ABSTRACT
During the course of the First World War Britain interned hundreds of thousands of people within its shores. From about 1917 the majority of these came from French battlefields, but throughout the conflict a significant percentage consisted of non-combatants.1 The latter came from two sources. Most originated from the German community in Britain whose number totalled 53,324, according to the census of 1911. They consisted of both permanent settlers and those who happened to find themselves in Britain in the summer of 1914.2 However, London became the centre of an international system of incarceration of Germans and other enemy aliens during the course of the Great War. This coordination of imperial internment meant that different parts of the empire, from Canada to India and Australia, followed the Home Office lead once it began imprisonment from August 1914.3 This global system also meant that Germans in particular found themselves transported from one part of the British Empire to another, while overrun German imperial possessions in Africa also witnessed a system of transportation, which resulted in journeys to camps in Britain.4 Furthermore,
arrest and incarceration in Britain. Civilian internment in Britain reached a peak of 32,440 in November 1915, following the decision to intern all males of military age after widespread anti-German riots in May 1915. Although internment policy had started off tentatively once the war broke out, public pressure and mass rioting meant no turning back from the spring of 1915.6
In the chaos which followed the immediate outbreak of the war a series of short-lived camps emerged in Britain. Over the next few years a handful established themselves on the mainland, including Alexandra Palace, Stratford, Islington and Hackney Wick in London, Lofthouse Park in Wakefield, and Stobs in Scotland.7 During the autumn of 1914 the British government started to transport the thousands of male enemy aliens to two locations on the Isle of Man. The camp at Douglas emerged from readymade accommodation in the form of Cunningham’s holiday camp. This survived until the end of the war and the number of internees there averaged out at between about 2200 and 2800. As late as 16 February 1919 a total of 1354 still lived there, awaiting repatriation. Some men may have spent almost five years in Douglas although the population appears to have changed quite regularly because prisoners moved to and from other places of internment.8 The internees initially lived in the bell tents used to house the holidaymakers before the outbreak of war, but standardized huts quickly replaced these. Douglas divided into two separate compounds by early 1915 consisting of the ‘ordinary’ camp and the privilege camp. Most prisoners lived in the first of these in huts, holding between 110 and 120 men each.9 Jewish internees also had special provision made for them.10
