Conference: Military Welfare History Network, 2024

‘The Welfare of the Defeated: Public initiatives for the care of German POWs in Britain, 1945-48’, Dr Alan Malpass (Bishop Grosseteste University)

“Contributing liberally of his vast means’: Thomas Lipton, the Erin and War Relief, 1914-15’. Dr Gavin Wilk

‘The ‘Special Burden’ of Civilians? Bombardment Compensation and Insurance in Coastal England during and after the First World War', Dr Michael Reeve (The Open University)

‘Rethinking the French Model of Military Welfare from the Colonies’, Dr Dónal Hasset (University College Cork)

‘”The Prisoners of War themselves will never be able to forget that their morally well-founded and economically achievable wishes were not better met”: The failure of state-based welfare for returning Prisoners of War in the First Austrian Republic’, Louise Earnshaw(University of Leeds)

‘Counterinsurgency and Culture: The British Army in Helmand, 2006-11’, Simon Olson (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Abstract

This keynote will explore 'economies of welfare' through the case of the Francoist war disabled of the Spanish Civil War. The Francoist regime (1939-75) congratulated itself on having solved its war disability 'problem' at a fraction of the costs incurred by participants in the First World War. Indeed, compared to cohorts of disabled veterans in other contexts, the Francoist war disabled seemed relatively contented with the support they received, with some becoming some of the dictatorship's most enduring supporters. Yet these economies came at a price, a price borne by those who did not fit the regime's idealised vision of what it termed the 'Mutilated Gentleman'. This paper will explore the political, cultural and social economies of war disability throughout the Francoist dictatorship and into Spain's transition to democracy.

About the speaker

Dr Stephanie Wright is a historian of modern Spain, specialising in the histories of disability, psychiatry, sexuality, and gender under the Francoist dictatorship. She is currently writing a book on the experiences of maimed Francoist veterans of the Spanish Civil War, while starting a new research project exploring sexual violence under Francoism. The latter centres on the role of forensic doctors and psychiatrists within court cases dealing with sexual crimes in twentieth-century Spain. She has published extensively on the history of war disability, including ‘Pride and Privilege? New Approaches to War Disability in the Twentieth Century’ with Sebastian Schlund, published in History, and ‘Of Maiming and Privilege: Rethinking War Disability through the Case of Francoist Spain, 1936–1989’ in Past & Present, both in 2022.

‘Welfare for German soldiers and their families after World War I’, Katherine Quinlan-Flatter

‘From Military Medicine to Health?: The Challenge of Soldier’s Welfare in the Wartime Canadian Army, 1939-1945’, Dr Geoffrey Hayes (University of Waterloo)

‘War Brides and the Australian Repatriation System: The Case of Patricia Maureen McPherson’, Charles Hewat (University of Sydney)

‘“The Gaping Hole”’: A case study analysis in post WW1 welfare of NZ Army Nursing Sisters’, Dr Wendy Maddocks (Canterbury Christ Church University)

‘Becoming Soldiers: Post-Spousal Death and Battle Careers of Women in Boko Haram affected military households in Nigeria’, Dr Nicholas Idris (Nigerian Institute of International Affairs)