Cultural, Political and Military connections with Cyprus

The story of Cyprus’ connection to Glasgow start around the time of the British government becoming its de facto administrative power, after Ottoman rule, in 1878. Former student, Sir Robert Hamilton Lang, provided the first link, serving in Cyprus as Acting Vice-Consul on three occasions and Consul from 1871-72.

Ancient Civilizations: Cyprus, Glasgow Museums

He also helped to organise the Cypriot court at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886. Lang acquired many artefacts from archaeological digs in Cyprus, much of which have been purchased by the British Museum, however many objects were also donated to Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum.

It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the University of Glasgow received students coming from Cyprus, the majority entering either the Faculty of Science or Medicine. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, 18 Cypriot students graduated and their main career paths were Doctors (3), Chemists (3), and Engineers (6 including Electrical and Civil). Studying abroad in those decades was considered an achievement on its own for Cypriot students and the ones who made the effort of coming to Glasgow to study, had a promising career path in mind. The lack of Arts students owns to the fact that, if they were to study abroad, Cypriot students chose countries closer at home with stronger language and heritage connections, such as Greece.

After Cyprus was officially a British colony, the British government started to have greater cultural and political interests in the island. In the University of Glasgow’s Archives, as part of my Club21 internship, I found a number of lectures being given to the Glasgow Archaeological Society with Cyprus as its theme. As  T. Bruce Mitford explains in a lecture given 21 December 1950, Cyprus attracted the attention of British archaeologists because it was still under British flag, it was “only country in the Middle East where foreign excavators are still welcomed” and it also preserves the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron and the Classical period.

Political unrest and war in Cyprus between 1955-59, caused an influx of military activity in the island. Minutes of State for Colonial Affairs (1956-57) and later Secretary of State for Scotland, John Scott Maclay’s folders and notes can also be found in the University’s Archives (DC371, John Scott Maclay First Viscount Muirshiel of Kilmacolm). There was a variety of sources about the question of Cyprus independence and the British stance towards it (see DC371/2/20, Folder 1954-1956, ‘Turkey and Cyprus’, including Malta Round Table Conference, 1955 and reports of Council of Europe).  An interesting one is Field Marshal Sir John Harding’s (Governor of Cyprus) broadcast on the 9 October 1955 addressing the Cypriot population, contemning “terrorist” activities seeking unification with Greece and encouraging the people to agree with the proposed independence. The affairs escalated into the 1955-59 conflict between the  Greek Cypriot nationalist paramilitary organisation EOKA and the British government, ending with the creation of the Republic of Cyprus on 16 August 1960.

Due to continued conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities and the UK as one of the mother-states guarantors of the Republic, the University of Glasgow’s alumni links  were to through the military.

BMH Dhekelia opened 22/09/1958 (taken from Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, QARANC.co.uk)

Medical graduates from the University of Glasgow who joined the RAMC figure prominently in the island’s connections. Three of the biographies I looked at as part of my internship concerned former medical students in the 1960s, both Colonel David Wright and Colonel William Melville McCutcheon were sent to Cyprus, the former as commanding officer of the newly opened British Military Hospital in Dhekelia, (where he died on 11 October 1962) and the latter as Chief Medical Officer in 1964.

By Maria Constantinidou, MA History, Cyprus, Club21

First connections with Guyana

The Baton Relay arrives today (02.03.2014) to the first of the Caribbean Commonwealth countries, Guyana, which gives me the perfect occasion to introduce my Club21 project about the University’s earliest connection with the only English speaking country in South America.

Researching early historical links between the University and Guyana, it soon became apparent that the majority of the students that went to Guyana were either merchants or physicians. One very interesting medical graduate, who I would like to feature, was Michael McTurk, whose family remained connected with British Guiana and has members living in modern Guyana to this day. Michael’s great-great-granddaughter, Diane McTurk, is a dedicated, and well-publicised, conservationist of wetlands ecosystems in Guyana.

McTurk listed in Register of the Doctors of Medicine 1728-1888 (GUA26677)

Michael McTurk was born in 1785 in New Cumnock. He matriculated at Glasgow University in 1807 to study medicine under renowned Professor of Botany Dr James Jeffray. McTurk was awarded a degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1810.

