They were the unappetising biscuits meant to sustain soldiers in the trenches during World War One. But for some these basic emergency rations were used for something far more poignant – a way to send messages of love and hope back home. More than a century later, surviving examples of these fragile snacks can be viewed in Leeds.<\/b><\/p>\n
Inscribing what may have been his final words, Pte William Maxwell, a soldier with the 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers, carved a personal message on the surface of his Army biscuit.<\/p>\n
Dating from 1914 and still tucked in its original wrapper, it was addressed to his mother, Margaret Maxwell, of Meanwood in Leeds. On it, he wrote: “Christmas dinner in the Army. Give us this day our daily bread and please put a bit of butter on. From Max.”<\/p>\n
Several months later, in May 1915, Pte Maxwell – the son of of GE and Margaret Maxwell – was killed, with his body buried in Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery in northern France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They were the unappetising biscuits meant to sustain soldiers in the trenches during World War One. But for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,393,4884,1860,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-651961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leeds","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-leeds","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115773132377669234","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}