Souvenirs from the battlefield
It’s hard to imagine why an injured soldier collected and transported hundreds of battlefield objects in France home to Nelson – but 100 years ago, one man did just that.
With the war in the Ukraine dominating our news, it’s hard to picture why – more than 100 years ago – an injured New Zealand soldier would covet, collect, and transport hundreds of battlefield objects in France and bring them home to Nelson.
Yet Lieutenant (later Captain) James Faulkner Balck did just that – and it was for a worthy cause.
In the months following his repatriation, Balck’s collection of more than 120 items was displayed at Tasman shows and at the Nelson ‘Alphabetical Bazaar’, held as part of the Red Cross Fete in April-May 1917.
Balck’s collection was displayed in ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ of the bazaar alongside a series of Alexander Wilkie’s effigies, which he had carved to raise funds for Māori and Pākeha soldiers on the Western Front.
All up, the Bazaar managed to raise more than £12,500 in cash for the Red Cross Fund, which provided for the recovery of sick and wounded soldiers.
While we don’t know where many of these items are today, two German flare pistols from Balck’s collection now belong to the Nelson Provincial Museum.
Shae Trewin, Nelson Provincial Museum Collections Leader, came across them when reviewing the museum’s firearms collection, following the recent changes to the Firearms Act, and their story intrigued her.
‘‘While we know why Balck collected the war mementos, how he obtained them – considering his presumed traumatic injury and hasty evacuation from the battlefield – is a bit of a mystery,’’ said Trewin.
To piece together the mystery, we need to go back to the beginning.
Born in 1885, James Murcott (as he was then known) was orphaned at the age of only four when his parents and one of his four siblings (a sister, Georgina) died in the 1889-1890 pandemic. The two older siblings had already left home, but young James was fostered by the Balck family, who had emigrated from Germany on the same ship as his grandparents. He started using their family name as his surname and the service officially recognised him as a Balck, although he never legally changed it. (The family name was legally changed from Murcott to Balck after James’ death.)
Before joining the expeditionary forces as a Lieutenant only a few months after the First World War started, in October 1915, Balck worked as a lamplighter in Nelson. This entailed lighting the gas street lights around the city and reporting any damage or vandalism to the Inspector of Nuisances. In 1905, he married Eva Louisa Sutton, with whom he had three children prior to the war.
After signing up in his mid 30s, Balck was assigned to 10th Reinforcements, Otago Infantry Battalion D Company, and left New Zealand in May 1916. Within months he was serving in the trenches of the Somme, the first large-scale action on the Western Front.
The Battle of Flers-Courcelette started on September 15 in 1916 and ended eight days later. While it is most famous for being the first WWI conflict where tanks were used on the battlefield and was ultimately considered a ‘successful assault’, it was also the location of a severe number of casualties for New Zealand forces.
At the end of only the first day of conflict, approximately 1200 were wounded or missing and about 670 were dead or dying, making it the greatest loss of life for the New Zealand forces in a single day to date (although this record was regrettably broken the following year at Passchendaele). The NZ War Graves Project lists more than 800 dead in the first two days; 600 dead on September 15 and 205 dead the following day, ‘most during the battle of Flers-Courcelette’.
Balck escaped with his life but was injured by machine gun fire. Historical records reveal he was evacuated to hospital on September 19, midway through the battle, after suffering a gunshot wound to the chest. He spent months convalescing in French hospitals.
By November, according to reports back home, he was in the Duchess of Westminster Hospital in Le Touquet France. Afull page in
The Auckland Weekly News on November 23, 2016, pictures the handsome young man gazing up to his right with a half-smile, above the caption: ‘Lieutenant James F. Balck of Nelson – Wounded’. His photo appears in the top left corner of a page filled with the portraits of 43 of his fellow servicemen. Twenty-one of those young men were either killed in action or died of their wounds.
Balck was one of the lucky ones to survive. Amonth later, he was moved to the Convalescent Home in Brighton, United Kingdom. By Feb 1917, Balck was on his way back to Nelson. He arrived home on March 13, barely 10 months after he first deployed.
Days after Balck’s arrival home, the Nelson Evening Mail published a description of the war memento collection he had managed to accumulate.
The collection, which the paper listed in full, comprised numerous battlefield objects including German field equipment, firearms, and uniform items, shrapnel pieces, spent ammunition, foreign coins, and more than 116 badges of every British Regiment.
After the war, Balck bought land in Woodstock and led an active life raising stock and growing tobacco.
Balck also went on to have a long service career. After joining the Home Service upon his return to New Zealand, he then served with the Territorials from 1918 to 1927, followed by the Nelson Marlborough Mounted Rifles for a decade, during which time he was promoted to Captain. He retired from the armed services in 1937, after 25 years and 10 months as a commissioned officer.
In 1951, only three years before he died, he donated the two German flare pistols that survive today in the collection of the Nelson Provincial Museum.
Trewin said: ‘‘The fact Balck himself donated the pistols means they arrived at the museum ‘with provenance’. That tells me of their significance; they have a very real history. At the time, Balck told the museum staff they were retrieved from Switch Trench, which was a key strategic target captured by Kiwi forces during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette.
‘‘However, it is still unclear whether Balck collected these flare guns himself or traded or purchased them from other soldiers with whom he came in contact during his hospital recovery and travels. At first, I thought he would have been hastily evacuated but maybe this wasn’t so, given the large number of casualties.
‘‘I also imagine, given he was injured in the Battle of FlersCourcelette, that it would have had a big impact on him emotionally when he donated them.’’
Trewin said the pistols are also significant because the museum can tie together the objects with photos of Balck and his family, along with the newspaper coverage. ‘‘It makes the story more real,’’ she said.
Balck passed away in 1954 at the age of 73. His grave is in Dovedale, along with those of his wife, Eva Louisa, and two sons: Lawrence Charles and Thomas William, who predeceased both his parents, dying at the age of only three.
James Balck’s eldest son Lawrence had four sons. His eldest son Jim lives in Brightwater, while descendants of two his brothers – Arthur (deceased) and John – live in Golden Bay. Jim’s youngest brother, Graham, lives in Canterbury.
James’ and Eva Louisa’s daughter Rona Marjorie married WWII Nelson Victory Cross (VC) recipient Alfred Clive Hulme. They had two children: a son who grew up to become car racing legend Denis (Denny) Hulme (deceased) and a daughter, Anita. Rona died in 1996 and both she and her son are buried in Te Puke, Bay of Plenty, where her daughter, Anita Hulme, still lives.
This is a ‘‘Collection Story’’ provided by the Nelson Provincial Museum.