German belts and a helmet were donated to the museum collection over 30 years ago by Walter Andrews. Walter George Andrews was born in Fordingbridge, Hampshire on November 11, 1888. He was the son of Moses Andrews, a registered veterinary surgeon.

Walter was a 28-year-old boot maker and shoe repairer when he enlisted in the 2/6th Battalion Hants Regiment on December 12, 1915. He was later transferred to the Devon Regiment. He married Doris Sybil Witt in Milton, Southampton on Valentine’s Day 1917. Less than a month later he had been posted to France. He picked up the German belt after the Battle of Arras on Easter Monday, April 9 1917. Walter was demobilised in Nottingham in September 1919. In 1939 he was back to boot repairing in Christchurch Hampshire and he eventually moved to Combe Raleigh where he died in 1983.

In 1911 Walter’s older sister, Anita, was working as a nurse in the Sarah Acland Home for Nurses in Banbury Road Oxford. By 1914 she had become a Sister in Queen Alexandria’s Nursing Service. The Pickelhaube helmet was given to her by a wounded German soldier who was receiving treatment in the 3rd General Hospital Oxford.

William Noel Gilyott, known as Noel, was born in Hull but he went to Australia when he was 19 and became a farmer. He was one of the first men to enlist in the Australian Field Artillery 9th Battery of the 3rd Australian Brigade. He was wounded in action in Boulogne in September 1917, receiving gunshots to both his skull and spine. The following month he was transferred to the hospital in Oxford where he was nursed by Anita Andrews. They married in Hull in 1918.

Noel returned to Australia and was discharged in July 1918 at Hobart. Anita, who was by then a Matron on the hospital ship Essex followed him to Australia. William never recovered from his injuries and he died 12 years later at the Rosemount Military Hospital in Brisbane where Anita was working. Anita returned to England in 1932 and was living with her widowed mother in Fordingbridge.

The second German belt (B) was found by Walter’s son Dennis while he was serving in Holland during WWII.