Qualla: Metropole Internment Camp

Metropole Internment Camp: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MacTire02, Public domain. In the first week of July 1940, seven hundred and forty-three men walked into four converted hotels at the northern end of Douglas promenade and were locked in. Most were Italians who had been living in Britain when Italy entered the Second World War. Some had run cafes in Glasgow, ice cream parlours in Edinburgh, restaurants in London. Many had been British residents for decades. They were now classified as enemy aliens, and the Metropole Internment Camp, officially designated S Camp, would be their address for the next four years.

Image: MacTire02 | Public domain

Metropole Internment Camp: Wire Around the Promenade

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Keith Edkins, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Isle of Man had become a holding ground for Britain's civilian internees almost overnight. Its seafront boarding houses, designed for summer trippers who were no longer coming because of the war, were perfectly shaped for the new purpose: rows of rooms, communal dining halls,...

Image: Keith Edkins | CC BY-SA 2.0

Metropole Internment Camp: The Stable

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MacTire02, Public domain. One internee left an account of that prison cell. It was three feet wide and six feet long, with a manger at one end that could not be sat on or lain across, a single ventilator window, and a cobbled floor that was always damp. There were eight such stall-cells in the row. The la...

Image: MacTire02 | Public domain

Metropole Internment Camp: How They Lived

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MacTire02, Public domain. Reveille came at seven in the morning. Roll call, physical exercises, breakfast. Meals were taken communally, which was unusual in the Manx internment camps and possible here only because the hotel dining rooms ran the length of the ground floors. The Metropole had a canteen, a g...

Image: MacTire02 | Public domain

Metropole Internment Camp: Their Own Money

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MacTire02, Public domain. After an initial closed period, internees were permitted to apply to work outside the camp on local farms. Some started small businesses inside the wire. They were paid in a currency they invented themselves: stamped pieces of cardboard, with denominations down to a half-penny, v...

Image: MacTire02 | Public domain

Metropole Internment Camp: Escapes, Mostly Pointless

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MacTire02, Public domain. Three men tried to escape from Metropole. One had an English wife visiting him on the island, staying in a private hotel only yards from the camp wire. He broke out to see her, made it to her bedroom, and, in the dry account, only got as far as his shirt before the police arrived...

Image: MacTire02 | Public domain

Metropole Internment Camp: Closed, but Not Forgotten

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MacTire02, Public domain. The numbers dropped slowly. Seven hundred and forty-three in July 1940, six hundred and fifty by January 1941, four hundred and eighty-two by October 1944. In the first week of November 1944, the camp was closed. The four hotels eventually returned to civilian use. Most of the me...

Image: MacTire02 | Public domain