Gertrude Bell's great Middle Eastern legacy

The female scholar behind Iraq's independence

The Librarians

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was the grand­daughter of British nobility and the daughter of an monied industrialist. Instead of seeking a life of cocktail part­ies, her brain actually required a high-class education. In 1884 Bell went to Queen’s College and Oxford Univ­ers­ity, gaining 1st Class Honours in Modern History. She spent the next 15 years in cons­tant travel including Persia, Egypt and Algiers.

A “cause” arrived in 1899 when she met arch­aeol­ogist David Hogar­th and his world of Middle East ant­iquity. Already fluent in Persian, Fr­en­ch and German, Bell also studied Arabic and Hebrew, and in 1900 she completed the first of her desert travels through Pal­est­ine, Leb­an­on and Syria. She then began learning desert rul­es and the soc­ial prac­t­­ices of nomadic Bed­ouin, building val­uable friendships among sheiks, warr­iors and Mesopot­amian merchants. From 1900-12 her focus was on developing her skills as an arch­aeol­ogist, map-maker and ethnographer in a tough part of the world. Her 1907 trips with Sir William Ramsay in Anatolia became the basis for her book, The Thousand and One Churches (1909). She was becoming a specialist in Byzantine religious architecture, writ­ing mono­gr­aphs as she went.

1911 was when met the young archaeologist T.E Lawrence (1888–1935) aka Lawrence of Arabia. They shared a passion for Arab­ic cul­ture and antiquit­ies, becoming powerful forces in the next dec­ade prom­oting Arabic independence from the Otto­mans and from Eur­ope.

After a long trip along the Euph­rates River, Bell discovered and surveyed an C8th Abbas­id fortress at Ukhaidir. She wrote the account in her 1909/10 journal, and an arch­itectural mono­gr­aph, The Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir (1913).

In 1913 Bell travelled by camel through modern Saudi Arabia and Iraq, hoping to reach the famed White City of Hay­yil. She negotiat­ed her way thr­ough cont­ested territories, critical water short­ages, hostile tribes and the shift­ing sands. Then she went home with maps and knowledge of Arabia that were invaluable as Europe faced WW1.

With Turkey and Germany allied in WW1, the Middle East suddenly be­came an area of military importance remote from British intell­igen­ce. Who were the relevant powers there? Who did they support? So in 1915 Ger­trude Bell trav­el­led to Cairo, to work with Brit­ish Intell­ig­­­en­ce, com­pile inform­ation and form a strategy for org­anising Arab­ic res­is­tance to Turk­ish rule. However she did not participate in the Sykes-Picot Agree­ment in 1916 that eventually divided Turkish-held Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

                                     

Bell, Cox and Ibn Saud in Mesopotamia in 1916.

Feisal's two staunchest supporters re holding the new Mandate of Iraq together
Imperial War Museum

After the war, the Ottoman Empire was being dismantled and Bell sought to help the Arabs. She was asked to make her recommendations for Mesopotamia, as her 1920 report “Self-Determination in Mesopot­amia” made very clear. Bell was in the middle of the region’s politics, acting as mediator between the local Sunni, Shiite and Kurd leaders, the British government, and Winston Churchill.

Self-Determination in Mesopotamia was the paper that earned her a seat at the Paris Peace Conf­er­ences (1919-20), to honour the Al­l­ied promise of Arabic independence. She opp­osed French del­egates who were cr­eating their mandate in Syria. And she opposed the Brit­ish delegates who were creating a British mandate in Iraq and Palestine.
                                 

participants of the 1921 Cairo Conference. 
L to R: Winston Churchill, Gertrude Bell and TE Lawrence.

Under the Sphinx of Giza.

Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for the Colonies, called the 1921 Cairo Conference. While other British offic­ials argued for Iraq’s continued sub­servience to Brit­ain, Bell arg­ued hard for their indep­end­­­ence, and for the pro­m­ot­ion of a larg­er Arabic state from France. For a newly un­ified Iraqi state, Bell and Lawrence highly recommended Faisal bin Hussein, former command­er of the Arab forces that helped the Brit­ish in the war. And through his charis­matic leadership, a nation was forged! Bell became one of King Faisal’s most trusted advisors, beloved in Baghdad.

Yet Bell and her boss British high commissioner, Sir Percy Cox, laid down state policies in Iraq that were taken up by Sadd­am’s Arab Ba’ath socialist party. Iraq retained the Kurdish mount­ains as a buffer against Turkey and Russia, and promoted Sunni Mus­lims over the Shia majority. They expelled the Shia clergy to Iran, and depl­oyed air power as a form of political control. Why did the U.K care? Iraq enjoyed valuable oil resources AND acted as a buffer zone in the region to protect against Turkey, Iran and Syria.

Bell believed passionately in Arab independence and persuaded Lon­d­on that Iraq had enough able men at least to provide an administ­r­at­ive façade; and she contr­ib­uted importantly to the construction of the Iraqi state in 1921. But she had two difficulties. Firstly she always ov­er­estimated the popularity of Cox and herself. And secondly she underest­im­ated the force of religion in Iraqi affairs.

Bell and Sir Herbert Samuel, British High Commissioner in Palestine,
meets Jordanian pilot 1921. Highbrow.

Bell was never loved in London. And when Cox left Bag­h­dad in 1923, she lost her bureaucratic protector. Yet Bell still wanted help in preserving Baghdad’s heritage in a new Archaeological Museum and she was named as the Director of Antiquities by King Faisal. Later she helped draw up the borders of the new nation of Iraq.

