This is a guest post connected with our work on Keighley’s Supplementary Volume, under the proposal to add further names in 2024, the centenary of the original roll of honour. Supported by the National Lottery’s Heritage Fund, our project explains the reason for adding more names and the process by which the roll of honour and war memorial were created. The unveiling of the Supplementary Volume book with it’s 103 new names took place in November 2024, 100 years after the unveiling of the original war memorial and roll of honour book.
Guest blogger Gina Birdsall has kindly written the post below for us, about the Archives in Keighley Library. This unique and important collection is of particular use to researchers in wartime studies. Gina has focused on the special archives held at Keighley and how they may be accessed.
Gina works at Keighley Library as an archivist and member of the Local Studies Library staff. Along with staff members Janet Mawson and Angela Speight, she is particularly well respected for her detailed knowledge as a custodian of the archives of our town and we are very grateful for her help with the whole project to add further names to Keighley’s Roll of Honour Book.
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Keighley Local Studies Library & Archives.
World War One and Two Records:
Keighley Library is fortunate to have a unique collection of war records, not only for the local area but including national government information booklets and information leaflets. The collection is mainly centred on World War 1 but records for World War 2 also feature.
War Hospitals Collection:
The most unique archive that we hold is the Patients’ Register for Keighley’s War Hospital that includes summary of admission, injury and release details. Keighley’s War Hospital was the former Keighley and Bingley Fever Hospital at Morton Banks and included local auxiliary hospitals: Spencer Street, Fell Lane, and Victoria. Up to June 1919-13, 214 soldiers were admitted to Keighley hospitals, they included mostly medical or surgical cases but also 105 German POWs and 156 soldiers suffering from gas poisoning. The Keighley Surgical Supply Depot, employing local women, produced over 108,700 swabs and bandages. The register records the names of German prisoners of war who were being held locally and who required treatment from time to time, notably from the influenza epidemic.
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Keighley Library also holds the publication, Recollections of the War Hospital Keighley and its Auxiliaries 1916-1919. The brochure gives an excellent account of Keighley’s own contribution to medical advancement during the war, as in the use of locally sourced sphagnum moss for dressings and, as the following extract shows, from page 44:
The selection of Keighley War Hospital as a centre for American Surgeons to see the latest developments in Military Surgery proved interesting interludes in the daily routine. To some 30 American Red Cross Surgeons a series of lectures on modern methods of treating wounds, gas gangrene, gas poisoning, &c., was delivered by Major Brander, while in the wards demonstrations and clinical discourses on methods of dealing with the more interesting and obscure results of modern warfare were given by Majors Dobie and Brander.
Nurses and Patients:
Despite their shocking war experiences and in some cases devastating injuries, the publication, War Hospital Echoes, Keighley, produced by the staff and patients of Keighley War Hospital and its auxiliaries, also reveals humorous sketches and cartoons. At the time, the profits from the sales of this production were fittingly given to the Wounded Soldiers’ Fund.
The collection also includes the Dr Scatterty collection. Dr William Scatterty was Keighley Medical Officer of Health during WW1. This collection includes news cuttings and photograph albums showing the hospital wards but also the grounds of the hospital at Morton, leisure activities of nurses with patients including boating on the river, that were made available by the staff to help patients with recovery and rehabilitation, for many for just a short time before returning to active service.
Brigg Family Collection.
The Brigg family was amongst the most prominent and philanthropic families of the 19th and early 20th centuries in Keighley. The family members became involved in the religious, educational, economic, and political aspects of the town’s development and so in the arrangements for recruitment for war service and fund raising. The Brigg collection therefore has a large WW1 collection of mayoral correspondence and local and national material including international relief, POWs, the Red Cross Society, motor ambulances and women’s employment.
Keighley Borough Collection:
The Keighley Borough collection includes Council minutes, committee minutes such as the War Relief Committee and two miscellaneous collections of national government booklets, flyers and information leaflets that reflect life on the Home Front. The WW2 collection is particularly good including subjects such as war-time gardening, food rationing (with recipe books), air raid precautions, gas protection and first aid, German war propaganda and fund raising.
News Cuttings, Scrapbooks and Service Personnel in the newspapers:
Service Personnel Index for WW1 & 2: Over the years two very useful indexes of service personnel have been produced by library staff for both World Wars. They are indexed by surname. Vital for local family history research, these have proved an invaluable contribution to the Queen’s Award winning Men of Worth Project in particular.
H. A. France Scrapbooks: Herbert Arthur France was born in Keighley and became chief reporter and then sub-editor for the Keighley News. The library holds his notebooks and scrapbooks that cover Keighley’s record in the Great War 1914-1918 including recruitment, hospitals, relief funds, armistice, repatriation, and a diary of events. The “War News” scrapbooks include cuttings, photographs, remembrance programmes, post cards, and ration books.
An index for all these books is available at the library counter.
Local Rolls of Honour and Yorkshire War Memorial Records:
Keighley Library has been blessed over the years by the diligent recording of war memorials by local volunteers and we now have photographs and transcriptions of local and Yorkshire war memorials. Ian Walkden of the Men of Worth in particular has done much to bring to light lost memorials and raise awareness of their local importance. The Library also holds service listings and of course the Keighley Roll of Honour for WW1.
Photographs, Maps and Plans:
Keighley Library holds its own collections of photographs that show life in Keighley and these are supplemented by the Keighley & District Photographic Society archive. Both show some aspects of life on the domestic front during the war time years and later peace commemorations, however, there are no specific collections of photographs for WW1 and WW2 outside those individual Keighley family collections and the war hospitals collections, apart from an album for the West Riding Volunteers, Keighley 6th battalion.
Maps and plans of the town are available, including plans of some air raid shelters in Keighley and there are two unique c1942 war maps produced by the German Army General Staff showing military data for the Keighley area.
Servicemen/women, family collections and war work on the Home Front:
There are a few collections of servicemen during the war and of the nursing experience. There are accounts of new school leavers entering the war in the Keighley Boys’ Grammar school collection while individual family collections can include identity papers, ration books, diaries, even notebooks of air raid wardens. References to life on the Home Front can be found in these and in collections such as Dean Smith & Grace Ltd that includes the National Shell Factory and Ambulance Volunteers.
Loan and reference histories and guides to the genealogy of service personnel:
Of course, the library has a book collection including histories of local regiments, of the two wars and books describing the local and national home front experience. This collection includes those books written by the former local lad, Keighley Reference Librarian and local historian, Dr Ian Dewhirst MBE whose own book, Keighley in the Second World War is a major contribution to our local knowledge for this time.
The importance of Archives to local schools:
Local schools have used the archive to look into the experience of war on all fronts and one acclaimed project was that undertaken by local Parkwood School. The study is available in the library and online.
For further information on the wider dissemination and use of our archives within the community and on many other topics, please check out our Local Studies’ web site and blog where you will find many useful guides to our holdings. https://bradfordlocalstudies.com/
Information sources:
War hospitals –
BK 29 Dr Scatterty collection
BK 39 Keighley War Hospital patients’ register.
Recollections of the War Hospital Keighley and its Auxiliaries 1916-1919 and War Hospital Echoes journal, both 001 Collection.
Brigg Family Collection
Family collection BK 10
War records BK10/680-BK10/698
Keighley Borough Collection
War Relief Committee Minute Books 1914-1927 BMT/KE 2/18/1
Town Clerk’s Box Recruitment Correspondence BMT/KE 4/3/15-33
Prisoner of War Brotherhood Fund 1919-1925 BMT/KE 2/31/1
Keighley & District with Bingley War Hospital Fund BMT/KE 2/32/7
Keighley Borough miscellaneous WW1,2 collections BMT/KE 10
News cuttings, Scrap books and Personnel reports
Soldiers’ index and WW2 scrapbook on open access.
H.A. France Notebooks and Scrapbooks collection BK 424
Photographs, Maps and Plans
Keighley Library’s archived photographs general and BK 36
Keighley & District Photographic Society volumes, index at the counter
German WW2 maps BK 637
Local Rolls of Honour and Yorkshire War Memorial Records
Please find at the library counter
Servicemen/women, family collections and war work on the Home Front
Individual collections of servicemen and women are listed in the archive catalogues available at the library counter.
Keighley Trade & Grammar School war experiences: BK 280/3/1b,5 also the Keighlian school magazine for the war years are on open access and in BK 609
National Shell Factory and Ambulance Volunteers, BK 104 also photographs of the shell factory in the Keighley & District Photographic Society albums.
Please ask at the library counter for any help you require.
All content and photographs kindly supplied by Gina Birdsall.
