Charles Woolrych: Lay Reader and Treasurer of Holy Trinity

Richard Challoner shares his discoveries about this man and the challenges that he faced as he helped sustain Holy Trinity through the Second World War.

Few people may have heard of Charles Humphrey Woolrych, although some on the Riviera may still know the name from the British Solicitors firm Batchelor, Woolrych & Co of which he was a partner for almost thirty years and who during the Second World War had offices in the basement of Holy Trinity’s Presbytery.

Charles' parents were Herbert and Elizabeth Woolrych who married in Copenhagen in April 1885 before settling in Blackheath, South East London. The Woolrychs had seven children including two daughters and Charles was the second of the five sons. Born in 1887, precisely a year after his elder brother Leslie, Charles had a very conventional upbringing, following Leslie to Marlborough School before going on to study law. He was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in December 1910.

The coming of war saw Charles and three of his brothers serve in the armed forces: remarkably all four survived. Charles himself took a commission as a 2^nd Lieutenant in the 1^st City of London Royal Field Artillery Territorial Brigade and his unit took part in some of the major battles of the war, including the Somme in 1916 and Arras, Third Ypres and Cambrai in 1917. In June 1916 Charles was promoted Lieutenant and he ended the war as an acting Captain. One of Charles’ younger brothers Anthony Claud who had immigrated to Australia to become a grazier, returned to Europe with the 53 Australian Infantry Battalion. As Intelligence Officer for the 14^th Australian Infantry Brigade he was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry for reconnaissance actions in September and November 1918. There seems to have been an inclination for intelligence work in the Woolrych family as both of Charles’ other brothers, Leslie Owen and Stanley Herbert served in the Intelligence Corps; Stanley served with particular distinction, being awarded the OBE and ending the war as a Captain. Towards the end of the war, Charles’ service record shows that even he switched to intelligence work and yet more interesting intelligence work would lie ahead for Stanley in the Second World War.

Charles Woolrych who spoke French came to the south of FranceAt some point shortly after the First World War. By 1921 he was established in Nice and soon joined the solicitor Spencer Batchelor as a partner, taking over from the splendidly named Arthur Septimus Browne. Browne had been in the business since at least the turn of the century and Spencer had joined him in

Avenue de Verdun, Nice around 1920

partnership in1910 to form Browne & Batchelor, operating in Nice and Cannes. The Nice branch operated from offices at 4 Avenue Massena, which after the Great War was renamed Avenue Verdun; over the next decade and a half the practice seems to have flourished. By 1930 another partner, Archibald Williams, had joined and the firm became known as Batchelor, Woolrych & Williams. In 1936 at the age of 48 Charles Woolrych married his first wife Therese, a French or possibly Swiss woman, and all would have been well no doubt had not he threat of war not loomed once again. Whether it was due to the coming war or for some other reason, Batchelor, Woolrych & Williams opened an office in Monaco at 11 Avenue de Grande Bretagne and in 1944 temporarily moved their Nice operations to the basement of Holy Trinity’s Presbytery.

Charles Woolrych had become the Honorary Treasurer of Holy Trinity Church by 1924 and he continued to serve in that capacity through the war years. With the creation of Vichy France in June 1940 and Nice's occupation by Italian forces, a large proportion of the British community left for home, but many also chose to remain. In September 1941 Woolrych wrote to Bishop Geoffrey Fisher of London (with whom he had been at Marlborough school) reporting that there had been “a general exodus of British people in June 1940 ”, but that around two thousand had remained. Unfortunately, Holy Trinity’s Chaplain T.B. Campbell was among those who had left so Charles

Charles Woolrych’s Lay Reader’s Licence (Holy Trinity Archive)

Woolrych stepped into the breach in 1940 along with Canon Henry D’Albertanson, the Chaplain of Beaulieu (whom the Diocese of Gibraltar had placed in charge of the region’s churches). Woolrych held Lay Services in the Church and Canon D’Albertanson came to celebrate Eucharist, usually on the last Saturday of each month. This arrangement was halted in July 1941 when all British subjects received instructions to leave the French Riviera and Holy Trinity was temporarily closed. However, the church reopened at the end of October 1941 and the Services resumed, though with a congregation reduced to twelve on average.

