Michael Noble – Page 5 – The Centre for Hidden Histories

Beyond Walter Tull

September 5, 2014Michael Noble

The story of Walter Tull is one that resonates strongly today, but was he really the British Army’s first black officer? Michael Noble looks at a curious hidden history.

It was announced this week that Walter Tull, widely regarded as the British Army’s first black officer, is to be commemorated on a special £5 coin, part of a set of six that the Royal Mint will be producing as part of the First World War centenary. This follows the announcement in June that a new road in his home town of Folkestone is to be named Walter Tull way in his honour. Meanwhile, a campaign is underway to make him a posthumous award of the Military Cross that was denied to him while he was alive.

The demand to award Tull the medal is no post hoc rewriting of history, or even a simple response to his fame as a professional footballer. The honour is entirely deserved and its denial a miscarriage of justice. On New Year’s Day 1918 Tull, then a 2nd Lieutenant on the Italian Front, led a mission across the icy-cold River Piave that runs from the Alps to the Adriatic. He returned without a single casualty and was cited by his commanding officer for ‘gallantry and coolness under fire’. The CO recommended that this be followed by a medal. None was forthcoming.

Wars are confusing, challenging situations and many things can go wrong. Still, it’s difficult to shake the conviction that the denial of Tull’s medal was entirely a question of race. The MC was a medal that had been created for junior officers below the rank of Captain and, gallant or otherwise, Walter Tull shouldn’t have been an officer at all. In some eyes, it was bad enough that he was in uniform at all, never mind being given a position of leadership.

The Manual of Military Law of the time stated that ‘Troops formed of coloured tribes and barbarous races should not be employed in war between civilised states’, meaning that sending a man like Tull to fight Germans was anathema to the mindset of the age. Of course, British men of African origin volunteered like any others but according to Tull’s biographer Phil Vasili, ploys were used to ensure that they failed the medical on spurious grounds. This trick, of course, could hardly be deployed against a professional footballer who continued to turn out for Northampton Town throughout the recruitment process and consequently, on completion of the 1914-15 season, Tull attended basic training and was deployed in France that autumn. His abilities were quickly noted and he was made an NCO, attaining the rank of lance sergeant. It would not be the last recognition of his leadership skills, nor would it be the last time he surmounted the institutionalised and statutory racism of the day.

On being recommended for a commission in November 1916, Tull’s commanding officer had to complete a form to begin the process. The document survives and is kept in the National Archives. One of the questions asks if the candidate is of ‘pure European descent’, by which it means white. Tull’s form naturally shows the handwritten response ‘no’. For some reason, Tull’s fame, his exceptional character, the need for men of proven ability, the question was skimmed over by the board and Tull was given his commission in May 1917 whereupon he commenced officer training.

It is curious that the question was even asked. If it was axiomatic that men of non-European backgrounds were inappropriate to serve as officers is seems odd that officers in the British Army would need reminding. But then, not everything in a vast bureaucracy like the modern military is so clear cut. Which brings us to the story of George Edward Kingsley Bermand.

George Bermand was an old boy of Dulwich College, a former engineering student at University College London and, it was said, ‘a cheery soul, always inclined for a joke’. He joined the Officer Training Corps in October 1914, applied for a commission early in 1915 and obtained one with relative ease. He was also black.

The Great War London blog contains some excellent research on Bermand’s life and career. He was born in Jamaica in 1892 and travelled to Britain in 1908. Like Walter Tull, George Bermand was actually of mixed heritage and had some white British ancestry. Still, in accordance with the sensibilities of the time, he and his family were recorded as simply ‘African’ in the form that they completed on the USA leg of their journey to Europe.

