Dr. Sterly's - A story of Gazan healthcare

"The best place in the whole of this country"

In preparation for their secret survey of the region of southern Palestine known as the Wilderness of Zin on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), two archaeologists, Leonard Woolley and T.E. Lawrence, reached Jaffa on 5 January 1914 and travelled down the coast to the old town of Gaza which sat on its round hill two miles inland above the maritime quarter. Here they were surprised to discover that the PEF had failed to provide equipment, stores or money for their expedition. They immediately set about purchasing on credit what could be bought in the town with the assistance of Rev. Dr. Robert B. Sterling, of the Church Missionary Society.

Dr. Sterling, who had built what was possibly the first fully functioning hospital in the Holy Land, situated then as now in the south-west corner of the town, was a prominent and important personage in the region, accompanying his treatment of the sick with a liberal dose of Scottish evangelism. Theodore Dowling, a traveller to the town in 1912 describes his arrival to meet the doctor: "On reaching Jaffa I secured a fresh carriage on April 12, for Gaza, reaching that city in nine and a half hours, an unusually quick journey. During my visit of ten days there I was the guest of the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Sterling, in the Church Missionary Society's compound. Nothing could have exceeded their kind hospitality, and I am greatly indebted to them for valuable local information." 

Dr. Sterling was also an excellent guide to the region and often accompanied visitors on trips to sites of historical interest throughout the town that was once celebrated as one of the five royal cities of the Philistines. The port area was of particular importance. "In company with Dr. Sterling I visited this spot, enveloped in sand, on April 18, where we found broken pieces of marble, ornamented glazed pottery, and ancient glass scattered in every direction... Augustus gave this port to Herod the Great, who rebuilt it, and changed its name into that of Agrippeion, after his friend Marcus Agrippa." 

The same traveller describes the continuing saga of the town which has stood at the crossroads of history for centuries: "Gaza was taken by Alexander the Great after a siege of two months. When he subdued it, he ordered all the men to be slaughtered without quarter, and carried away all the women and children into bondage... Gaza must have been at this time a city of great strength, for Alexander's Greek engineers acknowledged their inability to invent engines of sufficient power to batter its massive walls. Alexander himself was severely wounded in the shoulder during a sortie of this garrison."

A formally recognised health service in Gaza did not start until 1882, the first Church Missionary Society work of its kind in Palestine. Starting as a simple dispensary, funds were raised for establishing a permanent medical mission which soon became a favourite stopover of General Gordon (of Khartoum) who spent many weeks there in 1883 on his way up to Jerusalem to 'discover' his own preferred site for the garden tomb of Jesus. An interesting relic was the iron bedstead on which Gordon slept and was preserved in his name to show visitors.

All this time the medical work was confined to the treatment of out-patients, but in March 1891 a hospital adapted from a native house was opened. Dr. Sterling arrived in 1893 and expanded the services offered by the hospital to include in-patient care. It's reputation grew and in 1906 the Muslim community presented Dr. Sterling with £100 which they had collected in token of their gratitude for his work among them. The hospital and out-patient hall were now much too small to match its growing reputation and on 1 April 1908 the Bishop of Jerusalem dedicated a new hospital containing forty-six beds followed by the opening of a spacious out-patient block on 22 February 1911.

Patients were drawn from across the community, Muslims, Orthodox Syrians and Jews. They would sit side by side in the out-patient hall waiting patiently to be seen by the doctor, an accomplished Arabic scholar. During 1912 it is recorded that there were 29,581 out-patients, 701 in-patients, 452 visits in town, and 411 major operations. Fees from the in-patients and out-patients during 1912 amounted to just over £326 which went to assist in the upkeep of the hospital.

On the eve of the First World War, Woolley and Lawrence had completed their clandestine mission to provide an archaeological cover to Newcombe's military exploration of the Aqaba hinterland but were delayed in their return to England. Newcombe, however, eager to get his maps back to the Geographical Department of the War Office, arrived back in London earlier and presented their account of the archaeological survey of Zin to the 49th Annual General Meeting of the Palestine Exploration Fund held on Tuesday, 16 June 1914.

In concluding his talk, Newcombe praised the indomitable Dr. Sterling whose Church Mission Society Hospital was, he considered, "the best place in the whole of this country," and that full value was obtained for every contribution to the Hospital. He described Sterling’s reputation among the Arabs and the townspeople of Gaza as remarkable and "one to make anyone feel proud of his nationality." Sterling’s work among the Palestinians of Gaza had become legendary and his name was synonymous with the hospital he had helped create, so much so that it was known locally as the English Hospital or even Dr. Sterly’s, an Arabic corruption of his name. 

Dr. Sterling spent 20 years in Palestine before his death in 1917. Today, his legacy has been renamed the Al Ahli Arab Hospital and is run by Anglican management, the only Christian hospital in the Gaza Strip and the only centre for cancer treatment. At 6:59 pm on 17 October 2023, a rocket explosion killed and wounded an unknown number of Palestinians who were seeking refuge from Israeli airstrikes in the courtyard in front of the hospital entrance. Palestinian officials blame an Israeli airstrike for the explosion and Israel says the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, which denies blame. Yet despite these extraordinary setbacks and under extreme circumstances, the hospital and its resilient, heroic staff remain a beacon of hope in today's war-torn Gaza.

Its website states that despite "constant turmoil, Al Ahli has been the sole fully-functional hospital in all of northern Gaza for over six weeks, serving many more patients than the staff is equipped to accommodate. In defiance of extraordinary, temporary setbacks, intermittent military occupation, and terrifying, life-threatening circumstances, the inspirational medical team and staff at Ahli Arab Hospital continue to persevere and work tirelessly for the sick, injured, and others in need. The stress on these brave individuals and the hospital facility is incomprehensible, and their resilience in fulfilling their mission of healing is exemplary." It seems the spirit of the Rev. Dr. Robert Sterling lives on.

"Whoever stays until the end will tell the story. We did what we could. Remember us"

⁠

These words were written on 20 October 2023 by Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila, on a whiteboard normally used for planning surgeries at the Al Awda Hospital situated just a few kilometers north of Al Ahli Hospital.

One month later Dr. Abu Nujaila was killed by an Israeli strike on 21 November. The same strike killed another Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) doctor, Dr. Ahmad Al Sahar, as well as a third doctor, Dr. Ziad Al-Tatari. 

In a text message sent one week before his death, Dr Abu Nujaila described his heartbreak at caring for three patients, children aged eight, seven and four. The only survivors from three different families, the children were brought to the hospital suffering from fractures, burns and deep wounds. Dr Abu Nujaila said in his message: “I take care of them daily. They have become my own children.

“We await at any time the order from the Israeli army to forcefully evacuate to the southern region of Gaza and to leave these children. Tell me, for God’s sake, 'how can I leave them?' I don’t dare even think about it.”

Dr Abu Nujaila and Dr Al Sahar were treating patients on the third and fourth floors when the hospital was targeted. Other medical staff, including MSF staff, were also severely injured. Along with the Al Ahli, the Al Awda hospital was one of the last remaining partly functional hospitals in northern Gaza.

As of December, MSF staff reported that the Israeli Defense Force had surround and seized the hospital and had stripped, bound, and interrogated all men and boys over the age of sixteen. For more than 20 days, no one was able to enter or leave the hospital after it was surrounded by snipers. Medical provision was halted as 170 people trapped inside – staff, patients, and their relatives – fought to survive on increasingly dwindling food and water supplies.

Action Aid, a partner of the hospital, reported that Dr Adnan Radi, head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Al-Awda Hospital, had informed them that six healthcare workers died in the final days of the siege, while pregnant women were killed while attempting to access the hospital. The manager of the hospital, Dr Ahmed Muhanna, who was arrested and taken away, is still being held, his whereabouts unknown. 

