Edwardian house parties, horse racing and shooting parties

While away on holidays last summer, I accidentally found myself in a fabulous country bookshop, filled with old books, old prints, timber floors and great coffee. I accidentally bought a brilliant book called The Fast Set: the World of Edwardian Racing by George Plumptre, 1985. I will refer to this book again and again, I imagine.

George Plumptre stressed that in marked contrast to his rather prim parents Victoria and Albert, who considered horse racing and house parties disreputable and decadent, the Prince of Wales was in his element. With plenty of money and endless leisure time at his disposal, Bertie loved nothing more than lavish house parties for race meetings. High Society of course followed him. The great aristocratic owners such as the Dukes of Westminster and Portland were primarily interested in breeding and owning the best horses of the day. Alfred de Rothschild, for his part, used the racing world as his entrance into respectable Christian society. Well-heeled families looked forward to The Season each year, to put on country house parties themselves or to attend other families’ extravaganzas.

Edwardian guests having afternoon tea 

Even architects and garden designers strove to achieve the perfect space for country house properties and their Edwardian social life. As boblatham blog showed, Sir Edwin Lutyens designed a truly exquisite formal garden for the Hon Mr Portman of Hestercombe in Somerset, which he and Gertrude Jekyll completed in 1906. Hertercombe became a stately home much loved for its summer house parties, right in the middle of the Edwardian golden age.

The Prince’s patronage gave racing and country house parties the ultimate imprimatur. Select race meetings - the Derby and Oaks at Epsom (south of London), Royal Ascot (next to Windsor), the Newmarket (near Cambridge) and Goodwood (near Bognor Regis) summer meetings and the St Leger at Doncaster (South Yorkshire) - became major events in the social calendar. In fact the royal nod made racing socially de rigeur. A friendship with the Prince of Wales was the best guarantee of social success.

Royal party at Epsom Derby (BBC photo)

Women started to be included in the horsy set. Women were expected to be able to talk about racing, to look well dressed at race meetings and to have a good horse seat themselves. But mostly women were to play leading roles in the house parties that became in integral part of life off-course. Competition among hostesses to give the largest and smartest parties and to entertain the most important people was intense. Racing as developed and enjoyed by the Edwardians, on and off the course, achieved its peak patronage by the rich and the aristocratic. It was both a major sporting and a core social event on the Edwardian calendar.

Edwardian Promenade said that the 1860s-1914 era was thought of as the Golden Age of country house entertaining. I agree with her. Popular, but the expense must have been staggering. Parties were usually held from Saturday to Monday; the host and hostess had to supply rooms in their homes for all the guests and the guests’ maids and footmen, three meals a day, all picnic meals at the race track, and their own servants to run this entire enterprise smoothly. In addition, the guests would expect to be offered tennis, croquet, golf, cricket, an outdoor band and an indoor dance.

House party at Ardington House, Oxfordshire with the Prince of Wales.

If the stately home was close enough, guests could arrive by a fleet of carriages. Otherwise it was necessary to go by train. Once guests arrived at the closest railway station, the host family would send servants to meet them and to drive them to the home via horses and carriages. I have no doubt that without the superb network of fast and efficient railways across Britain, country house parties would have been smaller, less extravagant and shorter. In time, the motorcar made it easier to get to country house parties, and then The Fast Set travelled to country homes very easily.

Though racing parties were held during The Season when Parliament was in recess, August and September were the months for country house parties that specialised in shooting. The success of the house party mainly depended upon people knowing one another. This was important for the men out in the field with the guns, and was important to the wives who had to amuse themselves while the men went out shooting. But it might have been tricky, if the host and hostess were not certain who of their guests were sleeping with whom, that year.

Plumptre noted that although shooting was a compulsive hobby for most Edwardian men of this social standing, the women were confined to the house until lunch. Then they were expected to tramp outside and eat either in a draughty tent or, worse still, in the open. After lunch the women were expected to stand silently by their husbands, barracking quietly that their man would bag the most birds. I don’t know what would be worst: the freezing cold feet, the intense boredom or the relentless noise of guns banging.

Edwardian shooting party

But even the best of times come to an end; when upper class men became the officers in the trenches of Flanders Field and died by their thousands, The Good Edwardian Life had come to an abrupt end.

Although Blog of an Art Admirer and History Lover focused more on Victorian society than Edwardian, examine the excellent paintings of well heeled Londoners having fun during The Season. Other useful reading includes:
A Member of the Aristocracy Manners and Rules of Good Society
Barstow, Phyllida The Country House Party
Campbell, Lady Colin Etiquette of Good Society
Escott, Thomas Society in the Country House
Gardner, Juliet Manor House: Life in an Edwardian Country House
Girouard, Mark Life in the English Country House
Plumptre, George The Fast Set: The World of Edwardian Racing
Ruffer, Jonathan The Big Shots: Edwardian Shooting Parties

Jewish silver art: filigree work

Jewish art has usually been considered prohibited because of the strict Second Commandment: "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of anything that is in the heaven above or that is in the water under the earth".

Although practices differed between countries and across generations, by the 12th century the fear of a pagan environment was no longer relevant for Western Jews. Their aversion to artistic work had long since diminished. Although rulings were not uniform, in general it was agreed that art was not an infraction of Rabbinic law whose veto only extended to complete representation of humans in the round and of God. So sculpture was the one art form that was never created by Jews.

filigreed Sabbath prayerbook cover

 Because Judaism was a way of life that sanctified everyday practices and routines, everyday articles were valid objects for craftsmen. Just as there was no area of ordinary existence that was untouched by Judaism, so there was almost no category of object that could not be decorated. For this reason Judaica was not limited to Fine Art. Indeed it is a truism that some objects were almost entirely utilitarian in purpose and were not manufactured to particularly please the eye. Even when Jewish art did achieve a level of great beauty, it still deviated from naturalism, towards a more ornamental approach.

