As my main interests are photography and family history I would like to take this opportunity over the next few months to share with you some of my recent research work .

David Swidenbank

Part one “The camera never lies”

The first British daily newspaper to achieve mass circulation was the Daily Mail, which appeared in 1896, owned by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe). In 1908 Harmsworth also bought The Times, which was seen as the mouthpiece of the British governing class.

By 1914, his newspapers accounted for about half the total daily sales in London alone. This introduced the era of the 'press baron' in British politics, including Sir Max Aitkin (later Lord Beaverbrook), owner of the Daily Express. Most adults in Britain had access to some form of a national or local newspaper. That said, it is important to understand that this was the period that gave us the phase “The camera never lies”. First quoted in an Ohio newspaper “He looked up from the proof at me and said: 
'Good Lord! Do I look like that?'
'The camera doesn't lie about such things', I replied”. (The Sandusky Register, February 1895)

Today we might argue that we are more media sophisticated, however evidence would indicate this was not the case in the early 1900s; when the above quote was made it would have been considered by many to be correct. An example of this belief is the 1917 Cottingley Fairies photographs, which were widely believed to be genuine evidence of the existence of fairies at the bottom of a garden, when photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths. Two young cousins, aged 9 and 16 were using Elsie’s father’s quarter plate camera to take some photographs in their garden. When processed by Elsie (who had been trained in the use of the darkroom by her amateur photographer father) the photographs appeared to show Frances playing with a group of fairies. After the photographs were made public, the photographer, and photographic retouching expert Harold Snelling was asked to examine them by the girl’s parents. He declared the photos were "genuine and not fake photographs”; he concluded “they are of a single exposure, with no trace of studio work involving card or paper models, dark backgrounds, painted figures, etc." With this stamp of approval, the fairy images soon came to the attention of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a confirmed believer in spiritualism, (and a key contributor of published British war propaganda). He was convinced that the images were conclusive photographic proof of the existence of fairies.

Racism in the Great War

"Lord Kitchener said with the black race, he could whip the world,"

Enthusiasm for the battle was widespread across the Caribbean. While some declared it a white man's war, leaders and thinkers such as the Jamaican Marcus Garvey said young men from the islands should fight in order to prove their loyalty and to be treated as equals. The islands donated £60m in today's money to the war effort - cash they could ill afford

While Kitchener's private attitude was that black soldiers should never be allowed at the front alongside white soldiers, the enormous losses - and the interference of George V - made it inevitable. The Black men who came to Britain to volunteer met with a mixed response. The Manual of Military Law classed these men as 'aliens', even those that were British subjects, and the number of aliens who could enlist in a regiment was limited to one for every 50 British subjects.

When they arrived, they often found that fighting was to be done by white soldiers only - black soldiers were assigned the dirty, dangerous jobs of loading ammunition, laying telephone wires and digging trenches. Conditions were appalling.

A poem written by an anonymous trooper, entitled The Black Soldier's Lament, showed how bitter the disappointment was:

Stripped to the waist and sweated chest

Midday's reprieve brings much-needed rest

From trenches deep toward the sky.

Non-fighting troops and yet we die.

However there is evidence that black soldiers did see combat in the trenches and there are reports of West Indies Regiment soldiers fighting off counter-attacks - one account tells how a group fought off a German assault armed only with knives they had brought from home.

"They called us darkies," The West Indies Regiment solider said, recalling the casual racism of the time. "But when the battle starts, it didn't make a difference. We were all the same. When you're there, you don't care about anything. Every man there is under the rifle."

They also experienced racism from the Germans when confronted by some German prisoners the Germans would spit on their hands and try wiping our faces, thinking we were painted black."

In total 4,000 troops from the Caribbean were killed or wounded during the Great War.

During our local research we have looked at the records held by The Rest Hotel in Porthcawl.
The Rest was built as a hospital in the late 1800s for the recovery and rest of local people in the main from the then large South wales mining community. During World War One it housed Belgium refugees, provided accommodation for new recruits, and served as a hospital for troops recovering from wounds.


A page from the Rest soldier's autograph book dated 1916

we often have photographs passed on to us. one example is attached.  We know that the photograph is of the 23rd(Service) Battalion (Welsh Pioneers) The Welsh Regiment.

They were formed at Porthcawl in September 1915 and the photograph was taken during July 1916 before they left for Salonika they later saw action at the Battle of Doiran Macedonia as part of the 28th Div.

The only person in the Photograph we know is Pte.Isaac Owens who is third from the left in the back row.

Any information on the rest of the men in the photograph would be appreciated

We had four cousins visit the museum the other day all had the same grandfather Thomas Bevan born in 1860 he was a farmer at Manor Farm Newton and may have breed horses for the army during WW1 
In 1911 he lived at the farm with his wife (possible 2nd) and his five children has anyone any information about this family please?

A very successful day at the museum playing its part in the Open Doors scheme