Talk:Port Erin Women's Detention Camp

Latest comment: 6 months ago by Andrew Gray in topic Rushen Internment Camp

Rushen Internment Camp

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In the first reference to this article, the name of the camp is the Rushen Internment Camp. I have also found other references to the "Europe's only all-female internment camp" naming it as Rushen, based in Port Erin. It seems this article needs to be renamed (and the part about Rushen camp being for couples removed if it can't be verified) but history is not my forte, so wondering if anyone can shed any light how this article came to have the Port Erin name in the first place? Orange sticker (talk) 14:39, 6 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

I see no indication that WP:RFCBEFORE has been observed. Also, this appears to be a page rename request, and so WP:RFCNOT applies. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:26, 6 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm trying to find out if a page rename is appropriate, people with more knowledge of WWII and the Isle of Man might have access to better sources than me. Unfortunately the IoM Wikiproject has been inactive for years, is there a better way of getting the attention of some editors who may have specialised knowledge? Orange sticker (talk) 20:36, 6 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
Military history is one of our oldest, largest and most active WikiProjects. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:20, 6 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
Dredging through the newspapers, there was a news announcement in 1941 that a "new internment camp for married couples" was to be established, and reports indicated that it was likely to be placed in Port St Mary (adjacent to Port Erin) - which had previously been used for billeting women as part of the Port Erin camp. All the single women were then moved back to Port Erin. (eg). This Hansard statement suggests that by 1942 it was in operation, with both "women and married couples" in the two villages.
I cannot work out if they were officially independent "camps" or not, but it seems plausibly not. Unfortunately, the press seems to use "Rushen" interchangeably with either camp, so I'm not sure what the formal name of either was.
Incidentally, "all-female" may be slightly misleading - I think that the interned women were allowed to keep their families with them? So adult women only, but with both boys and girls under 16(?) Andrew Gray (talk) 20:41, 8 May 2024 (UTC)Reply