First World War

Supporting the War Effort: The Convalescent Hospital at New College during the First World War

Christopher — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 13:58:52 +0000

Supporting the War Effort: The Convalescent Hospital at New College during the First World War

William Shire

Issue number

(2025): 23

Notes category

Throughout the First World War, the gardens of New College, Oxford were transformed from their usual calm greenery into a sea of tents and bustling activity—becoming a convalescent hospital designed to support the work of the Third Southern General Hospital in Oxford, which had its headquarters in the Examination Schools. Sources held primarily in the archives of New College can reveal the role played by the hospital at New College within the hospital system in Oxford during the conflict, and its development over time as the war progressed.

Photograph of Mabel Wace and ten soldiers in the grounds of New College, 1915
Magdalen College Archives, Oxford, P/408/P2/27

Magdalen College Archives, Oxford

23NCN9 (2025) Shire on Convalescent Hospital.pdf1.23 MB

Austria-Hungary during the First World War: German-Language Material in the Seton-Watson Collection at New College Library, Oxford

Christopher — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 18:33:51 +0000

Austria-Hungary during the First World War: German-Language Material in the Seton-Watson Collection at New College Library, Oxford

William Shire

Issue number

(2024): 21

Notes category

Robert William Seton-Watson

Seton-Watson Collection

First World War

Austria-Hungary

20thC history

Bequeathed to New College by our alumnus R. W. Seton-Watson (1879–1951), the Seton-Watson Collection at New College, Oxford is rich in German materials of great interest to researchers, Austria-Hungary being a particular strength. The collection contains a wide variety of both primary and secondary source materials, ranging across rare newspapers, books, and pamphlets.

Gyula Andrássy, Wer hat den Krieg verbrochen? (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1915)
New College Library, Oxford, SWP45

New College Library and Archives, Oxford

21NCN6 (2024) Shire on Seton-Watson.pdf1.52 MB

The German War Memorial in New College Chapel

Christopher — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 20:31:10 +0000

The German War Memorial in New College Chapel

Elliot Jordan

Issue number

(2022): 17

Notes category

First World War

New College Chapel, Oxford

New College history

Prince Wolrad-Friedrich zu Waldeck-Pyrmont

Freiherr Wilhelm von Sell

Erwin Beit von Speyer

Members of New College will have seen and been struck by one of the smaller, but most arresting, fixtures in the chapel: the memorial to three German undergraduates who died in the First World War. Beyond the usual power of any war memorial, especially one so simply and beautifully designed, this tablet is especially evocative in its willingness to commemorate men on the opposite side of such an acrimonious pan-European conflict.

Monument to the New College German War Dead, in the Ante-Chapel of New College, Oxford

New College, Oxford

17NCN8 (2022) Jordan on the German War Memorial.pdf898.85 KB

New College Servants in the 1914–18 War

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 15:32:53 +0000

New College Servants in the 1914–18 War

Jennifer Thorp

Issue number

(2014): 05

Notes category

New College history

20thC history

First World War

New College continued to pay wages of College servants on active service during the Great War.

Mrs Louisa Cox received the regular wages of her husband George, who had worked as a bed-maker at New College since 1887 before enlisting for four years’ war service in 1914.

New College Archives, Oxford

5NCN8 (2014) Thorp on NC Servants.pdf354.43 KB