Dunera and its Jewish Internees in 1940

The BBC said in 1940 thousands of Germans, Austrians and Italians in Britain were sent to camps set up at racecourses and incomplete housing estates, such as Huyton outside Liverpool. That many of the enemy aliens were Jewish refugees and therefore hardly likely to be sympathetic to the Nazis, didn’t seem to ring alarm bells. The majority were interned on the Isle of Man; in one Isle of Man camp, over 80% of the internees were Jewish refugees, most of whom had fled Germany and Austria after Kristallnacht 9/11/1938.

Because they were considered a risk to British security, 7,000+ internees were deported, the majority to Canada, some to Australia. The liner Arandora Star left for Canada in July 1940 carrying German and Italian internees, but it was torpedoed and sunk with huge loss of life.

2,542 men were taken to Australia on the Dunera, which sailed a week after the Arandora Star. According to the BBC, the internees were subjected to humiliating treatment and intentionally abysmal conditions on the two-month voyage. Many had their possessions destroyed by the British military guards.

The ship arrived in Australia in June 1939, then the men was taken for internment in the tiny rural towns of Hay in New South Wales and Tatura in Victoria. Among the men on the Dunera who had so threatened Britain’s very security were artists Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack, art historians Franz Phillipp and Ernst Kitzinger, photographer Henry Talbot, composer Felix Werder, mathematician Dr Felix Behrend and Franz Stampfl, later Australia’s most brilliant athletics coach.

Whereas the British guards on the Dunera were brutal and anti-Semitic, the Australian guards were reported to be kind and generous with their own food and cigarettes. The internees were placed in barracks that housed 28 men apiece. Barbed wire and guard towers surrounded the perimeter, but the guards rarely intruded and the internees ran their own affairs through an elected parliament. They developed soccer teams, a choral and theatre group; they printed a newspaper and they “published” books. So educated were these men that while they were interned in rural prison camps, they set up their own unofficial university to pass the time and to deal with Australian summer.

Tatura Internment Camp, Victoria

The Dunera story is a testament to the human spirit, the ability of young men to survive, despite the Holocaust that befell their parents and siblings in Europe. Today the Dunera Museum in Hay is an internment centre that houses exhibits documenting the history of one of Australia’s lesser moments in history. It is located in Hay’s old railway station platform and two train carriages.

Why were the Jewish men so unwelcome in Australia? Two pressing factors lay behind Australia’s attitude to Jewish refugees. One was the high level of unemployment in the wake of the Depression, and the fear that a wave of refugees would take jobs from Australian workers. This was the generally held view about immigration in Australia before WW2, although we now know that migrants create more jobs than they occupy.

The second factor was Australia’s status as a self-described “British society.” As Australian Memories of the Holocaust noted Prime Minister Stanley Bruce said in 1928 that he wanted Australians to remain “essentially a British and white people.” In April 1938 the Australian Interior Minister, John McEwen, wrote in a Cabinet submission: “The Jews are highly intelligent as a class and usually make a success of whatever occupation or business they fellow, but in view of their religious beliefs and strict rules as regards marriage, they remain a separate race, and this failure to become properly assimilated in the country of adoption appears to create difficulties in any country where they form a considerable proportion of the population.” Even the Labour opposition party didn’t want Jews coming in. Labour MP Albert Green said about Jewish refugees in 1939: “My opposition to this proposal is far stronger than it would be if the immigrants were of the Nordic race and came from northern European countries. People from those places would help to develop Australia.”

Dunera Museum, Hay

A Conference on German and Austrian Jewish refugees was held in Évian-les-Bains in France in July 1938. The Australian delegate to the Evian Conference was the Minister for Customs, Colonel Tom White, whose speech which has become notorious as representing the negative attitudes taken by most delegates at the conference. He said: “Under the circumstances Australia cannot do more. Undue privileges cannot be given to one particular class of non-British subjects without injustice to others. It will no doubt be appreciated also that, as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one.”

The nations of the world could have saved some of Central Europe’s 500,000 Jews at Évian, but they offered little more than token gestures. Some countries accepted quotas of Jewish refugees. Australia’s quota was 8,000. Our practice was marginally more generous than our politics, and eventually we took in about 10,000. Compare this with other quotas: Canada 8,000, Britain 65,000 and the USA 190,000.