McTurk’s signature (GUA26677)

He went on to spend 34 years as Principal Medical Officer in Demerara. As a member of the Georgetown Town Council he was responsible for two important measures that ensured the townspeople had water and the sugar estates were irrigated: the construction of a canal and a plan for water conservancy.

Michael was also a Major in the 2nd Battalion Guyana Militia. Although he participated in the suppression of the Demerara Slave Uprising in 1823, he became active in propagation of the freedom of all slaves in the colony as a member of the Court of Policy. After the passing of the Abolition of Slavery Act 1833, he brought in a local measure ensuring that full emancipation of the slaves began on 1 August 1838. The emancipated slaves expressed their gratitude to McTurk by presenting him a silver salver “as a slight testimonial of their gratitude for his exertions in shortening the period of their apprenticeship.”

McTurk was knighted by Queen Victoria on 7 September 1839 for his efforts on the behalf of the emancipation of the hundreds of slaves in Guyana. He died in Georgetown on 17th of November 1844.

We are still building the story of the University’s connections with Guyana, so get in touch if you have more information, and look out for new additions at the Guyana country page of the International Story.

By Marta Kulesza, MA Economics, Club21 project Commonwealth Caribbean: Guyana

Czech ‘Flatmates’ in the 1920s

While researching students from the modern day Czech Republic for the International Story project, I found it interesting that three Czech students who came within a year of each other (1925-1926) happened to share the same lodgings  at 64 Bothwell Street and all studied Divinity under Reverend George Milligan, Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at the University from 1910 to 1932.

Professor George Milligan, Church of Scotland Minister & Biblical Scholar

Josef Andro, son of merchant Václav Andro, came to study in 1925, aged 22. He lived with Paul Chiaski, a fellow Czech Divinity student from Budějovice, who was son of Pastor Anton Chiaski. Paul Zelinka (or Felinka), from Husinec, is recorded as living at this Bothwell address the previous year, he was also the son of a Pastor, Paul Zelinka.

64-100 Bothwell Street, 1975, Copyright © RCAHMS

Their shared lodgings became less of a mystery when the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) website revealed that 64 Bothwell Street was once a Christian Institute for Bible Training and a YMCA.

Their reasons for coming to Glasgow to study under this pioneering Church of Scotland minister and biblical scholar may also be explained in the situation of post-WWI Czechoslovakia and the religious unions that occurred both in Scotland and the new Czech Republic at that time. After the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Reformed and Lutheran churches under the ‘First Republic’ of the Czech Republic merged to form the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren, adopting the Presbyterian system of church government. As all these Czech students were mature students, it is likely that they studied under Josef Luki Hromádka (1889-1969), Professor of Theology at the Comenius Theological Faculty in Prague (Evangelical Theological Faculty of Charles University) from 1920. He was a Czech Brethren theologian who became a leading voice of central European Protestantism. Hromádka had studied throughout Europe including at Aberdeen, from where Professor Milligan had also graduated and where his father, William Milligan, was the first to hold the chair of Biblical Criticism (from 1860-93).

The question, however, remains as to what these Glasgow flatmates (Andro, Chiaski, and Zelinka) did when they left  64 Bothwell Street and went their separate ways with Professor Milligan’s teachings. Please get in touch if you can add more to this story.

By Claire Martin, MA History & Slavonic Studies, Czech Republic , Club21

Agnes and Hoffy – Missionary Dreams

While studying the history of Danish academic connections with Glasgow University, it soon became clear that it is largely about men and not surprisingly, seeing the industry and geography of Denmark, centered on the naval profession.  In 1908 however three female Danish students attended the University, all studying Medicine: Christine Larsen, Julia Elise Hoffman and Agnes Rothe. Because of the novelty of the three, both in their chosen line of academic study and as the only female students in 37 years of Danish-Glaswegian exchange, they instantly drew my attention.

It was especially the relationship between Agnes and Elise which provided room for imagination. While Christine studied senior anatomy at Glasgow for only one year, Elise and Agnes stayed in Glasgow for three years, on an exchange from Edinburgh University, and their names appear in the archival records almost interchangeably. For three years Elise and Agnes lived together in a tenement house on Ruthven Street and studied almost all the same classes.

