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Trinity medic awarded MC in WW1

006 NPJ Undergraduate 1905
Norman Parsons Jewell as an undergraduate (private collection).

Norman Parsons Jewell was born in County Antrim and entered Trinity College Dublin in 1903. He was a star athlete in boxing, athletics and rugby and when he finished his medical degree he went to join the Colonial Medical Service in Seychelles. At the outbreak of WWI he joined the East African Medical Service with the rank of Captain and was eventually awarded the Military Cross. Jewell’s memoir has now been published by his family and this guest post by his grandson outlines his career:

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Film of Trinity War Memorial

On 26 September this year a ceremony was held during which a memorial stone was unveiled outside the Hall of Honour, in Front Square. A short film about the project was commissioned by the Hall of Honour Memorial Stone Committee and has just been posted on the College YouTube channel. The support of the TCD Association and Trust for the making of this film is gratefully acknowledged.

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Still Soldiering On

1914-1918It is only right and proper that the centenary of the cataclysm that was the First World War should be acknowledged again and again for the next four years. Trinity College Library has been, and will continue to be, involved with College-wide projects to honour the memory of the people and the times. The WWI Roadshow, which was hosted by the College on 12 July last was one such event. RTE was one of the driving forces behind this and the result, a week-long Nationwide special on the War in general, culminates tonight with a programme shot in large part on campus during the Roadshow. One segment was filmed in the Long Room Hub featuring an exhibition of reproductions of the war-time recruitment posters, from Early Printed Books and Special Collections. There were over 200 of these originally produced, specifically tailored to the Irish audience, and the Library’s collection is the most complete one to have survived. It was presented to the Library by Rupert Magill shortly after the end of the war.

The College Communications Office produced a film on the day also which can be viewed here; this gives a lot of attention to the exhibition in the Long Room of M&ARL material relating to the war.

The Library is also represented on the Decade of Commemoration committee and is the contact point for its website wherein WWI-related activities, and other commemoration projects, which are being planned across the College, may be advertised.

Jane Maxwell

Soldiering on

WWIThis Saturday, 12 July, Trinity College Dublin is playing host to the ‘WWI Roadshow’ in partnership with RTÉ Radio 1 and the National Library of Ireland. This consists of a series of events throughout the campus designed to explore Ireland’s role in the Great War. Of particular interest is a lecture to be given by Jane Maxwell, of the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library, entitled ‘Manage to exist and try and be cheerful’: sources in Trinity College Library’s Manuscript Collections for the History of the First World War. The talk will take place in the Long Room Hub at 10.15am and is part of a series of pop-up talks and lectures scheduled throughout the day.

In her talk Jane will cover subjects such as the logistics of warfare in Mesopotamia (which required the transportation of camels by boat and baking bread outdoors in the desert); Molly Childers’ charitable work in aid of Belgian refugees, among others, (for which she received the MBE); and drawings of the first occasion in history in which zeppelins, sea planes, submarines and ships of war were deployed together.

IMG_7715Also of interest is the exhibition, with the same name, curated by Aisling Lockhart, which has just been installed for the occasion in the Long Room. This exhibition showcases diaries, photographs, drawings and letters, belonging to servicemen and their families, which are housed in M&ARL.

The Department of Early Printed Books have curated a Francis Ledwidge display in the Berkeley Library for the Roadshow.

Saturday’s programme of free events also includes music, poetry and drama events in the Chapel, Great War-related history tours of the campus, cooking demonstrations of ‘the food of WW1’, and a ‘Last Cricket Match of Peace’. The day will finish with the final bugle call of ‘The Last Post’ and ‘Reveille’.

WWI dress medals MS-EX-12_063The World War 1 Roadshow forms part of Trinity’s engagement with the Decade of Commemorations celebrations. A new website has been launched outlining College’s activities marking the Decade of Commemoration.

Estelle Gittins

The talk ‘Manage to exist and try and be cheerful’: sources in Trinity College Library’s Manuscript Collections for the History of the First World War takes place at 10.15am on Saturday 12 July in the Long Room Hub, Fellows’ Square.

The exhibition ‘Manage to exist and try and be cheerful’ will be on show for the next two months in the Long Room, Trinity College Library.