Text + Transcription © F.Coakley , 2023
This report is extracted from a collection of short reports on visits made by a Parliamentary Committee to several Camps in 1915. It was an unusual camp in that it appeared to be initially a private venture by a Union to provide suitable accomodation for its members at a site which was probably acquired to provide a retirement complex for members. However post Lusitania the Union apparently washed its hands of the venture and it fell back to control of the Home Office - the large grounds made it suitable for exapansion. In December 1915 it was briefly closed with the internees moved to Alexandra Palace whilst the camp was rebuilt and re-opened a couple of months later with civilian and Military compounds; The civilians were moved out in July 1916 and the camp, later renamed Pattishall became a large military camp.
The report consistently misnames the camp as Estcote.
On Friday, April 30th, I went with Sir H. Dalziel and Messrs. Strauss, Tyson-Wilson and Roberts, Pat O'Brien and Sir Ryland Adkins to Blisworth, from whence we motored over to Estcote Camp, where the Seaman's and Fireman's Union have a number of their alien enemy members interned. This is under the Home Office, as the Distressed Aliens Committee seem to have originally created the camp. The War Office, apparently, have nothing to do with it. We met Mr. Havelock Wilson, who is head of the Camp, and the Commandant. I am at a loss to know the position of this latter gentleman. He was not in uniform, but in a sort of golfing suit with a cap and knee breeches. He is evidently not a soldier and, apparently, not a Police officer. He said he was under the Home Office, but in what capacity and with what powers and responsibility I do not know.
There are, I believe, nine of the Northampton County Constabulary set to guard the camp. The duties of the police seemed chiefly exterior duties, and I saw none of them inside the camp itself. I do not, therefore, know whether they are under the Chief of the County Police or the so-called Camp Commandant. The place is attractive. The Seaman's and Fireman's Union have apparently bought the property, which consists of a nice medium-sized house, and Sixty acres of agricultural land, for an outlay of £3,500 ; Mr. Wilson lives in the house, and twenty-seven acres of the land are enclosed in a high fence put up by the Home Office at a cost of about £500. I am not sure whether they supplied the wood for the sleeping huts and dining hall.
Huts and various buildings, both of brick and stone, have been erected by the immates, and the value of the property must have been largely increased owing to the unearned increment from the free and unpaid labour employed. Whether this is in strict conformity with the often expressed policy of certain advanced politicians, is open to question.
It is not an Internment Camp in the same sense as the other camps I have seen. it is a place of detention, but the detention must be looked upon as to a great extent voluntary, for it did not appear to me that there was much to prevent any man escaping if he wished to do so.
As a matter of fact, there has been only one prisoner who has escaped, and he was eventually recaptured some three months afterwards working on a collier which was employed to coal the british Navy. The camp refused to have him back, and the fugitive is interned elsewhere - in Scotland, I presume, as he was taken to Edinburgh when re-arrested. I am not surprised that more men do not run away, as they live in the greatest comfort, but the fact that one sea-faring man can do so, and be soon afterwards in touch with our most secret Naval movements, is a fact not to be lost sight of.
There were 779 inmates of the camp, and the Government pays the Union 10/- per head per week. As the feeding at Knock-A-Loe [sic Knockaloe],. which is excellent, is contracted for at 5/9 a week, there is a large margin for profit to the Union, and they ought to be able to write off a great deal of the purchase money of the Estate if the profits are applied to that purpose.
It is the intention of the union to make this a Home for Ancient Mariners, and a very good Home it ought to make.
The inmates struck me as in many instences very fine men, a good many of them are old salts, and they all seemed as happy as could be.
To seamen used to long periods in the confined area of a ship, the irksomeness of confinement is less than to the more peripatetic landsmen. They have plenty to eat and nothing to do and plenty of elbow room to move about in
Sleeping Quarters.
There were a few tents, but in the main the sleeping huts were of wood and constructed by the prisoners themselves. they seemed to me too long and too narrow for comfort. There were no side windows, but the men had cut in places holes in the wooden sides. the architecture struck me as distinctly amateur, and I should not care to be in one if it caught fire at night.
Sanitation.
The water supply is good. The sanitary arrangements seemed to meet their purpose, but were elementary. The latrines were placed over trenches, and when the trenches were filled to a certain level the latrines, which were of corrugated iron, were moved on, new trenches were cut, and the old trenches filled up! If the war goes on long enough, the whole estate will be thoroughly fertilized all over.
Recreation.
There was an interesting little "Model Port" in the grounds, where a small brook had been impounded to give the necessary depth of water, There were model ships of all kinds, both peace ships and war ships, with model wharves and cranes and piers, etc. It was all on a small scale, but showed a fund of ingenuity on the part of the makers. There were a number of neat and artistic garden plots, which the prisoners made for themselves.
The whole camp is an interesting experiments; there were practically no sour looks of any kind, as there often are at other camps.
A large Swimming Bath was being dug in the "park", and as the ground was very "stiff" I have no doubt it will be quite easily "puddled" and rendered water-tight.
If this camp be a fair sample of what International Labour can bring about, it ought to be, as years go on, and if the principle develops, a potent influence against men and nations tearing each other to pieces in War. But that is an interesting speculation which time alone can prove.
TNA CAB 45/207 - contains a series of reports found in the collected papers of G Stewart M.P
Graham Mark Prisoners of War in British Hands during WW1 Postal History Society 2007 ISBN 978-0-85377-029-9
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Editor Text + Transcription © F.Coakley , 2023 |
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