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Remembered Today:

Selection of the Unknown Soldier candidates


PhilB

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At a tangent, briefly, please.

On the subject of Remembrance, the RBL are selling very nice "paired" poppy pins, each with a poppy and beside it a regimental badge of your choice.

My son is ex-RAF Regt, and I was an Hon Member of 4 Squadron RAF, so have bought one of each. A nice little present to give in the next few weeks. £10 or so includes postage.

Not all regiments/squadrons RN are covered yet.

 

Back to the UW .......

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I know previous posts have commented on CSI and forensic matters.

 

Just seen this online - has anyone got any access and can comment on what is found within - About the process all the way through to registration  of a grave - ??? 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379073820302565 

Forensic Science International

Volume 314, September 2020, 110394

A First World War example of forensic archaeology

Author Victoria Martin

Cranfield Forensic Institute, Cranfield University, Shrivenham, Swindon, SN6 8LA, UK

Available online 26 June 2020.

 

Wondering ...

:-) M 

Edited by Matlock1418
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My second hand paperback of Hanson arrived yesterday. The front 3/4 is irrelevant to the UW discussion we are having.

 

There are copious end-notes but they are organised by page number, thus the need, when reading the text, to have a bookmark in the end-notes.

On consulting the end-notes the references seem very thin to support his assertions. His assertions teem with detail.

On the other hand, his bibliography is huge and deep.

 

I am not hopeful of being convinced that his detail offered is backed by primary and trustworthy sources: the first one of relevance is a report from the TIMES newspaper!

 

That is not to prejudge, and I will report back, meanwhile hoping that this anniversary year will see an in-depth book or article based on new and referenced research using contemporary primary sources.

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Still waiting for my copy to arrive but looking forward to the thrill of the chase-The stuff about choosing a 1914 body just does not make sense to me at all.  I note the same author has done another book on The Missing which is not referenced, save for some,in effect, "Thanks" at the end.  

   What I will be looking for is the same process as Alfred and the cakes, "Contemptible Little Army" and "Lions led by Donkeys"- that is, to find out when these stories first appeared. With Hanson, we are looking for materials of a 1914 man being sought-anything, anything that pre-dates the publication of his book. I am not hopeful.

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On 22/09/2020 at 10:18, Muerrisch said:

On consulting the end-notes the references seem very thin to support his assertions. His assertions teem with detail.

On the other hand, his bibliography is huge and deep.

 

I am not hopeful of being convinced that his detail offered is backed by primary and trustworthy sources: the first one of relevance is a report from the TIMES newspaper!

 

That is not to prejudge, and I will report back, meanwhile hoping that this anniversary year will see an in-depth book or article based on new and referenced research using contemporary primary sources.

 His two primary sources are TNA CAB 27/99 which presumably give the 'minutes of the discussion that it was the tacit intention of senior army officers to restrict the selection in this way.' (Hanson, p.432) Note the use of the word 'tacit'. If it remained tacit, then one would not expect much to be made explicit in the written record. But as I have previously remarked, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

The second, which appears to deal with the church's sanitary-driven requirement for a 1914 body is in TNA WORK 20/1/3.

 

I suspect that people will wish to consult both sources and draw their own conclusions.

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2 hours ago, Hedley Malloch said:

 His two primary sources are TNA CAB 27/99 which presumably give the 'minutes of the discussion that it was the tacit intention of senior army officers to restrict the selection in this way.' (Hanson, p.432) Note the use of the word 'tacit'. If it remained tacit, then one would not expect much to be made explicit in the written record. But as I have previously remarked, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

The second, which appears to deal with the church's sanitary-driven requirement for a 1914 body is in TNA WORK 20/1/3.

 

I suspect that people will wish to consult both sources and draw their own conclusions.

Thank you. My days of visiting TNA  are regrettably over. I almost lived there once!!!!

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10 hours ago, kenf48 said:

The conclusions of the Cabinet Meeting on the 15th October 1920 when the issue was first raised at this level and approval granted can be viewed online

 

http://filestore.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pdfs/large/cab-23-22.pdf

Pages 286 & 288 of 299

[Document pages 282 & 284]

:-) M

 

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"That the remains of one of the numerous unknown men who fell and were buried in Prance should be exhumed, placed in a shell, conveyed to England: if necessary, cremated;"

 

I suspect that ashes would have been much less acceptable as a focus for grief than bones. It does suggest that a comparatively recent burial would have been considered by church authorities though the exhumers might have thought otherwise..

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21 minutes ago, PhilB said:

"That the remains of one of the numerous unknown men who fell and were buried in Prance should be exhumed, placed in a shell, conveyed to England: if necessary, cremated;"

 

I suspect that ashes would have been much less acceptable as a focus for grief than bones. It does suggest that a comparatively recent burial would have been considered by church authorities though the exhumers might have thought otherwise..

 

Earlier in the thread Hedley quoted Hanson as saying; '... "the church authorities - perhaps worried about the taint of putrefying flesh within Westminster Abbey - made it a condition of burial without cremation that the body dated from 1914". It was felt that the British public would identify more with remains that had not been cremated..... The reference is TNA WORK 20/1/3. (Hanson, pp.431-32)'. 

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Incidentally, I just checked the Westminster Abbey website which confirms that selection of the remains was made from 4 locations (it comments that some sources say 6 locations, but that all confirmed accounts say 4).

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What I will be looking for is the same process as Alfred and the cakes, "Contemptible Little Army" and "Lions led by Donkeys"- that is, to find out when these stories first appeared. With Hanson, we are looking for materials of a 1914 man being sought-anything, anything that pre-dates the publication of his book. I am not hopeful.

 

2001?

http://www.paulgough.org/horiz1.htm

 

predates Hanson and references other sources. 

 

It is unlikely the Abbey would publish their specific requirements, though the Cabinet conclusions as  noted above, considered cremated remains.  There was no doubt correspondence, or it may be specifically mentioned in the WORKS file 9though I believe the Ministry of Works was not responsible for the Abbey).Not only time constraints but the whole ritual and symbolism of the process would have been lost had there not been a body.  The individual body was not venerated but a symbol fo all those lost, whether or not they have a known grave or whichever service they were in when they gave their lives. 

'THUS ARE COMMEMORATED THE MANY

MULTITUDES WHO DURING THE GREAT

WAR OF 1914 - 1918 GAVE THE MOST THAT

MAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELF'

 

It could not be a soldier from Palestine, or India or any other theatre of war, neither was it a sailor as the Admiralty was content to let the Army make the arrangements.  As was announced in Parliament the phrase 'Unknown Warrior' represented all services

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1920/nov/01/armistice-day-ceremonies

 

I do not seek to defend Hanson, though it is an accessible account, no more than I defend Alan Clark but neither deserve the opprobrium sometimes voiced here, especially if their work has not even been read.  They were writing 'popular history'.  It is not a conspiracy theory.  It is only of passing interest where the body came from, and what period of the war, there were constraints on those organising the arrangements but has also previously mentioned, the past is a different country with a largely deferential, class bound society.

 

As Professor Christoph Mick has written, on the proliferation of the idea of the Unknown Warrior, "These tombs have become national shrines, with the Unknown Soldier standing at the heart of a political cult of the dead." 

https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/knowledgecentre/arts/history/unknownsoldier/

 

In 1920 people believed what they were told and wanted to believe, how else do we explain the rise in Spritualism? 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, headgardener said:

 

Earlier in the thread Hedley quoted Hanson as saying; '... "the church authorities - perhaps worried about the taint of putrefying flesh within Westminster Abbey - made it a condition of burial without cremation that the body dated from 1914"

Slightly odd as there are thousands of bodies buried there!

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16 minutes ago, PhilB said:

Slightly odd as there are thousands of bodies buried there!

 

True.... ! I think the Abbey have insisted on cremated remains since the Victorian era, which is of relevance to the discussion on this thread. Having the un-cremated remains of the UW in the Abbey would have required them to break this rule (or maybe it was simply an understanding with which people tended to abide?), and to which they could quite conceivably have attached conditions. 

Edited by headgardener
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Thanks KF-   I  will try and see the 2 Hanson refs. next week at TNA-I have the book by the side of me now.  I have little doubt that many,many things were said before things turned out the way they did in 1919-1920.   I have doubts about the selection being proposed of a 1914 man  as it would seem to diminish the standing of the large number of men killed as conscripts-If there are such refs., I would suspect they may be tempered by views that to diminish conscripts in that way would be to diminish the chances of using conscription again.

 

    An aspect of 1919-1920  I would like to get onto is  the reasons for the temp. cenotaph and why it was taken down anyway. As a small starter, I put up a picture of New Zealand Arch- built across Whitehall for the 1911 Coronation,paid for by the NZ Government -and knocked down after KGV had gone through it on Coronation Day.  Almost totally unremembered. Yet, there was outcry when Cenotaph Mark I was taken down.  So, yes, very deep forces at work concerning  grief at a communal level.

