30/01/2012 by scheong

Dad’s Army: The Home Guard

Who do you think you are kidding, Mr. Hitler?
If you think we’re on the run?
We are the boys who will stop your little game,
We are the boys who will make you think again!

‘Cause who do you think you are kidding Mr. Hitler?
If you think old England’s done?

Mr. Brown goes off to town on the 8:21,
But he comes home each evenin’ and he’s ready with his gun!

So watch out Mr Hitler, you have met your match in us,
If you think you can crush us,
We’re afraid you’ve missed the bus

‘Cause who do you think you are kidding Mr. Hitler?
If you think we’re on the run,
We are the boys who will stop your little game,
We are the boys who will make you think again,

‘Cause who do you think are kidding Mr. Hitler?
If you think old England’s done!

Behold the original 1940s theme-song of the British Home Guard!

Okay, no, not really.

‘Who Do You Think You are Kidding Mr. Hitler‘ was the theme-song to the popular 1970s TV show “Dad’s Army”, that chronicled the activities of a fictional Home Guard unit during the Second World War. The song was actually written in 1968 and sung by famous music-hall veteran Bud Flanagan. Flanagan came out of retirement to record the theme-song as a special favour to the show’s creators, who were avid fans. They wanted the show’s theme-song to be sung by a real wartime singer (which Flanagan was), and they got lucky when he agreed. Really lucky! Flanagan died less than a year later!

“Dad’s Army” was one of the great television comedies of the 70s. But it’s scary to think that fiction mirrored reality in so many ways! A lot of the jokes in the show (weapons-shortages, no uniforms, poor training, old codgers thinking they could fight off the Luftwaffe) were actually real problems faced by the real Home Guard back in the 1940s! This is the true story of Britain’s citizen army – The Home Guard.

Local Defence Volunteers

With the fall of France, the British were terrified that the Germans might turn their sights on England and attempt to invade them sometime in 1940 or 1941. Fearing that they might not have enough fulltime soldiers to defend the British Isles, on the 14th of May, 1940, the British Government established the Local Defence Volunteers, a ‘citizen army’ who could fight off the Germans and secure the Isles until soldiers from other parts of the Empire could arrive to provide backup.

The L.D.V was expected to be made up of about 150,000 carefully-chosen men who would be Britain’s first line of defence against a German invasion. Within 24 hours of the original radio broadcast made by Anthony Eden, 250,000 men had signed up! To give you an idea of how many that is, the entire British Army was 250,000 men before the war started! By 1943, the Local Defence Volunteers numbered nearly two million (1.8 mil, precisely), and never fell below 1,000,000 for the rest of the war.

Dad’s Army – The Home Guard

The L.D.V. was renamed the “Home Guard” by order of Winston Churchill in August of 1940. It sounded better and was easier to write down. This proud fighting force of patriotic British men would stave off impending doom from a Nazi invasion of their treasured homeland!…or not. We’ll never know, because Britain was never invaded, but the British Government and Army were determined to be ready for any eventuality.

Signing up for Duty

The Home Guard officially recruited men and boys ranging from 17-65 years in age. Recruits were men who were too young to fight in the regular army, too old to fight in the regular army, who were excused from regular combat due to medical issues or who were excused from enlistment due to being in a ‘reserved occupation’ (having a job that was essential to the war-effort…like baking bread…and no, I’m not kidding. Bakers were exempt from joining the army).

In the flurry of activity to join the newly formed Home Guard, the rules were only loosely followed. Children as young as fifteen and sixteen joined the Home Guard and grown men as old as seventy joined up! The oldest guardsman was Alexander Taylor. He first bore arms for king and country back during the Mahdist War of 1881! When he signed up for the Home Guard, he was well over eighty years old!

Approximately 40% of the Home Guard were made up of former soldiers, most of them veterans of the Great War of 1914 (ahem, the First World War to you and me).

Because the majority of the guardsmen were of advanced age, the Home Guard was given the popular nickname: “Dad’s Army”.