Judaism was always enriched by the many ceremonies carried out by all male members of the community. When an article had a particular ritual purpose, it had to be created by a Jewish silversmith, according to the liturgy appropriate to Judaism and with the languages people spoke.

When there was no ritual purpose, the artist and the art could be very flexible. So we cannot tell, for example, whether individual burial society tankards or double wedding cups were Christian or Jewish. We can tell, however, that they were pieces of art of their time and place. Religious art might have served an eternal God, but it was subject to the same fads and fashions as were all other products.

Jewish ritual always had some purposes that it shared with Christianity, and others that Christianity did not adopt when in broke away from its mother religion. One shared value was that people of both religions were lifted above the mundane and the secular when they performed acts of piety. These acts became an expression of the relationship between the individual, or the community, and God.

People of both religions were also reminded of the historical component of their faith when they perform ancient observances. There was a powerful sense of continuity and permanence in rituals that derived from the fore fathers in ancient Israel.

Finally ritual enabled people in both religions to find an appropriate format for mobilising their emotions and thoughts on the occasion of major events in their lives such as a birth, marriage or death.

filigreed menorah/candelabra, 

19th century, Polish

Thus all rituals, whether carried out in a holy building or not, could be considered religious. And all medieval art was, in that sense, religious. But medieval Jews had 613 specific commandments to fulfil throughout their life and this is what separated them from their Christian neighbours.

The didactic function of art was rarely important in Judaism because the near universal literacy amongst Jewish males, at least, made it unnecessary. Compare this to Christian medieval art when teaching the illiterate was the main purpose of stained glass windows, sculpture and precious metal work. Nonetheless art was valued; it made the achievement of the 613 commandments more pleasing and merit-worthy if they were fulfilled in a beautiful way.

But because the life of medieval Jews was precarious, only art work that could be packed up at a moment's notice would be commissioned. Fixed or heavy structures were out of the question; stained glass and frescoes were very very rare. Three dimensional sculpture was in any case banned.

filigreed mezuzah case, 

Israel

Filigree is a delicate and lace-like decorative style, made with twisted threads usually of gold and silver, or stitching of the same curving motifs. Filigreework was not a Jewish invention - see for example the use of gold and silver filigree in Greek, Etruscan and Indian art. But after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Jewish silver smiths settled in North Africa and introduced filigree and cloisonné techniques to the craftsmen there. Filigree work became most popular amongst Jewish Yemenites.

Filigree work also became a very popular decorative technique in the south German silver centres in the 17th century. Beautiful examples of antique filigreed rosaries from Bavarian Christian silversmiths abounded. Soon Jewish silversmiths started using filigree on spice containers for Sabbath, Esther scrolls for Purim or any other Jewish object that they fancied. Even illuminated Jewish manuscripts could be decorated with wide borders ornamented with lush foliate forms, framing their opening pages. Initial words were often written, in gold, within very large panels embellished with filigree work.

Giorgio Busetto and Pascal Jonnaert showed a Russian spice tower from the 19th century, made by a Jewish artist. The base was designed in the form of a three dimensional David's shield made with an impressive work of filigree. Above the base was a hidden cup with 6 large stones on its base and 5 small jade stones in the patterns of filigree flowers. The tower's base was retractable so that the cup could be used for the service to farewell the Sabbath.

A menorah/candelabra’s silver was often decorated with filigree motifs. The scrolls might contain a double-headed eagle or an arched double doorway that opened as an ark would open; to show a Torah scroll inside. Other motifs included open flowers, pillars, crowns and birds. The front was always set with eight oil-containers perhaps in the form of miniature containers, and there was also a servant light with scrolling filigree stem supporting a candleholder.

Cote de Texas blog has the most beautiful filigreed cover for a Sabbath day prayer book. It looked so ornamental and so delicate that we can assume it was made for a woman to carry. I only wish I knew which country it came from and when it was made.

filigreed spice tower and cup, 

19th century, Russian

Typically a mezuzah case held the prayer parchment that was attached to the doorpost of Jewish homes. The parchment itself held the holiness of the object but the beauty of the holder could magnify the glamour of the object. In the Israeli mezuzah case (see photo), the filigreed silver was further decorated with semi precious stones.

When the Silver Department at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design was established in Jerusalem in 1908, teachers from Yemen, Germany and Poland came to teach filigree silver art to the students.

Rocky Mountains train ride - the USA version

During the Long Depression of 1873, a number of American railroads went bankrupt. The St Paul and Pacific Railroad was in a terrible financial and legal mess. But some industrialists suffered less than other Americans. Canadian James J Hill (1838–1916) believed the St Paul and Pacific Railroad could be turned around financially, provided that the initial capital could be found. Hill developed a team with four other successful business men who, together, bought the St Paul railroad and expanded into the area formerly run by the Northern Pacific Railway. James J Hill became the proud general manager of the brand new St Paul Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Co in 1879.

Just one decade later (in 1889), James Hill merged the St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway with the Montana Central Railroad to form the Great Northern Railway. Hill became known, rather grandiosely, as the Empire Builder.

Great Northern's Empire Builder nearing the summit of the Continental Divide at Marias Pass. This is on the southern boundary of Glacier National Park in the Montana Rockies (Company postcard).

 But Darren Sainsbury noted that much of the Great Northern Railroad was not laid down until the early 1890s, AFTER the merger. Breaching the Rockies must have been the most difficult engineering task for them to deal with, so they had to locate the lowest pass across the Rockies in all of the USA. Despite another terrible depression in the 1890s, Hill’s new service quickly became the most enduring Gilded Age railway in North America.

Today the 2-day trip is definitely no longer gilded. In order to keep the trip affordable, passengers can choose between very cheap coach seats (USA$150), roomettes with no private toilet and shower, and bedrooms with private toilet and shower (still quite cheap at USA$ 420+). All sleeping car passenger receive complete meal service in the dining car as part of their ticket price. Coach class passenger have three choices: a] they may use the dining car, as long as they pay for any meal they purchase, B] they can order from the at-seat meal service or C] they can buy sandwiches at the railway stations en route and bring them aboard.

The plan must be working well because, since 2007, the Great Northern Railroad has been Amtrak's busiest long-distance route, carrying 500,000+ travellers annually. But this train is definitely not the Orient Express where people dressed up in cocktail gear en route to Istanbul. It isn't even as elegant as the Rocky Mountaineer trip that spouse and I loved so much in Canada. Yes Virginia, there is Life after Retirement called it 'camping on wheels'.

Observation car

There are 40 stops in all, starting from Seattle (or Portland), continuing via Cascade Mountains, Columbia River Gorge, Spokane, Whitefish, Glacier National Park, Minot, St Paul, Minneapolis and ending in Chicago. For a foreigner like myself, the best part of the trip is The Trails and Rails Programme. Presented during each day in summer in cooperation with the National Park Service, volunteer rangers offer en-route lectures in the observation car. They discussed everything I wanted to know about the history, culture and geography of the Great Plains.

Everyone’s travel highlight is different. The company realises that passengers will spend much of the time looking at (rather boring?) plains in North Dakota and Eastern Montana, so they emphasise the varied landscapes, crops, small towns and three Indian reservations.

Whitefish, Montana

Spectacular landscape comes when the train is going through the Rocky Mountains; here The Empire Builder has four stops close to Glacier National Park eg in Whitefish Montana. We appreciated the rugged snow-capped mountains, majestic tree stands, rugged wildlife, and pristine lakes and rivers.

Passengers can see where the Snake and Yakima Rivers join, creating the mighty Columbia River. In the Columbia River gorge, along the Amtrak route, it is easy to take in the stunning beauty of its black basalt cliffs, ribbon-like waterfalls, and lush fir forests. And for those going to/from Portland, the train follows the Columbia on its Washington state side. Mt St Helens can be seen on one side of the train and Mount Hood ranges over the river on the other. The observation car is like a giant picture theatre. Spectacular!

Monkeegrrl’s Blog loved the experience. She described going through some of the most beautiful country the US has to offer. “From Chicago to the Wisconsin Dells, the Minnesota prairie, stunning fields of sunflowers in North Dakota, mountains and rivers in Montana and Idaho and on into Oregon. The train travelled into Glacier National Park and stopped at the lodge, which was originally designed as a rail stop. Porters came up from the hotel to take luggage from visiting passengers”.

Great Northern's map, in The Empire Builder brochure, 1951

For people going in the other direction, The Empire Builder leaves from Chicago’s Union Station, Amtrak’s midwest hub at 2:15 pm daily. The train stops to receive passengers in north suburban Chicago IL and Milwaukee WI before continuing across Central Wisconsin. At La Crosse WI, the train crosses the Mississippi River to Minnesota and winds along the river to St Paul.

Tulip mania revisited

17th century middle class Dutch homes loved having fresh flowers on their hall stand. If they couldn't afford a constant supply of fresh flowers, they could commission a beautiful painting of fresh flowers, and put the painting on their hall stand instead. The 1620 Ambrosius Bosschaert painting below included tulips and other flowers.

Tulip cultivation in the United Dutch Provinces was rare. It probably started in 1593 when tulip bulbs were sent from Turkey by the Dutch ambassador there. Those beautifully coloured and variegated tulips, newly arrived, cost a fortune. Only the wealthiest aristocrats and merchants could afford them. But by the early 1630s, flower growers successfully raised crops of more simply-coloured tulips in Holland. So tulips became one of the few luxury goods that could be purchased by a wider portion of the community.

When I wrote a post last January called Tulip mania: Netherlands in the 1620s and 30s, I thought I would probably come back to the topic of 17th century Holland again. But not to a novel. The Tulip Virus by Dutch writer Danielle Hermans (Minotaur 2010) changed all that.

The novel, published 2010

The publishers wrote that “it is a gripping debut mystery set in contemporary London with roots in 17th century Holland and the mysterious tulip trade. In 1636 Alkmaar, Wouter Winckel’s brutally slaughtered body is found in the barroom of his inn, an anti-religious pamphlet stuffed in his mouth. Winckel was a tulip-trader and owned the most beautiful collection of tulips in the United Republic of the Low Countries, including the most coveted and expensive bulb of them all, the Semper Augustus. But why did he have to die and who wanted him dead?

In 2007 London, history seems to be repeating itself. Dutchman Frank Schoeller is found in his home by his nephew. Severely wounded, he is holding a 17th-century book about tulips, seemingly a clue to his death moments later. With the help of his friend, an antique dealer from Amsterdam, the nephew tries to solve the mystery, but soon comes to realise that he and his friend’s own lives are now in danger.

The Tulip Virus is a fast-paced, fascinating mystery. It is based on the real-life events surrounding the collapse of the tulip bubble in 17th century Holland, the first such occurrence in history, a story that plunges readers deeply into questions of free will, science and religion, while showing the dark fruits of greed, pride and arrogance”.

By now the publishers had my attention, since I am passionate about 17th century Netherlands. But publishers always promise fast-paced, fascinating mysteries; it is like a 19 year old boy promising his young girlfriend a lifetime of total honesty and tenderness.

What IS true is that by 1636, tulips were traded on the stock exchanges of many Dutch towns; the prosperous trading cities of the Netherlands were turned upsidedown by a tulip frenzy. Serious Calvinist Dutch citizens from every walk of life, if they had some spare money to invest, really did get involved in buying and selling tulip bulbs. Speculators, who wouldn't have known a tulip from a begonia, began to enter the market.

Warning pamphlet from the Dutch government, printed in 1637

The bubble didn’t last for long, but while it did, rare bulbs changed hands for ever-increasing amounts of money. Contemporary reports noted that a rare bulb might have been worth more than the cost of a family’s home.  It was not until Feb 1637 that tulip traders could no longer find new buyers willing to pay increasingly inflated prices for the precious bulbs. As this realisation set in, the demand for tulips suddenly collapsed and prices plummeted. The excitement came to a shuddering, crashing halt.

Both the government and the church had published pamphlets, warning about the foolishness of investing all of the family’s assets on tulips. But the character in The Tulip Virus, Wouter Winkel, didn’t listen. He and his wife seemed to have been the owners of an average tavern who died before their bulbs had been sold. It seems likely that during this bit of Dutch history, their seven children ended up in an orphanage and the bulbs were auctioned off to defray the orphanage’s costs. The auction price was so hysterically high, the children became rich overnight.

I loved The Tulip Virus but what did other reviewers think of  Danielle Hermans' novel? Mandythebookworm's Blog said she did not want to put this book down and whenever she had to, she was always thinking about how to wangle the next reading opportunity. She was hooked right from the first page. The Mystery Gazette believed the tulip connection to 17th century Holland added a very fresh spin to a secret that must be concealed at any cost. To be completely honest, I must let you know that not everyone loved the book. The Greenman Review didn’t enjoy the two intertwined, parallel stories at all.

Ambrosius Bosschaert, Flower Vase in Window Niche, 1620

My favourite reference for this period is The Embarrassment of Riches: An interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, written by Simon Schama and published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1987.

Pissarro, Degas, Zola and Capt Dreyfus - France's ugliest moment

Jacob Abraham (Camille) Pissarro 1830-1903 was born in St Thomas Virgin Islands and was sent to France to be educated for 5 years. Later Camille returned to France permanently. As a young man in his parents’ home he was a traditional Jew, but in Paris it was said that his politics tended towards socialism, social justice and atheism.

Pissarro, Hay Harvest at Éragny, 1901, Nat Gallery of Canada

Pissarro was very supportive of the other, mainly younger Impressionists. Edgar Degas 1834-1917 had been the artist to whom Pissarro referred the most often in his correspondence: their intense and mutual admiration was based on a kinship of ethical as well as aesthetic concerns. Degas was one of the first to buy Pissarro’s work and Pissarro admired Degas above all the other Impressionists. Colleagues and younger artists called him Père Pissarro; his kindness placed him in a fatherly role to struggling younger artists. Pissarro’s role in helping both Cezanne and Gauguin was warmly acknowledged by both men. These issues are discussed in detail in the blog FRIENDS OF MARRANOS.

Camille Pissarro and his sons Rodo, Lucien, Felix, 1894

Everything changed in 1894, for France, for Pissarro and for the Impressionists. The most devastating event of the Belle Epoque was the Dreyfus Affair, polarising the country between the Left and the anti-Semitic Right. Capt Alfred Dreyfus 1859-1935 came from a Jewish Alsace family. He was accepted for military training & graduated in 1880 as an officer. He was promoted in the military until he was the highest-ranking and most esteemed Jewish artillery officer in the French army.

Capt Alfred Dreyfus

In 1894, Capt Dreyfus was charged with passing military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, based on documents found in the German military attaché’s bin which initially appeared to implicate Dreyfus. When Georges Picquart served as the chief of the army intelligence section in 1896, he found the memorandum used to convict Captain Dreyfus had been the work of a Major Ferdinand Esterhazy 1847-1923. Desperate for money, the nobleman Esterhazy received from the German attaché a nice monthly pension and was furnishing the German attaché with information about the French artillery.

Fearing that the press would learn of the affair and accuse the French army of covering up for a Jewish officer, the French military command pushed for an early court martial, closed to the press, and early conviction. Dreyfus was innocent but it was already politically impossible to sort, without provoking a political scandal and perhaps causing the French government to fall. In Dec 1894 Capt Dreyfus was convicted by a military court of treason and sentenced to gaol on Devil’s Island South America, in a stone hut.

prison on Devil’s Island

As a result of the trial, France divided into two camps. Those who supported the army Versus those who believed Dreyfus was entitled to a fair trial. The Affair pitted neighbour against neighbour, friend against friend. The Impressionists were themselves split: Monet, Pissarro, Signac and Vallotton, as well as art critics Mirbeau and Fénéon supported Dreyfus. Those on the opposite side included some of Pissarro’s oldest friends: Degas, Cézanne, Renoir and Armand Guillaumin. When asked to sign the pro-Dreyfus Manifesto of the Intellectuals, Monet, Paul Signac and Pissarro signed; Renoir refused.

Anarchistic literary critic Bernard Lazare wrote a brilliant piece. L’Anti sémitisme son histoire et ses causes was published in 1894, just as the smear campaign against Dreyfus got going in the anti-Semitic press.

Foreign visitors were shocked at France’s reactionary anti Semitism. In Paris, the French flocked to hear Norwegian composer Edward Grieg’s music. Grieg (1843-1907), a friend of the artists and of Zola from his long stays in Paris, was heroic. In 1899, Grieg wrote to the Colonne Orchestra to refuse their kind invitation to him, stating clearly that it was because of French injustice meted out to Capt Dreyfus. As a result of his principled stand, Grieg’s income dropped and he was promptly ostracised by some of his old friends.

Degas, Place de la Concorde or Viscount Lepic and his Daughters, 1875, Hermitage

Émile Zola risked his career by publishing his scathing article, J’Accuse, on the front page of the Paris daily, L'Aurore in Jan 1898. The paper was run by Ernest Vaughan and Georges Clemenceau, who decided that the controversial story would be in the form of an open letter to the French President, Félix Faure. J'accuse accused the War Office and the French government of anti-Semitism and of wrongfully gaoling Dreyfus. The conviction was an appalling miscarriage of justice. His article moved French passions on both sides; anti-Jewish riots broke out across France.

J’Accuse, newspaper article by Zola, Jan 1898

Still, Zola’s letter formed a major turning-point in the Dreyfus affair and it caused the case to be finally reopened. International outrage was clear. After Dreyfus' return from imprisonment on Devil's Island and his shocking retrial and second conviction on treason, a number of nations threatened to boycott French World Fairs.

Pissarro wrote to Zola “Accept the expression of my admiration for your great courage and the nobility of your character. Your Old Comrade.” Pissarro wrote to his son, “The Dreyfus case is causing many horrible things to be said here. I will send you L’Aurore, which has very fine pieces by Clemenceau and Zola. Today Zola accuses the General Staff. Writer and art critic Jean Ajalbert has published a very brave article in Les Droits de l’homme, but the majority of the public is against Dreyfus, despite the bad faith shown in the Esterhazy affair.” Claude Monet passionately joined Émile Zola, as well.

As events built up, Pissarro’s involvement deepened. As a Jew, he felt menaced by the passions that surfaced during the tumult over the affair. His sense of justice was outraged and his health was endangered. He believed in Dreyfus’ innocence. He also believed that the forces of the Right, all the groups he despised as anti-social, were aligned behind the anti-Dreyfusards; he was distressed by the violence of nationalist mobs and anti-Semitic thugs. He even felt personally threatened with deportation.

The worst must have been Edgar Degas’ behaviour towards his long time friend and colleague. Degas crossed the street to avoid Pissarro, even though he swore he never knew Pissarro was Jewish! Degas had become a savage anti-Semite who blamed the Jews for all of France’s troubles. At breakfast he had his maid read aloud the worst passages of Drumont’s wildly anti-Semitic newspaper.

Renoir’s anti-Semitism included denouncing Pissarro's family as part of “that Jewish race of tenacious cosmopolitans and draft-dodgers who come to France only to make money”.

The hysteria did not abate. A court-martial was held in Jan 1898 for Major Ferdinand Esterhazy, the real spy. In 1898 the head of French intelligence, Col Georges Picquart, bravely gave evidence on Esterhazy’s guilt. Picquart was dismissed from his position and gaoled for 60 days; Esterhazy was acquitted in an hour.

Zola was soon brought to trial for his article. During his trial in Feb 1898, anti-Dreyfusards thronged outside the court room, shouting death threats to Jews and Dreyfusards alike. Zola was convicted of libel, sentenced to a 3000 franc-fine and a year of prison, and removed from the Legion of Honour! Persuaded to accept exile instead of imprisonment, Zola fled to Britain.

Zola returned to France in 1899 for Dreyfus’ retrial but died from unexplained carbon monoxide poisoning in 1902. Apparently the police were not too concerned about this strange and sudden death.

Col Georges Picquart

Although they lived to see Dreyfus’ petition for a retrial, neither Pissarro nor Lazare lived to see the verdict reversed. Pissarro, 73 and Bernard Lazare, 38 died in the same year, 1903. When Pissarro died, Degas would not even attend the funeral of his oldest, most intimate friend.  All this begs one major question - should an artist's shady past matter, when it comes to thinking about his value to the art world?

Dreyfus was only fully vindicated in 1906, 3 years after Pissarro was buried in Paris’ Père Lachaise cemetery. The bitterness remained for a VERY long time. It took another 100 years before streets in Paris were named after these two French heroes: Avenue Emile-Zola and Place Alfred-Dreyfus were inaugurated in the 15th Arrondissement of Paris in 2001.

Avenue Emile-Zola and Place Alfred-Dreyfus

Readers might like to analyse Ruth Harris' book The Man on Devil's Island: Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair that Divided France, published by Allen Lane in June 2010. The book is particularly useful regarding the strong influence of uncontrollable and to some extent unpredictable currents coursing around France during the Belle Epoque, including the role of the mass press.

Huguenot domestic architecture: 1696

Eggington House near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire has been for sale. I am interested in the home for two important reasons. Firstly it was built in 1696, soon after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). The Edict forced Protestant Frenchmen to flee France or face forced conversion to Catholicism, galley slavery or even execution. Secondly not many William and Mary era homes survive for us to examine, splendid or otherwise.

Nikolaus Pevsner, my hero amongst architectural historians, carefully differentiated between this William III style and the later Queen Anne style of William’s sister in law. The houses and gardens of the William III era (1650–1702) were graceful but rather heavy, coming mid-way between the French-inspired Baroque of the Restoration and the rather austere Queen Anne period that might have better reflected Protestant Huguenot taste. For example, the use of brick became popular in Britain as an element of William’s international influence. He was, after all, born and raised in the Netherlands.

To restate the importance of the Huguenots on William III taste, note that among the Huguenots seeking refuge in Calvinist Holland was interior designer Daniel Marot, himself the son of an architect. The stadtholder soon  commissioned Marot to work on his palace at Het Loo in the Netherlands and other buildings. William also took a keen interest in the gardens that Marot designed, so it was not a surprise when Marot followed William and Mary to England.

Treasure Hunt made a similar point. Dyrham Park in Gloucestershire has a variety of Dutch art objects, collected by Secretary of War William Blathwayt during his travels with King William III to the Continent. Blathwayt adored Dutch paintings, seventeenth-century Delft glazed earthenware, cut flowers, Dutch stamped leather wallhangings and a state bed in the style of Daniel Marot.

South Bedfordshire in particular discovered late-Renaissance mansion architecture from France and the Netherlands. It foreshadowed the distinctive brick houses of the 18th century which were introduced through the royal patronage of King William.

Eggington House, built in 1696

Eggington House was built in 1696 for Jean Renouille, a Huguenot described as a merchant tailor who fled from Montauban in Languedoc in SW France. Bedfordshire encouraged newly arriving Huguenots to settle in the towns and surrounding county, thus becoming an important centre for the Huguenot lace-making industry in Britain.

I’d love to know how Jean Renouille made his livelihood in Bedfordshire - we know for a fact that he eventually became Sheriff of Bedfordshire, an establishment position if ever I heard of one. And within a generation, we know the Renouille family must have integrated rather nicely, because they Anglicised the family name to Reynal, moved to the very smart Hockliffe Grange and let out Eggington to other well-to-do families.

Pevsner described Eggington House as an uncommonly fine example of C17th domestic architecture, completely up to the moment in features. It was built of red brick under a tiled roof with a panelled parapet. The main façade had 7 bays of classical segment-headed sash windows and was three storeys high. The roof line was concealed by a panelled parapet decorated with urns. Surrounded on three sides by its own land and woodland, the house was approached down its own gravelled drive through a set of gates. Pevsner didn’t call it smallish, but I will.

Descriptions in CountryLife .co.uk are very useful. The house has magnificent reception rooms, all with high ceilings and full length sash windows allowing light to flood into every room. The interior contains a staircase with twisted balusters. The drawing room is peaceful with light, soft-oak panelling on all walls with attractive carved wooden alcoves either side of a carved wooden fire-place with a French door leading out onto the terrace and garden. The sash windows have their own light oak shutters and with wooden floor boards and wooden cornicing. The study has walls of decorative painted panels, a unique painted alcove which is thought to be of the original William III style and an impressive marble fire-place. The dining room leads off from the reception hall with walls of painted wooden panelling, wooden floor boards and an open fireplace.

The dining room today

Over the decades, this house has enjoyed a series of impressive owners, including Sir Gilbert Inglefield, a Lord Mayor of London after WW2, and, more recently Lord Slynn. Slynn was no slouch himself; he held the office of Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, Judge of the European Court of Justice and Advocate General of the European Court of Justice.

I have seen some modern photos of Eggington House’s interior, but I wish I could find drawings or photos from previous centuries. [Since the house was requisitioned by the Army during WW1, it is possible that substantial internal renovations were required, post-war]. In general, we can say that William and Mary design styles included French, Dutch and eastern influences. In wealthy homes, these influences could be found in furnishings carved in walnut, fruitwood and ebony, along side marquetry. But perhaps Huguenots, in that first difficult generation of exile and adaptation, had simpler tastes. If the house sells, will the new owners know about the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Dutch stadtholder, Daniel Marot, Bedfordshire's Huguenot community and Jean Renouille.

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Not many bloggers discussed Huguenot architecture after the expulsion (1685). katy elliot blog has wonderful images from Huguenot Street: New Paltz, NY but the slightly later date (early 1700s) suggests that the New York Huguenots had been living for a generation in The Netherlands. She suggested that the windows and shutters felt Dutch and different from anything she had ever seen in New England. Sam Gruber’s Jewish Art and Monuments also has an image of Huguenot architecture, but again it is early C18th. In 1742 a Huguenot chapel was built on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street in Tower Hamlets in London’s East End. Called La Neuve Eglise, this dark brick and rather austere building later became Spitalfields Great Synagogue.

I would like to write a post on The French Protestant Hospital, La Providence, of the same era. But sofar I cannot find any photos of its original 1718 architecture.

Red Cross, Red Crescent, Red Star of David

The founder of Red Cross, Henry Dunant, was a Swiss citizen who had accidentally found himself in Italy at a time when French and Austrian victims from the Battle of Solferino (in 1859) were lying around uncared for.  He quickly organised the women of the town to provide medical and transport assistance to the wounded. Dunant himself built temporary hospitals and arranged for decent medical supplies to be brought in. Then he asked captured Austrian doctors to work in those makeshift hospitals.

Very soon after, Dunant wrote A Memory of Solferino and had it published in 1862. Its effect was quite a surprise in that many Europeans were interested. He described the carnage he had found in Soferino and described the efforts his team of volunteers had made, trying to help the wounded. Would it be possible to get an agreement between governments to give medical attention to the injured, wherever they fell (in battle or from natural disasters)? Would it be possible to create international treaties that would protect the volunteers, wherever they came from and whichever wounded they saved?

The answer was a resounding yes! The International Committee of the Red Cross is a humanitarian institution that was formally founded in 1863 in Geneva, organised by Gustave Moynier, a prominent lawyer and president of the city's Society of Public Welfare,. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva holds the original document of that first Geneva Convention, signed by 16 mainly European countries.

Agreements reached at the first Conference, 1863.

Somehow, at that moment in time, all the nations of the world agreed to give the Red Cross authority under international humanitarian law to protect the victims of all wars! I cannot imagine the nations of the world ever agreeing to an organisation with international rights again. We know it was working - delegates of the International Committee visited the prisoners-of-war throughout the 1864-1914 era and, as noted in their reports, got improvements in conditions for captives on both sides.

In order to not force their Islamic citizens to be carried in ambulances with Christian symbols on the side, Ottoman officials in 1876 requested that a red crescent be used to mark their ambulances and that the Christian cross would be removed. Thus the red crescent emblem was first used on Islamic ambulances during the war between the Ottoman Turks and Russia (1877–8). It took a while before the crescent symbol was accepted by the Red Cross Society, but it was formally adopted in 1929, and so far 33 Islamic states have taken it up.

British women driving ambulances in France, World War I.

“National” Red Cross and Red Crescent societies have always concentrated on natural disasters within their own borders. The “International” Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society, on the other hand, tended to concentrate on situations of warfare across borders. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies was founded in 1919 and still coordinates activities between the all the individual national societies. The Federation Secretariat is well located in neutral, central Geneva.