She died in 1926 in Baghdad at 57, from ?lung can­cer. The citizens and British officials lined the streets to pay respect to this weal­thy British scholar who’d dedicated her life to Arab culture; the King of Iraq stood in a place of honour.

Bell’s greatest legacy was indeed the recovery and preservat­ion of an­cient artefacts and archaeological sites all over the Mid­dle East, as at the Gert­rude Bell Archive at Newcastle Uni. But in 1921, Churchill agreed that Mesopotamia should be a self-ruling state, and Bell was a central figure at the Cairo Conference. Her influence was essential to the establishment of modern-day Iraq.

Images of death in the Victorian era

The idea of photographing the dead might be seen as morbid today but it made perfect sense to Victorians. Readers might like to find Audrey Linkman's book Photography and Death, published by Reaktion Books in 2011.

Most photographs of a recently deceased person were taken by professionals, and were kept at home in the same way as all other family photographs were kept – mounted on the wall or inserted into family photo albums. But why did they have the deceased photos taken at all? Ordinary Victorian families could not have afforded dozens of photographs. So the post-mortem photograph was often the only image the family would ever have of their loved parent, sibling or child. There was little choice - if families did not record the person’s image just before he/she was buried, how would they properly memorialise their loved one?

A little girl in mourning clothes standing close to her younger, deceased sibling.

Norwich, N.Y.

Photo credit: Etsy

In the examples I've seen, the portraits were posed peacefully. The person may have suffered terrible pain for months or years, but appeared as peaceful as he/she had before the suffering set in. Linkman noted that at least for people who died within a familial context, the picture reminded the family that their loved one was truly at rest.

With high mortality rates in childhood, the photos filled a painful void. They honoured the loved relative and seemed to have been part of the healing process for the survivors.

Postmortem photography of the dead, esp children, was also an obsession for late C19th Americans. Bereaved families wanting to keep a memory of a lost child would have a photo made of the child lying in its coffin. Some of these photos were given to family members and friends, or appeared on memorial cards announcing the child’s death. Or these photos could be on one side of memento mori lockets and brooches, with the other side containing a lock of hair. These lockets were emotional keepsakes post death.

Photography and Death is important as it revealed the significance of images that might make modern families queasy. We may respond with equanimity when the deceased person lay on a bed with the eyes closed, as if asleep. But often the formally dressed body was seated erect on a couch, playing with toys, surrounded by flowers or propped up between live people. Daily Oddities noted that the dead eyes were "open"; this was done either by propping the subject’s eyes open or painting pupils onto the photo-graphic print. And many early images had a rosy tint added to the corpse's cheeks. The book’s strength was that it placed these rather uncomfortable images within the context of changing cultural attitudes towards death and loss.

Mourning locket, 

photo from Carter's

Why did many of these photos look as if they were taken in the family’s front parlour? An interesting aside to the familial context came from mental_floss. The parlour/death room was an important part of funerary rituals for the Victorian era, the place where deceased family members were laid out before the burial. In the Victorian and Edwardian eras, many funerals were still taking place at home until slowly, by WW1, most funerals started to take place in funeral homes. As the professional funeral parlour came into vogue, the home parlour was quickly rebranded a “living room”. A 1910 issue of Ladies Home Journal declared that for Americans at least, the death room would become a term of the past.

For Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders,  WW1 also brought an end to elaborate Victorian-style mourning rituals. The huge numbers of soldiers who died and were buried overseas, as well as the resultant collective grief, made individual displays of mourning at home seem inappropriate.

Linkman acknowledged that for violent deaths, the situation was very different. In Western Europe, young men were clearly sent off to war whenever their nation required it. In Eastern Europe, pogrom massacres were a constant feature of life. I am assuming that families would not have been comforted by images of massacred brothers and sons, even assuming they could retrieve the bodies distant from home.

Millais, portrait of the late Cecil Webb, 

1887, NGV

One last thought about the momentos that provided a kind of therapy and a physical remembrance. Ordinary working families might have relied on a locket containing hair of the deceased or a ring. The National Gallery of Victoria has a portrait of an Australian child who died in 1886, painted by the British artist John Everett Millais in 1887. This beautiful and sombre memorial was presumably painted from a photo, sent to Britain by the grieving parents. It was expensive.

Photos may have made the death images more lifelike, but examine a funerary monument from the mid C18th. The wax head and body of Sarah Hare (1689-1744)  was placed in a mahogany box in Stow Bardolph church, Norfolk. She had instructed her family as follows: "I desire to have my face and hands made in wax with a piece of crimson satin thrown like a garment in a picture, hair upon my head and put in a case of mahogany with a glass before." So it may be assumed that the fabrics were taken from Hare's own clothing and the corset was the one she wore in life.

Although wax memorials like this were rare, it seemed to function for the mid C18th Hare family just as the Victorian death photos did 100+ years later.

Sarah Hare funerary monument, 1744

Hare Chapel, Stow Bardolph Church, Norfolk

Excellent photos can be found in Victorian History,  History and traditions of England,  Daily Oddities, Histatic and Mental Floss. Thank you to William Clements Library.

renewed National Portrait Gallery, London.

 National Portrait Gallery entrance

The National Portrait Gallery in London first opened in 1856, featuring just 42 portraits. Then in 1896 it moved to the site of the St Martin's Church burial ground which later became Martin’s Workhouse. But even since 1896, there was damage. In Nov 1941, two bombs fell on the gallery: one demol­ished a staircase; the second fell in the courtyard outside the Director’s flat.

