Prisoners' Wives' Visits to Switzerland — The Times, 4 October 1916
The Times, 4 October 1916. One of St Peter’s First World War documents, from the years when British prisoners of war were interned at Château-d’Œx, 1916–17. Transcribed in full from the original cutting held in St Peter’s Anglican Church press archive, Château-d’Œx.
Headline as printed: PRISONERS’ WIVES’ VISITS TO SWITZERLAND.
Handwritten annotation
The Times - 4/10/1916
Date resolved as 4 October 1916. The annotator writes DD/MM/YYYY (a companion cutting is
annotated “31/5/1916”, and there is no 31st month), so the archive filename 1916-04-10_ encodes
an MM/DD misreading. Two independent checks agree: this cutting says the second party leaves
“next Saturday”, and the 7 October cutting (Tears and Smiles at Château d’Œx) says it leaves
“to-day” — 7 October 1916 was a Saturday.
SECOND PARTY ARRANGED.
The second party of wives and relatives of interned British prisoners of war, who are being taken to Switzerland by the British Red Cross officials, will leave London next Saturday to visit the wounded men at Château d’Œx.
The party will number 19, and the arrangements for their journey, and their fortnight’s stay in Switzerland, will be similar to those made for the first party, which left during the last week-end.
Also on this cutting (unrelated)
The clipping continues below a rule with a separate, unrelated item, reproduced here only so the scan is fully accounted for. It has no bearing on Château d’Œx.
HULL FREE FROM PLAGUE.
The Hull Corporation Health Commitee [sic] yesterday received a report from the Medical Officer of Health that, after 10 days from the outbreak of bubonic plague, the port and city was declared free from this disease.
The Local Government Board wrote asking that the number of rats examined should be considerably increased and results of examinations shown in weekly returns.
About this transcription
- Source: The Times, 4 October 1916
- Archive item: prisoners-wives-visits-switzerland (1 image)
- Transcription: Machine-transcribed in two independent passes, with a further check on disputed readings.
- Status: Verified before publication — two independent transcriptions were compared, and any reading still in doubt is left unresolved and noted below rather than settled.
- ⚠️ The archive filename’s date is wrong for this item. The date above is taken from the cutting’s own annotation or masthead, which is the authority.
Transcribed verbatim, preserving the spelling, punctuation and capitalisation of the original. Square brackets mark a reading that is uncertain or a passage cut off by the edge of the scan. Where the text of a figure or a name could not be established, it is shown as unresolved rather than guessed.
Editorial notes
Signature and date as printed
None — unsigned news item, no dateline.
Uncertain readings
- 🔴 “The party will number 19” — adjudicated. Pass 1 read 18 and reported zero uncertain readings; pass 2 read 19 from a 4× crop; adjudication on a 5× upscaled crop (2026-07-28) confirms 19 — the second digit has a single closed upper loop and a descending tail, where an 8 would show two closed loops. A worked example of the rule that a low doubt-count is not evidence of accuracy.
- “Commitee” in the Hull item is printed that way in the source — a period typesetting error, retained sic.
- No personal names appear anywhere on this cutting.