Tag Archive: Memorial

Hunter Turned Conservationist?

Written on September 27, 2011 11:56 am by in Elephants, Memorials, Sculpture

Last Week’s Weekend Elephants are to be found on the memorial to Frederick Courteney Selous, inside the Natural History Museum.

It can be found at the top of the stairs, to the left,  in the main hall.

The memorial was sculpted by W. Robert Colton RA.

The panel beneath features various African game animals including lions and of course two elephants.

Here they are in close-up.

Selous is often described as the last “Great White Hunter”, he was certainly a man of his time. It is difficult now to have any sympathy for a hunter who is reputed to have killed many hundreds of elephants, and other animals, for sport and profit. In the late 19th and early 20th Century though he was something of a hero and is said to have inspired Rider Haggard’s character of Allan Quatermain. He was also a friend of another famous hunter Theodore Roosevelt.

The memorial was unveiled at the Natural History Museum in 1920. Selous had sent many specimens to the museum over the years and had bequeathed his collection of trophies and skins to them. Later in life Selous was one of the first people to warn about the exploitation of wild animals, largely because of the consequent reduction in game for him to shoot at.

Other memorials to him include the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania, the Selous mongoose and Selous Street in Harlesden, North London.

The only person to come near to locating these diminutive elephants was Peter H. of Surbiton who works in Kensington. By his own admission Peter guessed “Natural History Museum” but he hadn’t actually noticed the elephants on the memorial. Congratulations are still due on account of your powers of deduction!

This week’s Weekend Elephant will be published, as ever, on Friday.

Readers will then have the whole  weekend to email the precise location to me. The first person to identify each weekend’s elephant is always rewarded with a glorious mention sometime on Monday when the location is officially revealed.

If you would like to nominate an elephant for future inclusion please drop me a line; all publicly visible, permanent or semi-permanent, London-based elephants, regardless of size, medium or location will be considered!

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout London, see tabs for details.

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The Winchester Madonna

Written on September 20, 2011 7:39 am by in Memorials, Sculpture

Sculptor, Sir Charles Wheeler, produced many familiar works throughout London, from this gilded and winged Springbok at South Africa House, to a fountain in Trafalgar Square, along with large bodies of work at India House, The Bank of England and elsewhere.

But today, uniquely for this blog, I would like to feature a work of his that isn’t in London but can be seen instead in a former capital.

One of his very earliest commissions was for a Madonna and Child to stand over the entrance to Winchester College’s War Memorial Cloister.

The Madonna stands in a niche above the entrance to a cloister designed by Sir Herbert Baker. Wheeler always said that it was this work that established his reputation and led to his selection for work with Baker at the Bank of England, South Africa and India Houses. An art teacher at the school, Richard Gleadowe, who was also an advisor to the Admiralty on War artists, helped Wheeler to secure this early commission.

This was also the first time that Wheeler ” climbed onto scaffolding and carved direct on a building”. Architect Douglas St Leger was at the time working as an assistant to Baker and it was he who persuaded Wheeler to carve directly into the block of Portland stone already mounted above the arch.

Wheeler recalled that he was very hesitant because “as a beginner I thought I might have ruined the block and then I should have to bear the expense, which I couldn’t afford, of replacing it.”. It was only when St Leger offered to “pay for another monolith if anything went wrong” that Wheeler could begin. This method of carving in situ was then to become Wheeler’s favoured way of working.

Whilst Baker was the acknowledged architect of the cloister, the Headmaster of the school Monty Rendall also had a major influence on the design. Wheeler recalls that the two men discussed every detail together and became close friends.

The cloister was regarded by Wheeler to be one of the loveliest erected by the War Graves Commission after World War I. It was dedicated first in 1924 and then again, following WWII, in 1948. Inside there is also great deal of ornamental stone work.

In his autobiography High Relief, (1968) Country Life Books, Wheeler does not mention whether any of this additional work was carried out by himself but when he worked with Baker elsewhere he tended to produce a vast number of works for each project.

