Today’s guest blog is by Henry Holborn, 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.

Henry was a former History student at Newcastle University.

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.

The Enemy Aliens files held at Northumberland Archives paint a gloomy picture of life in our area during World War One. ‘Enemy’ aliens faced increasing surveillance and harsh recrimination from the authorities, but even ‘friendly’ aliens were viewed with suspicion. The files highlight official anxieties and the lengths they were prepared to go to in order to allay them.

Belgian nationals either living or visiting the region were closely monitored, despite the huge outpouring of public sympathy at the start of the war. Nearly 250,000 escaped from ‘Gallant Little Belgium’ seeking refuge here.The Birtley Belgians were a prime example of the complex issues facing ‘friendly’ Aliens. An agreement between the Armstrong munitions factory and Belgian officials saw 6000 refugees, most of them conscripted Belgian soldiers, set to work producing munitions.

Their freedom was strictly limited. The gates to the settlement were guarded and access was tightly regulated: only the occasional Saturday excursion to Newcastle provided any kind of break. A jaunt for which they had to have special permission – the files are full of letters to the police requesting a dispensation under the Alien Restrictions Act.

They must have hoped for a warm welcome. Instead they found themselves living in confinement in an atmosphere of general ambivalence or even hostility.  

Etienne Sommers, a Belgian clockmaker from Ghent informed the Police of his stay at Whitley Bay. He had moved there from Goole but was under close surveillance by the Blyth Police. They wrote a detailed report about why he visited the district and how he spent his time there. He was constantly in the company of local friends – the Lumney family – yet was still watched over closely.

Other cases were treated more leniently. In June 1915, Charles Bothamley, a Belgian soldier on leave asked permission to go and study Hadrians Wall – he had been a classics student before the war. The Police accepted his request without hesitation.

Reverend Wishart of Lowick wrote to the police asking that a Belgian family by the name of Von Buggenhondt could move closer to Berwick. The father of the family had found work there, but was still lodging in Lowick, incurring high costs. However, before permission was granted the Reverend sent a further letter to police stating that the man had ‘gone on the drink’, so he would no longer be responsible for him.

Whether or not alcoholism was induced by the stress of temporary work and endless travel is a matter of speculation.

Another file highlights the complexities of national identity; the difficulty of sifting ‘friend’ from ‘foe’. Lazar Ivonaff Boshansky was a Bulgarian employed at Palmers Shipyard in Jarrow. He had come to Britain in 1904 (aged 15) under supervision of a man who owned a cycle repair shop.

The police report tells us that the man who accompanied him to Britain treated Lazar poorly; he received meagre pay and slept on a workshop bench. Lazar received support from a sympathetic Mr Carr (under-manager of New Delaval colliery), who became his guardian and found him employment at the colliery. After the pit closed in the early stages of the war, he was employed at Elswick Works and finally at Palmers. Blyth police reported on 23^rd October 1915 of his presence in the area.

Only two weeks earlier, on 14th October 1915, Bulgaria declared war on Serbia, joining the Central Powers. Bulgarians were now to be treated as enemy aliens. For some reason Lazar went to live in Leeds. He soon put in a request to return to the North East were he had more friends and connections: he needed to find work. His hand-written letter to the Northumberland Constabulary on January 1^st 1917 states:

‘Sir,

I respectfully ask if you would grant me permission to take up residence in New Deleval, Blyth. I cannot get employment here and can in New Deleval as I was employed and resided there for a period of 10 years previous to the outbreak of war. I am in possession of an identity book, I am a Bulgarian subject but have been left the country since boyhood and am 27 years of age. I am well known by your superintendent at Blyth and other influential gentlemen resident there. Hoping you will give my request your kind consideration,

I am sir,

Yours obediently,

Lazar Ivanoff Boshansky’

The letter has a real sense of urgency about it: the hopelessness of losing community, employment, and freedom of movement stand out. The following day, he learnt the Police had rejected his request to return.

Further issues arose surrounding mistaken identities, where people’s status was often ambiguous. For example, Philip Smith who arrived at Blyth Harbour 29/8/1915 was ‘supposed to be a naturalized Austrian’. Sunderland police stated he had arrived from Austria 1873 and became naturalized British subject in 1898 while living in Manchester after marrying a British woman. The couple then moved to Sunderland. Upon being stopped, he produced a certificate proving his British subject status. However, the issuing policeman had died since the document’s issue. Further evidence was required from authorities in Sunderland

On the 2/9/1915 another letter was sent by Blyth police. Smith was subsequently prevented from sailing, and consequently became registered by Sunderland police as an enemy alien. This led to effective house arrest and prevention of travel. No freedom was granted until a copy of his naturalization certificate could be obtained from the Home Office. It is unknown what became of Philip, but his restriction would have severely limited his capacity to work, provide basic amenities, or travel for leisure. This reveals the extent authorities could take in subjugating even those with assumed legal status as British subjects.

There are all too many stories like this one in the files. Ordinary people struggling to survive in the midst of a war fought over Empires, subdued by surveillance, and treated with suspicion within a society they knew as their home.

Today’s guest blog is by Silvie Fisch & Rosie Serdiville,  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. 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.

Northumberland Archives hold almost 300 ‘aliens files’, giving details of registered Enemy Alien’s lives during WW1. There are stories over stories of ‘ordinary’ people who lived in constant fear, struggled with the authorities over the most trifling matters, were misinformed, harassed, had to keep up with the prying eyes of their neighbours and their anonymous letters to the police.

The more time you spend studying these files, the more evident become the parallels between what happened to foreign nationals in Britain back then and the difficulties many immigrants face right now.