Agnes Rothe, published in Koch, Hans, 1916. Agnes Rothe, et livsbillde. 11th ed. Kirkelig Foreing for Den Indre Mission I Danmark.

Upon attaining a copy of published letters written by Agnes during her time in Scotland, the extent of this friendship finally became clearer to me. Agnes was a diligent writer and corresponded with her friend when they were apart. Both Agnes and Elise (or “Hoffy” as she was referred to as by her university friends) were deeply religious, a subject which united them. From a Danish perspective the religious life of Edinburgh and Glasgow was hard to come to terms with.  In a letter to Agnes mother she complains “The missionary houses are for the poor, the church for the rich, one Sunday school for the children of the rich, and another for the children of the poor – in the same church! There is something rotten in the Christian thinking where such things happen” (Glasgow, 31 October 1909). In many letters to follow Hoffy and Agnes discuss the difficulties of “maintaining ones faith” in Scotland.

The women’s last year at Glasgow University was spent studying Midwifery; it seems this was the favorite subject of both Agnes and Hoffy. Hoffy even went on to win an academic award for her work in the Midwifery class. They undertook their practical placement together in Anderston, Glasgow.  “We [Hoffy and Agnes] moved here last Friday and have so far 3 mothers and 3 babies to look after. […] We heard that the police never walk out on the streets here alone. But other people (two of our patients) tells us: ‘we are often scared to walk out during the night, you never have to be afraid. Doctors and nurses have nothing to fear, as long as they wear their uniforms – this protects them’.  We have our task to perform and they know us, they do not want to hurt us – even when they are prepared to hurt each other” (Letter for “Aunt L”, 1909).

Agnes, who had dreamt of becoming a missionary worker since her early 20’s, found this aspiration shared by Hoffy. They regularly took part in missionary meetings at Queen Margaret Halls and spoke of possible travels to India or China. Hoffy, upon finishing her degree, did travel out to Bangalore under the supervision of Professor L.P Larsen in January 2013. Agnes, who struggled with ill health all her life, was to her great disappointment held back for one year.  During Hoffy and Agne’s last days together in Scotland, Agnes writes to her mother “This evening me and H. are going ‘for the last time’ down to the settlements. There are many ‘last times’ these days! And it is a bit hard to part, when you for 7 years have been together and rejoiced over the same things and struggled together, while at the same time travelling together – and often fought together” (15 December 1912).

Those “last times” would in the end truly be last times. On the 24^th of January Agnes writes to Hoffy in Bangalore:   “My dear good friend, how I wish from the bottom of my heart that we shall be allowed to work together, just as we like to, in the future. But Dida, I have surrendered in that too. I will not do my will if it is not God’s!”.  On the 31 of January Agnes suddenly dies from gastro intestinal bleeding. (8^th of February 1913, The British Journal of Medicine)

The friend who was with Agnes in her last hour later told her parents that she had spoken about both of them and Hoffy before she passed away. It seems that Hoffy did not make it back in time for Agnes’ funeral, in a letter address to her from a mutual friend it is written: “She looks so soft, so full of peace and solemn. We put some lilies in her hands. […] Hoffy; she belonged to Christ in her life and in her death, and now she is his for eternity”.

Hoffy return to the UK for a few years after this, but in 1915 she went back to India and began her work with The Danish Missionary Hospital in Tamil-Nadu. Although there are little traces of her time in Tamil-Nadu it is likely that she had an influence on shaping the practice. When she arrived at the hospital it was just newly established and for four years she was the only qualified physician working in it.  In 1919, however, Hoffy’s younger sister Lily passed away back in Denmark. Hoffy immediately returned to foster her sister’s five children, and a year later she even married her sister’s widower Gunnar Le Cour. Gunnar and Hoffy lived together in the family home Cypressgården (Cypress House) and went on to have another three children together. She named her youngest daughter the Indian name Siromani.  Hoffy died in her home country in February 1943, exactly 30 years after Agnes.

[A special acknowledgment and thanks to Jens Kristian Ersbøll for enlightening me about Agnes medical condition.]

