At Bodmin Keep we have been entrusted to protect and care for thousands of artefacts that have held meaning to individuals and groups. In our archive, the care regime involves checking documents and photographs one by one, ensuring they are properly stored and recorded in our database. This process provides the opportunity to update our catalogue, adding detail and context for researchers. For the archivist, these historic items stir all kinds of emotions: joy, sadness, pride, awe, anger, frustration and curiosity. In this way, we are reconnected with our collective past, with these items reminding us why we work or volunteer in a museum.
During one of these cataloguing exercises, an envelope containing items belonging to First World War soldier Private Augustus Hutchings of the 1st Battalion Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry proved fascinating. The three items enclosed were a small copy of the New Testament, a soldier’s record book and a photograph. While there are many New Testaments in our archive, Hutchings’s Bible stood out due to the personal annotations and 32 photographic portraits glued to the inside cover.
In the bottom left of the inside cover the text reads: “a few of the boys who actually fought at Mons and on the Retreat from that town to the Marne Aug-Sept 1914”. On the flyleaf, there is a colour drawing of a DCLI badge above text that reads: “Whoever may possess this little book please do not destroy it as it was a treasured link between two Comrades of the GT War, one from the North of England the other from the West thus were the men of the Services drawn close together from the far corners of the Empire during that terrible time 1914-18.”
The next page reveals a watercolour of the Allied Flags with the text: “Allied Flags: drawn and coloured by my old pal and comrade Seaman H Thompson of HMS Sattelite [sic] who died while a prisoner-of-war in Germany during the flu epidemic of 1918. Always remembered by his old friend Pte A Hutchings of the 1st Battn Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry”. The prior ownership of the Bible by Thompson is indicated on the title page which is signed: “H. Thompson. A.B.”
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website records that Able Seaman (AB) Henry Taylor Thompson, Service Number Tyneside 2/200 stated to be serving with The Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Collingwood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division died on 27th October 1918, aged 22. He is buried in Berlin South-Western Cemetery.
There are several questions left unanswered which will require hours of research to find the answers. Who are the men in the portraits? How did Hutchings and Thompson know each other? It seems possible that Private Hutchings was also a Prisoner of War, who may have been wounded. Can we piece together the fuller story of these two men? The image that follows shows a photograph from the same envelope that unfortunately, like so many images in our archive, have no names, just the text “Italy May 1918”.
This story of war and friendship reminds us of why the items preserved in our archives at Bodmin Keep are so valuable. Indeed, the handwritten plea on the flyleaf to “not destroy” the Bible almost reads as if it is directed to future archivists.