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A “matter for artists, and not for soldiers”? The Cultural Politics of the Earl Haig National Memorial, 1928–1937

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Stephen Heathorn
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , July 2005 , pp. 536 - 561
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2005

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References

1 Daily Express, 6 November 1998. This editorial is posted on the Great War commemoration Web site Aftermath at http://www.aftermathww1.co.uk/statue.asp.

2 Draft of article for the British Legion Journal by Captain N. S. Crawford submitted to Office of Works for comment, 13 October 1937, National Archives, Kew (formerly the Public Record Office; hereafter NA), WORK 20/186. For the controversy on public sculpture that Epstein and the Haig commission together wrought, see “On Public Statues,” Spectator, 10 August 1929, 179–80; “Sculpture and Taste,” Listener 2, no. 32 (21 August 1929): 246Google Scholar; Casson, Stanley, “Tendencies in Modern Sculpture,” Listener 2, no. 33 (28 August 1929): 275–76Google Scholar; “Statues in London,” London Mercury 20, no. 119 (September 1929): 449–50Google Scholar; “Sculpture and Controversy,” New Statesman, 14 February 1931, 554; Manchester Guardian, 2 August 1929, 8.

3 Gregory, Adrian, The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919–1946 (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar; King, Alex, Memorials of the Great War in Britain: The Symbolism and Politics of Remembrance (Oxford, 1998)Google Scholar; Gaffney, Angela, Aftermath: Remembering the Great War in Wales (Cardiff, 1998)Google Scholar; Connelly, Mark, The Great War, Memory, and Ritual: Commemoration in the City and East London (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2002)Google Scholar.

4 Laqueur, Thomas, “Memory and Naming in the Great War,” in Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity, ed. Gillis, John (Princeton, NJ, 1994), 150–67Google Scholar; Heffernan, Michael, “Forever England: The Western Front and the Politics of Remembrance in Britain,” Ecumene 2, no. 3 (1995): 293–323CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Nora, Pierre, ed., Les lieux de mémoire, 7 vols. (Paris, 1984–92)Google Scholar; translated by Goldhammer, Arthur as Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, 3 vols. (New York, 1996)Google Scholar; Winter, Jay and Sivan, Emmanuel, “Setting the Framework,” in their War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar.

6 Bushaway, Bob, “Name upon Name: The Great War and Remembrance,” in Myths of the English, ed. Porter, Roy (Cambridge, 1993), 136–67Google Scholar; Mosse, George, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar.

7 Winter, Jay, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning (Cambridge, 1995)Google Scholar; Lloyd, David, Battlefield Tourism: Pilgrimage and the Commemoration of the Great War in Britain, Australia and Canada, 1919–1939 (Oxford, 1998)Google Scholar.

8 Penny, Nicholas, “English Sculpture and the First World War,” Oxford Art Journal 4, no. 2 (1981): 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Spectator, 31 January 1931, 135.

10 Gregory, Silence of Memory, 119.

11 Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar, and Adams, M., The Great Adventure: Male Desire and the Coming of World War I (Bloomington, IN, 1990), 113–33Google Scholar, make the case for the ironic transformation of literature, while Bracco, Rosa Maria's The Merchants of Hope (London, 1993)Google Scholar indicates that the best-selling fiction and drama in the interwar years presented the Great War as an affirmation of traditional values rather than of disillusionment, of conventional morality rather than modernist irony.

12 Bond, Brian, The Unquiet Western Front (Cambridge, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sheffield, Gary, Forgotten Victory: The First World War: Myths and Realities (London, 2001)Google Scholar; Keith Simpson, “The Reputation of Sir Douglas Haig,” and Danchev, Alex, “Bunking and Debunking: The Controversies of the 1960s,” both in The First World War and British Military History, ed. Bond, Brian (Oxford, 1991), 141–62, 263–88Google Scholar. Of course, Haig has always had his defenders; see Terraine, John, Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier (London, 1963)Google Scholar.

