P/W Camps under Southern Command

[sjustice]

Hello all,

These P/W Camps were under the control of 267th Protection Company, Southern Command, Royal Defence Corps, as at 31st December 1917. Does anyone have further information or photographs relating to them or their officers?

Evesham P/W Working Camp. Company HQ

Major J.J. Forbes Pelloxfen OC Company

Lieut. T.E. Dobinson OC Detachment & Camp Commandant

Det - 41 ORs

Toddington P/W Working Camp

Lieut. G. Yelf OC Detachment & Camp Commandant

Det - 29 ORs

Peopleton P/W Working Camp

Lieut. C.E. Withers OC Detachment & Camp Commandant

Det - 31 ORs

Leigh Court P/W Working Camp

Lieut. L.G. Marcus OC Detachment & Camp Commandant

Det - 25 ORs

Shelsey Walsh P/W Working Camp

2/Lt. T.R. Ramsay OC Detachment & Camp Commandant

Det - 26 ORs

Martley P/W Working Camp

2/Lt. C. Sprague OC Detachment & Camp Commandant

Det - 25 ORs

Eardiston P/W Working Camp

2/Lt. W.G. Richardson OC Detachment & Camp Commandant

Det - 25 ORs

also:

Slimbridge

Lieut. G.E. Melsome OC Detachment

Det - 35 ORs

Any information gratefully received,

Kind Regards,

Simon

[Moonraker]

Simon

I'm a born pessimist, but I think you will be very lucky indeed to get any photographs. As to information re their COs, Pals more expert than I may be able to advise about the chances of locating their service records in the National Archives. I imagine that the officers were elderly or otherwise unfit for active service.

I've been digging around for information about PoW camps in Wiltshire for a long time, and there is very little indeed, and that is mostly passing references. Local papers and "The Times" yielded a few warnings about escaped prisoners and their re-capture, and the former reported a court case or two involving PoWs stealing food, including sheep. "They are gross eaters", an officer told one court. A couple of prisoners died in a whey tank on a farm, another rescued a pilot from, presumably, a crashed aeroplane; these incidents were also reported in the local papers.

The National Archives had hardly anything specific to my camps, though I recall there may have been material about major camps at Donington Hall and Douglas.

Though postcards exist of PoWs marching at Frimley and at Dorchester (Dorset), I guess these were published early in the war, before censorship prohibited photography of PoW camps.

War Office Instruction 189 of April 21, 1915 allowed German prisoners to have photographs taken of themselves and sent home on postcards, which had to bear only the address and signature of the sender. This instruction was cancelled eight days later (WOI 263), and on May 8 it was ordained that no photographs be taken of a place of internment. (I think this may have been WOI 355.)

A couple of snaps of PoWs at Bulford were included in a photo album offered on eBay recently.

The camps you're interested in are described as "working camps", and I suspect that, as in the case of Wiltshire, these were relatively small establishments providing labour for farms and the like. I'm guessing that they weren't compounds surrounded by barbed-wire and watch-towers but might merely have been barns, for example, where the prisoners slept overnight.

There may a slim chance that snaps of them were taken and may appear in local village histories.

Still, good luck, and perhaps another Pal may hold out less slender hopes of you finding something.

Moonraker