TRENCH WARFARE: LIVE & LET LIVE

It was never intended by any of the military that the Western Front in the First World War should become bogged down into a campaign of attrition, fought with the infantry bottled up in trenches stretching some 460miles from Switzerland to the Belgian coast. The Schlieffen plan envisaged a fast right hook of very mobile forces sweeping through Belgium and down into France, to capture the French capital and so neutralise Belgium and France – and hopefully Britain, all in 40 days/6 weeks.  It had to be wrapped up in this length of time, because any longer, and the immense and slow-moving giant, Russia, would take that length of time to amass her forces on Germany’s Eastern Front, and Germany could not afford to fight on 2 fronts.  Wrap up France et al quickly, then concentrate on Russia.  

The French, with Plan XVII, would recapture the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine in ultra-quick time, with their characteristically Gallic ‘elan’, which would sweep all before them.  The French and the Germans had large conscript armies, and many reserves.  The British had a small but highly professional army, which was used to keeping the natives in the colonies under control.  Britain had not committed large forces to conventional land battles since Waterloo, 1815.  Trench warfare was not unknown.  It had happened between the Russians and the Japanese on 1905.  But it would obviously have no place in the coming conflict, when the war started on 28th July – each side was convinced it was going to be victorious – of course! –and that it was all going to be over by Christmas!  Kitchener was one of the few who recognised that the war would be immensely bloody and protracted, lasting some 3-4 years.  

Many of the military leaders on both sides were ex-cavalry officers, often decorated for their own personal bravery in action, and they all believed that after an initial thrust by the infantry, the cavalry would break through ‘into open country’ and lead the march onto capture the appropriate capital – Berlin/Paris.  The cavalry were the elite – just look at their magnificent –and costly –uniforms!  In retrospect, the only time when the cavalry really shone, was the Australian Light Horse, late in the war, with Allenby in the Palestine desert.  Otherwise, it was sometimes said that the best thing that the cavalry could do, was to get off their horses and make cups of tea for the infantry!!  Other less contentious suggestions were that the cavalry could be used more as a mounted infantry, and to this end, the British cavalry at least had had training in using rifles, and not just lances and swords.  The new cavalry – the knights of the air – were the pilots, a number of whom were ex-cavalry men, such as Richthofen.  

Each country had its own style of trench.  Initially, all trenches were just shallow scrapes to provide a bit of shelter from bullets and shrapnel.  They became deeper as both sides appreciated that the trench was becoming more a way of life.  The Germans were more thorough, and built their trenches deeper, with more amenities and general attitude that they were there to stay!  The British did not want to encourage any feeling of being there to stay – a trench was a temporary structure, from which to attack the enemy and move on!  Their attitude changed a bit throughout the war, and the trenches developed better amenities.  The French trenches were not regarded highly by either the British or the Germans.  The British were at times re-located to man the French lines, and vice versa, so each got to see the other’s handiwork, and the backwards and forwards nature of the warfare meant that the British and French got to see the German trenches, and likewise the Germans got to see the British and French.

Trenches were never dug in one straight line but were zigzagged one way or another.  That prevented the enemy from enfilading a long length of trench.  Quite how the trenches were constructed depended on the soil.  In Flanders it was muddy and the water table was high, especially after the Belgians had opened the lock gates to allow flooding by the sea water.  In the Somme region the soil was very chalky and the drainage was very good.  In the Ypres salient, the Allied defences were at a lower altitude than the Germans.  This meant that the Allies were constantly fighting uphill, against an enemy who were only too happy to empty their trenches, effluent and everything, onto those lower down!  

Front line trenches might only be 15 –20 yards away from the enemy, or as much as 3-400 yards. Behind these would be support trenches, and connecting trenches between the two systems.  In established lines, these would all be well sign-posted and names borrowed from well-known landmarks would be used, e.g. Piccadilly Circus, The Strand, often with a sense of humour – Leafy lane, The Meadows.  In active areas, troops often got lost, as landmarks were destroyed.  It took a skilled guide to lead men in and out. This was going on all the time as rations had to brought in as well as the rotation of troops.  
    
