In this November blog, I am using the V&A Archive to investigate the stories of sixteen members of V&A staff who lost their lives during the First World War. Their names are listed on a memorial plaque which sits near the Cromwell Road entrance of the museum.
Gerald Siordet, one of those listed on this memorial, had worked in the V&A before 1914 as a temporary cataloguer on the Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, and is mentioned by Eric Maclagan (former Keeper of the Department of Architecture and Sculpture and later Director of the Museum) in the prefatory note to the catalogue. ‘On the outbreak of the War [Siordet] enlisted at once as a volunteer and served in the Rifle Brigade, first in France and later in Mesopotamia, where he was killed early in 1917.’
Siordet was a poet and artist. He had links with several well-known artists working before and during the first World War, and several completed portraits of him. His Private Papers are held at the Imperial War Museum.
Hopton-wood Stone with incised lettering, by Eric Gill (1882-1940) signed & dated 1919-20.
So it is with great pleasure that I have been cataloguing portrait photographs of some of them. A large proportion of the V&A Staff Photographs series (MA/20) is occupied by portraits of our Directors, unsurprisingly, so we are very lucky to also hold a visual record of a small number of the museum’s many Cleaners, Warders, Attendants and Repairers. These might be the only surviving photographs of some of these men.
Using an Establishment List volume from the year 1912 (archive reference MA/60/10/3), it is possible to find out what some of these members of staff were doing, when they were born, how much they were paid and their employment history. Not having access to an Establishment List from 1914 means I have not been able to find information about all sixteen, as some must have joined the V&A after 1912.
There are twelve photographs in the subseries dedicated to this group (archive reference MA/20/2/1).
Hugh Arnott, Royal Artillery.
Born 1882, killed in France 19 October 1917.
Cleaner on £65 pa.
E.J. Biggs, 1st Class Boy HMS Russell, died 1916.
Does not appear in the Establishment list.
Alfred Arthur Bunting, London Regiment.
Born 1881, killed in action, France, 14 July 1917.
Carpenter on £110 6s 9d pa.
Leonard Callender, Royal Field Artillery.
Born 1887, killed in Battle of the Somme, September 1916.
Warder-Cleaner on £72 16s pa.
Alfred Clark, Military Police Corps.
Born 1872, accidentally killed by falling from a motor car at Mansfield, 1916.
Warder-Cleaner on £72 16s pa.
James Fergusson, 1st Battalion Royal West Surrey Regiment.
Born 1884, killed in the Battle of the Marne, 1914.
Warder-Cleaner on £72 16s pa.
James J. Laws, Royal Marine Light Infantry.
Born 1872, killed in the Dardanelles, 1915.
Warder-Cleaner on £72 16s pa.
C.G. Mills, died in Baghdad, May 1916.
Does not appear in Establishment List.
William F. Quickenden, London Regiment.
Born 1895, killed in France, March 1918.
Boy Messenger in Architecture & Sculpture Dept. on £31 4s pa.
Thomas Stratford, HMS Hogue.
Born 1873, died 1914.
Art Workroom Repairer on £114 8s.
Herbert Wyer, Coldstream Guards.
Born 1883, killed at Ypres, November 1914.
Warder-Cleaner on £72 16s pa.
Three of the men listed do not have portraits in series MA/20/2/1:
William Ives (born1882), rank and regiment not known. Cleaner on £65 pa.
A. McLean, rank and regiment not known. Does not appear in Establishment List.
Corporal William Thomas Toomey (1887-1918), Leinster Regiment, 2nd Battalion. Attendant 2nd Class on £62 pa.
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