The interpretation of such questions is important. When asked if he was of ‘pure European descent’, Walter Tull (or whoever processed his application) answered ‘no’. When George Bermand was asked the very same question, he answered ‘yes’. Bermand’s commission was sponsored by a Brigadier-General Anthony Abdy, who commanded the 30th (County Palatine) Divisional Artillery to which Bermand made his application. ‘I am willing to take him’, noted the Brigadier-General on the form and this seemed sufficient to ensure that Bermand got his commission. It is entirely possible that it was Abdy’s personal intervention that made the question of European descent an irrelevance in Bermand’s case. The bold ‘yes’ merely met a cold bureaucratic requirement leaving the actual business of recruiting a promising young officer to the pleasure of the man who would command him.

bemand-app-form — George Bermand’s Commission Application. Note his answer to question 4

Neither Tull nor Bermand survived the war. Bermand was killed by an artillery shell near Bethune on Boxing Day 1916. Tull was cut down by a German soldier during the Spring Offensive of 1918. They were aged 24 and 30 years old respectively.

The recent flurry of activity aimed at commemorating Walter Tull is admirable. His achievements in overcoming unimaginable prejudice on both the field of play and the field of battle are an indication of his strength of character and confirm his as a story worth telling and worth remembering. But there are other stories, other Hidden Histories that show that Tull may not have been alone. Although he was a fine cricketer at Dulwich, George Bermand lacked Walter Tull’s outstanding sporting ability and consequent popular fame. His elevation to officer rank came via the traditional method of patronage while Tull’s was the gift of the newer power of celebrity. Still, that either young man required any assistance to take an officer’s rank remains an indictment of the times in which they lived. In an age that was desperate for healthy young men to answer the country’s call, that any capable candidate would need a nod and a wink to get through the recruitment process seems absurd. But get through they did, and they showed that their places were not mere gifts -they had been earned. Just as Walter Tull earned his Military Cross.

Indians in the Trenches

August 29, 2014August 29, 2014Michael Noble

The Sikh contribution to the First World War was a significant one. Michael Noble looks at the written evidence of their efforts and at a modern campaign to ensure that their sacrifice is not forgotten.

The First World War is often described as the first modern war. Although other conflicts may also lay claim to that title, among them the American Civil War and the Boer War, certain commonalities can be found that make them ‘modern’. The advanced nature of the technology, the adoption of industrial techniques, the role of the media and the suggestion of ‘total war’ all make the First World War recognisably of our own era, even as it slips from memory into history.

One of the most significant ways in which the war can be considered modern is in the fact that, for perhaps the first time in history, a majority of the combatants were literate. Although some level of literacy has been present, by definition, throughout recorded history, prior to the late 19^th century, testimonies have usually come from the wealthy, powerful and educated minority. The First World War could perhaps be described as the first major conflict of mass literacy.

Soldier-writing-le_2925884b — Royal Horse Artillery gunners writing letters

Reading and writing skills were not merely useful from a military organisation point of view, as the ongoing Operation War Diary makes clear; it also means that many of the participants in the conflict left a paper trail of their thoughts and feelings in the form of letters, diaries and, famously, poetry. Reading the personal documents of soldiers and their families is a privilege that lets modern readers gain intimate insights into the experience of life and war from those who were directly involved.

Of course, part of that range of epistolary comes from the soldiers who were drawn from different parts of the world. In 1999, the historian David Omissi collected and edited a selection of letters from Indian soldiers who found themselves on the Western Front and published them as Indian Voices of the Great War.

A selection of these letters now form the basis of Indians in the Trenches, a short film made by Dot Hyphen Productions who have made it their mission to educate and inform people in the 21st century about the actions of Indian solders in the First World War. The film features modern Sikh performers wearing the uniforms of a century ago and giving voice to the words of their forebears.

@SikhsatWar logo

A recurrent theme is the sense of bravery and willing sacrifice. The testimony stresses not so much the conditions in the trenches, or in Europe particularly, but rather the ‘opportunity’ to engage the enemy, the winning of distinction, the desire to be sacrificed and the need to observe Sikh practices while at war.

