Off The Record
Alan Crosby considers the moving graffiti left by captured soldiers in a French castle
How captive soldiers left their mark on a French castle
Snippets of information of interest to family historians can turn up in the most unexpected places. Last summer, on holiday in France, we visited the great castle of Tarascon, which stands on the eastern bank of the Rhône a few miles upstream from Avignon. The castle was built in the first half of the 15th century, as a noble residence and fortress combined. It’s huge, towering above the small town, and the views from the roof are awe-inspiring – surely I could see for 100 miles in every direction? Inside there are immense echoing rooms, now completely empty; a multitude of stairways and passages; and gloomy courtyards overshadowed by tall towers.
But there’s something else to attract the attention of a historian. From the 18th century until 1926, long after it had been abandoned as a grand residence, the castle was a prison. Of particular interest is the fact that for periods it accommodated prisoners of war. Given that during that century Britain and France were at war for the astonishing total of 48 years, that meant that le château de Tarascon was, for long years, the uncomfortable temporary home of British POWs.
The castle is built of a soft limestone, attractive to look at and easy to carve. To while away the interminable hours of tedium and enforced inactivity the prisoners took to scratching and carving graffiti on a massive scale – in some rooms the walls, to the height of six feet or so, are completely covered with writing and designs. There are fine engravings of ships, and geometric patterns. But there are also numerous names and dates, which as a family historian made me long to have a forebear who had been captured by the French!
During the Seven Years War (1756–1763) France, Austria, Saxony, Spain, Sweden and Russia fought an alliance of Prussia, Hanover and Great
‘In some rooms the walls are completely covered with writing and designs’
Britain. Britain had only a small standing army and navy, but raised many more troops by calling up the militia, freeing full-time soldiers for overseas campaigns. One of these left this inscription in the castle, written in large bold capitals: “Richard White of Kymer in the County of Sussex taken Febuary ye 19th 1757.” I’ve not yet found out what happened on 19 February 1757 that led to Richard’s capture, but there are many Whites on Sussex family history websites, and the research potential is clear.
Nearby are other names, such as “Jonath Taylarson: 1779” (the date telling us that he was captured during the almost forgotten Anglo-French War of 1778–1783) and “Willm Quayle”, whose surname makes it almost certain that he was from the Isle of Man, or of Manx descent. Quayle was evidently an enthusiastic ‘graffitist’, since his name is repeated elsewhere. These are just a few of dozens of inscriptions, some (like Richard White’s) giving valuable extra detail, others being simply initials.
What moves me about all this is thinking of those men who, a quarter of a millennium ago, were locked up in those great empty chambers in that huge and forbidding castle. They were there – like their successors in the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War and the Second World War – because of accidents of fate. Power politics meant that young men from Sussex or Scotland or the Isle of Man found themselves in a fortress on the banks of the Rhône. The politics probably meant little or nothing to them, although their patriotic duty was clear.
As a tourist, I looked at the architecture, the landscape and the history. They, in contrast, must have wondered about their wives and children, and the familiar farms and fields they might never see again. What happened to Richard White of Keymer? If you know his fate, please get in touch.