Where was The First Silence held in Britain during the First World War

[bootneck]

I have recently been asked about this subject and whether as claimed in a book called Farnham in War and Peace [relating to Farnham, Surrey] that the first two minute silence was held in the town. I have been unable to substaniate this and tend to the view that it is something that happened across the country at around the same time rather like the reports of local war shrines that begin to appear in local newspapers from 1916 onwards.

I do know that in two reports on the revival of the Farnham May Fair in local newspapers in May 1916 they mention during the opening ceremony a brief silence was held to commemorate not only the fallen but also those serving in whatever capacity as well as POWs and those affected by the conflict. In 1919 a local newspaper, the Surrey & Hants News, reporting the Armistice celebrations mentions that the 2 minute silence was at the King's insistance.

I have a feeling that many places might well put forward a similar claim over the coming few years. Would anyone be able to add anything more?

Bootneck

[CGM]

Locally instigated organised times of silence could have been, and probably were, arranged on an ad hoc basis both during and straight after the war - such as in Farnham in 1916.

However, if you are asking about the first national 2 minutes silence this was held on Tuesday November 11th 1919, being the first anniversary of the Armistace.

The story behind it is complicated, but I will summarise it.

No public announcement of plans to mark the anniversary of the Armistace.

Letter to the Times newspaper on November 4th questioning this, and pointing out what the Armistace meant to those at the front and those at home (thanksgiving and pride). Suggestions included flags or a gun salute...

A letter to the London Evening News had suggested a 5 minute silence to remember. Which could be held anywhere by everyone.

I'm leaving a lot out here....

Lioyd George was taken with the second idea but a national event needed royal approval.

Leaving more out...

The King was unsure, until Lloyd George convinced him.

The King made an announcement from Buckingham Palace which included his desire and hope that at the hour when the Armistace came into force there should be a brief space of 2 minutes of suspension of all normal activities......

The announcement was carried by all the main newspapers on Friday 7th November.

And the SILENCE was observed.

There is far more to the story and it is well described in Juliet Nicolson's "The Great Silence"

CGM

[CGM]

Locally instigated organised times of silence could have been, and probably were, arranged on an ad hoc basis both during and straight after the war - such as in Farnham in 1916.

...............

CGM

I suspect many churches, particularly to remember those involved in the war, had a short time of silent prayer every Sunday during the normal service and as a natural progression this became extended to other local gatherings.

Some may even have been as long as 2 minutes and described as a 2 minute silence.

Not the same as the national Two Minutes Silence at the 11th minute of the 11th hour on the 11th day of November.

[centurion]

Unconnected with the war specifically but there was a tradition of prayer at public gatherings where the denomination and even religion of those present was unknown and quite possibly diverse. In this case a short silent prayer was called for so each person could offer their supplication to whoever or what ever their conscience dictated and using their own style of words (or not as the case might be). Some 'local' silences may have their origin in this.

[bootneck]

Thank you for the replies, they are appreciated.

I am trying to keep away from Armistice Day and the length of the Silence and I am trying to suggest that Farnham’s claim could well be one of many that could be made.

The Surrey History Centre holds papers relating to John Alfred Eggar, auctioneer of Farnham under reference 7099 and part of the introduction to this list reads as follows:

“According to W Ewbank-Smith in Farnham in War and Peace (Phillimore, 1983), James Alfred Eggar, Secretary and Treasurer of the Farnham, Alton and Districts Farmers and Hop Growers Cooperative Association Ltd, was responsible for suggesting the idea of the two minutes silence observed on Remembrance Day and received a letter from the Home Secretary in recognition of this.”

Having consulted Farnham in War and Peace the claim appears to relate to the two minutes silence rather than to the Remembrance Day observance. It does not help that this book makes the claim under a photograph (with no date) that in another book is dated as 1919.

