1946–1954 Major Richard Carr-Gomm Scrapbook and Insider Archive of British Mandate Palestine, the Coldstream Guards, the Household Brigade, and Britain’s Military and Political Establishment
On offer is the “Patchwork Book” of Richard Carr-Gomm (1928-2008), a massive, approximately 300-page volume begun in September 1946 and maintained through 1954. It combines Carr-Gomm’s extensive handwritten commonplace book content with his meticulously kept military, intellectual, spiritual, social and family archive. This book is an insider archive of mid-century British military, political, royal, cultural and philanthropic life. Its approximately 300 pages bring together annotated intelligence bulletins and restricted operational papers from Mandate Palestine; Coldstream Guards and Household Brigade records; a regimental copy of a telegram from Princess Elizabeth; parliamentary correspondence from Richard Law MP; a signed letter from Sir Malcolm Sargent; and documents connecting Carr-Gomm with his family’s influential charitable work at Lady Gomm House. What makes the volume especially revealing is Carr-Gomm’s active engagement with this material. In his own hand, Carr-Gomm questions the accuracy of official intelligence and comments upon security and morale. Elsewhere, the papers show how the Carr-Gomm family’s political connections could carry a serving officer’s grievance from Palestine to the floor of the House of Commons. The scrapbook provides a remarkably personal view from inside the interconnected world of the Guards, Parliament, the monarchy, London society and upper-class philanthropy. Carr-Gomm wrote a substantial part of the volume himself, organized its contents, supplied headings and commentary, created an extensive index, made drawings and diagrams, and selected and mounted the documents, photographs, letters, invitations and printed material that he wished to preserve. The result is a unique record of Carr-Gomm’s mind and milieu during the decisive years immediately preceding his establishment of the first Abbeyfield house. The volume bears Carr-Gomm’s ownership inscription, the date “Started September 1946.” Part 1: The Commonplace Book The first 144 pages form a carefully constructed manuscript commonplace book, internally indexed by Carr-Gomm. Its principal indexed divisions include “Prayers,” “Friends,” “Biographies” and “Sayings.” Carr-Gomm copied and considered passages from Scripture, Shakespeare, Blake, Wordsworth and other writers, placing them alongside prayers, aphorisms, personal observations, memories, military ideas and reflections upon friendship, courage, confidence, intimacy, service and the proper conduct of life. Some entries are transcriptions, but the importance of the manuscript lies in Carr-Gomm’s selection, arrangement and annotation of them, and in the way copied texts are interspersed with his own comments, recollections and diagrams. One sequence includes lines from Shakespeare’s Henry V beside hand-drawn military and tactical diagrams. Elsewhere he records a traditional Bedouin prayer asking that God “guard our children and protect our weaker friends.” The commonplace portion of the book reveals Carr-Gomm actively forming a personal philosophy by gathering ideas, testing them against his military experience, and returning to questions of fellowship, responsibility and service. Part 2: Military Scrapbook on Mandate Palestine and the Coldstream Guards A major portion of the archive concerns Carr-Gomm’s service in Palestine with the 3rd Battalion, Coldstream Guards, during the final and increasingly dangerous period of the British Mandate. Some of the vast Palestine material includes: A large named company photograph of No. 2 Company, 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards, identifying “Capt. R. C. Carr-Gomm” A 1947 battalion Christmas card inscribed “with much love from Richard” Military passes and service documents Maps, company plans and operational papers Reports concerning morale and security Intelligence material carrying Carr-Gomm’s handwritten comments and questions Military and archaeological ephemera relating to Sabratha and Leptis Magna The final issue of Sharper Yet, the weekly magazine of the 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards An “On His Majesty’s Service” envelope marked “SECRET” as well as the contents of the envelope Particularly striking is an Intelligence Bulletin dated 20 May 1947. In response to the question, “Is there still any danger of attack being imminent?”, the official answer reads: “Yes, there is always a danger of attack.” Carr-Gomm did not preserve this material passively. He questioned the accuracy and usefulness of the intelligence, added further questions in the manuscript and recorded that he had been obliged to “dodge the Intelligence section” to obtain information, after which he was summoned to the orderly room to explain himself. These annotations give the scrapbook immediacy and show a serving officer reacting to the official information supplied to him and attempting to reconcile it with the realities faced by his men. The Carr-Gomm Connections (War Time & Peace Time) One of the most revealing documents is a typed, signed letter dated 4 June 1947 from Richard Kidston Law MP, a former War Office and Foreign Office minister, and son of former Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law The letter is addressed to Richard Carr-Gomm’s father, Mark Culling Carr-Gomm. It concerns a complaint raised by about British troops in Palestine being required to pay for airmail postage. MP Law had raised the issue in the House of Commons the previous day and enclosed the relevant Hansard answer. Referring to Carr-Gomm and the other servicemen affected, Law wrote, “I entirely sympathise with him, and the many others like him.” He added that he intended to continue pressing the War Office. This letter and other documents within this book place Richard Carr-Gomm and his family within the social elite. As well as his father, Richard Carr-Gomm had other high-ranking family members (see biographical notes at the end of the listing). A typed and signed letter to Richard Carr-Gomm from the celebrated British conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, dated 11 March 1954 and addressed begins, “Thank you so much for your charming invitation...” He then discusses his rehearsal commitments at St James’s. The letter is further evidence of Carr-Gomm’s access to the cultural as well as the military, parliamentary and civic spheres of postwar Britain. Their family connections extended through the Army, Parliament, London civic and cultural life and charitable work. Other included papers that situate the Carr-Gomms