Germans at Boldon

German P.O.W's to the number of 700 were brought into Boldon yesterday. They came by train to Boldon Station and then marched near to South Boldon where there is a camp of wooden huts, in which the new arrivals have taken up their quarters. This camp was up to recently occupied by the Northumberland Fusiliers and is surrounded by a barbed wire fence.
The prisoners of War have been brought into the district to work at filling up trenches and removing other traces of the military occupation. They will be engaged not only in the Boldon and Cleadon locality but it is understood over an area of about 25 miles, and it is expected they will be here for some considerable time.
Chiefly military men, there area a few sailors among them and they are attired in various kinds of uniforms, but in order to make them easily identifiable they all have a red patch on the leg.
It was about eleven O'clock in the morning when they reached Boldon and they were busily engaged yesterday in getting settled down in their new quarters where they are under a strong military guard.
Their advent in the district aroused great interest yesterday especially among the children, large numbers of whom congregated in the vicinity of the camp.

Paper:Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette
Date:17/4/1919
News ArticleThe problem with identifying the true location of camps from these types of articles is how often people mix up East and West Boldon which is understandable since it is such a small geographical area. In this case the article refers to South Boldon which is not often mentioned which alludes to a camp being in that area. When unveiling a War Memorial in later years one of the dignitaries there was the old camp commander for Boldon, it stated he was in charge of 27,000 men. This figure seemed high to me as it did not state whether that was at once or over the period he was in charge. Scotts farm although a large area may still have been too small to house all these at once, alternatively they could have been split over a couple of smaller camps in Boldon one of which could have been at South Boldon (Bridle Path). Other clues could be that they moved from Boldon Railway Station to the near by camp. Although there is a station at Boldon Colliery it is quite often reffered to as Brockley whins, so the station in question this time could be East Boldon Station. Another possible clue is in another newspaper article on the 3rd July 1919 which basically had all of Scots Camp for Sale. However we know the camp mentioned in this article was still in occupation by the German prisoners in October so unlikely to be the same one.



email : boldonwm@yahoo.com