawker I heard of slept in a slaughter-house, on the bare but clean floor, for nearly two years.’ Clearly the hardship of hawking manifested in a life always at the edge of deprivation. Charlotte dies in Kelso in 1927 from a cerebral haemorrhage; on her death certificate, we find an ‘X’ in place of where Shadrach’s signature would be, confirming that he, like many of his socioeconomic background, was indeed illiterate. After Charlotte’s death, Shadrach seems to continue to drift around as before. In 1935, now aged 73, he is accused of having received stolen goods in Alnwick. He is described as having ‘no fixed abode’ and having knowingly received a stolen harness and pony (horses are certainly a theme throughout his life). Luckily for Shadrach, the charges are dismissed when he agrees to return the pony to the owner, a Mr. Laidler. Despite his avoidance of reprimand, the article states that the Chairman of the proceedings held ‘grave suspicions against the accused.’ Evidently, Shadrach is still operating with a kind of precariousness that results in ostracism from local communities and despite his age, he continues to drift from place to place.
He seemingly continues to wander about for the next 7 years before his death in 1942. His death certificate records him as having died from ‘carcinoma of the oesophagus’ at 2.55am on the 27 th of January, 1942, aged 81 in Birgham, Eccles. His death was registered by his daughter Margaret Souther in Eccles, so it is assumed that he was staying with her at the time of his death. Both Shadrach and his wife Charlotte are buried in Kelso, along with their son Shadrach jnr.
What Shadrach Nelson’s life shows us is that the life of a hawker and his family was certainly one of strife and uncertainty. As is evident with Shadrach, hawking required a lifestyle that is prepared to be constantly uprooted, living with a lack of security, and often receiving little material return. In many ways, it is the stuff of popular lore when thinking about the 19th century’s relationship to wealth, poverty, and those who battled to survive within it.
Certainly, Shadrach Nelson and his namesakes were no angels, and the reliance upon theft showed a disconnect between himself and the communities he moved through. Yet, or rather, because of this somewhat archetypal narrative of economic struggle and social exclusion, Shadrach Nelson’s story reveals an incredibly lucid portrait of life lived in penury in the Victorian north-east, one in which the impulse to dismiss certain actions as merely criminal is perhaps too simple a charge to level him and those like him. And if his resilience has shown us anything, those charges will probably never stick anyway.
Shadrach Nelson, 28 October 1861 – 27 January 1942.
5 Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, 1851.
6 Rachel Vorspan. ‘Vagrancy and the New Poor Law in Late-Victorian and Edwardian England’, The English Historical Review, Vol. 92, No. 362 (Jan, 1977), pp. 59-81, p. 60.
7 Ibid, p. 64.
8 the 1967 Plowden Report found that almost all Gypsy or Traveller adults ‘were completely illiterate’, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/22/gypsies-lagging-education- gypsies-travellers.
9 ‘Gypsies rarely haunted either casual wards or common lodging houses’: Behlmer, ‘Gypsy Problem in Victorian England’, p. 234.
10 D. J. V. Jones, ‘The Poacher: A Study in Crime and Protest’, The Historical Journal, 22.4 (Dec., 1979), Cambridge University Press, pp. 825-860, p. 850.
11 Behlmer, ‘Gypsy Problem’, p. 235.
12 ‘it seemed unlikely that even they [gypsies] could resist the onslaught of urban civilization. Already by mid-century, small bands were finding city homes during the winter months.’ George K. Behlmer, ‘The Gypsy Problem’, p. 240. See also https://www.historytoday.com/archive/britains-gypsy-travellers-people-outside
N.B.: Throughout much of the recorded material (i.e. censuses, birth, death, marriage certificates, and newspaper articles) there are many variations in the spelling of ‘Shadrach’ (such as ‘Shadrack’, ‘Shaderick’, and ‘Shadrick’). For the sake of clarity, ‘Shadrach’ has been chosen as the catch-all version.
Shorn of much of its former glory, Berwick Fair was
opened by the Mayor and other civic heads on Friday last, when as usual the
procession, headed by the Borough Police under Chief Constable Nicholson and
the Sergeant at Mace, made a tour up the High Street and returned round the
booths. High Street presented a busy appearance, thereafter the dish sellers
making the air alive with the rattle of crockery and banter.
OPENING OF THE MAY FAIR 1968 REF: BRO 2103-619
The cattle and grain markets were held on the Friday as
in former years but why this is so seems a little strange when one hears so
much about increasing the production on the land. Why farmers should have to
attend market on a Friday and the farm servants come in force to the town on
the day following does not look as if the tillage of the land was being made of
first importance. Surely some arrangement might be made for the market day and
Saturday half-holiday to take place together and prevent the wastage of
valuable time. It cannot be that the cattle market is held on a day when the
streets will not be so thronged with people, for that market is again held on
the Saturday.
The absence of the May Day Horse Procession detracted
from the proceedings on Saturday though the Scout Band filled up the afternoon
and gave inspiring pipe selections to large audiences.
In High Street there was the usual collection of booths
and for the first year since 1914 there were yards upon yards of floor cloth on
offer at reasonable prices. Dalzell, the ‘witty’, who can charm the most
hardened purchasers, Harris who can sell an axe guaranteed to chop the head off
the entire Hohenzollern family, and a representative of one of the lost tribes
or Israel, did a fine business during the day.