Following the end of the siege, doctors at Al-Awda have once again resumed treating patients despite experiencing a severe shortage of medical supplies, fuel, food and water. With no electricity, surgery is carried out under headlights.

"I want to become a doctor, like those who treat us, so that I can treat other children"

This is the story of 12-year-old Dunia Abu Mohsen who was recovering from losing her leg in an Israeli air strike on 27 October that struck her home in Al-Amal neighbourhood of Khan Yunis. Six of her family members were killed in the air strike, including her parents and two of her siblings. During the seven-day truce, Dunia was interviewed in hospital by the Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP) and said: “When they shelled us with the second missile, I woke up and was surrounded by rubble,” she calmly tells her interviewer. “I realized that my leg had been cut off because there was blood and I had no leg. My father and mother were martyred, my brother Mohammed and my sister Dahlia, too,” she said calmly. “I want someone to take me abroad, to any country, to install a prosthetic leg, to be able to walk like other people.”

Her dream? “I want to become a doctor, like those who treat us, so that I can treat other children. ” But then she added: “I only want one thing: For the war to end.”

For Dunia, the war ended on 17 December 2023 when an Israeli tank shell burst through the children's ward of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, a so-called safe zone where Israel had told people to evacuate to. Miranda Cleland from the DCIP called Dunia's story the distillation of the Palestinian child's experience in Gaza: "Displaced, bombed, orphaned, maimed, and finally killed by the Israeli military."

WCNSF

Wounded Child, No Surviving Family

UNICEF, the UN’s children’s fund, estimates that minors account for at least 40% of the estimated 24,000 people killed so far, with many more suffering life changing injuries. For this reason, many of the patients filling the hospitals have been assigned a new chilling acronym: “WCNSF” – “wounded child, no surviving family”.

“When we speak of a war on children, it’s not to try to be dramatic. It’s rooted in the data,” said James Elder, UNICEF's chief spokesperson, who spent weeks in Gaza under bombardment. “In ‘normal’ past conflicts, the rate was about 20%, so you’re looking at twice the number of children who have been killed and injured compared with previous conflicts.

“That speaks obviously to the severity and the intensity of the bombardment. We believe it also speaks to the indiscriminate nature of the bombardment, and it speaks to a disregard for civilians, particularly children.”

"Gaza has become a place of death and despair" 

Martin Griffiths, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator stated last Friday, 5 January: "Gaza has become a place of death and despair. Tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured. Families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet. Areas where civilians were told to relocate for their safety have come under bombardment. Medical facilities are under relentless attack. The few hospitals that are partially functional are overwhelmed with trauma cases, critically short of all supplies and inundated by desperate people seeking safety. 

A public health disaster is unfolding. Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos. People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is around the corner. 

For children in particular, the last 12 weeks have been traumatic: no food, no water, no school, nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out. Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence, - while the world watches on."

The above was quoted on 11 January 2023, by Blinne Ni Ghralaigh K.C, an Irish lawyer speaking for South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the genocide case against Israel. She closed by calling this:  "the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate so far vain hope that the world might do something."

Healthcare in Gaza, 2024

International medical aid groups including the World Health Organization (WHO) and Doctors Without Borders said last week that the Gaza health system is “completely collapsing" with many operations carried out without anesthesia. With only four hospitals partially functioning in northern Gaza, they remain a lifeline for thousands of desperate people seeking medical aid and shelter. On Sunday, 7 January 2024, the WHO said it had called off a planned mission to bring medical supplies to Al-Awda and other hospitals in the north for the fourth time after failing to receive safety guarantees. It has now been almost two weeks since the agency was last able to reach northern Gaza. 

I may occasionally diverge from my normal narrative relating to Stewart Newcombe's life and his active involvement in the region, but if I know anything about the man it is that he would want his voice heard at this critical point in the history of Palestine and its people. In 1914, Newcombe announced that Britain should be proud of the achievements of Dr. Sterly's Gaza Hospital; in 2024, we should all be horrified that healthcare in Gaza has become yet one more battleground where more than 300 healthcare workers have been killed during 100 days of Israel's assault on Gaza. 

At the ICJ on 12 January, during their response to South Africa's case of genocide against Israel, a lawyer representing Israel claimed under oath that hospitals "have not been bombed, rather the IDF sent soldiers to search and dismantle military infrastructure, reducing the damage and destruction." The Indonesian Hospital, Al Shifa Hospital, The International Eye Care Centre, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, The Al Quds Hospital, could all tell a different tale with many more coming under repeated Israeli strikes. Some may never reopen so severe is the damage. The forced closure of many medical facilities stems not just from damage by attacks but from the absence of electricity, fuel and supplies. Ambulances and staff have also been repeatedly targeted. In a rare admission, Israel claimed responsibility for one such attack on an ambulance convey outside the Al Shifa Hospital where at least 15 people were killed and over 50 wounded. According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society all 15 were civilians. 

Asymmetrical warfare is messy and lines can be blurred, but there are clear rules of engagement. Article 3 (4) common to the Geneva Convention 1949 stipulates that all parties to an armed conflict must distinguish between persons engaging in hostilities and persons who are not, or no longer, taking part in them. The latter must be dealt with humanely and, in particular, they must not be maltreated, taken hostage or summarily sentenced or executed. The sick and wounded must be cared for. 

The resilience of the Gazan people is rooted in history and a deep connection to their land. As Gerald Butt says in his excellent biography of the town, Life at the Crossroads (Rimal Publications, 2009):

"For those familiar with the history of the region, the Israeli bombardment (2008) evoked echoes of previous ones - the two-month-long siege of Gaza and its ultimate destruction by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE to mention just one example". 

When Gaza finally succumbed to Alexander, its military commander, a stubborn man named Batis, refused to kneel before Alexander and acknowledge him as the new King of Asia nor submit to the rule of the Macedonians. It was a defiant act of resistance that so enraged Alexander that ropes were inserted through Batis' Achilles tendons and he was dragged behind a chariot around the perimeter of the town walls until he died.      

The Grand Mosque of Gaza, showing WW1 damage

Gaza may be in ruins once again, but as Gerald Butt says: "its people have inherited the stubbornness that has allowed the city and the territory to survive so long and under such overwhelming odds." It could be said that the cycle of death and destruction that the Gazans have endured since 1948 - 81% of Gazans are Nakba refugees or their descendants - have shaped their character in a way that has made them tougher and more determined than other Palestinians. They will need those characteristics more than ever in 2024.

Photograph: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

NEXT POST: Part Two - The Long Road to Collective Dispossession

THE LONG ROAD TO COLLECTIVE DISPOSSESSION – PART ONE

The following essay examines the four main British-backed negotiations or agreements produced during WW1 that ultimately led to the 1948 founding of the State of Israel and the event known to the Palestinians as the Nakba, or the catastrophe. Special attention is given to Stewart Newcombe’s twin dilemma: his efforts to find a long-term solution that would satisfy the needs of both the Arab and Jewish people while also fulfilling his obligation to safeguard British interests.

As of today (18 November 2023), we are witnessing what is in danger of becoming the second Nakba for the Palestinians following the forced evacuation of 1.5 million citizens of northern Gaza to the south during Israel’s war on Hamas. In an update to my previous post dated 7 November 2023 Newcombe and the Palestinians, Israel has revised the official death toll of its citizens killed during the Hamas attack on 7 October down from 1400 to 1200 (comprising over 800 Israeli and foreign national civilians, along with over 350 army and police personnel). As of 19 November 2023, a conservative estimate of Palestinians killed during Israel’s bombing campaign against Hamas in Gaza stands at more than 11,000, the majority being women and children. The final figure will likely increase due to preventable death from disease and infant mortality. An unknown number of casualties (estimated at 2,700) remain undiscovered under the rubble of the ruined city.