Sowar Natha Singh, writing from France in January 1916 mentions expecting, even wanting to die. As he set his pen to paper, he did not expect to ever leave France. ‘I should like to die in this country’, he says. ‘I have no hope of seeing [the children] nor do I wish to see them for I have found a good opportunity for sacrificing my life’

The WW1 Sikh Memorial Fund (@SikhsatWar)

Eight months later, Bakhlawar Singh, 6th Cavalry writes about his belief that the Sikhs ‘are fortunate men to have been given the chance to fight in this great war’.

The spirit of sacrifice pervades not just the letters and diaries, but the breadth of the Sikh experience in the war. Over 100,000 Sikhs took part in the war and, of the twenty-two Military Crosses awarded to Indian soldiers, fourteen went to Sikhs. This contribution is being reflected in a new campaign to create a lasting memorial to these soldiers. Jay Singh-Sohal is leading the campaign to raise funds to set the memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield. He says ‘we want to ensure that our community has a lasting legacy of remembrance for those who fought – a memorial will ensure that their service is never forgotten and that in future people remember their heroism.’

Indians in the Trenches is available to watch below.

You can get involved in the Sikh memorial campaign here.

August Bank Holiday Larks

August 22, 2014August 22, 2014Michael Noble

This week I had the pleasure of visiting the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester and of seeing the From Street to Trench exhibition that has been designed to reflect the contribution of, and effect on, the North West of the First World War. From-Street-to-Trench-PV-Creative-2

As with many of the regional exhibitions, the focus is not merely on the local aspect of the war (which, for the North West means references to the Eccles cotton mill and the auxiliary hospital at Dunham Massey) but on the directly personal. Letters and artefacts, many of which have been donated or loaned by local people, tell the story through the eyes of the ordinary men, women and children who experienced the war at first hand. There is a paradoxically rich mundanity to these items. Their very ordinariness means that the war is set as a very loud background event to people’s lives. Examples such as the letter from some children, begging Lord Kitchener not to take their pony for war work, (he didn’t. The animal was too small for it), or the recorded testimony of Ernie Rhodes, who cheerfully recalled being promoted at work when some of the lads above him absented themselves by volunteering for duty in 1914 remind us that people’s everyday concerns didn’t simply stop because there was a war on.

Ordinary considerations filtered through to the theatres of war too. In a letter to his wife dated 1st October 1916 (touchingly appended ‘after tea’), William Anderson described a recent spate of desertions. The effort, he concluded, wasn’t worth it. Not only would it risk a military tribunal, but it would see the deserter’s ‘pay interfered with’. For modern eyes trained to see desertion rewarded with an automatic firing squad, this is a salutary reminder that more ordinary punishments loomed larger in the minds of the men involved. Capital punishment falls outside the 21st century British experience, but having one’s wages docked (and worse, having to explain the shortfall to one’s spouse) does not.

British_recruits_August_1914_Q53234 — Some of the ‘moustached archaic faces’ that Philip Larkin may have had in mind

This everyday, in-the-moment correspondence challenges the received view of the war. It was perhaps the time of year, but as I strolled around the exhibition space, I recalled the words of Philip Larkin, who, in MCMXIV, commented satirically on the lines of 1914 volunteers, ‘grinning as if it were all an August Bank Holiday lark’. Larkin wrote from an historical perspective (the war had concluded before he was born) and made his comments around the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the war. His work was a product of, and contributor to, the popular idea that the war was received as an excellent thing, a jolly good clearing-out that would settle things once and for all and, famously, all be over by Christmas. In this view, the people of 1914 were naive at best, outright fools at worst, blissfully unaware of the devastation that was about to be wrought upon them. ‘Never such innocence’, continued Larkin ‘never before or since…never such innocence again’.

Again, this view is challenged by the off-hand testimony of the people who were actually there. From Street to Trench contains a series of letters written by Merseysider Ada McGuire to her sisters. The first, dated 7th August 1914, expressed the ordinary concern for a loved one; ‘thank God Ralph won’t have to go to the war’, she writes, ‘this terrible war’. That date again: 7th August 1914. The British Expeditonary Force only arrived in France that day and HMS Amphion had been sunk a day earlier, causing the first British casualties of the war (facts that may not have even been known to Ada McGuire as she set pen to paper). The precise, unprecedented terribleness of the war was not yet known either, and still it warranted a horrified adjective. August or otherwise, faces such as Ada McGuire’s were hardly grinning, even at that early stage.

NoMansLandImage1 — Football is just one example of how life continued through the war

Larkin’s commentary pointedly drew a comparison with the lines of volunteers and those who queued up at the gates of football stadiums on Saturday afternoons. The two were not mutually exclusive and football, as well as sport in general, was just as affected by the war as any other aspect of life. Appropriately, for an exhibition focused on the North West, football has a prominent place in From Street to Trench (the Professional Footballers’ Association is a key supporter). The involvement of the game is demonstrated through examples of that perennial collector’s item, the matchday programme. The edition from Liverpool vs Rochdale on the 16th October 1915 (they drew, two goals apiece) features a recruitment advert for the County Palatine Royal Army Medical Corps), demonstrating how the authorities sought the attention of young men where they knew they could find them -in the stands. A later programme, from Manchester City vs Liverpool on the 16th November 1918 (Liverpool took victory after putting two past a goalless City), shows the state of the game in the immediate wake of the Armistice. A letter from City player Peter Gartland reveals his sorrow at having to ‘finish with the game my heart and soul were in’. His career had been brought to an end not long before when he lost a leg after receiving a ‘wound just the size of a threepenny piece’. He remained stoical and wished the club every success and that he hoped to ‘see them at the top this season’. His desire to look ahead was shared by the club’s officials who used the programme to describe their plans for the future of the game. They were glad to seen an end to ‘the Awful Tragedy’ and wanted to carry on for ‘the good of the boys’. International fixtures would be a non-starter, but there was every possibility of inter-league matches. Football, and life itself, must go on.

From Street to Trench is at Imperial War Museum North. Admission free.

History and Memory

August 14, 2014Michael Noble

Harry Patch, the 'Last Fighting Tommy' 1898-2009 — Harry Patch, the ‘Last Fighting Tommy’ 1898-2009

There are, according to some estimates, 11,000 people in Britain today who were already alive when war was declared in August 1914. They were, of course, very young back then. The eldest, Ethel Lancaster, was just fourteen at the time, meaning that, had she been male, it’s very likely that she would have been in uniform by the time that the Armistice was declared. As it was, the ‘Last Fighting Tommy’, Harry Patch, died in July 2009. We enter this centenary period highly conscious that it will probably be the last major anniversary at which any first hand memory of the Great War is available.

This is important and not merely because it gives historians tiny opportunities to glean information from living, breathing people, but also because it places the First World War within the range of accessible cultural memory. There are many more people who, while they were not themselves born before 1918, were the children, nephews and nieces of people who were. They grew up as cognisant of the war as many of us are of, say, the 1960s and 70s. Their recall of the war is obviously second hand, but their experience of its aftermath and of the impact that it continued to have on the lives of those involved is utterly direct. Material items such as medals, uniforms, flags, even weapons, have been handed down to children and grandchildren, but so too have memories and the impact of experience.

Ethel Lancaster, the Last Victorian in Britain — Ethel Lancaster, a teenager during the First World War, is the Last Victorian in Britain

John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States 1790-1862

These connections can survive a surprisingly long time. As recently as 2012, it was reported that the US government was still paying Civil War pensions to two (elderly) children of veterans, 147 years after the war ended. John Tyler (b. 1790), the tenth President of the United States, still had two surviving grandsons as of 2013. These facts can feel a little odd, as can the realisation that, having been born in May 1900, Ethel Lancaster is not only Britain’s oldest woman, but the last surviving Victorian. If they do, it may be because we’re accustomed to regarding most periods as belonging purely to history and disconnected from our present age. This disconnection can make it difficult to empathise with those concerned or make it tempting to regard much of the details of these eras as irrelevant to ordinary life in the twenty-first century.

