- See Bertram Joseph Venn’s entry on the Board of Trade’s Ancestry public tree.
- This information updates the group’s previous research published on the former DTI website (now archived by the National Archives).
- Do you have any more information (or indeed a photo) about Bertram Joseph Venn? If so the War Memorial Research Group would love to hear from you.
Name recorded on Board of Trade Memorial: B. J. Venn
Born: 4 December 1889 in West Ham, Essex
Date of Death: 11 July 1917
Age at death: 27
Service, Regiment, Corps, etc: Royal Flying Corps and previously the Royal Engineers (London Signal Company)
Unit, Ship, etc: 5 Training Squadron
Enlisted: 8 September 1914
Rank: Second Lieutenant
Decorations: WW1 Service Medals (British War Medal, Victory Medal and 1914-1915 Star)
War (and theatre): WW1
Manner of Death: Accidentally killed
Family Details: Son of Joseph and Susan Venn from Bristol and husband of Elfrida Cornish
Residence:
Home Department: Board of Trade – Patent Office
Civilian Rank: Assistant Examiner
Cemetery or Memorial: Bristol (Canford) Cemetery (Plot 356 Pink F); Board of Trade War Memorial (now located at 3 Whitehall Place, London); Patent Office Memorial 1914-1918 (now in Concept House, Newport, Wales); Bristol University Roll of Honour 1914-1918
Biography:
“Biochemistry is the science of life. All our life processes – walking, talking, moving, feeding – are essentially chemical reactions. So biochemistry is actually the chemistry of life, and it’s supremely interesting.” (Aaron Ciechanover, Israeli biologist, born October 1947).
I could say exactly the same thing about genealogy and historical research and this is demonstrated by the life of Bertram Joseph Venn, one of the former civil service members of staff named on the Board of Trade War Memorial who died in WW1 on 11 July 1917 and his wife the pioneering biochemist, Elfrida Cornish.
Bertram Joseph Venn was born on 4 December 1889 in West Ham in Essex. We also know that he was baptised on 26 January 1890 at St Saviour Church, Forest Gate, Essex. His father was Joseph Venn (1856-1932) and his mother Susan (nee Skinner) Venn (1858-1934). He had two brothers – Ernest Philip Venn (1877-1953) and Vivian George Venn (1882-1943) – and two sisters – Ethelena Selina Venn (1884-1967) and Olive Mary Venn (1894-1971). Joseph Venn was a Customs Officer.
Merchant Venturers Technical College fire, 1906 (Source: Flickr, Copyright: University of Western England, Bristol)
The family initially lived in East London and are recorded in the 1891 census living at 200 Odessa Road, Wanstead. The Venn’s then moved to Bristol and are recorded as living at 267 Coronation Road in the 1901 census. In Bristol, Bertram attended the Merchant Venturers Technical College (located on Unity Street) which gave him a great technical education. He gained a second class honours degree in mathematics – experimental physics in 1907. The college was later to become Bristol Polytechnic and then the University of Western England, Bristol. The college was founded in 1885 and had departments in civil, mechanical and electrical engineering, applied art, chemistry, metullurgy, architecture, surveying and building trades and prepared pupils for the Matriculation and BSc Examinations of the University of London. Only a year before Bertram graduated, the college was faced with a severe fire which took place on 9 October 1906. The blaze was reportedly spotted by a policeman just after 1.30am. The policeman had to run to Brigade HQ (given there was no 999 call system in operation in those days) and alert the firemen. Fortunately noone lost their life, but the building was severely damaged and teaching had to be conducted elsewhere while the college was rebuilt. This must have been a dramatic period in Bertram’s life.
Then, as recorded in the London Gazette on 3 January 1911, he was appointed to the Civil Service, like his father. As a result, by this time, when Bertram was 21 years old, he was renting rooms at 8 Rock Street, Finsbury Park, London whilst working as an Assistant Examiner for the Patent Office, which was at that time located in London.
