First World War postcards and ephemera

Items deriving from the Blackwood family of Wallingford, Berkshire comprising 14 postcards sent by Ernest Blackwood [of the Princess of Wales' (Royal Berkshire Regiment)] on active service to his wife and children, 1914-1916; six other postcards with messages and eight blank picture postcards; with two other items, a leaflet on the Princess of Wales' (Royal Berkshire Regiment), c 1902, and a list of tolls to be taken on the Goring and Streatley Bridge over the River Thames, [1837].

The messages on the cards reflect the writer's concern for things at home but apart from showing that the writer was still alive, reveal hardly anything of his life on active service. Some news of that kind, subject to the constraints of censorship, may have been included in the letters which are alluded to in the postcard messages, but which sadly now do not appear to survive. As to be expected for the period, the designs on the cards reflect patriotic fervour and the striving towards liberty.

The list of tolls is a rogue within the collection but could have been collected up by an earlier member of the Blackwood family, Wallingford being only six miles away from Streatley

Ernest George Blackwood was born in 1876 and worked as a postman for the GPO in Wallingford. He married Annie Marie ('Nan') Turner in 1899 and the couple had three children, Gladys, William and Frank. The 1911 census returns show the family resident at that date at 3 Reading Road, Wallingford; Ernest was then aged 35, his wife 37, with Gladys Mary (evidently knowns as 'Queenie') aged 10, William Stephen ('Billie') aged 7 and Frank Ernest aged 5. Blackwood enlsited into the the Royal Berkshire Regiment as a Territorial in April 1908 and undertook annual training from then on until 1913. He commenced embodied service in August 1914 and served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium from March 1915. A second enlistment took place at Reading in August 1916. In May 1917, when at Catterick Camp, he was assailed by a first attack of myalgia, caused by his experiences on active service. His condition manifested itself by severe pain to his knee and ankle joints which rendered him completely crippled for the duration of the attack. He was invalided out of the army in October 1917, being no longer physically fit for service. Out-patient treatment was required. His condition was noted as 'non-permanent', but his subsequent life as a postman may well have been compromised.

It is probable that the Blackwoods aquired the list of tolls on the Thames bridge due to its proximity to Wallingford (little over six miles distant). The Goring and Streatley Bridge was built over the River Thames in 1837, replacing a ferry and linking the villages of Goring in Oxfordshire, and Streatley in Berkshire. In construction it was a flat timber bridge comprising beams on posts; it was replaced by the current bridge in 1923.

Source: the postcards; 1911 census returns; British Army WWI Pension Records; Free BMD accessed via Ancestry.com December 2015

The postcards have been sorted by recipient into date order, followed by the other miscellaneous items

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Catalogued by A. George, in accordance with guidelines provided by ICA General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD(G)), second edition, Ottawa; and in-house cataloguing guidelines, December 2015

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