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Why were war memorials erected?
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Adam Brown
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 11:52 am    Post subject: Why were war memorials erected? Reply with quote

A comment at last night's talk on East Lothian War Memorials got me thinking. This is a subject mentioned before on the forum but I don't think we've had a great deal of discussion on the matter.

Dr Cranstoun mentioned that he was specifically interested in the Great War memorial because that was the first time communities raised war memorials on a large scale. He mentioned Boer War memorials and knew of a Crimean war memorial (he would have been referring to the Balmaclellan memorial) but in his opinion he considered them as being very local affairs and effectively dismissed them. Personally I think he missed the point. (although I may be on shaky ground here because Dr Cranstoun's PhD thesis was on the effects of the Great War on small communities in East Lothian. However that was a few years ago and before we had this forum for me to base my comments on).

For the communities who erected memorials before 1914 there had been a shock. A large number of casualties in far off lands from small communities. That was the same shock felt by other communities later.

Balmaclellan lost six sons in the Crimean War, the same number they lost in the Second World War. This must have sent the same sort of shockwaves through the community in the 1850's as it did in the 1940's. Aberlady lost four men in the Boer War. A small community loses four young men in South Africa and feels it has to erect a memorial - not in 1918 but in 1902.

Before the Great War it was unusual for communities to lose a lot of men in one war. Most Victorian wars had relatively few Scottish casualties so that it would be unusual for more than one man in a district let alone a town to be lost. The Boer War changed that. Lots of men enlisted for a relatively long war. Many Rifle Volunteers joined the Regulars in Active Service Companies and the Yeomanry sent men to the Imperial Yeomanry companies. These weren't regular soldiers but civilians in uniform fighting a real war. As we can now see on our forum there are actually quite a few Boer War memorials out there. Look at the Boer War Memorials in Aberlady, Dumbarton, Dunfermline, Edzell, Falkirk and all the others. These are communities remembering their fallen, the regulars and volunteers, and these are templates for civic war memorials up and down the country fifteen years later.

What's my point then? The point is these feelings were always there, it didn't take the Great War to discover them. If a community felt a sense of loss it did something about it. The exceptions to this are the mining communities. Large and sudden loss of life came with being part of a mining community. These communities had developed their own way of dealing with their loss without the need for a memorial (although some did erect memorials to particularly bad disasters) and it is only in the past twenty or so years with the disappearance of the mines that these communities are now erecting their memorials for old wars.

There are other factors which may be taken into consideration. Could there have been mass hysteria, something akin to the madness which seemed to take hold of certain sections of society in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana? Emotions whipped up by the media which forced communities to follow suit if other communities were forming memorial committees. Not just communities though. You only have to read through the newspapers of the early 1920s to appreciate how many memorials were being erected. Golf clubs, churches, schools, societies, firms even prisons erected memorials. Was this always a need or was some of it a feeling that it was the decent thing to do, or even that they couldn't be seen not to do it?

These are just my thoughts but I'd appreciate the comments of others.

Adam
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spoons



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PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the increase in communications would have had a role to play. Prior to (say) 1875 there were lower levels of literacy, no radio or TV of course and fewer would have been aware of newspapers so local communities would not necessarily be aware of what was going on elsewhere. For example following the erection of the memorial at Balmaclellan, the news may have not got to other towns and villages so it just might not have occurred to them to build a memorial.

I think generally that working class people began to have a little more disposable income and have been in a position to make a modest contribution to memorials.

On the subject of early memorials, I have somehow managed to completely miss a 65 foot high Waterloo monument sitting on top of a large hill! No names but there is an inscription. I will post it hopefully tomorrow.

\Paul
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Adam Brown
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 2:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

spoons wrote:
I think generally that working class people began to have a little more disposable income and have been in a position to make a modest contribution to memorials.


That's a valid point. As working and living conditions improved over the later part of the nineteenth century there would have been some spare pennies for such schemes. There may have been a will to commemorate before, but no cash.