Planning permission was granted by Westminster City Council to launch the best redev­elopment project in the Gall­ery’s long history, the Ins­pir­ing People Project. The refurb­ishment was designed by Jamie Fobert Architects in partner­ship with Purcell. £31.5 million had already been raised out of the £35.5 million target, so the work commenced on time in 2020.

National Portrait Gallery, display area

The new entrance and forecourt on the Gallery's North Façade created a more welcoming entrance and relieved the existing congestion. Three windows were altered to form doorways leading to a new, open entrance hall, which linked with the Ond­aatje Wing Main Hall and better connected the building. The forecourt was to be a great civic space for both the public and for Gallery visitors.

The East Wing of the Gallery, part of the historical 1896 building, was re-opened to the public in 2023. This included converting the office space back into impressive top-lit galleries on the first floor. The ground floor and basement levels were re-done, providing a flexible space with its own dedic­ated entrance and the extension of the vaulted Portrait Café. The project improved the quality of education at the Gallery via a much-improved Learning Centre.

Today, the gallery has 11,000+ works in its collection. So the project had to improve accessibility to the entire collection as well as upgrading the gallery spaces, while celebrating the existing architecture and decorative feat­ures. Maintaining a chron­ological approach, this project displayed works that were rel­ev­ant to a wider range of aud­iences and presented missing or hidden stories from British history. Set amongst the Gal­lery’s best-loved paintings were more works from the collection of 250,000 photos, from 1840 to now.

For the first 100+ years of its existence, The National Por­t­rait Gallery in London had no contemporary collection at all. Al­th­ough the total display space remains about the same, contemp­or­ary and C20th portraits, which were often displaced or moved be­cause of temp­orary exhibitions in the past, will be more consistently displayed in the future.

This redevelopment will better display contemporary works. So I have created links to some of my favourites: royalty, East End of London, and Cecil Beaton. Nonetheless I have selected five of the old favourites that visitors to the Portrait Gallery have loved the most. 

Chandos Portrait of William Shakespeare

The Chandos Portrait of William Shakespeare (1600-10) was named after the Dukes of Chandos who used to own the painting. It is the only artwork considered by ex­perts to have been painted of the playwright during his lifetime. It was the first painting donated to London’s National Portrait Gallery when it was founded in 1856.

Queen Elizabeth I

unknown artist

Queen Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603), daughter of King Henry VIII, nearly didn’t become Queen at all. But when she did, she rallied her troops to fight off the Spanish Armada. She ruled for 44 years, never married, and fixed viewers on this painting with an authoritarian stare and her masculine-style doublet. This portrait (c1575) was painted by an unknown English artist.

Lord Byron (1788-1824) was painted by Thomas Phillips in c1835, presumably based on a painting done in Byron’s lifetime. The Rom­an­tic poet/politician travelled the world, became a Greek national hero after fighting the Ottoman Empire, had affairs with many women, died at just 36 and was famously summed up by lover Lady Caroline Lamb as “mad, bad and dangerous to know”. Byron sat for this portrait wearing Albanian dress, the portrait being recom­mended by his contemporaries for its likeness.

                                                  

Lord Byron by Peter Phillips

self-portrait of Sir Anthony van Dyck

The self-portrait of Sir Anthony van Dyck c1640, one of just three by the Flemish artist, was saved for the nation in 2014. The att­ent­ion to detail brought a piercing realism to his face, a cont­rast to the broader strokes on his dress. This disparity suggested eit­h­er that the painting was unfinished, or that Van Dyck was exper­imenting with his use of paint in this informal work.

The portrait of Thomas Carlyle was painted by Sir John Everett Mil­l­ais 1877. Carlyle was one of the great C19th intellects whose his­t­ory and philosophy were very influential. His harsh crit­ic­isms and uncertain temper became legendary. This recog­nised lit­erary leader eulogised heroes and strong govern­ments, mis­trusted technological progress and analysed the class struggle brill­iantly. Carlyle was a co-founder of the National Portrait Gallery. Exas­per­ated by the con­t­inued denial of women’s right to vote, suff­ragettes at­tack­ed museums and galleries in order to draw attention to their cause. In July 1914 his portrait was attacked with a meat cleaver by suff­ragette Anne Hunt. She was sentenced to six months in gaol, but was released early.

Thomas Carlyle, by Sir John Everett Mil­l­ais 1877

Alongside the architectural works, Inspiring People is the Gallery’s most extensive programme of activities to engage people onsite, online and across the UK. It is being achieved by building on exist­ing partnerships in locations from Plymouth, Belfast, Sheffield and Southampton.

The National Portrait Gallery had to remain closed during this major redevelopment project, re-opening in 2023.

Julia Cameron, Roger Fenton, Qn Victoria

To celebrate two of the leading artistic figures of the C19th, The British Royal Collection announced that 22 of the best photographs of contemporaries Roger Fenton (1819–1869) and Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79) were travelling to three venues across the UK in 2011. The photos were selected from the Royal Photograph Collection, having initially been collected by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, two royals who lent their enthusiastic support to the exciting new medium of photography.

Henry Cole, the first Victoria and Albert Museum director, seemed to have been the link between Julie Margaret Cameron and the Queen. Cole knew the photographer and had sat for her in the past, so he arranged for her to have a studio in the museum where she could take portraits in an ideal setting. Already in 1858, the museum had the world's first international photographic exhibition and I am assuming this was where the Queen first saw Cameron's amazing work. The V & A must have remained supportive of Cameron's art. In 1865, the Museum acquired 63 of her works.

