'War journals England 1918-1919 and other papers' of Reverend G. L. [Lionel] Smith

Bound typescript arranged in two parts:

Part 1: 'Retrospect; Blackpool, RAMC [Royal Army Medical Corps] Training Camp', pages 1-89;
Part 2: 'Our Catholic Soliders; Meditation; Non-Catholic Chaplains; Difficulties of Chaplains on Active Service; Armistice Day 1918; Armistice Day 1920', pages 1-32.

Personal account with numerous references to military hospitals and religious activity during and after the First World War, and some commentary on the political situation in Ireland and other areas around the world. Other subjects mentioned include labour relations, war compensation, Armistice Day and the celebrations at the end of the war, and prisoner of war camps. Part 1 takes the form of journal or diary-type entries; Part 2 taking the form of essays, some of which were published.

Locations mentioned in the papers include Rouen, [Le] Harve, Southampton, London, Blackpool, Chester, Highgate Hospital, Melchet Court near Salisbury, Beresford Lodge [Birchinton-on-Sea, near Margate], Camrai, Vormezule, Gallipoli, Merville, Chester, Prees Heath, Saxony, Belfast, Palestine, Florence, Venice, Padua, Etaples, Calais, and Maredsous, Belgium, Serbia, Poland.

Individuals mentioned in the papers include US President Woodrow Wilson, Mexican President Venustiano Carranza, Sir Douglas Haig, Pope Pius IX, and Éamon de Valera.

Reverend G. Lionel Smith was a Catholic army chaplain who left England for France in May 1915. After the First World War he was assigned to Westminster Cathedral and was later Rural Dean at Kingbury Green, North London. Reverend Smith died in 1961, aged 75.

The war journals of Reverend G. L. Smith were located amongst the printed books collected by military historian, Colonel T. A. 'Terry' Cave.

Terry Cave was educated at Stonyhurst College and granted an Emergency Commission in 2nd Gurkhas of the Indian Army in 1943 and transferred to The Royal Leicestershire Regiment on 8 June 1946. He served in 1st Battalion in UK as Mortar Platoon Commander, and as Intelligence Officer in Hong Kong. He was promoted Captain on 25 September 1950. In February 1951 he qualified as an Interpreter in Hungarian and then served with British Troops Austria in the interpreters pool, returning to 1st Battalion in 1953 in Germany as Mortar Platoon Commander.

He served as Adjutant in 1953-1954 and transferred to the Intelligence Corps in 1955. He was Military Attaché in Budapest 1962-65. He commanded Intelligence and Security Group (BAOR) 1968-1970, followed by Chief Instructor of the Intelligence Corps Centre at Ashford.

Colonel Cave was awarded the CBE for his work as Defence Attaché Prague 1971-1973. He retired from the Army in 1976, and was Patron of the Western Front Association. He began collecting books on the Great War during the early 1970s, following his retirement from the British Army. He died in 2015, aged 91. Son of Lt Col A C Cave of the Regiment.

Sources: information supplied by depositor; Royal Leicestershire Regiment website accessed 20 April 2018 via https://www.royalleicestershireregiment.org.uk/entity/79203-cave-terence-arthur-cbe

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Presented during 2014

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It is unclear how Reverend Smith's war journals came into the possession of Colonel Cave.

Another copy of this typescript diary is held within the archives of St Edmund's College (reference: AAW SEC 12/15) at Westminster Diocesan Archives, Archon code: 122