Impact of The Somme at Wythburn, Thirlmere

A bit less complicated but equally poignant is a simple memorial at Wythburn, Thirlmere. It is always sobering to enter a remote Lakeland church to discover a memorial or a roll with lists of names. Real people. Young men and occasionally women.

The church stands on the fellside to the east of Thirlmere, a reservoir created in 1894 that drowned the cottages and inn of the village of Wythburn along with the surrounding farms and the hamlet of Armboth. 3½ miles long and more than a mile wide, the lake serves as a water supply for Manchester. Only the church first built in 1640, and restored in 1872 remains from the flooded communities. There is a window by Henry Holiday.

The small memorial of local blue slate bears the names of 2 Borderers who were killed within a month of each other in the horror that was the last weeks of The Battle of the Somme. The first to be killed in October 1916 was 12939, Private Joe Sandham of the 8th Battalion. Aged 20, he was the son of Joseph & Mary Jane Sandham of Helvellyn House, Thirlmere. Young Joe was killed in the attack on Moquet Farm - Mucky Farm to Thomas Atkins -and is buried in Stump Road Cemetery, Grandcourt. The picture shows the trench landscape around the farm with shell bursts over the position itself.

Some three weeks later 30152, Private Alfred Bell, 37, was killed at Beaumont Hamel while serving with the 11th (Lonsdale) Bn. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. 32 Div's attack at Beaumont Hamel was a total mudbath. It rained incessantly for days before and the lads were utterly exhausted before they even reached the start line. Many, including stragglers who all but refused to attack, were slaughtered or gave up in despair. (See Tim Travers, The Killing Ground, pp188-189). Beaumont Hamel is now just another sleepy French village but a focus for pilgrims to the battlefields, especially Newfoundland Park.

Fighting Tibet - Sikkim Field Force 1888

During the course of the 18th & 19th centuries British forces were almost constantly engaged in conflict somewhere on the planet, mostly in and around the periphery of the Indian sub-continent. A consequence of these obscure and long forgotten colonials wars is a sprinking of memorials to the sons of Cumbrian gentry who died in exotic and far flung places.

One such is at Greystoke - (I think! This picture was taken by a friend and we omitted to make a record of where). It commemorates Lieutenant Edmund Hudleston, Royal Artillery, 6th son of William Hudleston of Hutton John, who died in 1889 at Padong in the eastern Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim, famous for the great peak of Kangenjunga.

Hudleston's death in Sikkim came towards the end of a century of British expansion in India, driven by a rapacious lust for profit and a constant search for security of its commercial interests. But how did Britain's Army get involved in Sikkim?

In 1814 expansionist Nepalese policies in the Himalayas led to war with the forces of British India. The Nepalese were defeated and in 1817 Britain signed the treaty of Titalia which restored to Sikkim various territories seized by the Nepalis and had a secondary purpose of effectively establishing Britain as Sikkim's protector. But the British had ulterior motives. They were interested in acquiring the province of Darjeeling, part of Sikkim, both as a hill resort and an outpost from where Tibet and the peoples of the Himalayas would be accessible for trade. Succumbing to pressure the Maharaja of Sikkim, Chogyal Tsudphud Namgyal, ceded Darjeeling to British India in 1835 in return for an annual subsidy of some 6,000 rupees. However, relations between the two countries rapidly deteriorated. Many people left Sikkim to seek work in British Darjeeing, threatening the power of the feudal lords who resorted to forcibly returning the migrants, a policy which irritated the Brits. Further, in 1849 a certain Dr. Campbell, the Superintendent of Darjeeling and Dr. Hooker, a botanist, were captured and imprisoned. Though they were released after a month the Brit's patience snapped. In February 1850 a punitive expedition was sent into the Kingdom, the subsidy stopped and Darjeeling and a great portion of Sikkim formally annexed to the Crown.

