City of Armadale - History House > Records

POSTCARDS -YPRES FRANCE WORLD WAR ONE

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c. 1919 - 1929

Overview

One of a collection of postcard taken before WW1 in Ypres, France. Black and white photograph, showing a row of three brick three storey buildings with attic windows in the pitched roofs. Each of the three floors lined with windows. Middle building has moulded decorations between the bottom of the third floor and the top of the second floor. The three buildings are built next to each other and possibly share adjoining walls. Five doorways on street with two people walking on cobbled street in front of buildings. The left building has a lower roof line compared to the other two buildings. The left building has two visible chimneys, the middle building has one chimney, possibly shared with the left building and the right building also shares a chimney with the middle building. Red text top left corner.

Historical information

These postcards were collected by Mrs Denholm when she was a child living in Ypres. She was born there after the end of WWI. They were a souvenir and a reminder of the town and its links to World War One. As a child she remembers listening to the last post being played every night as she went to bed. Because of all of the stories about the war that people told her, she used to have nightmares about being shelled in the trenches as a child. Her father Leonard Knox built and ran the first cinema in the town after the end of the war.
The postcards represent the interest people had in the Western Front either out of curiosity of seeing what had happened or because family and friends had served and may be buried on the Western Front. The post cards also represent people and communities looking at ways to rebuild their communities and using tourism to draw in people and money to help achieve this.

Details

Registration number

cwa-org-33-COA2007.6K

Item type

Documents

Postcards

Themes

People
Social History
War and Conflict

Material

Cardboard

Width

90 mm

Depth

141 mm

Inscriptions and markings

on front[YPRES- La Chatellenie/ Serue 12 N 25] on back CARTE POSTALE POSTKAART]

Keywords

Year

Statement of significance

This object is part of collection with good provenance and interpretive potential that tells the story of the City of Armadale's connection to armed conflicts around the world from the late 1800s to today. The collection explores the experiences of people associated with the City of Armadale who went to war, their experiences when they returned as well as how these conflicts impacted the community who stayed behind.

Primary significance criteria

Historic significance

Comparative significance criteria

Interpretive capacity

Rare or representative

Well provenanced

City of Armadale - History House

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