Life in the trenches was described as
    80% bored to death
    19% frozen to death
    1% scared to death

This did not mean that most of the time spent in the trenches was inactive.  In places like Ypres, trench walls required revetting to keep them in place.  At the Somme, chalkier but harder to dig, little revetting was needed.  The barbed wire in front of the trenches often needed repairing, but this was usually done at night.  Day and night there was sentry duty to do.  How much the frontline forces harassed or aggressed the enemy depended largely upon their own attitude and that of the forces opposing them.  At one extreme was the live and let live policy.  ‘Don’t disturb Mr Boche, and he won’t disturb you!’

Because orders would come from Brigade or Divisional level to maintain aggression, token attacks of agreed intensity and kind, at agreed hours would take place.  There would also be agreed hours when they would not take place, e.g. when meals were being eaten or when men were using the latrines or performing ablutions.  Early on during the war, attacks were limited by the lack of munitions, such as grenades, mortars, shells, ammunition for small arms etc.  As the war progressed as bureaucracy became more efficient, the soldier in the front line had everything he needed!  For the soldier raiding enemy trenches, one of the favourite weapons remained the shovel, with sharpened edges.!  

Trenches that were close together often elicited verbal exchanges.  Many Germans had worked as waiters in England before the war.  To have the ‘enemy’ enquiring about football scores and admitting to being Chelsea supporters, prompted Tommy to remark that perhaps Mr Boche was not such a bad guy after all!  The smell of bacon and eggs cooking did not encourage aggression.  The exchange of rations – food and drink – did much to calm the situation.

At the other extreme, some Regiments saw the Front Line as the opportunity to be constantly aggressive.  The Guards and the Welch Regiments were good examples, as were the Brandenburghers and Prussian Regiments of the Germans.  It was seen as a matter of personal and battalion/regimental pride.  General principles of aggression came from the highest level, but the practical application of these principles tended to come from battalion and brigade commanders – lieutenant-colonels and brigadiers, or their staff officers. Those who were very anxious to have raiding parties were known as ‘thrusters’. This at times seemed very incongruous – non-combatants from the safety of the rear lines telling those in the trenches how and when to risk their lives, and at times it caused ill feeling.  

Raiding parties quite often relied on volunteers, but financial bribery was often used, as well as the prospect of decorations and promotion.   It could also get the volunteer out of more menial but unpleasant tasks such as cleaning latrines etc.  Raids on enemy trenches was certainly not without risk, but the risk seemed to have the quality about it that one stood a chance of survival, and that it was not haphazard and random, like the risk in ‘going over the top’.  The more skilled one was, the better the chance of success and survival.  Good raiders were quite often kept back from major pushes  - they were too valuable to be wasted as cannon fodder!  It was also found that specialising made a soldier more aggressive.  An ordinary infantryman with a rifle might have a certain level of aggression, but that this went up if he became trained as a machine gunner.
Killing at a distance was always easier than close up, and what the ordinary soldier disliked most was killing with the cold steel of the bayonet.

Even with the most aggressive units, there would be short-lived truces to pick up wounded and the dead.  When airmen were shot down and captured or killed, a message was dropped at the nearest airfield by a member of the opposition, who would indicate that he was dropping a message, and it was not appropriate to fire at him while he did so.  

The truce across the front lines during the first Christmas is well known and well recorded.  The Germans seemed to break into song whenever they stopped, as they had much respect for a good male voice.  For them to have heard Victor Garnier of the Paris Opera House singing ‘Minuit, Chretiens, c’est l’heure solenelle’  across frozen no-man’s land was a stunning experience that was met with ‘awed and dead silence’. What is less well known is the story of the irate German pastry chef, Alfred Kornitzke!   He was making traditional marzipan balls on Christmas Eve, and the troops opposite were not observing the truce and were putting his life at risk.  