The minutes of the Farnham, Alton and Districts Farmers and Hop Growers Cooperative Association mention the revival of the May Fair in 1916 but no mention is made of any letter sent to or received from the Home Secretary while no copy of John Alfred Eggar’s letter or the subsequent reply seems to survive. Whether there is anything in the Farnham Urban District Council records or the Home Office material is at this moment speculation on my part. Trying to find proof of either letter might well be problematically and I believe that stating that Farnham held the first silence is not possible.

Bootneck

[CGM]

To be sure, I have been back to Juliet Nicolson's book and checked the name of the writer of the letter to the Times newspaper and the name of the writer of the letter to the London Evening News. (Howard and Honey).

[bootneck]

CGM, thank you, I may have to get a copy of Juliet Nicolson’s book.

I am aware that a silence was held for the funeral of Edward VII and to remember those who died on the Titanic but have been unable to find out if one was observed at the funeral of Queen Victoria or to remember the dead of the Boer War.

I have come across this example, again from 1916, about a time of silent prayer or contemplation:

According to the report in the Woking News & Mail at the beginning of November 1916, of the first memorial service for 84 men with connections to Christ Church, Woking, and its two daughter churches on 31 October 1916, after the opening of the service a few minutes of silent prayer for the fallen was observed. This memorial service also occurred on All Hallows Eve in 1917 and 1918 with reports appearing in the Woking News & Mail. A Roll of Honour of the fallen from these parishes was published in the same newspaper on 8 September 1916 and listed 69 men who had died up to the middle of August that year.

I would assume that I would find more examples in local newspapers.

Bootneck

[bootneck]

I’ve finally read the Farnham Herald report on page 5 of 13 May 1916 regarding the Farnham May Fair which contains the following statement.

“Canon Cunningham in opening the proceedings, said after the bugles had sounded there would be a two minutes silence, during which they would think with thankfulness before God of those who laid down their lives for their country, the sick and the wounded, and those fighting for King, Country and Cause.

The silence that followed was quite impressive. The lowing of cattle, and the noises of other stock, and the occasional passing of traffic were the only sounds that broke the stillness, until someone started the National Anthem, all three verses were sung.”

Now it is just a case of finding proof that was ever acknowledged as the first two minute silence. I, however, remain sceptical!

Bootneck

[NigelS]

Farnham is continuing to assert its claim that the town was the first to hold a two minute silence, and is to stage, on the 100th anniversary (Sunday 1st May 2016), a commemorative event - although not described as a re-enactment - along similar lines to that of the original. Additionally, there is an exhibition at the Museum of Farnham (Time to remember: The first two minutes silence, May 1916) running until 29th October 2016.

Further details of both the May Day event, the exhibition, and historical background can be found here: Time to remember: an event and exhibition to mark the first two minutes silence, May 1916

In a local radio interview with Liz May, the Museum Of Farnham's Curator, there is mention of there being 'new evidence' to substantiate Farnham's claim, but no specific details are given other than mention of a document(s?) having been found at TNA & mention of current reporting in the Farnham Herald. The interview can be heard Here (run forward to about 1:24:40 & listen through to after the interview to about 1:33 for a news item on the topic which mentions the TNA discovery) until 10:00, 6th April 2016.

Also of interest on this topic will be: The original silence: an investigation into the claim that the first observance of the Two Minutes’ Silence was held on 10th May 1916, in Farnham, Surrey - updated & corrected May 2015 a paper by John Francis Moss of Bangor University, which, although detailed, doesn't cover the latest discovery at TNA.

NigelS

[bootneck]

Nigel

I'm having problems trying to access the radio link. Did it say what the TNA discovery was or gave a reference?

Bootneck

[Ron Clifton]

Not the same as the national Two Minutes Silence at the 11th minute of the 11th hour on the 11th day of November.

CGM

Delete "the 11th minute of".

The Armistice came into effect at 11.00 on 11 November, and the national silence has always been held at that time.

