10:10am Saturday 5th December 2009
This year has seen the deaths of nearly all of the last servicemen who saw action during the First World War. The outcome of that conflict could have been very different had it not been for one Settle man, Bertram Lambert. He invented the box respirator – the first effective gas mask that was used by troops in the Great War. Here his great great niece, Jeanne Carr, recounts his life story. Her great grandfather, William, was Bertram’s eldest brother.
Bertram Lambert was born in Settle in 1881, the third son of the printer James Wilcock Lambert and his wife, Mary. With his four brothers – William, John, Ernest and Victor – he was a pupil at Settle National School (now Settle Primary School) where, in 1894, he won a West Riding Technical Exhibitions scholarship to Giggleswick School.
Reading through the old National School log books very few pupils are mentioned by name but an entry for June 28 1894 reads: “Heard today that Bertram Lambert obtained a scholarship at Giggleswick Grammar School in connection with the West Riding Technical exhibition.”
On the same page is recorded that Standards (years) VI and VII were learning to recite “The Defence of Lucknow” and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Lord Tennyson.
In 1900 while at Giggleswick, Bertram won an “exhibition” to Merton College, Oxford, where he gained first-class honours in Natural Sciences. For many years he was in charge of the chemistry department at Oxford. His skill was in designing and constructing apparatus and he was believed to be England’s best amateur glass blower.
Bertram Lambert invented the box respirator – the first effective gas mask used by the troops in the First World War.
Gas was first used by the Germans at the Second Battle of Ypres on April 22 1915. The first protection against gas attacks was the gas hood or smoke helmet, a grey flannel bag soaked with chemicals which was uncomfortable to wear. It had two eyepieces, which steamed up, and a rubber mouth valve. It could only be used once so it was always necessary to carry two. At the outbreak of war the British Government wrote to the universities asking for chemists and Bertram was commissioned into the Royal Engineers, graded staff captain. For some time before World War One he had been investigating the absorption of gases by metals. Within two months of the first gas attack he had produced the first box respirator – very different to the gas hood – which developed into the respirator used by all the Allies except the French until the Armistice.
The large box respirator was developed in late summer and autumn of 1915 and was first issued early in 1916. It consisted of a tin cylinder filled with chemicals, with an air inlet valve at the bottom. The cylinder was connected to an impervious face mask by a rubber tube, in which was a rubber outlet valve.
The face mask had two elastic bands attached which slipped over the head and held the mask in position. The whole thing was issued in a waterproof satchel. Fresh air was drawn in through the cylinder, whose mixture of charcoal, permanganate and soda lime, in layers separated by gauze, was designed to filter gas from the air to make it breathable. The box respirator was a lifesaver. This British invention was so successful that the Italians were supplied with several million and the Americans took large numbers before copying its design for manufacture in the USA. Men hated wearing it because it hampered movement and was uncomfortably sweaty when worn over long periods or in warm weather.
Nevertheless it significantly reduced the efficacy of gas as a weapon of mass destruction. In his book, titled ‘Tommy’, historian Richard Holmes concludes that, after the box respirator became standard issue, gas was “a waste of time”, causing fewer casualties than shells and mortar bombs, machine guns and rifles. Only three to four per cent of those caught in gas attacks died compared with 25 per cent for other weapons. However, the psychological effect is harder to quantify. Gas attacks inspired “a fear that was out of all proportion to the damage that was done” and it was the memory of gas casualties in particular that remained with those who had witnessed so many terrible things, for years after.
In a testimonial written for Bertram in June 1919 to support his application for a research post, Brigadier-General H Hartley, CBE, MC, Controller of the Chemical Warfare Department (Ministry of Munitions) and Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford said: “In France the Ordnance Department found his technical advice in connection with the gas helmet factories so useful that they consulted him on a number of scientific points that arose at the bases, where there were immense ordnance workshops.
“Early in 1918 it was urgently necessary to develop a new type of appliance, the Ministry of Munitions asked for Major Lambert’s services to take charge of the design section of the anti-gas department. “He was successful in solving a series of difficult problems by organising the co-operation of the manufacturers and scientists concerned, and was able to develop a new design which could be manufactured rapidly on a large scale. His success was due largely to his study of the processes involved in the manufacture of the various materials concerned (which included paper, rubber, fibre, and various metals).
“In France he was responsible for the administration of a number of gas defence schools, through which several thousand officers and men passed each week.”
Bertram was promoted to major in 1916 and became chemical advisor to HQ Inspector-General of Communications, France. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and awarded an OBE. After the war ended he was awarded £12,500 by the Royal Commission on Awards and Inventions, one of only a handful of chemists to be so rewarded for their war work.
In 1920 Merton College elected him to a fellowship as tutor in chemistry and in 1947 he was made a senior research fellow. On his retirement in 1951 he became Emeritus Fellow of his College. He married Sylvia and had two children: James and Peggy. He died on July 1 1963.
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