The parcel is political: the British government and the regulation of food parcels for prisoners of war, 1914–1918

Abstract

ABSTRACTParcels of comforting food sent from the United Kingdom loom large in accounts of how British POWs were sustained during the First World War. But these care packages provoked considerable contestation amongst a variety of stakeholders. While food parcels were part of humanitarianism, the state had considerable oversight as to the amount of food dispatched, the contents of the parcels and who was allowed to send them. They were thus a critical part of the British government’s wartime food strategy. The state’s regulations mitigated the effects of class privilege that extended even into the camps by helping to equalize food distribution amongst interned British subjects. But the British government’s control over parcels starting in late 1916 provoked tensions amongst voluntary associations and led to criticism from the families of imprisoned men and from some POWs themselves who decried what they saw as unnecessary meddling. The standardization and centralization of the parcel system, argued its opponents, undermined the role of families who wished to remain connected to their captive loved ones through nurturing their bodies. In addition, it challenged the masculinity of POWs by rendering them dependent on the state. Sending parcels to British prisoners was thus a much more fraught enterprise and one that involved considerably more government oversight than scholarship on the First World War has previously acknowledged.