On 9 March, Nick Millea, Bodleian Map Librarian, presented a fascinating selection of old and new maps of Oxford. They will be collected and described in the British Historic Towns Atlas Volume VII: Oxford, to be published in autumn 2020.

The famous early map by Ralph Agas (1578) gives a detailed ‘bird’s flight’ view of the city from the north. The original is darkened and worn, but the Bodleian also has Robert Whittlesey’s clear re-engraving made in 1728. On Agas’s map, the city centre still includes many gardens, and there is open country north of Broad Street.

David Loggan’s beautiful map of 1675 shows the city centre more crowded. Every building is depicted, again viewed from the north. Loggan included minute details, such as a (still existing) kink in the wall of Trinity College.

The noted antiquary Anthony Wood had in his collection an anonymous (and unexplained) map of ‘Oxforde as it now lyeth / Fortified by his Ma[jes]ties forces an. 1644’. It shows the Thames running southwards to ‘Abbington’, but flips the north and south of the city. Wood annotated it as ‘made very false’.

The Atlas will include specially prepared new maps, showing for example the halls which preceded the colleges, medieval inns, the (very complicated) city parish boundaries, watercourses, turnpike roads around Oxford, and the growth of the suburbs.

Answering questions after his talk, Nick Millea confirmed the existence of a very detailed map of Oxford prepared secretly by the General Staff of the Soviet military. Mysteriously, it identifies a sub-post office in Marston, and University College, but no other colleges or university buildings.

Before welcoming the speaker, Richard Dudding reported to members that the Berkshire Family Historian has recommended the Club’s latest book, Radley Manor and Village, as a ‘must for anyone with interests in Radley or indeed in manorial history generally’.

Sadly, but inevitably in the light of the advice about avoiding gatherings, the Club has cancelled the speaker meetings booked for 14 April and 11 May.

On 10 February, Dick Richards described the history and achievements of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. It was founded, as the Imperial War Graves Commission, through the vision and determination of one man, Sir Fabian Ware. Working for the Red Cross, he arranged the recording of soldiers’ graves during the First World War. In 1917 the Imperial War Conference accepted his proposals for a permanent Commission.

Guided by distinguished professionals, including architect Edwin Lutyens, garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, and poet Rudyard Kipling, the Commission established its core principles:

• burial close to the place of death
• equality irrespective of rank or religion
• uniform headstones
• memorials giving the names of those with no grave
• headstones, graves and memorials to be maintained in perpetuity.

Every CWGC cemetery aims to evoke the grass, flowers and peace of an enclosed country churchyard. The headstones are in straight lines in a standard size and format. Bereaved relatives could, initially for a fee of threepence halfpenny per letter, choose a short personal inscription. There is a Christian ‘cross of sacrifice’, a Stone of Remembrance to acknowledge those of other faiths or none, and a shelter containing a cabinet with a list of the graves and a visitors book.

The Commission is also responsible for individual graves in many parish graveyards (including Radley), and for memorials to those with no known grave, most notably the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial.

The Commission undertakes to maintain every cemetery in perpetuity, including, for example, the one in Hong Kong now surrounded by modern development, and, when it becomes possible, the restoration of its cemeteries in Iraq.

On Tuesday 19 May, at 6.30 pm, Dick Richards will give RHC members a guided tour of the CWGC cemetery at Botley. This includes the graves of soldiers who died in military hospitals in Oxford, many Polish and German soldiers, and, poignantly, the graves of two women: staff nurse Mabel Murray and aircraftwoman Glenys Harris.

On Monday 9 March Nick Millea will talk about the forthcoming Atlas of Historic Maps of Oxford.

On 13 January, a large audience braved the rain to hear Dr Hubert Zawadzki explain the history of the reluctant exiles in Polish resettlement camps in Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds, 1946 to 1970.

During World War II the government-in-exile of occupied Poland was based in London, and many Poles fought alongside the Allies. Following the Yalta conference in February 1945, the frontiers of Poland were drastically redrawn, and the Soviet Union installed a puppet communist government. Many Polish servicemen decided not to return.

From 1946, they could join the Polish Resettlement Corps, a unit of the British Army set up to help them prepare for civilian life in Britain. They, and if possible their families, were housed in former military camps, ill-adapted to the harsh winter of 1946-7.

From 1947 support was provided under the Polish Resettlement Act, including dedicated schooling for children, and training of adults for civilian jobs.

Hubert’s family were housed in a Nissen hut in Springhill Lodges camp (near Chipping Campden), with a coke stove and no running water. There was a communal kitchen, providing, for example, a soggy mash of cornflakes in hot milk. Initially there were misunderstandings: Hubert was nearly refused entry to the local primary school because he didn’t know the word ‘horse’ in English, and his mother initially took ‘public house’ to mean dom publiczny (i.e. brothel). Gradually matters improved: the camps became thriving communities with their own churches and festivals. A group photo survives of Hubert (in an unconventional white suit) on the occasion of his first communion. Most ex-servicemen became happily integrated into life in Britain, for example as doctors, or skilled labourers in post-war reconstruction, and gradually families moved out of the camps into their own housing.

Traces or ruins remain of many of the camps, including Springhill and, in Oxfordshire, Checkendon. There are commemorative plaques at Northwick Park (now a business centre) and Fairford. There is an excellent website with a list of all the camps, and many stories and photographs: polishresettlementcampsintheuk.co.uk

On 10 February Dick Richards will talk about the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.