We can get a glimpse of some of Charles Woolrych’s work as Lay Reader from correspondence between him and E.P. Denny who was temporary Manager and Treasurer of the English-American Library at the time. In 1941 Mr Denny launched a series of increasingly rude epistolary volleys at Woolrych, fuelled by aggressive and unjustified claims that Denny and other Library users had a right-of-way to the Hall and the Library via the Parsonage gates and the courtyard facing Rue de La Buffa. (The Hall and Library were at that time still located to the south of the Presbytery, at the opposite end of the cemetery from which they now stand and they could be easily accessed by an entrance on Rue de France which gave straight onto the Hall). In a moderately-toned response dated 20 August 1941, Mr Woolrych explained very reasonably that “…I cannot authorise your subscribers to make use of the parsonage courtyard as we have let the parsonage” and that in any case there was perfectly acceptable access via the traditional Rue de France entrance. Mr Denny then responded in an extremely discourteous and pompous manner on 25^th August. Having suggested that Woolrych’s letter was “…half ignorance and half bluff,” he proceeded to denigrate Woolrych's work as Lay Reader saying: “I did not attend your performances in the church because being a graduate in theology of the University of Oxford they did not appeal to me, and because my particular creed does not recommend church-going (St Matthew’s Gospel vi, 5). If however I do decide to church I prefer to do so by Radio. Nevertheless, had I been told that the said performances were organised for the purpose of obtaining funds for church expenses I would gladly have sent a contribution.” Unsurprisingly Charles Woolrych was offended by many aspects of this letter and replied nine days later saying in one paragraph: “It is extremely offensive…to speak of my performances in the Church. I merely hold the weekly services at the demand of and with the grateful co-operation of our churchgoers. It may seem strange to you, but the services were not held for the purpose of obtaining funds for Church expenses. They were held because, unlike yourself, there are a great number of people who like to pray in church.” E.P. Denny initially remained unperturbed by this response and continued to bombard Charles Woolrych with threats and a petition, and with bombastic claims about his background and achievements and with further complaints concerning: the opening or closing of gates, the substitution of locks, the state of the cemetery, and the concierge’s laundry. In one letter of 20^th April 1942, Denny went so far as to say of Woolrych that, “…I have come to the conclusion that you are a petty tyrant and as such, easily panic-stricken…” before issuing more legal threats.

Charles Woolrych was not the only one taken aback by E.P. Denny’s attitude at a time of war and occupation by the enemy. The usually mild Canon D’Albertanson was moved to write to Woolrych on September 19^th:  “I felt so angry on reading his letter and his deprecation of you and your splendid Services that I felt I could only back you up in resisting his unwarrantable aggression.” D’Albertanson also expressed his sorrow for Woolrych “…in having had all this needless trouble and anxiety…”. The anxiety caused by Denny no doubtless contributed to the general stress that Charles Woolrych experienced trying to keep both Holy Trinity and his business going. This all took a toll on his health and at the end of August he came down with a bad bout of shingles and was confined to his bed for many weeks; he then continued to suffer further health problems but soldiered on nonetheless, dealing with the many financial and legal problems faced by the Church which ranged from unpaid rents to taxes and storm damage.  His efforts were not unappreciated at the time. On 2^nd February 1942 Canon D’Albertanson wrote to tell Woolrych that he had just received a letter from Harold Buxton, Bishop of Gibraltar, in which he asked the Canon to, “…be so kind as to remember me to Dr Trafford and also to the other good friends who act as Lay Readers and who conduct prayers for the faithful along the coast. I feel the highest appreciation of the truly devoted and noble service which is being rendered to our people.” In April 1942, Holy Trinity and all the Anglican Churches of the Riviera suffered a setback as Canon D’Albertanson and his wife received orders to leave the Alpes Maritimes and were sent to Grenoble. They would return eleven months later but by then Charles Woolrych had been arrested and interned.

