Finding the Fallen: 1914-18

An Edwardian State of mind recommended an amazing book about the post World War One years called “The Great Silence” by Juliet Nicholson. I was interested in the subject and had already written in an earlier post about the Australian Historical Mission. Their primary tasks were to report on the state of the war graves at Gallipoli. But a television programme caught my eye and, alerted by The Great Silence, I thought I better watch it.

The National Army Museum in Chelsea tells how, since 1918, the battle fields of France and Belgium have yielded a terrible harvest. Every year the bodies and possessions of lost soldiers of World War One (1914-1918) are being unearthed.

Commonwealth War Graves in France

Fabian Ware originally arrived in France in September 1914 at the head of a mobile British Red Cross Society unit. He quickly realised the importance of recording burials, for the solace of relatives and the morale of the soldiers. So Ware’s unit was charged with recording and caring for all of the graves they could find. Their work was recognised in 1915 with the official foundation of the Graves Registration Commission.

But thousands of bodies were never found in the battlefield clearances during or after the War; at least 100,000 from British and Commonwealth armies alone had been missed. As well, the remains of thousands of German soldiers lay undiscovered and hidden from history. Tonnes of abandoned equipment, munitions and other debris were left buried in the remains of the trench systems, each piece having a story to tell.

National Army Museum workers

Travelling to infamous battlefields of that war, a group of archaeologists, forensic experts and historians carefully excavated the past, to preserve the memories of the shattered lives that ended there. The Western Front stretched for 640 kilometres and so far the archaeological teams have examined only a tiny fraction of the trench system, mainly on the Somme in France and around Ypres in Belgium. "Finding the Fallen" is a film series that travels to battlefields in Ypres, Serre, Loos, Beaumont Hamel and Passchendaele, alongside the historians and archaeologists.

The programme on Serre in France located three bodies who were buried where they had fallen in 1915. From the uniforms, dog tags and personal possessions, the experts were able to reassemble their lives and their deaths, including the towns they had come from, their wives, their children and their jobs. It was absolutely moving, to be able to see these men given a decent burial, complete with a named tombstone, 95 years after the Battle of the Somme. Jakob Hönes’ family in Munchingen was informed and was very involved in the research. Albert Thielecke’s family in Halberstadt, if there is anyone still to be found, have not yet been located.

Uniform and diary, located in the trenches

kae's bloodnut Australian blog saw the Fromelles Belgium programme and was equally moved. percy smith, anzac wrote a beautiful Australian blog about her grandfather in Flanders and France. British respondents in the Great War Forum, on the other hand, did not like the series very much. So I wonder if it is a colonial thing.

Plugstreet blog is a Great War project exploring sites around Comines-Warneton and Messines in Belgium. Since 2007, the project has been being led by members of No Man's Land - The European Group for Great War Archaeology and the Comines-Warneton Historical Society.

A Blog About History posted some poignant examples from the 6,000 personal artefacts that were recovered from WWI mass graves in Fromelles, including a personal bible with passages underlined by hand and small photos showing British soldiers on their way to the Somme. Heart breakingly personal relics.

The traditional Queenslander house

“Queenslander Houses” were built in an architectural style very popular throughout Queensland, from Brisbane in the south of the state to the tip of Cape York. The style was common from the 1840s until the post-WW2 era and was mainly used in residential buildings. But I have seen some very beautiful “Queenslander Pubs” with gorgeous wrought iron lace work/filigree wrapped around the balconies.

Basic Queenslander, largely symmetrical

Two elements best differentiated the Queenslanders from homes in Victoria and New South Wales: a] they had wide and long verandas, and large double doors which opened onto these verandas. And b] they were typically raised on vertical timber stumps. The use of timber stumps must have gone into disfavour in the post–WW2 era because any new stumps or any replacements for old stumps must now be steel or concrete. But one thing has remained the same, as fun and vjs has shown. Being built on stumps prevented the homes being inundated in flood prone areas, particularly in the older Brisbane suburbs.

In pre-air conditioning days, Queenslander Homes made the most of passive climate control. Any breeze that arrived in the summer evenings blew underneath the raised houses and increased the ventilation. Internally the large doors and windows were lined up internally, once again to increase any natural ventilation, and windows are often louvered to allow for air circulation.

The breezeway fretwork design, seen above the doorways in traditional domestic Queenslanders, allowed for moving breezes. But it was also seen as differentiating between private space for the family and the house’s reception areas. The bedroom and living areas were in any case often separated by a hallway.
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Roofs were generally made of corrugated iron or tin, and external walls were clad with timber, often painted in gentle colours. The verandas were as wide as possible, to protect against the overhead summer sun and to increase shade. Very often subtropical trees were planted close to the outer walls. Trees may have increased the risk of possums driving the residents mad at night, but during the day their shade was invaluable. For the rest of the land, there were traditional types of plants and gardens which became associated with a Queenslander home, from settlement of the colony in Brisbane and right through the inter-war period. Oleander, citrus, mango, passion fruit, frangipani, jasmine, gerbera, daylily and hibiscus were much loved.

Pastel colours with contrasting handrail

Your Brisbane Past and Present mentioned a third element that was almost always found in Queenslanders. The space under the house, raised high on stumps, created a magical area that children could use on days when it was too rainy to go outside. This blogger had a swing to play on, cowboy games, marbles, hula-hoops, skipping ropes and hopscotch games under there.

The biggest building boom was after Queensland’s soldiers returned from WW1. By the time they had returned to civilian life in 1919, then entered studies and marriage, many new houses were needed throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. Families with more money built more extravagant Queenslanders, still with the wide verandas and under house playing space, but with gazebos, corner bays and exotic roof lines.

More elaborate Queenslander

Queenslander Houses were not identical in shape, especially after Federation. Asymmetry crept into the design and the gable could be placed to one side of the main roof. There were usually two verandas but they too could be asymmetrical; one was at the front of the home, of course, and the second ran down one side of the home.

Asymmetrical design

Brissos blog is also in love with Queenslander homes. Brisbane Daily Photo has many delightful photos. This blog noted that “Queenslander houses, made mostly from wood, are about as fire-prone and termite-prone as houses can get, they're hot in the summer, chilly in the winter and have no soundproofing... but it doesn't stop Queenslander people being fiercely loyal to them”. Of course not. They are Queensland’s special contribution to the world of architecture AND they look splendid. In a bland world where one architectural style is accepted in every city of the known universe, it is lovely when specific regional styles retain their enthusiastic supporters.

fun and vjs blog was very helpful in recording the destruction of these gracious homes.  “Brisbane's architectural history was very nearly destroyed in the 1980s with the outrageous demolition of important cultural buildings and the removal of about 1000 Queenslander homes per year”.

I wonder if there is any heritage overlay, these days, for surviving Queenslanders.

Shade trees close to the house

Elegant Shopping III: Melbourne and Sydney

In earlier posts, I suggested that one could see the antecedents of Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building in Sydney 1898 in London’s Burlington arcade. Now I would like to examine Melbourne’s Royal Arcade 1870 and Sydney’s Strand Arcade 1892, similar in purpose and style to the other arcades that I loved so much.
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Royal Arcade

Royal Arcade in Bourke St Melbourne was built in 1870. This was long before the bottom fell out of the property market, and so money was still plentiful. Charles Webb was a good choice of architect, for the classical Renaissance-style building. He had a very successful practice during the mid-Victorian decades and many of Melbourne’s most famous buildings had his special touch: Wesley College in 1864, the (old) Alfred Hospital 1869, South Melbourne Town Hall and Melbourne Orphan Asylum in 1878, and the Grand Hotel/now Windsor in 1884.

The arcade is not as long as some of the arcades in London, Paris, Milan and Sydney, but in some ways it is more beautiful. In 1892 the figures of Gog and Magog were installed at the southern end of the main walkway. Carved by Mortimer Godfrey, they were modelled on statues in London’s Guildhall which were built in 1708 to replace those lost in the Great Fire a generation earlier. They probably represented survivors of a race of giants destroyed by Brutus the Trojan, the mythical founder of London. Soon after Gog and Magog were introduced to Melbourne, Gaunt’s clock was installed in between.

Gog, Magog and Gaunt's Clock

Despite many changes over the time since 1870, Royal Arcade still maintains its airy, graceful elegance. It may not have the range of consumer goods that modern shopping centres have, but it is classy, as you can see in My Sandbox's excited text and Froth and Bubble's delightful photos.

When the Strand Arcade in Pitt St Sydney opened in 1892, it was the last of five glass roofed arcades built in that city in the late Victorian era. Until the crash of the mid 1890s, Sydney architects were expected to create grand buildings that were grand in their own right AND reminded citizens of London’s most grand designs. Naming this arcade after the Strand in London could not have made the link any clearer. Even better, the chosen architect John B Spencer was himself English educated and trained.

Strand Arcade, Sydney

Facilities and decorative elements were all chosen to continue the tradition of fashionable shopping: three storeys of boutique shopping, gas and electric lighting, ornate cedar staircases, elegant bathroom facilities and hydraulic lifts.

The building was partly destroyed in 1976 in a serious fire. You might have expected the developers to tear down this Victorian gem to build a concrete car park, but it was actually renovated and restored to its original loveliness.

You can see in Sydney – City and Suburbs that the overhanging gallery is supported independently of the columns, to gain an unobstructed view of the full length of the interior. And the fabulous Christmas decorations that make the arcade even more impressive.

                                         Entrance to Royal Arcade

Entrance to Strand Arcade

How big and how wealthy did a city need to be, to build high-end shopping arcades at the end of the Victorian era? The English Buildings blog mentioned that cities like Manchester and Leeds acquired large arcades, but many smaller cities had at least one example to attract the well heeled. He used the beautiful example of Norwich's Royal Arcade 1899. I would add the lovely Adelaide Arcade in that somewhat smaller city.

Queenscliff 1852-92: a Victorian treasure town

Queenscliff, on Victoria's south coast, grew up in a hurry.

Port Phillip Bay (see Queenscliff and the Rip/Heads)

In 1852 Victoria’s Lieutenant Governor Charles La Trobe commissioned a surveyor to lay out a town at the opening of Port Phillip Bay. This settlement was named in 1853 and soon the first town lots were sold. By 1854, facilities for the Health Officer at the Quarantine Station were built, a Customs Officer was appointed and the old lighthouse was incorporated into the new town. The first hotel was built. The telegraph office was built by Jan 1855. Smart homes, churches, hotels, parks and a jetty quickly appeared. Small steamers offered trips around the Bay.

In 1857 the Anglican Bishop had licensed a timber building at Queenscliff to be used for public worship and as a school. In 1863 the present lovely limestone Church of St George the Martyr was built in the gothic taste by a Melbourne architect. It was completed in 1878 with the addition of the stuccoed brick tower.

Church of St George the Martyr 1863

As the city of Melbourne (104 ks from Queenscliff) became wealthier, fears of invasion increased, particularly by the Russians who had just been defeated in Crimea 1853-6. [If you think this fear of Russia was fanciful, Port Focus blog described how a boat was bought to defend the colony of Victoria from the very same threat of Russian invasion].

Anyhow, as a direct result of this fear, a detachment of Victoria’s Volunteer Artillery formed in Queenscliff in 1859. A gun battery began at Shortland's Bluff and this in turn led to the building of two new lighthouses. Queenscliff's famous Black Lighthouse, built in 1862, is the only lighthouse in the southern hemisphere that is made from unpainted, dark bluestone. It is also called the High Lighthouse since it was built in a spot that was later used for Fort Queenscliff, guarding the entrance to Port Phillip Bay (see map).

Following the 1875 Royal Commission into the Volunteer Forces, the Victorian Government invited the Director of Works and Fortifications in London, Lieutenant General Sir William Jervois, to travel to Melbourne to advise on our defences. He and Colonel Scratchley recommended that the basic defences for the Colony should be concentrated on the Heads of the Bay, and should consist of fortifications at the entrance to the Bay (called The Rip on the map).

A tough Fort Queenscliff was commissioned in 1877. Walls were erected against a ground-based attack, massive guns were installed and dry moats were dug around the perimeter of the fort. Then a military railway line from Geelong opened in 1879, allowing better access to the Bellarine Peninsula area and its growing network of forts. The fort soon acquired a drill hall (1882), barracks (1885), a guard house (1883) and a separate cell block (1887). These buildings were all built from timber and corrugated iron, and were not intended to be gorgeous, but many survived.

Black Lighthouse next to Fort Queenscliff built 1877-87

Civilian presence in the Fort ended in 1887 when the lighthouse keepers' quarters and the post & telegraph office were turned over to military use. [The guns at the fortress network were only fired in anger once. The first Allied shots of WWI were shot when a gun at Fort Nepean fired across the bow of a German freighter, as she fled out to sea].

Once the railway line from Melbourne reached this beach town in 1879, many splendid places went up within a very short decade, starting with the Royal Hotel 1854, Queenscliff’s oldest hotel, then Esplanade/Palace Hotel built in 1879, the Vue Grand Hotel 1883 and the Lathamstowe Hotel 1883. In the 1880s, even larger buildings were erected in the town by rich Melbournians on holiday. Coffee palaces and temperance hotels survived well in country resorts where, even after the interest in temperance had faded, families still needed good quality, clean places to stay. Some of the truly beautiful hotels in Queenscliff had started life as coffee palaces and temperance hotels eg the Baillieu Hotel 1881, later renamed Ozone Hotel.

Royal Hotel 1854

A new pier was built in 1885 and this encouraged the building of a larger paddle steamer. This in turn led to beautiful terrace houses being built, as Australian Terrace Houses blog explained (see Thanet Terrace, written 7th Nov 2009).

Continuing prosperity in the late 1880s and early 1890s led to the building of more guest houses. The Queenscliff Hotel 1887 clearly recognised that wealthy Victorian Society regarded Queenscliff as a fashionable summer holiday resort. The owners commissioned their Melbourne architects Reed, Henderson and Smart to design a hotel in the style of an elegant home, rather than a public building. In this way, they would hopefully attract the cream of their potential client-pool. Two more tourist paddle steamers opened up for business.

Queenscliff Hotel 1887

The architecture is gold boom brash mixed with old money grandeur; and in the 1880s there was no shortage of money. The buildings are vast, including the old post office (1889) which is a huge lump of late Victorian architecture. They look too big for the size of the town but the gentle rising and falling away of its topography from sea to wetlands gives the place a terraced effect. The guest houses sprawl and the hotel balconies soar. Gemma Wiseman’s Greyscale Territory blog has wonderful photos of Queenscliff’s 19th century treasures.

Baillieu Hotel 1881, later renamed Ozone Hotel

Tulip mania: Netherlands in 1620s and 30s

With the Union of Utrecht in 1579, only the 7 Calvinist provinces to the north succeeded in gaining their independence from Spanish rule. Thus the north ie The United Provinces became independent and Protestant; the south ie Flanders remained Catholic and under Spanish rule. Dutch people elaborately celebrated their success in consolidating their Republic as a free, independent state. It was the first of the states created by means of a people's revolution against monarchical power in the early modern era. Peace was a gift from the Protestant God. Dutch trading companies founded colonies and profitable businesses, and banking and shipping boomed.

A BOSSCHAERT, Bouquet of flowers in a vase, 37 x 26 cm, 1621.

The Dutch East India Co, founded 1602, had a monopoly on all profits from trade east of the Cape of Good Hope including South Africa, India and Indonesia. Lisbon had been conquered by the Spanish so the Dutch had to find their own way to the East for spices. So the Dutch East India Co. went public and for 200 years ran a commercial empire more powerful than some countries.

The Dutch West India Co, founded 1621, was granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the Caribbean and was given jurisdiction over the African slave trade, Brazil and North America. The purpose of the charter was to eliminate competition, especially Spanish or Portuguese, b/w the various trading posts established by Dutch merchants. The company became instrumental in the Dutch colonisation of the Americas.

Commerce expanded so much that the Dutch Republic become the culturally and economically most flourishing country in Europe. A welfare system and public works were important expressions of Dutch civic government. Guild members and regents of charitable institutions were proud representatives of their Protestant, mercantile society. By early C17th, all Dutchmen were allowed to practise their religion freely. And it was to the Dutch that other Protestant cities looked for rebuilding. Dutch engineers, artists and designers spread all over Europe.

The cities’ canals and bridges were a source of huge civic pride. New roads were built, horse drawn public transport by barges started up, Bourses boomed, public clocks appeared all over the country and cities became clean. Street lighting became a model for other European cities. Fire fighting teams were created and equipped. A civic medical board was set up in each city to license and supervise doctors. Windmills made it possible to raise the water level from low lying land, and to mill flour and timber.

In the Dutch Republic there were few noble families, and the small Catholic Church in the north could not commission altar pieces. Worse still, for artists, Calvinist churches didn't tolerate lush ornamentation inside. So art commissions came from new sources: civic institutions, militia companies, charitable foundations, bankers and business people. Newly wealthy burghers enjoyed their new fortunes.

Tulips had long been growing in Constantinople. Then, in the 1560s, trade and diplomatic interaction with the Ottoman Empire allowed for a small number of tulips to be imported into Hapsburg Europe. In this early stage, tulip ownership was primarily limited to wealthy nobles and scholars. Antwerp, Brussels, Augsburg, Paris and Prague are among some of the cities where tulips first began to circulate. Tulip cultivation in the United Provinces probably started in 1593 when tulip bulbs were sent from Turkey by the Netherlandish ambassador.

Maria Oosterwijck, Flower Still Life, 1669

The most vividly coloured of the new tulips became exorbitantly priced. Only the wealthiest aristocrats and merchants could afford the variegated hybrid varieties. By the early 1630s, however, flower growers had begun to raise vast crops of more simply-coloured tulips. With the increasing number of varieties and the ever-widening price range, tulips became one of the few luxury goods that could be purchased by members of all classes.

Not everyone could afford these high prices and many families were opposed to gambling. One way to achieve the beauty of full blown floral bouquets in the home was to have an artist paint the floral image on canvas. The canvas could be hung in the reception area, opposite the front door, so that visitors would be impressed by the floral display.

The Dutch were in any case passionate about still life paintings in the C17th, especially serious botanical studies. And there might well have been a vanitas element eg Bosschaert’s tiny Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase 1621, combined with small animals and insects. A skull, an hourglass or pocket watch, a candle burning down or a book with pages turning, would serve as a moralising message on the ephemeral nature of sensory pleasures. Often some of the luscious fruits and flowers themselves would be starting to spoil, or bugs would crawling around.

Whether still-lifes had a moralising intent or were painted for the pure pleasure of displaying the talent of the artist and the wealth of a newly wealthy society, their message of beauty and natural content was understood. They were closely observed and beautifully painted. But it could also be argued that it was the national obsession with exotic flowers that made still lifes so highly sought after.

In 1623, a single bulb of a famous tulip variety could cost up to a thousand Dutch florins, 6 or 7 times the average yearly income. Tulips could be exchanged for land, homes or valuable livestock. If a family could afford a number bulbs, they would buy a pyramid-shaped vase to display each flower separately. Possibly this was not an exclusively Dutch preference; the multi-spout vases/bulb pots were popular in Holland, England, France and Germany, made from painted porcelain, delftware or bone china.

Maddy's Ramblings said that people abandoned jobs, businesses, wives, homes and lovers to become tulip growers. And even more so for royals. Austrian Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella were fine patrons of the arts, making Peter Paul Rubens their court painter in 1609. See their collector’s cabinet c1626 . Flowers were as important as paintings, rugs, musical instruments, sculptures and globes for their royal collection.

Tulip vase of Willem III, 1690s, blue-painted faience, 102cm

The record price reached for the sale of one bulb, the Semper Augustus, was 6,000 florins in Haarlem. By 1636, tulips were traded on the stock exchanges of many Dutch towns. This encouraged trading in tulips by all members of society, with many people selling or trading their other possessions in order to speculate in the tulip market. Some speculators made large profits as a result. As did advertisers.

During Tulip-mania there were many who tried to stop or slow the absurd speculation. Religious leaders, moralists and even the government warned their people against obsession with base secular concerns. Van Gogh's Chair blog cited a painting called A Satire of Tulip Mania by Jan Brueghel II c1640, definitely a scathing satire of human greed.

But the passion burned. Because flower-growers had to cultivate the bulbs and could not sell them until ready, flower sellers began selling promissory notes guaranteeing the future delivery of the tulip bulb. The buyers of these pieces of paper resold the notes at marked-up prices. Thus promissory notes changed hands from buyer to buyer until the tulip became ready for delivery. The key was to be able to resell the note before the tulip could be delivered; the unlucky gambler was the person who could no longer resell the note because he now owned the actual tulip.

Tulip speculation became so excessive that in 1637 the States of Holland passed a statute curbing the extremes, but the legislation failed. That year the market began to panic when people realised that tulips were not worth the prices people were paying for them. People began to sell as quickly as they could and in less than 6 weeks, tulip prices crashed by over 90%. The negative side of option leverage meant fortunes were lost. People who traded in farms and life savings for a tulip bulb were left holding a worthless plant seed. Many defaults occurred, where speculators couldn’t pay off their debts. Others were left holding contracts to purchase tulips at prices now 10 times greater than those on the open market. Many Dutch gamblers were financially ruined. No court would enforce payment of a contract, since judges regarded the debts as contracted through gambling, and thus not enforceable in law.

The aftermath of tulip price deflation and other events led to an economic chill throughout Netherlands for years after, resulting in an economic depression and harming Dutch commerce. But the tulip remained the much loved national floral emblem.  And floral still lifes with tulips still continued being painted long after the bubble burst and crashed.

The best analysis of the phenomenon was provided by Anne Goldgar, in Tulipmania: Money, Honour and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age. She argued that the phenomenon was limited to a smallish group of Dutch families. She believed that tulips were treated more like art, for which high-status people paid exorbitant prices in the pursuit of beauty. In other words, tulipmania might have been a social and cultural crisis for the young nation, not a financial one.

Anne Goldgar's book

Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog  reviewed the House of Windjammer by VA Richardson (2003). Mike Dash wrote Tulipomania : The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower. Deborah Moggach wrote Tulip Fever and Anna Pavord wrote The Tulip. Investing Notes blog discussed the economic reasons behind the success and later failure of this speculative mania.

Flemington Racecourse: Melbourne Cup Day

Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne now looks very elegant. It has a crowd capacity of 120,000 and contains three grandstands, but its origins were more humble.

Modern grandstands, Flemington.

The first official race meeting took place in 1838 at Batman Hill, close to today’s Spencer Street railway station. From March 1840, racing was moved out of the city to Saltwater Flat on the banks of the Maribyrnong River, with meetings held over three days. This new racecourse was set up on land owned by Robert Fleming and the property was used at the time for farming cattle and sheep. Apparently the property was known as Fleming Town, and the name soon attached itself to the racecourse on it. [Note that in the VCR history, they say the site was named after Flemington in Morayshire, Scotland].

Today Flemington Racecourse is on crown land, and covers 127 hectares. The racecourse is serviced by its own railway station, and is protected as a heritage site by the Australian National Heritage List.

The first racing club was the Port Phillip Turf Club, but within the decade (in 1848) the course was leased to the Victoria Turf Club. Its timing was excellent. With the great population explosion and wealth explosion in Melbourne and Victoria due to the 1850s gold rush, the Turf Club was onto a winner. One can imagine a lot of money earned from digging or mining being taken to Melbourne and immediately placed on bets, food and drink.

The first Melbourne Cup was run in 1861, attracting a crowd of some 4,000 people. Modest at first, but a tradition had been established that would later see it become Australia's most famous horse race, the race that stops a nation. Within 20 years, 100,000 people flocked to see the race. Since the total population of Melbourne in 1880 was only 280,000, horse racing fans must have been coming in from the country and from interstate. Even today, the interest never wanes. Malaysia-Finance Blogspot said The Melbourne Cup is in the same league as the English Derby, America's Kentucky Derby and the Dubai Cup. But in folklore terms, the Melbourne Cup is the biggest race in the world, full stop.

Derby day at Flemington, painted by Carl Kahler, 1890

Meanwhile, in 1864, the Victoria Turf Club merged with the Victoria Jockey Club to form the Victoria Racing Club. And with the passing of the Victoria Racing Club Act in 1871, the VRC was given state approval to legally control Flemington Racecourse.

And improvements were constantly made. Australian Heritage Database noted that the original winning post was located on the far river side of the track. By the late 1860s the Hill and its gardens had become so popular that the VRC relocated the winning post in front of it. Banks of tens of thousands of roses were planted from 1881 on. During the 1890s, the Hill was redeveloped, with a new stand being constructed and other facilities being provided for ordinary race-goers. For a small entrance cost, patrons could enjoy the comforts of the stand and the entertainment that took place on the Hill. Brass bands, side shows and carnival rides provided amusement, and refreshments were available from the Temperance Pagoda, Swiss Chalet or Chinese Teahouse.

The very classy Members' Grandstand was added in 1924-5. Tea Break blog in Flemington Race Course reported that from the stands, the scenery is great. Visitors can see Melbourne's skyline across the landscape.

Today the Melbourne Cup is promoted as part of an entire Spring Racing Festival, many of its features races being held at Flemington. Snippets of Life blog wrote Melbourne Cup 2008 was impressed that the entire nation stopped work, dressed up, laid bets on the horses, partied and drank. But she was most impressed with the tradition relating to fashion. For women going to a Cup Event, wearing a gorgeous spring dress and a fascinator or large hat is an absolute MUST, as we can see from the Fashions in the Field.

A new book has appeared called Fashion at Royal Ascot, written by James Sherwood and published by Thames and Hudson in 2011. It would be interesting to compare 300 years of fashion showcasing at Ascot with a passion for fashion in the fields at Flemington each spring carnival.

Church Parades in Hyde Park

I found Garden Visit blog a very useful reference. Together with Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park forms a continuous park of 600+ acres in London. Stretching in a curve diagonally across the centre of both Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens is the Serpentine, an artificial lake of 41 acres. Slightly separated are Green Park and St James' Park, so that these four royal parks were and are a gorgeous and huge green area in the centre of an otherwise huge city.

Hyde Manor had belonged to the monks of Westminster Abbey from the Conquest right up until the Dissolution, when Henry VIII seized it and converted it into a royal hunting-park. Under Charles I, the place began to be a fashionable resort, though the deer were hunted until after the mid C18th. The King was laid out in Charles I's reign. It was a circular drive and race-course, located between the present Ring Tea House and the Ranger's Lodge. It was very popular with families who owned fashionable carriages.

Church Parade, Hyde Park by John Sanderson Wells, ? year

During the Puritan Commonwealth, the park was sold and the public had to pay for admission; but at the Restoration it reverted to the crown and soon became the scene of fashion and frivolity so graphically described by Pepys. Rotten Row was established by William III at the end of the C17th. William wanted, for his own travelling comfort, a broad track on the south side of Hyde Park, leading from Hyde Park Corner to the west. In William’s time, Rotten Row was a fashionable place for upper-class Londoners to be seen. On weekend evenings and at midday, people would dress in their finest clothes in order to ride along the row and be seen.

