Description: Percy Pechell Wood (1877-1955). Held as a civilian prisoner of war throughout World War I at Ruhleben in Germany, Percy worked prolifically as an artist while incarcerated. This is a collection of 9 original caricature cartoons of male subjects (some in uniform) in graphite and/or ink on paper, plus a facsimile copy of a print in colour by Percy depicting a cricket match at the camp in 1916. The colour print image measures 14 x 21.5 cm, the largest sheet bearing a sketch measures 35 x 25 cm. There is also the front sheet of an envelope addressed to Percy in 1938 at his then home in Stoke, Devonport, Plymouth Devon as he continued to teach languages after the Great War and his release. These are super Great War collectible ephemera. Biography researched and written by MastheadArt Percy Pechell Wood (1877-1955 ) World War I prisoner at Ruhleben camp in Germany, where he was a prolific artist using graphite, ink, and watercolour. Born and raised in Hull, there is a police record of Percy Pechell Wood of Hull passing through immigration into Belgium via Antwerp. We know at the time of his incarceration at Ruhleben he had been working in Germany teaching languages and was interred at Ruhleben along with thousands of others, as part of the holding of foreign aliens in Germany at the outbreak of the Great War. Percy became an illustrator for the camp's magazine, alongside other interned campmate artists such as George Spiers Goodchild, and Charles Freegrove Winzer who had been working with the Red Cross. Percy's work detailed daily life at the camp, caricatures and cartoons of fellow inmates, often signing his work as "PodWop". In late 1916 a British newspaper reports stated that the camp only had two types of medicine available to inmates, salts and aspirin. We have tried to piece together what Percy did on release after 1918. It seems he, and his two siblings were all eventually in Corfe Castle in Dorset but Percy had a long career teaching languages in Plymouth prior to that. There is a newspaper record dated 24th August 1936 in the letters section of the Daily Express from Percy P Wood, of Corfe Castle, asking if he may be permitted to "fly his little flag for old England, on Aug 5th I swam from the Breakwater Lighthouse to Plymouth Promenade Pier, two miles in 56 minutes, I am 60 next February". We had several of these drawings by Percy but the ones we are selling here are the final ones of the collection of his work we had and are unsigned - but do come with a front sheet of an envelope addressed to Percy at 20 Victoria Place, Stoke, Devonport, Plymouth (posted from Scarborough Yorkshire 20th May 1938) and they had been kept in this envelope. That location matches with his reference in the 1936 letter in the newspaper stating that although he was now resident in Dorset he had just done the swim in Plymouth so perhaps he was working as a school master in Plymouth right up to the late 1930s. We have found records of his exact address on the envelope being used to house school staff from Devonport Girls Secondary School and Devonport High School for Boys. We have also found a newspaper cutting dated November 1925 in the Western Morning News - a classified small advertisement from P Wood "French and German Tuition by Gentleman long resident abroad, P Wood, 20 Victoria Place Stoke", and he advertised again in 1931 offering translation work from that address, and in 1935 offering languages tuition. Percy's sister Adele Mary Wood, was also a talented artist. When Adele died in June 1947 at a property called Knolldown in Corfe Castle, Dorset, Percy Pechell Wood was named as her probate executor and shown as a retired schoolmaster. Percy also had a brother, Bennett William Wood (born 1882 and given the same names as his father who had died the previous December aged just 36 of scarlet fever), Bennett was also a schoolmaster, aged 33 in 1916 when he was called to General Service - on his enrolment paper it was entered that Certificate no 32, Conscientious Objection to Combatant Service had been established via a tribunal. In the 1939 Household Register Bennett is in Dorset working as a school master and living at the Knolldown address where his sister died in 1947. Bennett died in 1965 at a nursing home in Parkstone, Dorset. Percy had died in Dorset on 28th October 1955, he also had the Knolldown address but died at a Parkstone nursing home. Our ref:S17560 Our Important Customer Service Notes Despatch Time: MastheadArt stock is kept in super clean, secure, dry, commercial storage. We retrieve, pack and despatch within 2 working days Mon – Fri, once we have received payment. We usually use Royal Mail, Parcelforce or UPS. Remote / Offshore Restrictions if an item is offered with Free UK Mainland Delivery: If an item shows free UK shipping, please ask first if you are offshore or remote: Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Northern Ireland, Scottish Highland/remote locations etc. Free postage we may offer is by Royal Mail for small items, but if a parcel size means we need to use UPS or Parcelforce, there may be an added cost for remote areas and limited choices of carrier. Overseas Shipping: We offer pricing to the USA for most items but please check with us first if your location is classed as remoter in the USA as some carriers charge an excess charge for those areas. We do not ship to BFPO or Box Numbers. Personal Handover for Large or Fragile Items: You can collect by appointment during daylight hours in Gloucestershire, or we have art trade colleagues routing fairly regularly to the Derbyshire area (via M5 and M42) and Devon (M5/A38/A30) and M4 (Reading/Newbury) who may be able to meet you for a modest cost. Payment Please only buy if you are ready & in a position to pay safely online. Please don’t leave us without communication or payment once an item is sold. We don’t take cash, for our own safety, on personal handovers. About Us MastheadArt has been trading since 2004. We make starting to collect art truly affordable and carry lots of mounted stock for gallery wall arrangements. You’ll never go back to chain store or mass produced imported prints again! Our own webpages carry lots of useful help. 16.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE
Price: 65 GBP
Location: Stroud, Gloucestershire
End Time: 2025-01-19T15:21:18.000Z
Shipping Cost: 39.13 GBP
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Return postage will be paid by: Buyer
Returns Accepted: Returns Accepted
After receiving the item, your buyer should cancel the purchase within: 14 days
Return policy details: If you wish to cancel but the goods are already on their way to you, or have been received by you, you need to contact us by email : enquiry@mastheadart.co.uk stating that you wish to cancel, within 14 days of the goods being delivered to your address. We will provide an address for you to return the item to. You will be required to take all reasonable care of the item and return it to us by recorded delivery within 14 days of your emailed cancellation, in the same condition you received it in please. The return of the goods will be at your own cost and must be insured against damage and loss (you may re-use the packaging, to assist). If goods are not received back at the address provided by Masthead Art within that 14 day period we reserve the right to pass all reasonable charges to you for their recovery by ourselves. A reimbursement to you for the original item cost will be made within 14 days of receipt of the item here, as long as the goods have been received back by ourselves in the same condition as they left us in. FAILURE TO COLLECT an item, if you have taken the collection option: you must pay immediately by paypal, but if you fail to agree a date and location (if not being collected at our base) for handover within one calendar month of agreeing to buy the item on ebay, and/or that agreed handover not taking place within one calendar month of the ebay sale date, we reserve the right to re-sell or dispose of the item to offset our storage costs, without reimbursement to the buyer. (Sorry but we have had to implement this, we are not a free long term storage facility!) As our items are of second hand/vintage/ or antique quality, please bear in mind that we will have described them and photographed them to give you as accurate an idea as we possibly can as to their condition. They will not be in 'as new/showroom' condition.
Type: Drawing
Originality: Original
Original/Licensed Reproduction: Original
Signed: No
Theme: Portrait, Figures, Cricket, War
Material: Pencil
Subject: Portrait, Life Study, Caricatures
Time Period Produced: 1900-1924