When the Italians had taken over their section of Vichy France in June 1940 they had no interest in arresting residents, and even into 1943 they refused to cooperate with German demands for the rounding up and deportation of Jews. Indeed, so tolerant were the Italians that both their area of occupied France and Italy herself were considered the two safest places for Jewish people to live on the continent during the Second World War. Many French Jews fled to the Italian zone of Vichy France as a result. The Italians were similarly relaxed about foreigners in their zone, although some arrests were eventually made of a variety of foreign nationals, very likely at the instigation of the Germans.

Charles Woolrych’s arrest report indicates that he was detained because of his British nationality, although it goes on to say that those being arrested were regarded as ‘parties of interest,’ which is non-committal but suggestive of something more substantial. Between 6.00 and 10.00 am on 9th January 1943 a number of British subjects were arrested. Four people including a civilian, a Non-Commisioned Officer and two soldiers came to the Woolrych’s home address which was listed as 57, Promenade des Anglais. They invited Charles to come with them using the standard pretext that they wanted to check his papers and they gave his wife Therese the usual assurance that he would be back within two hours. I imagine that both Charles and Therese probably guessed this would not be the case. In reality, Charles Woolrych was transported with other British civilians to an internment camp in Sospel, a commune at an altitude of 358 metres about 27 kilometres north of Monaco. For the next few weeks it seems that the British Government could obtain little information about these British internees but finally on 9^th February 1943 they received from the Swiss authorities at Berne a list of British subjects interned at Sospel Camp. There were fifty-one of them listed in alphabetical order, Charles Woolrych being number 50 out of 51.

Accounts of Sospel Camp are varied; it is known that some of the British subjects interned there came from the Principality of Monaco and reports suggest that a number of French people were also interned at Sospel as well as foreign Jews awaiting transfer. We have a description of Sospel

Sospel Internment Camp (Collection MRA, fonds Camille Jenger)

and the Camp from the Swiss Vice-Consul in Nice, Mr Alex Manz who, accompanied by the Italian Vice-Consul and a member of the Italian Armistice Commission in Nice, Count Borromeo, finally secured a visit to the Camp on 21 May 1943, the day before it was due to close. Mr Manz describes the village of Sospel as being surrounded by French-built fortifications and containing a modern barracks which the Italian authorities were using to house male internees. The barracks were constructed around a large courtyard, which in turn was surrounded by walls and railings. Women internees were housed in three villas near some school buildings at the side of the hill and their compound was enclosed by a barbed wire fence. Both sites were guarded by soldiers and Carabinieri. This photograph of the barracks was secretly taken by the wife of one of the internees from a building opposite. The barracks consisted of a ground floor and three further floors, each of the latter accommodating up to 100 men in dormitories and rooms. The rooms appear to have had wash basins but there was only one lavatory for each floor and one communal basin for those in the dormitories. Five outdoor lavatories were located in the courtyard but these were not accessible at night. An annexe to the men’s barracks housed the kitchen and the refectory and the recreation room, and in another small building was to be found the shower block with eight showers.

