War memorials
FURTHER to last week’s column about war memorials from before WW1, we’re grateful to BT reader Peter King who mailed in to draw our attention to the Boer (2nd South African) War memorial in Clevedon.
I’m a bit embarrassed for not noticing it before as I’m a regular visitor to Clevedon. If I did notice it I must have just assumed it was a memorial to locals who lost their lives in WW1 and WW2.
It does actually also serve this purpose, but it dates from 1903, and the names on the monument are only of those who died in the South African War. There are 16 names on it, which is a lot for a small town the size of Clevedon in 1900, even when you include the wider district.
As we said last week, the Boer War was a very big deal at the time, and doesn’t deserve to be so forgotten.
Anyone else spotted any other Boer War monuments in the area?
Meanwhile, Nigel Currie mailed to take issue with Bristol’s oftrepeated claim that the 79th Foot monument in Clifton is Britain’s “oldest war memorial”.
He writes: “After seeing the Lansdowne Memorial at Battlefields, Bath (on the Cotswold Way) with my walking group the Saltford Walkers, I found out that this is described by some as ‘England’s oldest war memorial.’
“It was erected in 1720 to commemorate the death of the Royalist commander Sir Bevil Grenville at the Civil War Battle of Lansdowne in 1643. As you may well know, the monument, funded by George Granville, great grandson of Sir Bevil is alternatively referred to as the ‘Sir Bevil Grenville Monument.’
So the debate continues. Anyone know of any older “war memorials”?
The Unknown Prime Minister
One of the most important general elections in UK history took place exactly 100 years ago today. Despite this, the anniversary is unlikely to be noticed by anyone much aside from a handful of political history obsessives.
The November 15 1922 general election saw a massive realignment in British politics. It destroyed the Liberals as a party of government. It would see the Conservatives become the dominant electoral force for much of the rest of the century and the emergence of Labour as the main opposition. It also came after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 which saw most of Ireland leaving the United Kingdom.
The Tories won a convincing majority against a Liberal Party which had split in two, the National Liberals led by Lloyd George and the Liberal Party led by H.H. Asquith. Neither faction did well, and Labour, with just 142 seats, became the official opposition. The 1922 general election changed Britain for ever, just as much as the 1945 Labour landslide or Thatcher’s victory in 1979.
Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law became Prime Minister, and if he’s not that well known it’s because he was only in office for six months before being forced to resign due to ill-health. He was replaced by Stanley Baldwin.
Bonar Law died soon after and was buried at Westminster Abbey, not far from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. “The Unknown Soldier next to the Unknown Prime Minister,” said some wit.
He was the shortest-serving PM until the national humiliation of Liz Truss’s 50 days. Unless it’s as a lesson in how not to run things, she deserves to be forgotten. Andrew Bonar Law does not.
”She doth beautify … ”
And now, some English prose from the late 1500s or early 1600s. Shakespeare’s time, though it’s not Shakespeare:
“She doth beautify with her tapestries and hangings. Her skin is so soft, smooth, polished and neat that she precedes the softestskinned maids and the daintiest and most beautiful strumpets … There is no man, nor any creature who can compare with her.” Who is this wonderful female? Er, the common house spider. The author of those words was Thomas Moffet or Muffet, a medical doctor, MP (for Wilton in Wiltshire) and amateur naturalist whose particular fascination was for spiders and silkworms. I mean, you have to be a big fan of spiders to say that a home is “beautified” by cobwebs, but each to their own.
Muffet is also supposed to be the progenitor of the nursery rhyme about Little Miss Muffet, though there’s no firm evidence for this. He did have a daughter or step-daughter named Patience and there is a story of how one of their outings together was disrupted when they were attacked by wasps, but not spiders. Maybe this tale became the nursery rhyme and maybe its anonymous author believed that a spider (who sat down beside her) was more appropriate than mere wasps.
As the spider season draws to a close and I contemplate the cobwebs over the piles of books, files, unread magazines and (ahem!) Important Documents in my (ahem!) study, well I know now what to say to Mrs Latimer next time she makes some snide remark about the state of the room.
“She doth beautify with her tapestries and hangings …”
Cheers then!