Simon Jones

oil panting profile of a British soldier in steel helmet, khaki balaclava and jacket, goatskin jerkin, leaning on a sandbag trench parapet apparently gazing across no man’s land, his rifle with fixed bayonet next to him.

This wonderful 1917 portrait, of an unknown soldier on sentry duty in the front line, is in the William Nicholson exhibition at Pallant House.

Thank you for your service!

Black & white photo of a young woman in an apron leading a line of smiling children by the hand, passing an entrance with a sign reading 'Les Orphelins de la Guerre' or 'War Orphans'

'Les Orphelins de la Guerre'. War orphans, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France, 9 December 1915. (BNF Gallica Agence Rol gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/b...) #OTD #WW1

Photo expands NQ mining engineer's ANZAC legend | iQ Industry Queensland Military historian and retired Mining Engineer Ross Thomas has built on the reputation of AIF tunneller Captain Oliver Holmes Woodward.

An interesting photo of the Germans occupying the famous Catacombs dugouts at Ploegsteert in 1918. The archive isn’t named but perhaps it’s the In Flanders Fields Kenniscentrum.
industryqld.com.au/nq-mining-en...

I will probably never need to transcribe a document in secretary hand, although I spent a year learning it during the palaeography module of my history masters.

These can't be genuine because we all know that we mustn't refer to the invasion beaches by the sector names.

Colour drawings of breathing apparatus from The War Underground 1914-18 Tactics and Equipment.

Perhaps you have a loved one with a fondness for breathing apparatus? In which case it’s not too late to surprise them this Christmas with a copy of The War Underground 1914-18 Tactics and Equipment.
simonjoneshistorian.com/2024/05/24/w...

Brown card cover of small booklet with drawing of soldier wearing breathing apparatus: Feld-Anweisung R Vom 15. April 1917. 22. Ausgabe. Selbstretter Dräger-Lübben D.R. B. und mehrere D. R. 8. 92. Heeres-B-Type Drägerwerk, Lübeck

Drawing of soldier wearing breathing apparatus with parts labelled.

I’m rather partial to breathing apparatus, so I’m very pleased with my new acquisition. It’s a 1917 manual for the German Army Dräger self-rescuer, used for protection against poison gas and in tunnelling operations.

Water leak in Louvre damages hundreds of books The leak in the Egyptian department comes just weeks after a jewellery heist that put the museum's security infrastructure under scrutiny.

'The museum's deputy administrator, Francis Steinbock, said between 300-400 works, mostly books, were affected by the leak [...] that the volumes are "those consulted by Egyptologists", but that "no precious books" were affected.' 😐

David Bomberg, Sappers at Work : Canadian Tunnelling Company, R14, St Eloi. Drawing as described a man emerging from the shaft, another hauling on a pulley or windlass, men possibly operating a pump, carrying timber. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/2616

David Bomberg, Sappers at Work: A Canadian Tunnelling Company, 1919. Painting as described, a man emerging from the shaft, another hauling on a pulley or windlass, men possibly operating a pump, carrying timber. https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artwork/sappers-at-work-a-canadian-tunnelling-company https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/David_Bomberg-Sappers_at_Work_A_Canadian_Tunnelling_Company.jpg

The 2nd accepted version & the drawing show more clearly a shaft chamber enclosed by corrugated iron, probably supporting a dugout. I’m not convinced that Bomberg actually saw such a structure & seems to have produced the painting in London 1918-19 (Imperial War Museum; National Gallery of Canada).

colourful cubist figures, some emerge from the ground or haul on a pulley wheel, carry timber, sandbags or boxes. Source: https://www.tate-images.com/t00319-Study-for-'Sappers-at-Work-A-Canadian-Tunnelling.html

Bomberg’s first version was rejected by the Canadian War Memorials Fund as too abstract. This painting, purchased by the Tate in 1959, is described as a study of 'Sappers at Work: A Canadian Tunnelling Company, Hill 60, St Eloi', but I wonder if it is the actual rejected first version.