The women’s quarters were a little less austere as they were housed in three two-storied villas. Each floor of these villas comprised bedrooms, a refectory, a bathroom and lavatory. The women were lodged three to a room and like the men they had two to three blankets each. Life at the camp was strictly controlled of course: after reveille at 7am there was a roll-call and then various activities including: cleaning duties, medical check-ups, recreation times and meals, then lights out at 9pm. Perhaps unsurprisingly the quality and quantity of food was the subject of concern and complaints. One early memorandum claimed probably erroneously, that food was abundant; in reality although not dire, rations were spare. Vice-Consul Manz’s investigations established that the daily diet on which Charles Woolrych and others subsisted consisted of: 200gm bread, 66gm rice, 120gm of meat (twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays), 30gm vegetables, 7gm substitute coffee,15gm sugar, 13gm fat or oil,12gm tinned tomatoes, 8gm grated cheese, 40gm table or ‘bean cheese’ (five times a week).  In addition, internees could obtain extra fruit and vegetables at a cost of one Lire per day. Often these rations were served as soup, which led to complaints from internees that they were being short changed and the matter was dealt with by the Italian authorities. It was accepted even by the Red Cross and the Swiss Delegation that the fairly mediocre rations were in large measure due to the lack of food in the Côte d’Azur, which was one of the worst supplied areas of Vichy France.

There were inevitably a few other complaints most notably about the lack of sanitation, with one lavatory to serve up to one hundred men in each floor. An unconfirmed Red Cross report of April 1943 suggested that twelve men might have died from dysentery; the lack of soap, lavatory paper and shaving cream were also noted. Generally speaking however, conditions were not as harsh as they might have been. One British internee, Douglas Thorburn, who was released from Sospel on health grounds, passed on his impression of the camp to the British via the Swiss writing: ‘It is very fair to place on record how courteous and sympathetic all the Italian officers and men were during the whole of my eleven weeks imprisonment. Conditions during the first week or two were naturally very hard, as was perhaps inevitable on taking over military barracks which had apparently been out of use for some considerable time. The food problems were endless as might well be expected under present conditions…but I think everyone will agree we had sufficient food on the whole.’ Mr Manz confirmed the general good treatment of internees: they were permitted four visits a month from their families, could write up to eight letters per month of a maximum length of 24 lines, and could receive parcels from their families twice a week without hindrance. Tribute was also paid to the Italian doctor for giving internees the best care possible under the circumstances.

During his visit Vice-Consul Manz discovered that of those countries represented by the Swiss only internees from Britain and America remained there and their numbers had fallen by more than fifty percent. The majority had been either released or sent to enforced residence (usually in hotels) at various locations within the Italian sector. Remaining at Sospel were twenty six British men aged between 20 and 62 and three women aged between 44 and 59; only four American men remained who were aged 21-68. With one exception all were due to be released; the exception was Charles Woolrych who was to be transferred to the Camp at Embrun. Mr Manz notes in his report that Woolrych was denied his freedom after his file was examined by a commission composed of representatives of the Special Police and the Army. No indication is given as to why Charles Woolrych was retained at Sospel but confirmation that he continued to be held is to be found in a telegram message from Berne to the Foreign Office dated 18 June 1943 which reads: ‘Following points mentioned in report on SOSPEL visited 21^st May: Camp due to be transferred to Embrun 22^nd May. On day of visit, there were 26 men and 3 women of British nationality. Only Mr. Charles Woolrych has been refused liberation. Accommodation, medical and dental attention satisfactory. Food situation difficult for those without means of obtaining supplementary food and transfer to Embrun will make Red Cross parcels more than ever necessary. Internees had no complaint concerning treatment.’

With no apparent explanation it is difficult to know what reasons the Italian authorities might have had for continuing to detain Charles Woolrych, especially as they had shown no interest in him for nearly three years. It is important to note however, that by the beginning of 1943 the Italians were coming under ever greater pressure from the Germans to make arrests, in particular of people of interest: foreigners, Jews and anyone considered to be an enemy of the Third Reich; pressure which generally speaking the Italians resisted right to the end of their period of occupation. It is therefore possible that German pressure was the motivating force behind Charles Woolrych’s arrest and continued detention, and if they so then their reasons could lie in Charles’ family history and connections. As we have seen during the Great War Charles and his three brothers were to varying degrees involved in military intelligence. During the Second World War Anthony Claud, who had been Intelligence Officer for his Brigade, was to be found by curious coincidence serving as Lay Reader at St Alban’s Anglican Church, Copenhagen. Denmark came under German occupation in 1940 and Anthony managed to avoid internment because he and other foreigners who had lived in Denmark for more than six months were granted Danish citizenship. As Lay Reader Anthony kept St Alban’s going through hard times and although officially he took the stance that church officials and committee members should not get involved in political activity he would certainly have known that members of the congregation were active in the Danish Resistance. It is possible that on the quiet he may have helped them and there is no doubt that the German occupiers would have known about him and his background.