Princesses Alice and Victoria, Queen Victoria’s daughters,

at Balmoral, 1856, 

by Fenton

Queen Victoria maintained her interest in photography, even after she became a widow. And one of her most important collections came from Julia Margaret Cameron. The 2011 exhibition appropriately included six of Cameron’s powerful portraits of male sitters, part of the Great and the Good of C19th Britain.

May Day by Cameron, 1866

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

The Victorian Web

Cameron was attracted to subjects who'd been successful & famous via their careers, but her portraits were unlike that produced by contemporary, studio-based photographers. Artist G.F Watts helped Cameron to create portraits that expressed the individual character of the sitter, rather than a mere record of the sitter’s facial features. The slight blurring of each image was adopted by Cameron as an artistic technique, to achieve a more painterly effect and to suggest a sense of energy.

Roger Fenton (1819–1869) was trained as a barrister, not as an artist. Yet in 1852 his photographic work was exhibited at the Society of Arts, in the first British exhibition devoted exclusively to photography. Fenton was appointed the first official photographer of the British Museum in 1854 and achieved widespread recognition for the photographs that he took of the Crimean War in 1855.

He was introduced to Victoria and Albert at the first exhibition of the Photographic Society. And soon Fenton was invited to Windsor Castle to photograph the entire royal family. This brought great happiness to both sides - Fenton's unprecedented access to the family life of the royal family must have influenced his artistic future and Fenton in turn increased the royals' great interest in photography.

The Royal Collection exhibition includes Fenton’s final work for the royal family, completed after the photographer’s return from the Crimea in 1856. Fenton had travelled to Balmoral to photograph the newly completed royal residence in Scotland and members of the Queen’s household.

The royals also purchased a number of Fenton’s commercial photos, including his views of Windsor Castle and the surrounding parkland taken in 1860. Since the opening of two railway stations in Windsor, a visit to the Castle had become a popular trip from the capital. So Fenton may have intended his work to be sold as a quality souvenir or to serve as illustrations to guidebooks.

I wondered why the nation-wide tour started in Blackwell, The Arts & Crafts House in Cumbria. Possibly because the Lakeland Arts Trust's own collection already contained photographs and photographic objects relating to the development of photography in the Lake District.

The book, 2010, by Sophie Gordon.

Photo of Thomas Carlyle by Cameron.

The accompanying book, Roger Fenton • Julia Margaret Cameron: Early British Photographs from the Royal Collection by Sophie Gordon, was published by Royal Collection Publications in 2010. Rather than being a distant patron, the book illustrated how Queen Victoria's owned a much loved set of Cameron portraits. And it showed Fenton images of Windsor Castle and the royal children.

The first photographs dated back to the first half of the C19th and after that, techniques developed rapidly. But photography as a fine art was met with some resistance by cultural critics. Perhaps it was Queen Victoria's support that pushed photography from mechanical art to fine art.

Ralph Lauren, still a luxury life!

Born Ralph Lipschitz in 1939 to Jewish immigrant parents Frank (from Belarus) and Frieda Lipschitz (from Poland), Ralph was the youngest of 4 siblings. The family wasn’t rich, living in a poor Bronx neighbourhood. So Ralph occupied himself in the cinema world to escape boredom.

Despite his humble origins, he was thinking big. In his 1957 High School yearbook, he wrote being a millionaire was his life goal! Was this the lad behind the fashion house fortune?   

Left: daughter Dylan Lauren, Ralph, Ricky, sons Andrew and David

at the Ralph Lauren in NY City.

people.com

 

Michael Gross* described how the youth used his vivid imagination to step into the fictional world of cinema greats like Cary Grant and Gary Cooper. Lipschitz changed his name to Lauren in his late teens, after reportedly enduring years of teasing from his surname. In 1962, at 23, he joined the US Army and served until 1964, when he took a clerk job at Brooks Brothers, the oldest men’s clothing American brand.

In Dec 1964, Lauren married Ricky Loew-Beer in NY, dance teacher and author. They remained members of Park Ave Synagogue Manhattan, and had 3 children. [In 2011, their son David married Lauren Bush, granddaughter of ex-Pres George H Bush and the niece of ex-Pres George W Bush].

Lauren then worked for Beau Brummell, a famous tie manufacturer. Ralph persuaded the company president to let him design his own line of ties; hence the Ralph Lauren Corporation was born in 1967. His interest in sport then led to the launch of his iconic brand Polo. Watching his first polo match had activated his entrepreneurial spirit. He went with friend Warren Helstein who described how they were exposed to fabulous things; horses, silver, leather, tall blondes in hats and high society.

Ralph Lauren opened luxury flagship in Miami

in 2023

It spurred Lauren into developing an elegant and high-class brand, which later became known as Polo Ralph Lauren. It was a massive risk launching the company, as he had only a high school diploma and some business classes, never finishing studies at the City Uni of New York.

His next big risk was designing wide, colourful ties, in an era when plain and narrow was the fashion. His radical approach paid dividends – Bloomingdale’s loved it and bought $500,000 of ties in his first year.

Polo Ralph Lauren pure silk tie

Reddit

Lauren continued expanding his company. He believed in enjoying the moment, constantly moving forward. When it came to designing clothing, he came up with designs that he would want to wear himself. He imagined clothing fit for movie stars. “The things that I made, you could not find them anywhere,” he said.

He had started out in menswear, not launching his first tailored shirts for women until 1971, with his now-famous Polo player emblem. He also opened his ship on Rodeo Drive Beverly Hills, that year! His signature cotton Polo short was launched in 1972, while his range of fragrances made their debut at Bloomingdale’s in March 1978.

                                             

His outfits for men and women were unfussy and very smart. Denim was very popular.

                          

He opened his flagship store on Madison Avenue and 72nd St in New York in 1986. In 1992, Lauren launched his iconic Polo Sport line, followed by additional lines and acquired brands eg Ralph Lauren Purple Label in 1995. His company was publicly traded on the NY Stock Exchange in June 1997.

The 98-seat restaurant RL opened in 1999 in Chicago in a newly built building adjacent to the largest Ralph Lauren store at cnr Chicago and Michigan Avenues. It was followed by the opening of two additional restaurants, Ralph's in Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris flagship shop in 2010 and The Polo Bar at Polo's flagship shop in New York in 2015. I have never been in any of these 3 restaurants.

The marketing genius is that his brand conjured romantic, nostalgic visions of rugged wranglers, and clean, Ivy League privilege, yet Lauren made billions from polo shirts and denim. But in 2016 Ralph Lauren brand seemed to be stressed. Analysts criticised discounting, claiming they cheapened its image, while a failure to attract younger buyers was also relevant. In 2017 the designer responded by launching wearable tech in a fitness technology shirt, combined with a mobile app. The Polo Tech Smartshirt athletic apparel pioneered physical tracking technology. It was embedded with sensors, tracking heart rates, breathing, stress level and calories burned. Data were streamed to an app that generated workout programmes, enabling Polo Sport to compete with sports brands eg Nike and Adidas.

Ralph Lauren's Celeb-Packed Show in the Hamptons

2024, Getty

Summary
Amassing a fortune, fashion designer Ralph Lauren went from rags to riches. The army veteran and former clerk earned his fortune through building an empire with his Polo clothing brand, launched in 1968. Thus the Bronx lad who dreamed of becoming rich is a multi-billionaire, with homes in Long Island, Jamaica and Manhattan, plus a huge Colorado range. He stepped down as CEO in Sept 2015, remaining executive chairman. In April 2024, his net worth was cUS$9 billion.

photo credit: Ralph Lauren Corporation.

In Jan 2025 President Joe Biden awarded Lauren the Presidential Medal of Freedom, making him the first fashion designer ever to receive the highest civilian honour. 

*Read Biographer Michael Gross’ Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren, 2003.

Norway's North Pole Expedition Museum

In C19th, exploration and discovering new lands had become a much smaller endeavour as the world "shrank". Instead, exploration looked to the world's more dangerous reaches, even beyond the atmosphere. The Industrial Age allowed humans to create structures that assisted exploration of the ocean’s depths, escape from the earth’s gravity, and navigation over treacherous frozen terrain. However within this new, dangerous age of exploration, there still lies a question: who was the first to the North Pole?

Greatest Polar Explorers,

Polar Routes Blog

Several land discoveries have been disputed, given continued research and archaeological digs. One of the most famous being Christopher Columbus not being the first European to reach the New World. But the question of the North Pole is a bigger challenge. Roald Amundsen’s claim to the South Pole in 1911 can be proved, so why not Robert Peary’s claim only 2 years earlier at the North Pole? The biggest trouble lies deep in the Arctic ice.

While Antarctica is a land mass holding relics of human presence, the Arctic Circle is nothing more than ice once it escapes the reaches of Canada and Greenland, the land masses that stretch closest to the North Pole. Explorers not only had to deal with the extreme temperatures but with the unpredictability of the ice. Even when waiting until the summer months of the Northern Hemisphere, temperatures still average around freezing and below. Many vessels became trapped, even when led by seasoned explorers, due to the risky gamble of navigating Arctic waters.

Realizing the limits of these vessels and the dangerously temperamental conditions of the ice, several explorers chose the safer route of making the trek by foot and sled. One of the most famous U.S explorers was Robert Peary, who manned multiple expeditions throughout Greenland and toward the North Pole. Having begun his explorations of the Arctic Circle in 1886, Peary led bigger and riskier expeditions up until his final expedition, ending in 1909.

His first attempt to the North Pole was in 1898, which was followed by other attempts before 1905. Each failed expedition taught Peary and his crew how to navigate the ever-changing, fluid landscape until he believed he'd finally reached his goal in 1909. Upon coming back to the U.S, however, he made a shocking discovery that someone else was trying to claim his prize.

Frederick Cook, explorer and surgeon, had accompanied Robert Peary on his 2nd expedition to Greenland. An ambitious man who wanted to make his own mark, Cook pursued his own path to fame rather than continuing under Peary's shadow. Cook quickly sought out grand trophies, starting with claiming first to the top of Denali,  in Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska in 1906, then claiming to have been the first at the top of the world in 1908. Having well-kept travel journals, photographic evidence and the friendship of Ronald Amundsen, what could possibly go wrong for the young explorer?

Evidence disputing Cook’s claim to being the first atop Denali quickly started to tarnish his reputation even before he returned from his attempt to the North Pole. This, in addition to Peary and his association with the National Geographic Society, created doubt that resulted in a hearing in front of the United States House of Representatives’ Naval Affairs Subcommittee in 1911.

In order to secure his claim to the North Pole, Peary worked to expose Cook as a fraud. Cook’s photographs and journals were analyzed down to the finest details. Companions in both the Denali and North Pole explorations were questioned and interviewed. In the end, Robert Peary prevailed, and Frederick Cook’s efforts in exploration were left tattered in Peary’s wake.