In many cases the larger and grander memorials may have been partly funded by local wealthy landowners. We perhaps need to find out more about the background of these early civic war memorials to find out how much was funded by public subscription and how much from wealthy individuals.

Adam
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kinnethmont



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PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 5:36 pm    Post subject: War Memorials Reply with quote

Quote:
to find out how much was funded by public subscription and how much from wealthy individuals.


There is liitle doubt that the vast majority were raised by public subscription involving a War Memorial Commmitee. Very often the local Laird provided the land upon which the memorial was erected. In some cases a more expensive memorial, more elaborate than perhaps would otherwise have been erected, came about due to the contibutions and influence of a local family of some wealth who family had been lost.

There was a need to create a local memorial due to the disprortionate losses Scotland suffered compared to the rest of Great Britain and that the majority of the families of the Fallen would never be able to travel to France , Flanders, etc to visit a grave, if one existed. A considerable number of those named on memorials in Scotland have no known grave.

It should be remembered that the thoughts of those grieving at home, their friends and neighbours turned to erecting a lasting local memorial long before the conflict ended, in many cases as early as 1915. The result was that war memorials were in place for the first aniversary of the Armistice in 1919, four months after the Great War ended.
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Adam Brown
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 6:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jim

Thanks for the input. I was thinking more of the civic Boer War and Crimean War memorials. I was wondering how these came about?

By 1919 public subscription was used but I was wondering about memorials proposed in 1902 and 1856.

These memorials for previous wars served the same purpose as those post 1918. The bodies were far away and the relatives needed somewhere local to treat as a 'grave'.

You also see the same in graveyards up and down the country. Relatives remembered those who had died after they had emigrated to Canada, Australia, New Zealand or were employed in India or other far flung corners of the Empire.

Regards

Adam
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DerekR
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 7:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why were war memorials erected?

In basic terms it is because human beings need somewhere to grieve.

On a local level the town of Hawick and district lost over 80 men in a single day at Gallipoli.
Two casualties from that day came back to the UK for medical treatment but died.
When their bodies came back to Hawick for burial, a large percentage of the towns population turned out to honour "their boys" back home.
Afterwards a wreath was placed at an earlier raised memorial in the town as a focus for the towns sorrow.
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KevinStoke
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 9:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The numbers who died would also have been a major fact in erecting a memorial. Newspaper printed the deaths on a daily or weekly basis for the first world war. I have seen very little evidence in the local papers on numbers from prior wars. I guess that had you not been involved directly you would never had known the true casualty rates.

When one town/city said that they had to build a place to remember thier dead then other towns/cities had to follow. Can you imagine the grief a council would have got if they said that they weren't going to bother because the neighbouring town had done it.

K
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Adam Brown
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know if numbers were that important? I'm struggling to put it all together actually. I personally don't think people were as shocked by the national figures as they were by the direct impact of the war they could see on their local community, and to me that was the same in 1856 and 1902 as in 1919.

However maybe there was also partly a feeling that there was a memorial bandwagon which had to be jumped on in 1919 and if you misssed it your neighbours and rivals would cast that up against you.
I don't know though. Part of me thinks it's a factor but then there is the mining community. Some (but not all) didn't follow the rest of Scotland, they managed their grief without a memorial and if that's the case it has to have been a local decision to have memorial and not a national one.

But then as Kevin points out there has always been a great rivalry between the towns closest to each other and that civic pride in your own town coupled with disdain for the folk down the road must surely have been a part (however small) of any decision making process in the early stages of planning a war memorial so then my local theory doesn't hold water.

Perhaps the reason I'm having difficulty with this is that it isn't that clear cut. There is not just one reason - the need for a replacement for a grave, because if that was the only reason then the names would be on family headstones in the local graveyard.

I guess at the root if it all is I'm trying to work out if people in 1919 did look back to previous wars for an answer?

