First World War (1914-1918)
Subject
Subject Source: UK Archival Thesaurus
Found in 1514 Collections and/or Records:
Fonds
Ruth Darwin: correspondence and papers
Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.9790
Scope and Contents
The collection consists primarily of letters from Ruth Darwin to members of her family but predominantly to her sister (Emma) Nora Darwin, and correspondence and papers arising out of Ruth's work with the British Committee of the French Red Cross in France in 1917-1919.
Dates:
1890-1944
Conditions Governing Access:
Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).
Found in:
Cambridge University Library
File
Salamis [Σαλαμίς, Negatives], 1916-12 - 1917-03
File
Reference Code: GBR/3437/AJBW/3/64
Scope and Contents
10 negative prints, all of ships anchored around the island of Salamis in the Saronic Gulf. On the envelope which originally housed this negatives, AJBW wrote 'Mother boat, La..?/ Men with ?/ Men / Mt Cave with us / Implacable at anchor'.
The last was the pre-Dreadnought battleship HMS Implacable. The other vessels in these images merit futher investigation in order to ascertain precise identiies.
Dates:
1916-12 - 1917-03
Fonds
"Scottish Soldier": the Autobiography of Major-General Douglas Wimberley
Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0014/WIMB
Scope and Contents
Churchill Archives Centre holds excerpts from volume one and a complete copy of volume two of the autobiography. Subjects covered include Wimberley's service in the First World War, between the wars and during the Second World War.
Dates:
1973
Conditions Governing Access:
The autobiography is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
Found in:
Churchill Archives Centre
File
Scrapbook, 1914-06-28 - 1914-12-31
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/ESHR 3/2
Scope and Contents
This scrapbook documents how Eleanor spent the first year of the First World War. It begins as Eleanor recounts hearing about the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, from Prince Louis of Battenberg who sat at the next table to her and her family at the Savoy on 28 June 1914. During 1914, Eleanor re-commenced the running of First Aid classes for women, which she ran from the Duke of York’s Headquarters in Chelsea, London, with St John’s Ambulance. In September 1914, her scrapbook...
Dates:
1914-06-28 - 1914-12-31
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Scrapbook, 1915-01-01 - 1915-12-31
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/ESHR 3/3
Scope and Contents
The scrapbook opens with a description of Eleanor visiting the French Front, dining in Compiegne and being given a tour of a hospital. Eleanor and Reginald travelled back to London where Eleanor continued her work running First Aid classes at the Duke of York’s Headquarters in between seeing Sylvia [daughter], Zena [daughter-in-law], and their families and swallowing a chicken bone where she ‘thought my last moment had come’. Eleanor returned to Paris, where she comments on the heightened...
Dates:
1915-01-01 - 1915-12-31
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Scrapbook, 1916-01-01 - 1916-09-14
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/ESHR 3/4
Scope and Contents
The scrapbook opens with a poster ‘Taisez-Vous! Méfiez-Vous! Les Oreilles Enemies Vous Écoutent’ (translated as Shut up! Beware! Enemy Ears Are Listening To You) which Eleanor captions: ‘This notice was put up in all rail way carriages, trams, public buildings of all kinds in France’, as well as a list of battles which began in 1916. Like other scrapbooks in the series, Eleanor combines reflections on her own experiences of the war with military battles which she notes on small pieces of...
Dates:
1916-01-01 - 1916-09-14
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Scrapbook, 1917-03 - 1917-09
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/ESHR 3/6
Scope and Contents
Like other scrapbooks in the series, Eleanor combines reflections on her own experiences of the war in typed diary entries, with military battles which she notes on small pieces of paper on the right-hand side of her volume. She illustrates her scrapbooks with postcards, photographs, newspaper clippings, illustrations, letters, and signatures of people she has met; letters, and ephemera.In her diary entries Eleanor reflects on: visiting Compiegne [France]; visiting outskirts of...
Dates:
1917-03 - 1917-09
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Scrapbook, 1916-09 - 1917-03
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/ESHR 3/5
Scope and Contents
Eleanor opens this scrapbook with a photograph of the Queen of Spain and dates of key military battles in 1916 and 1917, the period covered by the scrapbook. Like other scrapbooks in the series, Eleanor combines reflections on her own experiences of the war in typed diary entries, with military battles which she notes on small pieces of paper on the right-hand side of her volume. She illustrates her scrapbook with postcards, photographs, newspaper clippings, illustrations, and signatures of...