“No one can do this to me!” he exploded, and seizing a Weihnachtsbaum as holy protection, he lifted it high and, still wearing his white baker’s hat, ran into the middle of no-man’s land.  The Algerian troops, who were of course Muslim, were baffled by this apparition. He appeared to crazy to shoot at, and too comical to take seriously!  Telephones began to ring in the French trenches and the shooting stopped.  The chef calmly put the tree down and took out matches and lit all the candles one by one.
“Now you block-heads,” he shouted, “Now you know what is going on!  Merry Christmas!”
He returned back to his trench and a bunch of admiring soldiers, and got on with stirring his precious marzipan mixture!  After the war, he vowed, he would become a missionary to the heathen, “For now I know how it is done!”

THE VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS

We like to think of Christmas as a time of year steeped in tradition, and so it is, but traditions have to start somewhere, and many of the features of our modern Christmas celebrations started with the Victorians, even the commercialisation.  Before Victoria’s reign, which began in 1837, nobody in Britain had heard of Christmas crackers, Santa Claus or Christmas cards, or even Father Christmas, let alone Rudolf and his red nose.  Most people did not have Christmas day off as a holiday – they worked.  The Scots have always preferred to postpone their festivities a few days, to Hogmanay, the celebration of the arrival of the New Year, and as a consequence Christmas remained for them an entirely religious occasion.

The wealth generated by the industrialisation offered the emergent middle class time and money to take two days of holiday, Christmas day and Boxing Day, in the middle of winter.  The holly, ivy and mistletoe were all part of pagan festivals taken over by Christians and given new significance, but their traditional meaning was to help usher in the spring.  Father Christmas was originally part of an old English midwinter festival, normally dressed in green, a sign of the returning spring.  The stories of st Nicholas (Sinter Klaas in Holland) came via Dutch settlers to America in the 17th century and by the 1870’s he had become Santa Claus, dressed up warmly in red, and driving a sleigh pulled by reindeer and his enormous sack full of presents – but only for those children who had behaved themselves!

The Christmas cracker was invented by Tom Smith, a London sweet maker in 1846.  His original idea involved simply wrapping sweets in coloured paper, but this sold much better when he added paper hats, small toys, appallingly lame but respectable jokes, and of course something to make it go BANG!  The Christmas stocking did not catch on until about 1870 and the usual presents were an apple, perhaps an orange and some nuts.  Before the nineteenth century, toys were handmade and therefore expensive – or you made them yourself – but with mass production, toys became cheaper and affordable.  

1840 saw the first countrywide postal system, with the ‘penny post’ – a letter with a penny black stamp would be delivered anywhere through Britain.  This paved the way for the first Christmas cards in 1843, by Henry Cole, who printed 1,000 in his art shop in London, price, one shilling each, which we would have to consider quite expensive.  The idea caught on a by 1870, through efficiencies in the postal system brought on by the railways, a ha’penny (= half a penny) post for cards was introduced.  It was Prince Albert who introduced the Christmas tree to Windsor Castle from his native Germany, where it was popular.  The 1840’s saw the introduction of carol singers and musicians who would go from house to house singing and collecting for charity.  

Inventive as the Victorians were, they produced new carols for the occasion:-
        1843    O Come all ye Faithful
        1848    Once in Royal David’s City
        1851    See Amid the Winter’s Snow
        1868    O Little Town of Bethlehem
        1883    Away in a Manger

It is a popular misconception that turkeys were not around during the Victorian era; in fact they had been introduced into Britain from America in 1526 by an enterprising Yorkshire farmer, William Strickland, but they remained expensive birds and fare only for the privileged rich until near the end of the century.  Both Eliza Acton (1845) and Mrs Beeton (1861) give numerous recipes for cooking and serving turkey.  For the less well off, goose was the centre piece of the traditional Christmas meal.
        “Christmas is coming! – the goose is getting fat,
        Please put a penny in the old man’s hat.
        If you haven’t got a penny, a farthing will do.
        If you don’t have a farthing, God Bless You.”
In the north of England, the traditional meat for Christmas was roast beef but many poor people made do with rabbit.  

Gradually the Norfolk farms became the breeding areas for the Christmas turkey and in October the unsuspecting birds would be marched the 80 mile journey to London.  Arriving tired and scrawny, they would have thought that their luck had changed as they were fattened up in the last few weeks before Christmas!  