Training the Guard

Training for the Home Guard was rudimentary. Because such a sizeable number of the men (as well as their commanding officers), were all veterans of former wars (the Great War, the Boer War, the Second Afghan War of the 1880s and so-on), they felt that they didn’t need any training. They were soldiers already! Or they were…once upon a time…and they were ready to do it again!

As noble and patriotic and romantic and well-meaning as all these sentiments were, they all overlooked the fact that many of these men fought back in the days of cannons, horse-cavalry charges, bayonets and single-shot rifles! Their training didn’t prepare them for a modern, 20th century war! So like it or not, they all had to be trained from the ground up…all over again. Some officers were allowed to keep the ranks that they’d earned during previous conflicts, however.

Arming the Guards! (The Bullet is not for firing!)

It’s just as well for the people of Britain that their homeland was never invaded. The Home Guard had nothing to fight with!

See, during the war, all the best weapons were required by the regular army. They got all the up-to-date machine-guns, mortars, knives, daggers, small-arms and rifles. The Home Guard had to make-do with whatever crap they could find that was left over! The wartime mantra of “Make do and Mend” was never more true!

The Home Guard was woefully under-equipped. They didn’t even have proper uniforms until halfway through the war! Just armbands that they wore on their sleeves. And weapons…oh boy.

To give you an idea of how ill-equipped the guardsmen were, they used to do rifle-drills with almost anything BUT a rifle. They used billiard-cues, broomsticks, walking-sticks, crutches, umbrellas, cricket-bats, pitchforks, hoes…anything!

What firearms they could find were usually what they brought from home. Their revolvers, their heirloom duelling-pistols, Uncle Jack’s hunting-rifle, double-barreled sawn-off shotguns, break-open long-barrel shotguns, handguns…they didn’t have a single rifle between them!

The shortage of arms for the Home Guard was so severe that they even broke into museums to find them! Cannons, muskets, blunderbusses, musketoons…even old cavalry swords! Everything was requisitioned by the Home Guard for the defence of the realm. And I don’t mean that they knocked on a museum door, spoke the curator, got him to sign a piece of paper and then helped themselves to the guns…I mean they literally broke in! Smashing glass display-cases and making off with the guns!

Winston Churchill recognised this shortage of firearms and he wrote a letter to the War Office in June of 1941 which read:

“Every man must have a weapon of some kind, be it only a mace or a pike!“

You can guess what happened next.

What Churchill REALLY meant was that the Home Guard should be equipped with whatever weapons were available and that every effort should be made to give them the best firearms that the British Army could spare!

Unfortunately for Churchill, the War Office took his message a little too literally. In 1942, they finally finished producing 250,000 pikes.

Yes.

Pikes.

Long, pointy sticks that go stabby-poke.

Exactly what Churchill said when the War Office told him that his order of pikes was ready for dispersement, isn’t recorded. But it was probably an impressive array of profanities.

Needless to say, the ludicrous pikes were never used. Most of them were never even unpacked and removed from storage! The guardsmen refused to use them, anyway.

Eventually, the Home Guard did get proper rifles. They were the old Lee-Enfield rifles used during the Great War. This was probably beneficial to a certain extent. Nearly half the guardsmen were Great War veterans and would’ve been familiar with the rifles. The only problem was, these rifles were now over twenty years old!

Americans and Canadians tried to help out their British friends. They collected and donated all their old rifles that they didn’t use anymore, and sent them to England. So at least the Home Guard had proper rifles now…even if they were outdated vintage ones!

While they might have had rifles (and might have also had ammunition), the guardsmen didn’t have much else. They had to improvise most of their weapons, such as grenades. They learned how to make rudimentary firebomb-grenades out of old bottles, flammable liquids and old rags. These homemade grenades were copied from the originals invented by the Finnish in 1939. They were called “Molotov Cocktails”, and were named for Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister.

Grenades weren’t the only things that the guardsmen had to make for themselves. They even produced their own mortars! A particular model (called the Northover Projector) was essentially a rudimentary grenade-launcher/mortar that fired grenades into the air. Blackpowder (not used since the American Civil War of the 1860s!) was poured down the barrel, then a grenade was forced down the barrel after it.

The powder was ignited using a toy precussion-cap (those little things that you stick in children’s play-guns that go ‘Bang!’) and was operated by a two-man crew. The Northover Projector was cheap, easy to use…but hardly effective. Half the time it could misfire, or even worse, explode in the breech, blowing the thing apart and injuring the crew.

Although the Northover Projector was manufactured commercially, many people made their own, homemade versions. It was often called the “Drainpipe Mortar” because of its long, slim shape.

The Duties of the Guard

Because Britain was never invaded, it’s widely believed that the Home Guard didn’t do anything. This wasn’t exactly true.

The Guard was employed in various activities throughout the war. They patrolled harbours and ports, they guarded ammo-dumps and important military installations and storage facilities, and they manned anti-aircraft cannons during the Blitz. Over a thousand guardsmen died in combat during the war.

The guardsmen also arrested and rounded up downed German pilots, they helped the wounded, cleared rubble from air-raids and rescued the trapped who were stuck in their collapsed houses. In 1941, the Guard was even allowed to guard Buckingham Palace! Churchill proudly declared that if London was invaded, the Home Guard would fight a bloody war with the Germans for every single city block.

The End of the Home Guard

The Home Guard was stood down in late 1944, when it was pretty certain that the Germans wouldn’t be doing any fighting against the British on their home soil anytime soon. It was formally disbanded on the 31st of December, 1945.

Dad’s Army

70th Anniversary of the Home Guard

Home-Guard.org.uk

27/01/2012 by Scheong

Terra Australis Incognitia – A Compact History of Early Australia

Australia. For most of the world, it’s a country that’s a million miles from anywhere. It’s land full of strange people who speak an alien language and which is populated by some of the most curious, and the most dangerous creatures in the world: Wallabies, kangaroos, echidnas, koalas, Fairy Penguins, drop-bears, Redbacks, White-tails, kookaburras, the Spotted Quoll, snakes and anklebiters.

But how did Australia come to be? What happened to it? How did it evolve?

Since it was Australia Day yesterday, this article will look at the earliest years of recorded Australian history up to the colonial period of the mid-1800s.

The Myth of Australia

Every people, every culture, every nation on earth, has a place of myth which they believe might exist. Atlantis. Middle Earth. 221B Baker Street. There are those who think these places are real. And who will do anything to find them.

The 1500s was the start of the Early-Modern Period. This was a time of great discovery. It was the start of the Age of Reason, the Age of Discovery and the Age of Colonisation.

By the 1500s, it was fairly well-established that the Earth was round…although in the 21st Century, some people still require some convincing, however, early geographers believed that the Earth posessed a sort of balance. In the northern hemisphere, there were several large countries like Russia, China and Canada, as well as huge landmasses like the North American continent. It was believed by the learned people of the time that somewhere in the South, there was another enormous landmass like the North American continent which balanced out the bottom half of the world and gave the planet a sort of ‘symmetry’.

This mythical and unseen landmass was tentatively called: “Terra Australis Incognitia“. For people who don’t read Latin, it literally means ‘Unknown Southern Land” (Terra = Land, as in ‘terra firma’; Australis = South; Incognitia = Unknown, as in ‘Incognito’).

In Search of Australia

For centuries, rumors persisted that there must be an enormous and, as-yet, uncharted landmass at the bottom of the world. This landmass was what gave the world balance. Like the ballast on a ship, this supposed Unknown Southern Land would prevent the world from tipping over. The only thing was…nobody knew where such an enormous landmass might be.

This map from 1587 shows mankind’s understanding of Terra Australis Incognitia before the continent itself was fully discovered:

The map is pretty hard to read at this size. You can click on it to enlarge it if you wish. But on the map, you can clearly see Ireland, England, Russia, Europe, Italy, the Middle East, China, India, the African Continent and both American continents. The world as we know it is pretty much fully represented in this nearly five-hundred year old document. But one country is notably absent. At least, in its current form. Down the bottom of the map you can see an enormous, shapeless landmass. It is marked on the map (bottom left hand corner) as “TERRA AUSTRALIS”; the Southern Land.

Wanting to find out more about this great unknown land, the European powers sent ships into the Southern hemisphere on treacherous and lengthy voyages to find this great continent, map it, figure out what exactly they’d found, and then report back home. Of course, in the age of sail, this took a long time. When Capt. Cook sailed to Australia in the 1770s it took him very nearly two whole years to get there!

Western Contact with Australia

So. We have an enormous, uncharted land at the bottom of the world. Or we think we do. Now…we need to find it, chart it and do something with it. But before we can do the other two, we have to do the first. We need to find it.

Who found Australia?

This is a question that is almost impossible to answer. Dozens of people sailed for Australia over the centuries and any one of them, provided that they knew exactly what it was that they’d found, could stake a claim as the discoverer of Australia. It might not even have been a Westerner who first discovered Australia; it might have been the famous Chinese sailor, Zheng He, who once commanded one of the biggest blue-water navys in the world, big enough to challenge the might of the British Royal Navy at the time…except that during Zheng He’s day, the Royal Navy didn’t exist.

Maps of the 1500s showed an enormous, shapeless landmass south of the Equator. This, it was believed, was the mythical land of Terra Australis. But that was all it was. A myth. To date, nobody had yet truly confirmed that such a place really existed. Sure, people had sent back sketchy charts and maps from their voyages…but in piecing all these snippets of information together, geographers knew that the Unknown Land of the South remained undiscovered.

…Until one day in the early 1600s.

Although there are those who believe that the Portugese discovered Australia in the 1520s, the first really solid proof that Australia actually existed came as a result of a voyage made by a Dutch sailor in 1606. This sailor’s name was Willem Janszoon (ca. 1570-1630). What Janszoon had unwittingly crashed into during his exploration of the South Pacific was the western coast of Australia. He mapped and charted the area and named the place “Nieu Zeeland“, after the Dutch province of Zeeland where he came from.

Fortunately for Australians, the name didn’t stick and it was trasnferred to a bunch of islands a few thousand miles to east which were discovered by another Dutchman in 1642, islands now called…New Zealand.

So convinced was Janszoon that he’d found the missing puzzle-piece, the ‘Unknown Southern Land’ that ten years later, he set out and tried to find it again. On the 31st of July, 1618, he once again arrived on the western shores of the Australian continent. He declared this new landmass to be an island…although he didn’t actually bother sailing all the way around it to find out!

Fast forward another thirty-odd years, and enter: Abel Tasman. Tasman was the other Dutchman who was looking for Australia. He found it in the 1640s, and he’s the guy that Australians should thank for removing the title of ‘Nieu Zeeland‘ from their continent and tacking it onto the islands located a conveniently lengthy distance to the east. As information seeped in from explorers about this new continent that existed somewhere southeast of Asia, Tasman went exploring. It was Tasman who gave the Unknown (and thusfar, unnamed!) Southern Land its first title, which was rapidly printed on all new maps soon after. It was no longer some lengthy and fancy, scientific-sounding Latin landmass. It was called…

New Holland.

A name that would stick for almost all of the next two centuries.

Abel Tasman’s map of Nova Hollandia (“New Holland”); 1644

But Australia is famous for being found by the English, isn’t it? Well yeah…only they didn’t find it. At least, not until everyone else had. The first English eyes cast their sight upon ‘New Holland’ in 1688. They were the eyes of William Dampier. Dampier was a scallywag, a pirate, an explorer, cartographer (that’s a guy who makes maps) and scientist. He made the first observations, in English, of the Australian continent when he showed up there at the end of the 17th century.

Perhaps realising that everyone else who had found New Holland up to this point wrote down their discoveries in languages that he probably couldn’t understand, Dampier was the first man to write down an account of Australia in English. In fact, he wrote several accounts. Between 1697 and his death in 1715, he wrote six books about his explorations in the South Pacific. His work titled ‘A Voyage to New Holland‘ was so big it had to be published in two volumes six years apart!

Dampier was also something of a wordsmith. How many of these words do you know?

Avacado? Breadfruit? Cashew? Chopsticks? Barbeque?