Robert Peary, however, was not without his own flaws. His journals were locked away by the National Geographic Society and his family, and were never used as evidence in the case of Peary vs. Cook. Peary’s claim rested on the proof of Cook’s fraud and his reputation as an experienced explorer of the Arctic, not from his own evidence. Even if his claim to the North Pole was accurate, interviews years after the expedition placed his right-hand man, Matthew Henson, at the coordinates first.

Henson, who had been beside Peary on all but his first expedition to the Arctic, was sent ahead of the final exploration party to scout the area. This meant that the black dock worker from Maryland, not the white rear admiral from Pennsylvania, was the first to walk on top of the world.

Even though the National Geographic later cast doubt on Peary’s claim to have been first to the North Pole, and reputable historians and explorers have published disputing accounts, Peary’s claim persists in the popular mind. However, who else could possibly take up the trophy? The first runner-up, journeying not on the ice but in the air, is also shrouded in mystery: Richard Byrd in the airplane Josephine Ford vs. Roald Amundsen in the airship Norge.

In May 1926, both the Josephine Ford and the Norge took off from Spitsbergen Norway, and flew toward the top of the world. Richard Byrd, flying with Floyd Bennett in a Fokker tri-motor airplane, left Spitsbergen on 9th May toward the North Pole. The round trip took about 15 hours of continuous flying over the icy landscape.

Less than 72 hours later, Roald Amundsen, with a crew of 15 including Lincoln Ellsworth, took off from Spitsbergen in the airship Norge. Slower moving than the Josephine Ford, it took the airship around 15 hours to get to the North Pole, continuing on to land in Teller Alaska, three days after their departure. Amundsen and his crew landed knowing that they weren’t first to fly over the North Pole, but were happy with the flight over the Arctic Circle.

Just like Peary, more recent reviews of documents and equipment from Byrd’s flight on the Josephine Ford have raised doubts. The claim has since been determined to have been made in error due to equipment and calculation issues. There were a few who believed that the claim was fraudulent, but his undisputed successes in the Antarctic make such a claim unlikely. Unlike Cook, Byrd’s reputation as a polar explorer has not been tarnished by the discovery that he may not have reached the North Pole. These revelations would have meant that Roald Amundsen was not only the first to the South Pole, but to the North Pole as well.

However can the claim to be first go to an explorer who just flew over the North Pole? There have been multiple attempts to get to the North Pole since the 1926 flights, and all for different purposes.

Since the Peary claim to the North Pole wasn’t disputed till the 1980s, scientists and explorers looked to new challenges and opportunities in the Arctic. In 1948 a Soviet scientific expedition flew to and landed on the North Pole. Consisting of 4 scientists, the expedition was kept secret during and briefly after, but it was acknowledged by Guinness World Records in 1997 as the first at the North Pole at ground level.

The next achievement came from the first to sail under the North Pole. The USS Nautilus, a nuclear-powered submarine created from the ambitious mind of Admiral Hyman Rickover, challenged the limits of scientific innovation during Operation Sunshine in 1958. The use of nuclear technology in the compact, submersible vessel allowed the Nautilus to move faster and stay underwater for up to 7 times longer than previous submarines. Operation Sunshine tested the limits of the nuclear submarine, and in Aug 1958, the Nautilus successfully sailed beneath the North Pole.

North Pole Expedition Museum

visitsvalbard

While the submarine became the first vessel to reach the North Pole, no other expedition risked crossing the Arctic by sled and foot since the final Peary expedition. The next party to attempt this feat was done on a dare! Insurance salesman Ralph Plaisted & medic Arthur Aufderheide began their expedition when discussing snowmobiles, building a team and gaining sponsors. Instead of selling insurance, Plaisted sold his exploration to the North Pole on Ski-Doos. The Minnesotans, along with a team of navigators, scouts and mechanics, began their North Pole attempt in 1967.

The first attempt suffered bad luck and even worse weather. But the Plaisted expedition decided on a second try in 1968. It was this attempt that the team managed to make the successful trek from Ward Hunt Island Canada, to the North Pole. While the team was less experienced than the Peary team, the Plaisted expedition had an impressive support team that airdropped supplies and modern navigational tools to ensure the expedition’s arrival to 90 degrees north, the North Pole’s latitude location.

The road to the North Pole is as uncertain as the Arctic ice. The definition of what it means to be first to 90 degrees north has been fractured since the release of Peary’s journals in the 1980s. But the continued urge to explore and reach the North Pole showed that explorers, scientists and insurance salesmen dreamt about challenging the ice to stand at the top of the world.

Lori Norris is an archives technician at the National Archives at College Park. The Polar Expeditions record includes papers, journals, and artefacts from Arctic and Antarctic expeditions. Held at the National Archives, these records were donated mostly from the explorers or their families. The largest part of the collection belongs to Rear Admiral Robert Peary, the explorer who believed claiming first to the North Pole was his birthright and who is still credited for his claim today.

The formerly Spitsbergen Airship Museum is today the North Pole Expedition Museum and the northernmost aviation museum in the world. The museum is about expeditions to the North Pole, departing from Svalbard, the emphasis being on The America, Norge and Italia expeditions. Several hours of the original expedition films run continuously. The exhibitions displayed old newspapers, postcards, photos, plane models, original movie material, clothes, stamps, letters and telegrams. Open daily from 9am-5pm during Feb-Nov, the guided tour was a great way to learn about the history of Arctic exploration! Book a guided tour.

