Tag Archives: Vimy Pilgrimage

Vimy Memorial visit: fact or fiction (now a trilogy)

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By Rebecca Murray

In 2022, I wrote about researching my great-grandfather’s attendance at the 1936 unveiling of the Vimy Memorial. A year later, I shared another instalment, and now, I’m back with what feels like the conclusion to this journey through my family history.

We left off with the exciting discovery that Thomas C. Phillips had indeed been at or very near the Vimy Memorial in July 1936. However, we were still missing a key piece of the puzzle—how exactly did he get there and back home again?

Given the era, it’s likely that Thomas travelled by passenger ship. Family documents tell us that he sailed to France on the SS Alaunia and I confirmed online that this ship left Montréal on July 20, 1936—a tight, but feasible window for him to make it to the unveiling on July 26. So, this is where we pick it back up!

I turned my attention to passenger lists and related records, hoping to trace Thomas’s journey. My first stop—because I have learned that a problem shared is a problem halved AND I know how smart my colleagues are—was the Genealogy Desk! I spoke with one of my colleagues (you can do this too!), who advised me that post-1935 passenger lists are under the custody of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and are accessible through Access to Information requests. Pre-1935 records, however, are organized into various datasets that are searchable on the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) website using a variety of keywords such as “passenger,” “immigration,” and “border.”

I hummed and hawed over this—those of you who love research will understand that handing over the reins to someone else wasn’t my first choice. Not wanting to rely entirely on others, I approached the research from a new angle. Which angle you ask? Well, I went all the way to the other side of the ocean! Instead of looking for arrival records, I decided to look for departures (or, Thomas’s return trip)! This led me to the National Archives of the United Kingdom and their digitized records on Findmypast, where I discovered not one, but two passengers named Thomas Phillips who sailed to Montréal in the summer of 1936. Another big thank you to my colleagues at the Genealogy Desk, whose expertise proved invaluable in this stage of the research.

I reviewed the search results knowing that I should look for a departure date in the late summer and use Thomas’s birth year (1877) as an additional filter. I quickly found the relevant record: a passenger list for the SS Antonia, a Cunard ship built in the 1920s. Spotting Thomas’s name felt like one of those moments in the Reference Room where you want to fist pump and high-five someone—except, when you’re working remotely, all you get is a side-eye from the dog for interrupting his nap.

The form tells us a lot about the voyage and about Thomas. The SS Antonia departed Liverpool on August 28, 1936, bound for Quebec City and Montréal, Quebec. While most of the passenger data is standard, I found it neat to see column 8 or “Country of Last Permanent Residence,” which offers a breakdown of regions across the United Kingdom as well as options for “Other Parts of the British Empire” and “Foreign Countries.” Unsurprisingly, most of the passengers heading to Quebec on this voyage are listed as from “Other Parts of the British Empire”—perhaps other Canadian pilgrims who, like Thomas, had been in France the previous month for the unveiling of the Vimy Memorial.

Page from the passenger list of the SS Antonia, featuring the name of Thomas Phillips circled in red.

Passenger list for Cunard White Star Line’s SS Antonia with a departure date of August 28, 1936, from Liverpool, England. Information about Thomas Phillips is circled in red. Source: National Archives of the United Kingdom.

We also learn that Thomas’s last address in the United Kingdom was “c/o 88 Leadenhall St, London.” Naturally, my curiosity led me to investigate what was located at 88 Leadenhall Street in 1936. A quick Internet search revealed it was Cunard House, an eight-story building that housed the business offices of Cunard Line and its affiliated companies. Further digging suggested that it wasn’t uncommon for travellers by sea to use a “care of” (c/o) address, likely for ease of correspondence during their journey.

With this new information in hand, I turned to LAC’s archives to explore what else I could find about the SS Antonia and Thomas’s voyage. Archival holdings at LAC provide a rich narrative of the SS Antonia—from her early days as a passenger liner to her later role as a troop transporter during the Second World War. But of most interest to this researcher are the records related to the Vimy Pilgrimage! LAC even holds footage of the SS Antonia, as well as this beautiful photograph of her Europe-bound voyage earlier that summer.

A black-and-white photograph showing the SS Antonia, a two-toned passenger ship, moving across the water. In the background, the Jacques-Cartier Bridge and several docked ships can be seen.

Members of the Vimy Pilgrimage aboard the SS Antonia, departing from Montréal, Quebec, 1936. Source: Clifford M. Johnston/Library and Archives Canada/PA-056952.

I even scoured Montréal newspapers from early September to see if Thomas’s return was noted in the shipping news. While the Antonia’s arrival was documented, my great-grandfather didn’t make the papers. And so, this brings me to the conclusion of my research—sometimes the hardest part of archival work is knowing when you’re done.

I’ve delved into the original question of why my great-grandfather attended the unveiling of the Vimy Memorial, and along the way, uncovered answers to how he made the journey there and back. The research brought both exciting discoveries and inevitable disappointments—common in any archival exploration. Along with new insights, I’ve gained valuable research skills, which is always a welcome bonus. And far from feeling discouraged, I’m more eager than ever to tackle the next family history mystery. Bring it on!

Rebecca Murray is a Literary Programs Advisor in the Outreach and Engagement Branch at Library and Archives Canada.

Vimy Memorial visit: fact or fiction? (the sequel)

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By Rebecca Murray

Conversation between the author and her father via text message. She texts: “Dad, I didn’t find anything about great-grandpa Phillips and the Skeena at Vimy.” Dad replies: “Oh whoops, it was the Saguenay.” She responds: *silence*.

