Gilbert Walter Lyttelton Talbot

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Thats your lot for a few days, off to Ypres early morning.

Andy

[liverpool annie]

Oh Andy .... I hate for this to end ....... but you enjoy Ypres .... and I hope you tell us all about your trip when you get back !!

Thanks my Friend for all your effort with these books .... !

I appreciate it !

Annie

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Hi Annie,

Thanks, will have a good time, always tend to in Ypres. Will pick up where I left off on my return, glad that you are enjoying these Memorial books.

Andy

[marina]

Enjoy your trip, Andy. You deserve a GREAT time because of all your sharing of your collection. Hope the rain stays off!

Marina

[Greyhound]

It's very much appreciated, Andy. Have a nice time!

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Time for another letter before I go.

From the Archbishop of York

.....Gilbert ! I think the first time I saw him - a little sleeping babe in your room at the Vicarage, Leeds, - of my last sight of him last Eastertied at Franham, in all his exuberant vitality, yet with that look in his face which I now know so well in the face of boys going out to the front - the shadow of danger to come. I think of the years between - the exuberance of life and interests and ambitions becoming gradually disciplined and deepened. How could we have thought that this was to be the way in which all the abounding life was to be completed and consecrated? Sooner than we thought, and by the way of the Cross, so unexpected, so wonderful, it has achieved its noble end. In a moment, in that call "Come along lads," in that swift following call for the supreme sacrifice, accepted and followed, it was completed. Then, silence and God. Very solemn, very great........

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Back for a few days so thought we could catch up a bit with Gilbert. Whilst in Ypres I went to pay my respects to Gilbert and many others at Hooge and stood at the edge of Zoauve Wood looking up at the area of the Hooge Crater and visited his grave in Sanctuary Wood Cemetery.

From Colonel de Burgh.

In a year of sorrow and of abundant service and sacrifice, there were three men among those who honoured me with their friendship, who perhaps stand out from the rest in the similarity of their character and the fruitfulness of their short lives. They were of about the same age, they were all Oxford men, and they all died sudden and violent deaths. They were all accomplished men, with visions, such as only the young can dream. They each had their peculiarities and faults, as they were struggling each in his own way to maturity. One characteristic was common to all - they drew their inspiration from a Person, and they will all shine as the stars for ever............

The third and last to die for England - it all happened about the same time - was Gilbert Talbot.

It would be difficult, but for that common Bond of Union, to discover ground for close friendship between persons differing so wildly in character and interests. On the one hand a boy - gay, impulsive, poetic, strenuous, affectionate, reckless even in his extreme untidiness, and immersed in political aspirations and thought, which might, had he lived, have culminated in a strong, clear-sighted and honest statesmanship; on the other hand a man prosaic, rather tired, hating politics and noise, but still alive to all the interests and strain of healthy youth.

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Yet so it was. I love order; the contemplation of his writing-table at Oxford more than once caused a friendly quarrel between us, because I knew that letters must have gone unanswered. He had a large correspondence. I was impatient: until at last I began to realize that youth has not yet learned to pick up and save the odd minutes of a working day and to use time to some purpose. A man has to learn that neccesity with great trouble. And anyone could see that his fault was not idleness, but the instinct of a great, unselfish, happy, loving heart, reaching out to the interests of those among whom he lived...........His hope for and pride in his immediate family was almost pathetic: the happiness of his home was a constant theme: and he was always sure of their love for and interest in him to a degree that I am not aware to have personally known in any other case.

But Gilbert Talbot had seen the seamy side of life - and shuddered at it. He had had no time, I imagine, to see much of what we call the dregs of society, although he was quite aware that the dark places of the Earth are full of cruelty. But he had touched part of a society enervated by ease and abundance of idleness and neglecting to bring up its sons in a vivid sense of resposibility for the poor and the needy.

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His strenuous stand for truth, honour, clean-living and righteousness, cost him - to my knowledge - more than a smaller man would lightly have given away, and more than quite as honourable, but less brave a man, could have endured...............

I will not insult the memory by saying that he had no enemies. I have a pretty wide experience of men, and have never known one worth a button who has had no enemies. The slacker is always the enemy of the keen, the unclean always the enemy of the clean, the knave always that of the gentleman........I have never heard of a coward cheerfully enduring obloquy, sneers, contempt and even prosecution, with a offensive misunderstanding of his motive in high places. Gilbert Talbot did all this in his day, and the bravest thing he ever did was to go cheerfully to his death in the Army of Britain, disliking at first the demands of its disciplne, and its wearisome preparation.......And yet I venture to think, as an old soldier, that it was just this very discipline, order, and attention to detail that he required, together with the ultimate and final tragedy of his sacrifice, to enable him to attain the complete stature of his final manhood.

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And so I leave my trio. The great thing is that each has left some mark on some one youth. The second of my trio was shot through the head, helping one of the boys to whom he had devoted his life, just after writing to me from his trench such words as these: "This place is terrible Hell, but I more at peace with God and man than ever I have felt before in my life. So long as there is but one man in England who will help these boys in to the Light, all must be well." Such a man was Gilbert Talbot, and being dead "he yet speaketh."

And what he "speaks" to the Public School, to the Varsity - both of which he knew well - and to the Army of which he knew but a little, though it took his all, is this: that nothing, nothing on earth matters but to live a life, be it long or short, clean, and faithful to the Head of your Order, faithful and enduring to thr End.

[Greyhound]

What a wonderful piece of writing. Will you tell us the names of the other two men, Andy?

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Grace,

Unfortunately the Colonel makes no mention of the other names.

Andy

[liverpool annie]

Oh my Andy ! .... was that a speech or was that a written eulogy ?

Our Gilbert seems like a very special man .... as they all seem to be ! ..... how weird that we never appreciate our fine young men until they are gone !

Were you able to take pictures ? .... I want every last drop of this thread !!

Annie

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From the Westminster Gazette.

GILBERT WALTER LYTTELTON TALBOT

A Reiminiscence by J.G. Swift MacNeill, K.C., M.P.

I confess my feelings were poignant when I saw the Roll of Honour that Mr. Gilbert Talbot's life had beenlaid down in the service of his country - a life which, I am convinced, would, had it been prolonged, have rendered the tides of human affairs more lustrous. I met him once only, and then but for a few hours, in circumstances, however, that strongly impressed me with his talking and brilliant personality.

So far back as November 1873 I went over from Oxford to move a Home Rule resolution at the Cambridge Union, which, to my great delight, was carried. It was the first Home Rule resolution, as my friend Professor Courtney Kenny, who took part in the debate and with whom many years afterwards I sat in the House of Commons, told me, that was ever carried in England at a British, as distinguished from an Irish, meeting. In gratification of a sentiment, I asked in November 1913, just forty years afterwards to the very day to be premitted to move at the Cambridge Union a similar resolution, which was likewise carried. The Union authorities invited Mr. Gilbert Talbot, of Christ Church, Oxford, who was then President of the Oxford Union abd very noted for his intense devotion to the maintenance of the legislative relations then existing between Great Britain and Ireland, to oppose the notion.

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Annie,

Loads of pictures, not so much from this trip as I was relating the Rifle Brigade's fight in July 1915 to a smallish group, but I do have a lot of the area for my research into this piece of action. I will post a few in a bit for you.

I always stop at Hooge on my trips, as I find out more and more I like to go and look to see how it fits in the overall picture and to pay my respects.

Andy

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He accepted the invitation, and I met him at dinner the evening of the debate. He was a strongly built, athletic young fellow, with very refined and pleasing features and attractive manners. He reminded me, as I told him, of his father, the present Bishop of Winchester, when he was a Don at Christ Church, not much older than his son then was, and from whom I received my first lessons in English Law. I was much struck by Mr. Talbot's extensive knowledge of practical politics, his trained and wonderfully matured intelligence, and his openly avowed desire for a Parliamentary career, in which I predicted for him a success which would throw additional lustre on the record of his family, both on his father's and his mother's side, in the House of Lords and Commons.

I followed, of course, his speech in opposition to myself with an eager attention. It was admirably arranged and reasoned, and as he had to reply on the spur of the moment to several points which he could not have anticipated, I was filled with admiration at his alertness of mind, quickness of apprehension, and intellectual resources. He had a great wealth of diction, but throughout, I thought, sopke under studied self-restraint, which indicated a reserve of strength to be exercised if need be.

[marina]

Wish we had more letters from Gilbert. The eulogies are other people's impressions, but i don't feel we know him as well as our other people. Still, everyone seems yto have thought very well of him - he was clearly a person of great promise.

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He did not fail to reply with tact, judgement, fairness, and undoubted effect to every arguement. His points were always good. He never condescended to a smart debating rejoinder, nor did he ever press any arguement in which he did not himself believe with an absolute and evident conviction.

He bagan his speech in a conversational style; his rich-toned and finelt-mudulated voice gave him a most favourable introduction to his audience, and as the speech progressed he rose into simple but very moving eloquence. He was throughout (with one exception) strictly impersonal. He gave his opponents credit for sincerity equal to his own. He never used a denunciatory term, although he visited certain political attitudes with grave censure. He treated his antagonists with an exquisite courtesy which was not studied but quite unconscious, the result of a charming disposition. Only once was there a personal note in his address, when, turning to myself, he said he could not but feel grieved for me in having spent my life in what he regarded as a hopeless struggle. His speech, needless to say, was a great success. I never saw Mr. Talbot afterwards, but I always looked forward with confidence to his attainment of the position in public life to which his talents and moral earnestness entitled him. As an old Christ Church man I felt proud of him as a member of that college which has given so many eminent public men to their country. Like Mr. W.G.C. Gladstone, another President of the Oxford Union in whom so many hopes were centred, he has closed a young life full of promise by a glorious death in a holy cause.

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Marina,

Have to agree, there are a few other letters coming for you, although from before the war.

Andy

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From Hermione Lyttelton

Gilbert as a friend was all generous. All that he experienced of good or interesting or funny - and he extracted much of all three out of his short life - he brought to me. So that one might share the happiness of the experience. As his friend, one almost seemed to live with him the life of interest and delicious companionship at Oxford and in his adored home; and later in all the varied happenings of that Service Battalion training for the front.

He had a wonderful gift of narrative. Many of us try to describe incidents, funny syaings, etc., and often fail to convey either the interest or the humour. Gilbert hardly ever failed in this; he made on feel the atmosphere, and brought home to one the point or humour, whether of serious discussions or chance sayings. He got the utmost out of life, and equally he seemed to get the utmost out of people. It was a great gift of his to discover hearts of gold, or brains, or wit in people of often commonplace exteriors. He was always saying: "Oh, he's a heavenly fellow, rather dull with most people but amazingly so-and-so when you know him." Whether the individual in question had character and little brain or brain and little character, or was one of the many intermediate types, he saw his point and generally made friends with him.

He was infinitely sympathetic; and in return for all he gave one, he exacted complete confidence.

He always encouraged and strengthened one; at the same time he pointed out one's faults with a truth and lucidity entirely irresistible to one's judgement; but it never hurt.

With him died to this world a combination of most of the gifts which go to make a perfect friend.

[marina]

A perfect friend - so many people seem to feel the same way about him.

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From Robin Barrington Ward, Balliol College.

Gilbert came up to Oxford a year after me, and as we were both "interested in politic," as the usual classification goes, we were soon friends. A man like Gilbert was bound to be discussed a good deal in the gossipy atmosphere of Oxford rooms, and I know that I often heard him described as "old for his years." This statement, to my mind untrue, nevertheless expressed a truth. It bore witness to one of Gilbert's most striking characteristics, an open, unusual and unashamed interest in all things that mattered. But the phrase I thought fitted nobody less. Nobody could have a cheerier, a less solemn friend. Whether he was in my rooms in the morning, twitting me with - and contributing to - the disorder of my table and the lateness of my uprising, whether we were walking in the afternoon - he an "Benny" (E.W. Benison) and myself - or had foregathered in Walter Monckton's rooms, nobody was quicker to see and to point out the humour of things.