An even more interesting possibility is that the Germans in occupied France may have known about Charles’ brother Stanley Herbert and his position in the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.). Stanley was the only brother who continued in the military after the Great War and when Winston Churchill established a new secret organisation with orders to “set Europe ablaze,” Lt-Colonel Stanley Herbert Woolrych O.B.E. found himself appointed commandant of the S.O.E. finishing school at Beaulieu, Hampshire, preparing agents for missions in France and other areas of occupied Europe. With such family connections it would not have been surprising if the Germans had regarded Charles Woolrych as a person of interest and perhaps suspected that he might be involved with the Resistance; this could explain the Italian Commission’s decision to send Woolrych to Embrun rather than release him.

Tucked away in the Haute Alpes some 200 kilometres north of Nice, Embrun is an ancient commune that was known to the Romans and which had a medieval cathedral constructed in the late 12^th and early 13^th century. There appears to be relatively little information about Embrun as an Internment Camp and at the time it proved even harder for the Swiss to gain access to the Camp than to Sospel. There was much concern about conditions there and about Red Cross parcels reaching internees. On 5 July 1943 the Foreign Office received information that “….telegrams received by the Swiss Consul in Nice from internees at Embrun indicate conditions unsatisfactory. Swiss Consul has requested early authorisation to visit camp.”  Nine days later Mr Filliter of the Prisoners of War Department received a letter from Mr Warner of the British Red Cross Society, replying to his enquiries about certain internment camps where British citizens were reported as being held. Mr Warner passed on a message from the International Red Cross in Geneva which mainly concerned the Camp at Embrun. The cable from Geneva talks of a desperate situation at Embrun adding “… have immediately sent parcels to Embrun which is a camp under Italian jurisdiction holding internees transferred from Sospel .... 29 British subjects Embrun .... do not know whether our Rome delegate will be able to visit this camp ...". We learn more about the Camp from a elegram sent from Berne to the Foreign Office in London on

The Embrun internment camp buildings today

28 July 1943:“…Swiss Consul Nice though still unauthorised to visit Embrun has been able to interview camp official and has seen several internees, a certain number of whom have been liberated or sent into enforced residence…..Internees informed Swiss Consul that Mayor of Nice had sent important quantities of food. Accommodation is in former Embrun prison and although internees had no complaints concerning treatment they stated there was insufficient space in prison courtyard for exercise.”

From a lengthy report sent to the British Legation in January 1944 we know that Charles Woolrych was still listed as being at Embrun on 14 August 1943. Another account from the Swiss Legation in Vichy to the Swiss Government dated 16 September 1943 reports that at the beginning of September, just before the Germans took over the sector, the Italian authorities started releasing internees. According to the Swiss, those persons imprisoned in the region of the right bank of the Var (the south and west) were freed while those held in the region of the left bank of the Var and the area beyond (the north and east) including those at Embrun, were transferred to the Camp at Modane in Savoie about 172 kilometres north of Nice. Their detention did not apparently last much longer however, because on the evening of 8 September 1943 the Italian military authorities released everyone being held at Modane including those internees arriving from Embrun. This action on the part of the Italian authorities makes sense as they had already begun their withdrawal from occupied France in early August 1943, an evacuation that was scheduled to be completed by 25 September. The Germans expected to take de-facto control by 9 September, but the signing of the Armistice of Cassibile between the Italians and Allies on 3 September and its sudden announcement by Allied radio on 8 September threw the withdrawal into chaos and provoked an immediate offensive from the Germans. The Italians must have known that they could not hold the area to the south and west of the Var and so released the internees before the Germans could seize them. Despite their best efforts they lost control of much of the remaining territory to the north and east of the Var but for the same reason took internees from that sector with them and released them at Modane. Since he was at Embrun it is almost certain that Charles Woolrych was among the luckier ones taken to Modane, but the trail goes cold here as the Swiss Legation reported that after 8 September they had no further knowledge of the civilian internees released by the Italians. Swiss observers were soon reporting that unlike the Italians, the German authorities were ruthless in their treatment of even civilian internees. Before long the Germans began evacuating foreign prisoners including British to camps in the north of France but Charles Woolrych does not appear to have been among them. It would seem that he either remained at large, perhaps going into hiding, or was held in forced residence at some location.