There was one round-about on the Parade this year and
several side shows. Staid residents so far unbent to enjoy a “whirl” round in
“motors” which never need to have running repairs done to them, while the
popular houp-la, kindled the gambling instincts in those who look for something
for nothing.
With things in a more settled condition next year it is
hoped the Fair will once more come into its own, or at least have a share of
its past glamour.
For the first time within memory the “mug stalls” finished up on Monday night, packing up and clearing out on Tuesday to the great disappointment of many intending purchasers who held off till Tuesday and Wednesday in the hope of scooping up bargains on the last two days of the Fair.
NORHAM WAR MEMORIAL
SOLEMN DEDICATION CEREMONY IN HISTORIC VILLAGE
Norham War Memorial. Copyright: Kevin Graham 2019
On Wednesday evening the historic village of Norham,
famous in story and hoary in legendary associations, saw the dedication of a
memorial to the men who in the late war faced all the devilries of modern
warfare and fell in the fight for all that mankind holds dear.
Down on a grassy patch near the entrance to the
Churchyard the memorial reared its graceful pillar, clearly outlined against
the background of summer green, holding its symbol of sacrifice aloft as an
inspiration to all passers-by.
The ceremony was naturally tinged with sadness, but yet
in those who had suffered and were gathered to see the unveiling of a memorial
to the memory of their lost ones, there was a feeling of honourable pride that
they were called upon to share in the sacrifice of their loved ones.
THE MEMORIAL CROSS
The cross, which was erected by public subscription from
the inhabitants of the village, the highest and most humble, was placed on
order some time ago with Messrs Rhind, sculptors, Belford Road, Edinburgh, the firm
which executed the Leitholm memorial. The design chosen was that of an old 10th
Century Celtic Cross ( or St. Cuthbert’s Cross), with ornamental band carving symbolical
of eternal life. The bases of the cross are in three tiers, and the ground
space covered is about 5 ½ feet square. The shaft rises some ten feet, is
ornamented with the symbolic band work, and the inscription in raised letters.
The whole is surmounted by an ornamented St. Cuthbert’s Cross.
The inscription on the shaft reads as follows: -“Erected to the memory of those who laid down their lives for their country in the Great War, from August 1914, to November 1918.” Below the inscription is a space left upon which to engrave a full list of the names of those who have fallen. On the base is the inscription: – “Lest we forget those who laid down their lives that we might live.” The stone chosen for the memorial is a close-grained freestone, which should stand all weathers.
LOCAL NEWS
Few men in Berwick can boast of having served 44 years with the same firm. This record has been accomplished by Mr Peter Jeffrey of the firm of Messrs Thompson Bros., iron mongers, High Street, who are closing down shortly. When Mr T. Thompson, along with his brother, the late Mr B. G. Thompson started business in 1875, Mr Jeffrey went as an apprentice and has continued with the firm ever since. He has therefore had a long experience in business, and during this time has seen many changes both in the owners of the shops in High Street, and in the shops themselves. Mr Jeffrey was the son of the late Mr James Jeffrey, blacksmith, Castlegate, and married Miss Cowe, a sister of Mr J. C. Cowe, fishmerchant, High Street. They had two sons, the elder of whom, Private James Jeffrey, 7th N.F., made the supreme sacrifice at St. Julien in April 1915, when the local N.F.’s first went into action. Private Jeffrey was one of the young men of the town who joined the 7th N.F. after Baden-Powell’s recruiting meeting at Berwick. The younger son, Robert Cowe Jeffrey, has a flourishing dairy business at 92 Castlegate, and will receive the help of his father on his retirement from Messrs Thompson Bros. Mr and Mrs Jeffrey are members of Wallace Green Church and very highly respected citizens of Berwick.
Mrs R. R. Riddell, Quay Walls, Treasurer of the Berwick War Hospital Supply Depot has received grateful acknowledement (sic) from the Matron of Edenhall Hostel for Limbless Sailors and Soldiers for the sum of £100 17s, the residue of the funds of the depot on closing in March.
Acknowledgements have also been received from the Comrades of the Great War and from St. Dunstan’s Hostel for Blinded Sailors and Soldiers both of which institutions also received donations.
A rumour got about over the week-end that a dog had been found to be suffering from rabies, and had bitten children in the upper part of the town. This proved, however, to be unfounded. A stray dog it appears had tried its teeth upon some youngsters who had touched it, but has paid the penalty by being sent “west.” For the benefit of timorous readers we need only say that far from being mad, the dog was not even feeble minded.
A report of the work of Campus Library has been published. The success of this excellent scheme for providing literature for the troops, is largely due to the Postmasters, and the sub-postmasters in all the country districts, who have worked hard throughout the war in collecting books. Up to the signing of the Armistice some 14 million publications had been dealt with by the Camps Library. These were sent to the Armies in France, Salonika, Egypt, British East Africa, Mesopotamia, Italy and Russia. Many thousands went to hospitals, to the Mission to Seamen, British and Foreign Sailors Society and the Chamber of Commerce for use of the Navy. Nearly other (sic) two millions have been dealt with between November and March 1919 when the Camps Library as a War Charity was closed. Many letters of appreciation have been received from soldiers. During the four years and five months the sum of £46,300 13s 2d has passed through the hands of the Treasurer.