Due to an air-raid attack during WW2 which destroyed the place housing the WW1 archives, only about a third of all WW1 military service records survive. Bertram’s record is one of the remaining records (visibly bearing the traces of the fire). From this record we know that he re-attested in 1915 and his address is given as 5 Alma Road Avenue, Clifton, Bristol.
This record indicates that on the outbreak of WW1, he enlisted initially in the Royal Engineers (London Wireless Section) joining as a Sapper and being sent to France, before being promoted to Lance Corporal. You can read more about the army signals in WW1.
Bertram’s military short attestation form dated 1915 (copyright: Ancestry and National Archives)
Royal Flying Corps badge
He was subsequently commissioned in June 1916 and then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) as an Observer. The corps was formed on 13 April 1912 and until the merger of the Royal Naval Air Service and creation the Royal Air Force in 1918, was the British Army’s aerial flying force.
An insight into what it might have been like to transfer into the RFC at that time is provided on a blog – called Behind the Lines – about two men who volunteered for WW1 from Mosman, Australia. One of the men was Captain J. M. Allport and another a fellow Australian, Captain P. G. Taylor who both applied to the Royal Flying Corps, attracted by the call to arms. The blog details the recruitment process, as explained by Taylor, for both men to join the corps, which Bertram Venn might also have experienced.
Equipped with a dossier on my personal Service background (a full and very carefully prepared brief, incidentally), I set off apprehensively one morning for Adastral House, a building on the Thames embankment near Blackfriars Bridge and at that time the London Headquarters of the Royal Flying Corps. After a very brief wait in the foyer, I was shown by a polite and friendly attendant (that was a good start) to a room at the end of a passage. I was told to go in.
Adastral House (later Television House) was the London HQ of the RFC and the RAF (Source: Wikipeadia)
There I was confronted by a colonel sitting at a table with his back to the light and a tree outside the window. After a brief scrutiny, I was invited to sit in a chair in front of the table. The colonel came straight to the point.
‘You want to join the Royal Flying Corps?’
‘Yes, sir. I do.’
‘What is your name?’
I told him
‘Australian, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve come from Australia to join the RFC. I want to fly as a pilot.’
A few conventional questions followed. Who I was, where I had come from, what I had been doing. My dossier remained unopened.
Then, ‘Tell me, can you ride a horse?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He was looking at me shrewdly, with real interest.
‘Good.’I had the impression that all the rest of the conversation had been superfluous. It seemed that I was now accepted. I was now in the R.F.C. I don’t remember even having a medical examination…At this time, the summer of 1916, a pilot wasn’t very likely to live very long anyway. As I walked out of Adastral House that day I felt like I was already flying.
Royal Flying Corps WW1 recruitment poster (coypright: Imperial War Musuem)
One of the crucial roles of early military use of planes was for reconnaissance purposes. Aerial observation was conducted with the human eye (which might seem strange in our modern world of satellites and sophisticated technology). The early planes were very basic and observers, like Bertram Venn, were issued with weapons and expected to engage with enemy aircraft using a gun.
The RFC (like the modern day RAF) played a major part in military tactics providing aerial support cover for ground troops, combat and reconnaissance roles so that men serving in the RFC would have been involved in all major battles such as the Battle of the Somme and other military engagements.
In a brief respite from the war, in May 1917, we know that Bertram married his sweetheart and intellectual match, Elfrida Constance Victoria Cornish (1887-1943), who is herself worthy of writing about further since she was a pioneering female biochemist (see below).
Sadly however, only two months after their marriage, Bertram (aged just 27) had the misfortune to crash his plane. According to “Airmen Died in the Great War”, 2nd Lieutenant Bertram Joseph Venn, Royal Engineers was killed whilst flying a Maurice Farman Shorthorn, No A 2493 with the 5th Air Squadron based at Castle Bromwich Aerodrome. The history of the aerodrome is told in a fascinating blog post which outlines the history of the area and airfield prior to WW1. What conditions were like in WW1 for Bertram and his fellow pilots is also explained as follows:
“In 1915 the army set up an army squadron to train aeroplane pilots for the war. At first there were only six trainees and four planes. There was nowhere for them to live, so they had to sleep in tents and use the football pavilion as their living quarters.
