There were Internment Camps all over the Isle of Man during WW2.
The whole of Port Erin, a residential holiday village on the west coast, along with its smaller neighbour Port St Mary became Rushen Camp for women prisoners. Unlike the male camps there was no barbed wire and the boarding house keepers were allowed to stay; the women prisoners were billeted and catered for in a similar manner as ordinary holiday makers but on a tighter budget. The Government payed each landlady £1 3s 6d per head per week, the rations for the internees were also delivered to her. In the majority of cases the landladies did all the cooking. Landladies enjoyed certain powers: they were instructed to cut off the electric and gas supply at the hours fixed; they controlled the wireless and they had the right to go in the rooms at any time. Apart from housework the women followed no regular occupation.
After a visit by Vice-Chairman of the Advisory Committee to the Home Secretary on Aliens, Sir Herbert William Emerson on 6 January 1941, it was decided that Port St Mary should be a mixed camp for married aliens. Married couples would now be allowed to live together with their family and the married camp opened on 8 May 1941. The women's camp would be confined to Port Erin.
The separation of the two camps as independent units meant that there was now a large area between the two camps that could be re-opened to the general public. The mixed camp occupied the Promenade and Chapel Bay bathing beach with some fields at the back of the promenade houses. The new camp extended northwards from the main road to Gansey Point and consisted of the biggest boarding houses in the district including Ballaqueeney - the largest single boarding house in the Island and 170 families were accommodated there when it opened.