The Great War is undoubtedly an historical event. It has been studied again and again and will deservedly continue to do so centuries from now. Questions can be asked of its origins, its progress and its impact. The images that we have of it, often unclear, usually in monochrome, give it a distancing quality that seem to confirm it as the event of another age. And yet, it is not history like the death of Julius Ceasar or the signing of Magna Carta or the Protestant Reformation is history, it is also, for now still memory and that gives it a resonant power that may strike a chord with people as they reflect on its centenary.

Trent to Trenches and the Local in the Global

August 8, 2014Michael Noble

Trent to Trenches is the official commemorative project of Nottingham City and County. Michael Noble paid a visit to see how the first ‘global war’ remained steadfastly local.

Whether by Trent to Trenches sending its young men off to fight on land, sea and air, by contributing materially to the war effort or by banding together as the costs of the conflict grew, every corner of the country was affected in some way by the First World War. The local impact of the war remains a powerful one and is central to the Trent to Trenches project in Nottingham.

The central exhibition, based at Nottingham Castle, weaves the local seamlessly through a series of objects and stories that nonetheless reflect the global nature of the war. A detailed timeline, painted onto the walls, matches events in Nottinghamshire with those that took place around the world. As visitors progress through the displays (a skilful blend of the chronological and the thematic) materials such as uniforms, letters, diaries and photographs, many of which were kindly loaned by local people, emphasise the ‘Nottingham-ness’ of the war. A lace panel, reflective of one of the town’s traditional trades, portrays British, French and Belgian soldiers as they would have appeared at the start of the war. A huge Union Jack dominates one wall. Its origin? HMS Nottingham, the light cruiser that was sunk by a U-boat in 1916.

Nottingham Lacework — Nottingham Lace Panel showing Belgian, British and French soldiers, 1914

The Nottingham had recently taken part in the Battle of Jutland, which was not the only major engagement that had a local angle. During the Battle of the Somme, the Sherwood Foresters were deployed at Gommecourt, towards the northern end of the line. Their role was a diversionary one, intended to draw German attention away from the main assault further south. The exhibition tells the story through an emotionally affecting film which cleverly uses local information to make it familiar: the territorial gain was ‘the distance from Nottingham Castle to Radcliffe-on-Trent’. Doing that in the East Midlands would cost you about two hours on foot. In France on the 1st July 1916 it cost the Sherwood Foresters 424 officers and men.

Further familiarity is found in the personal. You can see Nottingham schoolboy Raymond Pegg’s beautifully illustrated diary in which he commented on the development of the war with the eager pupil’s eye for details of flags and military equipment. The diary, in Raymond’s well-drilled handwriting, is accompanied by photographs of the lad as he would have appeared in between making entries and is a fascinating insight into the mental world of a young civilian at the time.

Albert_Ball_portrait — Albert Ball c1915-16

Flying Ace Albert Ball, a local and national hero, is given a section to himself, with photographs, clothing and other items of interest including his personal weapons. Ball, the son of a wealthy Nottingham businessman, was born on Lenton Boulevard in 1896 and fostered an early interest in engineering which led him to pursue a wartime career in the air. As with so many early airmen, this career was a painfully short one, which ended in 1917 in a crash at Douai in France, but it was a successful one and Ball was the most successful British airman at the time of his death. The ‘Wonder-Boy of the Flying Corps’, his exploits were celebrated internationally, and even acknowledged by Manfred von Richthoffen, the ‘Red Baron’, who described him as ‘the best English flying man’. For all this celebrity, the most resonant aspect of the Ball exhibit is the local and personal -his signature on his flying certificate, the images of his family or the photograph of him as a toddler at home in Nottingham, a local lad from the very beginning.