Still from film showing square shaft in ground, wooden windlass over the shaft, man in breathing apparatus emerges. Source: Mining Activity on the British Front, IWM 219 https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060022712

The Bomberg drawing appears to represent a shaft head & windlass, with a figure emerging. This still is from a May 1916 official film shot of 170 Tunnelling Company at Hohenzollern Redoubt. Some underground sequences were mocked-up but I think this shaft head is real. www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...

Lament for a lost London | The Observer

In The Observer, I’ve reviewed Songs Of Seven Dials: @tricksterprince.bsky.social’s fascinating, detailed history of the changing streets of Covent Garden through the early c20th. From race to jingoistic media to gentrification, a book full of resonances today

observer.co.uk/culture/book...

I'm definitely here for working class microhistories.

Pen sketch showing square opening in ground, structure over the opening. https://www.roseberys.co.uk/a0748-lot-607240-david-bomberg-british-1890-1957-sappers-under-hill-60-1918-19-pen

A sketch by David Bomberg, for his official commission from 1918-19 depicting one of the Canadian Tunnelling Companies, being sold next week. There's confusion over whether he was depicting workings at St Eloi or Hill 60, & what access he had to the unit. One day I'll research it (sale link in alt).

Casablanca 3: Strictly Ballroom

By the way, Sylvia got paid more for the Carlsberg advert than the film!!

Ginger cat claws at my leg.

Back with the gingerness.

Dealers are now 'curators'.

On the roof of the musée d'Orsay last month, a Japanese man I'd never met before asked me whether anyone in England still read D H Lawrence. I told him I'd read a play by him the previous day.

No, it's not a Christmas card.

A senseless waste of lovely dessert.

I knew this was Liverpool! 💙❤️

MS letter ‘Seeing I have won a prize with my Last Sketch, I am sending another one. If I should win I would prefer Cigs J. Griffiths’

Verso of cartoon with entry form and original caption “An’ they told us the war would be over by Christmas, an’ ‘ere we are carryin’ puddens for Fritz instead of carryin’ our own at ‘ome.”

Postscript: I bought the cartoon a few years ago from Abbott & Holder, who had acquired a collection that had appeared in the Liverpool Courier. Here is John Griffiths’s letter accompanying his cartoon, a different version of the caption on the reverse, and his entry form.

List of missing, 7/2/1918

List of prisoners from https://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/

On 7 February 1918, John Griffiths was on the list of missing printed in the Liverpool Daily Post. The following week, he appeared as a Prisoner of War in Aalst, Belgium, on a list sent by the Germans to the International Red Cross. He survived the war. 4/4

Canadian stretcher bearers carrying a wounded soldier through the mud of the Ypres Salient, November 1917. William Rider-Rider, IWM CO 2252, https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205195657

The day his cartoon won, the Liverpool Irish moved to a camp behind Ypres prior to going into the front line on 21 December. The next day, the Germans shelled their trenches very heavily for 40 minutes, then raided, capturing 39 men, including John Griffiths. 3/4

Detail from Liverpool Weekly Courier 8/12/1917, cartoon captioned: “ ‘Christmas again, an’ ‘ere we are carryin’ puddens for Fritz instead of carryin’ our own at home.”

John Griffiths submitted his cartoon to a weekly competition run by the Liverpool Courier and was one of the winners on 8 December 1917, when it appeared with his original caption. The prize was either ‘smokes’ or foodstuffs, and John opted for the former. 2/4

soldiers in greatcoats and steel helmets struggle with bombs shaped like enormous toffee apples

This 1917 Christmas-themed cartoon hangs on my wall, drawn by John Edwin Griffiths while serving with the Liverpool Irish on the Western Front. It depicts soldiers in a snowy trench carrying trench mortar bombs out of a dugout. The bombs were known as ‘plum puddings’ owing to their appearance. 1/4

English Civil War pikemen being filmed.

The English Civil War battle that opens Winstanley is scored with Prokofiev's music from Alexander Nevsky and the actors reputedly equipped with armour from the Royal Armouries.

"Some of the 2nd Royal Welch Fusiliers were given a barrel of beer by the Germans, for which they offered a plum pudding in return. The beer, from a French brewery just behind the German trenches, was so poor that the British shelled it a few days later." 🫡