East Dulwich, London, Street Shrine

[joseph]

Patrick,

"On the Hislop programme it was a shame that the local people walked past the "shrine" every day without knowing what it was. Would be interesting to know how many of these survive in situ"

In Hull there are three shrines out of an estimated 1600 yes 1600... the one Hislop saw had been moved, another is in the foyer of a factory built on the spot it was, the third is in situ now on the wall of a chinese takeaway.

Regards Charles

[Clive Maier]

...In Hull there are three shrines out of an estimated 1600 yes 1600...

Charles,

Not sure I understand. Do you mean it is estimated that there were 1600 shrines in Hull? That does not seem feasible to me. Do you know the basis for this estimate?

[Patrick H]

If I may reply until Charles does!! These were shrines put up by local people to honour those who had gone to fight. They are not memorials, and in some places they would be put up in each street etc so in a small town it was quite possible to have quite a number of them

Patrick

[Clive Maier]

Quite. But there is a lot of difference between quite a number and 1,600.

Total UK mobilisation in the Great War was 5,704,400. That is an amazing 12.6 percent of the 1911 population. If we apply that percentage to the 1911 population of Hull, we get a figure of just under 35,000 mobilised. With 1,600 shrines, that is just 22 per shrine. In fact that is an over-estimate because when these shrines went up in 1916, mobilisation stood at far less than the eventual total. I can’t find year-by-year figures for mobilisation but if we guess generously at half the eventual figure, the proportion of those mobilised per shrine looks far too low: it is barely into double figures. The proposition seems unlikely

Let’s look at it another way. How many streets were there in 1916 Hull? I estimate it at 1,600 to 1,800. So a count of 1,600 shrines would put one on practically every road, street, court, close and alley. This too, seems unlikely.

Let’s try a third way. Street shrines rapidly became a church-led phenomenon. According to Kelly’s 1913 Directory of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire, there were something like 112 places of worship in Hull. The figure is not entirely clear and may be an over-estimate. If we accept it though, that means some 14 shrines for each place of worship. Again, it seems unlikely.

[andypepper]

A long time after the original posting but you may be interested to know that three of the men on the 'shrine' are brothers of my wife's grandmother (ie her great uncles). All were born in E Dulwich.

William Bicheno emigrated to South Africa. He took part in the SW Africa campaign and came to Europe with 1st Bn D South African Infantry Brigade. He died at Delville Wood.

His brothers Edwin and Robert emigrated to Australia but returned in 1916 with 3rd Australian Pioneers. Edwin was killed near Messines and is buried in Trois Arbres cemetery.

Following the death of two of his sons and a son in law their father wrote to General Monash asking for thethird brother Robert (also on roll of honour) to be taken out of harms way. Monash agreed ('Saving Private Bicheno' ) and Robert was repatriated to Australia early in 1918. Interestingly the roll of honour in the Australian township where Edwin and Robert lived bears the name of Robert (who survived) but not Edwin (who didn't).

I understood from my late mother in law that they were commemorated on a roll of honour in St Peter's church, Dulwich Common and that subsequent to the church being taken over by another faith in the

?1980s it was transferred to another church in the area, but I don't know which. Whether it is the same memorial I don't know but it is not inconceivable that before being located in the church it was put on public display in the street.

[ShirlD]

What a great thread Thanks everyone

Cheers

Shirley

[chris mccarthy]

A frend sent me the following:

Could have been near St Peter's Church (across the road from 'The Harvester' pub) - there is still a rotting flagpole commemorating 'Dulwich volunteers'

[Moriaty]

I think that is St Peters Church, Lordship Lane, a now redundant grade 2 listed building, designed by Charles Barry Jr. Nearby there was a TA centre on the West side of Lordship Lane. I have a vague feeling that there is a small memorial in the church grounds and the flag pole.

[Moriaty]

Following on from my earlier posting, I have just visited the site of St Peter's Church, on the corner of Lordship Lane in Dulwich. There is no memorial, but the rotting flagpole by the main road says:

In Memory of our Comrades who died in War

The Flagstaff of the Dulwich Volunteer Battalion 1914-1919

Moriaty

[andypepper]

I have just returned from a 90th birthday party held in the church hall of St Clements, Barry Rd, E Dulwich the parish which St Peter’s was amalgamated. Knowing who would be there I took a print of the memorial on the postcard and showed it to two of the leading lights of the former St Peter’s congregation.

One said ‘That used to be at the back of the church’ and that it was now in, he thought, St Peter’s Walworth. The other asked me if I would like to see the two name panels from the St Peter’s war memorial which were in the vestry of St Clements. So of course I did.

There are indeed two panels commemorating the dead of St Peter’s parish but they are not the ones on the postcard – for a start they are in Roman and those on the card are in Italic script. So perhaps there were two memorials, the one on the card being an ‘interim’ one?

This seems possible if you consider ‘my’ Bicheno brothers. The postcard memorial has William (WRS) among the dead and Edwin and Robert among the Roll of Honour of those who served ( or perhaps more accurately were still serving ). William was killed on 18 July 1916 and Edwin on 4 July 1917, which I suggest gives us an approximate date for the memorial.

So now its off to Walworth Road, unless another pal gets there first.

[andypepper]

Well I've been to St Peter's Walworth and had the tour of the church, including the locked bits, and its not there, nor does anyone remember it being there.

I shall keep looking.

By the way their own memorial tablets for both wars were stolen from the wall of the church for their scrap value - how sick is that.