The Trent to Trenches exhibition is at Nottingham castle from Saturday 26th July – Sunday 16th November 2014.

Empire, Faith and War: The Sikhs and World War One

July 31, 2014Michael Noble

‘Stalwarts from the East’ A French lady pins a flower on the Sikh saviours of France, Paris, 1916. (Toor Collection)

In 1914, Sikhs represented just 1% of the population of British India but made up 20% of the British Indian Army. Michael Noble looks at a new exhibition that commemorates their role in the First World War

One of the reasons that the war of 1914-18 is considered a world war is that the European powers were swift to involve their colonial possessions in the conflict. For Great Britain, this meant drawing on territories from all over the globe, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and, of course, India, the ‘jewel’ in the imperial crown. India provided Britain with a massive volunteer army of over a million men, a sizeable portion of which were Sikhs from Punjab in northern India. Their role in the war is now being commemorated by the UK Punjabi Heritage Association (UKPHA) who have curated an exhibition entitled Empire, Faith and War.
The exhibition’s organisers are keen to emphasise not just the depth of Indian involvement in the war (illustrated by the fact that every sixth British soldier would have been from the Indian subcontinent), but also the breadth. Accordingly the exhibition has been designed to describe the full Sikh experience, from the Sikh Empire to the breaking out of war in 1914 and from there, through the varied experiences of Sikh soldiers in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, and of Sikhs who remained in India throughout.

The exhibits include propaganda and recruitment material, newspaper excerpts, artefacts such as clothing, medals and phulkari and of course many excellent photographs that depict Sikh soldiers, their loved ones and their comrades from around the world. The story is brought to life through film footage, sound recordings of Sikh POWs and curiosities such as x-rays of injured Sikh soldiers.

Sikh Poster — A propaganda postcard praising the contribution of Indian soldiers to the Allied cause, c. 1915. (UKPHA Archive)

Empire Faith and War is much more than an exhibition. The project has larger ambitions to illuminate ‘the Great War’s Forgotten Army’ and will do so through the production of a documentary film, a commemorative publication, education packs for schools, a touring mini-exhibition and ultimately, a database of soldiers’ and families’ stories, which they aim to create with the help of volunteer ‘citizen historians’. The aim is to leave a legacy in which this hidden history is a little less hidden and rather more reflective of the size of the contribution made by those brave men from India.

Empire, Faith and War is at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London until the 28th September.

The Auxiliary Hospital at Mill House

July 25, 2014July 23, 2014Michael Noble

The Great War increased the need for auxiliary hospitals, including those based in the East Midlands. Nigel Hunt explains how even one of the smaller units, at Mill House in South Wingfield, was kept busy…

VADs (Voluntary Aid Detachments) were voluntary nurses. The organisation had been formed in 1909, and there were over 14,000 VADs by the start of the war. Vera Brittain was one of the best-known VADs, she served in the UK, France and Malta during the war, and wrote about her experiences in Testament of Youth, published in the 1930s. Other well-known VADs included Agatha Christie, Amelia Earhart and Hattie Jacques. Many VADs were middle- and upper-class women who wanted to get involved in the war effort, and being a VAD was considered an acceptable role.

With the large numbers of wounded, it was necessary to introduce auxiliary hospitals all around the country. These were situated in large houses, village halls, school buildings, and other large buildings. The auxiliary hospitals were attached to military hospitals so military control was retained. Each hospital was headed by a commandant in overall (non-medical) control, a matron, and a number of VADs.

Derbyshire had 37 auxiliary hospitals. These included larger establishments such as the Whitworth Institute in Darley Dale, Willersley Castle in Cromford, and Green Hall in Belper (this last was demolished long ago). Mill House, in Church Lane, South Wingfield , was a Red Cross VAD hospital during World War One. It was one of the smaller hospitals, with only 12 beds.