Anyone in Dumbarton would certainly have known what to do and the unveiling of their Boer War memorial would have been widely reported throughout Dunbartonshire in Edwardian times, so that idea would have been planted ten years before the great upheavals of 1915 and later. The same would have applied in East Lothian with the Aberlady Boer War Memorial. Angus with the Edzell memorial; Fife with the Dunfermline and Newport war memorials; Argyll with Lochawe and Starchur; Selkirkshire with Hawick; Clackmannashire with Alloa; Stirlingshire with Falkirk; Perthshire with Alyth; Ross-shire with Achiltibuie and the most recent posted on the forum Morayshire with the Forres & District Boer War Memorial.

Sorry, it's late and I'm starting to ramble. These thoughts have been going through my head though and there must be more to it.

It bothered me that at the talk last night the pre-1914 memorials were dismissed. To me they are a vital link in the process to the point after Gallipoli and then Loos when it was obvious that all communities in Scotland from Borders to Highlands were going to deal with large losses and how that loss would be remembered.

Adam
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David McNay
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 11:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

KevinStoke wrote:
The numbers who died would also have been a major fact in erecting a memorial. Newspaper printed the deaths on a daily or weekly basis for the first world war. I have seen very little evidence in the local papers on numbers from prior wars. I guess that had you not been involved directly you would never had known the true casualty rates.


Albeit on a lesser scale, many communities were affected by the casualties inflicted on the Highland Brigade at Magersfontein in December 1899.

The death of Major-General Wauchope also caused a large outpouring of grief, as he was a popular military leader, landowner and MP.
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Adam Brown
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Could the same shock of the battles fought by 9th, 15th and 52nd Divs in 1915 be seen in Scotland in a few years before in 1899 for Magersfontein? It was well reported at the time how much of a shock 'Black Week' was.

Not only Wauchope, the death of the golfer and Black Watch Officer Freddie Tait also prompted quite a few memorials.

I've also been thinking about the scale of loss. Scotland's Boer War dead was a fraction of it's Great War dead. If a proportional number of memorials were raised post 1902 can we actually say there was a greater grief in Scotland post 1914?

The figure of 100,000 for Scotland's Great War dead is about one tenth the total Imperial war dead of 1,000,000

The total Imperial War Dead for the Boer War was approx 20,000. If we take one tenth of that figure then that gives us 2,000 Scottish war dead. Is that a fair figure? It's probably too large but will do for arguments sake just now.

2,000 is one fiftieth of 100,000 so can we assume from these very rough figures that Scotland would have one fiftieth the number of Boer War civic war memorials compared to it's Great War Civic war memorials? My own calculations, which I don't think are too far off the mark give us a figure of approx 1400 Great War civic war memorials in Scotland. One fiftieth of that is only 28.

So if Scotland has twenty eight civic Boer war memorials is the scale of loss the same? It's difficult to say because the casualties would have been so spread out so a lot of places may only have had one or two dead and may not have erected memorials.
(The whole of Sutherland which suffered 800 losses in the Great War had only one loss in the Boer War. They had plenty of men in the army but they all returned bar one).

With that in mind could memorials in churches for one Boer War fatality be considered civic memorials? Worth a look in contemporary local papers I think.

I'm going to start another thread trying to identify Scotland's Boer War memorials - Civic, individual, regimental and others and to see what we've got on the forum so far.

Adam


Last edited by Adam Brown on Thu Nov 20, 2008 8:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
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kinnethmont



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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:37 pm    Post subject: War Memorials Reply with quote

Quote:
With that in mind could memorials in churches for one Boer War fatality be considered civic memorials?


I would doubt a memorial to one man of the South African Wars period in a kirk could be viewed as a " civil memorial ". At the time the Established Kirk was divided and so a memorial then would be to adherants of a particular faith. Of course some had no faith.
Very often only relatives the landed minority would be considered for recognition in a kirk so it would hardly include the whole Civil population.