Naturally I saw a good deal of Gilbert at the Union, of which we were both officers. He was keen to become President, but had the most complete contempt for the squalid intrigues that often accompany that ambition.

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I think it was largely due to the sincerity and realityof any views he held that he was one of the notable speakers of his time at Oxford. On his "off" dyas the form of his speeches was not too good, often rather long, often a little laboured. For it mattered less to him what his speech was like than that his advocacy of the cause for which he was speaking should be effective. He never revealed himself more clearly than in his speeches. They were entirely characteristic, and - so thought one listening "wobbler" - uncompromisingly honest.

But largely as Gilbert's interest in politics bulked, he would discuss with you - full of the same zeal and clearness - painting, music, the latest plays, literatrure, religion, and cricket. I know of no one who got more out of his life while he lived.

Gilbert was a friend who did not forget his friends. We only met twice out here, once in Ypres, and once by a ruined brasserie when leaving trenches. On both occasions conversation started away on old terms. Often since the day we were at Hooge, and contemporary Oxford payed a heavy toll, I have remembered and shall remember with gratitiude for a friendship that stimulated and lasted.

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A Few Characteristic Contributions of His Own

Part of an address to The Canning Club, Oxford, on the loss of the "Titanic," April 12th, 1912.

............. In the second place, while I do not wish to be melodramatic, the drama of the loss of this ship seems to me to posses a significance of the most practical kind, which should give us both some indication - if that is needed - of the state of society at the present moment, and of the direction in which it is necessary for the upper classes to move. I mean, that it seems to me beyond dispute that this giant ship was built and fitted out on a scale of luxury which is surely absolutely indefensible. Consider, in some of the accounts which have appeared in the Press, for a five or six days which are spent by these passengers in crossing the Atlantic, what are only a few of the pleasures and luxuries in which they apparently find it necessary to indulge: She had a splendidly equipped gymnasium, in which English or American millionaires could work off the effects of last night's dinner: Turkish and electric baths, probably designed for the same purpose: a beautifully designed swimming bath: squash racquet courts: several restaurants and cafes: bedrooms and suites designed in several periods, including Queen Anne, modern Dutch, Georgian, Louis XVI: a machine by which those who wished could practise the bicycle: and, most notable of all, two suites for which it was necessary to pay the sum of £870 - one of the features of which was a private promenade deck which no foot was allowed to tread save that of the occupant.

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The cost of this vessel was nearly £1,750,000. She was 882 feet 6 inches long: her tonnage was 46382, and her displacement 60,000 tons. This vast floating Ritz, taking her maiden voyage, was in the mishap of an instant rendering completely impotent to make any resistance against the forces of the sea. I was forcibly reminded of the scenes in the "Last Days of Pompeii" by the accounts you read of the last scenes on board the "Titanic." Nothing in Lord Lytton's novel can exceed the dramatic qualities of the occasion: it was evening, and after dinner, the wealthy and well dressed crowd were engaged in the vast variety of amusements which the great ship afforded: jewels, for which the Press have given various equally amazing estimates, were being worn by the lady passengers. At this moment, when none had thought of danger, and most were engaged only in pleasure, there was a shock, the obvious effects of which - we are told - were so slight as not to seriously alarm any save those actually in charge of the ship. After some enquiry as to the cause of the shock most people began to resume their pleasures, and it was not till the fateful order that all passengers should come on deck in their lifebelts was passed round, that there was any inkling that 1,500 odd of those on board were within a few hours of their death. Even then fear took some time to spread. We are told that many were reluctant to enter the lifeboat because they thought the panic unnecessary, and the ship certainly the most comfortable and probably the safest place, comforted as they were by the confident assertion that the "Titanic" was unsinkable. The band, the heroism of which throughout was not the least remarkable of these events, kept up everybody's spirits by playing cheerful and attractive airs.