The following framework of pledges and agreements made during World War One clearly demonstrates the diplomatic twists and turns that has led to the present dark chapter in the history of the region and its people, as well as Great Britain's role in it. These are:

1. THE McMAHON-HUSSEIN CORRESPONDENCE 1915- 1916

2. THE SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT - May 1916

3. THE BALFOUR DECLARATION 1917

4. THE DECLARATION TO THE SEVEN - 16 July 1918

Prior to the start of the war, both Stewart Newcombe and T.E. Lawrence carried out extensive exploration of Greater Syria, and Palestine in particular; Newcombe as a Royal Engineer officer extending Kitchener’s survey of Palestine south of Beersheba and into the Sinai, and Lawrence in search of Crusader Castles and later as an archaeologist at Carchemish with Leonard Woolley. It was at a camp south of Beersheba that both archaeologists first met Newcombe in order to provide cover to the secret military survey that was being conducted under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund by several teams in an area known as the Wilderness of Zin. Lawrence was quick to realise why they were there: “We are obviously only meant as red herrings, to give an archaeological colour to a political job.”

For the most part, their experience of the Biblical landscape was fixed in the present, i.e., in daily relations with an Arab Muslim majority population. Newcombe’s pre-war reports contain detailed assessments of the various Arab and Kurdish tribes and their allegiances or potential for obstructing British imperial aims. Jewish colonies were at this time largely on the periphery of his experience, whether indigenous Palestinian Jews speaking Arabic or early Zionist settlers speaking Yiddish.

Although estimates vary, a variety of sources suggest that approximately 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews made up Ottoman Palestine's population in 1914, the year of Newcombe's survey. During the war, the government deported a large number of Jews who were foreign citizens, and some Jews left Palestine after being offered the choice to become Ottoman citizens. In this way, by December 1915, about 14% of the Jewish population had departed.

Despite Newcombe's long association with the Palestine Exploration Fund, whose founding principles were based on the archaeological exploration of Palestine as a way of ground-truthing a Biblical narrative, he readily acknowledged the demographic status quo that existed at the time of his surveys, namely a majority Muslim population with a leadership aiming for self-determination after the end of Ottoman rule. While the study of the historical landscape had its place in the survey, his relationships with Arab chiefs, tribal confederations and Turkish officials during this period were clearly more relevant to the aims of his covert military mission, which were to map previously unchartered regions to help defend the lifelines of the British Empire, as well as surveying future battlefields on which he and Lawrence would later fight. His secret reports to the British Embassy in Constantinople show that he was more concerned with Arab nationalist issues than observing a Jewish renaissance.

THE WAR YEARS

At the start of the war, Lawrence worked under Newcombe’s direction in Military Intelligence for nine months in Cairo where they gathered information on Turkish troop dispositions and movements and monitored the potential for an Arab uprising in Syria, and the Arabian peninsula.

1. THE McMAHON-HUSSEIN CORRESPONDENCE 1915- 1916

Between July 1915 and March 1916, Britain had given assurances to the Sharif of Mecca in what became known as the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence (July 1915 to March 1916), a series of ten letters exchanged during World War I between Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner to Egypt, and Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, agreeing to recognize an independent Arab state in the region that was then under Ottoman rule in exchange for Hussein launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

The need for such an agreement from the British perspective was partly Arab assistance in the fight against the Turks, but more importantly as a counter to the prospect of an Ottoman call for jihad, or holy war, as well as securing the continued backing of the millions of Muslims in British Indian, where many were supporting the Allies by serving in the Indian Army. The letters remain significant for their role in shaping the future political landscape of the Middle East and the understanding of British promises to various Arab leaders during the war.

However, the exchange of letters was conducted with a degree of ambiguity and left certain key terms, such as the boundaries of the proposed Arab state, open to interpretation. This later led to disputes and conflicting claims about the promises made.

This ambiguity later contributed to the disagreements between the promises made to the Arabs during the war and the agreements and pledges that came into effect afterwards, particularly the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration, both of which seemed to contradict the spirit of the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence.

Labels such as ‘Perfidious Albion’ are often applied by historians in the light of evidence from the very same author of the British promises who did not believe in the strength of his own proposals. In a private letter to India’s Viceroy Charles Hardinge sent on 4 December 1915, McMahon expressed a somewhat different view of what the future of Arabia would be, contrary to what he had led Sherif Hussein to believe:

[I do not take] the idea of a future strong united independent Arab State ... too seriously ... the conditions of Arabia do not and will not for a very long time to come, lend themselves to such a thing ... I do not for one moment go to the length of imagining that the present negotiations will go far to shape the future form of Arabia or to either establish our rights or to bind our hands in that country. The situation and its elements are much too nebulous for that. What we have to arrive at now is to tempt the Arab people into the right path, detach them from the enemy and bring them on to our side. This on our part is at present largely a matter of words, and to succeed we must use persuasive terms and abstain from academic haggling over conditions—whether about Baghdad or elsewhere.

Lawrence saw things differently. “I had dreamed, at the City School of Oxford, of hustling into form, while I lived, the new Asia which time was inexorably bringing upon us. Mecca was to lead to Damascus; Damascus to Anatolia, and afterwards to Baghdad; and then there was Yemen.”

Lawrence had dreamed big, and the results of his efforts would torment him for the rest of his life. But even Newcombe was not immune from the knowledge that he had deceived the Arabs. Arnold Lawrence, (T.E.’s brother) wrote to Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence’s authorised biographer, in August 1971: “Newcombe’s feeling of guilt persisted to the end of his life and kept him constantly active in furthering Arab political aims.”

The secret Hussein-McMahon Correspondence was a pivotal episode within the historical context of the Middle East, shaping the scepticism throughout the political landscape of the region, and highlighting the discrepancy between the promises made and the geopolitical realities that unfolded after the war.

Towards the end of 1915 there was an unexpected announcement within closed government circles that rang alarm bells in Cairo as it threatened to cast aside Anglo-Arab discussions relating to the aspirations for national self-determination coming from Arab leaders in Syria, the Hejaz and Yemen. Following recommendations from the De Bunsen Committee, a British Government report on present and future relations with the Ottomans, secret negotiations between the British and the French had begun to work towards an agreement on a post-war division of the spoils within greater Syria and Turkey. With discussions between Cairo and Sherif Hussein well under way it was decided that the negotiations between the British and the French must for now be kept secret.

2. THE SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT - May 1916

Enter Sir Mark Sykes of Great Britain and Francois Georges-Picot of France. With an eye on the prize, a secret agreement was drawn up to divide the Ottoman Empire's territories in the Middle East after the war's end between their respective countries.

Named after its negotiators, the agreement established spheres of influence and control in the Middle East for these two European powers. The agreement essentially aimed to split the region into areas of control, mainly to secure their strategic interests and prevent conflict between themselves over these territories.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement designated various zones of control, which were divided into areas of direct and indirect influence for both countries within modern-day countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine. However, it is essential to note that the implementation of the agreement was significantly altered by subsequent developments, such as the Balfour Declaration and the eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The Agreement has had a lasting impact on the Middle East, contributing to the drawing of borders that often ignored local ethnic, religious, and tribal divisions. It's seen by many as a prime example of the arbitrary division of territories by colonial powers, often cited for the problems and conflicts in the region that persist to this day. Sykes-Picot remains crucial in understanding the ideology (at least as depicted through its propaganda) of the Islamic State (IS) militant group. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was described by IS as "the breaker of barriers", reinforcing the sentiment that Sykes-Picot was a symbol of foreign interference.

