Jeannette "Nettie" Drysdale Bridges was born in August 1889 in Saint John, New Brunswick. Drysdale served as a V.A.D. in England during 1918 and into 1919. The collection currently consists of more than thirty letters and an extensive photograph album.
Title
WWI
These collections contains any material relating to Canada from 1914 to 1918 from either the home front or the battlefront. External links in collection descriptions are either to online attestation papers at Library and Archives Canada or casualty and burial information at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Captain Tillman Alfred Briggs, MC, was born in Victoria, British Columbia ,on June 12, 1887. Prior to enlistment he was worked as a doctor at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Victoria.
Capt. Briggs was commissioned in Victoria on November 23, 1915, with B Section of the No. 1 Field Ambulance, Canadian Army Medical Corps (C.A.M.C.). Shipping for England aboard the SS Lapland on March 11, 1916, Briggs initially trained and worked with the C.A.M.C. at Sandgate. In December he proceeded to France where he served with several units including No. 3 Canadian General Hospital and No. 9 Canadian Field Ambulance.
Briggs received the Military Cross (awarded for acts of exemplary gallantry during active operations) in January 1919, for attending to the wounded while under fire with the 116th Battalion Canadian Infantry, 2nd Central Ontario Regiment. He was demobilized February 16, 1920.
External links:
Capt. Briggs’s service record (Serv/Reg# not assigned) can be viewed/downloaded in pdf format through Library and Archives Canada.
The announcement awarding Briggs the Military Cross was published in the London Gazette on January 11, 1919 (supplement #31119, pg. 653).
[Editor’s Note: All diary transcriptions (including annotations within these transcriptions) in the Briggs Collection have been provided by the collection donor.]
Private Thomas William Brightwell, known as “William,” was born in Norwich, England, into a large family of 13 children. Few details about his life prior to the war are known, but he was by then a father – his son Herbert was born on November 11, 1913.
He enlisted on August 26, 1914, with the Norfolk Regiment, British Expeditionary Force, and by the fall of that year he was overseas on active service in the trenches in France. Information on his Medal Card held by the British National Archives shows he was discharged on December 24, 1917, under Army Order 265 (soldiers discharged for reasons of illness or injury).
There are two letters in the Brightwell collection, both written to his sister Ethel Victoria Brightwell. Ethel had immigrated to Calgary, Alberta, in 1914, and it is through her family that the letters have been passed down over the years. There is also a photo of William’s brother Herbert Brightwell who served in the Navy during the war (William writes of Herbert’s experiences aboard the HMS Glasgow in his first letter).
The remarkable letter of February 6, 1915, is a rare Christmas Truce letter, containing Pte. Brightwell’s firsthand account of a Christmas Day spent together with the German soldiers from the trenches across from their own.
External links:
Information on Private Brightwell’s Service Record (Serv/Reg# 3/8149) with the British Expeditionary Force is not available.
Brightwell’s Medal Card can be accessed through the British National Archives’ Medal Card Index, but requires the creation of a free user account.
George Albert Charles Broome was born in London, England, in 1897 and immigrated to Melfort, Saskatchewan, sometime prior to the war. Broome enlisted in March 1915. He went to England in the fall of 1915 and then to France early in 1916, where he was wounded. He returned to active duty and was wounded at Vimy Ridge, April 9, 1917. Broome was paralyzed and invalided back to England, where he died in a military hospital November 7, 1917, at the age of 20. The collection consists of 27 letters both from and to George Broome, three photographs, and miscellaneous related materials such as telegrams, his personal effect certificate, and his C.E.F. death certificate. The materials cover the period from 1915 to 1921.
William Lester Broome was born in Renfrew County, Ontario, in June 1897. He was farmer in Saskatchewan before he enlisted in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in April 1917. The collection consists of ten letters, some postcards, and one photograph of Broome.
Jack Malcolm Brown was born in Ontario in 1895. His only sibling, Olga Brown was born in 1903, and the two of them were orphaned when Olga was about one year old. The two children were then split up, with Jack going to live with a family in Lyndhurst, Ontario, and Olga going to live with her aunt in Frankville, Ontario. When Jack was eighteen he moved west to Saskatchewan to homestead. He worked as a teamster and enlisted at Prince Albert in December 1915. Brown served overseas in France and returned to Canada in 1919. The collection consists of over fifty letters written by him to his sister between 1914 and 1918.