Some people DID criticise Evian. The Sydney Morning Herald editorialised: “There cannot but be disappointment with the negative nature of the speech made by the Australian representative... It is a truism that the Commonwealth has no racial problem and no desire to import one. On the other hand it prides itself on being a democracy with a strong tradition of tolerance, and any undue suggestion of racial intolerance constitutes a betrayal of our cherished traditions.”

But Australia was a large and thinly populated country which obviously could have accepted many more refugees, had the political will been there. By contrast, poorer nations took larger quotas: Argentina took 50,000, Paraguay 20,000, Chile 14,000, Bolivia 12,000 and Cuba 4,500, although not all these quotas were actually filled before emigration became impossible after 1940.

Many central European Jews could have been saved, if the international community had been prepared to act firmly before 1939. These deaths remain a dark stain on the collective conscience of the western democracies. Even after nearly 70 years, Michael Danby MP reminded us to ask ourselves how was it that so few were able to escape while so many were left to die. Through a combination of good luck, desperation and the unpredictable generosity of others, only a small fragment of the doomed Jewish population of Europe was able to escape in time and find refuge in other countries, including Australia. Australians need to be honest about our past and we also need to be honest about the tragedy of refugees in the current era.

ex-railway station, Hay

19th Century Amusement Centres: healthy living, sport, fun

Max Liebermann, Boys Bathing, 1898

The concept of "healthy living" witnessed the peak of its development by the end of the C19th and early C20th. Once most people had left the countryside and moved into city life, the seaside held a held a special position in peoples’ thinking as a place of cleanliness, good health, fresh air, exercise and above all fun. But when more pleasure-orientated themes emerged in the late C19th, seaside holiday resorts had to compete with man-made entertainment centres, often water-based.

Only in Germany did the healthy living movement seem to concern itself more with rigorous exercise, good food and fresh air, and less with fun and relaxation. Max Liebermann and other artists documented young men swimming, running naked and staying fit.

Vienna, Prater Park

Examine some sporting and entertainment centres of the late C19th. St Kilda Baths is an old Melbourne institution which I have photographed in this blog before. The cold sea baths and hotel on St Kilda main beach were originally called the Gymnasium Baths 1862. Since swimming from the open beach was prohibited during daylight hours, bathers were obliged to keep within the walls of the baths. The complex must have been quite exciting because it included a gymnasium, refreshment rooms and a swimming space in the bay that was protected from sharks. How clever of the designers to maximise the entertainment opportunities offered during the hot months. The hot sea baths and changing sheds came later, but eventually it all burned down and was replaced with a piece of exotica called South Pacific, complete with Arabian style façade (sic).

Vienna's World Expo of 1873 was built in Prater Park, located on Danube and Canal on an isolated island in the NE part of the city. The arrival of coffee-houses and cafés led to the start of the Wurstelprater, but it was never a centre of active sports; its c4,000 acres included more leisurely entertainment: lawns, gardens, landscaped lakes, forests. The 61 m in diameter Riesenrad wheel, at the entrance of the Prater, was not erected until 1897, to celebrate Emperor Franz Josef I's golden Jubilee. For wonderful photos of the 1873 Expo, see the Dinosaurs and Robots blog.

*
The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago was the first world's fair with an area for amusements that was specifically removed from the more serious exhibition spaces. Midway Plaisance included carnival rides, side shows and the John Phillip Sousa band. But above all it had the original Ferris wheel, designed by George Washington Ferris, as an entertainment centrepiece. It consisted of an upright, rotating wheel, with passenger gondolas attached to the rim. Brian Karpuk at newsburglar suggested the Ferris Wheel was the Chicago Expo’s answer to the 1889 Paris Expo’s Eiffel Tower.

Chicago Expo's entertainment area

The Kursaal Amusement Park and Gardens at Southend On Sea in Essex was the brainchild of some local professional men who bought land in town to build a new park, for both residents and holiday makers. This Marine Park and Gardens section opened in 1894. The Kursaal section was completed in 1901, with a great silver dome over the entrance. Presumably the spa part of the complex was intended as a place of healthy amusement. The other fun facilities included a circus, ballroom, arcade with amusements, dining hall, games rooms an extremely long pleasure pier. Livepoets blog has wonderful seaside resort images from after the turn of the century.

