To celebrate the end of our Archives Revealed cataloguing project, Archivist Sophie Denman showcases some previously-unseen records from the St John Archive!

A scrapbook created by St John Ambulance Brigade member Joan Curtis, 1910s

Joan Curtis was, for a time, a member of the No. 14 Craig’s Court House Nursing Division of the St John Ambulance Brigade in the 1910s. Craig’s Court is a courtyard next to Whitehall in Westminster which is home to a grade II listed sixteenth-century building, Harrington House, and it is thought that this is the ‘House’ in the Division’s name, with the Division’s members likely working at the House.

A photograph of a small lined notebook lying open on a grey cushion. On the left page is a black and white photograph of a female nurse wearing the uniform of the St John Ambulance Brigade. On the right page are handwritten notes. — Joan Curtis’s Scrapbook (Archive ref: STJ/PP/1/1)

Joan kept a small diary-cum-scrapbook from her time with the Brigade in which she wrote diary entries and pasted newspaper cuttings. Her diary entries report on the public first aid duties she undertook in London, including being present at the opening of Parliament by King George V on 6 February 1911, the Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary at Westminster Abbey on 22 June 1911, the King and Queen’s royal procession after their Coronation, and a suffragette demonstration in Parliament Square. She also mentions some less sensational duties at Charing Cross Hospital and a Dispensary in Whitechapel, and includes accounts from inspections of Joan’s Division and of the the No. I (Prince of Wales’s) District in Hyde Park.

A page from a handwritten diary which reads as follows: VII Suffragette demonstration in Parliament Square. Tuesday, November 21st 1911. Met Miss Joseph & Miss Waterlow at Queen Anne’s Mansions & took up station at [illegible]. We were put in Scotland Yard & had a room for the cases. After a time I went out & patrolled the streets – a few cases nothing serious – very funny – came off about 10 o’clock. — Extract from Joan Curtis’s Scrapbook (Archive ref: STJ/PP/1/1)

Joan’s diary suggests a fairly nondescript duty, perhaps, but on further research of the demonstration, it turns out that many women tried unsuccessfully to get into the Houses of Parliament, there was destruction of public property, and 184 people were arrested for throwing stones and obstruction.

Why am I showcasing this item? I love people stories. Where annual reports and articles in organisational magazines can give us the who, what, where, when, and how of the Brigade’s public duties, this information comes from an organisational perspective and can, occasionally, be a little dry. Records like Joan’s diary really give us the thoughts, opinions, and experiences of someone actively engaged in public duties, and this is a fantastic personal insight into the activities of an ordinary person within the Brigade.

Letters sent to St John Ambulance Brigade members regarding duty in Czechoslovakia, 1938

In 1938, the Commissioner and Chief Commissioner of the St John Ambulance Brigade sent some letters to members of the Brigade who had volunteered to go to Czechoslovakia [Czechia] for duty in 1938. Czechoslovakia underwent military occupation by Nazi Germany from 1938 - 1945, beginning with the German annexation of the Sudetenland in September 1938. During occupation, around 300,000 Czechoslovakian citizens were murdered, with the majority being Jews, and large numbers of Czech citizens were also drafted for slave labour in Germany.

The Chief Commissioner’s Annual Reports for this year identifies that a request was made for the Brigade’s services to accompany the British Legion to Czechoslovakia with only two days’ notice. The Brigade’s No. I (Prince of Wales’s) District provided 30 male volunteers from Ambulance Division for this duty, with a group of female volunteers from Nursing Divisions intended to join later on.

The British Legion did not, in fact, make their journey to Czechoslovakia and the men and women of the Brigade did not go to undertake the duty, but given the serious situation in Czechoslovakia , the volunteers were not applying for this duty lightly.

A page of typed information and instruction. — Correspondence relating to the St John Ambulance Brigade’s intended duty in Czechoslovakia [Czechia], 1938 (Archive ref: STJ/SJO/6/1/1)

The letter from the Brigade’s Commissioner conveys the real gravity that the intended duty involves, and he references the need for ‘self control’ suggesting that the volunteers would need to keep themselves in check regardless of what they witnessed, and to only go about their duties as ambulance attendants and first aiders. His letter also instils a sense of pride in the organisation and work, and while this duty did not go ahead, these records are an example of the high regard in which the Brigade was held, and the trust that people saw in the Brigade’s members to undertake an honest and good job in aiding the care of humanity, at a time when a great pressure was beginning to be placed on humanity.

Annual Returns for the No. 6 Hospital Saturday Fund Nursing Division

When the Brigade started, men and women met and trained separately, never the twain should meet, with men forming Ambulance Divisions and women forming Nursing Divisions. The No. 6 Hospital Saturday Fund Nursing Division was the sixth Nursing Division established in London, and it was established on 1 July 1893. 

The Hospital Saturday Fund, the charity from which the Division got its name, was founded in June 1873, at a time when there was little coordination of health services and a lack of nutrition, overcrowding, poverty, and ill health was prevalent. The Fund was formed for people in employment to pay a regular weekly amount to aid in this area, and as Saturday was payday in those days, ‘Hospital Saturday Fund’ was the chosen name. The Division’s members came from the Hospital Saturday Fund, and the Division took its name from the Fund. It was a closed Division, meaning that it was closed to the public and open only to a particular organisation, and in this case, it was the Fund. 

Annual returns were organisational records completed at the end of each calendar year by the each Division’s Superintendent. They capture information about the numerical strength of the Division; who was in the Division, and the training and duties the Division’s members had undertaken. Each Ambulance, Nursing, and Cadet Division within the Brigade was required to complete one of these at the end of each year, and we have records like these for 532 individual Divisions of the Brigade in the Archive (and those are one the Divisions we’ve catalogued, there are probably many more yet to be worked on!)

Annual returns for the No. 6 Hospital Saturday Fund Nursing Division dated 1917 (Archive ref: STJ/SJAB/1/2/6/1)

When looking at the annual returns for a Division over multiple years, these records are a great way of exploring how a Division developed and maybe waned over the years; what its retention rate was like, and how engaged it was in first aid duties. It’s another great way to explore the work and activities of the people on the ground, doing the first aid work of St John.

Plans for a royal review of the Brigade in Hyde Park, 1956

Whether it be for just one local Division, a county, or larger groups such as this example, reviews of the Brigade were quite common in the twentieth century, where members marched and performed drills, and were inspected en-masse. Royal reviews events like this were huge feats of organisation, and these records speak to St John’s connection with the Royal family at the time, the Brigade’s ability to organise large-scale events, and the pride of the organisation in its members.

We know that this event was a review of over 20,000 members of the Brigade, and it was attended by Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret, and other members of the royal family. The organisation of the event was on a vast scale, with strict instructions given to the attending Brigade members on when and where to arrive, what to wear, and where to stand.

Plans for the Royal Review of St John Ambulance Brigade Divisions in Hyde Park, 1956 (Archive ref: STJ/SJAB/11/1/3)

These records provide some of those instructions, with two records in particular bringing this event together visually. One is a stark internal quick-view identification of where the Ambulance, Nursing, and Cadet Divisions stand and the Regions of the Brigade which were represented. The other is this detailed diazotype (a printmaking technique created as an alternative to a blueprint), which provides a scale plan of Hyde Park and the locations where the Brigade would assemble, prepare, and parade.

To really bring these records to life, there is a brief Pathé News video of the event which gives you an idea of the sense and scale which you can view on YouTube here.

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You can access the St John Archive’s catalogue on Collections Online here.