In response to attacks on British territory further expeditions were sent into Sikkim in 1860 and 1861 that seized the capital Tumlong. Other British interventions to settle differences between the native Sikkim and Nepalese and the subsequent settlement foisted on Sikkim was perceived to favour the Nepalese and led to considerable anti-British feeling. The Maharaja, Thutob Namgyal, retreated to Chumbi.

Meanwhile the British were making concerted efforts to establish trade links with Tibet and a delegation led by Colman Macaulay, Financial Secretary to the Bengal Government of British India, was sent to Sikkim in 1884 to explore the possibility of establishing a trade route with Tibet through the Lachen Valley.

Road building undertaken by this mission was viewed with suspicion by Tibet and in 1886 some Tibetan militia occupied Lingtu in Sikkim near the Jelepla pass. In May 1888, the Tibetans attacked Gnathang below Jelepla but following the arrival of British reinforcements, including young Lt Hudleston, the Tibetans were pushed back.

Finally, in 1889, Claude White was appointed as the first political officer to the country and Chogyal Thutob Namgyal became a mere vassal of the Great White Queen. A further chunk of the world map went pink.

A memorial was built at Gnathang commemorating the British forces who died. If anyone is visiting Sikkim maybe they would get me a photo?

Vive la France! Another mystery.

Back from Fuerteventura where there appeared to be a total lack of discernable war memorials but lots of semi-tame wild Ravens and ground squirrels both of which can be hand fed - great fun.

Just to keep the blog going I thought I would post this pic of a mystery object that hangs in one of the county's churches and see if anyone has any suggestions.

The cross is about 18 inches high, made of cast bronze and bears a maker's name which appears to read 'Gillen' or 'Cillen'. Below the wreath is a representation of a medal - The Croix de Guerre? I make the presumption that it is in some manner associated with the Great War, but it could be of any date in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. Might it be Napoleonic or from the Franco - Prussian war?

A mystery in Langdale

Even though I have been 'doing' South Lakeland's Great War memorials for some eight years, they continue to turn up in the most unlikely places. An example is this slab of stone stuck in an obscure corner of Busk Wood, Langdale.



Inscribed upon it are the words......

In Loving Memory
Denton Lee
Died of Wounds
1914 - 1918

So who is Denton Lee & why does he have a memorial stone here?

Various easily available online sources show that James Denton Lee died as a 2nd Lieutenant with the 10th Bn Manchester Regiment on January 22, 1918 and is buried in Lister Lane Cemetery, Halifax, Yorkshire. In 1901 he was a resident scholar, aged 11, at the Halifax district orphanage. Beyond that he is at present a complete mystery!

Lt Gen Markham's memorial, Morland

Sometimes when looking around an old church I discover a memorial that fires my imagination and transports me to another time - before globalisation, when the earth and its peoples were vastly more diverse than today. They commemorate men, inspired by Christian righteousness, unshakeable self belief and all too often a ravenous greed, who played out their lives against a background of European expansion that created our world with all its tensions and opportunities. They clashed arms with ancient cultures that traced their roots to Ghengis Khan and beyond, destroying many fine things and proud peoples along the way.

An example is this memorial in Morland church, near Penrith, which commemorates Lt General Frederick Markham (1805 -1855), Companion of the Bath and Aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria. He was one of a family that provided England with a host of soldiers, sailors and prelates.

The son of Admiral Markham, sometime Captain of HMS Sphinx (24) & HMS Centaur (74) and later MP for Portsmouth, and grandson of an Archbishop of York, he was the quintessential Victorian soldier. As an ensign in the 32nd Light Infantry he fought in the Canadian Rebellion of 1837 and was wounded on November 23 of that year at Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, in a skirmish against the Patriotes. This contemporary watercolour shows the action.

In 1842 he purchased the rank of Lt Colonel in the Regiment and in 1848-49 was heavily involved in the Punjab commanding the 2nd Brigade at the siege of Mooltan and Gujerat during the 2nd Sikh War. The Askali warriors of the Sikh nation, pictured here, were among the more formidable foes the British encountered in India.

