Lives of the First World War

Source information

ID: 9374471

Title: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Description: One of the casualties accepted by CWGC to be added to their WW1 War Dead Roll on 23rd April 2015. Initially recorded as being commemorated in the United Kingdom Book of Remembrance, CWGC subsequently announced that he is now confirmed as being buried in Metchosin (William Head Institution) Cemetery, BC, Canada.

Connected by: Yvonne27542

URL: https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/75451629/
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Additional: Record used as "seed data" for this Life Story.

Source information

ID: 9374472

Title: In From the Cold Project

Description: The In From the Cold Project (IFCP) was formed to research and identify all service men and women missing from the official Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) list of casualties from the First and Second World Wars, in order to get these people their due recognition. This person was one of the cases submitted by IFCP, and was accepted by CWGC to be added to their WW1 War Dead Roll. Further information can be found by searching the Casualties In From The Cold list on the IFCP web site.

Connected by: Yvonne27542

URL: http://www.infromthecold.org/
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Source information

ID: 9447753

Name: Brian C. Fawcett

Reference: At home.

Title: The Chinese Labour Corps in France 1917- 1921

Description: Page 36 "On arrival at the recruiting centre, each prospective recruit received a medical. He could be rejected, amongst other reasons, for having trachoma [an eye disease], tuberculosis, venereal disease and bad teeth."

Connected by: Jonathan101862

Additional: If Labourer Wang Ching Lien passed the medical he did not have T.B. when he enlisted therefore the illness was War related.

Source information

ID: 9447769

Name: Created 24th March 1920, held by the British Library

Title: Report giving the history of the Chinese Labour Corps used behind the lines in France 1917-19

Description: 14 page report. Describes the conditions and process of joining, and again describes a Medical, examining for conditions including tuberculosis.

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/report-giving-the-history-of-the-chinese-labour-corps-used-behind-the-lines-in-france-1917-19
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Additional: Again, relates to the death from Tuberculosis. According to this evidence Labourer Wang Ching Lien did not have Tuberculosis when he joined, therefore the development of it was War Related.

Source information

ID: 9447777

Name: Peter Simpson 11th November 2018 South China Morning Post

Title: Chinese Labour Corps

Description: Full title "Chinese Labour Corps: the first world war’s forgotten army, all but airbrushed out of history"

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2172435/chinese-labour-corps-first-world-wars-forgotten
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Additional: Again describes a Medical, prior to leaving China.

Source information

ID: 9449803

Name: Thomas M. Daniel (November 2006)

Title: The history of tuberculosis

Description: A summary of the article.

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095461110600401X
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Additional: Relates to cause of death, which was in 1920, so it seems likely that the illness was developed after joining up, which would make it War related.

Source information

ID: 9449806

Name: British Library 17/11/2018

Title: The Chinese Labour Corps: World War One's Hidden History

Description: Described as a special event, which has taken place. " Nearly 100,000 men were shipped over from the province of Shandong to the battlefields of France and Flanders. This was the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC)" (together with a further 40,000 employed by the French).

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://www.bl.uk/events/the-chinese-labour-corps
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Additional: It is stated that 2,000 died - this would be away from China, after joining up, making the deaths War related.

Source information

ID: 9449817

Name: Frederick Holmes, MD Last modified: Jul 26, 2018

Title: Tuberculosis in the First World War

Description: Essay by Frederick Holmes, MD Professor of Medicine Emeritus and of The History of Medicine University of Kansas School of Medicine. Images are from The Wellcome Library, the Department of Medical History of the United States Army, and the Department of Radiology of the University of Kansas Medical Center. Some of the rough estimates are from the Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War.

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: http://www.kumc.edu/wwi/index-of-essays/tuberculosis.html
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Additional: Relates to cause of death and probability that it was War related.

Source information

ID: 9449818

Title: Poppy Candle

Description: In memory.

Connected by: Jonathan101862

Source information

ID: 9449858

Name: Catalogue number HU 90558 IWM

Title: Chinese Labour Corps in Canada, 1918

Description: Photograph dated 1918 - part of Cormack, G.E. (Mr.) Collection - not available on line. "Catalogue number HU 90558"

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205085969
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Additional: Matches apparent country where Labourer Wang Ching Lien died in 1920.

Source information

ID: 9449862

Name: Primary author: Kate Riordon

Title: Victoria's Chinatown and the Chinese Labour Corps

Description: Victoria, Canada, is the Capital of British Columbia. (Wikipedia).

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/wwivictoriachinese/chinese-labour-corps/
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Additional: Matches British Columbia.

Source information

ID: 9449865

Name: Wikipedia

Title: Victoria, British Columbia

Description: Wikipedia. "informal neighbourhoods include Chinatown."

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_British_Columbia
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Additional: Matches British Columbia.

