IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0074 ACC/2695
Held at: London Metropolitan Archives
Title: WAR REFUGEES COMMITTEE
Date(s): 1914
Level of description: Collection
Extent: 0.15 linear metres
Name of creator(s): War Refugees Committee | charity aiding First World War refugees
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
The War Refugees Committee was a voluntary body set up about August 1914 to deal with refugees fleeing from the threat of the German armies in Europe, many of them from Belgium. The Committee arranged for them to be met at ports and stations, found temporary hostels for them and tried also to find work for them.
In September 1914 the Committee came to an agreement with the Local Government Board whereby the LGB took over much of the work, and the Treasury much of the funding, while the Committee, with local voluntary committees, continued to look after the allocation of refugees to places found for them and to meet trains and boats. The Committee appears in the Annual Charities Digest until 1918: presumably thereafter it was disbanded as having no further role to play.
The reception, housing and registration sub-committee, formerly the executive sub-committee, of the executive committee was set up to perform the duties in relation to refugees described by its title. It began work in late August 1914 and appears to have ceased to function in the middle of September, presumably as a result of the changing functions of the War Refugees Committee. The sub-committee minute book, though thin, gives a clear idea of the machinery set up to cope with the pre-war crisis.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Minute book of the War Refugees Committee, a charity aiding First World War refugees.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
One volume.
Conditions governing access:
Available for general access.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copyright to these records rests with the depositor.
Physical characteristics:
Fit
Finding aids:
Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Record deposited in May 1989.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Related material:
No references to the War Refugees Committee have so far been found among other records held in the Greater London Record Office, but references to local committees have been noted in the records of Bermondsey Board of Guardians (BBG 634/1-).
Many records for above held at PRO Kew (Ministry of Health) class MH8. Report on work undertaken by British Government in the Reception & Case of Belgian Refugees (British Library) BS17/72(3).
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Date(s) of descriptions: June to August 2010.