Clippings and notes., 1924 - 1949

This collection contains papers relating to the lives of two members of the Jones family, Albert Henry Jones and Lina Maud Jones, organised into two series.

The first series comprises letters, photographs, postcards, publications, pamphlets and other ephemera created or collected by Albert Jones while a civilian internee in the Ruhleben prison camp near Spandau, Germany during the First World War.

Prior to the war, Ruhleben had been a harness racing track, but from September 1914 began to operate as a detention camp for civilian prisoners of war, first British citizens and then all male subjects of the British empire – with estimates of maximum camp population ranging between 4,000-5,000 (Stibbe, 2003, p.79). The stables were converted into barracks and the horse boxes into stalls for each prisoner. Jones’s address in the camp was Barrack 3, Box 14.

Ruhleben camp was run according to the Geneva Convention. Prisoners were not subject to torture, nor forced to work, and correspondence between them and their families was permitted although regulated by censorship. The prisoners were permitted to administer their own affairs and had their own magazine, library, postal service, ‘tee haus’ and even a casino. They were also permitted to organize their own entertainments, and had choirs, church services, a theatre, lectures, and various sports leagues.

However, reports of internees make it clear that life in the camps was harsh and drab, and the prisoners suffered from the food shortages that befell Germany during the war. The Red Cross supplemented the prisoners with food parcels.

A few prisoners had succeeded in being sent home from the camp on grounds of ill health, but the majority remained interned until 1918 when they began being sent home in batches. On 22 November 1918, the 1500 prisoners who remained – one of which was Albert Jones – were sent by train to Sassnitz, and then by boat to Hull via Copenhagen, arriving in England to cheering crowds (Stibbe, 2003, p.92-93). Albert went from Ripon Camp to stay with his cousin Elizabeth Jones, at 284 High St, Smethwick. This was the same 'Liz' referred to in some of the letters.

A.H. Jones’ papers contain only one item from after the war: a pamphlet transcription of a lecture he gave, Myself, the other fellow, and workas a lecturer in the educational section of the Leeds Psychotherapy Clinic to a meeting of the Association of Gas Salesmen in Leeds (see item 1/18). This item is not dated.

The second series relates to the work of Lina Jones as a missionary in Roviana, Solomon Islands between 1924 and 1950 and includes clippings, photographs and biographical information.

References

Ruhleben Camp: Horrors of Monotony. Undermining mentality. Tom Sullivan interviewed. (1918, March 17). The Auckland Star, p.5.

Ruhleben Prison Camp: Napier man’s experience. Food not fit to eat. (1916, April 25). New Zealand Herald,p.8.

Stibbe, Matthew. (2003). A Community at War: British Civilian Internees at the Ruhleben Camp in Germany, 1914-1918. In Jenny Macleod and Pierre Purseigle (Eds.), Uncovered Fields: Perspectives in First World War Studies. Leiden, NLD: Brill Academic Publishers.