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FIRST TO CARE: 125 YEARS OF THE ORDER OF ST JOHN IN NEW ZEALAND, 1885-2010 brings to life the history of one of our most ubiquitous and vital charitable organisations. The heavily illustrated book provides a vivid account of public-spiritedness, enterprise and innovation by people involved in St John over the past 125 years, peppered with occasional disputes and setbacks along the way. St John invented and popularised 'first aid' as we know it. It provided medical assistance from the sidelines of our sports fields from as early as 1891 and it played a leading role in disaster relief from its formative days. From humble beginnings it established a nationwide ambulance service that today is the envy of the St John fraternity worldwide.
The immensely rich archives from the administration of the English poor law before 1834 include letters to the overseers of the poor that came from the poor themselves. As personal testimonies of people claiming relief, which are often written in a stunningly 'private' tone, pauper letters allow deep insights into the living conditions, experiences and attitudes of the labouring poor in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This edition contains some 750 of these letters, all those presently known to survive in the county of Essex. The Introduction demonstrates the immense importance of this neglected source, both for the social historian and for the comparative study of literacy.
Drawing substantially on the thoughts and words of Catholic writers and cultural commentators, Villis sheds new light on religious identity and political extremism in early twentieth-century Britain. The book constitutes a comprehensive study of the way in which British Catholic communities reacted to fascism both at home and abroad.