The agony aunt of the First World War
by Dr Roisín Higgins, Senior Lecturer in History at Teesside University
Bessie Walker from York had been married only six weeks when the platoon lieutenant wrote to say that her husband had been killed. It was just a few weeks before the end of the First World War.
She wrote: “I try to be a comfort to his poor old Dad & Mother, they feel it dreadful. Perhaps its wicked to say so, but I sometimes wish I could be old with them, as life feels rather empty at times.”
A project from the Heritage Lottery Fund is aiming to discover what happened to Bessie Walker and women like her in the years that followed.
The project is inspired by 120 letters discovered by volunteer archivists at Ormesby Hall in Middlesbrough.
Mary Pennyman was the secretary of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers Widows and Orphans Fund and was just 26 years old when she began writing to the wives and mothers of men who were missing or killed during the First World War.
Mrs Pennyman’s role was to provide practical advice about pensions and recovery of personal effects.
The letters from across the UK and Ireland, which are now held in Teesside Archives, provide a window into the thoughts and feelings of women who would otherwise remain unnoticed by history.
My mind is partly taken up with my work that really I shouldn’t grumble, I often think of those who are left worse off than I am.
Most try to manage their grief through recourse to religious beliefs and a sense of patriotic duty but occasionally fear, sorrow and anger seep into their correspondence.
One widow, Mary Smith, had to sell her house and take a position as a lady’s maid. She wrote: “It is all too sad as we were so devoted to each other, I get about a great deal with my Lady and my mind is partly taken up with my work that really I shouldn’t grumble, I often think of those who are left worse off than I am.”
Mrs Pennyman herself is also an interesting figure. Her husband, a machine-gun officer, was declared missing during the war and this helped to bridge the class gap between her and the women who wrote asking for help.
She tried to find ways to console them and wrote to one widow: “I am very glad to hear you have the children, they will make all the difference to you, for you will feel that you have something of your husband.” Mary Pennyman died in childbirth at 35 and had no children.
You’ll understand this won’t you. We shall have no one coming home
An exhibition to coincide with the centenary of the Armistice in 2018 will provide a point of reflection on the impact of war on individual lives and on the fact that, for many, the ending of the war did not mean the end of sorrow.
Ada Thornton from Sheffield wrote that she was not so anxious about the war ending now that her brother was dead: “You’ll understand this won’t you. We shall have no one coming home.”
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