Prisoners of War in British Hands during WWI

[Moonraker]

When I started seriously researching military Wiltshire 11 years ago, I looked in vain for a book on PoW and internee camps in Britain in WWI. A new book fills the apparent gap (and its bibliography confirms that little readily-locatable material has been previously published, and then mostly in local histories and magazine articles).

Graham Mark's book fills the gap admirably, telling of the national administration of the camps, with a section on each of the 57 major sites, ships used as places of detention (mainly on the south coast), PoW labour companies in France, censorship of PoW mail, and PoW conduct and discipline.

Graham has made extensive use of TNA archives and records in the United States, which, until its entry in to the war, inspected the camps. as the protecting power. He has also consulted contemporary local newspapers covering the areas where the camps were based, which must have been very time-consuming,

Published for the Postal History Society, the book has an impressive range of illustrations of postmarks, camp cachets (applied by rubber stamps) letters, maps and ephemera produced by the prisoners.

I had thought there were very few postcards of PoWs in Britain, but the book reproduces a number published by the International Red Cross, mostly showing the inmates in relaxed surroundings at named camps.

One appendix list camps and hospitals used to house PoWs in 1918 and 1919, including many agricultural and other work camps; another lists more than 400 escapees.

The book has 264 pages of A4 size and is available for £25 plus £6 p & p direct from the author, Graham Mark, Oast House West, Golden Hill, Wiveliscombe, Somerset TA4 2NT.