Text messages between the author and her father. Image courtesy of the author, Rebecca Murray.

Has this ever happened to you? You started your primary research with abandon and came up empty, only to discover that the facts you were using were incorrect. This can be extremely frustrating. You might feel like you have wasted your time and energy. And yet, this happens more often than you might think, even to seasoned researchers.

Happily, history is not going anywhere, so we can take a second kick at the proverbial can. Come along and see what we find this time!

Do you remember my previous blog about trying to trace my great-grandfather’s attendance at the unveiling of the Vimy Memorial in July 1936?

We knew that Thomas Caleb Phillips went to France alongside a Canadian naval band. We thought it was the band associated with the HMCS Skeena, but in fact, it was the HMCS Saguenay.

What a difference this one word, this one piece of information, makes in the search!

To confirm, with archival records, that the HMCS Saguenay was even in the vicinity of Arras, France, in the summer of 1936, I consulted RG24 volume 7812 file “Ship’s log – SAGUENAY – Old,” 1935/07 – 1937/09.

Look at what I found in the log for July 1936: the first image shows that a group from the ship visited the memorial the day before the unveiling.

 

A handwritten logbook for the HMCS SAGUENAY, dated July 25, 1936. The excerpts read: “Royal Guard entrained for Vimy” and “Port Watch proceeded on Excursion to Vimy.”

Ship’s log, HMCS SAGUENAY, July 25, 1936 (MIKAN 1084556). Image courtesy of the author, Rebecca Murray.

The next day’s information is even better, providing further details about the memorial from the perspective of the crew’s movements.

A handwritten logbook for the HMCS SAGUENAY, dated July 26, 1936. The excerpt reads: “Starboard watch proceeded on excursion to Vimy. – Piped Down.”

Ship’s log, HMCS SAGUENAY, July 26, 1936 (MIKAN 1084556). Image courtesy of the author, Rebecca Murray.

For me, reading these entries was one of those exciting moments where you are in a very quiet room surrounded by other researchers and staff doing important work, and you just want to jump up and down and squeal with delight at what you have found! Then I turned the page, because you never know what is waiting around the corner, and lo and behold, what did I find? A truly unexpected mention of my great-grandfather, the very man I was looking for, in the handwritten logbook.

A handwritten logbook for the HMCS SAGUENAY, dated July 29, 1936. The excerpt reads: “Engineer Commander T.C. Phillips disembarked.”

Ship’s log, HMCS SAGUENAY, July 29, 1936 (MIKAN 1084556). Image courtesy of the author, Rebecca Murray.

Now it is July 29, and the ship is at Dover in England, and look who went ashore for a visit!

This is the link I had been searching for! (Exaggerated fist pump.) Let us just hit pause for a moment and make an observation: I previously wrote about how research with archival records, especially government records, can be very time consuming and take a lot of patience. I did not expect to find any mention of T.C. Phillips in the ship’s log. I was simply trying to confirm that the HMCS Saguenay had been near Vimy Ridge (or as close as a ship can get to rural northern France). This “find” was almost enough to convince me to stop searching for further records—almost.

Something else that I was happily reminded of by the experience of sharing my research on the previous blog is that when you share a problem, it can be halved. One of the benefits of working with naturally curious colleagues is that they will offer their suggestions about how you might find the answer you are looking for. For example, one colleague suggested checking specific sailing lists related to the Vimy Pilgrimage.

And in sharing the story of my research with extended family, I not only gathered corrected secondary information (ahem!), but also an item that I will be filing away for my own archives: a worn postcard that T.C. Phillips sent to his wife, my great-grandmother, in Ottawa, dated July 27, 1936. Although the message itself tells us little about the role he was fulfilling by being at the unveiling of the memorial, the card itself is full of information that could send any researcher, let alone the writer’s great-granddaughter, down any number of rabbit holes. For example, the stamp affixed to the postcard appears to be an image of the sculpted figures, The Defenders, shown on the card itself.

A sepia-tone image on the front of a postcard showing some stone figures of the Vimy Memorial.

Postcard sent by T.C. Phillips on July 27, 1936, from France to Ottawa. Image courtesy of the author, Rebecca Murray.

A green-hued stamp depicting a stone sculpture from the Vimy Memorial. The stamp has been cancelled, and a partial postmark is visible to the left of the image.

Part of the postcard with the cancelled stamp. Image courtesy of the author, Rebecca Murray.

Another research path that I could explore is the journey that T.C. Phillips took to get to France. A bit more research in the family album tells me that he travelled to France on the SS Alaunia, a ship that served mainly on Cunard’s Canadian service. I found historic passenger lists confirming that the ship departed from Montréal on July 20, 1936, and arrived in London, England, but T.C. Phillips’s name is not among those who “landed” there. For today, though, this is far enough, and that too is a valuable lesson to learn and incorporate into our research. There is always one more lead to follow up on, one more potentially relevant fonds or publication to check, but, as I mentioned in the previous post, where is the fun in being done? So I will hold on to this particular mystery until my next foray into this story.

Family lore can be subjective, so it can be challenging to match it with primary source records. As such, it requires a delicate approach, whether you are working with your own family or helping someone else, as we so often find ourselves doing in Reference Services. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of good secondary research and preparation before a visit to an archive for primary source research.

Rebecca Murray is a Senior Reference Archivist in the Reference Services Division at Library and Archives Canada.