I think that the 11th minute idea has crept in through some confusion. The Armistice was actually signed at 5.10 a.m., but by common consent of the delegates "5.00 was agreed upon as the time of signing" . It was scheduled to come into effect six hours after signing, and 11.00 (12.00 German time) seemed a more appropriate time.

Ron

[Khaki]

From memory wasn't/isn't the first minute for those who died and the second for the families of the former?

khaki

[NigelS]

Nigel

I'm having problems trying to access the radio link. Did it say what the TNA discovery was or gave a reference?

Bootneck

No, but the Farnham Herald article, which is now on-line, does; apparently, TNA have copy of the programme for the 1916 May Day event:

Proof that memorial two-minute silence started in Farnham

NigelS

[Guest]

The Mind Behind the silence by John A Smith. Ever since the Two Minutes' Silence on Armistice Day was first instituted there have been speculations and arguments as to its originator, and it has often been felt, in the British Empire at least, that the name of the man who first thought of the idea should become known and honoured accordingly. While there have never been any actual "claimants" the names of several people have been put forward. They include King George V, the late Canon Dearmer, Lord Melchett, First Commissionaire of Works in the post-War period, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and even a journalist on the staff of a London newspaper.

In point of fact, however, the idea that the whole Empire should be silent for two minutes at 11 o'clock on November 11 as a tribute to the dead of the Great War was not spontaneously born in the mind of one man; the custom originated by degrees, as it were, and had a humble, almost obscure beginning. The first Two Minutes' Silence was not an Armistice Day ceremony at all, for it took place before the end of the Great War-in 1916-and it was regarded by its originator as a break from normal activity for prayer for victory as well as a tribute to the fallen.

The place of origin was South Africa. In the year 1916 very heavy casualty lists were published in Capetown, and it occurred to a well known citizen, Mr J A Egger, that the congregation at service held in honour of the dead should stand silent for two minutes, and to offer a prayer for the success of British arms. The plan was adopted, but only in a very local way. There had been no time or opportunity to spread the idea even throughout Capetown, and many of the citizens of Capetown did not hear of the idea at all; certainly it was not heard of in England or any other part of the Empire. Nothing more was heard of a Two Minutes' Silence until May 1918. A tragically long casualty list had again reached Capetown, and the late Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, then living in that city, proposed that a silence should be observed throughout Capetown and the vicinity. It is not definitely established that Sir Percy knew of the previous silence held at the institution of Mr Egger, but the fact that these two initial ceremonies both took place in the same city suggests that he had done so.

British Newspaper Archive Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Friday 11 November 1938

Mike

[NigelS]

Mike, the question is when in 1916 was this 2 minutes silence held in South Africa, if it was pre May Day then it would have been earlier than Farnham and could lay claim to being the first, otherwise its back to Farnham...

NigelS

[Guest]

Indeed Nigel, but no date is given, am afraid.

Mike

[ss002d6252]

Not read it yet but this may be of interest. EDIT: Same link as posted earlier (missed seeing it)

http://www.academia.edu/9372376/The_original_silence_an_investigation_into_the_claim_that_the_first_observance_of_the_Two_Minutes_Silence_was_held_on_10th_May_1916_in_Farnham_Surrey

In summary, they found an earlier 1 & 2 minute silence in Australia (25 Apr 16)

Craig

Edited 9 March , 2016 by ss002d6252

[ss002d6252]

During the War, we in South Africa observed what we called the "Three minutes' pause " At noon each day, all work, all talk and all movement were suspended for three minutes that we might concentrate as one in thinking of those - the living and the dead - who had pledged and given themselves for all that we believe in…

http://s198596577.websitehome.co.uk/remembrance/two_minutes.htmlbut again no dates.

Craig

[Guest]

This Trove article on this page Click Might be of interest when available?
MANDURANG SOUTH SCHOOL [coming soon]
The Bendigo Independent (Vic. : 1891 - 1918) Tuesday 25 April 1916 p 5 Article
... were from the Mandurang South district. After the unveiling two minutes' silence was observed, in ... 359 words

Mike

[bootneck]

Thank you all for the further contributions. It still leaves me sceptical about Farnham's claim about holding the FIRST TWO MINUTES SILENCE (in this country).

Bootneck

[bootneck]

John Francis Moss's paper is interesting and thought provoking.

I will very interested once I can get the TNA reference to see what other material is with the May Fair programme and as I live not far from Farnham I shall go see the exhibition.

Bootneck

[kenf48]

Interesting article in yesterday's Times by Ben McIntyre, 'We shouldn't debase the minute's silence', arguing that there is a danger in forgetting the origin of the silence as the only adequate response to the Great War.  He offers alternatives to marking tragic events, claiming with some justification the silence is socially compulsory but shorn of its original significance and military origin, save on Remembrance Day.

 

Ken

[Ghazala]

This is the Ben Macintyre article.....

 

The minute’s silence has become the ritualised punctuation mark of our harrowed lives, a moment of stillness and private contemplation amid the chaos, a symbolic stillness to signify collective grief.

 

We fall silent in offices, schools and streets to remember the victims of terrorism, accident or tragedy. We deploy the silence to commemorate the passing of our heroes, sporting or otherwise: national, international or local. Like many civic observances, it is socially compulsory. The moment of silence has become normal, and easy.

 

In the past month, a minute’s silence has been held for the victims of the Manchester and London Bridge attacks, and those who perished in Grenfell Tower. Glastonbury opened with a minute’s silence yesterday. The frequency of our silences is a measure of a new atmosphere of vulnerability.

 

But there is a danger of forgetting, amid all the remembering, that the silence came about a century ago to mark an event that was utterly abnormal, global in impact, unprecedented, unrepeated and so cacophonous that the only adequate response was complete silence: the deafening carnage of the First World War.

 

Sir James Percy FitzPatrick was a South African industrialist. In 1907 he wrote Jock of the Bushveld, a children’s story about a bull terrier in the Transvaal that loses its hearing after being kicked by an antelope. FitzPatrick’s main claim on history, however, was to invent the two-minute silence.

 

In 1918 the mayor of Cape Town began a tradition of firing the noonday gun on Signal Hill, which prompted the townsfolk to stop whatever they were doing and fall silent for one minute to give thanks for those who had survived the carnage of the trenches, and for another minute to remember those who had fallen. FitzPatrick wondered whether the idea might be adopted throughout the empire and wrote to Lord Milner, the colonial secretary, who passed on the suggestion to George V.

 

On November 7, 1919, the King proclaimed: “At the hour when the Armistice came into force, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, there may be for the brief space of two minutes a complete suspension of all our normal activities . . . so that in perfect stillness, the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.”

 

The military origins of the silence go even further back. After 19th-century battle, the victors traditionally held a night vigil to watch over the dead. This was practical as well as symbolic: the battlefield guards ensured that the dead were really dead, and their corpses were protected from looters.

 

The mourners of 1919 were close enough in time to Waterloo to hear the two-minute silence as an echo of this silent night vigil, an act of remembrance but also an implicit pledge to protect the war dead.

 

The power of silence was picked up again in the Second World War. At the height of the Blitz, Major Wellesley Tudor Pole, a veteran of the Great War, called for the world to unite for a minute of silent prayer or contemplation every evening at nine, and consciously will the advent of peace. “If enough people joined in this gesture of dedicated intent, the tide would turn and the invasion of England would be diverted.”

 

Most historians would credit the RAF, rather than collective silence, with preventing the German invasion, but the movement apparently alarmed the Germans. A German intelligence officer interrogated in 1945 said: “During the war you had a secret weapon for which we could find no countermeasure, which we did not understand, but it was very powerful. It was associated with the striking of Big Ben each evening. I believe you called it ‘The Silent Minute’.”