Southend, Essex

Perhaps the most amazing entertainment, amusement and healthy living centre was in Edinburgh. The Royal Patent Gymnasium was designed by businessman and philanthropist John Cox. Cox had decided that Edinburgh citizens required somewhere to exercise and improve their physical fitness, and conceived the idea of using a large sheltered area in the northern part of Edinburgh New Town as an open-air pleasure-ground for the 'promotion of healthful recreation'. Opened in 1865, it was definitely part of the commitment to healthy recreation.

As you can see from the 1867-68 advertisements, the Gymnasium's showpiece was a giant rotary boat for rowers. In addition, the Gym also provided equipment for outdoor games in summer and ice-skating in winter. It included an extensive exhibition hall, erected in 1868; a velocipede merry-go-round, 160’ in circumference; a gigantic see-saw, 100’ long; extensive ponds with supply of small boats and canoes; swimming baths; a training bicycle course, with bicycles for hire; and an athletics track. Brass bands played music on weekends. For a 6d entrance fee, each customer bought a great deal of exercise and fun.

Royal Patent Gym Edinburgh, rotary boat

The Royal Patent Gymnasium was hugely popular, until the end of the century when all the equipment was taken away. The site later became a football pitch for St Bernard's Football Club.

Women's Cultural Salons: literature, music, art, politics

I have been fascinated by the range of creative talent and interest that salonieres managed to get together in the privacy of their homes, largely during the 1795-1905 era. These women may well have had important fathers and husbands, but I am certain that it was their own organising skills that created the perfect ambience for their guests. I am equally certain that the salonieres made important contributions in their own right to the progress of 19th century literature, music and art.

You can find three posts (so far) on the topic:
1. Jewish Women: early 19th century salons
2. Berta Zuckerkandl, Vienna's Saloniere, and
3. Jewish Women: Later 19th-Century Salons a guest post for the At My Soiree blog.

Examine how well connected Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus was. On the left she posed with Edgar Degas and two other very smartly dressed gentlemen. Marcel Proust seems to have taken the photo. On the right are Guy de Maupassant, Madame de Broissia, Visconte Eugène Melchior de Vogue, Madame Straus and Generale Anenkoff (credit: Nel mondo di Marcel Proust page)

Lady of Shalott: Keeping the Lady

Towers are ambiguous structures. The keep, or tower, holds people in and out. Towers are bulwarks against what is outside: the chaos of nature, marauders, and things that go bump in the night. Towers protect the outside from what is locked within: the prisoner, the crazy woman, the hunchback. They are spires rising to God, symbol of male sexuality, and sanctuary for hermits, saints, and damsels.

In Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” and “Lancelot and Elaine” (from The Idylls of the King) towers are, unsurprisingly, ambiguous structures. There are the bulwarks of “many tower’d Camelot,” the defenses for the court. A tower is refuge and chamber for Elaine of Astolat. In her tower, she guards Lancelot’s shield, creates the elaborate silk case for it, and pines away with unrequited love for the knight. The Lady of Shalott lives and works in her tower, and, depending on how one interprets the poem, it keeps her in, either to protect her from the outside world or to protect the society of Camelot from her.

Holman Hunt, Lady of Shalott, 1890s, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Connecticut

It is likely that Tennyson added the detail of the tower for both of his damsels. The source for “Lancelot and Elaine” is Malory’s The Morte Darthur; for “The Lady of Shalott,” it is La Donna di Scalotta, an Italian work from the thirteenth century. The source for the story of Elaine of Astolat/Scalotta in both Malory and the Italian work is the early thirteenth-century Mort Artu. Malory’s work is a close paraphrase of the earlier French work, and there is no tower for Elaine in Malory. That suggests that there is also no tower in Tennyson’s Italian source for “The Lady of Shallot.”

It’s an important point because of the sheer number of isolating features, all created by Tennyson for the Lady. He has acknowledged that the island, mirror, and web are his inventions (Marshall 59). Add the tower, and the Lady’s security is indeed tight. She is on an island, in a tower, able to see the outside world only in a mirror. In case this is not enough, there is a curse which keeps her in place.

The poem is more about keeping the Lady in, unable to damage society, which fits with a thread that runs through many Arthurian tales. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in Malory’s The Morte Darthur, and, notably, in Tennyson’s The Idylls of the King, there are ideological threats to the idealized world of Camelot, threats to the fundamentals of the chivalric code. They are fertility, faerie, art and artifice, and fate, the older Celtic elements, seen in the shape-shifting Green Knight, Merlin, and Morgan Le Fay. Additionally, women, especially outside of the marriage contract – legitimately or otherwise – are always a threat to the idealized fellowship of the knights.

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Celtic game and artifice expose not only the possibility of too much pride in Arthur’s court, but the impossibility of upholding the chivalric code in its entirety, including the rules for courtly love.

In Malory’s The Morte Darthur, Arthur insists on burning Guinevere for her infidelity. He says that he may have queens aplenty, but such a fellowship of good knights will not happen again (Malory 114). Only marriage and the appearance of fidelity can contain and control the disruptive force of women in the world of Camelot. When the system fails, or fails publicly, the woman must be punished and removed to preserve the system. Guinevere escapes burning mostly because of Gawain’s pleas on her behalf.

In Tennyson’s The Idylls of the King, Guinevere is a jealous shrew, much worse than Lancelot who may be guilty of dire insensitivity, but not infidelity. Both Elaine and Guinevere are disruptive, unpleasant elements in the ideal world of the noble king and his knights.

The Lady of Shalott is faerie, woman, and artist. With her art, she is not of the world of nature; she is not of the world of ideas. Her secondhand image of Camelot, like Lady Elaine’s image of Lancelot’s shield on the silk case, substitutes the artificial for the real.

The Lady of Shalott comprises all the elements most threatening to the world of Camelot. Her tower, on an island, in a river, keeps her isolated and away from the highly idealized world of the knights and their ladies in Camelot. Her escape can only end with her death, for she is the triple-fold threat that leads to the break-up of the fellowship of the Knights of the Round Table.

Not surprisingly, the Lady of Shalott comprises many of the elements most threatening to Victorian society, at least to appearances in the male-dominated public sphere. Relegated to the private sphere, her mystery and sexuality are controlled. She cannot be an artist; weaving and embroidery become merely household arts.

John Waterhouse, Lady of Shalott Looking at Lancelot, 1894, Leeds Art Gallery.

The home is the Victorian equivalent of the Lady of Shalott’s tower. The husband is the mirror, the Victorian woman’s only access to the outside world. The lady’s arts are not creative, only mimetic.

The lie is in the ambiguity of towers. Victorians wished to believe they were keeping the lady safe by keeping her in. Really they were keeping the male-dominated world of appearances safe from her power. An angel in the house is still an angel.

Canadian Loreena McKennitt has written a beautiful song version of “The Lady of Shalott” which is nearly verbatim. The visuals in this video are beautiful.

**
Malory,Thomas. The Morte Darthur. Ed. D.S. Brewer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP. 1974.
Marshall., George. A Tennyson Handbook. NewYork: Twayne, 1963.

Many thanks for this guest blog, written by
ChrisJ
At My Soiree

Vienna's Ringstrasse: 1860-1890

A very young Emperor Franz Joseph came to the throne of Austria in 1848 and reigned for a long 68 years. Franz Joseph made a great difference to the look of his capital city, demolishing the city’s defensive, medieval walls in 1857 to build an imperial boulevard as an expression of the glorious Habsburg Empire.

The Ringstrasse was the resulting new, wide boulevard, surrounding the centre of Vienna, today the First District and joining the city to the suburbs. The 4 ks of boulevard, and the buildings on both sides, took 30 years to complete (in 1890) and now is the defining characteristic of C19th Viennese grandeur. It’s enclosed by linden and plane trees, and little trams moving in both directions in a very efficient, clean system according to The Overhead Wire blog. The Hungarian Girl blog put riding around the Ringstrasse on a tram as her first recommendation for modern tourists.  Mind you, she put Viennese food as recommendations #4, 8 and 10.

Ringstrasse trams and trees

A new golden age of building came to Vienna, based on this gracious Ringstrasse: all the city’s monumental institutions were located there. The buildings already present in the Innere Stadt were churches and imperial buildings; the new Ringstrasse developments were buildings which stressed secular culture and the new constitutional government, including the Parliament, Rathaus, University.

Beyond the Ringstrasse lie Vienna's 7 inner suburbs. But the Ringstrasse was never meant to divide the old city from the new; rather it was a place for café society to see and be seen.

At least two institution were already in place, before the walls came down. So Franz Joseph cannot be blamed if you don’t like the Museum of Military History 1850-6 or the Votivkirche 1856-79. The museum designed by Ludwig Foerster and Theophil Hansen, taking elements from Byzantine, Hispano-Moorish and Neo-Gothic styles. The Votivkirche, built as an offering of thanks by architect Heinrich von Ferstel, was designed in the neo-Gothic style. Since the city-walls still existed at that point, the church wasn’t located exactly along the boulevard.

Staatsoper/Opera House 1863-9 was one of the first classical buildings along Ringstrasse. Presumably the architects chose the Italian Renaissance style since that era had been important for art and music. Visitors and tourists could walk around the very sumptuous interiors, then go straight to the Hotel Sacher for an after-the-performance supper!

Opera House, 1869

The Rathaus 1872-83 was designed by Friedrich von Schmidt in the Gothic style. The building served as the seat of the city council of Vienna and mayor, AND served as the assembly of the State of Vienna within Austria’s federal system. Facing the Rathaus is large lovely park, Rathauspark. Brennan McNulty's Blog provided very useful information on the Wien Museum in Karlsplatz. The museum collects material on the history of the city to art, fashion and modern culture, from the earliest settlements to the present day. I am mentioning this site now because this museum was founded in 1887 and housed until after WW2 in the Rathaus.

Parliament House built 1874-83, designed by architect Baron Theophil von Hansen in the Greek revival style. He was also responsible for the interior decoration such as statues, paintings, furniture and chandeliers. NB statue of Athena and the fountain, a notable Viennese tourist attraction. Since destruction in WW2, most of the Parliamentary interior has been fully restored. Marble was everywhere. The debating chamber and galleries were based on an ancient Greek theatre. The classical Hall of Pillars was used for formal receptions.

Kunsthistorische Museum, 1891

The Kunsthistorische Museum 1871-91 was build by architects Gottfried Semper and Carl Hasenauer. The visitor went through the lobby and up the stairs, past Canova's sculpture of Theseus and the Centaur. The Museum was an elaborate, neo renaissance building, as befitted such a fine and elaborate art collection, and was the first time that the entire collection could be gathered in one place. Of course since the gallery held 8000 paintings and only about 800 could be displayed at any one time, there was and is still a large portion of the collection in storage. This very royal collection was well described in Luxagraf blog.

The University was founded in 1365 and is thus the oldest university in the German-speaking world. The main building on the Ringstraße was built by Heinrich von Ferstel 1877-84. The old building was located close to the Stuben Gate, Iganz Seipel Square, current home of the old University Church and Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Vienna needed its own very prestigious theatre of course, and so the Burgtheatre 1888 became another important public building to be completed along the newly laid out Ringstrasse. On the façade, busts of poets and famous characters from world literature were complimented by pairs of figures which provided the themes of many plays. The Burgtheatre had 2 long wings, each containing a magnificent staircase. The centre of the theatre was bombed during WW2 and had to be rebuilt, but the 2 staircases, with ceiling frescoes by Klimt, were safe. The interior, with 4 tiers, was splendid.

This was followed by the Museum of Natural History and Parliament House, classical architecture in the Habsburg taste. The Museum of Natural History 1872-91 was one of the important museums of this type, built to house the extraordinary collection of the Habsburgs. The museum’s two buildings were designed by Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer.

Burgtheatre, 1888

Franz Joseph culture was based on great architecture and parks, but it was also based on Vienna’s café society. In 1685 Emperor Leopold I granted an Armenian merchant the exclusive 20-year right to serve coffee and the drinking of Viennese-style coffee soon spread over central Europe: Marseilles and Paris, soon after Vienna, 1683; Nuremberg and Regensburg, 1686; Hamburg, 1687; Stuttgart, 1712; Berlin, 1721. By 1714 Vienna had already 11 licensed coffee houses.

And another thing. The development of coffee-houses in Austria went along with an important innovation: the first periodical newspapers were created eg Wienerische Diarium, later called Wiener Zeitung. These newspapers appeared twice a week, so a person could either have a subscription OR read it in a coffee-house. From then on, Austrian coffee-houses became been a place for the well read people.

During this period, the Neuner’s coffee house established itself as Vienna’s leading literary café. Its regular patrons included the best-known authors of the Biedermeier period. In 1824 Ignaz Neuner upgraded his café to the Silver Coffee House, Vienna’s most luxurious café. All the utensils and room accessories were made of silver. After the Silver Coffee House’s heyday, Café Griensteidl welcomed Viennese literary luminaries with an antique folksy decor and daily newspapers. And Café Zentral was elegant from the outside and gorgeous inside. Note that whereas Paris cafes concentrated on coffee, alcohol and a bohemian life style, Viennese cafes concentrated on coffee, cakes, stringed quartets and an elegant lifestyle.

Demel’s pastry shop in Michaelerpaltz was first founded in 1785. Patissier Christoph Demel acquired the business in 1857 and moved to its present position in 1888. An elaborate ground floor window-display showcased the confection shop. An upstairs café, the meeting point for the old high society.

A majestic palace, the Vienna residence of the Prince of Württemberg, was built on the magnificent Ringstrasse in 1863. Transformed into a sumptuous hotel for the world exhibition in 1873, Hotel Imperial still showcases the C19th romance of Vienna with marble, statues and spectacular crystal chandeliers. Right from the beginning it enjoyed a world-wide reputation as close to the opera, equipped with highest elegance and large comfort. The Sacher Hotel has been popular with the rich and famous ever since it opened in 1876 by pastry chef Franz Sacher's son, Eduard Sacher and his wife, Anna. Potatomato Blog concentrated on Ringstrasse food (naturally!) and reported that Sacher’s was still top notch.

Yet by 1873 Vienna held a reduced image in the minds of the rest of the world. The Austria-Hungary Empire had lost a significant amount of land and power over the last two decades, and a war with France and conflicts with Prussia had triggered internal social and economic upheavals. So there were several specific goals for a World Expo. Vienna wanted show off its economic reconstruction and position itself as a centre of exchange between the East and West, an empire equal in importance to France and Britain.

In 1870 Emperor Franz Joseph approved the Expo plan and put Baron Wilhelm von Schwarz-Sendborn, the man who had organised Austrian exhibits at previous world's fairs, in charge. Baron Schwarz-Sendborn wanted "a truly universal exhibition that would embrace every field on which human intellect has been at work".

The opening of the Vienna World Expo 1873 was an expression of the Habsburg monarchy’s material progress and economic achievement. The years of expansive commercial enterprise in late 1860s-early 1870s were characterised by railroad and industrial expansion, and the growth of Vienna. I won’t discuss the Expo’s location and facilities since Prater Park is nowhere near the Ringstrasse. But we need to note that the old railway station in the city had become too small and had to be rebuilt in time for the Expo. The splendid new Nordbahnhof building was completed in 1865, along with its sculptures and fresco painters.

Mozart in a Ringstrasse Park

Eventually the Ringstrasse parks were filled with musicians’ statues: Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss, and concerts offered music by Mendelssohn, Schubert, Mahler, Brahms and Johann Strauss. The poet Frederick von Schiller was also celebrated, in front of the Fine Arts Academy. The Vienna of Franz Josef took its culture very seriously.

I liked the summary written by Human Transit blog: If something really matters in Vienna, it's on the Ringstrasse.

Remember Them: Guide to Victoria's Wartime Heritage

Like historian Garrie Hutchinson, who we will meet in a moment, I had a very powerful moral and political objection to the Vietnam war. My grandfather had been a soldier-translator in the 1914-18 war and my father was an engineer in the 1939-45 war. But I did whatever was open to a civilian to bring about the end of conscription for Vietnam. And I still grieve for the parents who lost their sons in all wars.

Those of you who follow this blog will know that I am very interested in the community memorials created to mourn those appalling losses. You can find my earlier posts on war memorials in:
Mildura: a rural city full of Art Deco gems,
Charles Sargeant Jagger II: low reliefs,
Charles Sargeant Jagger I: war and sex,
Australian Bandstands in the Federation Era and
Melbourne's Shrine and the Great Depression.

Within a few years after the end of World War One, there would have been very few towns throughout Australia that did not have their own war memorial. Steve Gower of the Australian War Memorial noted that quite a few were simple stone figures of a classless soldier without rank, of sombre expression, resting on his arms, reversed on a plinth. Usually a roll of honour provided a list of locals who had enlisted, with the names of those who died indicated by a asterisk.

Or there was no individual soldier statue at all. Instead communities may have chosen a cenotaph, a vertical slab of granite that resembled a large headstone, a memorial arch, a ceremonial gate into the local park, a Cross of Sacrifice or a statue of a grieving mother. Internet Curtains blog, in examining the Triumphal Arch at Victoria Embankment in Nottingham, believed the choice of memorial needed to be sensitive to the real politics of the war being memorialised. Nottingham’s triumphal arch in portland stone with intricate iron detailing may have been over-the-top, Chris believed, but at least the patron showed enough good taste not to commission a corpse, a Portland stone artillery gun or a lion trampling a snake.

Garrie Hutchinson’s latest book is called Remember Them: A Guide to Victoria's Wartime Heritage. The publishers wrote: Victoria's wartime and military heritage encompasses a vast range of memorials, from the majestic Shrine of Remembrance to local war monuments, honour boards, cemeteries, Avenues of Honour, sculptures, museums and memorabilia. Each memorial commemorates the lives, courage and sacrifice of the local soldiers who served in the various theatres of war around the world, from WW1 and WW2, Korea, Vietnam and more recent battles. This detailed guidebook shares the personal stories of the individuals honoured in 250 of Victoria's key war memorials, both metropolitan and rural. Arranged geographically, with accompanying maps and photographs, the book provides a unique insight into the nation’s wartime history and the local heroes who fought.

Charlton memorial, rural Victoria, date?

I will select just one Victorian town as an example. The Charlton memorial was designed as a white marble Digger statue on granite obelisk that has four wings at the base. A series of granite posts surrounds the memorial, the first saying In Memory Of The Soldiers Of Charlton and Didstrict Who Gave Their Lives For The Empire During The Great War 1914-1919. The second says Erected By The Citizens Of Charlton And District In Memory Of Those Who Paid The Supreme Sacrifice World War 2, 1939-1945. The name of every local lad who served, was wounded or died in battle is listed individually on the marble plaques.

The Age (8/11/09)  said that it was Hutchinson's sixth book on military history and pilgrimage. Yet as an enemy of Vietnam War conscription, he felt hounded out from a State Government job as a project officer in veterans’ heritage, where his work involved military commemoration and education. Hutchinson found tragic and heroic stories all over Victoria, carved into granite or marble; built in bronze; on monuments in main streets, parks or cemeteries; on honour boards in community halls, Mechanics' Institutes and clubs in every community. They mark sacrifice, devotion to duty and family loss in the state's wartime heritage, from colonial times on. In many ways our monuments and war memorials speak to that unique national character, he claims. “If you look at the statues that are all about the place, they're all about mateship, helping each other, compassion and volunteering.

Small and large communities in other states, devastated by the loss of their young men, also built special memorials. Your Brisbane Past and Present blog has 3 posts that include an equine Boer War statue, once in Edward St Brisbane and moved to Anzac Square instead. The Second Boer War (1899-1902) started just prior to federation in this country, but Australians still flocked to the defence of the empire on horseback.

