Barnsley WW1 Belgian Refugee Fundraising Badge

Charity badge in aid of the Belgian Refugee Fund
Chronicle article with thanks to the Barnsley Archives

I recently bought a WW1 Belgian refugee fundraising badge from an online seller, mainly because it had 'Mapplewell' embroidered on it, and I hoped it was referring to the village near Barnsley.,which is in my area of interest.

After the 'Rape of Belgium' at the start of WW1, many homeless and destitute Belgians fled to England looking for asylum. In the following months they were redistributed all over England, where local councils formed relief committees to house and care for them.

I had seen many references to Belgian refugees in the local newspaper archives, so I was very optimistic about finding a reference to the sale of these badges. After several days of trawling through The Barnsley Chronicle archives of 1914, I found what I was looking for:

"A successful Appeal was made on Saturday to the people of Barnsley on behalf of the 60 refugees who have been guests of the town for some weeks............ On this occasion the article for sale was a neat badge bearing the British and Belgian Flags & having inscribed on it the words "Barnsley Belgian Refugees Fund."

Barnsley Chronicle 7th November 1914

While this article doesn't mention Mapplewell specifically, I found  many other pieces about fundraising events held in aid of the Belgian refugees through out the Barnsley area, including references to the Mapplewell & Staincross Relief Fund housing a Belgian Family. So I will assume that the pin I bought was originally sold at one of these other benefit events.

I found lots of interesting articles regarding Belgian refugees in Barnsley during my research so I might do some more posts about them.

Teenage Tommies - My family's story

Did anyone see the documentary 'Teenage Tommies' on BBC 2 the other day? It's about the underage lads that enlisted and fought in the Great War.

I'd like to share with you the story of my great grandfather, Arthur Robinson, who was a 'teenage Tommie'. He enlisted underage on 16th October 1917, claiming he was 18 but in fact he had only just turned 17 three days prior to enlisting. This wasn't the first time he'd attempted to join the army, the first two times his dad Enoch, had brought him back home; However, realising that Arthur wasn't going to be deterred, his father let him stay this final time. Interestingly Arthur's favourite older brother Cooper Allen Robinson had been killed in action earlier that same year. On April 14th 1918 Arthur's birth certificate 'turned up' A full six months after he enlisted. (which begs the questions why didn't they just ask for a D.O.B on the enlistment form?) And as described in the BBC2 documentary he wasn't discharged from the army when his real age was discovered, but transferred to a reserve battalion in Ireland where he spent the rest of the war, generally misbehaving and getting himself into trouble until he was finally discharged in 1919.

Luckily my great grandfather's service record still exists, so I will write another post at some point in the future with a more detailed account of his First World War service.

Teenage Tommies is currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer.