Belongings of Refugees around Willis Organ

The belongings of refugees fleeing Belgium and the Netherlands piled around the Willis Organ in the Great Hall at Alexandra Palace. During the First World War Alexandra Palace was taken over by the Metropolitan Asylum Board to house refugees fleeing Belgium and the Netherlands. In 1915 it became an internment camp for 3,000 German, Austrian and Hungarian ‘enemy aliens’. The last internee left in 1919, however the Palace was not reopened until 1922.