Body Density Maps

There are more than 100 maps recently georeferenced on TrenchMapper that have come from a collection known as the Body Density series and have been the subject of much interest over the years. See the full list below.

The term Body Density is completely unofficial, its origins are unknown but it is a term in common use to describe them¹. Verbal sources within the IWM indicate they were found for sale in a bookshop in Guildford by a member of staff, purchased and kept at the museum for safe keeping. Sadly they came with no supporting documentation or other evidence of their provenance.

Within the set are two distinct groups:-

• those stamped on the reverse with Sir Herbert Ellissen
• those marked on the cover with the letters AAM in blue pencil.

Some maps from both groups are heavily marked up, some very sparingly

The Sir Herbert Ellissen maps show cemetery locations in a distinctive hand drawn purple ink whilst the AAM maps usually show numbers in some map squares hand drawn in the same blue pencil as the letters AAM. Neither set shows a date of creation apart from the base cartography which is not particularly helpful.

There has been some discussion and research over the years about what the maps show, how to date them and whether or not the information given is accurate. This article attempts to show what is known and what should be the subject of further research.

The AAM maps

Research carried out by Harry Heap² in March 2006 showed the letters AAM are most likely to be initials and the best of fit those is Arthur Albert Messer.

Arthur Messer was born in England in 1864 and qualified as an architect. In 1888 he went to Texas as a partner to A. J. Armstrong in Fort Worth where amongst other notable buildings, he designed the Texas Spring Palace. He returned to England with his brother Howard in 1905 and continued work in architecture. After a period working in France, Arthur Messer returned to England to take care of some private matters.

On the outbreak of war he joined the Red Cross service and was attached for a time to the French Army, later he was a driver in No. 1 Ambulance BRXS (British Red Cross). By 1916 had the temporary rank of Lieutenant Colonelin the General List (which means no particular affiliation to a unit). He was Fabian Ware's second in command in the early stages of the Grave Registration Unit and when Ware returned to England in 1916, Messer was given the responsibility for the Western Front. Both Ware and Messer started with a RX (Red Cross) unit, their work in establishing grave registration eventually led to a Government organisation being set up with the Prince of Wales as patron.

After being demobbed in January 1920 he was eventually appointed as the IWGC Representative in neutral countries and held this post until March 1925 when budgetary cuts at the Commission forced them to cut the post.  However, Colonel Messer agreed to continue his work with the Commission on an 'expenses only paid basis'.  He died on the 14th April 1934 at his home in Hook Heath, Woking, age 70 and is buried in Brookwood Cemetery.    He was awarded the DSO in 1917, created CBE in 1919 and Chevalier, Legion d’Honneur.

Arthur died in 1934 at age seventy and is buried in Brookwood Cemetery. It is fitting to note that he designed two chapels in that cemetery.

Above: Arthur Albert Messer, date unknown

There is no proof that AAM means Arthur Albert Messer but it would be a considerable coincidence that he shares the same initials and had a significant role in the IWGC that relates directly to the content of the maps. One map, ID=m_5_000738, shows ‘Lt-Col. A.A. Messer’ on the cover but not the letters AAM, however, the colour and hand of the annotations look the same as that on AAM maps.

It is believed the maps were compiled between December 1918 and July 1919 when Lt-Col. Messer was working as the Assistant Director of Graves Registration and Enquiries in France.  During this period he had been instructed to select and lay out war cemeteries and plot isolated graves. 

The blue pencil numbers equate to the number of marked burials registered in each square. For example, take squareN.9.c. on sheet 36; CWGC records³ show that in November 1919 when the Graves Concentration Unit visited this square it found just 3 crosses :-

Cross 1 was marked 'Erected to the memory of 49 Australian Soldiers'

Cross 2 was marked 'Erected to the memory of 115 Australian Soldiers'

Cross 3 was marked 'An unknown number of British soldiers'

But it removed nearly 300 bodies from this square for re-burial in Rue-David Cemetery.  There were further recoveries from unmarked graves being made from this square in December 1920, October 1921 and April 1922.

Above: Fragment of AAM map sheet 36 showing the value 3 in square N.9.c. TrenchMapper ID= m_5_000758

Above: The same area on an Ellissen map. TrenchMapper ID= ma_004470

Some AAM maps show cemeteries in a purple ink but not in the same had as the Ellissen maps. It is likely they worked together and may have agreed an informal colour coding but that is not entirely consistent across the set of maps.

The Sir Herbert Ellisen Maps

The maps are marked with his title but as he was knighted at the end of July 1923, the stamps may be have added later as part of his collection- there is otherwise nothing to date them. He was a French and German speaker who held a number of key posts.

