Ephemera of the Great War. Soldier forms, demob account, fund raising

[Max Poilu]

This is a card presumably to be carried by a failed recruit to show he had tried to enlist:

[Max Poilu]

Ration books; British books together with a bacon form and a set of German coupons for bread and flour.

[Max Poilu]

Something completely different, a letter from Ruhleben prisoner of war camp:

[Max Poilu]

The following is a series of discharge and demob papers. The first to Private Herbert Elphick:

Inside:

[Max Poilu]

The discharge papers for George Parsons, former candlemaker. He served with the 23rd London Regt.

[Max Poilu]

This is the demob account for Private Kingman. Note the famous £1 payable on return of his great-coat:

[Max Poilu]

Continuing the demob theme, the following papers concern Ernest Saunders MM of the Royal Engineers, he enlisted in 1911 but nearly all the items concern his demob and beyond. First though an interesting pair of photos seperated by a few years:

Here I believe Saunders is middle row, second from left:

[Max Poilu]

Here he is shown 'surplus to military requirements':

And a clue as to his role in the RE's:

This is a letter from his CO:

[Max Poilu]

And this printed letter from the King shows he was a prisoner of war:

[Max Poilu]

Saunder's Silver War Badge and certificate:

[Max Poilu]

Finally jumping forward to 1962 with Saunders at the age of 70 a letter from the Military Medal League:

[Max Poilu]

The last few items of ephemera are also post war. Beginning with an early advertisment for battlefield tours with Thomas Cook (1923):

[Max Poilu]

And inside:

[Max Poilu]

This is a similar item from Pickfords:

[Max Poilu]

Looking at the text on these pages, this may have been as early as 1919? Fantastic account of the debris littering the battlefields:

[Max Poilu]

Staying with Ypres, a pamphlet from 1923 detailing the Ypres League for ex-servicemen. Much here on planned memorials etc.

[Max Poilu]

Continued:

[Max Poilu]

And the very final item to share; I am fortunate to own the medals and assorted paperwork to Frank Spreadbury of the RAMC. This was what he though of a post-war visit to Hill 60:

[mastermindmichel]

... and always tells a fascinating story.

It certainly does, Max Poilu!

Thank you very much for sharing this.

[shaymen]

Max

Thanks for sharing these.

A wonderful collection of Ephem.... bits and pieces, couldn't spell Ephemera

Glyn

[SiegeGunner]

Thanks, Max, for sharing these fascinating ephemera, which are all the more vivid for the superb quality of the scanned images.

Mick

[Graham Stewart]

Max,

About a year ago and somewhere within the Forum we had a massive post which was well illustrated with soldiers service documents etc, but I'm not sure what happend to it when upgrade changes were made to the Forum. We had documents, pay books, etc illustrated from as far away as Canada and Australia and I even posted a lot of stuff from my own collection. I'll browse through and see if I can establish a link for you, but it all may have been lost.

You have some nice stuff there and it would have gone well with what we'd put together.

Graham.

[Max Poilu]

Thanks all for the comments. My eyes are at last becoming a little bit less square-eyed after scanning and tidying up that lot...

Hi Graham,

That is something I must have missed unfortunately - certainly do not recall seeing it. It is a shame when topics and more usually pictures disappear, sadly it seems to have happened a lot over the years when various changes have taken place and affected many a discussion. In particular I remember a huge 'then and now' picture thread. If you cannot dig it out it would be great if you could post a few things here.

[Graham Stewart]

Max,

Found it after a long, long search;-

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...p;hl=ARMY+FORMS

Graham.

[Max Poilu]

Thanks for finding that Graham, must admit to never having seen it - some very interesting stuff there. If anyone wants to add general ephemera (ie non army-forms) to this topic please feel free or email me and I can host the scans and post them with a credit.

PS, here is a link to a more detailed look at a piece of ephemera, the Army Surplus catalogue posted a few days ago: Surplus 1919