Dates:
1916-09 - 1917-03
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Scrapbook, 1919-01 - 1920-09
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/ESHR 3/9
Scope and Contents
This is the final scrapbook made by Eleanor Brett, Viscountess Esher, and is the most sparsely populated out of all the volumes. She notes at the beginning of the volume how she did not keep a detailed diary after 1918, so the dates included ‘are only a few dates of interest’. The book largely revolves around recording her social and travel arrangements from 1919-1920. Contents include: a letter addressed to Miss Hackett [Norah Desmond Hackett] on 29 January 1919, co-founder of the...
Dates:
1919-01 - 1920-09
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Scrapbook, 1917-09 - 1918-03
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/ESHR 3/7
Scope and Contents
This scrapbook largely covers Eleanor's time in Paris, before travelling back to London and later Scotland. Like other scrapbooks in the series, Eleanor combines reflections on her own experiences of the war with military battles which she notes on small pieces of paper on the right-hand side of her volume. Eleanor accompanies many of her typescript entries with postcards, photographs, newspaper clippings of the people and events mentioned.In her diary entries, Eleanor reflects...
Dates:
1917-09 - 1918-03
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
Unknown
"Shall we all commit suicide?", Sep 1924
Unknown
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 8/200B/202-206
Scope and Contents
Press cutting of article by WSC published in Nash's Pall Mall Magazine, illustrated with a portrait photograph of WSC. Covers progress and developments in knowledge, technology and science and their use in World War I; the potential for extermination of the human race; possibility of another war in Europe; speculation on the development of explosive weapons "Might not a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power", and of pilot-less aircraft, chemical and biological...
Dates:
Sep 1924
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
File
Sir Winston Churchill's letters to Lady Churchill, 1914-02 - 1914-11
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CSCT 2/7
Scope and Contents
Subjects include: debates in Parliament on 'the Ulster Pogrom' [moving ships to the coast of Ireland in case it became necessary to move troops to Northern Ireland]; the grief of John Seely [later 1st Lord Mottistone] [following the death of his wife]; a suggestion of a vacancy [? at the India Office]; Churchill's concerns about their finances; the reception of the Budget; Clementine's anxiety about Churchill's flying and the death of the pilot Gustav Hamel; the health of Jack [John S...
Dates:
1914-02 - 1914-11
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
With the exception of the staff wages books in CSCT 9/1, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Sir Winston Churchill's letters to Lady Churchill, 1915-05 - 1915-12
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CSCT 2/8
Scope and Contents
Subjects include: Churchill’s departure for Paris to take part in negotiations on Italy’s part in the war, May 1915; the Dardanelles campaign; a successful engagement by the Royal Naval Division, May 1915; Churchill’s instructions to Clementine regarding his finances and papers in the case of his death; being offered command of a brigade by Field Marshal Sir John French [Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Forces in France, later 1st Lord Ypres], November 1915; the prospects of going...
Dates:
1915-05 - 1915-12
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
With the exception of the staff wages books in CSCT 9/1, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Sir Winston Churchill's letters to Lady Churchill, 1916-01 - 1916-05
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CSCT 2/9
Scope and Contents
Subjects include: Churchill’s frustration with the direction of the war; the importance of Clementine keeping up relations with David Lloyd George [Minister of Munitions]; Churchill’s new battalion, the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, with ‘Archie’ [Archibald Sinclair, later 1st Lord Thurso] as his second in command; Churchill’s disillusionment with Herbert Asquith [Prime Minister, later 1st Lord Oxford and Asquith]; slow progress on ‘the caterpillars’ [tanks] recommended by Churchill in his...
Dates:
1916-01 - 1916-05
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
With the exception of the staff wages books in CSCT 9/1, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Sir Winston Churchill's letters to Lady Churchill, 1917-05-29
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CSCT 2/10
Scope and Contents
Letter written from Paris during Churchill's visit to the front, on subjects including: meetings with General [Marie] Emile Fayolle, Commander of the 6th Army and Philippe Pétain, General-in-Chief; the need to replace Sir Francis Bertie [British Ambassador to France]; the inescapable thoughts of carnage and ruin caused by the war, despite the pleasantness of Churchill's trip.
Dates:
1917-05-29
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
With the exception of the staff wages books in CSCT 9/1, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Sir Winston Churchill's letters to Lady Churchill, 1918-02 - 1918-12
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CSCT 2/11
Scope and Contents
Subjects include: Churchill's wish to send Clementine and the children out of London, because of the risk of Zeppelin raids; visit to France for talks on munitions supplies, February 1918; returning to see his old military position at 'Plugstreet' [Ploegsteert, Belgium], the Ypres salient, Glencorse Wood and Polygon Wood; the success of Jack [John S Churchill]; a meeting with Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston; visit to headquarters in France, March 1918 [during the German Spring...
