PRISONER OF WAR ART - Percy P. Wood (British b.1877)
A group of five First World War original humorous drawings created at the Ruhleben civilian internment camp in Germany, illustrated in pen and watercolour, all signed, with postal details for a family member, possibly his mother, in London to the reverse
Titles comprise 'The Birdcage, Ruhleben' 1918; 'The Spanish Grippe' 1918 (a comical look at the Spanish Flu epidemic); Accommodation for the Kaiser', 'My Top Shelf' and 'Gray's Elegy in Ruhleben', a series of six individual captioned drawings in cartoon strip style, all unframed, largest 38cm x 24cm (5)

Percy Wood was born in Hull in 1877. According to citizen registries, he worked in Berlin as a language teacher. When the outbreak of the First World War necessitated the round-up of all foreign 'aliens', Wood was held at Ruhleben internment camp alongside other male citizens of the Allied Powers who were living, studying, working or on holiday in Germany at the outbreak of World War I. They also included the crews of several civilian ships stranded in German harbours or captured at sea. There were numerous fishermen captured from trawlers which had been sunk in the North Sea in the first days of the war: they were mainly men from Hull, Yorkshire; and Grimsby and Boston, Lincolnshire.

Numbers in the camp varied between 4,000 and 5,500 prisoners, most of them British. The German authorities adhered to the Geneva Convention and allowed the camp detainees to administer their own internal affairs. Gradually, a mini-society evolved. Letters, books, sports equipment and a printing press were all allowed into the camp, and the detainees organised their own police force, magazine, library and postal service.

The latter, known as the Ruhleben Express Delivery, was organised by Albert Kamps and began operating in July 1915. Soon it was handling over 6,000 pieces of mail per month, and 16 different postage stamps were issued. In April 1916, however, the German postal authorities declared the service illegal, and it ceased operating. Wood is noted as an artist for several of the camp magazine publications, alongside sending work home to family in England. He is further recorded as holding an exhibition of humorous drawings in the studio at Ruhleben in April 1917 alongside fellow camp artists Wade and Walker