Robert Gordon Brown was born in Beamsville, Ontario, in March 1896, and enlisted at Kingston, Ontario, in January 1916 while a student at Queen's University. He went overseas in 1916 as a gunner but later joined the Royal Flying Corp, with which he served until the end of the war. He returned to Canada in 1919 and finished his education, graduating from Queen's in 1920. The collection consists of more than one hundred letters covering the period from 1916 to 1919, as well as diaries and photographs from his service.
John George Bryce Hall was born in England in December 1876. Prior to the war he immigrated to Canada where he worked as an acountant in Toronto. Bryce enlisted in August 1915 in Toronto with the 83rd Battalion. He served overseas in England and France with the 124th Battalion and returned to Canada at the end of the war. The collection currently consists of thirty postcards and his medals.
Wilfred Lasca Buck was born in Norwood, Ontario, in August 1897 and enlisted in Cobourg, Ontario, in August 1915. Buck served with the 38th Battalion and the 171st Battalion. The collection currently consists of one letter and two postcards.
Douglas George Buckley was born in Guysborough, Nova Scotia, in January 1891. Buckley enlisted in Toronto, Ontario, in November 1914 and served oveseas with the 19th Battalion until his discharge on medical grounds in October 1917. The collection currently consists of forty letters, postcards, and miscellaneous personal items.
Hugh Buie was born in Colonsay, Scotland, in August 1898. In 1913 he immigrated with his family to Montreal, Québec. Buie enlisted in Kingston, Ontario, in March 1916. He served overseas with the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles, and was killed at Passchendaele on October 26, 1917. Buie has no known grave. The collection consists of four photographs and his newspaper obituary.
Charles John Bunbury was born in Burhampore, East Indies, in November 1871. At the time of his enlistment in July 1916 with the 143rd O.S. Batt. he was the Chief of Police in Kamloops, British Columbia. The collection currrently consists of an undated book of poems entitled "Disarmament and Other Poems" likely written during the war and published after his death.
Private Arthur Francis “Frank” Burnett was born in Crewe, Cheshire, England, on October 29, 1888. Prior to the war Burnett married Ellen “Nell” Jane and at the time of his enlistment had a young daughter, Jessie Hughina. The family lived in Port Moody, British Columbia, where Burnett worked as a steamfitter.
Burnett enlisted with the 121st Battalion in Vancouver, B.C., on April 29, 1916. Shipping overseas on board the SS Empress of Britain the following August, he spent several months training in England before proceeding to France in November 1916 to serve with the 75th Battalion.
Burnett was killed at Vimy Ridge on April 9, 1917, when he was hit by enemy shrapnel. He was buried in Canadian Cemetery No. 2, Neuville-St. Vaast, France.
Content notes:
All letters in the collection were written by Burnett to his wife Nell and daughter Hughina (usually referred to in letters as “Sweetheart”). Writing style can be somewhat challenging. Most newspaper clippings are memorial “in Loving Memory” remembrances. Postcards are mainly of the embroidered silk souvenir type.
External links:
Pte. Burnett’s service record (Serv/Reg# 761242) can be viewed/downloaded in pdf format through Library and Archives Canada.
WWI Circumstances of Death Registers record card (page # 273), Library and Archives Canada.
Burial information is available at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. [Note: CWGC documents (and gravestone) spell Burnett’s daughter’s name as “Hughena.”]
A memorial page honouring Burnett can be visited online at the Canadian Virtual War Memorial.
Wilfred Entwisle Bury was born in England in 1881 and moved to the Vermillion, Alberta, area in 1909. Bury enlisted in Vermillion in January 1915 and served overseas with the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles (Saskatchewan Regiment) until his death on November 15, 1917. See also the Ernest Mosley Taylor, also from Vermillion, to whom he was related by marriage. The collection currently consists of six letters.
John ("Jack") Butterworth was born in Manchester, England, in August 1894 and immigrated to Canada prior to the war. He worked as a farmer in Ingersoll, Ontario, where he enlisted in February 1916. Butterworth served overseas with the 5th Battalion CEF until he was demobilized and returned to Canada in 1919. The collection currently consists of a small diary and two photographs.
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