New technology solves mystery of late First World War soldier's flower sent home to Canada

In 1916, Harold Wrong plucked a flower from the fields of Somme, France and tucked it into a letter he mailed home to Toronto. For decades, the type of flower sent remained a mystery.

 Harold Wrong plucked a flower from the fields of Somme, France on June 30, 1916 and tucked it into a letter he mailed home to Toronto.

“All well with me” he wrote to his brother.

The next day, Wrong was dead. He was last seen going over the top of a trench with a wounded arm and killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

Wrong was a University of Toronto graduate who enlisted with the Lancashire Fusiliers while studying at Oxford University. His father worked at the university and his grandfather was the second premier of Ontario. In the 1960s, the letters Harold mailed home to his family during the war were given to the U of T library and, for decades, no one could figure out what kind of flower Wrong had placed inside the envelope.

“Over 24,000 Canadians passed away during the Somme offensive, during that summer of 1916,” says Loryl MacDonald, associate head librarian at the University of Toronto. “This letter humanizes Harold and places us right there in the trench with him.”

For years, MacDonald has tried to figure out what kind of flower Wrong picked from that French field. She had suspicions it may have been blue cowslip, but it’s a flower that typically blooms in early spring. Harold mailed the flower home in late June.