13 Todman, Daniel, “‘Sans peur et sans reproche’: The Retirement, Death, and Mourning of Sir Douglas Haig, 1918–1928,” Journal of Military History 67, no. 4 (2003): 1083–1106CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Sir Herbert Creedy to Sir Patrick Gower, 1 February 1928, NA, PREM 1/86.

15 Parliamentary Debates (hereafter PD), Commons, 5th ser., vol. 213 (1928), cols. 91–95; NA, PRO 30/69/1292.

16 The Times, 9 February 1928, 14; Daily Express, 9 February 1928, 2; PD, Commons, 5th ser., vol. 213 (1928), cols. 411 and 1005.

17 See Earle, 's autobiography, Turn over the Page (London, 1935)Google Scholar.

18 Patrick Duff to Sir Lionel Earle, 16 March 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

19 Office of Works (hereafter Works in notes) memo regarding meeting on 20 July 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

20 Earle, Turn over the Page, 191.

21 H. C. Bradshaw to Works, 25 July 1928, NA, BP 2/17.

22 E. C. Heath to Works, 7 September 1928, NA, PREM 1/86.

23 The Times, 18 October 1928, 17; King, Memorials of the Great War, 147.

24 Daily Express, 6 August 1929, 8.

25 The Times, 11 September 1929, 13.

26 The Times, 9 February 1928, 15.

27 Inglis, Ken, “Entombing Unknown Soldiers: From London to Paris to Baghdad,” History and Memory 5 (1993): 7–31Google Scholar; Gavaghan, Michael, The Story of the Unknown Warrior (Preston, 1995)Google Scholar; King, Memorials of the Great War, 141–48; Gregory, Silence of Memory, 24–28; Lloyd, Battlefield Tourism, 49–75.

28 The Times, 22 October 1928, 22.

29 Sir Clive Wigram to Lord Stamfordham, 18 October 1928, NA, PREM 1/86. See also Earle to Lord Esher, 23 October 1928, NA, WORK 20/185. Public opposition continued in The Times, 31 July 1928, 8, 21 September 1928, 10, 20 September 1929, 10, and 21 September 1929, 6.

30 See the comments by Lawrence Weaver in the Builder 116 (6 June 1919), 563.

31 Report of Traffic and Public Lighting Committee, 10 July 1928, Westminster City Council Minutes, 1928, 469; Sir John Hunt to Works, 27 July 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

32 Earle to Hunt, 24 May 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

33 Heath to Works, 7 September 1928, NA, PREM 1/86.

34 Earle to Hunt, 24 May 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

35 Secretary of Scotland Yard to Earle, 31 October 1928, and Works memo, 5 November 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

36 Cabinet Paper 323 (28), 1 November 1928, NA, CAB 24/198, 3.

37 Minutes of Cabinet 49 (28), 5 November 1928, NA, CAB 23/59, 13.

38 Earle to R. G. N. Vansittart, 22 November 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

39 Hardiman File, Box 222, Administration and Arts Archive, British School in Rome. Copies held at the Henry Moore Institute for the Study of Sculpture, Leeds (hereafter HMI). Almost all of Hardiman's private papers were destroyed during the Blitz in 1940. When consulted, in 2003, what little remains had not been cataloged.

40 See letters to and from Earle, 22 November, 23 November, and 28 November 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

41 Earle to Lord Londonderry, 6 December 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

42 Earle to R. R. Scott, 28 December 1928, Scott to Earle, 3 January 1929, and A. M. Daniel to Earle, 9 January 1929, NA, WORK 20/185.

43 The Times, 5 February 1929, 10.

44 Earle to Scott, 28 December 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

45 Letters to and from Treasury, January and February 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

46 Earle to Lord D’Abernon, 23 July 1929, NA, WORK 20/185.

47 Daily Mail, 9 August 1929, 8; Capt. Hitchcock, F. C., “The Haig Statue,” British Legion Journal 10, no. 10 (April 1931): 336–37Google Scholar.

48 Daily Mail, 2 August 1929, 7, 3 August 1929, 11, and 5 August 1929, 7; Manchester Guardian, 11 November 1937, 10.

49 See the editorial notes in The Times, 8 August 1929, 11, 10 August 1929, 6, 12 August 1929, 8, and 13 August 1929, 6.

50 Glasgow Herald, 5 August 1929, 10.

51 Daily Express, 6 August 1929, 8.

52 Earle to Stamfordham, 31 July 1929, NA, WORK 20/185.

53 Earle to Creedy, Esher, Sir Herbert Lawrence, Londonderry, 1 to 6 August 1929, NA, WORK 20/185.

54 George Lansbury to Ramsay MacDonald, 1 August 1929, NA, WORK 20/185.

55 Observer, 25 January 1931, 15.

56 Daily Mail, 1 August 1929, 9; The Times, 8 August 1929, 11.

57 The Times, 8 August 1929, 11.

58 Morning Post, 19 September 1929; Saturday Review, 14 September 1929, cuttings in Hardiman Papers, HMI.

59 Glasgow Herald, 5 August 1929, 10.

60 Spectator, 10 August 1929, 179; The Times, 14 August 1929, 6; London Mercury 20, no. 119 (September 1929): 449.

61 The Times, 6 August 1929, 11, and 8 August 1929, 11.

62 Annabel Hosse to Earle, 29 July 1929, NA, WORK 20/185.

63 The Times, 6 August 1929, 11. See also the retrospective view in the British Legion Journal 10, no. 10 (April 1931): 336, which also stressed the “Teutonic attitude” of Hardiman's design.

64 The Times, 14 August 1929, 6.

65 Cutting from Daily Mail, August 1929, NA, WORK 20/185; Manchester Guardian, 2 August 1929, 8.

66 The Times, 30 July 1929, 13.

67 Minutes of Council, Royal Society of British Sculptors, 28 June 1917, cited in King, Memorials of the Great War, 156.

68 Silber, Evelyn, The Sculpture of Epstein (Lewisburg, 1986), 43–45Google Scholar; for Epstein's view on the work, see Haskell, Arnold, The Sculptor Speaks (London, 1932), 21–39Google Scholar.

69 Gardiner, Stephen, Epstein: Artists against the Establishment (London, 1992), 298–304Google Scholar.

70 The Times, 23 May 1925, 12, 24 May 1929, 12, 17 July 1929, 12, and 26 July 1929, 12; Manchester Guardian, 27 July 1929, 12.

71 The Times, 14 November 1925, 6, 10 October 1929, 16, 16 October 1929, 16, and 22 January 1930, 8. See also Silber, Sculpture of Epstein, 45 and 47; Gardiner, Epstein, 303–5.

72 See articles, photos, and correspondence in Manchester Guardian, 20 July 1929, 24, 24 July 1929, 11–12, 25 July 1929, 7, 27 July 1929, 13–14, and 30 July 1929, 11–12.

73 Lansbury to E. Miller, 16 August 1929, NA, WORK 20/185. Emphasis in original.

74 Compton, A., ed., Charles Sargeant Jagger: War and Peace Sculpture (London, 1985)Google Scholar.

75 Harrison, Charles, English Art and Modernism, 1900–1939 (New Haven, CT, 1994), 205–30Google Scholar.

76 The Times, 8 August 1929, 11, and 9 August 1929, 13, respectively.

77 Clipping from Huddersfield Examiner, 12 September 1929, HMI, Hardiman Archives.

78 London Mercury 20, no. 119 (September 1929): 459.

79 Manchester Guardian, 2 August 1929, 8; The Times, 3 August 1929, 11, 5 August 1929, 11, 6 August 1929, 11, 8 August 1929, 11, and 9 August 1929, 13.

80 The Times, 31 January 1931, 8.

81 The Times, 6 August 1929, 11.

82 Casson, “Tendencies in Modern Sculpture,” 277–86.

83 The Times, 3 August 1929, 11, and 5 August 1929, 11; and the Scotsman, 10 August 1929, 5.

84 Daily Mail, 1 August 1929, 9.

85 Gilbert Ledward, “The Autobiography of a Sculptor during the First Fifty Years of the Twentieth Century” (unpublished manuscript, held at HMI, 1953), 140.

86 The Times, 8 August 1929, 11.

87 Lansbury to Miller, 16 August 1929, NA, WORK 20/185. Emphasis in original.

88 Daily Mail, 7 August 1929, 9, 9 August 1929, 9, and 27 August 1929, 10.

89 Raby to Earle, 10 August, and Earle to Raby, 12 August 1929, NA, WORK 20/185.

90 Raby to Earle, 10 August 1929, NA, WORK 20/185.

91 Lansbury to Miller, 16 August 1929, and Lady Haig to Lansbury, 14 September 1929, NA, WORK 20/185; “Note on the History of the Earl Haig Memorial,” NA, WORK 20/186.

92 Assessors' comments, 8 December 1930, NA, WORK 20/186.

93 See the large amount of negative commentary in the Morning Post, 22 January to 5 February 1931.

94 The Times, 24 January 1931, 13.

95 Manchester Guardian, 22 January 1931, 8.

96 Glasgow Herald, 5 August 1929, 10.

97 The Times, 11 September 1929, 13, 13 September 1929, 13, and 21 September 1929, 6; Glasgow Herald, 28 August 1929, 11.

98 Edinburgh Evening News, 5 July 1937, 5.

99 James Wallace to Lansbury, 23 September 1929, NA, WORK 20/185. Other correspondents proposed similar designs; see The Times, 30 July 1929, 13. The “immortal order” refers to Haig's Order of the Day, 11 April 1918, at the nadir of the British retreat during the German spring offensive.

100 Listener 2, no. 31 (21 August 1929): 246; The Times, 2 August 1929, 11, and 7 August 1929, 11.

101 See letters to The Times from Lord Decries and Lord Galway, both 6 August 1929; Mildmay of Flete to The Times, 17 September 1929, 8. Complaining letters from Haig's family appeared in The Times, 7 August 1929, 11, and were also sent to Works, 29 July and 6 August 1929, NA, WORK 20/185. For letters from Haig's immediate subordinates see The Times, 30 July 1929, 13, 18 September 1929, 10, and 5 August 1929, 11. For the British Legion, see the widely cited letter from E. C. Heath in The Times, 2 August 1929, 13.

102 The Times, 28 January 1931, 13, and 29 January 1931, 10.

103 The Times, 24 January 1931, 13.

104 British Legion Journal 10, no. 10 (April 1931): 337.

105 The Times, 28 January 1931, 13; Glasgow Herald, 25 April 1931, 10.

106 The Times, 30 January 1931, 15, and 3 February 1931, 14.

107 Observer, 15 February 1931, 21, and 1 March 1931, 17; Daily Herald, 3 February 1931, 2; Edinburgh Evening News, 5 July 1937, 8.

108 Earle to Lord Portland, 7 January 1931, NA, WORK 20/186.

109 Daily Express, 22 January 1931, 2.

110 The Times, 22 January 1931, 14; Glasgow Herald, 6 February 1931, 10; London Mercury 23, no. 137 (March 1931): 403.

111 Letter reprinted in the Observer, 1 March 1931, 17.

112 Cabinet Paper 24 (31), 30 January 1931, NA, CAB 24/219.

113 Lansbury to Hardiman, 5 February 1931, NA, WORK 20/186.

114 Manchester Guardian, 5 February 1931, 8.

115 Lord Hailsham to William Ormsby-Gore, 3 March 1933, NA, WORK 20/186; PD, Commons, 5th ser., vol. 260 (1931), col. 1513, and vol. 262 (1932), col. 1981.

116 Patrick Duff to A. P. Waterfield, 14 April 1938, NA, T 162/563.

117 Hugh Ellis to Hailsham, 1 March 1935, Noel Birch to Hailsham, 5 March 1936, and General Sir Walter Braithwaite to Hailsham, 5 March 1935, NA, WORK 20/186.

118 Hailsham to Ormsby-Gore, 6 March 1935, NA, WORK 20/186.

119 Hardiman to Ormsby-Gore, 7 February 1935, NA, WORK 20/186.

120 Duff to Ormsby-Gore, 12 July 1935, NA, WORK 20/186.

121 Ormsby-Gore to Lady Haig, 13 July 1935, Duff to Ormsby-Gore, 26 July 1935, and Lady Haig to Ormsby-Gore, 12 December 1935, NA, WORK 20/186.

122 Duff to Ormsby-Gore, 31 December 1935, and contract between Works and Morris Singer Company regarding bronze casting, 13 May 1936, NA, WORK 20/186.

123 Memo, 12 August 1936, Duff to Hardiman, 18 November 1936, and J. Raby to Duff, 30 April 1937, NA, WORK 20/186.

124 Samuel Hoare to Alexander Hardinge, 10 September 1937, NA, HO 45/17161/696816/6.

125 Minutes of conference on the unnveiling of the Earl Haig statue, 25 October 1937, NA, WORK 20/186, and memo on Armistice Day ceremony arrangements, November 1937, NA, HO 45/17161/696816/6.

126 Daily Herald, 11 November 1937, 5.

127 Manchester Guardian, 11 November 1937, 3.

128 Memo from Raby, 9 November 1936, NA, WORK 20/186.

129 The Times, 11 November 1937, 16.

130 Manchester Guardian, 11 November 1937, 10.

131 Observer, 14 November 1937, 25.

132 Daily Express, 11 November 1937, 9.

133 Duff to Sassoon, 27 September 1937, NA, WORK 20/186.

134 Daily Express, 12 November 1937, 3; The Times, 12 November 1937, 10; debriefing of Armistice Day ceremony, November 1937, NA, HO 45/17161/696816/6.

135 The Times, 12 November 1937, 10.

136 The Times, 13 November 1937, 12.

137 Trentham to Pound, 22 June 1938, NA, T 162/563.

138 Edinburgh Evening News, 5 July 1937, 5.

139 Mayo, J. M., War Memorials as Political Landscape (New York, 1988), 249Google Scholar.

140 Moriarty, Catherine, “The Material Culture of Great War Remembrance,” Journal of Contemporary History 34, no. 4 (1999): 655Google Scholar.

141 Wallace to Lansbury, 23 September 1929, NA, WORK 20/185.

142 Gregory, Silence of Memory, 120–22.

143 Report on Armistice Day, 1933, NA, HO 45/15305/657655/55.

144 Gregory, Silence of Memory, 129–30.

145 Bourke, Joanna, “Heroes and Hoaxes: The Unknown Warrior, Kitchener, and ‘Missing Men’ in the 1920’s,” War and Society 13, no. 2 (1995): 41–63Google Scholar.

146 Glasgow Herald, 6 February 1931, 10.

147 Daily Mail, August 7, 1929, 8.

148 The Times, 11 November 1937, 16.

149 Huddersfield Examiner, 12 September 1929, clipping in Hardiman Papers, HMI.

150 King, Memorials of the Great War; Inglis, K. S., “The Homecoming: The War Memorial Movement in Cambridge, England,” Journal of Contemporary History 27 (1992): 583–605CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

151 Minutes of the sixty-ninth meeting of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, 17 October 1929, NA, BP 1/3.

152 King, Memorials of the Great War, 106–27.

153 Creedy to Earle, 6 March 1928, NA, WORK 20/185.

154 Earle to Stamfordham, 31 July 1929, NA, WORK 20/185.

155 Listener 2, no. 32 (21 August 1929): 246.