They’re just five of the hundreds of words that Dampier coined during his voyage around the South Pacific at the turn of the 18th century. He was exploring lands that were so strange and fantastical that he had to create a whole new vocabulary just to document it all!

Colonising Australia

Well. We have a new landmass. New Holland. It’s completely uninhabited (apart from the natives that have been there for a few tens of thousands of years, but they’re complete savages and don’t count!), it’s in the middle of nowhere, it has absolutely nothing to offer anyone else on earth. What do we do with it?

The Europeans had no idea.

Map of New Holland made by French explorer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin in 1753

The problem was that Australia was so far from everywhere. It took over a year (if the going was rough, then over two years!) to get there! And once you were there, it was hot, dusty, uncomfortable and had nothing whatever to recommend it as a good place to set up shop.

But then, something happened in England that was to change everything.

Fencing off: The Enclosure Acts

The Georgian era was the era of enclosure. The Acts of Enclosure, passed by the British Parliament meant that common land, once open for everyone to use, were now being cordoned off, fenced up and had become part of the vast estates of Britain’s landed gentry and the nobles and aristocrats who owned enormous country manors. This meant that all the land once used by the pesantry to farm, fish, hunt, raise livestock, collect firewood and build their homes on, was all now private property! They couldn’t live there, work there or farm there. And if they did they had to pay rent to the landlord. The enclosure acts meant that farmers and their families had to leave their land and find work in the cities.

But the cities had no work.

So those without work turned to crime. A lot of crime.

The Georgian era was a high time for crime in England. People stole anything to get by. And the penalties were harsh. They ranged from execution, branding, imprisonment or being pressed into service onboard a ship of His Majesty’s Navy. It also meant being sentenced for transportation.

Transportation meant that you were stuffed onto a ship with a few hundred other sorry bastards, and shipped off to one of the colonies that the British were busy establishing during this time. In the Georgian era, the main dumping-ground for British convicts was the American Colonies. But in the 1770s and 1780s, the Americans fought back and kicked the Brits out. And the Brits still had to find somewhere to dump all their prisoners.

The crimewave in England was spiralling out of all control. Prisons were packed, dozens of prisoners to a cell. And then the prisons got full-up, so the authorities had to pack the prisoners into old, leaky, rotten sailing ships that were no-longer seaworthy. These ships, moored along the River Thames and other major waterways, were called hulks, and they were full of filth beyond anything you could imagine. No toilets. No fresh air. Little food. Rats. Lice. Fleas. Cockroaches and stinking, swilling bilgewater that seeped into the ships through the leaking planks. The British were desperate for a solution.

Cook’s Voyage

In 1766, the bigwigs at the Royal Society (Long name: The Royal Society of London for Improving of Natural Knowledge) decided that they wanted to track the progress of the planet Venus. It was due to swing past the earth, in front of the sun near the end of the decade. To get the best view of this rare event, it told a young Royal Navy lieutenant, Capt. James Cook (aged 39 at the time), to command a ship that would take a complement of artists, scientists and naturalists on a voyage of discovery to the South Pacific where this amazing celestial event could be observed. For the voyage, the Society purchased an old coal-carrying ship, cleaned it up and refitted it for the voyage. It was renamed the Endeavor.

The voyage to the South Pacific would take twenty two months. They started in 1768 and didn’t arrive until 1770. They had to stop four times along the way. Twice along the east coast of South America, once at New Zealand and once at the Tahitian Islands. Their observations of Venus complete, Capt. Cook broke the seal on a packet of papers given to him by the Admiralty back in England before he sailed. The papers were the instructions given to him that ordered him to find the land of New Holland and claim it for England in the name of His Majesty, King George III.

The voyage was really one of discovery. They were sailing to places that few people had ever seen. Not since Abel Tasman’s charting of New Holland a hundred years before, had anyone sailed to this mythical land. Cook himself wasn’t even sure the place existed! Indeed, the Admiralty that sent him there wasn’t sure, either! The maps they were working with were, more likely than not, over a hundred years old by then! They needed fresh information. But if New Holland did exist, then the Admiralty wanted Cook to snatch it up for Britain.

