Cancelled: 25 April 2020 : AGM and Spring Conference

Jessica Meyer: Innovation and Improvisation: The work of the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Great War 

The Royal Army Medical Corps played a key role in the British war effort during the First World War, saving lives and preserving military manpower through the provision of medical care and prevention of disease. Over the course of the war, the work of the Corps developed dramatically in terms of both its structural organisation and employment of innovative medical practices. This talk will focus on the latter developments to explore how innovations such as new trench designs and the spread of first aid practices shaped the ways in which care was delivered over the course of the war. It will argue that, while such innovations were important to the work of the Corps, the improvisational use of established technologies, such as the triangular bandage, by individual members of the Corps also played a significant role. This combination of innovation and improvisation was central to the Corps’ achievements during over four years of conflict. The talk will be illustrated.

Jessica Meyer is Associate Professor of Modern British History at the University of Leeds where she currently leads the European Research Council-funded Men, Women and Care project, examining the care provided to British disabled ex-servicemen of the First World War. Her wider research interests relate to the intersecting histories of medicine, gender and the First World War. Her most recent monograph, An Equal Burden: The Men of the Royal Army Medical Corps in the First World War was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. Her previous book, Men of War: Masculinity and the First World War in Britain was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2009. She has also published extensively on representations of the war in popular culture. 

Talk Two

Dr Robb Robinson : A Forgotten Navy: fishermen and the fishing industry in the Great War

This talk examines the largely forgotten role played for the Admiralty of 3000 armed fishing vessels, 39000 fishermen and many coastal communities on the maritime front line, both around the British Isles and much further afield, during the Great War in the country's unrelenting and grim struggle against mines and U-boats. It is a story that was largely forgotten in the recent centenary commemorations.

Dr Robb Robinson is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Blaydes Maritime Centre at the University of Hull. A Trustee of both the British Commission for Maritime History and the Viola Trust, he is the author of five books and many articles in academic and popular journals, he has also contributed to a range of tv and radio programmes and was an academic adviser to the BBC Series: World War One at Home.

Talk Three

Jon Cooksey : 1917: A Story in a Story

'Have you seen '1917' yet? Director Sam Mendes was driven by the stories of his grandfather when developing the plot for his multi award winning film but other stories emerged which were just as fascinating. Current Stand To! editor Jon Cooksey looks at the detective work behind one of them.

Jon Cooksey was educated at Carnegie College, Leeds, (BEd Hons) Nottingham University (MEd) and Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has written many published works of military history. Jon is regularly interviewed on BBC radio and on TV. He has also led a great many battlefield/military genealogy tours to the Western Front, the battlefields of the Second World War and the Falklands War and he lectures on military history topics to a variety of audiences.