Although the playing fields provided a wide, flat, grassy site, it was not the best place for an airfield. The trainees had to take care not to land on the railway line or crash into the telegraph poles alongside it. Some land at the end of the runway was still used by Birmingham as a sewage works and the pilots sometimes overshot the runway and landed in the sewage tanks.”
Maurice Farnham Shorthorn aircraft
The Maurice Farman MF. 11 Shorthorn was a plane developed before WW1 by the Farman Aircraft Works and was the first plane used in aerial combat. It was used as a light bomber and reconnaissance plane and later in the war relegated to use for training purposes.
“Biggles Learns to Fly”
It is also famous for being the aircraft in which the character Biggles takes to the skies in “Biggles learns to fly”. Captain James Bigglesworth (Biggles) DSO MC is a fictional pilot and adventurer who was created by the author “Captain” William Earl Johns (1893-1968), based on his own experience of serving in the RFC and RAF in WW1. The Biggles books are no longer fashionable or popular, but they are a fascinating set of adventure tales – as explained by the author Hilary Mantel in a Guardian article “A Life of Biggles“. Here is a lovely recording made by Kay Kelly of Biggles’ first experience of flying:
The RAF Museum based at Hendon, London keeps an archive of former air personnel and aircraft accidents including holding around 70,000 First World War Casualty Cards. Bertram’s RFC aircraft record details that the crash involved a “stopped engine and hit hedge diving too steeply into field adjoining aerodrome ramming noise into ground during circuits around Castle Bromage”. We know from the record that Bertram had over 8 hours solo flying experience and that he had made several circuits of the airfield. The accident was judged to be on account of pilot error rather than a mechanical fault of the plane.
Snipet from Bertram Venn’s RFC casualty card showing cause of accident (Copyright: RAF Museum)
Military aircraft crash sites are an important part of military history. English Heritage has issued guidance in “Military Aircraft Crash Sites – Archaeological guidance on their significance and future management” which makes clear that in planning terms crash sites are considered historically important and should not be needlessly destroyed or removed without adequate records. Most aircraft crash sites date from WW2, when there was a massive increase in aircraft activity, although there are some records from WW1. According to English Heritage, “World War 1 aircraft were light, relatively flimsy and, with airframes of wood and ‘doped’ (varnished) fabric, particularly susceptible to fire. Crashed aircraft from this period tended to remain on the surface and were both simple to recover and more vulnerable to subsequent disturbance”. The “Midland Aircraft Recovery Group“, which is a voluntary group formed in 1983, to record, recover and conserve the military aviation history of the south Midlands, has identified the location of Bertram’s crash and provides more background detail:
“11/07/1917 Shorthorn A2493, of 5 Training Squadron was being force-landed in a field adjoining Castle Bromwich aerodrome after the engine stopped. The machine struck a hedge, the nose hit the ground and the pilot was thrown out. 2/Lt Bertram Joseph Venn was killed. He was the son of Mr J Venn, 24 Glena Avenue, Knowle, Bristol”
Flying was new military technology in WW1 and a dangerous business. For instance, there were over 70 accidents at Castle Bromwich during WW1 – 30 pilots were killed (including Bertram Venn) and 50 were seriously injured.
First Southern General Hospital, Birmingham (Source: Voices of War and Peace website)
Bertram was taken to the First Southern General Hospital in Birmingham, which was one of the largest war hospitals in Birmingham, and the first to open. It was housed in the buildings of the University of Birmingham in Edgbaston. Following the declaration of war on 4 August 1914, the Royal Army Medical Corps Territorial Unit received orders to mobilise and the following day beds and mattresses began to arrive at the University buildings. The first convoy of 120 sick and wounded men arrived on 1 September, and by the end of 1914 the First Southern General had 800 beds and had received 3,892 patients. You can learn more about Birmingham’s Military Hospitals on the website Voices of War and Peace.
