Four handwritten copies of John McCrae’s internationally celebrated In Flanders Fields have been added to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCUNESCO)’s Canada Memory of the World Register, part of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme.
More than a century after it was first published, the First World War poem is still read and performed around the globe during Remembrance Day ceremonies.
“In Flanders Fields continues to move hearts around the world, reminding us of the human cost of war and the enduring power of compassion,” said Deep Saini, President and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University.
“McCrae, a McGill professor and physician, and his colleagues from No. 3 Canadian General Hospital organized by the University, cared for thousands of soldiers with skill and humanity. The inclusion of these manuscripts in CCUNESCO’s Memory of the World Register honours both McCrae’s legacy and McGill’s lasting contributions to medical innovation and care.”
All four manuscripts are held in McGill’s Osler Library of the History of Medicine; one is in McCrae’s own hand and includes a textual variant, and two predate the poem’s initial publication.
“The handwritten copies of In Flanders Fields are among the most meaningful treasures in McGill’s collections,” said Guylaine Beaudry, Trenholme Dean of Libraries at the University.
“Their inclusion in CCUNESCO’s Memory of the World Register honours their significance as unique testimonies from the past. Through preservation and digitization, McGill Libraries make these fragile manuscripts accessible to all – allowing anyone, anywhere, to turn the pages of history and experience words that continue to resonate more than a century later.”
This is the second time materials from the McGill University Libraries have been added to the Canada Memory of the World Registry. The John Peters Humphrey Archives were added in 2023, which includes the late McGill law professor’s first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; it was also added to UNESCO’s international Memory of the World Register earlier this year.
The poem
Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae was a career soldier and physician who practised in Montreal and taught at McGill University. During the First World War, he served with the No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, a unit fielded and staffed by McGillians, and the first of its kind in the British Empire.
McCrae is believed to have written his famous poem on May 3, 1915, after witnessing the death and funeral of his friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. It was first published on Dec. 8, 1915, in Britain’s Punch magazine, and was rapidly republished and translated into numerous languages.
McCrae died in France in 1918.
The manuscripts
The Osler Library houses the archives of several Montreal and McGill doctors and nurses who served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps. Remarkably, three fonds – those of John Andrew Macphail, Clare Gass and Edward William Archibald – contain contemporary handwritten copies of the famous poem.
McCrae’s handwritten version is found in a letter he sent to a friend in Massachusetts with an envelope postmarked May 31, 1916. Notably, the first line of the poem ends with the word “grow,” a change from “blow,” which appeared in the original published version. This copy was left to the Osler Library among the literary archives of Macphail, a long-time McGill professor.
Two handwritten copies were made by Gass, a lieutenant nursing sister serving in McCrae’s unit. The earliest copy predating the poem’s publication is found in her diary; she copied out In Flanders Fields in the entry for Oct. 30, 1915, nearly six weeks before the poem’s initial publication. She also copied it into her photo album next to the photos of fields of soldiers’ graves and crosses.
A fourth copy, again written before the poem’s publication, is found in the archives of Archibald, a friend of McCrae who served in the same unit. A letter written by Archibald to his wife in November 1915 includes In Flanders Fields in his hand.
Memory of the World
The manuscripts were nominated to be added to the Canada Memory of the World Register by Libraries’ staff.
“The successful nomination of these remarkable manuscripts to CCUNESCO’s Memory of the World Register was truly a collective effort,” said Mary Hague-Yearl, Head Librarian, Osler Library of the History of Medicine. “Our colleague Svetlana Kochkina penned and followed through the submission with the kind assistance of Ghazaleh Ghanavizchian, whose expertise in world heritage studies was invaluable in its preparation, while Anna Dysert’s research and writing helped bring these documents and their stories to wider attention.”
The Canada Memory of the World Register was established in 2017 to trace important pieces of Canada’s collective history.
Its contents include the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation’s archive records, Viola Irene Desmond’s court records and L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables manuscript.