Ambulance and nurses, Palestine, 1940s

Jewish patients were probably not prepared to travel in ambulances marked with Christian crosses either, but they had a bigger problem than mere symbolism. There was a concern that the Jewish Legion of Palestine, a Battalion of the British Army who were fighting to liberate Israel from Turkish rule during WWI, needed medical help. A Jewish ambulance service, called Magen David Adom/Red Star of David, was organised to aid both the Jewish Legion and the ordinary citizens. It was disbanded at the end of WW1.

Magen David Adom (MDA) was not officially chartered until the vicious riots of 1929 against the Jewish citizens who had no access to professional first aid services. While still under the British Mandate, the organisation was founded in Tel Aviv in June 1930 by nurse Karen Tenenbaum, 7 Israeli doctors, one hut and one ambulance. They added a branch in Haifa (1931) and in Jerusalem (1934), then a nation-wide network of services was slowly introduced for Jews, Muslims and Christians, reaching a total of 600 ambulances.

During World War Two, only two MDA services were recognised by the British Authorities. It wasn’t until after the state was established that the new parliament passed a law, giving MDA the formal title of Israel's National Emergency Service. From July 1950, Magen David Adom provided services in Israel regarding:

1. emergency medical care,
2. disaster care,
3. ambulances and
4. blood bank service.
5. a tracing service, to locate the children and grandchildren of families lost in the Holocaust.

MDA currently funds c1,200 emergency medical technicians, paramedics and emergency physicians. But in Israel (as in other nations?), MDA is mainly staffed by volunteers; 10,000+ of them. Today all volunteers complete a 60-hour course that covers many topics ranging from common medical conditions and trauma situations... to mass casualty events. Those who pass the course are then sent out across the country and work with local volunteers in ambulances.

MDA headquarters and its blood bank are located at the Tel Hashomer hospital, a place I know very well since I lived there back in 1971 and 1972. The organisation operates 95 stations over the country, with a fleet of over 700 ambulances nationwide. Air ambulance service is provided by Israeli Air Force 669 unit with MEDEVAC helicopters.

Carrying wounded civilians in the 1948 war (Life)

Naturally Magen David Adom applied for membership in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, as soon as it was founded and fully operational. But it was too late. The "Red Star of David" symbol was not submitted to the ICRC until 1931 and membership for new organisations and symbols was closed at the 1929 conference. The conference decided that if they allowed the Jews to have a red star, instead of a cross or crescent, the Buddhists would want a symbol of their own, the Hindus might request something different etc etc. The Soviet Union avoided the problem by accepting the Red Cross as their official emblem, in order to gain entry.

Every attempt in the decades since 1931 to have Magen David Adom included in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement failed. Until the American Red Cross became involved. The Americans stated that unless Jews, Christians and Muslims could all use their own symbol for their own citizens, they would withhold all administrative funding from the international organisation. From May 2000, the Americans did indeed withhold millions of dollars, until the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies caved in. In June 2006, MDA was recognised by the ICRC and admitted as a full member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. It had taken from 1931 to 2006, 75 long long years.

Middle East Affairs Information Centre has a wonderful MDA poster from 1918 and a photo of the first modern ambulance being launched in 1931.

19th 20th Century History Images has a fine photo of Red Cross women running an ambulance service in 1928.

For an excellent review of the founding of the Red Cross in October 1863 and its early history, see Richard Cavendish in History Today October 2013. Of particular interest is the tense and destructive relationship between Dunant and Moynier. Moynier considered Dunant an impractical idealist and soon forced Dunant from his own movement!! Dunant was declared bankrupt and lived out his life in poverty. The only thing Moynier could not take away was Dunant's Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.

Australia's own Deco treasure - Burnham Beeches

Burnham Beeches in Sherbrooke was a large home built in the leafy Dandenong Ranges, an hour outside Melbourne. It was designed for the very wealthy Alfred Nicholas (1881 - 1937), a man who made his money by buying his brother's patent for analgesics. Nicholas marketed them under the brand name Aspro, a word that went into the Australian language as a generic headache tablet.

Burnham Beeches, 2010. The original Deco features are still in place, including glass bricks,  zig-zag motifs on the wrought iron work and cantilevered balconies.

The architect, Harry Norris (1888-1966), was a commercial architect in Melbourne in the inter-war era. And he stayed up-to-date by making a number of trips abroad, especially to the USA, to observe modern architectural trends. But probably Norris was given the job because he was a neighbour of the Nicholas family in Melbourne.

Norris was given explicit instructions; the new house was to have “fresh air, sunshine and an outlook of command, yet under control”. I have no idea what that meant, but being built in the 1930-33 era, the architect had no trouble coming up with an Art Deco design that fitted the bill.

The use of advanced reinforced concrete technology at Burnham Beeches was important; it provided for spiffy Steamlined Deco architectural elements eg cantilevered balconies, wide spans and continuous windows. So like many Deco buildings, the lines of Burnham Beeches really do remind viewers of an ocean liner moving through the water. A zig-zag motif was used on the decorative wrought iron work and on the balcony balustrades. Finally, the white exterior of the house was decorated with Australian fauna motifs in moulded relief panels.

Burnham Beeches, exterior straight after WW2 ended

One element of Burnham Beeches that Alfred Nicholas managed himself was collecting trees for the property. In every city of Australia, he searched for established trees to be purchased and planted. Then he travelled to Britain where he met one of the main gardeners at Kew Gardens, Percival Trevaskis. Percy was offered the position of head gardener at Burnham Beeches and quickly involved himself in designing the garden, rockeries, pools, waterfalls and an ornamental lake. Alas Alfred died in 1937, before the task was quite completed, but the vast majority of the work had been done by then. 