History of North Pole expeditions in the Arctic.

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Edna Walling's stunning garden designs

Edna Margaret Walling (1895-1973) was born in York, second daughter of William and Harriet Walling. Edna studied at the Convent of Notre Dame in Devon, enjoying exploring with dad and the practical arts. Arriving in New Zealand in 1912 with her family, she began a nursing course at Christchurch. About 1914 the Wallings moved to Melbourne where William became a warehouse director.

Encouraged by her mother, Edna studied at School of Horticulture Burnley, gaining a graduate certificate in Dec 1917. She then began work as a jobbing gardener around Melbourne. Asked by an architect to plan a garden, she loved the idea. More commissions came and by the 1920s she had built a successful practice in garden design. She developed a sophisticated style,attracting an equally sophisticated clientele, and rapidly became the leading exponent of the art in Victoria at first, then spread to other states. Her regular gardening columns (1926-46) in Australian Home Beautiful and other magazines extended her influence.

Mawarra in Sherbrooke, designed in 1932

Dandenong Ranges Photography

To some extent, Walling emulated the styles of Spanish and Italian gardens and the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll in Britain. The gardens she created typically exhibited a strong architectural character. For clients in the wealthy suburbs of Melbourne and on country estates, her designs included grand architectural features: walls, pergolas, stairs, parterres, pools and colonnades—woven into a formal geometry. And she always found a space for a wild, unstructured section.

For clients with more modest means, Walling's approach was more relaxed, relying on curving lawns and garden beds to give the illusion of greater space. But rarely were there no stone walls or other structural features. Whether the garden was big or small, she created a succession of pictures. Her handling of space, contour, level and view was brilliant. Equally impressive was her mastery of plants and their visual and ecological relationships. Her gardens were clothed by a soft and consistent palette of plants. She favoured greens and used other colours sparingly, mostly in pastel tones or white. For many clients she produced an exquisite water-colour plan of the garden as a means of conveying her proposals. Most of her gardens were constructed by Eric Hammond. Walling often provided the plants from her own nursery and was frequently on site giving instructions and helping with the physical labour. 

Edna Walling's iconic 1920s landscape design, Sherbrooke 

Heritage listed, Facebook

In the early 1920s Walling had acquired land at Mooroolbark where she built a house for herself, known as Sonning. Here she lived and worked, establishing her nursery and gathering around her a group of like-minded people for whom she designed picturesque 'English' cottages and gardens. She named the area Bickleigh Vale village. Some people rather unkindly called it Trouser Lane because of the dress of its predominantly female residents. The village was, and remains, an extraordinary experiment in urban development. In Walling's lifetime, and beyond, it has become a place of pilgrimage for her many followers. She designed several other group-housing estates. One, at Mount Kembla in NSW, was built for Broken Hill Associated Smelters Pty Ltd. Others remained on paper.

By the 1940s Walling's was a household name and she capitalised on her popularity by publishing four successful books: Gardens in Australia (1943); Cottage and Garden in Australia (1947); A Gardener's Log (1948); and The Australian Roadside (1952). A further monograph, On the Trail of Australian Wildflowers, appeared posthumously in 1984. Several more manuscripts were unpublished.

Her influence on C20th gardening in Australia was enormous. The visual impact of the hundreds of gardens she created, her extensive writing, and the respect she commanded from those with whom she worked, including Glen Wilson, Ellis Stones and Eric Hammond, had a considerable effect on the next generation. In the 1980s and 1990s she was to become almost a cult figure for many Australian gardeners and a number of books were published about her work.

The Edna Walling Book of Australian Garden Design,

by Anne O'Donovan, 1980

In the mid-1940s Walling had developed a particular interest in native plants; she had begun using them in domestic gardens in the 1920s. An early and active conservationist, she joined battles to protect the natural environment and crusaded for the preservation of indigenous roadside vegetation. She was an outstanding photographer who always took her camera on her extensive travels. Classical music was another of her passions.

Miss Walling was not a person to be taken lightly. On site, dressed in her customary jodhpurs, jacket and tie, with strong, handsome features, she was energetic, determined and demanding. These character traits often provoked conflict, especially with some of her wealthy male clients. Yet she was also generous, fun loving and good company, attracting many loyal admirers and friends. By 1967, tiring of the characterless suburbs advancing towards Bickleigh Vale, she moved to Buderim, Queensland, to be in a warmer climate and near to her niece Barbara Barnes. Always single, Walling maintained a close relationship with Lorna Fielden, a teacher forwhom she had designed a house and garden at Bickleigh Vale. Fielden also moved to Buderim. 

Edna Walling, book cover of

The Unusual Life of Edna Walling, by Sara Hardy

Royal Historical Society of Victoria

Walling died in 1973 at Nambour and was cremated with Christian Scientist rituals.

Cowra: Jewish, Italian & Japanese POWs

Following Nazi Germany’s enactment of the infamous Nuremberg Laws in 1936, expatriate Jewish organisations sought to help as many pot­ent­ial victims out of Germany and Eastern Europe as poss­ible. The USA, Britain and Shanghai China became potential sanct­uaries. 

Japanese prisoners of war, 12th Prisoner of War Camp, Cowra 

July 1, 1944.

Australian War Memorial

Location of Cowra, Hay and Tatura camps

in S.E Australia

Museums Victoria

In Australia, Jewish leaders begged Canberra to take Jewish re­fug­ees. And in Dec 1938, after Nazi occupation of Austria and Czech­os­lovakia, Joe Lyons’ Federal Labour government agreed to take an un­pre­ced­ented 15,000 desperate Jews. Yes, it came with condit­ions: The usual £500 landing fee was reduced for those with rel­at­ives in Aust­ralia and less for those with sponsors, IF all Jewish immigrants were the responsibility of the local Jewish communities.

Early in WW2, the majority of internees in Australia were herded into old internment camps, the Germans and Italians being estab­l­ished at the old Holsworthy Barracks in NSW. As the num­bers grew, new camps for prisoners of war were needed. By Sept 1940, the gov­ernment had completed 4 com­pounds at Tatura (Victoria), 3 at Hay and 1 at Cowra (NSW), 3 at Loveday (S.A) and one at Harvey (W.A).

Since they were Ger­man and Austrian citizens, the Jewish refugees who'd arrived with swastikas on their pass­ports were initially regarded as Enemy Aliens and threatened with int­er­n­ment. But how could they be Nazi symp­ath­is­ers if they were fleeing Nazism? Soon they became Friendly Aliens.

Cowra (pop now 10,000) is a pleasant town in a farming dist­rict 314km west of Sydney; it has two important war tales to tell. The first was the story of a settlement that became a haven for Jew­ish refugees who had fled Europe early in WW2. These were German Jews who had initially fled to Britain to es­cape Nazi persecution and were imprisoned on the Isle of Man. In 1940 Australia reached an agreement with Britain to accept c3000 German, Austrian and Hungar­ian young male prisoners, mainly Jewish. They were sent from Britain aboard the ship HMT Dunera. On arrival in Melb­ourne in Sept 1940, 500 deportees were tran­s­ferred to Tat­ura internment camp while the remaining males went north to Sydney and thence to Hay’s camps.

What the refugees needed in these horrible wartime conditions was food: vegetables, poultry and sheep. So the Australian Jewish Wel­f­are Service est­ablished two companies: 1. Mutual Farm Ltd and 2. Mutual Enterprises Ltd, to set­tle the refugees into ag­ricultural enterprises. This would satisfy the gov­ern­ment’s requ­ire­ments and guarantee the newcomers would not weigh on Australia’s economy.

The ref­ug­ees were largely city-people and few had worked on the land. The main training initially took place at Chelsea Park in West Sydney where 200+ people lived. Meanwhile 25 families mov­ed to their own properties, while 28 couples and 63 young men went into rural employ­ment.

Mooringa, a 100-hectare property outside Cowra, was pur­ch­ased by Mutual Farms in Sept 1940. The Mooringa Set­tlement disapp­ear­ed but historian Graham Apthorpe has re­corded an amazing era of WW2 history in his book, A Town at War. Apth­orpe interviewed 4 key people: Harry Kramer-Crom­er, Claude Newcombe, Margit Scouller and George Bluth. 

4 Jewish deportees working in Cowra

Australian War Memorial

Italian Prisoners of War installing a new filtration trench 

for their POW Camp septic system.

Digger History

Austrian Kurt Pisk (b1937) and his parents Fred and Anna Pisk fled Vienna after the Mar 1938 Anschluss/an­n­exation by Hitler. During their time at Mooringa, the Pisks were allocated two It­al­ian POWs to help them with farm-work. In fact the refugees were all hel­p­ed by local families, as was seen in the collection of rare photos Apthorpe found in Cromer’s photo album. [NB Mooringa  re­f­ugees were for­bidden cameras, cars and guns, in case they used them to advantage Australia’s enemy].

Cowra Shire Council photos showed the refugees learning how to create life on the land - shown building their huts, cutting gum trees into fence posts, working with horses and learn­ing to plough & harvest. Of all the German-speaking Jews seeking a safe life in WW2, these were lucky ones.

They were still under surveil­lance of course. Regulations insisted that the Mooringa Jews travel weekly by horse-drawn sulky to the lo­c­al policeman in Cow­ra. So the sensible serg­eant, realising the Jews weren’t a risk to Allied security, told them to report monthly. The community at Mooringa totally ensured safety once the Jewish men were all­owed to enlist in the Australian armed forces, in Feb 1944.

News of the Cowra Outbreak,

Aug 1944.

Cowra was also known for holding 1,104 Jap­an­ese POWs, guarded by the 22nd Garrison Battalion. In response to in­formation that the prisoners were planning a mass outbreak, not­ice was given that all Japanese prisoners of low rank would be trans­fer­red to Hay Prisoner Camp. In Aug 1944, a prisoner ran shout­ing to the camp gates. Soon a bugle was heard when pris­oners, armed with knives and improvised clubs, rushed from their huts in a suicidal mission. Sentries opened fire but hundreds of pris­oners hacked the wire fences and escaped into open country, while others set fire to the huts. This was the Cowra Breakout, a desperate event that resulted in 231 Japanese dying and 108 wounded; 3 Australian soldiers were killed and 3 wounded. It was the lar­gest, most tragic WW2 prison escape on Australian soil.

In 1964 Cowra became an official Japanese War Cemetery when the re­mains of all the Japanese who had died in Aust­ralia were raised, transported and buried together. A gathering was held at Cowra to memorialise these Japanese men, and to build the World Peace Bell. Cowra’s lovely 5 hec­tare Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre were opened in 1979, and expanded in 1986.

Japanese Memorial Gardens, Cowra

Japanese War Cemetery, Cowra

Traces of War