Original Item: One-of-a-kind. On 5 August 1914, the day after World War I broke out, the British Government passed the Aliens Restrictions Act, whereby the British Government could control the movement of “enemy aliens”. General internment of all Germans of military age began in May 1915 following the sinking of the “Lusitania”.
The first 200 internees arrived on the Isle of Man in September 1914 for internment in Cunninghams Camp, Douglas, however following a riot in Douglas camp leading to the death of 5 internees due to overcrowding and the poor quality of the food. Knockaloe Moar farm, a former training camp for Territorial troops, was identified as and eventually became the largest internment camp of WWI. The first of the civilian male internees arrived on 17 November 1914 and ultimately the internees were of various nationalities including German, Austrian and Turkish.
Knockaloe Camp ultimately held “nearly 24,000 prisoners in 23 compounds inside barbed wire, with 4,000 old soldiers acting as armed National Guard, and 250 civilians attending to their wants and comforts…..The camp at Knockaloe was three miles in circumference; 695 miles of barbed wire surrounded the compounds” Samuel Norris “Manx Memories and Movements”.
This is trench art carved stag bone by an Imperial German prisoner of war named Otto Frühs. He carved flower in relief and LANCASTER 1914-1915 as well as his name into the Stag's leg bone. This bone was converted to be the base of a lamp, but the socket, shade and cord are long absent. Stands approximately 11" tall.
Lancaster Camp, set up inside an old wagon factory provided even worse conditions for the internees. Seven hundred men were housed in one large room with a dirt floor and spent the winter of 1914-15 there without heating or lighting. Catering facilities were severely limited and a shortage of plates and cutlery meant many of the men ate straight from the cooking pots.
Prisoners found themselves with loads of downtime and trench art or prison art was not an uncommon by product of their incarceration. However, finding pieces carved from bone in such an intricate manner with high attention to detail and color along with Great War dates is truly rare.