The Sydney City and Suburbs blog located many such sites eg1 Enfield War Memorial in the south western suburbs of Sydney. Built to remember World War I servicemen, it was unveiled in 1924. The Howitzer gun on the sandstone pedestal was donated by the French government in recognition of Australia’s heroic wartime support. Eg2 Cronulla War Memorial is an obelisk with a paved sandstone base, a sandstone block mid-section and a polished granite top section. The main inscription says “1914-1919 Honour Roll Cronulla War Memorial. Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name liveth for evermore.” .

But I wonder. Only the parents, siblings, widows and school friends would have remembered the soldiers by name. Once these people stopped visiting, would subsequent generations ever visit the memorials? For the men involved in the 1914-8 war, I am guessing that the names would have ceased being meaningful to the general community within 30 years. Now citizens pay their communal respect only on Anzac Day (25/4), as shown so sensitively by aussie_time_traveller and many other bloggers.
*

Anzac Day, Eden war memorial, NSW

George B. Shaw, Fabian Society, London School of Economics

The Fabian Society was founded in 1884 by the best and brightest of Britain’s reformist thinkers. Absolutely anyone I would have wanted to correspond with in late Victorian Britain was a member, including Sidney and Beatrice Webb, George Bernard Shaw, HG Wells, Graham Wallas, Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf, Ramsay MacDonald, Emmeline Pankhurst, Annie Besant and Bertrand Russell.

The Society joined with trade unionists in 1900 to found the Labour Party, suggesting that the Fabians were not merely intellectuals and writers. The key elements of a modern democracy first emerged in Fabian pamphlets. They proposed a minimum wage in 1906, the National Health Service in 1911 and the abolition of hereditary peers in 1917, all of which has or will improve the quality of life of ordinary working families.

Along with Fabian Society members Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb and Graham Wallas, George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) founded the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1895 with his and other private funding. One of the LSE libraries is named in Shaw's honour and now has collections of his papers & photographs.

Window, designed by GB Shaw in 1910, 81 x 76cm

Despite being known as a man of letters, Shaw designed a stained glass window in 1910 as a commemoration of the Fabian Society; it showed fellow Society members helping to build the new world. Artist Caroline Townshend created the window according to Shaw's design, in 1910.

Vitreosity blog was very helpful in decoding the window’s elements. The figures are in Tudor dress to poke fun at Pease who evidently loved everything medieval. The Fabian Society coat of arms was shown as a wolf in sheep's clothing. The first man, crouching on the left, was HG Wells, cocking a snook at the others. He was followed by the actor-manager Charles Charrington, Aylmer Maude (translator of Tolstoy's War and Peace) and G Stirling Taylor (reading a book, New Worlds for Old). The women include suffragist Miss Mabel Atkinson and the artist who made the window, Caroline Townshend.

But where was the window to go? Apparently the window remained in Townshend’s workshop until after World War Two (1947), when Townsend's niece Eva Bourne took the Shaw window away. Perhaps she asked Shaw what he wanted to do with it, but being 91 at the time, he didn’t care.

The timing was good. In 1947 The Webb Memorial Trust bought a large Victorian country house near Dorking Surrey and called it the Beatrice Webb House after one of the Fabian Society’s important founders. The Trust established itself for 'the advancement of education and learning with respect to the history and problems of government and social policy'.

Beatrice and Sidney Webb, and George Bernard Shaw

Bourne presented the Shaw window to Beatrice Webb House in the very year the house was formally opened by the Trust as an educational venue for the Labour party and Fabian Society. The house was opened by Labour prime minister Clement Attlee, also a former LSE lecturer.

It is unclear what happened to the window next. Americans stole from the house in 1978 and took it to Phoenix Arizona, but were they fans of the Fabian Society or its mortal enemies? The window did not resurface until it appeared in a Sotheby's auction in July 2005. The Webb Memorial Trust bought it, transported it back to Britain and have now loaned it to London School of Economics, to grace the School's Shaw Library. The LSE’s Press and Information Office was delighted.
*
This time the Fabian window was unveiled by a different Labour prime minister, Tony Blair. 2006 was the centenary year of the Labour Party, and the window had settled into the Fabian-founded London School of Economics and Political Science, the social science university institution founded by the Webbs and Shaw in 1895. And as Coxsoft Art News blog noted, 2006 was also the 150th anniversary of Shaw’s birth. The circle of connections and symbols was complete.