It is possible that Woolrych secretly made his way back to Nice. However, given that the city was not liberated by the Allies until the end of August 1944 that might have been too dangerous both for him and his wife. All that can be said for sure is that by February 1945 at the latest (when he received and replied to a letter from Canon D’Albertanson) Charles Woolrych had returned to Nice and to his duties at Holy Trinity as Licensed Lay Reader and Treasurer. After two long and hard years his life was returning to something like normality. The American Forces were of course

American forces in Place Massena, Nice

in control of Nice and the rest of the Riviera by now and between September 1944 and 10 June 1945 they held religious services at the American Church of the Holy Spirit, close by Holy Trinity. According to a note entered by the Bishop of Gibraltar in the Register of Services, the Americans (led by Chaplain Major Richard du Brau) arrived at Holy Trinity in April 1945 and in his report dated 15 May to Canon Cragg (Commissary of the Diocese of Europe) Charles Woolrych notes that Chaplain-Colonel Schroder (Chaplain of the US Armed Forces) ‘…has practically taken over our churches at Nice and Cannes which is an advantage for us because they give us their collections and they hold their service on Sundays an hour before ours’ and as a result there was no immediate need for a new Chaplain. Canon Cragg replied encouragingly about an American Chaplain taking services for British residents while Canon D’Albertanson, whose health had taken a turn for the worse, was unable to come to Nice himself.

The Americans and Chaplain Major Du Brau stayed until May 1946 and Bishop Horsely notes that during their sojourn they repaired the organ and the heating system. Charles Woolrych continued his work as Lay Reader both during this time and also after the Americans left and Canon D’Albertanson had again taken charge. In July 1948, Woolrych received his new Lay Reader’s Licence from a grateful Bishop. According to Holy Trinity’s Register of Services the last service taken by Charles Woolrych was on 4 December 1949. He continued as Treasurer until 1951 when he retired both as Honorary Treasurer and as a Partner in Batchelor, Woolrych and Williams, although he continued his link with the company as a consultant. He was replaced as Treasurer at Holy Trinity (and also as Partner in Batchelor, Woolrych and Williams) by Robin Ward whose name will be familiar to many here. Shortly thereafter Charles appears to have moved to Monaco and possibly was divorced from his wife Therese, as she appears in the list of ‘Aliens’ arriving aboard the Passenger Ship SS Independence in New York on 5 November 1952 and two years later is listed as living in New York City.

In 1961 Charles Woolrych married again at the age of 74 this time to Frederika Agnes, the Austrian born former mistress and possibly wife of Herbert E. Dunhill, brother of Alfred the founder of the famous tobacco and fashion company. Three years later on the 24 April 1965 Charles died in the Monaco Hospital at the age of 74. Sadly his passing was not noted in the Gibraltar Diocesan Gazette or for that matter in Holy Trinity’s Chaplaincy Newsletter (which ran from 1955-1975) and his service to this church seems to have gone largely unacknowledged. It is appropriate therefore, to have this opportunity to celebrate a dedicated and loyal servant of Holy Trinity who kept our Church going through some of its darkest times.