Memorial day - 55

Today’s memorial is located in the Victoria Embankment Gardens, London; it was erected to the memory of Sir Arthur Sullivan.

In the nineteenth and into the twentieth century there were few more famous names in the entertainment world than Gilbert & Sullivan. Their names are still synonymous with Light Opera.

Gilbert as librettist and Sullivan as composer collaborated in the production of fourteen comic operas. H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1879), The Mikado (1885) and The Gondoliers (1889) are stilled performed today by armature operatic societies. Their productions were as popular and crowd pleasers then, as musicals are today.

Arthur Sullivan was born in London in May 1842. By the age of eight he could play proficiently all the instruments of a band. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, then at the Felix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre in Leipzig. He was an established composer before he joined forces with Gilbert in 1871. There partnership lasted until 1896. As well as operas he composed hymns, the best known being “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

He was knighted in 1883; and died aged 58 in November 1900.

His memorial is the work of Sir George Frampton, R.A., P.R.B.S. (1860 -1928). The most striking feature is the bronze partially clothed figure of a weeping woman. On the left hand side of the base are a lute and theatrical mask, the symbols of music and comedy. Sullivan’s bronze bust looks forward, a moustached Victorian gentleman.

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Memorial day - 15

Memorials are erected not only for the “great and the good”, they are also commissioned by friends and family members to both commemorate the life of a loved one, but also to mark the connection of the deceased person with a location. You might have sat on such a memorial without noticing!

The bench is located in Victoria Embankment Gardens, London. The gardens designed by Alexander McKenzie were laid out on 20 acres of land reclaimed when the Embankment was constructed in 1864. The subsoil came from the building of the Metropolitan District Railway and the topsoil from Barking Creek

The brass plaque states the bench is a gift

“From the family of Yoshihiko Nagaya with fond memories of years spent in London”.

We are left with a number of questions:

Who was Yoshihiko Nagaya?
What if anything was his connection with the Victoria Embankment Gardens? Was it a favourite place to sit or stroll among the flowerbeds? Did he sit in the deckchairs by the bandstand listening to concerts held there at lunchtimes in the summer?

What is known is the bench provides a resting place for office workers to eat their sandwiches. Or for old and young to rest their weary feet, before continuing their walk along the Embankment. On the way, they might stop and look at the more formal monuments located in the gardens and previously described in my previous Wednesday blogs.

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The Robert Raikes memorial is located within the shadow of the Savoy Hotel in Victoria Embankment Gardens, London. The statue was erected in July 1880, under the direction of the Sunday School Union and paid for by contributions from teachers and scholars of Sunday Schools in Great Britain.

Robert Raikes was born in Gloucester, England, in 1736. His father was the founder of the “Gloucester Journal”. On his father’s death in 1757, Robert took over as the Journal’s Editor. He used the newspaper to campaign for prison reform. He realised that prisoner’s lives had been shaped by their deprived childhood.

In July 1780, Raikes and a local Anglican curate, Thomas Stock, started the first Sunday School at St Mary le Crypt Church, in Gloucester. The schools while a success were not universally accepted and were criticized by some for educating ragged dirty urchins and running schools on a Sunday, considered an inappropriate activity for the Sabbath.

Robert Raikes died on 5th April 1811.

By 1831, weekly 1.25 million children were attending Sunday Schools in Great Britain.

It is worth noting the monuments sculptor Sir Thomas Brock R.A. (1847 - 1922), most famous work is the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace.

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Without doubt my favourite memorial in Victoria Embankment Gardens, London, is for the Imperial Camel Corps. It consists of an exquisite two foot high statue of a camel and rider. The bronze statue stands on a six foot high stone base. Carved on the base is:

To The Glorious And Immortal Memory Of The Officers NCOs And Men Of The Imperial Camel Corps.
British, Australian, New Zealand, Indian Who Fell In Action or Died Of Wounds And Disease In Egypt, Sinai And Palestine.

1916 - 1917 -1918

A bronze plaque lists the names of the fallen.

The Allied forces were evacuated to Egypt after the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. Egypt which was then under British rule, was threatened by the Ottoman armies in Sinai and the Senussi confederation of tribes in its Western deserts.

In an attempt to suppress the tribes in January 1916, four companies of camel mounted infantry were formed from volunteers from Australia. The campaign was a success with the Senussi forced into submission towards the end of 1916. Indeed the camel companies had been so successful that a further fourteen companies were formed. Six companies were drawn from Australian Light Horse units, six British companies from Yeomanry mounted units and New Zealand personnel formed two companies. The companies were eventually organised into four battalions.

Because they were cheaper to purchase only male camels were used!

In 1917 the Corps took part in several battles for Gaza, suffering heavy casualties After Gaza, it took part in the attack on Jerusalem. After the capture of Jerusalem the corps was withdrawn for rest.

In May 1918, under General Edmund Allenby, the army in Palestine was reorganised. As a result both the Australian and New Zealand companies were remounted on horses. Their camels were given to the Arab forces under the command of Emir Feisal and T.E. Lawrence “Lawrence of Arabia”


(In 1921 Britain ensured that Feisal was selected King of the newly created country Iraq, which he ruled until his death in September 1933)


Part of the Corps 2nd Battalion took part in action in Jordan in August 1918.

The Imperial Camel Corps was formally disbanded in May, 1919.

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Memorial day - 1

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As promised last week, this is the first in a series of blogs which will be posted each Wednesday on the topic of memorials and public sculptures. No don’t log off, read on, I’ll try to make it interesting, if not entertaining.

The Victoria Embankment Gardens located between Hungerford and Waterloo bridges is an oasis from the hustle and bustle of daily city life, for tourists and Londoners alike. You can sit on a bench and leave the noise of the traffic drift into the background. You are however jarred back to the present moment every 3 to 4 minutes by the incongruous sound of a passing underground train. Look shrubbery is a wall. Enclosed by the wall is a ventilation shaft for the section of the District and Circle Underground Line running between Embankment and Temple stations. around but no train is to be seen. But look carefully, hidden by the

There is a drinking fountain on the north side of the enclosure. No longer in use, nevertheless it is an object of interest. On the bronze plaque forming part of the fountain are the words “Erected To The Memory Of Henry Fawcett By His Grateful Countrywomen”. Who was Henry Fawcett, what had he done to warrant a memorial to be erected by his countrywomen?

Look closely at the relief and you see the figures eyes are closed, as if in sleep. Henry Fawcett was born in Salisbury, England in 1833. Aged 25, while out shooting he was accidentally blinded by a shot from his father’s gun. Despite the handicap, he continued his studies at Cambridge University. Five years later he became Professor of Political Economy in Cambridge.

Two years later, in 1865 he became a Member of Parliament representing the south coast resort town, Brighton. Once in Parliament he attempted, with John Stuart Mill and Peter Alfred Taylor, to persuade Parliament to change the law to grant women the vote. Through his campaign for women’s suffrage he met Millicent Garret. Although she was 14 years his junior they married in 1867. Together they were active members of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage (NUWSS).

In 1880 Henry became a member of the Government led by William Gladstone. As Post Master General, the Minister responsible for the postal service, he introduced the first parcel post service, postal orders and the telegram.

In 1882 he was taken seriously ill with diphtheria. Although he survived, he was seriously weakened. Aged just 51 he died of pleurisy in 1884.

In 1890 Millicent was elected president of the NUWSS and continued to be a leader of the suffrage movement. She died aged 82 in 1929; one year after all women, aged 21years and over, finally gained the vote in Great Britain.

So that is why his fellow countrywomen erected a drinking fountain in the memory of Henry Fawcett.

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