Mill House was owned by the Bower family who owned the mill at the bottom of the hill (now Taylor’s Mill). The commandant at one point was Mrs Ella Smith, and the matron Doozy Smith It had 88 patients over a period of 14 months. According to the High Peak News in February 1918, Mrs Smith received an honour for her work at South Wingfield.

The matron, Doozy Thompson, with a group of patients on the lawn at Mill House

Plaque that used to be on Mill House. It disappeared some time ago

Explaining the AHRC World War One Engagement Centres

July 23, 2014July 23, 2014Michael Noble

At the recent Connected Communities Festival in Cardiff, Michael Noble was asked to explain how the Centre for Hidden Histories and the other Engagement Centres were contributing to the process of commemoration.

November 1913: The Archduke, Nottingham and a Near Miss

July 23, 2014September 24, 2014Michael Noble

Nottinghamshire, and the University College, Nottingham (as it then was) have a direct link to the origins of the First World War and to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s misadventures with firearms. Professor John Beckett tells the story of how things might have been so different…

In November 1913 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, spent some time in England, and this included a visit to Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire. The owner of this former monastic property was the sixth Duke of Portland, who was lord lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, and also President of the University College Council. In the latter position he was spearheading efforts to have the College upgraded to full university status. These efforts had to be put on hold when the war broke out.

The archduke and his duchess travelled to Welbeck by train on 22 November 1913, alighting at Worksop to be driven by carriage to the Abbey. Fellow guests during their week-long stay included the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, and Arthur Balfour, leader of the Conservative Party.

During the course of the week they spent at Welbeck the archduke enjoyed shooting parties at Clowne Hills, Clipstone and Gleadthorpe, and he and the duchess visited Sherwood Forest, Bolsover Castle and Hardwick Hall.

‘I have often wondered whether the Great War might not have been averted, or at least postponed, had the archduke met his death then and not at Sarajevo the following year.’

FF Welbeck — Archduke Franz Ferdinand at a shooting party at Welbeck

The Archduke had an accident with a gun during the shooting. Portland later recalled that ‘One of the loaders fell down. This caused both barrels of the gun he was carrying to be discharged, the shot passing within a few feet of the archduke and myself.’ Portland subsequently reflected: ‘I have often wondered whether the Great War might not have been averted, or at least postponed, had the archduke met his death then and not at Sarajevo the following year.’

Nine months later, and safely back home in Vienna, the archduke and his wife set out on a journey to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia Herzegovina to open a hospital. They were aware that this might prove to be a dangerous trip. So it proved when they were assassinated by Gavrilo Princip on 28 June 1914.

The assassination made relations between the Austro-Hungarian government and Serbia even more strained than they already were. Under existing treaty obligations Russia sided with Serbia and Germany with Austria. When Germany invaded neutral Belgium on 3 August 1914, Britain was drawn into the conflict as a result of their alliances with other European states, and war was declared the following day.

6th-duke-of-portland — The Sixth Duke of Portland

Through the war years, the Duke and Duchess of Portland played a leading role locally encouraging enlistment among young men, and supportive activities among young women (such as knitting woollen clothes for soldiers in the trenches).

The Duke continued to chair the College Council, regular meetings which between 1914 and 1918 received reports of former students and serving staff who had died in the conflict. He remained President of the Council until his death in 1943. Nottingham received its charter as a full university in 1948.

Duchess Winifred (1863-1954) nursed injured veterans at Welbeck Abbey during the First World War and her experiences in supporting and also miners led to the creation of Harlow Wood Orthopaedic Hospital in 1929 (closed 1995). She was also responsible for planning and opening a training college that could complete the work of rehabilitation for both veterans and miners – giving injured working men a new trade that would make them economically independent once more. This is still the role of Portland College, near Mansfield.