The reality, however, is far more nuanced. One could argue that the agreements made at the 1920 San Remo Conference -- attended by leaders from Britain, France, Italy, and Japan -- rather than the Sykes-Picot agreement, are ultimately responsible for the internal borders of many Middle Eastern countries we know today. Sykes and Picot wielded a broad brush in creating the post-war colonial framework of countries out of the old Ottoman Empire; the current geopolitical borders were established over a longer period of time, a process that had a great deal to do with regional power struggles, rather than any foreign imperial meddling.

3. THE BALFOUR DECLARATION 1917

Whereby “One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third.”

On the 2 November 1917, Arthur James Balfour, the United Kingdom's foreign secretary in Lloyd George's new administration, sent the following declaration to Lord Rothschild, a leading member of the British Jewish community:

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of his Majesty's government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionists aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

As a response to various factors, including lobbying efforts by the Zionist movement and considerations of British imperial interests during World War I, the British government saw strategic advantages in issuing the declaration.

Lord Rothschild was seen as a liaison and representative of the Jewish community, and his involvement in the process was crucial. He worked closely with Chaim Weizmann, a Zionist leader, to advocate for British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration, in part, aimed to win Jewish support for the Allies in World War I and to gain favour among influential Jewish communities, particularly in the United States and Russia. Britain also had considerable strategic interests in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region, in Egypt and the Suez Canal in particular, and an advantage was sought through the declaration in securing control over these territories in any post-war settlement.

This simple statement of intent from the British government, whereby “one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third,” as one leading Jewish intellectual put it (Arthur Koestler), was at the heart of the Zionists’ hopes of creating a political homeland. With its announcement coming as the Allies pushed north through Palestine towards the prize of Jerusalem ‘by Christmas’, the hopes of Zionism lay in a total defeat of the German-backed Ottomans and with Palestine coming under a British mandate or protectorate.

Despite reservations, Stewart Newcombe, operating alongside T.E. Lawrence with Sherif Feisal’s men in the Hejaz, accepted the document with all its stipulations, in particular those that respected the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. After all, this declaration had not just been conjured up in the mind of the British foreign secretary on a whim. Behind the scenes, Zionist leaders Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow and British minister Sir Mark Sykes had been shuttling between allies to secure a common agreement. Sokolow was especially successful in obtaining the Cambon Letter of agreement from France, which ignored the rights of non-Jews, and the support from Pope Benedict XV as the Vatican controlled many of the Christian holy sites in Palestine. His relations with Louis D. Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice under President Wilson, secured support from the USA. With the Allies standing by Britain’s side, Balfour issued his government’s declaration with confidence. Despite his personal reservations, Newcombe was duty bound to accept his government's pledge to the Zionists and to work within its framework.

While consensus for the declaration on a Jewish homeland was being sought around the world, discussions of a contradictory nature continued to be made between the British and the French causing considerable tension in the dealings between British officers and Arab leaders in the Hejaz.

ATTITUDE OF THE BRITISH OFFICERS

The mental agility involved in keeping all the pieces in play was stressful to most of the British officers working with the Arabs. Mark Sykes’ arrival in the Hejaz in May 1917 to sound out his ‘proposals’ with Feisal and Sherif Hussein was an alarming development, especially as his proposal to carve up the region had already been agreed with Francois Georges-Picot, the French representative. Following on the heels of General Murray's failure to break the Turkish line at the First Battle of Gaza, Sykes adopted a policy of deception and was especially careful not to give away details of the division of the spoils lest it threaten Arab cooperation. Within the agreement, Palestine, always the stumbling block, was designated to be governed by an international administration. Sykes felt well satisfied until someone pointed out that the Jews might have a very strong interest in the future of the country and could oppose any agreement or promises. This came as somewhat of a surprise to Sykes who until that moment had not considered the Jews in his deliberations.

Newcombe shared Lawrence’s distress and felt they were being manipulated or exploited by Sykes and Picot. He summed up the feeling when he wrote that Sykes must return and openly and honestly deal with Hussein and his sons, “otherwise we are hoodwinking the Sherif and his people and playing a very false game in which officers attached to the Sherif’s army are inevitably committed and which I know causes anxiety in several officers’ minds: in case we let them down.” Another officer, Colonel Wilson went further: “Is the Sherif living in a fools’ paradise?” he wrote. “If so he will have a very rude awakening and once his trust in Great Britain has gone we will not get it back again.”

In Newcombe’s mind the solution was simple: “…he [Faisal] must have a political propaganda which will induce the people to risk their lives. It must be a clear statement, showing that they will be fighting for an Arab Government.”

Lawrence’s anguish was compounded by the fact that he was about to depart on the Aqaba expedition just two days after Sykes’s visit. He would soon be compelling men to fight for freedom and self-government over land that was already assigned. Feisal remained focussed on this aim in his father’s name, but it was also well known by Lawrence and others that the Hashemites remained in secret negotiations with the Turks as an insurance policy to secure their long-term objectives.

Throughout their close association during the war, Lawrence and Newcombe remained convinced of the priority of securing Arab assistance under the leadership of the Hashemites to ‘enable England, while fighting Germany, simultaneously to defeat Turkey’. Newcombe was certain that had any suggestion of a Zionist movement been put forward, the Sherif would have done nothing to help the British. The Bolshevik Revolution late in 1917 was a moment of deep concern when the secret treaties of the allies were revealed to the world’s press. Lawrence’s role had just got harder. Newcombe, meanwhile, was out of the fray having got himself captured during an operation behind enemy lines at the Third Battle of Gaza.

4. THE DECLARATION TO THE SEVEN 1918

On 16 June 1918, Mark Sykes responded to a secret memorandum written by seven anonymous Syrian notables in Cairo requesting a "guarantee of the ultimate independence of Arabia".

The seven Syrians were members of the recently formed Syrian Unity Party which was established in the wake of the Balfour Declaration and the publication by the Bolsheviks of the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

In what became known as The Declaration to the Seven, Sykes expressed His Majesty’s Government’s great care in considering their requests despite their anonymity which he said, “has not in any way detracted from the importance which His Majesty's Government attribute to the document.”

The areas mentioned in Sykes’ response fell into four categories and are worth setting out in full:

1. Areas in Arabia which were free and independent before the outbreak of war.
2. Areas emancipated from Turkish control by the action of the Arabs themselves during the present war.
3. Areas formerly under Ottoman dominion, occupied by the Allied forces during the present war.
4. Areas still under Turkish control.

In regard to the first two categories, Sykes stated that his government recognised “the complete and sovereign independence of the Arab inhabiting these areas and supported them in their struggle for freedom.”

In regard to the areas occupied by Allied forces, the British government drew the attention of the Seven to the texts of the proclamations issued by the General Commanding Officers following the capture of Baghdad and Jerusalem, proclamations that embodied the policy of His Majesty's Government towards the inhabitants of those regions. Namely:

“It is the wish and desire of His Majesty's Government that the future government of these regions should be based upon the principle of the consent of the governed and this policy has and will continue to have the support of His Majesty's Government.”

Sykes wrote that the government was aware, and would take into consideration, the dangers and difficulties for those who worked for the regeneration of the people in the specified regions, and that all obstacles could and will be overcome with his government’s full support.

Finally, he declared that the government was ready to examine any cooperative plan that aligned with existing military operations and consistent with the political principles of His Majesty's Government and the Allies.

Aside from private assurances and promises, the Declaration, written less than five months before the end of the war, was the first statement from the British Government to the Arabs advocating national self-determination. The Declaration was read out to the Seven on behalf of the Foreign Office by an official at the Army headquarters in Egypt and a copy was sent to Sherif Hussein. 

On the night of 30 September 1918, Lawrence and the Sherifian Arab Army were poised to enter Damascus aware that under the terms of the Declaration the Arabs had the right to establish a government over all the territory that they liberated. It is unclear who entered Damascus first but Lawrence, who had been detained by a patrol of Bengal Lancers in a mix-up over his identity, recorded the moment he finally entered the city that he had dreamed of helping to conquer since a boy in Oxford:

"The streets were nearly impassable with the crowds, who yelled themselves hoarse, danced, cut themselves with swords and daggers and fired volleys into the air. Nasir, Nuri Sha'lan, Auda abu Tayi and myself were cheered by name, covered with flowers, kissed indefinitely and splashed with attar of roses from the house-tops."

Riding his horse at the head of a large possession, Faisal later entered the town to further scenes of wild jubilation and joy. As his biographer, Ali Allawi, wrote: "The flags of the Arab Revolt were everywhere. For now, at least, the city was at his feet." After two years of hard warfare, Faisal was the undisputed leader of the Arabs of Greater Syria. The revolt had triumphed, but with immense difficulties on the horizon the battle for the heart and soul of the Arab cause had just begun. 

POST-WAR PERIOD

As agreed in the secret agreements of the Allies, the aftermath of the war saw the division of the Middle East into mandates and colonies controlled by various European powers, with the Arab territories being divided up between Britain and France. These actions led to disillusionment among the Arab population and contributed to a deep-seated mistrust of Western powers due to perceived broken promises.

Throughout his life, Newcombe continued to fight against the injustices perpetrated against the Palestinians, as shown in this letter to The Times in 1939:

Being one of the few survivors who made promises on behalf of the British Government to the Arabs in 1917, I state the facts as follows:

1. We made several promises to the Arabs: in 1915 the McMahon letters; in 1916-18 promises by leaflets dropped by aeroplanes, by speeches to prisoners of war, and by any means we could devise, to induce them to desert and rebel against their own Government: we asked them to run the risk of being hanged and to risk the lives of their families: we offered them freedom as a reward; 2,000 deserters and others joined up from Palestine alone, and were at Wadi Musa in 1918.

2. In November, 1917, we made a vague and qualified promise to the Jews, without asking the Arabs whether it contravened our promises to them.

3. On hearing of the Balfour Declaration the Arabs who were helping us by their revolt stopped fighting in December, 1917. So we sent Commander D. G. Hogarth to explain to King Hussein that the Jewish Settlement would be consistent with the economic and political freedom of the Arab people. On such conditions King Hussein accepted "Jews into an Arab House" and the Arabs went on fighting with us.

4. For some years we deluded Arabs and ourselves by saying that the National Home was “cultural and spiritual” and non-political. Had we kept to that meaning little trouble would have occurred.

It would be very desirable, from the point of view of honour, that all these various pledges should be set out, side by side, and then consider what is the fair thing to be done. This is all that the Arabs ask…

For the rest of his life, Newcombe maintained strong views on what he considered were acceptable levels of Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine in the years between the World Wars, based on his long study of the region, its people, infrastructure and resources. Believing the Arabs of Palestine would not vanish like the mist before the sun of Zion he therefore thought it imperative they had fair representation in the contest for the hearts and minds of those in power who would ultimately bring about the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration, with all its stipulations – important provisos which supported his firm belief that only by respecting native interests could you achieve a lasting consensus. He worked tirelessly towards that aim after consulting the opinions of his many Jewish and Moslem friends before reaching proposals for what might be termed a bi-nation state solution. His convictions, once reached, never wavered.

In Part Two I will explore Newcombe’s role in delimiting the boundaries of Palestine and Lebanon, his role as the Honorary Secretary of the Palestine Information Centre in London, his collaboration with Albert Hyamson in seeking a just and sustainable future for both Arabs and Jews in Palestine, known as the Hyamson-Newcombe Proposal, his work with Hyamson and others in drawing up a Constitution for Palestine, and perhaps his most fitting legacy to his Muslim friends, that of helping to establish the first purpose built mosque in London.

NEWCOMBE AND THE PALESTINIANS

‘I am angry with myself for not being able to do more’.

STEWART FRANCIS NEWCOMBE

 

‘Newcombe’s feeling of guilt persisted to the end of his life and kept him constantly active in furthering Arab political aims.’

ARNOLD LAWRENCE (T. E’s BROTHER) TO JEREMY WILSON, AUGUST 1971

 

On 7 October 2023, the Al-Qasam Brigade, the military wing of the Palestinian organisation Hamas, broke out of besieged Gaza and brutally massacred Israeli and foreign citizens and military personnel, an operation that left around 1200 dead, injuring many more, and taking approximately 230 hostages. The attack, named Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by Hamas, proved to be the bloodiest day in Israel’s history. In the aftermath of a huge intelligence, military and security failure, Israel's retaliation on the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip was immediate, devastating and driven by a desire for retribution.

Israel asserts its right to self-defence and history shows that it has never refrained from using disproportionate force in response to attacks coming from Gaza, or elsewhere. Backed by statements of support from the US, the UK and others, the Israeli Defense Force has since unleashed a firestorm on the Gazan civilian population from land, sea, and air. As a result of this ongoing action, accusations have been made that Israel has violated numerous articles of international law. Human rights organizations and governments from all over the world have called for an end to hostilities or, at the very least, a pause to allow in much needed aid and relief to people caught up in a humanitarian disaster. Israel counters this by saying a ceasefire will simply give Hamas time to regroup and rearm.

In all the years I have studied the situation in Israel and Palestine, I have never before seen this level of brutality, barbarity and destruction inflicted upon the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. This is unprecedented. With live streaming, it is possible to witness this in real time. According to different sources (as of 7 November 2023), in excess of 10,000 Palestinian men, women, and children, have so far died in four weeks of relentless bombing that has targeted residential properties, hospitals, ambulances, schools, UNWRA refugee centres, churches and mosques, bakeries, so-called safe routes to the south, as well as the only remaining exit out of the Strip at Rafa on the Egyptian border. Israel claims that Hamas bunkers and tunnels operate under these buildings and are therefore legitimate targets. In the coming days and weeks, thousands of bodies will be pulled from under the rubble of Gaza City as well as the eight refugee camps that lie within its encircled boundary. With no humanitarian pause in sight, it appears Israel is determined to eradicate not only Hamas but also Gaza itself. Soon there will be nothing left for Gazans to return to. (NOTE: As of 26 January 2024, the number of dead has risen to over 30,000).

Israel has maintained control over Gaza's land, sea, and air since the brutal blockade of 2007, tightly regulating the supply of water, electricity, fuel, and other essential goods, and limiting or prohibiting the movement of people. Services such as desperately needed medical aid and internet connectivity have been weaponized and are arbitrarily withdrawn.

Gaza has a population of 2.2 million people crowded into what is in effect the world's largest concentration camp. With half of the population under the age of 18, more than 4000 children have been killed so far. Surely the terrible attack by Hamas cannot justify the murder of so many innocent children. Injuries from bomb blasts, full body burns, allegedly from phosphorous shells according to doctors on the ground, and the mental suffering from seeing loved ones torn to pieces are wounds that will never heal. While claiming to target Hamas fighters, entire families are being wiped out by indiscriminate bombing. Israel disputes any numbers coming from the Hamas controlled health authority and claims that many killed will be Hamas fighters. The number of dead women and children will tell another tale. 

Among the dead are at least 37 journalists, having been killed while displaying courage and tenacity in telling their story to the world. Despite the horrifying scenes of the Hamas terror attack on 7 October, known as Israel’s Black Saturday, many major cities in the world continue to witness incredible scenes of support for Palestine. Israel has lost the propaganda war. (NOTE: As of 26 January 2024, there are now over 83 Journalists killed according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than in WW2 which lasted four years, and in Vietnam which last two decades.)

Palestine's armed resistance against Israel's colonisation did not start on 7 October 2023; the long road to the collective dispossession of the indigenous people of Palestine began much earlier. This was alluded to by António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, who told the security council: “It is important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” Guterres was of course referring to the aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967 when Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on the opening day of the war designed to destroy the Egyptian Air force and its airfields following the mass mobilisation of an Arab military alliance that had aggressively surrounded Israel on at least two borders. In the ensuing six-day conflict, Israel won territorial gains from Egypt, Jordan and Syria which included the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the Sinai, and the Gaza Strip.

Israel immediately called for Guiterres' resignation and announced that it was withdrawing travel visas for UN officials, including the UN humanitarian coordinator, Martin Griffiths. As fury grows over its strikes on Gaza, it seems Israel is not afraid to lose friends and support in order to pursue its war aims. Meanwhile, the Israeli hostages remain in captivity and more than 1.6 million Palestinians have been displaced.

Respected Israeli and Jewish academics have described Israel as a colonial settler apartheid regime established in 1948 on the land of Palestine and at the expense and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people following their catastrophe (al-Nakba). For fifty-six years, Israel has held Gaza and the West Bank under strict military occupation, and in international law has a duty to protect all civilians under its control. Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, pointed out that Israel "cannot claim the right to self defense against a threat that emanates from the territory it occupies... from a territory that is kept under belligerent occupation." It is like saying that an abuser has the right to defend himself because his victim struck him. Meanwhile, attacks from armed colonialist settlers and military raids in the West Bank, which is not under Hamas control, complete the stranglehold on Palestinian freedoms and render the possibility of a two state solution null and void.  

I cannot guess what the Arabist, Colonel Stewart Newcombe’s reaction would have been to these events, but I know he would not have stood idly by while innocent civilians on both sides were slaughtered in their thousands.  

But Guterres was reticent in his speech to the United Nations and could have gone back much further, beyond even the 1948 Nakba, when 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes at the birth of a nation whose very existence was predicated on the destruction of another. Today, images of long lines of Gazans fleeing for their lives, waving white flags of surrender out of fear of being targeted, are a stark reminder of a catastrophe that has lasted over 75 years. In the follow-up to this article, I will try to contextualize many of the major events that led to this dark place in the history of the region, paying special attention to Newcombe's involvement and his steadfast support for the Palestinian people who were once promised so much in what became known as the twice promised land.         

ARABS AND PALESTINE Daily Telegraph 1945

CONTEXT On this day 78 years ago:

To the Editor of The Daily Telegraph

Sir, 

The Dowager Countess Lloyd-George implies that we are reversing our policy and going back on our word to the Jews if we do not allow the homeless Jews of Europe to go to Palestine. 

Our policy since 1939 has been that of the White Paper, which was based on the weighing up, for the first time, of promises made to Arabs and of the Balfour Declaration. Lord Maugham's Committee stated that the British Government "were not free to dispose of Palestine without regard for the wishes and interests of the inhabitants of Palestine." The Balfour Declaration was the only promise made to the Jews, and the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Palestine was viewed with favour only so far as it did not prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing population.

Various statements have been made by the Government that a Jewish State is not promised: various declarations to the Arabs qualify the extent of the Balfour Declaration. If there still be doubt that the latter has not been fulfilled, let an impartial, judicial body examine all the evidence available and let the matter be finally clarified

The Arabs object to the entry of more Jews into Palestine because they fear political domination if they are outnumbered by Zionists. The Arab League, however, have offered to accept more than their share of Jewish refugees on grounds of humanity into other Arab States where political fears do not arise.

Yours faithfully,

S. F. NEWCOMBE, Col.

London, SW7

(Dated 22.10.1945)

The Anglo-Turkish Earthquake Relief Fund 1939

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the earthquake that hit the area around Gaziantep in southern Turkey close to the border with Syria before dawn on Monday, 6 February 2023, was the country’s worst disaster since 1939. The war-ravaged northern border of Syria was also deeply affected by the 7.8 quake where most of the casualties were predominantly in the cities of Aleppo, Hama, Latakia and Tartus.

Erzincan destruction 1939

The disaster that Erdogan referred to was the 1939 Erzincan earthquake that also struck early in the morning of 26 December while most people slept. Seven violent shocks, the biggest measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale resulted in the loss of nearly 33,000 lives, injuring 100,000 and made several hundred thousand homeless. Ninety villages and 15 cities over an area of 30,000 square kilometres were completely destroyed in what is called the North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ). The earthquake created a 360-km-long surface rupture, traces of which are still visible, and produced a strong tsunami wave of up to a metre high that swept across the eastern coast of the Turkish Black Sea in less than an hour. 

International response to the unfolding tragedy was prompt. On the British side, Sir Wyndham Deedes, an eminent British Army officer, civil administrator and a Turcophile, travelled to the region accompanied by archaeologist Professor John Garstang to distribute a wide ranging package of relief on behalf of the Anglo-Turkish Earthquake Relief Fund, an appeal initiated by George Lloyd, Lord Lloyd of Dolobran, then chairman of the British Council. His wartime colleague, Stewart Newcombe, was invited to join the executive committee and became its vice-chair. 

S.F. Newcombe

Newcombe knew many of the distinguished members that came forward to help coordinate the appeal for money, clothing, blankets, and medical supplies. Garstang was joined on the committee by fellow archaeologists Leonard Wooley and Max Mallowan and by Newcombe’s old colleagues from Egypt and the Hejaz such as Ronald Storrs, Colonel Buxton, and the Earl Winterton. One name stands out on the list - that of Lady Paul, known to many as the White Lady of Constantinople, an extremely courageous woman who had done much to ease the suffering of allied prisoners-of-war in Turkey, going so far as to facilitate escape and evasion at great personal danger. She had been instrumental in connecting Newcombe to leading Turkish officials seeking an armistice agreement when he was an escaped prisoner living undercover in Constantinople.

A mountain of aid in the form of clothing, blankets, medical supplies and even a fleet of ambulances were handled by a team of volunteers working day and night at a relief depot set up at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London. Clothing sufficient to aid 48,000 survivors were sent out to the affected area in the first month. The British press played up a story that a second-hand clothes depot had donated a quantity of policemen’s uniforms. “Police blue to clothe Turks” ran one of the headlines. Within 48 hours of the appeal reaching Lord Trent, chairman of Boots the Chemist, a donation of drugs was made to the value of £500. Over a two-day period, 27,000 letters were handled by the Post Office, most containing cash or cheques from as little as a halfpenny to £1000. Jewellery was donated to be converted into cash and one woman even sent in her engagement ring as she said her late husband had deep affection for the country. The £77,000 collected from British sympathisers was immediately spent on reconstruction materials such as galvanised iron sheets and roofing felt as well as extra clothing needs. 

First-hand report from Sir Wyndham Deedes

At this point the committee recommended stopping the general appeal due to the prevailing wartime conditions. They thought that the best help that could now be given was the erection of a modern hospital in Erzincan as a permanent token of friendship and so committee members were dispatched across the UK to seek financial contributions from leaders in commerce and industry. With the committee setting the total needed at £50,000, Newcombe travelled with Wyndham Deedes to various parts of the UK to promote the idea. 

Ultimately, it seems likely that the total destruction of Erzincan and its subsequent abandonment as a city led to the Fund reallocating its assets to other pressing needs. Erzincan was later founded as a new town on a fertile plain to the north.  

George Lloyd by William Roberts

Following the unexpected death of Lord Lloyd on 4 February 1942, the committee held its last meeting on 21 February.  The final accounts show how amazingly philanthropic the British public and industry leaders were during those early war years with a total donation of cash and in kind, as well as a significant concession from shipping and railways, amounting to a staggering £82,300 (equivalent to £4,961,152 in 2023 money). The balance of the Fund’s assets were later handed over to the Turkish Red Crescent Society with the proviso that £5,000 shall, in accordance with the wishes of the donors, be spent in Great Britain for the purchase of hospital equipment and medical supplies.

When the committee closed its books, the Second World War was already into its third year. The work of the Anglo-Turkish Earthquake Relief Fund, the prodigious efforts of a legion of volunteers, and the unbridled generosity of the general public at a time of great personal hardship, stands as a timely reminder of how powerful the cumulative effect of a thousand single acts of compassion to strangers in times of despair can be. 

Hard work: Good prospects - the Devon and Cornwall Group Settlement Scheme to Australia

Hard work: Good prospects - that was the philosophy behind the Devon and Cornwall Group Settlement Scheme to Australia initiated in the early 1920s by Colonel Stewart F. Newcombe.

The Groups Settlement Scheme was a bold idea designed to encourage families from England’s West Country to settle in Western Australia. The original programme, set up in 1921 under the direction of the region’s Premier, Sir James Mitchell, had successfully cleared areas of dense forest in preparation for dairy farming to make the region self-sufficient in milk, butter, and cheese. To bring his dream to fruition, Mitchell needed more settlers and more money. For both, he turned to Britain where unemployment in post-WW1 England was high and especially so in the South-West following a gradual decline in local industries such as tin and copper mining. Stewart Newcombe’s close contact with Australian and New Zealand troops (ANZACS) at Gallipoli and on the Western Front warmed him to the opportunities that this vast continent and its people could offer. From his military posting at Raglan barracks, Devonport, he began to explore ways to promote its benefits to families from the local towns of Devon and Cornwall.

Clearing trees by chain and snig

Newcombe proposed a personal initiative that closely fitted with the scheme run by Sir James. To see its potential for himself, he was invited by Sir James to conduct a six-week fact-finding tour of the country that would hopefully result in a considerable flow of candidates to the region. Early in March 1923, and before a planned relocation to the War Office in London, Newcombe wasted no time in putting in for leave and informed Sir James that he and his wife, Elsie, were on their way.

The Newcombe’s arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia, on 5 April 1923 after a 45-day voyage and were met by their host Mr. Percy Stewart, the Federal Minister for Works and Railway. After disembarkation a short reception was hosted by the mayor and other dignitaries.  

Unfortunately, the Newcombe’s fact-finding mission did not get off to a good start. Soon after the reception they set off on the short nine-mile drive from Fremantle to Perth, WA’s capital city. The car in which Newcombe, Elsie and Mr. and Mrs. Stewart was travelling swerved to avoid a horse and cart on the road. Passing the cart, a piece of timber struck the upright which held the hood in position forcing the car to collide with an electric light pole with considerable force. Elsie was thrown forward into the windscreen which smashed over her cutting her face and lips. Suffering from shock she was treated by a local doctor before the group continued their journey to Perth where the Newcombes were lodged at the Palace Hotel at 108 St. George’s Terrace.  On Friday 6 April, the day after the crash, the incident was worthy of a mention in The Argus newspaper, which had been reporting Newcombe’s forthcoming visit since the beginning of the year.

After an initial meeting with Sir James there followed two weeks of meetings and receptions. Newcombe devoted his time to promoting the merits of his scheme, assessing the productivity of the country he passed through, appraising the rainfall and climate, and acquiring information as to markets and marketing facilities. Questions from the press focussed on the financial viability of his scheme with one reporter commenting that Colonel Newcombe’s scheme “appears to be complex, and it will require most expert organisation if it is to achieve any measure of success.” Newcombe responded by saying: “This is a draft of the scheme I drew up in England without consultation with your Premier. He may tear up our proposal, but I feel confident that he will submit something in its place which will be equally good or better for the people we wish to serve at home and in the interests of this State, and for the good of the Empire at large.”

On 18 April 1923, Newcombe and the investigating party visited two group settlements, Nos. 41 and 42, already successfully operating just nine miles west of the town of Denmark and close to the railhead. During the six weeks tour of the region, it was the first and only time he was able to get close to groups carrying the scheme forward where he witnessed the cooperative process of clearing, and chatted with the settlers and their wives, learning much of interest from the practical side of the joint enterprise. Strongly impressed by what he saw he unhesitatingly predicted success for the venture allowing for minor mistakes usual during the early stages. He and Elsie then embarked on a long train journey on the Trans-Australian Railway east to Melbourne via Adelaide to promote his scheme before the return journey home.

Impressed by the little that he had seen, Newcombe returned to the UK in June full of enthusiasm for the endeavour: "I consider the whole world can offer no finer opening for a working man than Australia provided he goes out under a sound scheme, and now we have got the scheme I think no man who is willing to work need hesitate a moment, for the prospects are exceedingly good." Early the following year he formed the Devon and Cornwall Migration Committee to deal with the promotion, administration, transportation, reception, and assimilation to the new country. Its members were duly instructed to tour the region with sophisticated publicity material to present to prospective pioneers.

Problems would later arise from what was seen as misleading imagery and statements depicted on lantern slides, films and posters and in pamphlets donated by the Tourist and Publicity Bureau of the Western Australia Government, a tone that was replicated in the committee's own locally produced materials that portrayed a seductive representation of what awaited potential applicants. The message was simple and unambiguous: "Those desiring to improve their positions and those of their children in various walks of life have here an excellent opportunity of working for their own benefit and being their own masters, provided that they are able and willing to work hard."  

Widespread publicity and well-attended meetings proved successful and initial uptake was encouraging; even Elsie was on hand, promoting the scheme from the women’s point-of-view. A programme of fund-raising was initiated to provide some families with money for incidental expenses such as the obligatory £3 per head landing fee, travel expenses to Plymouth, and in a few cases, even clothing and children’s shoes. 

Within less than a year the first group of specially selected emigrants assembled for embarkation on the S.S. Sophocles at Plymouth’s Great Western Millbay Docks. Twenty families, comprising twenty men, twenty women and sixty-one children were gathered together in preparation to sail into the unknown. Some said it was like the Pilgrim Fathers 304 years before them, only now their journey would take them south towards what had been described as “God’s own country”. 

Speeches were made, bands played and Lady Astor, the local M.P., distributed gifts - a scarf for each woman, a tie for each man, toys for the children and two silver cups to be competed for in games during the voyage. The Mayor, Solomon Stephens, not to be outdone, gave a framed photo of Plymouth to each family and a pen to each adult "with which to write home".

One speech, out of the many that were given that day, went a long way to help alleviate some of the anxiety felt by the pioneers. Mr. Hal Colebatch, Agent-General for Western Australia, was present to oversee the departure from Plymouth. His words accurately summed up the mood of the day: 

“I am not so old that I forget the day I left England 45 years ago, and I want you first and foremost to know that you are not in any way exiles from home,” he went on. “You are merely moving from one room to another, as it were, in the great house of the British Empire.”

As paper streamers broke the final physical ties to family and friends, the Sophocles set sail towards what all hoped would be a bright new future.  