Victorians were good at providing their own entertainment.  They would sing, play musical instruments, act out short plays or read, not just for their own individual pleasure, but out loud for all to hear.  Spring had been the traditional peak season for launching new books, but this shifted to October as publishers realised that at Christmas, people had a few more pennies in their pockets and books made good presents.  A new genre of ‘fireside books’ appeared, such as Elizabeth Shepherd’s Round the Fireside Stories (1856), Mrs Ellis’ Fireside Tales for the Young (1849) and William Martin’s Fireside Philosophy, or Home Science(1845).   Cheap reprint editions of such favourite classics as The Pilgrim’s Progress, Robinson Crusoe and the popular novels of Walter Scott would have been read alongside newer texts written especially for Christmas, such as Lady Barker’s A Christmas Cake: in Four Quarters or Julia Ewing’s Snap-dragons, a Tale of Christmas Eve (1888).  

The publication of the first English translation of Grimm’s FairyTales in 1823 initiated an explosion of fairies and goblins into the artistic and literary life of the Victorians.  Most famously we have Charles Kingsley and his Water-Babies (1863); Peter Pan by J M Barrie was first published in 1904 and therefore is just post-Victorian.  Dickens wrote the most famous Victorian ghost story, The Christmas Carol in 1843 followed by The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy-Tale of Home in 1846.  This was the beginning of a trend which has continued, of publishing books with a Christmas theme.  The religious societies were not slow to cash in on the commercialisation of Christmas and they published special Christmas tracts and texts such as Little Peter: A Christmas Morality for Children of Any Age (1887) and A New Christmas Tract, or The Right Way of Rejoicing at Christmas (1830).  

TWO VICTORIAN DOMESTIC GODDESSES –

Eliza Acton  and  Mrs  Beeton

The Victorian era saw the expansion of the British Empire, the development of industry and an increase in population.  There were the rich and the desperately poor – lots of them, crowded into the cities – but there was a growing middle class.  They had much to be thankful for and much to enjoy with the technological advances in every sphere of life.  It was, of course, a male dominated society and the woman had her defined place in that society, though there were more than a few brave women who would not be constrained by convention.  The majority however, conformed.  One area where the woman of the household reigned supreme was the kitchen and she was expected to run this with skill, knowledge and a careful eye on the cost.  A husband would consider himself well blessed if his wife could produce excellent food regularly, the servants were clean, punctual and efficient, and the atmosphere was harmonious, ordered and tranquil.  Daughters learnt from their mothers, but now there were weekly and monthly women’s magazines bringing the latest in fashion and new ideas, as well as preserving valued traditions in what were correct and good manners.  Two accomplished and enterprising women went a stage further and wrote books.  The first on the scene was Eliza Acton with her cookery book, and this was followed some ten years later by Mrs Beeton with her book which embraced more than just cooking, but the whole of household management.  It became a legend.

ELIZA ACTON

Elizabeth ‘Eliza’ Acton (1799 – 1859) was born in Battle, Sussex, the eldest of the five children of Elizabeth and John Acton, a brewer.  Her health was always described as ‘delicate’ but in her early 20’s she went to France and became engaged to a French officer, but did not marry him.  She did, however, have a niece, of whom she was particularly fond who was rumoured to be her illegitimate daughter from that liaison.  She maintained her own household in Hampstead and in 1825 had a book of poems published.  Here is a sample:-
    I am so weary. Love! – a chain
    Whose Every link is formed of pain,
    Clings round me like a serpent coil
    Whose gaspings crush its folded spoil.

To put it politely, it did not sell well, but she persevered and in 1841, offered the publisher Thomas Longman a further collections of her verse.  If the story is to be believed, he replied,
“ My dear madam, it is no good bringing me poetry.  Bring me a cookery book and we might come to terms.”
Four years later, he published her Modern Cookery, or to give it its full title,
Modern Cookery for Private Families Reduced to a System of Easy Practice in a Series of Carefully Tested Receipts in which the Principles of Baron Liebig and other eminent writers have been as much as possible applied and explained by Eliza Acton.
In 1855 she issued a second edition.  It ran to over 600 pages and she claimed to have cooked almost every recipe in it (note she calls them ‘receipts’) and those she has borrowed, she gives due acknowledgement.  The one recipe that I have chosen is for that much loved and very British preserve, marmalade, which is essentially an orange jam.

GENUINE SCOTCH MARMALADE

“Take some bitter oranges, and double their weight of sugar; cut the rind of the fruit into quarters and peel it off, and if the marmalade be not wanted very thick, take off some of the spongy white skin inside the rind.  Cut the chips as thin as possible, and about half an inch long, and divide the pulp into small bits, removing carefully the seeds, which may be steeped in part of the water that is to make the marmalade, and which must be in the proportion of a quart to a pound of fruit.  Put the chips and the pulp into a deep earthen dish, and pour the water boiling over them; let them remain for twelve to fourteen hours, and then turn the whole into the preserving pan, and boil it until the chips are perfectly tender.  When they are so, add by degrees the sugar (which should be previously pounded), and boil it until it jellies.  The water in which the seeds have been steeped, and which must be taken from the quantity apportioned to the whole of the preserve, should be poured into a hair-sieve, and the seeds well worked in it with the back of a spoon; a strong clear jelly will be obtained by this means, which must be washed off them by pouring their own liquor through the sieve in small portions over them.  This must be added to the fruit when it is first set on the fire.”
Oranges, 3 lbs; water, 3 quarts; sugar 6 lbs.
Proper English marmalade uses Seville oranges which give it a dark colour and a slightly bitter taste, but additions or substitutions can be made with other fruit such as ordinary oranges, grapefruit, gooseberries and lime.  Toast and marmalade is an essential part of the traditional English breakfast!

Isabella Mary Beeton (née Mayson  1836 - 1865) was born in Cheapside, London.  Her father died when she was young and her mother married again, to Henry Dorling, a widower with four children of his own.  He was clerk of the Epsom Race Course and the family lived at Epsom.  She went to school in Heidelberg, Germany, where she became quite an accomplished pianist.

In 1856 she married Samuel Beeton, a publisher of books and popular magazines and she began to write articles on cookery and household management for her husband’s publications.  Between 1859 and 1861 she wrote a monthly supplement to The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine and these were later published as a single volume which became popularly known as Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management.  But let us see its full title as this shows what an extensive and ambitious tome it was:-  

The Book of Household Management Comprising information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, Kitchen-Maid, Butler, Footman, Coachman, Valet, Upper and Under House-Maids, Lady’s-Maid, Maid-of-all-Work, Laundry-Maid, Nurse and Nurse-Maid, Monthly Wet and Sick Nurses, etc. etc. – also Sanitary, Medical & Legal Memoranda; with a History of the Origin, Properties, and Uses of all Things Connected with the Home Life and Comfort.  

Its 1,112 pages covered everything that an upwardly mobile and aspirant Victorian housewife should know about running a household.  There were over 900 recipes, many of them illustrated with coloured engravings, and it showed the recipes in a format that is still used today.  It was claimed that all the recipes were original but that is unlikely.  Her husband’s magazine invited readers to submit recipes and many of them seem to have found their way into her book.  Still, she gave them her ‘imprimatur’ and did a monumental task of compiling.  There does not seem to be an area of household management that she did not cover.  One of the more charming and forgotten sections is the final chapter, on table decorations – a sort of origami for table napkins (not serviettes, please!) where she describes how to fold napkins into all sorts of appealing shapes, such as ‘the mitre’, ‘the cockscomb’, fleur-de-lis variations, ‘the rose and star’ and others.  

Her book was a phenomenal success and became the trusted companion of many a housewife, for about half a century.  She certainly eclipsed her predecessor, Eliza Acton – and probably borrowed a few recipes from her as well!  And even men found praise for her!  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his study of married life entitled ‘A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus’, makes his heroine say, “Mrs. Beeton must have been the finest housekeeper in the world.  Therefore Mr. Beeton must have been the happiest and most comfortable man”; and his hero concludes that Mrs. Beeton’s book ‘has more wisdom to the square inch than any work of man!’ (and it contains 80,000 square inches!).  

Not many menus these days will include such dishes as ‘jugged kangaroo’ or ‘turtle soup’ so let’s go for something more mundane and seasonal –
Christmas Pudding (rich)
Ingredients:    ½ lb  beef suet
        2 oz flour
        ½ lb raisins
        ¼ lb mixed peel
        ½ a grated nutmeg
        ½ oz mixed spice
        ½ oz ground cinnamon
        1 gill milk
        1 wineglass full of rum or brandy (optional)
        ½ lb breadcrumbs
        ½ lb sultanas
        ½ lb currants
        1 lemon
        2 oz desiccated coconut or shredded almonds
        4 eggs
        1 pinch of salt.

Method:    Skin the suet and chop it finely.  Clean the fruit, stone the raisins, finely shred the mixed peel; peel and chop the lemon-rind.  Put all the dry ingredients in a basin and mix well.  Add the milk, stir in the eggs one at a time, add the rum or brandy and the strained juices of the lemon.  Work the whole thoroughly for some minutes, so that the ingredients are well blended.  Put the mixture in a well-greased basin or a greased or floured pudding cloth.

Time: Boil for about 4 hours or steam for at least 5 hours.  Sufficient for 8-9 persons

VICTORIAN CURRENCY

Copper or Bronze coins.    The smallest was the farthing, worth a quarter of a penny, then the halfpenny (pronounced ‘haypenny’) the penny, the two-penny piece (pronounced ‘tu-pence’) and a four-penny piece, previously known as a groat.

Silver coins. There was a three-penny bit (pronounced ‘thripenny’), a six-pence, a shilling, a florin (worth 2 shillings), a half-crown (worth 2 shillings and six pence) and a crown (worth 5 shillings).  There were 12 pence to the shilling and twenty shillings made a pound,

Gold coins. There was the sovereign valued at a pound, and the half-sovereign.  

Notes. After 1844 all bank notes were issued by the Bank of England, to the value of £5, £10, £20, £100, £200, £500 and £1,000.  
There was also a unit of currency known as the guinea, for which there was no coin or note (how very British!) and it was worth one pound and one shilling.  It was used for professional fees, such as for doctors and lawyers – and prize money for horse races!  
You may have noticed in Alice in Wonderland the price in the Mad Hatter’s top hat – 10/6 – ten shillings and six pence – in other words, half a guinea

ASHWORTH HALL.    Fictitious

BEDFORD SQUARE.    It is the only complete Georgian square in Bloomsbury. It was built in 1775-80 on the Bedford Estate and probably designed by Thomas Leverton, William Scott and Robert Grews.  Several houses have interiors with fine chimney pieces and ceilings painted by Angelica Kauffman and Antonio Zucchi. Until 1893 the square was sealed off by gates and the tradesmen were required to deliver goods in person.  The square is no longer residential and most of the houses have been turned into offices, and until recently, occupied by publishers.

BELGRAVE SQUARE. It takes its name from the small Leicestershire village of Belgrave.  In 1826, the owner of the land, Earl Grosvenor, later the first Marquess of Westminster obtained an Act of Parliament enabling him to build on it and he came to an agreement with Thomas Cubitt to do the construction.  The damp clay was dug from the ground and made into bricks on site and the excavations made from soil from St Katherine’s Dock.  The houses were large and stuccoed, 12 on the south terrace, 11 on the others, with large detached houses at each corner.  The houses are no longer residential and have been converted into embassies or offices.

BETHLEHEM ROAD.    Fictitious – there is no Bethlehem Road, but there was the Royal Bethlehem Hospital, founded in 1247 by Sheriff Simon Fitz Mary but it was not until 1377 that ‘distracted’ patients were looked after – by which is meant they were kept chained to wall by the ankles, or when violent, ducked in the water or whipped.  At the beginning of the 17th century visitors were admitted, for a fee, to come and amuse themselves by ‘making sport and diversion of the miserable inhabitants’.  It is from the name of this hospital that we get the word ‘bedlam’, meaning a scene of uproar and confusion.

BLUEGATE FIELDS. In ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ by Oscar Wilde, chapter 11, the narrator says, ’...Then, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to dreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there, day after day, until he was driven away...’  it was the name used for one of the worst slum areas in east London, just north of the old London docks.

BRUNSWICK GARDENS. Fictitious, but there was Brunswick Square, named after Caroline of Brunswick, wife of the Prince Regent.  Built in 1795-1802, in the grounds of the Foundling Hospital, to balance Mecklenburgh Square on the other side, to add a bit of class to the area!  None of the original buildings survive.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS. Fictitious, but Buckingham Palace, of course, does exist.

CALLANDER SQUARE. Fictitious

CARDINGTON CRESCENT. Fictitious

CREMORNE GARDENS. This was originally opened in 1832 as the Cremorne Stadium by Charles Random de Berenger, self-styled Baron de Baufain and the Baron de Berenger, for ‘manly pursuits’ (with a separate section for women) but proved unprofitable, and in the 1840’s changed into a pleasure gardens, with mock tournaments, pony races, banqueting halls, a theatre, an American-style bowling saloon, and staged circus acts, balloon ascents and firework displays.  It was, of course, a popular place for men and women to get together!

DEATH IN THE DEVIL’S ACRE. The Devil’s Acre was a particularly notorious part of the slums of the east end of London, and referred specifically to the area round Old Pye Street with half the population estimated to be criminals.  Here the pubs acted as meeting places and receiving houses for stolen goods and it was a virtual no-go region for the police

EXECUTION DOCK.    This is a dock on the River Thames, between Wapping New Stairs and King Henry’s Stairs, where pirates and mutinous sailors were hanged, ‘at the low-water mark, and there to remain till three tides had overflowed them.’  The scaffolding stood on the river bed and the victims were left dangling there and by the time the water had washed over them three times the bodies were grotesquely bloated; there are those who say it is the origin of the term ‘whopper’ (=Wappinger).  

FARRIER’S LANE.    Fictitious

HALF MOON STREET. It extends from Piccadilly  to Curzon Street, and takes its name from a public house which formerly stood on the corner of Piccadilly.  In 1930, Somerset Maugham found the place to be ‘sedate and respectable’.

HIGHGATE RISE. Fictitious. However, Highgate is a famous part of north London that once belonged to the Bishop of London, who placed a toll gate
on the road over the hill, hence the name ‘Highgate’.  Legend has it that Dick Wittington rested at the bottom of the hill, and heard the bells of Bow telling him to ‘turn again’.

HYDE PARK HEADSMAN. Hyde Park is the largest of the Royal parks, and covers some 340 acres, extending from the Bayswater Road in the north, to Knightsbridge in the south; Park Lane marks the eastern boundary, and on the west, merges with Kensington Gardens.  The Great Exhibition of 1851 was held here, in the Crystal Palace (before it moved).  Hyde Park became a popular meeting place where people would walk, ride or be driven in a carriage, to parade their wealth and status, to see and be seen.  

LONG SPOON LANE. Fictitious

PARAGON WALK. Fictitious. However, there was a part of Blackheath that was developed as the Paragon, and wishing to promote a good class of tenant, there were a long series of prohibitions against exercising the ‘art, mystery or trade’ of such varied occupations as schoolmaster or fishmonger!

PENTECOST ALLEY. Fictitious

RESURRECTION ROW. Fictitious

RUTLAND PLACE. Fictitious. However there are Rutland Gardens, Gate, Lodge and Street, connected with property once owned by the Duke of Rutland.

SEVEN DIALS. In 1694 John Evelyn went to see ‘the building beginning neare St Giles’s where seaven streetes make a start from a Doric Pillar plac’d in the middle of (a) Circular Area.’  The column, which supported a clock with six dials and had become a general rendez-vous for criminals, was removed in 1773.  It was falsely rumoured that a large sum of money had been buried under the base.  It had been intended as a fashionable residential area adjoining Soho and Covent Garden, but in the 18th and 19th centuries, it became a hide-out for thieves and the poorest sort of street vendors.  Dickens described the area in Sketches by Boz.

SILENCE IN HANOVER SQUARE. It forms the centre-piece of the 13 acre Millfield or Kirkham Close estate which was bounded by Oxford Street on the north, Regent Street on the east and on the south and west by the backs of the houses of Conduit and New Bond Street.  It was started soon after the Elector of Hanover acceded to the throne as George 1 in 1714.  The original houses were large and inhabited by ‘persons of distinction’.

SOUTHAMPTON ROW. It is the continuation north of Kingsway from High Holborn to Russell Square.  At one time Edgar Allen Poe lived there.

THE CATER STREET HANGMAN. Fictitious

THE WHITECHAPEL CONSPIRACY. Originally in Stepney, it soon developed as a suburb of the City of London because of its position as a main route in and out of London to Essex.  The original white chapel was built in the 13th century and became the parish church of St Mary Whitechapel in about 1338.  According to Mayhew in the middle of the 19th century, ‘the lodgings here were occupied by dredgers, ballast heavers, coal whippers, watermen, lumpers and others whose trade is connected with the river as well as the slop workers and sweaters working for the Minories.’  It became the headquarters of the second hand clothes trade when that became taken over by the Jews.  It was known for low rents and a rapidly changing population – and for the activities of Jack the Ripper.

TRAITOR’S GATE.    It was originally just a Water Gate, and was an entrance to the Tower, part of St Thomas’s Tower, which was designed to provide additional accommodation for the Royal Family.  It became known as Traitor’s Gate in the early 17th century  when many prisoners were brought along the Thames, under London Bridge, where the heads of recently executed prisoners were displayed on pikes.

Much of this information is taken from The London Encyclopædia edited by Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, published by MacMilllan.  This is an excellent reference book and should never be more than an arm’s length away from anyone interested in learning the history of individual places and streets in London.

WORLD WAR 1 (1914-18) AMBULANCES – The Model T FORD

The United States of America did not enter the First World War until 1917.  That, however, did not deter various individuals and associations from participating at a much earlier date, and one of the leading areas of activity that drew Americans was the ambulance service.  These young volunteers – men and women – came in their thousands, from all walks of life, to risk their lives alongside the French and British.  Some of them, such as Walt Disney, Ernest Hemingway and E E Cummings went on to be famous, and of the ambulances that they drove, none became more famous than the Model T Ford.  For a start, it was cheaper than other vehicles.  Fully equipped, it cost $1,600 compared to a Packard that cost upwards of $2,500.  Admittedly it was smaller and lighter, but that had the advantage that it was nippier and less likely to get bogged down in the mud. It was relatively easy to maintain, and parts were standard.  It provided a softer ride, and the French soldiers – the poilu – preferred it to all others.  One driver commented that by using the rough French wine, pinard, in the radiator, he had the best antifreeze available, and after a few hundred miles, it was almost drinkable!  

Henry Ford himself offered no discounts or favours to those who bought his vehicles for ambulances.  He charged the full retail price, for car and spares.  Yet he went on to lose millions of dollars and much face over his ill-fated ‘Peace Ship’ fiasco, in an attempt to bring the warring countries together.

Various drivers felt the urge to wax lyrical over the Model T.  Robert A Donaldson wrote in his poem, ‘Henry on the Grande Route’
    
    You may take the Dago Fiat,
    The Renault, the Berliet.
    Just lead me to a Henry Ford-
    I’ll swap you any day.
    These foreign speaking cars may sound
    All right to foreign ears,
    But they never can touch Henry
    In a hundred thousand years.

Another driver chose to parody the 23rd Psalm

    The Ford is my car;
    I shall not want another.
    It maketh me to lie down in wet places;
    It soileth my soul;
    It leadeth me into deep waters;
    It leadeth me into paths of ridicule for its namesake;
    It prepareth a breakdown for me in the presence of mine enemies.
    Yea, though I run through the valleys, I am towed up the hill;
    I fear great evil when it is with me.
    Its rods and its engines discomfort me;
    It annointeth my face with oil;
    Its tank runneth over.
    Surely to goodness if this thing follow me all the days of my life,
    I shall dwell in the house of the insane forever.