Letter to Robert Anderson from John Bristow, 19 April 1916 Letters 1916-1923 John Bristow

This work was originally published by Maynooth University in Ireland in 2017. In 2026 this data, stored in a relational database was extracted and converted into this TEI/XML document.

 Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities Vienna, AT 2026

This is an open access work licensed under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Letter from John Bristow, Commandant of the Belfast Volunteer Corps, to Robert Anderson (b.1860) the honorary secretary of the Irish Association of Volunteer Training Corps. Bristow provides details of the activities undertaken by the volunteers in his corps as requested by the Military Authorities, namely patrolling the Belfast docks.The IAVTC were a corps consisting of men who were over age or engaged in important occupations and therefore could not enlist for wartime service when war broke out in 1914. This was a volunteering training militia that came to be known by the nickname 'Gorgeous Wrecks' due to the G.R. armbands they wore symbolizing Georgius Rex.

 National Archives of Ireland Chief Secretary's Office Registered Papers, CSO RP/1916/7964/12 https://letters1916.ie/item/263 English John Bristow 1916-04-19 14a High Street, Belfast, County Antrim, Ireland. Robert Anderson 18 South Frederick Street, Dublin, Ireland Male World War I (1914-1918) Industry and Public Administration

The data in these XML files was generated based on a data dump from the Magellan database (https://github.com/Maynooth-Center-for-Digital-Humanities/Magellan). Each database record has been converted to a JSON file (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/json). The element section of the JSON file contains the TEI-encoded contents of the letters. The TEI XML has been cleaned and made well-formed using a Python script (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/src).

 Headquarters:- 14a High Street, Belfast, 19th April, 1916 Dear Mr. Anderson, Many thanks for your letter of the 18th inst. The work that the Belfast Corps is doing was undertaken at the request of the Military Authorities. It consists of Patrol duty at the Docks, where we patrol eight beats every night. We also have a Motor Boat patrolling the Docks and keeping up communication between our men on the two sides of the river. We have a Guard Room on each side, where an Officer, N.C.O., and Orderly are on duty all night, and the patrols are divided into watches of three hours. The men are armed with sticks and whistles, and are in touch with Military Sentries or armed police. Yours sincerly, (Signed) John Bristow. Commandant. R. A. Anderson, Esq., 18 South Frederick Street, DUBLIN. Robert Anderson Letter to Robert Anderson, 22 April 1916Letter from Robert Anderson to Sir Matthew Nathan, 21 April 1916Letter from Robert Anderson to Sir Matthew Nathan, 20 April 1916Letter from Robert Anderson to Sir Matthew Nathan, 18 April 1916Letter to Robert Anderson, 17 April 1916Letter to Robert Anderson from John Bristow, 19 April 1916Letter from Robert Anderson to Edward O'Farrell, 9 May 1916.Letter from Robert Anderson to Sir Matthew Nathan, 15 April 1916 John Bristow Letter to Robert Anderson from John Bristow, 19 April 1916 18 South Frederick Street, Dublin, Ireland Letter from Robert Anderson to Sir Matthew Nathan, 20 April 1916Letter from Robert Anderson to Sir Matthew Nathan, 18 April 1916Letter to Robert Anderson, 17 April 1916Letter to Robert Anderson from John Bristow, 19 April 1916Letter from Robert Anderson to Sir Matthew Nathan, 15 April 1916 14a High Street, Belfast, County Antrim, Ireland. Letter to Robert Anderson from John Bristow, 19 April 1916