Dates:
1918-02 - 1918-12
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
With the exception of the staff wages books in CSCT 9/1, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
Fonds
Sister E. B. Tayloe: Album Amicorum
Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.10331
Scope and Contents
Album Amicorum compiled by Sister E. B. Tayloe during the First World War, while serving at the First General Hospital, Cambridge, and at the 16th General Hospital, Le Treport.
Dates:
1915-1917
Conditions Governing Access:
The item is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).
Found in:
Cambridge University Library
File
Special correspondence: Jan Smuts, 1903-09 - 1950-10
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/AMEL 2/2/24
Scope and Contents
Correspondence with Smuts on subjects including: accounts of military operations on the Tugela River [South Africa]; the Irish Convention (1917); the Palestine Campaign; the need for a separate Air Staff; costs of the separate war fronts; peace negotiations following the First World War; migration to South Africa; the Locarno Pact; the Imperial Conference (1926); LSA's Empire Tour; the proposal that Smuts should become High Commissioner of Palestine; the South African flag; the League of...
Dates:
1903-09 - 1950-10
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The papers are open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Speeches, 1918-12-15 - 1922-12-01
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/BRDW I Press 21 A
Scope and Contents
Cuttings of articles on WSC’s speeches on Britain’s peace terms, Female Suffrage, Russia and Socialism, Irish Question; photos of WSC at polo matches with CSC.
Dates:
1918-12-15 - 1922-12-01
Conditions Governing Access:
Available as digital surrogates only, to protect the fragile original.
File
Speeches, 1953-04 - 1955-11
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/SPRS 7/20
Scope and Contents
Manuscript and typescript speech notes on subjects including: Roger Bannister; the success of the Institute of Directors; ELS’s own writing work; the mistake of being bound too closely to France; has France a future?; Winston Churchill, including a review of the final volume of his war memoirs; a review of Major-General Gerald Verney’s history of the Seventh Armoured Division, the 'Desert Rats'; Marshal Philippe Petain and the 1917 mutinies in the French army.
Dates:
1953-04 - 1955-11
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Staff College lectures, 1931 - 1932
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CRES 3/1
Scope and Contents
Comprimising: "The Operations of 19th August 1916", 17 June 1931; "The Grand Fleet, 1917-1918", 26 June 1931; "The Battle of Heligoland Bight, 28 August 1914", 2 May 1932; and "The Scarborough Raid", 9 May 1932.
Dates:
1931 - 1932
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
File
Staff College lectures, 1932
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CRES 3/2
Scope and Contents
Including: "The Battle of the Dogger Bank", 13 May 1932; "Mediterranean 1914 I", 8 February 1932; "Mediterranean 1914 II", 15 February 1932; "Mediterranean 1914 III", 18 February 1932; "The Battle of the Dogger Bank", for the Junior Officers' War Course, 11 July 1932.
Dates:
1932
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
Unknown
"The artillery at Passchendaele: (From Artillery Accounts)", [1926]
Unknown
Reference Code: GBR/0014/CHAR 8/190/2
Scope and Contents
Transcript account of conditions at the [3rd Battle of Ypres, Flanders, Belgium] and the effect of wet weather and terrible mud causing great difficulties moving artillery and supplies of ammunition and locating guns; the use of tin baths to keep men dry while asleep; attacks by enemy guns on British gunners by day and by night on roads and tracks. Concludes "It was put tersely by one artillery general that if the battle was continued there would be 'no artillery for the spring offensive'"....
Dates:
[1926]
Conditions Governing Access:
Open
Fonds
The Bickersteth War Diaries and the Papers of John Burgon Bickersteth
Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0014/BICK
Scope and Contents
The 17 volumes cover both World Wars and comprise letters home from the front, accounts of particular events by individual family members, photographs and postcards as well as newspaper clippings and telegrams. They provide a unique perspective on the war years both from those who fought abroad and those who remained at home in Canterbury.
The papers of John Bickersteth are photocopies of correspondence and reports to Maurice Hankey on Canadian affairs (1932 - 1940).
Dates:
1914 - 1972
Conditions Governing Access:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.
Found in:
Churchill Archives Centre
File
The General's Stories, 1925-08 - 1970
File
Reference Code: GBR/0014/SPRS 8/45
Scope and Contents
Texts of stories, some included in "The Picnic Basket" and many relating to the First World War: "A Dream"; "Prayer"; "With de Gaulle from Bordeaux to Dakar"; "La Fete a Jean le Bon" on the Battle of Poitiers; "Nery"; "A Perfect Thing Apart"; an account of 1st Lord Bertie of Thame, British Ambassador to France, in 1917-18; "The Marquis de Castellane"; "This is the story of a little watch", on General...
Dates:
1925-08 - 1970
Conditions Governing Access:
From the Fonds:
The collection is open for consultation by researchers using Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge.