You wouldn’t think that a museum
would jump at the chance to add a crumbly broken biscuit into the
collection, but this particular example has survived a century and
began its journey amid the horror of the battlefields of the First
World War.
It survives tucked inside its original wrapper, which was
addressed to a Mrs Maxwell of Meanwood in Leeds. Written on one side
in blue ink is the message:
'Christmas dinner in the Army.
“Give us
this day our daily bread” and please put a bit of butter on. From
Max.'
The sender is
likely to have been Private William Maxwell (service number 4492) who
served with the 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers and was the son of G.E.
and Margaret Maxwell of Meanwood. He only saw one Christmas in the
trenches as he was killed in May 1915 and is buried in Hazebrouck
Communal Cemetery in northern France. He was luckier than his
younger brother Arthur Maxwell who died on 30th August 1914 during
the first month of combat.
The inked message is typical of the
black humour of soldiers at the time and reflects a common criticism
of the food that was offered to British troops on the Western Front.
Although biscuits such as this were not the only food on offer, they
did form a significant part of the diet alongside tins of corned beef
and bread. It was difficult to get fresh food and these biscuits
were usually stale.
This is not a
unique object as many soldiers seemed to have felt that stale
biscuits better served as a medium for writing messages home than as
palatable food. Leeds Museums have another First World War biscuit
in the collection which was decorated, sent as a Christmas card and
subsequently framed.
Above all this is a poignant link to a
very grim Christmas a century ago and a very timely addition to the
Leeds collections.
By Kitty Ross, Social History Curator
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