Next Meeting: Friday 8 Oct
John Brooks: Computers at the Battle of Jutland 1916
At Jutland, British and German dreadnoughts fought at distances that sometimes exceeded eight miles. To enable them to hit consistently at such ranges, many of the British ships had been equipped with integrated gunnery computer systems made by the firm of Elliott Brothers. This talk will describe how these early but now largely unknown computers worked, and why their development was, and remains even today, controversial. It will also discuss their place at the very beginnings of computer history.
John Brooks read Natural and Electrical Sciences at St. John's College, Cambridge. His industrial career in computing and telecommunications was with Elliott Automation (later GEC) and the Luton firm of Systems Reliability. While still working as a consultant, in 1992, he joined the Department of War Studies, King's College, London, as a part-time post-graduate student. Now retired from industry, he was awarded his doctorate in 2001. John has also lectured and published a number of articles, mainly on naval fire control. His book Dreadnought Gunnery and the Battle of Jutland: The Question of Fire Control was published by Routledge in 2005. He has lived in Harpenden since 1970.
(This is a change to the programme, as Anne Powell is unable to give her "Women in the War Zone" talk.)
Sept Meeting Report
We started with the AGM, the minutes of which will be available in due course. As acting chairman, Andrew thanked Geoff for obtaining an excellent range of speakers and looked forward to the rest of the 2010-11 programme. A tribute was paid to the previous chairman, Tony Fleetwood, who took over when it was hard to find volunteers and oversaw our transfer to the school. Also he was in at the start of our involvement with the school's Trench Diary project, which had proved a successful new venture for us. It had not been possible to arrange the joint seminar with Milton Keynes branch this year, but plans were in place for 2011. The committee was thanked, as was Mary Cobb for ensuring good refreshments, and also Peter Pope for doing the clippings boards.
Clive Mead presented the financial report which showed a satisfactory situation. If anyone wants a copy of the financial statement and the "Micawber" sheet please contact the chairman.
There was only one committee post to fill and (surprise!) Yours Truly was elected chairman. The committee is now as at the end of this newsletter.
Then we had three branch members to present talks. Brennan Hiorns's topic was The Impact of the Great War on Modern Art. The subtext of this well-illustrated presentation was that society finds its reflection and concerns mirrored in its forms of art. This was ably demonstrated by Brennan as he took the members through an analysis of German, French, Italian and British artists from the viewpoints of narrative art and abstract art.
Narrative art tells a story but is somewhat deficient in its emotional impact. In Britain this was taken even further by the dominance of commercial and propaganda imperatives as exemplified by some of Muirhead Bone's work on the Western Front. Some French artists, although narrative, were less commercially orientated as illustrated by images of the iconic leaning Virgin on Albert Cathedral, French poilus at Verdun and views of "La Voie Sacree".
By contrast, the French artists were seen to be taking art towards Futurism and abstract forms with works depicting the effects of exploding shells on the Western Front. This was particularly true of the pre-war Expressionist movement in continental Europe.
An exhibition of works of these types in London in 1912 had deeply influenced Eric Kennington and Christopher Nevinson. Nevinson was a leading pre-war Futurist at the Slade in London and worked with Picasso and Matisse. In the war he served as a medical orderly in which circumstances some of his best war paintings are considered to have been done. Some of these showed a Cubist approach in their portrayal of British troops at clearing stations together with the angular, robotic image of French troops manning the "Machine Gun" in 1915.
This period of war work from Nevinson was far removed from the rather more cosy narrative images prevalent amongst other British war artists and this culminated in 1917 with the famous picture of British war dead in "Paths to Glory". This was a more narrative style but the British censors denied it a wide circulation as it ran contrary to the expected narrative style. As the war progressed, Nevinson, maybe worn down by the horrors he had seen and experienced, lost much of his dynamism and did become more narrative in his offerings. This contrasted with Otto Dix whose images became ever more frightful as Germany became a defeated nation; a theme which prevailed in his work in a post-war Germany sliding towards Nazism.
In conclusion, the Great War was shown to have impacted art in both its narrative and abstract forms. The pre-war British, removed from the underlying military themes of continental Europe, initially continued their narrative approach to art but found a more abstract voice in artists like Nevinson. The more abstract nature of European art, with its exponents of Expressionism and Futurism, accurately reflected a society anticipating the mechanised and disembodying horrors of a war, a war in which they more acutely reflected its emotional and personal turmoil. (Report by Geoff Cunnington).
Helen Risby gave an excellent presentation: Mapping an Anzac: Finding Private Hines. This introduced us to the website www.mappingouranzacs which is a superb resource. Helen demonstrated what can be found there by concentrating on the service career of Pte. John Hines, who was born in Liverpool and enjoyed a very varied career before settling in Australia before the war. Volunteering for the army, Hines became known as the "Souvenir King", collecting a remarkable amount of stuff on the battlefield, including a grand piano and a grandfather clock! He enlisted in Sydney in August 1915, was medically discharged (aged 28, apparently) but enlisted again in 1916, now aged 36! Helen was able to show extracts from his service record, which was interesting to put it mildly. In 1918 he was again discharged for medical reasons. Hines died in 1958, his age given as 80, and he was buried in Sydney.
Finally we heard from Pam Jenkins whose talk was on the 75th Field Ambulance. Much of her knowledge came from her father who served in this unit 1915-18. She has been able also to consult at the National Archives the diary of Major (later Lt.-Colonel) H A Davidson, the commanding officer. Pam traced the unit's service, landing in Le Havre in September 1915, through service at Armentieres, Nieppe and Ecoivres. Not surprisingly a particularly bad time was August 1916 when the Ambulance dealt with 265 casualties.
Our thanks to the three speakers who showed what a remarkable amount of knowledge there is among our members.
Newsletter Quiz
Answer to quiz 207: Roland Bradford (Durham Light Infantry) Eaucourt l'Abbaye, Somme, 1st October 1916, and George Bradford (RN), Zeebrugge, 23rd April 1918. Geoff Cunnington won and sets quiz question no. 208: David Ivor Davies had a somewhat undistinguished war career initially as a pilot and later as a clerk in the Royal Naval Air Service. By what name is he better known and to what iconic Great War song did he contribute the tune and key phrase of the chorus?
Albert Jarman
We were very sad to hear of Albert's death, on Sunday 12 September, aged 80. Albert had been a keen branch member for many years, in recent times looking after the clippings boards. His quiet good humour will be much missed. Albert's widow, Anne, sent the funeral notice which was sent out to branch members on email.
Branch Diary
12 November: St Eloi: Village of the Craters - Christopher John
10 December: The Austro-Hungarian Conflict in 1914 - Prof. Mark Cornwall
Venue: Room SP101, 1st Floor, Sports Hall, St George's School, Sun Lane, Harpenden, AL5 4EY. Doors open 7.30pm, 8.00pm start. Requested donation min. £3.00. Tea, coffee & biscuits at half time.