Allow me to mention another connection. In 1938, world renown violinist Yehudi Menuhin married Nola Nicholas, daughter of the George Nicholas (Alfred's brother), and sister of Hephzibah Menuhin's first husband Lindsay Nicholas. When Burnham Beeches was operating as a hotel later on, the main restaurant was aptly named Menuhin’s.

In 1941, right in the worst part of World War II, the house became a children’s hospital. Alfred Nicholas’ widow returned her main home in Melbourne and had Burnham Beeches restored to its pre-institutional standard.

interior Deco features still intact, in 2000

I am not sure why the house was considered too small, but in the decade after World War Two ended, two additional wings were added on. From 1955, the Nicholas Institute used the house as a medical and veterinary research facility, and later this grand old house was converted into a hotel. Even more accommodation units were added to the original building as recently as the 1980s.

In Feb 2010 the property went up for sale, again. Being heritage listed, I cannot imagine a developer trying to sneakily pull the building down in the middle of the night (although it has happened before). But in any case there are 50 guests suites in the renovated building, and even more could be added, with council approval.

gazebo, Alfred Nicholas gardens

I am not a bushwalker, but BOB'S AUSTRALIAN BUSH WALKING JOURNAL recommends walking throughthe acreage near the house. It is known for its extensive water features including waterfalls and an ornamental lake, complete with boat house. These gardens were donated to the Shire of Sherbrooke in 1965 and named the Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens. Acquired by Parks Victoria in 1972, a range of restoration projects have been done over the decades, including the rejuvenation of the lake.

The original 12 hectare Burnham Beech estate is still maintained in its utterly gorgeous state, as I can testify personally. I strolled the length of every path in the estate last weekend, concentrating on the spring growth:  mountain ash and liquid ambers of course, but also the flowering azaleas, viburnum and cherry trees.

A Wonder House in the Hills: the History of Burnham Beeches was written by Deborah Lee Tout-Smith, 1993.

paths wander throughout the Alfred Nicholas gardens

An extraordinary war heroine: Irena Sendler

I have known a great deal about the German Oskar Schindler, ever since I became close friends with the daughter of a Schindler-Jew in 1965. And I knew even more about the Swede Raoul Wallenberg because he was the greatest hero of my parents’ generation. Even the American Varian Fry and the Englishman Nicholas Winton became familiar names amongst Jewish historians of the 20th century. But Irena Sendler?

Irena Sendler (1910 – 2008) was a Polish Catholic social worker who served in a Polish resistance organisation in German-occupied Warsaw during World War II. The daughter of socialist and medical parents, the young woman was already committed to saving human life wherever possible, but that seemed like an improbable dream in Nazi-controlled Poland.

Jewish children in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1942

Zegota, the Council for Aid to Jews, was already organised by the Polish underground resistance movement. But Sendler, who was part of Zegota, had one big advantage. The Warsaw SocialWelfare Department’s canteens used to provide meals, financial aid and other services for orphans, the elderly and the destitute. By 1942 Irena could ensure that the canteens could also provide clothing, medicine and money for some Jews whom she registered under fictitious Christian names. And as an employee of the Welfare Department’s Epidemic Control Section, she had a special permit to enter the Warsaw Ghetto to check for signs of typhus, something the Nazis feared would spread beyond the Ghetto. She and her colleagues wore nurses uniforms (see photo below).

Using these typhoid-focused inspection tours of sanitary conditions, Sendler and a team of other brave Catholic women smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and public transport, wrapping the toddlers up as parcels. She also used the old courthouse at the edge of the Warsaw Ghetto as one of the main routes for smuggling out children.

As soon as it was safe to do so, the rescuers found heroic Polish Catholic families who would take the Jewish children in, as if they were their own nieces and nephews. When they couldn’t find families, Sendler used the Sisters of the Family of Mary orphanage in Warsaw, or various Roman Catholic convents more distant from the capital city. It is estimated that the team saved 2,500 Jewish children by getting them safely out of the Warsaw Ghetto, against all odds.

The project only came to an end in 1943 because Sendler was captured by the Gestapo and sentenced to death. But she had taken precautions. She had carefully noted, in coded form, the children’s original names and their new identities. She buried the records for safe keeping, hoping she could one day reunite the children with their true parents. Alas not a single Jewish mother or father survived the war.

Sendler in Epidemic Control Section uniform, 1942

The Polish Genealogy Project has a wonderful photo of Irena in a Social Welfare Department car, during Warsaw’s 1st May Parade in 1948.

Again against all the odds, Sendler survived into old age. Quite rightly, she was recognised by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as one of the Righteous among the Nations in 1965. Sadly Poland wouldn't allow her to travel to Israel until 1983; then she could finally be acknowledged before the entire Jewish world. Clearly things have changed in Poland. Joedresch's blog noted that Irena Sendler was awarded Poland’s highest distinction, the Order of White Eagle in 2003, and she won the Jan Karski award for Valour and Courage in 2003. This very very old lady was officially designated a national hero in Poland and schools have been named in her honour.

Sendler was nominated for The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize; eventually it was awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore, which was as it should have been. But what a shame that Irena Sendler wasn’t nominated earlier. Like Winton in Britain, they waited until she was 100 years old before giving her the recognition she so richly deserved.

Two films have been made, celebrating her life. Irena Sendler, In the Name of Their Mothers 2003 was a documentary based on the last interviews given by Irena Sendler before she died, and interviews with some of the children she saved. And The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler 2010 is a dramatic recreation of the events of 1942 and 1943.

A book called The Other Schindler: Irena Sendler was written by Abhijit Thite and appeared in 2010. The publishers used an imaginative method to release the book; they held their launch next to the tree planted by Irena Sendler herself, along the Avenue of the Righteous in Jerusalem.

Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles, Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, Jerusalem