1819 and all that
MOST likely, the Knights Templar did not protect the Holy Grail from the Nazis in a boobytrapped, cobwebby cave, as depicted in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a film celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2019. However, members of the order, founded in 1119, were hugely important as soldiers, early bankers and, arguably, the world’s first multinational cooperation; their white mantles with red crosses over chainmail are present in popular culture 900 years later—quite a Crusade.
Leaping 700 years nearer the present day, 1819 was a prolific year for notable Britons, with the births of John Ruskin, Mary Ann Evans (better known as George Eliot), Queen Victoria and her beloved Prince Albert.
Also celebrating its 200th anniversary is Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly W1, which was built by Lord George Cavendish to prevent passers-by throwing oyster shells into the garden of Burlington House. It’s still guarded by the world’s oldest, smallest, private police force, the Burlington Beadles; ladies of the night who resided in the upper floors would whistle to warn that Beadles were about. Whistling, humming and singing are now banned at the arcade, although Sir Paul Mccartney is supposedly exempt.
On the subject of northerners, Blackpool Tower opened 125 years ago, with its circus that has never missed a season; it’s one of only two in the world with a circus ring that submerges, filling with 42,000 gallons in under a minute. The year 1894 also saw the opening of ‘engineering marvel’ Tower Bridge.
A century ago, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, Nancy Astor became the first woman to sit in the House of Commons, Sir Edwin Lutyens, who celebrates his 150th anniversary in 2019, designed the Cenotaph and Bentley Motors, the Forestry Commission and Betty’s were founded. The Pony Club shares its 90th anniversary with Popeye and the Academy Awards (the first ceremony, in 1929, lasted 15 minutes); 80 years ago, we declared war on Nazi Germany, France said goodbye to Madame Guillotine and a Technicolor Judy Garland appeared in MGM’S The Wizard of Oz, one of very few films on UNESCO’S Memory of the World Register. Everybody loves to see Steve Mcqueen on a motorbike in The Great Escape and 2019 marks the 75th anniversary of the real escape attempt by 76 RAF prisoners of war from Stalag Luft III one moonless night in March 1944, through a 335ft-long tunnel. Most were recaptured and 50 were executed. Seventy years ago, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four was published, in a year that otherwise provided upbeat entertainment, from Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith to Ealing Comedies Passport to Pimlico, Whisky Galore! and Kind Hearts and Coronets. Also in 1949, national parks were created and the Badminton Horse Trials trotted in. Ten years later, in 1959, the Mini hit the road, just in time to become a 1960s icon. Fifty years ago, The Beatles released their final album, Abbey Road, and performed for the last time, the Kray twins went down for life, the halfpenny and the 10s note went the way of the dodo, the Queen Elizabeth II and the Victoria Line made maiden journeys and the first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus aired on BBC1. That same year, 1969, eyes turned to the skies for the first Concorde test flight and, higher still, Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon. A decade later, in 1979, the UK’S first nudist beach was approved, at Brighton, and Margaret Thatcher moved into Downing Street to the tune of The Clash’s London Calling. Thirty years ago, Tim Berners-lee invented the World Wide Web; 25 years ago, the first female Church of England priest was ordained and the Channel Tunnel opened—the idea of travelling beneath the waves to France had been bobbing about since 1802. Twenty years ago, the London Eye and Millennium Dome (now the O2) popped up, just down the Thames from Tate Britain, where Tracy Emin’s post-break-up-bender My Bed was exhibited for the first time in this country as part of the 1999 Turner Prize show. She didn’t win, but it created a media storm and launched her career. We’ve since made quite an inroad into the new millennium —will 2019 go down as the year Britain left the EU?