Month: November 2018

I was walking through the Tower Hill memorial garden last Sunday when I noticed a small cross resting on one of the allegorical figures, just above the dolphin’s head …

Here it is in close up …

How wonderful. Arthur Myers remembered by a grandchild and two great, great grandchildren. His ship, the Empire Lakeland, was sunk by a U Boat on 11 March 1943.

I also noticed when I was there that, with Remembrance Sunday approaching, wreaths and other little crosses are beginning to appear.

Many are from institutions …

… and some in respect of just one vessel …

And so on to my next two memorials, the first being the National Submarine War Memorial on Victoria Embankment (EC4Y 0HJ). Although able to hide when submerged, once struck the vessels were often unable to rise to the surface and became effectively underwater coffins. In the First World War fifty four boats were lost and with them the lives of 138 officers and 1,225 men. At the inauguration in 1922 Rear Admiral Sinclair, the Chief of the Submarine Service, reminded those present that, during the Great War …

The number of those killed in the Submarine Service was greater in proportion to its size than any other branch of His Majesty’s fighting forces … one third of the total personnel.

In November 1959 new panels commemorating Second World war losses were unveiled by Rear Admiral B W Taylor.

Wright and Moore, writing for the 20th Century Architecture website, describe the memorial as a complex mixture of narrative and symbolism …

The central figures recreate the scene set inside the submarine exaggerating it into a small, claustrophobic tunnel. The crew use charts and follow dials, the captain is braced at the centre with the periscope behind his head. Around the vessel a shallow relief depicts an array of sea creatures or mermen appearing to trap and haul the submarine in fishing nets, reminding us that the submarines were as much prey to the tempestuous elements as they were to the enemy.

On both corners are allegorical figures. Next to the list of vessels lost between 1914 and 1918, Truth holds up her mirror. Just further to the left in the picture are two of the 40 bronze wreath hooks in the form of anchors …

On the right, next to the vessels lost in the Second World War, Justice wears a blindfold and as usual holds a sword and scales …

I have written about Justice and other representations in the City of the cardinal virtues in an earlier blog which you can find here.

And now to the Grand Avenue, Central Markets, Smithfield (EC1A 9PS) and this monument commemorating men, women and children who perished both overseas and nearby …

Between Fame and Victory holding laurel wreaths, the cartouche at the top reads …

1914-1918 Remember with thanksgiving the true and faithful men who in these years of war went forth from this place for God and the right. The names of those who returned not again are here inscribed to be honoured evermore.

At 11:30 in the morning on 8th March 1945 the market was extremely busy, with long queues formed to buy from a consignment of rabbits that had just been delivered. Many in the queue were women and children. With an explosion that was heard all over London, a V2 rocket landed in a direct hit which also cast victims into railway tunnels beneath – 110 people died and many more were seriously injured.

The monument was refurbished in 2004/5 and unveiled on 15 June 2005 by the Princess Royal and Lord Mayor Savory. The red granite plinth had been added and refers to lives lost in ‘conflict since the Great War’. On it mention is made of the women and children although the V2 event is not specifically referred to.

At the base is the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Butchers who helped to fund the refurbishment, along with the Corporation of London and the Smithfield Market Tenants’ Association.

Incidentally, the market was also hit by bombs dropped from a Zeppelin in the First World War – you can still see the shrapnel marks nearby on the walls of St Bartholomew’s Hospital …

I have written about these and other scars of war that can be found around the City in an earlier blog: Bombs and Boundaries.

 

 

 

 

 

Trinity Square Gardens outside Tower Hill underground station is home to a number of memorials, one of which relates to events going back centuries.

In the south east corner and in the foreground of this picture is a circular granite sundial which has a cast iron anchor in the centre which acts as a gnomon …

On 2 April 1982, Argentine forces landed in and captured the Falklands Islands. A task force was dispatched in order to retake the territory and this was accomplished when the occupying forces surrendered on 14 June that year. Nine members of the Merchant Navy and eight members of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary were killed in the conflict and their names are recorded here beneath those of their ships …

In the main photograph’s background you can see two other memorial structures. On the left are commemorated the 12,000 men of the merchant navy and fishing fleets who lost their lives in the the First World War ‘who have no grave but the sea’ …

Made of Portland stone, the walls are covered with bronze panels with the names of the dead arranged alphabetically under their ships with the name of the Master or Skipper first in each case if they were among the lost.

On visiting a few years ago it was clear than many of those unfortunate mariners were still being remembered by family descendants …

When I first looked really closely at the panels I noticed something strange in one section of the memorial, see if you do too …

At least four of the men, Moyle A.J., O’Mealie J., Kelly T.E. and Pardew C.J. served under names other than those that were registered at their birth. I am trying to research their stories and will hopefully have something to report in my next blog. There is also a ship recorded here that was actually lost in the Second World War – something also for a future blog.

Just to the north is the Second World War memorial to the further 24,000 men lost between 1939 and 1945 …

It is a sunken garden with the steps leading down to it flanked by a Mercantile Marine officer …

… and a seaman of the Merchant Service. Behind him, in his eyrie above what was once the Port of London Authority building, Father Thames points towards the sea …

Within the garden the walls are overlaid with bronze plaques on which the names of the men and their ships are inscribed in relief. At regular intervals, between the inscription panels, are allegorical figures representing the Seven Seas. Here is one of them, Neptune with his trident …

And another, a mermaid combing her hair …

One can’t write about Tower Hill without some mention of its gruesome history as a place of execution …

This memorial is located on the approximate site of public executions. Nearby, within the walls of the Tower of London, is Tower Green, where people such as Henry VIII’s unwanted Queens were disposed of more discretely. On 19 May 1536 Anne Boleyn was beheaded there, the deed carried out by a swordsman which ensured a speedy death.

Her old adversary Thomas Cromwell watched her decapitation, but was to end his days on the public gallows a mere four years later on 28 July 1540. The executioner being drunk, his end was a nasty, botched affair. On the same day Henry married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, but the marriage only lasted a few years until she too was executed at the Tower.

Records are incomplete but the known execution tally for both locations is well over 100 ranging from the first (Sir Simon Burley on 5 May 1388) to the last (three Gordon rioters hanged on 11 July 1780). Two of the Jacobite ‘Rebel Lords’ beheaded for high treason have a special plaque …

Site of the ancient scaffold where the Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmerino suffered 18th August 1746.

In this 1746 etching of their execution, the scaffold on the left is surrounded by horse and foot guards, holding back the throng of spectators, who also watch from tiers erected for the purpose. The executioner is raising the axe above his head …