He had been appointed as the IWGC Financial Adviser and Controller of Administration in September 1920, so the maps were probably produced so he could oversee the establishment of war cemeteries in France and Belgium.  The information written on these maps show the development of cemeteries, those marked with a 'church with a spire' symbol show that they are cemeteries which have had a Cross of Sacrifice erected in them.  Those with a 'hot cross bun' are those without (although these are clearly work in progress maps as some 'hot cross bun' sites do later get Crosses).  Some sites are also shown with the number of graves in them.

Above: Sir Herbert Ellissen, date unknown

If a record can found when a cemetery later got a cross, that may help to date when the map was annotated.

It is likely they were used from 1924-1926 by Herbert Ellissen to establish how far the cemetery building programme was complete, as he had been tasked with re-configuring the Commission for the post-construction phase.  Ultimately, this lead to some down-sizing of the Commission and the establishment of the Endowment Fund in 1926 (which at the time was expected to fund all future maintenance).

Biographical details:

• Born 29th September 1876Father born in Germany (1837)
• Educated at Clifton
• 1901 - Called to the Bar by the Inner Temple. Became a member of the Stock Exchange soon after being called to the Bar.
• 1910 - Elected to the Committee of the Stock Exchange. Resigned in 1915 tojoin the Army.
• Sept 1915 - Gazetted Lieut. Army Service Corps. Worked on Rail Head Supplies.
• Home- Army Canteen Committee.
• Jan 1917 - Transferred to General List and promoted Captain.
• Sept 1918 - Appointed as Assistant Financial Adviser to the DGRE, Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries
• Nov 1918 - Promoted to Major and position of Financial Adviser with the IWGC.
• March 1919 - Promoted to Lt. Col.
• June 1919 - awarded CBE
• September 1920 - Appointed Financial Adviser and Controller of Administration, controlling controlled a £20 million-endowment fund.
• March 1921 - Demobbed
• July 1923 – Knighted- Left full time employment of the Commission and became Honorary Secretary of the Imperial war Graves Endowment Fund Trustees.
• 1929 - Elected to the Committee of the Stock Exchange.
• 1930 - Nominated as a member of the Lord Chancellor's Committee on Stock Exchange Arrangements in the Public Trustee's Office.
• Feb 1943 - Appointed as Adviser to the IWGC on post-war organisation and
• Apr 1948 - Appointed as an IWGC Commissioner.
• Died 20th June 1952.

Roles

Archive records showed he dealt with and corresponded with major political figures,

Subjects discussed included-

A: Disputes on headstone inscriptions: 

1) Use of Salvation Army badge

2) Use of the Cross.

3) Use of Regimental badges with Cross on Jewish graves.

4) Request for building of Sikh and Muslim temples on-site at cemeteries.

5) Australian high level Government complaints on Belgian overcharging.

B: Bringing bodies home from “Claiming the Fallen” Associations. 

C: Transfer of bodies in Germany to cemeteries outside Germany.

D: 1920 Discontent by Labour Exhumation Companies.

E: 1920/21 Opposition to the Ruling of Cessation.

Above: Fragment of AAM map sheet 57C showing High Wood on the Somme.  Note the cemeteries that no longer exist. TrenchMapper ID=m_5_000761

In books like Phillip Johnstone’s ‘High Wood’ and Terry Norman’s ‘The Hell They Called High Wood’, High Wood is said to still hold the remains of 8,000 soldiers from both sides. Further research is required to explain the absence of markings on the map in square 4.

Ypres Area

Above: Fragment of AAM sheet 28, North East of Ypres. TrenchMapper ID= m_5_000756

Battle of Loos Area

Above: Fragment of AAM sheet 36C. Does not show the blue pencil but the hand of the purple marking matches other AAM maps. TrenchMapper ID=m_5_000759

Arras Area

Above: Fragment of sheet 51B tagged Sir Herbert Ellissen. TrenchMapper ID=m_5_005330

References

1. Imperial War Museum’s page at www.iwm.org.uk/learning/resources/remembrance-in-the-first-world-war
2. Harry Heap’s work on multiple documents at TNA in March 2006
3. Correspondence with Roy Hemington, CWGC

Article contributed by Howard Anderson

Harry Heap . One of the volunteers for the now defunct Friends of the Imperial War Museum was Harry Heap. A small group of these volunteers were tasked with re-writing the IWM’s database of Great War maps, a project that spawned the WFA’s Mapping the Front DVD and TrenchMapper projects. During this time, Harry spent a long time at TNA researching “AAM” and Herbert Ellissen, some of his work is presented here. Sadly not many years after this Harry became seriously ill and died but his contribution lives on with this work and in TrenchMapper’s database- a website he was never to see. Thank you Harry.

List of map IDs on TrenchMapper tagged with AAM or Sir Herbert Ellissen

In TrenchMapper, to see a particular map, right click and Choose MapID Jump then use an ID from this list. 

NB TrenchMapper is not yet finished, a small number of maps in the list are yet to be georeferenced by our amazing team of volunteers.

Most of the maps here are regular GSGS 27431:40,000 sheets.

Other maps tagged with cemeteries on TrenchMapper