So Hyde Park was always lovely, but by Queen Anne’s time and after, the most fashionable hours at which to visit it were 5-7 PM in the Season, and between 12-2 PM on Sunday during something called the Church Parade. What was the Church Parade?

In Hyde Park, its history and romance (1908), Ethel Alec-Tweedie said that although Queen Anne did not herself encourage people to waste their time in the Parks, her reign saw Society considerably broadened, somewhat to the disgust of the older families. The City merchants, with their fine ladies, moved into the park to join their friends, and the Church parade of well dressed, well heeled families became an important function. The footpaths on either side of Rotten Row were the chief rendezvous sports for Church Parade. Society spent most of its Sundays there in the season, meeting and chatting, and so began the custom of sitting out on sunny Sunday afternoons. Church-going seemed to be an opportunity for show, of bowing to acquaintances who were present at the prayer-meeting, and probably making arrangements for later social arrangements. The fashionable service was in the afternoon, after which people again repaired to the Park.

London Society, Hyde Park Church Parade, 
by Marchetti 1898 (engraving)

I found many mentions by foreign visitors to the Church Parade during the Edwardian era. In The American Woman Abroad 1911 Blanche McManus reported that Hyde Park on Sundays had that peculiar English society function, the Church Parade. This is a more intimate occasion, for everybody hastens here after church to promenade, prayer-book in hand, among the budding crocuses and narcissi in a silver-grey spring noon. There is none of the contagious gaiety of the French crowd, but the decorous, well-bred English throng is able to hide any dubiousness under a Sabbath-day varnish. Friends sit in groups on the penny chairs, discuss plans for the coming week, engagements, temporary and for life, are manoeuvred by mammas, and the Sunday church parade is often used to introduce a daughter to the social world. After this every one goes home to a roast-beef dinner. By five o'clock the carriages are so densely massed that it is only by courtesy it could be called driving. Royalty drives out with the rest.

Edwardian Promenade  was very helpful. Society returned to London in late May and the traditional starting signal for the Season was the Private View at the Royal Academy where the latest frocks could be seen as ladies and gentlemen strolled about examining works of art and discussing them with their artists. From this point on was the height of the season. With late dinners and later balls, visits to old friends and acquaintances, the Sunday Church Parade at Hyde Park (another event in which to see and be seen), attendances at Covent Garden, charity bazaars, and young ladies and new wives of qualified gentlemen making their curtseys in Court Drawing Rooms, days and nights were packed to the brim. London was packed with not only Britain’s brightest and wealthiest, but Americans and colonial millionaires desiring entree into society and a bevy of European aristocrats.

The P.S.A. and Brotherhoods were very impressed South Africans, even during the early years of WW1. "A noteworthy occasion in connexion with the campaign was our visit to the Southall Brotherhood. We can hardly forget the day; it was on Crocus Sunday when thousands of Londoners went to Hampton Court in crowds to see the crocus bulbs in bloom. It was a glorious day and we remember it as the second day in 1915 on which the European sun shone through a cloudless sky from sunrise to sunset. Thousands of people attended at Hyde Park to witness the Church Parade, and still more thousands took advantage of the glorious spring day after a strenuous winter to flock to Epping Forest and other popular resorts".

Rotten Row c1900, 

from English Heritage

Of course the end was already in sight by then; I had expected that Rotten Row was going to end its starring role as the centre of Britain's upper class social life by 1914. Too many young men had been called up to serve on the Continent, too many families were grieving and even wealthy families would not have wanted to splash their money around when the economy was on a grim war footing. But there was something else. The decline of the horse and the popularity of the motor car changed Rotten Row for ever.

Charles II recipe book by Robert May

The earliest hardback cookbook I have seen was written up by Fragments, published originally in 1610. Called Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen Or The Art of Preserving, Conserving, and Candying, the book invited the reader "To make Marmelate very comfortable and restorative for any Lord or Lady whatsoever".

Then something even more wonderful emerged. The Daily Mail 18th Dec 2009 reported that auctioneer Charles Hanson was stunned to unearth a copy of The Accomplisht Cook, Or The Art And Mystery Of Cookery, published 1665. It was in a trunk full of books that he was examining when clearing a house in Derby.

