MAP

On 12th July 1940 the Governor of the Isle of Man issued a regulation forbidding public access to the roads that bordered Hutchinson Square. Later that evening, approximately 500 internees, Hutchinson’s first prisoners, arrived to the island via boat. The camp was officially declared opened at 11:00 the following morning, 13th July, by its British Army commandant, Captain Hubert Owen Daniel.

Hutchinson camp consisted of two parallel rows of houses to the West-side of a sizeable lawned square, and a final row of houses to the East. Forty-two houses were set aside for the accommodation of internees.

Numbers 34 and 35 became the camp hospital, while four other buildings were allocated for other camp functions. In the early autumn of 1940 a shower block was opened in the camp, paid for by one of the local breweries in exchange for a ‘license’ to sell beer in the camp (the canteen stocked alcohol from 5th October 1940).

On 19th November 1940, the camp’s commandant, Captain Daniel, opened a new hall that had been constructed between the camp laundry and House 37. The building included a large auditorium, situated above the canteen, designed to house musical and theatrical performances, with chairs that could easily be pushed to the sides in order that the space be used for indoor sports events (before the year’s end, it would become home to a table-tennis table.) 

The hall could also double as a place of worship; some Jewish internees fashioned an altar from an upturned orange box, covered by a tablecloth, while both Protestant and Roman Catholic contingents peacefully negotiated bookings. Upstairs, a warren of rooms provided space for workshops, art studios and permanent premises for the fashion designer Professor Otto Haas-Heye’s growing weaving school.