Cornucopia
The 20th century was blessed with a wealth of artistic talent, yet few caught the atmosphere of the countryside and its natural history better than Gordon Beningfield. Dressed in tailored British tweed he was the archetypical countryman and he was awarded This England’s Silver Cross of St. George in 1994.
On first impressions you would think he was a land agent or head keeper of a country estate; certainly not a gifted, artistic polymath skilled in all aspects of the artistic repertoire from painting to stained and engraved glass and sculpture.
Although a countryman at heart, Gordon was born and brought up in the East End of London; his father was a lighterman on the River Thames. During the Second World War, Gordon and his mother were evacuated to rural Hertfordshire and the family increased in size with the birth of a brother, Roger, 10 years his junior.
Gordon’s academic career was undistinguished. However, one of his teachers recognised and encouraged his skill with paint and pencil — steering him towards a career that would suit his talents. Gordon’s father, who was a skilled amateur artist himself, encouraged him into an artistic apprenticeship rather than following his early inclination towards gamekeeping.
Apprenticed as ecclesiastical artist to Faithcraft, a well-known church restoration company based in St. Albans, Gordon was an excellent pupil, rapidly learning carving and gilding, painting heraldic emblems and shields; how to make his own paints and mix colours. The College of Art in St. Albans, where he studied, defined his incredible skill and it wasn’t long before he began to be recognised as a fine artist.
His love of the countryside and wildlife found expression in his wealth of paintings and drawings, both in watercolours and in oils, and brought his work to the attention of the land-owning and country set. This led to him taking a bold step and becoming selfemployed. His first London exhibition at the Moorland Gallery in Cork Street was a sell-out; something that was to become a pattern whenever his paintings were shown, but he never quite understood his success. What he enjoyed as an artist was what he was as a person: a friendly, loyal man with an intense desire to capture on paper, canvas, glass or bronze the magical beauty of the English countryside.
Probably best known for his paintings of butterflies, he set them in their own individual landscapes, so realistic that one felt they might fly away. Later in his career he was commissioned by Royal Mail to create a set of stamps showing endangered butterflies.
I had the good fortune to enjoy his company as a friend and fellow naturalist for more than 30 years until his early death, in 1998, robbed us all, family and friends alike, of a wonderful companion and confidant. He has left us a vision of the countryside imbued with his love of nature. All who knew him and appreciated his work, have a duty to remember one of the finest natural history and wildlife artists of the last century. DENNIS FURNELL
A series of events, from April to September, will be held to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Gordon Beningfield’s untimely death. 14th April — Spring bird walk along the River Ver (Redbourne, one of Gordon’s former homes). 15th-17th June — Flower Festival in Great Gaddesden Church (Gordon’s resting place) celebrating the English countryside. 15th June — Evening
reception, tickets only. 16th and 17th June — Walks
and talks by the Hertfordshire and Middlesex Wildlife Trust will be available along the River Gade (Water End — Gordon’s home). 6th-8th July — Event including an exhibition of Gordon’s work at the Natural History Museum, Tring, Hertfordshire. 6th July — Evening reception. 7th and 8th July — Family activities in support of conservation. This event is supported by Butterfly Conservation, The Woodland Trust, Dacorum Heritage Trust, and Beds, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust. 14th-16th September — Exhibition and events led by The Boxmoor Trust.
For further details on all events visit: www. hertswildlifetrust.org.uk/ gordonbeningfield and www. dacorumheritage.org.uk/dhtnews/gordon-beningfield-2018 .
Film Brings Fame to Cornish Village
The Cornish village of Minions on the eastern edge of Bodmin Moor, near Liskeard, has been enjoying a tourist boost after the release of the hit cartoon film of the same name in 2015.
Visitors were coming to the village to take pictures of the village sign. Universal Studios, who made the film, paid Cornwall Council to erect new signs which feature the yellow characters. Although only intended as temporary, the signs are still in place and proving popular with the film’s young fans.
At 980 feet, the village is the highest in Cornwall and the surrounding moors have many ancient standing stones, in particular the Hurlers stone circles, said to be men turned to stone for playing the Celtic sport of hurling on the Sabbath. A natural rock formation, the Cheesewring is so named because it resembles the pulp left behind after pressing the juice from cider apples. There are also many ruined mining chimneys and pumping houses built during the 19th-century tin and copper mining boom, and the village is part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site. JOHN HUSBAND
Mystery Solved...in a Country Churchyard
No not Stoke Poges, made famous by the poet Thomas Gray in his Elegy of 1750, but one set in a harsher environment than rural Buckinghamshire. Dartmoor, and to be more precise the churchyard of St. Michael and All Angels, Princetown.
Here, sharing the consecrated ground where many local people have been laid to rest, are four lines of truncated headstones about a foot in height. No name, no words of remembrance, just initials and a date. These mark the graves of prisoners who died whilst serving their sentences in the nearby prison. They cover the period from 1902. In the half-century before that, burials were in unmarked graves — but subsequently collectively remembered by a large granite cross erected in 1912.
Death makes all men equal and perhaps the time may come for some modernday Thomas Gray to pen an elegy in Dartmoor’s country churchyard.
The church, but not the churchyard, which has its own story to tell, is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust and is open to the public.
Birmingham’s Golden Boys and Giants
Three
giants of the Industrial Revolution are commemorated in the heart of the city that nurtured their pioneering work.
From their base in Birmingham, the groundbreaking team of Matthew Boulton, James Watt and William Murdoch made their mark not only on England but on the entire world.
Watt and Murdoch made improvements to the steam engine and invented gas lighting, among other advances, while their talents were harnessed by Boulton, an entrepreneur and industrialist.
The towering achievements of this trio were recognised with a gilded bronze statue, known locally as the “Golden Boys”, which shows them discussing engine plans.
Only Boulton was a native of the city that has honoured the men in this way — Watt and Murdoch were Scots who came to live and work in Birmingham in the late-18th century.
In death, however, they remain united as in life. All three were buried in Birmingham at St. Mary’s Church, Handsworth, which is sometimes described as the “Westminster Abbey of the Industrial Revolution”. LYNNE HAYWARD
Britain’s Caring Friendly Societies
To overcome poverty and help each other in difficult times, ordinary people in 19th and early 20th century Britain gathered together to form friendly societies. These remarkable organisations grew from the simple idea that if a group of individuals contributed to a mutual fund, they could draw on it in times of emergency and distress. With financial help and mutual support as their main aims, friendly societies brought comfort and relief to countless working people and became the most important providers of social welfare in the country until the 1940s.
Before the days of the welfare state and insurance schemes these wonderful support groups were the only means members had to cope with illness, death or the loss of a breadwinner’s job. No income meant a life of begging or living in the poorhouse. Each month, members paid into the society and in return payments from the pooled funds were made to those in trouble. Without such help, the shame of a pauper’s funeral could have been the fate of many of the country’s poorest people.
In many towns, a public house was the only venue large enough to accommodate several members of a friendly society at any one time. Landlords were tried and trusted members of the community and could provide security for the society’s funds. If a landlord belonged to the society they would usually offer accommodation free of charge. And since the public
house was foremost socially as a centre for communal activities, in time, club nights and annual celebrations became common. Not surprisingly, society meetings could include a number of toasts during the evening accompanied by a certain amount of jollity.
It is little wonder that the names of friendly societies became closely linked to those of public houses. Many of the societies’ names are still remembered in pub signs, for instance Foresters, Carters, Gardeners. One of the largest friendly societies in the UK, the Oddfellows, which recently celebrated its 200th anniversary, met in a variety of public houses and today many pubs around the country bear the name Oddfellows Arms or just Oddfellows. The curious title stemmed from the fact that members were fellow tradesmen from an odd assortment of trades.
The names of many friendly societies offer a clue to their origins — places, for example: Liverpool, Nottingham, Wiltshire, while others suggest occupations: Teachers, Foresters, Shepherds. More general titles include Children’s or Anglo-saxon. The Forester’s Friendly Society reflects the society’s strong sense of duty to help those who fell into distress “as they walked through the forests of life”.
The great contribution made by friendly societies lies in their marked contrast to charities. The assistance offered by a friendly society to a member in trouble was a solid entitlement earned by regular contributions paid into the common fund by all members. Well-meaning charities, on the other hand, provided only uncertain help through donations from the better-off who were often slow to recognise that the plight of the poor arose largely from unemployment and poor wages.
By the late-19th century, Britain was home to nearly 30,000 friendly societies, ranging in size from a handful of members to over a million. Today there are around 200, some small and locally based organisations, others are nationals offering sophisticated financial services, including long-term saving schemes. True to the past, their aim is to make a positive impact on the lives of members by helping people to help themselves.
There can be no doubt that many a British family at some time in its history owes a debt of gratitude to the remarkable fabric of a friendly society. IAN SAMSON
The World’s Deepest Hand-dug Well
During the mid-19th century the parish guardians of Brighton in Sussex decided that a new workhouse and industrial training school for delinquents would be erected in the suburb of Woodingdean and, rather than pay high prices for pumped water from the local waterworks, decided to dig a well on site. This was not unusual and they confidently expected to hit the water table at around 400 feet. Despite going down to 428 feet, however, there was no sign of any water so some horizontal shafts were added but again to no effect.
Rather than admit failure, and using the available pauper workforce, they started to dig deeper. Using a process called steining, they excavated by hand, cementing bricks in place as they progressed, in effect a chimney built from the top downwards. The spoil was passed in buckets to the surface via a series of winchmen standing on narrow ledges. Not surprisingly, one winchman was reported as having fallen to his death.
Conditions were appalling but the work went on 24 hours a day for almost four years and eventually reached a depth of 1,285 feet, equivalent to the Empire State building underground. Suddenly, now 850 feet below sea level, the earth began to move and all the workmen hurriedly evacuated by ladder, a process which took them 45 minutes. They were only just in time because the water abruptly burst through, flooding the well and forcing up ladders and equipment to the surface.
The guardians had finally achieved what they set out to do and although the well was eventually capped for safety reasons, it remains the deepest hand-dug well in the world. PETER WORSLEY
Appeal to Help Find Historic Naval Flag
A nationwide appeal has been launched to find the flag which helped secure one of the Navy’s greatest victories. The flag — or colours — were nailed to the mast of HMS Venerable by a young Sunderland sailor during the battle of Camperdown in 1797 — a dangerous and pivotal action which changed the course of the fight. Now, as Sunderland prepares to host The Tall Ships Races 2018, it has begun a campaign to bring the colours home to Wearside, in honour of Jack Crawford, the Hero of Camperdown.
Born in Sunderland’s East End on 22nd March 1775, Jack became a keelman aged just 11, ferrying coal on the River Wear. Press-ganged into the Royal Navy in 1796, he served on the gun ship HMS Venerable under Admiral Duncan, the Royal Navy Commander-in-Chief of the North Seas.
In 1797, Britain was at war with France, Holland and Spain and, on 11th October, the British and Dutch Navies met in battle off the coast of Norway, near Camperdown, close to Bergen.
Instead of forming a line of ships, Admiral Duncan split the British fleet into two groups, which broke through the Dutch ships, firing damaging broadsides. It was a daring move, but successful, as it prevented the Dutch fleet from joining the French Navy and scuppered their plans to invade Ireland and then to attack Britain.
However, during the fierce fighting, HMS Venerable was badly damaged and the main mast, bearing its flag — or colours — was felled. As the Union Flag (the original Union
Jack without the red saltire of St. Patrick) was the command flag of Admiral of the Fleet, its loss could have been interpreted as surrender.
But, under heavy fire, 22-year-old Jack climbed the mast and nailed the colours to the top, leading to victory for the British. After the battle he was hailed a hero for his action and was honoured at a victory procession in London.
In March 1798, the people of Sunderland presented him with a silver medal — now in Sunderland Museum — in honour of his daring act — and in January 1806, Jack was formally presented to King George III and granted a pension of £30 a year.
Jack died on 10th November 1831, aged just 56. He was the second victim of cholera in the town and was buried in the churchyard of Sunderland Parish Church, where a headstone, erected on the site in 1888, can still be seen today.
In 1890 a bronze statue commemorating his deed was erected in Sunderland’s Mowbray Park and unveiled by the Earl of Camperdown, the grandson of Admiral Duncan — and it is believed the colours Jack nailed to the mast were displayed at the ceremony.
“As far as we are aware, they have never been seen again,” said Michelle Daurat, Project Director for The Tall Ships Races Sunderland 2018, “We believe the time has come to find them.”
As host port for the event, which will take place from 11th to 14th July, Sunderland — once the UK’S largest shipbuilding port — expects to welcome up to 80 Tall Ships, “very similar indeed to the sort of ships on which Jack served during his time at sea,” said Michelle.
“He died in poverty and his heroic actions — which turned the tide of war — have largely been forgotten. But we want to change that and I can’t think of a better tribute to him or to the huge role played by this city to the nation’s maritime heritage, than to return the colours to Wearside.”
“If anyone, anywhere can help us track down the colours Jack nailed to the mast we desperately want to hear from them.”
Anyone who can shed light on the whereabouts of the colours is asked to contact 0191 2656111 or email emma@sortedpr.com .