RunCoCo

98 years ago today, 3 September 1915, Mostyn Williams, a private of the A Company, 11^th Batt., ‘The Welsh’ Regiment, picked up his pen and started recording his experiences of active service during the First World War.

 First entry: September 3^rd 1915
In army 1 year. Preparing kit for departure.

He was shipped to France the following day, and later to the Balkans. For over two years he documented his life at the front in brief but poignant daily entries. He writes about daily routines, training and leisure among the horrors of war, offering us an insight into what life at the front could be like.

June 9^th 1917
Enemy plane over at dawn, flying very low & firing machine gun into our camps, 4 killed, 10 wounded. Cold shower at R.A.M.C. bath house, getting quite clean.
10^th Sunday
Windy & inclined to rain, bath at R.A.M.C, lazed about for remainder of day.
11^th
Coy. drill & general parades, very warm.
12^th
Work on communication trench past control post, much aerial activity, one anti-aircraft H.E. dropped very near us while working.

Williams records both mundane and special events with a similar degree of detachment. He rarely voices negative thoughts or feelings, other than stating that he is tired, thirsty, or wet. That makes the entries where he does allow himself to express his horror all the more affecting:

September 13th, 1916
Prussians in huge numbers counterattack, we played havoc with our shrapnel but eventually had to retire, saw many of our boys wiped out with machine guns, wounded limping back to our trenches under murderous shrapnel fire, many ghastly scenes, too horrible to record.

Living under hard and testing conditions, Williams nevertheless manages to see and the positive, usually in a curt and unsentimental fashion, which in some ways makes these entries all the more moving:

January 16^th 1916,  Sunday
Thawing, first butter for 2 months, wonderful moonlight effect on snow.
17^th
Lovely day. Bob ill.
18^th
Lovely day, good louse.
19^th
Orderly.
20^th
Building trench all day.
21^st
Same old job, cold.
22^nd
Ditto

In September 1917, just over three years after joining up and after two years of life at the front, Williams is seriously wounded:

September 23^nd 1917 Sunday (entry re-created afterwards, as noted in his diary)
Enemy send over T.M.s into our trenches. Went on right post again at night. Bulgars send down party to bomb post. They landed one bomb amongst us, wounded me in the abdomen & thigh. Had a terrible journey down to F.A., spent the night there & was taken in motor to 31^st Clearing Station at Janis. Operated on immediately. The first 7 days were terrible, great pain & continuous injections of morphia, but after this period became much better.

He is initially treated locally, and after about a month sent by hospital ship to Malta, where he spends another two months before returning to the UK in early January 1918. After a short convalescence in hospital he can go home on leave on January 21 1918.

After that, the diary only contains a few short notes about the following year in Williams’s life. He is back on duty, but remains in the UK. The last entry, from February 1919, simply states:

8.2.19
Draft of £4.10 from Pay office.

In his diary entries, Williams often spells out the names of people and places. This means that it may now be possible for us plot his whereabouts on a map, compare his notes to those of others’, or find more information about his fellow soldiers.

September 7^th1915
Arrived at Longneau, detrained and marched 9 miles through Amiens to Bertangle, billeted in barn in yard of fine old chateau. Fine orchard, plenty fruit, water scarce, mostly unfit to drink.
9^th
1915 Physical and inspection in morning. Short route march in afternoon. Billy Coutts accidentally killed by machine gun. Concert in barn, good. Charlie Chaplin.
10^th Sunday
Trench digging. Billy Coutts buried, very nice.

The diary contains an appendix, where Williams lists various locations with short descriptions (presumably added after the war). Also included are a few poems written by Williams while on active service.

Little ole tin ‘at

Blimey! ‘ow I’ve cussed ‘im
When the batts been on the trek,
An’ ‘e’s ‘anging like a millstone,
Around yer bleedin’ neck,
Foe e’s stickin’ like a limpet
Underneath yer steadying straps,
And yer says “Another bloomin’ mile,
And I’ll bleedin’ well collapse”
And now perhaps yer wondering,
Why the ‘ell I chew the fat
Well I’m only just referrin’
To me little ole tin ‘at.

But when there’s somethin’ doin’
An’ yer in yer fightin’ kit
And yer creeps behind the barrage
Just to give ole fritz a fit,
Then the sudden death is flyi’
In big ‘andfuls through the air
When the coalboxes is bustin’,
An’ there’s shrapnel everywhere,
When ole Jim Death is stalking
’Mongst the boys of the ole batt,
There’s many blokes says “Thank yer”,
To their little ole tin ‘at.

M.W. 8/7/17

The notebooks in which Mostyn Williams wrote his diary have been transcribed by his granddaughter Sue Worringham, who also added the material to the Europeana 1914-1918 community collection site http://europeana1914-1918.eu . She writes about Williams: “He survived the war but was never a well man afterwards and died in 1935, leaving 3 daughters.”

To explore the diary further, go to http://europeana1914-1918.eu/en/contributions/5910. Many more stories and objects relating to the period of First World War, shared by people across the World, can be found at http://europeana1914-1918.eu.

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Europeana 1914-1918 is a community collection run by Europeana, Europe’s digital archive, library and museum, based on an initiative at the University of Oxford. Thousands of stories and images from across the World can be freely explored and re-used at http://europeana1914-1918.eu

Creating a collection through online crowdsourcing and personal interaction.

