Knockaloe Camp wooden mug tree or stand
Date made: 1914-1918
Description: A brown painted wooden mug tree or stand. The stand has a circular wooden base and an upright turned post with a piece of thin wooden dowel slotted through the top to hang the mugs off. The stand would hold two tin mugs. The mug stand was made in Knockaloe Camp and and was collected by the Society of Friends as an example of the ingenuity of internees in making objects from scrap materials.
Background:
During the First World War (1914-1918) the Isle of Man was used as an internment base for civilian ‘enemy aliens’. Its biggest camp was known as Knockaloe Camp, Patrick, situated in the west of the Island (other historic names referring to the camp include Knockaloe P.O.W. Camp, Knockaloe Prisoner of War Camp and Knockaloe Alien Detention Camp). Originally designed for 5,000 people, at its peak it housed up to 23,000 men and as many as 30,000 men may have been interned in total. The confinement of the prisoners led to specific behavioural issues known as ‘barbed wire disease’. Receiving its name from the aimless promenading of inmates up and down the barbed-wire boundary, other symptoms included moroseness and avoidance of others. It was decided that providing practical stimulation would help. The Friends’ Emergency Committee (a Quaker organization) based in Great Britain was invited to the Island from 1915 onwards with the aim of providing books, tools, equipment and materials for the inmates to work and establish workshops.
Measurements: overall: 14.5 cm x 9 cm x 6.2 cm
Materials: pine
Object name: mug tree, stand
Collection: Social History Collection
ID Number: L22135/4
Subject tags : #WW1INTERNMENTMUSEUMCOLLECTIONS