He is buried at Bristol (Canford) Cemetery, close to his family home in Bristol. Bertram’s grave is one of 230 Commonwealth War Grave casualties amongst which there are a total of 73 people who died during WW1. Those burials are scattered around the cemetery but also marked by an official war memorial.
He is also named on two Civil Service War Memorials – the Patent Office War Memorial and the Board of Trade War Memorial – and also on the Bristol University Roll of Honour 1914-1918 war memorial board.
The motto of the RFC was Per ardua ad astra (“Through adversity to the stars”). This remains the motto of the RAF and sums up Bertram’s sacrifice. His grave in Bristol bears the sad and moving inscription “In the midst of life we are in death”.
Note: WW1 resulted in almost 3 to 4 million women who were widowed because of the war. Many women and families were left in dire strait as there was no state support. Elfrida was luckier than some women, since Bertram left £1290 8s 9d according to his probate record to Elfrida. Amongst these war widows, Elfida Cornish deserves a special postcript of her own since she was a talented and pioneering and spirited woman in her own right. She was born on 18 June 1887 in Writhlington, Somerset, England and was died on about November 1943.
Graduation Photo of Elfrida Cornish (Copyright to love0glasses who originally shared image on Ancestry in 2012)
Elfrida was one of the first women to gain an MSc from the University of Bristol (which was founded in 1909). She conducted research as part of her MSc into the ‘colloidal propertise of soap solutions’. In 1913, she was the first woman to received a Board of Education Agricultural Scholarship from the newly formed Institute in Dairying at University College, Reading.
Whilst Bertram was serving in the RFC, Elfrida Cornish was also involved in war work. According to her former school, Colston Girls School’s magazine (1912), “Cornish MSc who has been holding a Research scholarship at University College, Reading, has been allowed to postpone her Scholarship work for a time in order that she may devote her time to work in the connection with the production of munitions”.
After the war, Elfrida went on to remarry in the 1920s, Alexander Torovil Robert Mattick (1894-1962), a bacteriologist and later to become Head of Bacteriology at Reading University. At the same time she continued her career and was awarded a PhD in 1923. Her pioneering work was in the field of bacteria especially into ‘crucial research into the discolouration of Stilton cheese’. An obituarist, H.D. Kay stated:
“Her study of this problem led her almost immediately into the fundamental question of the mode of degradation of proteins by micro-organisms…and she spent some months in Hopkins’ laboratory in Cambridge getting to closer grips with the biochemical changes involved.
The reference to Hopkins means Frederick Gowland Hopkins (1861-1947) who is regarded as the “father of British biochemistry”. He founded the Cambridge Department of Biochemistry in 1914. Elfrida was part of his research group.
Elfrida authored several papers including in 1928 a preliminary paper on “The chemical composition of the milk of cows receiving cod-liver oil” (published in the Biochemical Journal, 1928). She was also involved in research into the flat-splitting enzymes present in mik and milk products, on vegetable sources of renet and on many other chemical and biochemical problems of practical importance in dairying. Elfrida was a talented women of her time.
If Bertram had also survived longer he would certainly also have had much to give the world and his local community alongside his talented wife, whose future was tragically cut short by the war.
(The above information is taken from various sources including in particular “Pioneering British Women Chemists: Their Lives and Contributions” by Marelene Rayner-Canham and Geoffrey Rayner-Canham (World Scientific Publishing Company, December 2019) and “New Beer in an Old Bottle – Eduard Buchner and the Growth of Biochemical Knowledge” edited by Athel Cornish-Bawden (Publicacions de la Universitat de Valencia (1 Dec 1997)).
Fascinating!