Appointed Adjutant General, India, in 1854 and subsequently Divisional Commander he was on his way to Peshawur when the order reached him to take command of the 2nd Division in the Crimea. For 18 days he made a forced march through the high Indian summer to Calcutta from where, ill and exhausted, he sailed to Balaklava. Arriving in the Crimea he took command of his Division in July of 1855 and went on to lead them in the final successful attack on the Redan at Sebastopol, shown below after it was abandoned by the Russians.

However, the exertions in India and after had broken his health and he returned to London where he died on November 21, aged 50. His body was returned to Morland for burial beneath a tree of his own planting. The memorial was provided by Officers of his old Regiment, the 32nd Light Infantry,

....in token of love and esteem for their old commander....

Memorial to Flavius Fuscinus & Flavius Romanus

It is an improbable irony that when Edith MacIver placed the Battlefield Cross of Reggie MacIver in the gardens of the family home at Wanlass How she can have had no idea that one of the oldest 'war memorials' in the Kingdom lay a few yards away.

This unique Roman gravestone, accidentally discovered in the grounds of Wanlass How in 1962 and now housed in the remarkable Armitt Museum & Library in Ambleside, was originally located outside the east gate of Galava, the Roman fort and vicus which stood for some 400 years at the north end of Lake Windermere.

Made of local slate, it bears a rather crudely, maybe even hastily executed & abbreviated inscription;

DBM
FLA FUSCINUS EME
EXORDIVISI ANIS LV
DBM
FLA ROMANUS ACT
VIXIT ANNI XXXV
INCAS INTE AB HOSTI

Which translates as;

To the Gods of the underworld. Flavius Fuscinus, retired from
the Centurianship, lived 55 years.

To the Gods of the underworld. Flavius Romanus, clerk, lived 35
years, killed in the camp by the enemy.

A full discussion of the stone and its inscription is in the CWAAS transactions for 2002. Almost certainly these two guys were related, most likely father and son. Both were Roman citizens, probably as a consequence of the father, if such he is, having served his time as a centurian in an auxilliary unit, perhaps that which was stationed at Galava. At some time, probably during the troubles of the late 2nd/early 3rd centuries, one or both of these guys was killed, perhaps in a raid on the fort by invaders from the north or perhaps by disaffected local tribespeople. Whatever the exact scenario may be the stone clearly commemorates a death in conflict & is thus incontrovertibly a War Memorial! I really cannot think of an earlier memorial in the county.

I find this memorial really thought provoking. It seems to be the human condition to kill one another and then to commemorate the 'separateness' of consequential deaths. Or is this a presumption? Does it come entirely from the classical eastern mediterrannean tradition or did all societies create 'war memorials'? I don't know.

A national treasure?

In 2005 I travelled down to Portsmouth to see my daughter who was studying Russian at the University. While there I took the opportunity to visit the extensive museums & exhibits in the Royal Dockyards. During that year the focus of the exhibits was the bi-centenary of the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson. Layed out on the floor of one of the old sail lofts and pitted with holes from French cannonballs was the absolutely huge mainsail that HMS Victory wore during the battle. Surely a national treasure?

In the church at Sawrey (more properly Claife), close to Beatrix Potter's house at Hill Top, there are two union flags, a smaller one and a larger one. A small brass on the wall and an accompanying note explain that these were presented to the church by the Rev CC Dickson who during the Great War was a chaplain to the forces. The note also states that the flag, presumably the larger one, flew over Field Marshall Douglas Haig's headquarters at Cambrai, France on November 11, 1918. The smaller flag has no provenance but it may well have been used by Dickson during church services or burials. Such smaller Union Jacks are fairly commonly associated with memorials.

However, I would suggest that the 'Armistice Flag', if such I may call it, is an astonishing object. It is absolutely unique, of national importance, and must most assuredly have a special place in the great continuum of British history.