Charles Hanson found a Restoration treasure

Readers might not expect me to write about cook books. But I found many blogs who were delighted with the May book and its recipes eg Gherkins & Tomatoes blog, lostpastremembered blog, Save the Deli blog and The Old Foodie blog.
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This book was the first substantial recipe book to be published in England and ran to 5 editions. So it was special back in the 1660s, and is even more special now. Few books were published during the Civil War so when this book was printed after the 1660 Restoration of Charles II, it would have been read by the upper classes and used within court and for important social occasions. The book boasts a number of illustrations, also a rare feature for the time.

Robert May might have been a professional cook who specialised in preparing grand dishes for the great and the good, but even so, the variety of May’s dishes was huge. Other cookery books in that era were almost entirely focused on fruit, conserves and confections. Some household books were largely medicinal.

What is known about Robert May 1588-1685? He was the son of Edwarde and Joan Mayes and came from a family of noted chefs. His father Edwarde was the chief cook at Ascott Park, working for the Dormer family, so Robert was "bred up in this Art". Lady Dormer obviously placed great value in food; at the age of 10, she sent young Robert to France to train for 5 years. 

Cheesecake recipes

Why would anyone send a 10 year old abroad? Note that the Dormers were Catholic, a family able were able to successfully retain their faith with minimal persecution during a very troubled century. Perhaps she thought she could protect Robert’s Catholicism better in a Catholic country. Perhaps she though that French food was the standard to which young chefs should aspire.

Upon his return to England he finished his long apprenticeship in London working for Arthur Hollinsworth, then returned to the village of Wing in Bucks, becoming one of the five cooks reporting to his father at the Dormer family’s estate at Ascott Park. After Lady Dormer's death, Robert moved around the country serving in other aristocratic households. His was a long life and a long professional career.

The Accomplisht Cook, Or The Art & Mystery of Cookery was first written in 1660 when May was already 72 years old, and in it he shared his experiences and many secrets of his profession. May acknowledged the end of the Puritan Commonwealth, noting that his recipes 'were formerly the delights of the Nobility, before good housekeeping had left England.' His books give directions for many extravagant meat dishes, including a pastry stag filled with blood-like claret, a tortoise stewed with eggs, nutmeg and sweet herbs, and a 'pudding of swan' made with rose water and lemon peel.

May’s was consciously a book for the upper class gourmet, but he was aware that many of his readers were not rich enough afford such luxuries. Very cleverly, I thought, May specifically ensured that many of the dishes were relatively modest.

Along with recipes and general technical commentary, the book contained Robert’s effusive record of his indebtedness to the Persons of great Honour in whose households he had been privileged to serve.

The author wrote the book in Sholeby in Leicestershire. He identified himself as an Englishman who profited much in his cooking by living in France and by consulting Spanish cookery. As well as French recipes, he added recipes from Britain, Spain and other nations.

The British Library’s page noted that May was clearly indebted to French master chefs cooking in French aristocratic courts, but was careful not to overplay their influence, and thus run the risk of offending his English readership. So in the book’s preface he had a few digs at the French. “To all honest well intending Men of our Profession, or others, this Book cannot but be acceptable, as it plainly and profitably discovers the Mystery of the whole Art; for which, though I may be envied by some that only value their private Interests above Posterity, and the publick good, yet God and my own Conscience would not permit me to bury these my Experiences with my Silver Hairs in the Grave: and that more especially, as the advantages of my Education hath raised me above the Ambitions of others, in the converse I have had with other Nations, who in this Art fall short of what I have known experimented by you my worthy Country men. Howsoever the French by their Insinuations, not without enough of Ignorance, have bewitcht some of the Gallants of our Nation with Epigram Dishes, smoakt rather than drest, so strangely to captivate the Gusto, their Mushroom’d Experiences for Sauce rather than Diet, for the generality howsoever called A-la-mode, not worthy of being taken notice on. As I live in France, and had the Language and have been an eye-witness of their Cookeries as well, as a Peruser of their Manuscripts, and Printed Authors whatsoever I found good in them, I have inserted in this Volume.”

This extraordinary man died in 1685, aged 97. His book will be auctioned at Hanson's of Lichfield, early in 2010. A facsimile of the 1685 edition, incorporating Robert May's last amendments from 1665 and a great deal of biographical information, can be bought, or read on-line.

Two worthwhile blog posts have appeared recently, of great interest to foodies.  Cardinal Wolsey posted an article on the Tudor Kitchens cookery project at Hampton Court Palace. I would love to have been there! And Two Nerdy History Girls wrote that the very scholarly John Evelyn was so devoted to his vegetarianism that he wrote an entire book on the subject: Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets. Published in 1699, the book suggested what kinds of plants and herbs to include in a salad garden, their cultivation, and recipes. Note the 1699 publication date - so soon after Robert May's book.