The Aliens Restrictions Act of 1914 required all foreign nationals had to register at their local police station. They were banned from owning firearms, signalling equipment, homing pigeons, cameras and naval or military maps.

By 1915 the entire East coast and fifty miles inland had been designated a prohibited area. Travel restrictions meant that families could no longer see each other without seeking prior permission, and businesses struggled to visit clients.

On 10 August 1916 Amy Arends from South Shields asks for permission to stay at Rothbury for a week with her mother and sister. Permission is not granted “as no enemy aliens are permitted to stay in a prohibited area”. (NC/3/47/2/4)

British women who married foreign men were legally deemed to adopt their husband’s nationality. Even if a woman was widowed or separated, she would remain an alien subject. Many people of foreign descent were accused of being spies, often by their own neighbours. The German communities were especially badly affected, with violent riots breaking out everywhere in the region.

All male enemy aliens of military age were being made subject to internment. Many internees from the North of England found themselves in Stobs Camp in Hawick in the Scottish Borders. Their loved ones often ended up destitute.

To officially being considered a ‘friendly alien’ meant no assurance for a peaceful life. A foreign sounding name, the wrong skin colour, and people could easily find themselves outcast within their communities, or put under pressure by one authority or another.

For Emmy Starsburger, a naturalised American who come to England to take up employment as a secretary for the Leyand family in Haggerston, it all started with the usual slander: on 21 October 1914 a Julia Eyre contacted Northumberland Police to raise concerns about her. The following year, the War Office, The Chief Constable of Northumberland and Alnwick Police discussed the risk of Strasburger’s presence at Haggerston as it was used for convalescent soldiers. The War Office requested legal evidence from her family in America that she was indeed an American citizen. Her family supplied the requested documents and added ‘that the family were highly appreciative of English and American history’.

On 12 July the Home Office sent a letter to the Northumberland Constabulary, querying why, as an alien whose brother served in the Prussian army, she was allowed to live so near the coast.

A subsequent letter from MI5 to the Chief Constable of Northumberland once more requested evidence that she was an American and asked why she visited the ‘wireless station on Holy Island’. A handwritten reply added to the requested documentation informs MI5 that the wireless station was actually not located on Holy Island but at Goswick.

Emmy left Haggerston for Welshpool in 1917. Northumberland Archives still keeps thirty six official documents relating to the case (NC/3//46/2/68).

The case of Elizabeth Susan Dehnel is a rather sad one.

She and her husband Charles Henry had nine children, six of whom had died. She was English-born, her husband German. For a while they worked in Blyth, he as a hotel manager, she as a hotel housekeeper. Charles Henry took on a job as an interpreter at sea and lost his life in 1911 in the ‘Empress of Ireland’ disaster, one of the worst in maritime history. The Managing Director of the ‘Blyth and Tyne Brewery’ kindly offered Elizabeth a job at the ‘Star & Garter Hotel’ in Blyth. But on 21st October, 1914, she was apprehended and charged because she had not registered and obtained a residential permit.

Her statement reports that she made enquiries at Brixton Police Station whether she needed to register as she was the widow of a German. The young Policeman asked if she was English and because she said yes, he made enquiries and told her that she had no need to do so. A letter from the Superintendent at Blyth Police Office, dated 22nd October, 1914, submits an application for a Residential Permit for E. Dehnel – but there is a problem. 

“Mrs. Dehnel is due a considerable sum in compensation for the death of her husband and is not destitute. She bears an exemplary character. The Star and Garter is occupied by the Military and there is a Telephone installed. I suggest that she be refused permission to remain.”

Major J. Gillespie, Military Commandant of Blyth, writes to Captain James, Chief Constable, on 2nd November, 1914, to plead on behalf of Mrs. Dehnel. “It appears to me to be a case where some leniency might be shown, such as allowing her to take out naturalisation papers. The woman is so clearly English, has never been out of England except once…. She has a son who has served 12 yrs in the British Army….Personally I should be inclined to support strongly any application for permission to stay.”

A reply states that the residence cannot be permitted. Correspondence becomes quite heated when Major Gillespie replies that “the law is absurd which refuses permission to an Englishwoman, the widow of a German, and yet allows an obvious German in this hotel to remain because she happens to be born in England. I refer to the waitress here.”

In a letter from Mrs. Dehnel, dated 26th November, 1914, Elizabeth assures the authorities that her husband had had no contact with Germany since his parents died in 1897, and adds: “In spite of my age, I cannot hope to get another berth, people seem to think 40 too old and I am 55 (…) Will you please allow me to come back & resume my work. I am a thorough English woman, with not a thought, or any knowledge of anyone German, or in Germany. From anxious & distressed, E. Dehnel.”

The reply from the Chief Constable states that he is unable to accede to the request. “In addition to previous reasons for excluding all German subjects from entering Blyth, which is a prohibited area, there is now a Military aspect which makes it more than ever necessary to maintain strict adherence to the spirit of the aliens Restriction Order.”

A document from the Home Office, dated 2nd December, 1914, requests a report detailing a number of points relating to Mrs. Dehnel to ascertain whether she was eligible for a Certificate of Readmission to British Nationality. James Irving, Superintendent, writes to the Home Office on 2^nd December 2014: “The Star and Garter Hotel is the Headquarters of the Northumberland Territorial Brigade and Mrs. Dehnel, rightly or wrongly, is said to have been a German Agent and continual movement from place to place since 1907 seems suspicious.” And: “I overheard a group of men discussing spies in the Market Place on Saturday night last when the remark was made that Dehnel was here for that purpose.”

Despite a series of espionage allegations from the police, a Certificate of Naturalization was granted to her in 1915, but on the condition that she would not return to Blyth. She died ten years later at the age of 65. (NC/3/48/1/2)