“A land of golden opportunities, but not of feather beds”

On 7 March 1924 Albany welcomed the newcomers after their four-week voyage and provided temporary shelter and immediate needs for two or three days before the families were assigned to their groups. The Women’s Reception Committees took the lead in instructing the women in what to expect from farm life and how to cope in situations far removed from anything they would have experienced in the UK. Even Sir James Mitchell was on hand to welcome the families. Their arrival was recorded by the Western Australian newspaper: 

"Substantial ghosts of the Pilgrim Fathers walked the streets of Albany today. True, they wore no high-crowned wide-brimmed hats, no knee breeches, and no dour air. But they sailed from Plymouth Hoe a month ago, their Mayflower - the Sophocles, and their America - Western Australia. This morning the first 20 of what may be a procession of 1,000 Pilgrim Fathers - another 20 are already on the water and scores are ready to follow if the vanguard reports are favourable - descended the gangway of the Sophocles.”

The newspaper continued: "Some time ago, it will be remembered, Lieutenant-Colonel Newcombe visited Western Australia on behalf of the Devon and Cornwall Association, and inspected group settlement areas. The new arrivals say they have come because of the story he told, and they regard him with the highest respect.” The men were described as fine, physical types, many already acquainted with rural life. Among them were engineers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and other tradesmen considered useful in settlement life.

Sir James and the people of Albany extended them a hand of welcome at a meeting in the town hall before the families were due to depart by train to Denmark. “This is a great country of ours," Sir James told them in a rousing speech. “There are only 350,000 people here, so you are almost pioneers. You men and women from Devon and Cornwall have reached port today. You will arrive on your land tomorrow and, two days later will be at work on your holdings. No man can do anything for you unless you are willing to work. There is nothing in Australia we will not do for those who will work. There is nothing we can do for the man who will not work.”

Sir James then described the land that awaited the group: “Of course, it is a wilderness today, but you are good enough to conquer a wilderness. The average Englishman very readily takes to the bush in this country and very soon learns to love it.”

"More of you are coming naturally," continued Sir James, “and I hope that before long we will be able to adopt a British county name for all this country you enter.” Encouraged by his words the group cheered loudly. "Good luck to you all," said the Premier. "May you prosper and multiply: may you enjoy your lives in Western Australia, and may the work you do be amply rewarded."

After being transported by train from Albany to Denmark the families were taken eleven miles west along the unmade Nornalup road by Reo trucks or horse-drawn carriages out into the forests where they had been assigned land on blocks that were described as containing “good swamp land, near to the sea, and embrace a commonage where fine pasture permits the immediate keeping of dairy cattle." Then, for the first time, the families understood the reality of their situation when they first caught sight of inadequate shelters of galvanised iron sheeting without windows or a floor. Eileen Croxford (née Cross), then a young girl, later recalled the moment they arrived at the camp of twenty shacks set up to receive the first of Newcombe’s groups known as Group 113: “Mum sat on her luggage, looked around and then said to Dad, ‘Do we have to live here? They wouldn’t put a cow in a byre like this at home’” For some, perhaps the dream died a little at that moment. The rest, buoyed up by the stirring words of the Premier, packed away their suits and ties, rolled up their shirt sleeves and got on with the job.

Initially, work consisted of back-breaking land clearance and by the mid-Thirties about 100,000 acres of dense forest had been cleared mostly by handsaw and fire. For those determined to make it work, and even before the stubborn-rooted Karri and Jarrah trees were felled, the hardy pioneer could already see in his mind’s eye a vision of lush pastures, fat grazing cattle and, above all, a prosperous future. 

But what started out as a 'sound scheme' soon ran into difficulties. A Royal Commission in 1926 found that land unsuitable for dairy farming had been included in the allocations and that a herd of fewer than 23 to 30 cows would not provide a farmer with a livelihood, but most settlers had fewer than ten. Unaware of the difficulties that awaited them, the 'Groupies', as they were known, made significant inroads into clearing the land, and then looked on helpless as their cattle inexplicably deteriorated into emaciated and infertile wrecks. As one settler, Fred Osborne, remembered: "After the enormous hardship of clearing the land, the care taken in establishing pastures and the excitement of stocking the new land, the animals just starved and died. In lush green pastures they simply lay down and died - bags of bones." It was not until the mid-Thirties that soil tests revealed a deficiency in the trace element cobalt. The cure was simple – with the addition of cobalt enriched Cow Lick into their feed healthy cattle once again grazed the Karri hills.  But a second blow to the farmers’ endeavours was about to fall.

When the Great Depression sweeping around the world reached Australia the country’s dependence on agricultural and industrial exports meant it became one of the hardest-hit countries in the Western world. Having conquered the land and solved the Denmark Cattle Wasting Disease the settlers were finally crushed by mounting debts as the price of butter fat plummeted and interest rates on their loans rose. After years of struggling most settlers were forced to walk off their land and abandon their efforts to a later generation. Fred Osborne’s family is one of the very few who managed to stay on, and the farm is still in their ownership today.

Group 113 member Eileen Croxford also stayed in the area. This is how she summed her time as a Groupie and what happened to her after:  

"We just lived in these shacks - no floor, no doors, no windows. I was out to work by the time I was 12. I was 20 when I got married and then I proceeded to have a family. Then the war came, my husband went away to Japan and didn't come back again". 

Newcombe's families

Newcombe and his fellow committee members have been accused of being seduced by the imagined landscapes projected by Western Australia’s publicity material while officials in Australia responded forcefully to the claim that blocks had been “window dressed” by insisting that all inspection trips were shown “as much as their time permits, and no attempt is made to conceal the sore spots”. Despite the criticisms, key values underpinning the enterprise were clear and unambiguous - hard work was at the heart of a scheme designed to appeal to anyone having difficulty in making a decent living at home, and were not afraid of getting stuck in. Newcombe never shied away from pressing this point home and never pretended that this was a land of feather beds.

Fifteen groups were eventually established in the Denmark area. They were identified by numbers. Newcombe’s groups were 113 (Parryville), 114 (Tealedale), 116 (Tingledale) and 139 (Hazeldale) – 136 families in all. They mostly arrived during 1924 and then a trickle until 1926 on the following ships of the Aberdeen Line: the Sophocles, Themistocles, Demosthenes, and the Diogenes. 

Group 116 Tingledale

The remarkable story of the Group Settlement Scheme forms a small part of the history of the development of Western Australia, but it is a story of how migration can help forge the identity of a new country. Today, the legacy of those pioneers reveals itself in unexpected ways. Although the project was declared a ‘glorious failure’ – for reasons far removed from the prodigious efforts of those involved – descendants of many of those early settlers are still in evidence across the region, and are thriving and prosperous. 

The legacy

The land that was assigned to the Groupies in Western Australia is breathtakingly beautiful, with a shoreline that contains some of the best beaches in Australia and where the might of the Southern Ocean crashes against dramatic cliffs and rock formations that seems to pre-date history itself. West of Denmark, 90-metre-high Karri and tingle trees – among the tallest in the world - are a tourist attraction in a national park that today embraces the term ‘Valley of the Giants’ as a marketing tool. In between this wonderland there exists successful farms that produce award-winning wines, succulent olives, and peppery virgin oil, complimented by honey and cheese – a not insignificant shift in economy from the 1920s and a world away from the privations experienced by the original settlers as they laid the foundation of today’s success. Self-catering accommodation located within many of the old block boundaries, now promoted as idyllic weekend retreats, completes the evolution from hardship and struggle to pleasure and relaxation.   

Backed by a strong economy and a robust tourist industry, today these are the things worth striving for on land that was once toiled with such stubborn determination and courage by a diverse group of individuals far from familiar comforts. Today, these farms form the backbone of modern Western Australia’s tourist industry, occupying the very same land that once broke the health, the spirits and the hearts of the men, women and their children who came to create new colonies on the far side of the world through sheer determination, endeavour and hope. This is their legacy.