    In our time, we have the upwellings around the death of Princess Di-all the flowers at Kensington Palace,etc.  Local to where I live, there was a similar  acreage of flowers,etc at The Boleyn Ground,Upton Park ,when Bobby Moore died. It looks to me that the authorities in 1919-1920 did much the same-flow with the tide rather than fight against something too deep to comprehend fully

 

image.png.2ff0099f79390ce1ba96dea8117e67b5.png

Edited by Guest
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12 minutes ago, headgardener said:

 

True.... ! I think the Abbey have insisted on cremated remains since the Victorian era, which is of relevance to the discussion on this thread. Having the un-cremated remains of the UW in the Abbey would have required them to break this rule (or maybe it was simply an understanding that people tended to abide with?) to which they could quite conceivably have attached conditions. 

 

    I think it cuts both ways- human remains could be a problem-  not everything is skeletonised. There is,of course, the pure hygiene problem- a body with gas gangrene,for example, was a possibility. I am not sure that the ban was either absolute or partial-I seem to remember that the heart of Thomas Hardy was buried in the Abbey in 1928,

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19 minutes ago, headgardener said:

I think the Abbey have insisted on cremated remains since the Victorian era,

That may have been due to lack of space but:-


“Eight British Prime Ministers are buried in the Abbey; William Pitt the Elder, William Pitt the Younger, George Canning, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, William Ewart Gladstone, Bonar Law, Neville Chamberlain and Clement Attlee.“
 

so an exception could certainly have been made for the UW?

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12 minutes ago, PhilB said:

 

so an exception could certainly have been made for the UW?

 

Am exception clearly WAS made for the UW. That's what may have enabled the Abbey to attach conditions on the recovery of the appropriate remains. 

 

The politicians in that list who died in the 20th C (Bonar Law, Attlee, Chamberlain) were all cremated before their ashes were interred in the Abbey

Edited by headgardener
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On 21/09/2020 at 22:40, Matlock1418 said:

I know previous posts have commented on CSI and forensic matters.

 

Just seen this online - has anyone got any access and can comment on what is found within - About the process all the way through to registration  of a grave - ??? 

 

 

Tried to have it via the RMA library... saying I need that for my research paper... I'm sure there's something in there about Readiness Forces... LOL 

 

Meanwhile, I'll dig up my copy of Hanson's book this WE... or the notes thereof.. 

 

M.

Edited by Marilyne
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31 minutes ago, headgardener said:

The politicians in that list who died in the 20th C (Bonar Law, Attlee, Chamberlain) were all cremated before their ashes were interred in the Abbey

True!

 "The majority of interments at the Abbey are of cremated remains, but some burials still take place – Frances Challen, wife of the Rev Sebastian Charles, Canon of Westminster, was buried alongside her husband in the south choir aisle in 2014."

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We're agreed that an exception was made for the UW, and I'd assume that this would give the Abbey authorities the justification for placing certain preconditions on the process of selecting an appropriate corpse in order to avoid the need for cremation.

 

Regarding your last post, if we're right in assuming that the un-cremated remains of the Dean of Westminster's widow were buried in the Abbey in 2014 then clearly there are still some circumstances (perhaps relating to the clergy?) in which this form of burial is still allowed. Having said that, I noticed that her husband (the Dean of Westminster, Dr Sebastian Charles) died in the late 1980s but his funeral in the Abbey only took place in the early 1990s, so I suspect that there may be more to the story than is apparent at first glance. Perhaps they were both cremated? Or an appropriate amount of time was allowed to pass before their remains were allowed to be buried? Whatever the case, the burial of the UW appears to have been an exception to the rules, and this could have allowed the Abbey authorities to exert influence over the process of selection. It would be interesting to know exactly what the rules were, and what records might exist in the Abbey (or C of E) archives. 

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I have looked upstream but cannot find what I would rate as opprobrium:

 

QUOTE: I do not seek to defend Hanson, though it is an accessible account, no more than I defend Alan Clark but neither deserve the opprobrium sometimes voiced here

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  • 1 month later...

A shame these pages have not yet been digitised, surely the time is ripe to preserve these documents... but thanks for the heads up Ken.

 

I have to admit I picked up a copy of ''The Name Beneath the Stone' Robert Newcome,... lots of fiction with fluffy bits based around a few facts with an appropriate last page twist...

 

 

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