The Oxford Community Collection Model is used to create collections by combining large-scale online crowd-sourcing with personal, individual interaction. The model allows contributors to choose the way they contribute to a collection, offering those who lack the resources, ability, or opportunity to use computers an opportunity to be part of a digital initiative, sharing their material with the world.

The Great War Archive – the first but not the last

The Oxford Community Collection Model was first used for the Great War Archive in 2008.This 4-month pilot project trialled the model, inviting people to contribute to a collection either by visiting a website or by taking part in a public participation event, called ‘open day’.

The initial pilot project proved very successful and created a collection of over 6,500 items contributed by the general public. Every item originates from, or relates to, someone’s experience of the First World War, either abroad or at home. The collection is freely available for educational purposes and can be found at http://www.thegreatwararchive.org/.

The Great War Archive was highly commended at the Times Higher Educational Awards 2008 for ‘Outstanding ICT Initiative’

From pilot project to large-scale, international collaboration

The Oxford Community Collection Model has since been used for other initiatives, including the large international Europeana 1914-1918 project. In this initiative, people are invited to upload stories relating to the First World War onto a multi-language website together with images of any letters, pictures, objects or other memorabilia they hold (http://europeana1914-1918.eu/). The stories and images are added to a growing collection, which is freely available for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence (CC-BY-SA).

In addition to the online collection, Europeana 1914-1918 also runs a series of public events, called ‘Roadshows’ where members of the public are invited to share their stories and have their material digitised and added to the collection. Roadshows followed by national collection campaigns have been held in in Luxemburg, Ireland, Denmark, Slovenia, Germany, Cyprus, Belgium, and Italy with future events planned in Rumania, Slovakia, and several other countries.

Interaction in different ways

Another project successfully employing the Oxford Community Collection Model is the Woruldhord project (2011). The project aimed to create a collection of freely reusable educational resources to help people study or teach the period of English history centred on the Anglo-Saxons, or Old English (literature and language).

Like other community collection project, Woruldhord collected contributions via a website and through personal interaction. What made this project slightly different was that instead of running public collection days, the project team liaised with organisations, institutions and individuals that were known to hold relevant material. These were invited to contribute to the project via the public website, but also offered assistance in different ways, for example by the project team uploading the material, where needed digitising or converting it to a different format first.

Over the course of one summer, the project collected about 4,500 digital objects contributed by about 400 people or institutions. The archive contains photographs, documents, presentations, databases, and more; covering objects, archaeological sites, poems, prose writings, and course material, all to be freely reused for educational purposes under a Creative Commons Licence (CC-BY-NC-SA). The project is still accepting contributions via the project website http://projects.oucs.ox.ac.uk/woruldhord/.

The Woruldhord project showed that the Oxford Community Collection Model can be successfully used without running big collection events as long as there is interaction with the community.

A, B, C : ‘crowd-source’ with sustainable success

Being part of and interacting with a community is a central feature of the Oxford Community Collection Model. This is described and discussed in more detail in RunCoCo: How to Run a Community Collection Online (2011), a report which presents a simple A, B, C of advice for projects and groups who aim to ‘crowd-source’ with sustainable success:

• Aim for Two-way engagement;
• Be part of your community;
• Challenge your assumptions.

The Report was written by the JISC-funded RunCoCo project (RunCoCo – how to run a community collection online http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ ) and is freely available at http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/resources/RunCoCo_Report.pdf .

Further information, advice and support available

RunCoCo offers advice, training, and support to those looking for new ways of working with the public for impact, outreach, and engagement. The RunCoCo team has been involved in planning, setting up, and running a series of community collections using the Oxford Community Collection Model and can advise and assist in a variety of ways. For more information, contact runcoco@it.ox.ac.uk

All communities living in the UK have been affected
by the First World War in some way, either by the events
that took place, or by the changes it brought about.
(HLF Application guidance)

Are you thinking of ways to mark the Centenary of the First World War? Do you want to run a community collection, or engage your community in activities with a First Word War connection? Then you may be interested in the new funding scheme launched by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

We want to fund projects which enable communities to understand more about the heritage of the First World War and benefit a wide range of people.
(HLF Application guidance)

The First World War: then and now scheme makes available grants of £3,000-10,000 to communities that wish to mark the Centenary of the First World War. The scheme is open to groups and organisations such as clubs or interest groups, charities or trusts, local authorities, public sector organisations, schools and colleges, and others. Applications can be made at any time from 2013 to 2018 and are assessed in eight weeks.

Funding is offered for projects that explore the heritage of the First World War and make a difference to people, heritage and communities in the UK. This can be done in different ways, for example by organising community activities; collecting and sharing stories and memorabilia; creating exhibitions or websites; finding, developing or producing local interest material, theatre performances or works of art; preserving war memorials, or whatever works best for the community group in question.

The scheme is open to not-for-profit organisations and partnerships led by not-for profit organisations. More information about the scheme and how to apply can be found at the HLF website.

If you are planning a project and want to include community collections or aspects of digital technologies for knowledge exchange and public engagement, RunCoCo can offer guidance, support, or collaboration. As part of the Education Enhancement team (University of Oxford) we offer expert services in following fields:

• Digital Experience Research and Evaluation
• Running Community Collections and Crowdsourcing
• Social media (for teaching, learning and outreach)

Contact us at runcoco@oucs.ox.ac.uk