Source information

ID: 9449892

Name: Primary author: Kate Riordon

Title: Victoria's Chinatown and the Chinese Labour Corps

Description: Article about William Head Quarantine Station, "built during the 1880s in response to fears of plague brought by immigrants to British Columbia. " Includes "Arrival of the Chinese Labour Corps" in 1917. Also "After the war ended and the CLC returned to William Head on their journey home". The article is full of photographs, references and a video " Dr. Geoffrey Bird, War Memories Across Canada Project (Royal Roads University, Victoria BC), accessed November, 2016.

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/wwivictoriachinese/life-at-william-head/https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/wwivictoriachinese/life-at-william-head/
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Additional: The video includes images of graves, and the problem of confirming identity.

Source information

ID: 9449906

Name: Uploaded on You Tube 27th June 2016

Title: Part 8: Chinese Labour Corps

Description: A warning, this video includes material which is distressing, and on the plus side the Project is working with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to properly identify, and remember these men.

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YSnSIFEmys&feature=player_embedded&fbclid=IwAR2s78dSyg5Awz0l2oH157I2w_5uQ9F328Ta6jqZYmJpcYN64N3usmppF0I
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Additional: "This is the C.L.C. "

Source information

ID: 9449934

Name: Primary author: Kate Riordon

Title: Chinese in Victoria during World War 1

Description: Journey to France.

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/wwivictoriachinese/journey-to-france/
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Additional: Because the death has been dated 15/2/1920 the likelihood is that Labourer Wang Ching Lien served in France.

Source information

ID: 9449950

Name: ISBN978-1-786-94848-9 Liverpool University Press 27/9/2018

Title: Commemorating Race and Empire in the First World War Centenary

Description: By drawing on original archival research, translations from French and Mandarin into English and by employing multidisciplinary conceptual frames of analysis this exciting and innovative volume explores how race and empire, and racism and imperialism, were commemorated or forgotten during the First World War Centenary.

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/isbn/9781786948489/
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Additional: The authors: "Dr Ben Wellings is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Dr Shanti Sumartojo is Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Together they are co-editors of Nation, Memory and Great War Commemoration: Mobilizing the Past in Europe, Australia and New Zealand (Bern: Peter Lang, 2014)."

Source information

ID: 9449974

Name: Posted on centenarynews.com on 15 March 2018

Title: Tributes paid to the Chinese Labour Corps at Shorncliffe

Description: "Pupils and students from two local schools in Folkestone took a lead role in the ceremony, processing through Shorncliffe Military Cemetery with a piper at their head to lay candles and wreaths at the graves of six members of the Chinese Labour Corps."

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: http://www.centenarynews.com/article/tributes-paid-to-the-chinese-labour-corps-at-shorncliffe
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Additional: Organised by the Meridian Society, a charity dedicated to promoting Chinese culture and understanding.

Source information

ID: 9449994

Name: The Meridian Society

Title: Chinese Labour Corps Project - Documentary Film Screenings

Description: "To honour the memory of the CLC and the vital part they played in the war, The Meridian Society has made a documentary film of oral histories by descendants of Chinese labourers and their Western commanding officers describing the emotions and experiences of their ancestors. There will be several screenings of the film around the country over the next year and a half, which the general public is welcome to attend free of charge. Peng Wenlan, who is heading the society’s CLC Heritage Project, will give an introduction to the film at each screening."

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: http://themeridiansociety.org.uk/test/test/
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Additional: Programme of past and future events to inform and publicise the issues.

Source information

ID: 9450042

Name: Chemins de mémoire

Title: China in the First World War

Description: Article about China's entry into the First World War on the 14th August 1917 which "allowed the French and English to intensify recruitment of workers." "A total of nearly 140,000 Chinese workers joined the West European front. Around 96,000 were employed on behalf of the English army, 37,000 on behalf of the French army, while the others were given to the American expeditionary corps towards the end of the war. "

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: http://www.cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr/en/china-first-world-war
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Additional: "In exchange, the Allies granted economic facilities to China, but maintained their hold (in November 1917, the Americans acknowledged, with the secret Lansing-Ishii agreement, Japan's rights over Manchuria)."

Source information

ID: 9450075

Name: Maev Kennnedy in the Guardian 14th August 2014

Title: First world war's forgotten Chinese Labour Corps to get recognition at last

Description: Sub-heading "Campaign launched to create memorial in London to workers literally painted out of a canvas recording nations who joined war effort." Quoting from the article "The contribution made by the Chinese Labour Corps was barely recognised at the end of the war, and has almost been obliterated since. There is no tribute to them among Britain's 40,000 war memorials, there are no descendants in Britain because they were refused any right to settle after the war, they were literally painted out of a canvas recording all the nations who joined the war effort, and many of the records of their service were destroyed in the blitz of the second world war."

Connected by: Jonathan101862

URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/first-world-war-forgotten-chinese-labour-corps-memorial
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Additional: This article mentions why primary records are so hard to find and validate.

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