As Remembrance Sunday rolls around again for the UK, at a time of saddening and shocking conflict in Europe, the Middle East and around the world, words can fail us. So, for our Remembrance blog this year we are borrowing from John Berger and presenting a ‘picture essay’ – images to invite your own reflections… Read more Reflecting on Remembrance
How to explain November’s Remembrance events to children? Dorset History Centre is proud to be a long-standing member of the Cultural Hub for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, and when we heard that schools were planning an art project to make hundreds of poppies with the ceramicist Maisie Jones, we felt we could add meaning to… Read more The Power of Partnership
The idea of ‘Remembrance’ as a period of reflection on the atrocities of war, and the lives of those who have been asked or compelled to go and fight in them is one which continues to resonate with people. This may be because rather than the ‘war to end all wars’ actually ending all wars,… Read more The Change in Remembrance
During World War I, there was a German Prisoner of War Camp on Blandford’s Milldown which opened in June 1917. It held nearly 200 internees who were accommodated initially in three huts and 30 large bell tents. Each tent was lit by lamps but there was no heating. The kitchen was in a shed and… Read more Milldown Prisoner of War Camp
‘They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, not the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.’ — Remembrance Day this year will mark 101 years since the end of World War I, and with this… Read more The Act of Remembrance
Dorset History Centre has been working with the recent Voices from 1918 project which has been utilising sources within our collections to tell the tales of the people in the last year of the Great War and its aftermath. — Sometimes we can use an account of an event recorded in a diary and do more… Read more “Did they get a U-Boat?”
Staff at Dorset History Centre have been looking at the treatment of patients at the Dorset Asylum during the First World War. Dorset History Centre holds the archive of the Dorset County Lunatic Asylum, covering the period from 1829 -1989. The archive includes patient records, committee minutes, accounts books and plans of the hospital, amongst… Read more Spotlight on mental health in World War 1
During World War One it took only two days for a letter to reach the front. By the war’s end, two billion letters and 114 million parcels had been sent and received by Britain. A few of these have been deposited in the archives and offer a personal perspective on the war. Gifts from home… Read more In their own words: letters from World War 1
Oral history interviews have captured the memories of real people who lived through the First World War, giving us a real insight into life at home and in service. Living with the enemy Dorset History Centre has recently collected an oral history interview from Miss Pat Grove of East Lulworth. Pat shared her memories of the… Read more In their own words: reminiscence from World War 1
Women played an important role in Dorset during the First World War. Dorset History Centre holds an information booklet issued by the War Office to local officials in September 1916. It aimed to demonstrate that women had successfully taken on jobs formerly occupied by men, and thus encourage the release of additional male workers into the… Read more Women in the war
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