A fascinating new book shines a light on the real-life experiences of minority groups in Britain in the wake of World War I.
And from racism and poverty to disability discrimination, these extraordinary letters reveal some of the ‘invisible’ difficulties they faced.
The book, Epistolary Constructions of Post-World War I Identity, has been penned by Dr Manel Herat, a Senior Lecturer in English Language at Liverpool Hope University and a core member of the Centre for Culture and Disability Studies.
She examined the experiences of destitute soldiers from minority ethnic groups living in Liverpool who had previously fought for Britain.
Many of the anonymised accounts come from letters and postcards written directly to the then-Lord Mayor of Liverpool, John Ritchie, asking for help. Those accounts are part of a trove archived by Liveprool’s writing and literary organisation Writing on the Wall.
Some letters were found in the National Archives where soldiers, many disabled, wrote to the Ministry of Pensions. Other insights come from the medical reports of soldiers diagnosed with ‘imbecility’ and ‘feeblemindedness’.
Meanwhile Dr Herat also looked at letters written by soldiers who’d migrated from India to Europe to fight in the Great War. These letters sent back home to family in India were often heavily censored by the British authorities.
Dr Herat explains: “Overall, the letters I examine in the book shine a light on what I believe is a forgotten community of people who really struggled in the wake of World War I.
“And they enable us to explore the connections between language, race, identity and disability”
Some of the soldiers from Africa wrote letters to the Mayor of Liverpool asking to be repatriated, others desperately needed help finding a job having faced barriers to work because of their race.
Dr Herat adds: “The soldiers writing to the Ministry of Pensions weren’t just suffering physical disability, there were psychological issues and depression, and they were writing to convince the government that they deserved a pension because of what they’d been through.
“Meanwhile in the letters written by Indian soldiers I found there was a fascinating tendency to exoticise the Europeans. They talk about Europe as a heavenly place, a ‘paradise’, and the women like ‘fairies’. But it may be that because they were writing home, they wanted to give an attractive and pleasant picture about Europe, when in fact a lot of them had been injured.”
The book may also shine a new light on a crucial piece of Liverpool’s history.
Controversially, Dr Herat says letters written from the Liverpool Mayor’s Office to other organisations show how John Ritchie did, on occasion, try to secure help for those who needed it in his city.
Dr Herat adds: “For me, these letters change how we should think about institutional racism at that time. The letters illustrate how the Mayor of Liverpool was actually trying to help the destitute soldiers. He could have been more helpful, but in the letters he also expressed regret about not being able to help.
“In one letter, he writes to the Colonial Office to suggest the Government repatriates soldiers with a payment of £5. He wasn’t under obligation to pay that money, but he recognised they were struggling and didn’t have jobs.
“The racism the soldiers encountered came from the employers and the unions, not necessarily from the Liverpool Mayor’s office.”
Below you can read a small sample of the letters Dr Herat includes in her book.
“I think it is as little as you can do as to try and get me work. I have been a long time in Liverpool and I got sacked of fairie's sugar factory and I have again tried in the same place but they telephoned to the Bridewell and said they were not going to start coloured men again but I am under the same government as I am British Indian god gave your job try and get me one as I have my wife and child to keep and I have got no place to sleep in but the streets and I am near dying with hunger.”
(Extract of a letter by British Indian factory worker to the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, letter received 28 September 1920)
“Previous to the war I was considered one of the brightest apprentices in the employ of my firm. I passed numerous examinations in Mathematics Mechanics etc. I was the head boy at school and a good debater... Now I have lost confidence and in spite of my anxiety to get on I cannot keep a job requiring any brain effort.”
(Extract of a letter from a disabled soldier to the Ministry of Pensions, PIN26/21766, National Archives, 24 March 1924)
“The suggestion made is that the Government might consider the question of paying them say £5 each with passage and dispose of them as quickly as possible [...] If the Government could repatriate these black men without delay it would not only be doing them a turn but relieve the irritation which the presence of these men causes to our own men.”
(Extract from a letter written by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool to the Colonial Office, 13th May 1919)
“My father and mother, brothers and sisters, you call those your sons and daughters who give you money. Those who do not, you refuse to look upon and you even drag them before the law courts. Here the ladies tend us, who have been wounded, as a mother tends her child. They pour milk into our mouths, and our own parents, brothers and sisters, were we ill, would only give us water in a pot. There you see the brotherhood of religion, here you see the brotherhood of the English, who are kind to us without any further motive.”
(Extract of a letter by an Indian soldier in England writing home 20th February1915)
“I wanted to tell them the utter failure of the difficulty I have had in trying to overcome the many obstacles my disability caused me, somehow I just could not, foolishly I didn’t want them to know, and that has been the reason that I have never submitted bills from my doctors, that I never applied for a deterioration board, after all, I had an income, and the pension was of secondary importance, I wanted to get fit, and have always availed myself of the treatment the Ministry has offered me, but today I find myself a sick man, three businesses have been swept away from me through my inability to carry on […]and I now find myself particularly penniless and in a condition that I am worth nothing to anyone, and still less to myself.”
(Extract of a letter from a disabled soldier to the Ministry of Pensions, PIN26/21728 National Archives, no date)
“Man stares straight in front. Imbecile smile always. Able to give a connected account of himself but answers in short, straight sentences. Has had suicidal tendencies. Used to have delusional feelings and electrical feelings in his legs. He admitted that at first eight men were trying to catch him but that they did not bother him now. Heart condition normal.”
(Medical report of a soldier diagnosed with Imbecility PIN26/5434 National Archives 22/01/1915)
“One gets such service as no one can get in his own house, not even a noble ...These are no fables, this country compared with others is like heaven.”
(Extract of a letter by an Indian soldier in England writing home, 27th May1915)