During the First World War thousands of soldiers and civilians spent time in captivity, many for the duration of the conflict. Gateways to the First World War is supporting a new project by Westgate Community Trust Canterbury, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), exploring the experiences of camp life and the cultural pursuits that Allied prisoners developed behind the barbed wire. This free study day brings together some of the latest academic research on internees and prisoners of war and will be part of a weekend of events launching the Hidden Culture in Captivity project.
Book your free place here.
Programme:
10:30-11:00: Registration and refreshments
11:00-11.10: Welcome and introduction from Dr Emma Hanna (University of Kent) and Clare Millett (Westgate Community Trust)
11:10 – 12.00: Dr Oliver Wilkinson (University of Wolverhampton) – British Prisoners of War in Germany
12:00 – 12.50: Prof. Matthew Stibbe (Sheffield Hallam University) – The internment of British civilians
12:50 – 13.30: Lunch
13:30 – 14.20: Dr Emma Hanna (University of Kent) – Music in POW camps
14:20- 14:30: Clare Millett and Mary Kemp (Westgate Community Trust): Introduction to the HLF-funded Hidden Culture in Captivity project.
14:30 – 15.00: Q&A session chaired by Dr Sam Carroll (Gateways to the First World War)
15:00: Event ends
Mary Kemp’s collection of POW material available for participants to browse during registration and lunch.
Speaker biographies:
Matthew Stibbe is Professor of Modern European History at Sheffield Hallam University. He has published extensively on civilian captivity during the First World War in the British, German and Austro-Hungarian, as well as European-wide and global contexts, and his latest book on this subject is due to appear with Palgrave Macmillan in 2020. He is also co-editor, with Stefan Manz and Panikos Panayi, of the essay collection Internment during the First World War: A Global Mass Phenomenon, forthcoming with Routledge in 2018.
Oliver Wilkinson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Wolverhampton. His research focuses on the history of captivity during the First World War, to-date examining the experiences of British servicemen captured by the Germans during the conflict. His findings in this area have been published in British Prisoners of War in First World War Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2017). He is currently researching inter-allied relations within German captivity as well as the experiences of ex-servicemen (including ex-POWs) and ex-servicewomen in Britain and Ireland after the First World War.
Emma Hanna is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of History at the University of Kent. Emma has published widely on First World War history including contemporary memory, memorialisation, the media and wartime culture. Her second monograph - on music and morale in the British Forces 1914-18 – will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2019.
We recommend that visitors use public transport to reach the venue, which is approximately 10 minutes’ walk from Canterbury West railway station and 15 minutes’ walk from Canterbury East railway station. Parking is available in the adjacent Pound Lane car park at £1.50 an hour and in other city centre car parks. Information about travelling to Canterbury can be found here.
For further information about this event please contact Dr Zoe Denness at gateways@kent.ac.uk.
Other events:
Westgate Community Trust will be hosting a workshop, lecture and concert on Saturday 2nd June.
Workshop from 11am – 2pm, drop-in, free admission, refreshments available. An explore and discover workshop for all ages: find out about the varied experiences of prisoners of war, help us unearth their stories and connections to Canterbury.
Lecture and concert on Prisoners of War 1914-1918. Given by local historian, researcher and violinist Mary Kemp. Exploring stories plus connections to Canterbury. 6pm - Doors open and welcome drinks. 7pm - Performance. Admission is free. Book your place here.
