Elsie Wootten White – wartime volunteer

Elsie Wootten White was born on August 26, 1885 the daughter of Frank James White, a machineman in the GWR Works, and his wife Susan. She was baptised at St. Mark’s Church on October 19 when the family were living at 5 Bangor Terrace, Rodbourne Road.

Elsie began her long teaching career as a 15 year old pupil teacher and at the outbreak of the First World War she was working as an Assistant Mistress at one of the town’s board schools. By 1916 she was a member of Miss Slade and Miss Handley’s growing band of volunteers.

The Swindon Committee for the Provision of Comforts for the Wiltshire Regiment was formed in 1914. Miss Mary E. Slade, Infant Head Teacher at King William Street School, led a team of volunteers, most of whom were women. These volunteers were based at the Victoria Hall where they collected and packed boxes to send to soldiers serving in the Wiltshire Regiment. However, this work soon became a matter of life and death as the plight of the prisoners of war was revealed.

“When letters began to arrive from the men themselves begging for bread, it was soon realised that they were in dire need, and in imminent risk of dying from starvation, exposure and disease,” W. D. Bavin wrote in his seminal book Swindon’s War Record published in 1922.

All the prisoners received daily was a slice of dry bread for breakfast and tea and a bowl of cabbage soup for dinner.

“Had it not been for the parcels received out there from Great Britain we should have starved,” said returning serviceman T. Saddler.

In the beginning the committee spent £2 a week on groceries to be sent to Gottingen and other camps where a large number of Wiltshire men had been interned following their capture in 1914. By October 1915 the committee was sending parcels to 660 men, including 332 at Gottingen and 152 at Munster.  And at the end of July 1916 they had despatched 1,365 parcels of groceries, 1,419 of bread comprising 4,741 loaves, 38 parcels of clothing and 15 of books.

As the men were moved from prison camps on labour details, the committee adopted a system of sending parcels individually addressed.  Each prisoner received a parcel once every seven weeks containing seven shillings worth of food.  More than 3,750 individual parcels were despatched in the five months to the end of November 1916.

Elsie and her mother Susan lived for many years at 25 Euclid Street where Susan died in 1941. Elsie died at the Victoria Hospital in July 1954 and was buried with her mother in grave plot D44A.