within the prominent elite of the era include a regimental copy of Princess Elizabeth’s congratulatory telegram, a message from Major-General Sir Julian Gascoigne, and programmes from the St George’s Day Service and Guards Depot at Caterham. Lady Gomm House and the family tradition of social service Another important group concerns Lady Gomm House in Bermondsey, a Carr-Gomm family charitable property placed at the disposal of Bede House after wartime destruction of its previous premises. Among other related pieces, the scrapbook contains: Richard Carr-Gomm’s personalized invitation to the opening The full programme for the ceremony Details of the opening by the Lord Mayor of London, Sir George Aylwen The dedication by the Bishop of Southwark The date of the ceremony: 9 December 1948 Richard’s father, Mark Culling Carr-Gomm, and his fellow trustees had offered the building to Bede House on a 99-year peppercorn lease. Lady Gomm House subsequently became a centre for youth and community work in an area closely associated with the Carr-Gomm family. This is highly relevant to Richard Carr-Gomm’s later life. It does not constitute a formal archive of Abbeyfield’s foundation, but it documents the family tradition of practical social responsibility from which his own work emerged. Carr-Gomm later left the Army, began working among isolated elderly people in Bermondsey and established the first Abbeyfield house in 1956. The scrapbook therefore supplies an important prehistory to Abbeyfield: not yet the organization itself, but the military, spiritual, familial and philanthropic environment in which Carr-Gomm’s ideas about community and service took shape. Research and Historic Significance The significance of this “Patchwork Book” rests in the convergence of several different kinds of material within a single, author-created volume: An extensive autograph manuscript, preserving Carr-Gomm’s reading, spiritual interests, personal philosophy and private reflections. A primary-source military archive, including annotated intelligence and operational material from the troubled final years of the British Mandate in Palestine. A record of the Coldstream Guards and Household Brigade, including named photographs, ceremonial programmes and royal and regimental communications. Evidence of an influential British family network, encompassing Parliament, the Army, the monarchy, London civic life, charitable institutions and the arts. A formative record of Richard Carr-Gomm, compiled in the decade immediately before he created what became the international Abbeyfield movement. This exact compilation is necessarily one of a kind. Even where Carr-Gomm copied a published text or mounted a printed programme, the handwritten selections, personal annotations, arrangement, indexing, drawings, inserted documents and connections between the materials exist only in this volume. It is at once a manuscript, a military scrapbook, a family archive, a spiritual commonplace book and a revealing study of a privileged British officer gradually articulating a life founded upon fellowship and service. Provenance Acquired directly from David Carr-Gomm, Richard Carr-Gomm’s son, in 2025. The present owner communicated directly with David Carr-Gomm concerning the material. David explained that his father wrote prolifically and frequently gave his writings to others, making the survival of additional manuscripts unsurprising. This direct family provenance is an important part of the archive’s history and helps establish its authenticity. Biographical Notes Major Richard Carr-Gomm OBE (1922–2008) served as an officer in the Coldstream Guards before leaving the Army to devote himself to social service. After witnessing the loneliness and inadequate living conditions experienced by elderly people in Bermondsey, he purchased a house in 1956 and opened it as a shared home. This became the beginning of the Abbeyfield movement, which expanded internationally as a provider of housing and community support for older people. The “Patchwork Book” predates Abbeyfield and documents Carr-Gomm during his formative years: as a young Guards officer, reader, religious thinker and close observer of the institutions around him. Its manuscript reflections and collected documents reveal many of the intellectual, spiritual and philanthropic influences that preceded his later vocation. The Carr-Gomm Family The family’s connection with the Gomm name arose through Lady Elizabeth Ann Gomm, widow of Field Marshal Sir William Maynard Gomm. A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and Waterloo, Sir William later served as Commander-in-Chief in India and Constable of the Tower of London. He transferred to the Coldstream Guards in 1814, creating a notable family association with the regiment in which Richard Carr-Gomm would later serve. Lady Gomm bequeathed her estate to her niece, Emily Blanche Carr. Emily’s husband, Francis Culling Carr, subsequently assumed the surname Carr-Gomm by royal licence. Richard’s grandfather, Francis Carr-Gomm, became chairman of the London Hospital committee and was an important supporter of Joseph Merrick, popularly known as the “Elephant Man.” His great-uncle Hubert Carr-Gomm served as Liberal MP for Rotherhithe from 1906 to 1918 and as parliamentary private secretary to Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Richard’s father, Mark Culling Carr-Gomm, was closely involved with the family’s charitable property and trusteeship in South London, including the property that became Lady Gomm House. These military, political and philanthropic associations provide important context for the scrapbook’s Guards material, parliamentary correspondence and Lady Gomm House documents, while also illuminating the family tradition of public service from which Richard Carr-Gomm’s Abbeyfield work emerged. Condition One large bound volume of approximately 300 pages, in red paper-covered boards with a light-coloured cloth spine and corners. Begun in September 1946 and containing material extending through 1954. It includes extensive manuscript material in Carr-Gomm’s hand, together with mounted and inserted letters, military papers, photographs, invitations, programmes, maps, publications, cards and ephemera. The volume is in used archival condition, consistent with its size, age and prolonged personal compilation. The text block is swollen from the large quantity of mounted and inserted material. The binding is intact. Pages show age toning, handling wear, creases, occasional tears and adhesive staining. Some mounted documents are folded, partly lifting or partly detached; several extend beyond the text block and consequently have edge wear. Overall Good.