Are most Boer War casualties not recorded generally on non parochial regimental memorials?
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Adam Brown
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 8:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kinnethmont

Thanks for the feedback

kinnethmont wrote:
At the time the Established Kirk was divided and so a memorial then would be to adherants of a particular faith. Of course some had no faith



I thought that to until I heard recently of two church memorials of different denominations having the same names (I think David told me about it?). They can’t all have been parishioners of both churches so there’s maybe a bit more to it.

Also we’ve seen a few Great War memorials where the civic memorial is in the local church on the forum. These are civic memorials whatever the faith, or not, of those named, and not church memorials.

Also the memorials in churches today may well have been somewhere else when they were unveiled 100 years ago. Until they are researched we don’t know where they all have been. So although we can’t say for sure they can be considered civic at the same time without evidence to the contrary we can’t always rule them out. Ones in big towns / cities can be ruled out but what about any we find in villages? Landed minority or not if they were the only Boer War casualty from that place then their name would be the only one on any memorial.

kinnethmont wrote:
Are most Boer War casualties not recorded generally on non parochial regimental memorials?


If you total up all the names on the regimental memorials then you’ll probably have most of Scotland’s Boer War dead but that’s not the point.

The Argyll’s listed on the memorials at Lochawe, Alloa and Falkirk are also listed at Stirling Castle. The Black Watch men at Edzell, Dunfermline and Newport are also on the regimental memorials in Edinburgh and Perth. The Seaforths on the memorials at Forres and Achilitibuie are listed on the cross at Dingwall.

Like the memorials of the Great War they are not mutually exclusive, you can find the same name on more than one memorial.

We’ve already got fifteen local civic memorials on the forum and on top of that we know of three County-wide rolls of honour for Angus, Banffshire and Perthshire. Who knows what else we might turn up?

Regards

Adam
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spoons



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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just to go off on a little tangent, there are two instances I can think of where there is a memorial to a man in a Church of Scotland kirk and also one to the same man in a nearby Episcopal church. I have thought that perhaps this is because the parents attended different churches or perhaps the son attended a different church to the parents.

Does anyone know if any of the major churches have any old guidelines on memorials in churches?

\Paul
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David McNay
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 11:02 pm    Post subject: Re: War Memorials Reply with quote

kinnethmont wrote:

Are most Boer War casualties not recorded generally on non parochial regimental memorials?


Not necessarily, and certainly not for Scotland.

I have a copy of the "Returns of Death of Scottish Subjects" for the Boer War (courtesy of New Register House) and while most of the deaths are Scottish regiments, you have many Artillery and Imperial Yeomanry deaths in there. While the Artillery might have a memorial to their Boer War dead, I'm almost certain there is no Imperial Yeomanry memorial.

Add to that the fact that there is a smattering of "English regiments" - for example, the first page of the index has a Private G Armstrong, who is listed as being in the 4th Battalion South Staffs. if he's on a regimental memorial, it certainly isn't in Scotland.

The Boer War is when community memorials first came to being in any numbers. There had certainly been some previously, but this, not the Great War, is the start of their appearance in numbers.
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kinnethmont



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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 11:02 pm    Post subject: War Memorial Reply with quote

Adam

My points were general ones, of course there may be exceptions
Most memorials in rural kirks of ww1 period and before will be to members of that persuasion. Unless there have been a reorganisation of parishes most kirk rolls will be in their original site.

In part the situation prior to 1929 accounted for memorials being outwith kirk property and control. Parish Councils were still in place and most had members involved in the local War Memorial Committee. Often the land used for a memorial site was, or became, within their control.

Quote:
Landed minority or not if they were the only Boer War casualty from that place then their name would be the only one on any memorial.


The question was about a single casualty memorial in a kirk. My point here was that some could be commemorated and others not. It could not be assumed he was the only casualty unless, as you suggest, it was fully researched.
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In Flanders fields.

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