 

FitzPatrick lost a son in the trenches but his idea was universal, not specific, a moment of silent homage to everyone who had suffered: women, children, “but far and away, above all else . . . those who gave their all, sought no recompense, and whom we can never repay”.

 

Everyone who fell silent in the immediate aftermath of the First World War had been personally touched in some way by the war. That is not, and could not, be true of we who fall silent today to acknowledge the victims of political violence or horrific 

accident, or the death of esteemed public figures.

 

Except on Remembrance Day, the silence has been shorn of military connotations, and its origins in the bloodiest war the world has ever seen. For many, the silence is a gesture, made easier by the absence of religious import.

 

The tradition of the silent moment has spread in the past two decades in ways that FitzPatrick (let alone George V) would have found extraordinary. There was no minute of silence for the victims of the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974, but the terrorist attacks on July 7, 2005 were commemorated by a formal minute of silence one week, one year, and then one decade after the events.

 

Ring a bell too often and people cease to hear it. Our collective rejection of terrorism might be better marked by other demonstrations, marches, vigils and letters to our elected representatives. The minute of applause increasingly favoured at football matches to mark the passing of a celebrated player speaks louder than silence, an expression of appreciation rather than grief.

 

At the very least, the next time we hush to order it is worth remembering the origins of that act, and the 17 million war dead implicit in our quietness.

 

The momentary silence is golden, old, and rare. We should not debase it.

[JMB1943]

On 2/7/2014 at 06:32, bootneck said:

 

The Surrey History Centre holds papers relating to John Alfred Eggar, auctioneer of Farnham under reference 7099 and part of the introduction to this list reads as follows:

“According to W Ewbank-Smith in Farnham in War and Peace (Phillimore, 1983), James Alfred Eggar, Secretary and Treasurer of the Farnham, Alton and Districts Farmers and Hop Growers Cooperative Association Ltd, was responsible for suggesting the idea of the two minutes silence observed on Remembrance Day and received a letter from the Home Secretary in recognition of this.”

Having consulted Farnham in War and Peace the claim appears to relate to the two minutes silence rather than to the Remembrance Day observance. It does not help that this book makes the claim under a photograph (with no date) that in another book is dated as 1919.

The minutes of the Farnham, Alton and Districts Farmers and Hop Growers Cooperative Association mention the revival of the May Fair in 1916 but no mention is made of any letter sent to or received from the Home Secretary while no copy of John Alfred Eggar’s letter or the subsequent reply seems to survive. 

Bootneck

 

On 3/9/2016 at 12:51, Skipman said:

The place of origin was South Africa. In the year 1916 very heavy casualty lists were published in Capetown, and it occurred to a well known citizen, Mr J A Egger, that the congregation at service held in honour of the dead should stand silent for two minutes, and to offer a prayer for the success of British arms. The plan was adopted, but only in a very local way. There had been no time or opportunity to spread the idea even throughout Capetown, and many of the citizens of Capetown did not hear of the idea at all; certainly it was not heard of in England or any other part of the Empire. Nothing more was heard of a Two Minutes' Silence until May 1918. A tragically long casualty list had again reached Capetown, and the late Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, then living in that city, proposed that a silence should be observed throughout Capetown and the vicinity. It is not definitely established that Sir Percy knew of the previous silence held at the institution of Mr Egger, but the fact that these two initial ceremonies both took place in the same city suggests that he had done so.

British Newspaper Archive Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette - Friday 11 November 1938

Mike

 

James Alfred Eggar & J. A. Egger !!! 

 

Father/son or Uncle/nephew or cousins or...one and the same...??

 

This surely cannot be a coincidence.

 

Regards,

JMB

 

[Moonraker]

I've just returned from Farnham where I spotted an information board noting the 1916 event but not claiming it as the first two-minute silence. Googling brought me to this thread - and an IWM webpage that does repeat the claim.