IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0099 KCLMA Paton Walsh
Held at: Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London
Title: PATON WALSH, Brig Edmund James (1897-1985)
Date(s): 1885-1947
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 21 boxes
Name of creator(s): Walsh | Edmund James Paton | 1897-1985 | Brigadier
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Born 1897; Wellington College, Berkshire, until 1916, Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; Royal Artillery, 1918-1935; service in Palestine and Syria, 1940; Assistant Provost Marshal on GHQ, Northwestern Expeditionary Force (Norway); Deputy Provost Marshal, 1 Army, North Africa, [1942-1943]; Chief Instructor and Commandant, C Wing, Civil Affairs Staff Centre (CASC), 1943-1944; served in Allied Control Commission Germany, including on the Quadripartite Commission charged with the detection of war criminals, [1944-1947]; retired from active service and promoted to Brigadier, 1947; Governor HM Prison Service; died 1985.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Papers comprising printed or typescript reports and supporting publications, on the 1 Army, North Africa, Civil Affairs Staff Centre (CASC), and on the administration of civilians in occupied territory including the Control Commission Germany (CCG), 1885-1947; notably comprising printed and typescript instructions, orders and reports issued by the Provost Marshal's Office, 1 Army, North Africa, including on traffic control, stores, planning, lessons learnt from the operations, intelligence summaries, 1 Army newsletters, 'Crusade', with an air raid precautions poster from Algeria, 1939-1943; reports and typescript summaries relating to the Civil Affairs Staff Centre (CASC), on 'captivity neurosis', the economics and finance of wartime Europe, fire and civil defence, road transport, military writing, the welfare of occupied populations, Nazi doctrines, files of information on national temperaments and characteristics of various occupied countries including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and Italy, 1943-1944; appointments diary compiled by Paton Walsh (1945), memoranda, correspondence and papers on aspects of the German penal system under the Nazis and Allied occupation, notably the police, procedures, juvenile courts, penal statistics from Nazi Germany, 1929-1947, including copies of British Zone Review, Nov 1945-Dec 1946; papers on the Control Commission Germany including confidential reports on police trainees, lectures given by Paton Walsh, the purging of Nazis from office, training and planning for post-Nazi administration, training and organisation of the penal system in Allied occupied Germany with observations on the regulation of the system under the Weimar Republic and the National Socialists, precautions against sabotage directed against occupying forces, 1943-1946; witnesses' depositions in the Nuremberg trials, account of Brendonk Concentration Camp, defence positions of the Gestapo, Sturm Abteilung (SA), 1945-1946; papers on Cologne Prison, including an autobiographical account and journal of Rudolf Kirsch, prisoner, and correspondence, 1939-1944, papers on executions at Cologne Prison with copies of the last letters of the condemned, 1941-1944; publications in English on military law, police and transport, mainly manuals, regulations and information notes on Imperial policing, traffic patrols, military law, inspection and care of vehicles, 1917-1945; publications on the Allied occupation of Germany, consisting of notes on the military government of occupied territory, internment camps, contact lists for civil administrators, Who's who in occupied Europe, chart of the Nazi administrative structure, re-education programmes, maps and gazetteers of Germany, Austria and Denmark, 1943-1945; American publications, namely civil affairs information guides, fileld manual of military government, an entertainment guide for American soldiers entitled, 'What's Cooking in Berlin', copies of The Stars and Stripes and the New York Herald Tribune, 1940-1946; general military handbooks including guidance for officers on allowances, the training of Army tradesmen, training manuals on air support of infantry and the use of parachute troops, catering, defence of aerodromes against attack, the disposition of unit records, signals, mine clearance, anti-malarial precautions, 1939-1943; Army Education booklets in a series entitled 'The British Way and Purpose', 1942-1943; German language publications on law, crime and prisons especially regulations, criminal biology, youth crime, 1885-1942; German National Socialist publications on topics ranging from flying schools, the SA in Berlin to the beginnings of radio broadcasting,1926-1946; maps, mainly Ordnance Survey and Stanfords, of United Kingdom cities and counties, including Wolverhampton, Winchester, Dover, East Sussex and Suffolk, 1913-1940; maps of Germany, central and eastern Europe, 1936-[1945]; maps of Algeria, French North Africa, Tunisia, 1942; propaganda cartoon and other posters published by the Evening Standard, Stationery Office and Army Bureau of Current Affairs, 1944; 1 file of telegrams, commission of 1918 and details of the various promotions of Paton Walsh, 1916-1947.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English and German
System of arrangement:
Arranged into the main series of papers covering the career of Paton Walsh as shown above in the Scope and Content section.
Conditions governing access:
Some items closed. All items listed in the Scope and Content section above are open subject to signature of a reader's undertaking form.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, attention of the Director of Archive Services.
Physical characteristics:
One box is outsize.
Finding aids:
Summary Guide entry available on-line at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/top.htm, and in hard copy in the Centre's reading room. A handlist describing the contents of the collection is available in hardcopy upon request in the Reading Room.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
The collection comprises three accessions, 1986-1993
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
The papers were transferred to the Centre by the family in three tranches between 1986 and 1993.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
Related material:
The Centre holds a number of related items: Control Commission Germany: Garside, Hart, Lethbridge, Lindsay-Young and Waite collections. Liddell Hart 15/8 contains a good selection of military training manuals.
The Public Record Office, Kew, hold the main series of Control Commission papers (FO 936, WO 32 and others), and Civil Affiars Staff Centre material (WO 219, FO 1050 and others). Training manuals and some publications also available via the British Library.
Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Archivist's note: Entry compiled by Geoff Browell for the RSLP AIM25 Project.
Date(s) of descriptions: June 2003