By Edith Irina Halvarsson, MA Sociology, Sweden, Club21 project Denmark.

Edith’s full blogathon entry can be found here.

Scottish Medicine Students on an Excursion to Nazi Germany

Scottish and German physicians in front of the ‘Führerschule’

It’s not like every German still breaks out into bitter tears when someone “mentions the war”, but it would also be wrong to deny the slightly uneasy feeling that makes itself felt when looking at primary sources from those years between 1933 and 1945. As an historian in the making, I am aware only a healthy critical distance allows us to shed a light into the darkest corner of our collective cultural memory. However, the perfidious propaganda of the National-Socialist Regime, their inhumane and ruthlessly efficient methods of annihilation, all the indescribable elements of evil of the Holocaust and the relative temporal proximity of the era present a grey area between intuitive emotional involvement, and the necessary critical distance to understand it.

When I started my work as an intern for the International Story Project, I had a hunch that researching connections between the University at which I studied, and Germany, the country where I grew up, would inevitably direct my research to this period. It was Kerry McDonald, who was head of the project, who first showed me the photo album that documented an excursion to Hamburg, Berlin and London made by the Glasgow University Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1936 (GUAS Ref. DC286). Looking at the photos, I was primarily trying to deduce from them the attitude with which 36 young men around my age were wandering through the Nazi-theme park that was Berlin in the mid 30s. The photos were, more than anything else, documenting a group of students on a trip to a foreign country and in that didn’t differ much from the standard photos tourists take of themselves immersing themselves in ‘local culture’.

The photo album was signed ‘Angus MacBeth Thomson’. Research at the University of Glasgow Archive revealed that he had been born in India, where his father was working in the Indian Educational Service. He was a student at Glasgow who had graduated in Science in 1934 and, at the time the photos were taken, was studying to become a doctor. He served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in India when war broke out Europe, and became assistant director of medical services in 1943. His career then took him back to the UK, where he became a distinguished professor at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. The visit to Germany had been organised by the Glasgow University Medico-Chirurgical Society, one of the oldest student organisations at the University.

Mr Thomson and his 38 compatriots embarked on their journey to Germany on the 21st March 1936. Berlin, the ‘Reichshauptstadt’, was just preparing for the propagandistic spectacle that was to be the Olympic Games. Removing all signs of anti-Semitism from the public eye to harmonise their urban image with the rules of tolerance and just treatment of the International Olympic Committee, the true aims of the Nazi party weren’t as evident to the observer as they would become a few years later. The delegation from the Glasgow University was taken to Germany’s broadcasting house in Berlin; to the Charité in Berlin, where they attended a demonstration of an operation; to the Führerschule der Deutschen Ärzteschaft (School of leaders for German physicians) in Alt-Rehse; to the labour camp and the mental asylum in Domjüch, Neustrelitz, which would become the sight of the systematic killing of the disabled and the handicapped under the codename ‘Aktion T4’. They were also taken to a political mass rally in the Deutschlandhalle, and, slightly bemusingly, to a production of Othello at the state opera house.

Berlin, 1936

In my endeavour to trace Mr Thomson’s steps back, to get a better idea of the nature of the excursion, I contacted historians and institutions in Germany in the hope of finding out who had initiated the visit. To my great fortune, research directed me towards Dr Stommer, art historian and project manager at the commemorative centre Alt-Rehse. I was then redirected to Dr. Hansson, research fellow at the Institute of Ethics and History of Medicine who had written an outstandingly interesting article on international exchanges at the institution in Alt Rehse, and is presently conducting research into the subject in collaboration with academics from Belgium, Sweden and Argentina.

Alt-Rehse, where Mr Thomson and the other students were accommodated after their visit to Berlin was the location of the Führerschule der Deutschen Ärzteschaft (School of leaders for German physicians). There has recently been a growing interest in the events that took place at the ‘Führerschule’ since, due to a lack of primary sources, not much is known about the eight years of its existence and what little is known has given rise all kinds of rumours. The school was built in the style of rural German country house in 1930s and was designed not only to produce physicians in this secluded spot, but to nurture them with National-Socialist ideology and cut them into the shape that would allow them to believe in the righteousness of the crimes they would one day commit in the name of the Vaterland. One quote from the text stuck with me in particular; it is a quote taken from the diaries of Johannes Peltret, second principal of the institution:

There is an old saying in my home country ;First see then believe.Germany is acting according to an even better principle: Illustrate to influence. You will all leave Alt Rehse with national socialism in heart and blood!

