Decoration from Destruction: the First World War Trench Art of Sapper Pearl

Kerry Neale

26 April 2016

During the battles that raged between 1914 and 1918, millions of shells were blasted between the fighting forces, leaving the people and the ground around them mutilated. This was a new type of war, yet there was an unexpected by-product of these used shell cases: trench art.

Accession Number: E00810

A dump of 18 pounder shell cases at Birr Cross Roads, in the Ypres Sector, where positions were occupied by the 2nd Divisional Artillery, during the battle of Zonnebeke, 20 September 1917, when these shells were used. Photographer: Frank Hurley.

‘Trench art’ is a term used to describe objects made from the debris and by-products of modern warfare. Trench Art is usually associated with the First World War, although similar items have been produced in other conflicts too. As historian Jane Kimball explains,

Trench art is a highly evocative term conjuring up the image of a mud-spattered soldier in a soggy trench hammering out a souvenir for a loved one at home while dodging bullets and artillery shells. This is an appealing but very false conception of the reality of this art form.

Most trench art was made by servicemen to pass the time when not in the front line. Prisoners of war, faced with a constant battle against boredom, produced similar items, as did soldiers convalescing from wounds as a form of handicraft therapy. Many examples of trench art were also made by local civilians for sale to soldiers, and later as souvenirs to the visitors to battlefields and cemeteries. Such items are still manufactured to this day.

German 105mm shell case made into a vase: Sapper G N Crock, Australian Electrical, Mechanical, Mining and Boring Company, AIF.

Sapper Stanley Keith Pearl

The Memorial holds a fantastic collection of First World War trench art made by Sapper Stanley Pearl, who served in the First World War and later worked at the Australian War Memorial.

Stanley Keith Pearl enlisted at 21 years of age on the 9 November 1915 at the Tasmanian town of Ulverstone. He embarked from Sydney on HMAT Orsova on 11 March 1916 and arrived at Alexandria in April that year. From there he was sent to France with 2 Division reinforcements 8 Field Company Engineers and by August was a Sapper with 5 Field Company Engineers where he served until the end of the war. During Pearl’s time in France he produced highly crafted items of trench art, many of which he later donated to the Memorial.

Accession Number: RELAWM14155

Trench art clock : Sapper S K Pearl, 5 Field Company Engineers, AIF.

This alarm clock was made by Sapper Pearl at Ypres in March 1918. The case was made from two 4.5 inch shell cases picked up on Christmas Day 1917 at the Australian batteries at Le Bizet. The Rising Sun badge belonged to one of Pearl’s mates who killed at Noreuil, while a button from the Pearl's greatcoat and a German bullet surmount the whole.

Accession Number: RELAWM14161

Trench art chrysanthemum vase : Sapper S K Pearl, 5 Field Company Engineers, AIF

This chrysanthemum vase was made by Sapper Pearl at Thy-le-Chateau from a French 75mm shell-case and embellished with the Royal Artillery badge and a French artillery button. The shell-case was souvenired from a French battery south of Villers-Bretonneux, while the handles are 1-inch copper steam pipes split down and flattened out. Pearl wrote that the “latter were purloined from a German locomotive which formed part of the Armistice indemnity and were removed at night with a hack saw in spite of a guard.”

Interestingly, for the British and Belgian soldiers, empty artillery shell cases remained the property of the state, and were supposed to be collected into dumps and then re-filled in munitions factories for later re-use. Technically speaking, making trench art pieces from these materials was illegal. It is probably for this reason that most of the decorated artillery shell cases made during the war were not signed with their maker's name.

Accession Number: RELAWM14152

Trench art map of Tasmania : Sapper S K Pearl, 5 Field Company Engineers, AIF.

A proud Tasmanian, Pearl constructed this plaque, in the shape of a map of Tasmania, at Armentieres in 1917. The elm was from furniture taken from a German dugout at Vaulx-Vraucourt. The facings were from the equipment of a German officer, captain of 152 Regiment, shot while on patrol near Houplines, and show the hole in the belt buckle made by the bullet that killed him.

Accession Number: RELAWM14156.001

Trench art hat pin stand : Sapper S K Pearl, 5 Field Company Engineers, AIF.

This hat pin stand, in the form of a field daisy, was constructed on the Somme in May 1918. Its base is from a 77-mm shell-case and an 18-pounder nose-cap embellished with the Rising Sun worn by a sapper who was awarded the Military Medal. The "flower" was made from a German water-bottle found near Villers-Bretonneux and an overcoat button bartered from a German prisoner for a packet of cigarettes. An Army issue purple diamond colour patch (the colour patch for 2 Australian Divisional Engineers) acts as a cushion, while the stalk is a piece of copper conductor from a portable electric light plant for a searchlight at Aubigny. The hat pins are from New Zealand and Canadian Engineers' cap badges, bartered for cigarettes, while the pin shafts are spokes ‘borrowed’ from army bicycles.

These are only a few examples the trench art made by Sapper Pearl in the Memorial’s Collections. They are a great illustration of the skill and talent of their maker. After the war, Stanley Pearl became one of the original employees at the Memorial here in Canberra where he worked as a carpenter and senior tradesman (he is listed as an ‘installation manager’ on the electoral rolls) from the Memorial’s opening in 1941 until his retirement.