GREENWICH.- As part of the National Maritime Museum’s commemorations for the WWI centenary artist-in-residence Paddy Hartley’s new artwork is being displayed in locations across the Museum from 3 November 2017. The new pieces created by Paddy are inspired by the lives and surgeries of sailors, who suffered devastating injuries when serving at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 – the largest naval battle of the First World War.

At the heart of Paddy’s new artworks are a series of poignant pieces inspired by Swansea-born Able Seaman William Vicarage. Since 2004, with support from Wellcome, Paddy has been researching the astonishing life story of Vicarage, from his survival of the Battle of Jutland in which he sustained life-changing burns to his face and hands, to the pioneering surgery he received at the hands of WWI surgeon Sir Harold Gillies, through to his later years that shaped how the former watchmaker rebuilt his life with the support of his family, recounted to Paddy through their very own testimonies.

During the action of the Battle of Jutland on 31st May 1916, William Vicarage on HMS Malaya suffered severe burns to the hands and face, caused by a shell fired by the German battleship König which hit the starboard 6-inch gun battery and ignited the cordite stored on deck. William was transferred to the Plastic Surgery Unit at Sidcup in August 1917 where he underwent a series of pioneering facial reconstruction operations by Gillies. As the invention of antibiotics was yet to happen, grafting tissue from one part of the body to another was incredibly difficult and the risk of infection was very high. However, Vicarage’s treatment saw the invention of Gillies’ ‘tubed pedicle’ method of skin grafting. This meant that the flap of skin from chest or forehead to be used for the graft was formed into a tube. This had the advantage of improving the blood supply along the length of the graft but also greatly reduced the chance of infection, because the raw underside of the flap was closed to the outside. William Vicarage was the first patient to undergo this revolutionary surgery, which was so successful in his case that it went on to become standard procedure and has been used in countless surgeries worldwide.

Collaborating with Gillies Archives Curator, Dr Andrew Bamji (now Gillies Archivist to the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons), and descendants of William Vicarage, Paddy has created a series of works that examine various aspects of William's life, from his ambitions as a young man, through to the consequences of his injuries and surgery, whilst also incorporating the fond memories Vicarage’s family have of the WWI veteran.

The focus of some of the work Paddy has created whilst being artist-in-residence at the NMM, are three works using diverse materials and processes relating to three key moments from the history of William Vicarage’s remarkable life:

'Make my move for me will you my Love'
Inspired by conversations with the granddaughter of William Vicarage, and created using vintage watch salvage and porcelain paperclay, 'Make my move for me will you my Love', incorporates a number of elements from William's life story. A porcelain solitaire board takes the shape of the region of Swansea where he lived and worked as a plumber’s mate after WWI, whilst the solitaire counters reflect his pre-war trade as a watchmaker. William’s granddaughter recalled playing solitaire with him and how he would ask her to move the counters for him, due to the reduced dexterity of his reconstructed hands following the Battle of Jutland. The Hour, Minute and Second hands are arranged to display characters in semaphore code to present the title of the piece - the kind of phrase William may have expressed to his granddaughter during the course of a game.

'Consequence'
In addition to his life-changing facial burns William also sustained devastating burns to the backs of his hands resulting in contraction of skin and tendons, rendering his fingers virtually useless. Scar tissue pulled his fingers backwards into positions that made it impossible for him to hold anything between his fingers and thumbs. Pioneering facial reconstructive surgeon Sir Harold Gillies attempted (with a considerable degree of success) to correct this, an endeavour of great importance to William given his pre-war trade as a watchmaker. In creating this artwork, Paddy’s approach is to 'never attempt to replicate injury, more so, the consequence of the injury'. He has created porcelain paperclay hands from casts of his own, reconfiguring each digit to illustrate the intolerable positions in which William’s fingers would have been rendered as a result of the scarring. The use of polished porcelain paperclay reflects Gillies’ observations of the scar tissue as 'having a white, waxy appearance'. In the aftermath of Jutland, Royal Navy protocol was revised to issue flash gloves and hoods more widely across all crew members, in a bid to curb such horrific injuries.

'Little Boy in Blue'
During the course of his research into the life story of William Vicarage, Paddy was able to trace and meet the family of 'Will' who generously shared unique personal documents pertaining to his time recovering from his injuries and surgery. Amongst his papers was an autograph book gifted to him by his parents, which William filled by asking family, friends and fellow patients to contribute sketches, poems, song lyrics and honest thoughts and reflections. It is a fascinating insight into the thoughts of the people he knew at this challenging time of his life. Paddy manually digitised each page to then stitch out using digital embroidery on a vintage hospital gown in a fashion akin to the way pupils might sign the shirt of a fellow student moving on to another school, or as a 'leaving card' is signed by work colleagues, with the later contributions having to be slotted into any available space. The title ‘Little Boy in Blue’ refers to one of the poems in the autograph book that was replicated on the gown, and also alludes to the naval uniform, the hospital gown and the informal day to day clothing issued to Sidcup patients, the ‘Hospital Blues’ – each a prominent feature in various stages of William’s life.

Paddy says of his work, “My focus isn't to respond to the major events of WW1, more to the aftermath of the war, the effect on the individual and their families and how these people were able to rebuild their lives in the wake of unimaginable horror. I create work on a small, intimate, scale to reflect the individual nature of each person’s story and circumstance. I try to think of the work I’m making not as a memorial to each person, rather as a quiet acknowledgement of a survivor. Each story I’m told by a family about their ancestor is because that ancestor survived”.

William’s story, as told through the artworks, is simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary, and was pivotal to the development of facial reconstructive surgery, as the phenomenal success of the pioneering surgery he endured went on to benefit thousands of others who sustained similar life changing facial injuries.