Wheeler said that “One day I will try to count up all the bronzes, stone and wood carvings as well as the plaster panels I have made for his buildings. Sufficient idea for the present maybe got from the fact that at The Bank of England alone I sculpted 14 over-life size statues, five large bronze doors 20 feet high, three smaller bronze doors, three busts, a couple of dozen key stones and innumerable bronze handles, medallions etc. etc. “.

Stylistically and practically it seems likely to me that Wheeler’s hand can be seen throughout the cloister but I have not been able to find a definite reference. (Since I first wrote this the archivist at The College has very kindly confirmed that there is more work by Wheeler, along with a number of other sculptors at the college. Time to plan another to trip to Winchester! I will post resulting photos soon.)

Access to the College is by guided tour only. Aside from the cloister you will also see  fine medieval buildings dating back to the school’s foundation in 1382, along with a Wren-like addition from the 17th Century. Full details of the tours are available here.

For more posts from this blog on Sir Charles Wheeler, please see the tags.

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours throughout London, see tabs for details.

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VC Holder Felled by Kerb

Written on September 16, 2011 2:07 pm by in Memorials

Mounted on the railings of Wellington Barracks, Birdcage Walk, close to Buckingham Palace is this bronze plaque. It commemorates the untimely death, nearby, of Arthur P. Sullivan VC.

 

Arthur Percy Sullivan VC, an Australian bank manager was just 40 years old when he died, leaving a widow and four children in Manley, New South Wales. He  won his VC in 1919, in Russia, by heroically jumping into a swamp, under heavy fire, to rescue four colleagues. But his death was not that one might expect of a soldier.

In 1937 Arthur Sullivan  had travelled to England for the Coronation of  George VI, he was a member of the Australian contingent. A month before the Coronation he met his death in Birdcage Walk, just across the road from the plaque.

Initially a traffic accident was thought to be the cause. At the inquest Coroner Ingleby Oddie heard the evidence of William Charles Piddington, described as “a motor driver from Lambeth”  who said in his evidence “That he was on his way home on his bicycle. He was on the near side, going at about 10 miles an hour, when he came into collision with  something. He could not say what it was, and he was flung to the road and slightly stunned. When he sat up he saw an Australian soldier lying in the road with his head nearly in the gutter. He had not seen him standing up at all.”

Mr Piddington’s evidence was corroborated by three girls aged “about 11″. Florence Mead, of Peabody Buildings, Westminster, said in evidence, “that about 8 p.m. she asked the soldier for his autograph. She did not get it, and ran across the street to the barracks side. The soldier was going to step into the roadway to cross, but slipped and fell backwards and struck his head on the road. She saw a man on a bicycle. He did not knock the soldier down. The soldier was down before the bicycle reached him.”

After evidence from a doctor that Arthur Sullivan’s injuries were consistent with his head hitting the kerb after a simple fall a verdict of “Accidental death” was returned.

That Arthur Sullivan had not wanted to give Florence Mead an autograph is perhaps unsurprising. He was known to be a very modest man and accordingly was nicknamed “The Shy VC”. So modest was he, that he deliberately avoided meeting George V in 1919 when he was to have been awarded his VC at Buckingham Palace. Instead he had to wait until 1920 to receive the medal in Australia  from Edward, Prince of Wales, who is said to have joked with him “Aren’t you the man who ran away from father?”

The full text on the plaque reads:

To The Glory Of GOD And In

Ever Living Memory Of

Gnr. Arthur P. Sullivan. V.C.

Who was accidentally killed on April 9th

1937 whilst serving as a

representative of his country at the

Coronation of H.M.King George VI.

THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY

HIS COMRADES OF THE AUSTRALIAN

CORONATION CONTINGENT 1939

More on the life of Arthur Sullivan, from the Australian Dictionary of Biography can be found here.

Details of the inquest are taken from coverage in: The Times, Wednesday, Apr 14, 1937; pg. 19; Issue 47658; col E

The author of this blog is a qualified City of Westminster Tour Guide who runs unique walking tours in London, see tabs for details.

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