This quote, which illustrates the menacing perfidy of the National-Socialists’ educational endeavours perfectly, made me ask myself a question that presumably haunts everyone concerned with the era: how could the world not realise the consequences of the ideas the Nazis promoted? Why was it that many of them would let themselves be ‘influenced’ so eagerly?

While it becomes evident in the photos that Thomson was remarkably perceptive of National-Socialist propaganda around him, they also make the spectacle that was presented to them seem ridiculous in its grandiosity, laughable in its attempts to impress, and a matter of parody in its pedantry; “Charlie March looks for food while Hitler looks down” it says in the caption of a photo taken in Alt Rehse. “Der Führer and Dr Goebbels are doing some secretarial work” Thomson wrote under a photo showing two men on a train, their helmeted heads wafted by swastika flags. The combination of Tweed suits and Nazi-helmets suggests a role-play here. The caption beneath one of the photos in Berlin reads “Loudspeakers like lampposts along the road for relaying political speeches”.

‘The Führer and Dr Goebbels doing some serious secretarial work’

The impression one might get is that Scottish delegation was not exactly as awed or even impressed by the National-Socialist pathos as their foreign colleagues. However, the visit of the Medico-Chirurgical Society to Germany seems to be veiled in mystery, as all other mentions of discussions and articles on the subject seem to have been lost or never existed in the first place.

I would like to thank Dr Wilfried Stommer for giving me the first insights into the events at Alt Rehse, and especially Dr Nils Hansson for the article he sent me, without which I would have largely remained in the dark about international relations at the institution. I would also like to thank Kerry McDonald, whose knowledge fuelled my enthusiasm for the detective work we are doing at the archive, and without whose undying patience, advice and guidance, I would not have been able to find my way through the archives. I would also like to thank the team of archivists, who assisted me greatly in my work and made it a pleasurable and enriching work experience.

Much more work and time needs to go into research on the issue, so I hope that this is not yet the end of this article, but only an extended introduction.
________________________________________
References:

DC286/1 21 Mar-4 Apr 1936 Photograph album containing 76 prints of the Glasgow University Medico-Chirurgical Society visit to Germany and London held at the Glasgow University Archives
Hansson N, Maibaum T., Nilsson PM “Die ‘Führerschule’ in Alt Rehse: A Character School for the Physicians of National Socialist Germany” in Vesalius XVII, 2, 4, 2011, p. 4

Blogathon Entry by Klara Kofen, MA History, International Story Project Germany

International Story website goes live!

A Principal’s Reception was hosted yesterday (Thursday 21st March) by Senior Vice-Principal Andrea Nolan and Vice-Principal Frank Cotton to thank all of our International Story Editors for their fantastic contribution to the University’s International Story project so far.

http://www.internationalstory.gla.ac.uk/

This reception also signaled the launch of the online resource, which will continue to be updated and added to in the coming year as we uncover new international stories and connections. The website’s features include an interactive map to browse connections by country, which opens up to present a biography of someone associated with that country.

During the reception, Club21 student volunteers, Gabrielle Migdalski and Ianto Jocks both presented their findings and experience as International Story volunteers: Gabrielle’s project researched the influx of Polish students to the University during the 1940s, a period of mass displacements caused by WWII. She highlighted one student record in particular, Maria Kolasa, to highlight what became a family and love story at the University.  Ianto’s project consisted of the transcription and construction of a database of Lord Kelvin’s handwritten student registers (to be made available via the website in the near future), which will contribute not only to the International Story project but potentially to wider academic research. In fact, Andrew Watson attended Kelvin’s class in 1875-6 and has prompted further research to be carried out, which was published recently in the Scotsman.

Here are some photos from the reception:

As the project progresses, we hope the University and wider community will contribute their knowledge of Glasgow’s international connections to further enhance this insightful and exciting online resource.