During his voyage across the Pacific, Cook charted the whole of New Zealand, claimed it for Britain, sailed to Tahiti, made friends with the natives, restocked his ship and then sailed for the great unknown continent…now known as New Holland.

It was a long, lonely and scary voyage, but it paid off. Land was sighted at 6:00am on the morning of the 19th of April, 1770; a Thursday. Cook charted his position and plotted the previously unseen eastern coastline of New Holland. He made landfall in a little cove which was thereafter named “Botany Bay”. Here, the crew and the scientists of the Royal Society explored this new land that they’d found. They recorded such things as the plants, the animals, and even the natives that they found there. They even shot and killed and…ate…a kangaroo. They also shot and killed and…stuffed-and-mounted…three more kangaroos, which they put onto the ship to take back home to England.

The Endeavor sailed up the coast of what is now New South Wales. They parked at a point off the coast which is now Port Jackson, did more mapping and then sailed even further north. When they reached present-day Queensland, they made landfall again; dropping anchor, lowering the boats and rowing ashore. Today, a town exists on this spot where Cook made his second landing on Australian soil. It’s name? ‘1770’.

A new Colony

After the early 1780s, the British lost a grip (literally) on their favourite criminal dumping-ground, the former colonies of what were now the United States of America (a name and concept so alien that George III barely agreed to recognise it’s existence!). The crime-wave in England was gathering momentum and a solution was desperately needed.

That was when it was decided that it would be advantageous to the British to have a trading post in New Holland. After all, nobody really lived there, and that chap, Cook, had already stuck a flag in it and called it for England, didn’t he? So technically, it was theirs!…Kinda. So the British got the idea to set up a penal colony in Australia. Ships were rounded up, crews were gathered, provisions stowed and the most essential ingredient of this new colonial experiment were herded onboard – the convicts that would be Australia’s first permanent white settlers.

So, this collection, this gathering, this hodgepodge of humanity, was drawn together and declared the First Fleet.

Alright. Let’s stop here for a minute. My word-count says that up to here, I have typed roughly 2,500 words of Australian History. But in Australia, the most that kids learn in school of their country’s history is that it started in 1788 when the Poms first landed here and…that was that. Well, sorry, History Teachers of Australia…that wasn’t where it all started. You left out about a century and three-quarters’ worth of history that you haven’t taught the kids. Shame on you.

Okay, back to our irregularly scheduled ramblings.

The First Fleet

Now, back to the Schoolboy History of Australia.

The First Fleet was a collection of 1030 people spread out over eleven ships. They were a collection of sailors, marines, husbands, wives, kids, officers, civillian officials and convicts. Their mission: Sail to New Holland and call it ‘Home’.

They left Portsmouth, England, on the 13th of May, 1787. The fleet weighed anchor at 4:00am and set sail for New Holland five hours later at 9:00 in the morning.

The voyage was going to be epic. Going as fast as they could, the ships took nine months to reach Australia. Twenty-three people died during the journey and seven babies were born on the way.

When the ships made landfall in Botany Bay in January of 1788, leader of the fleet, Capt. Arthur Phillip, was less than impressed. Reports by Cook and his pal, naturalist Joseph Banks, had filled Phillip with optimism. What he found was a swampy, uninhabitable wasteland. Packing up, Phillip and his boys sailed further up the coast to Port Jackson a few miles north. Here, they established a settlement. Today, it is called Sydney. The day that the First Fleeters arrived was the 26th of January, 1788; today called ‘Australia Day’.

The Birth of a Nation

And so, Australia was established and colonised by the White Man!

Only, it still wasn’t called ‘Australia’. Theoretically, Terra Australis Incognitia was still titled ‘New Holland’; the name that Abel Tasman had given it back in 1644. The bit of New Holland that the British had carved out for themselves was called ‘New South Wales’, a colony that eventually spread out to encompass roughly half of the Australian continent, minus Tasmania (then called ‘Van Diemen’s Land’).

This is the world’s first full and complete map of the Australian continent. It was drawn up by Capt. Matthew Flinders in 1804

And life in the new colony was hardly ideal. There were few animals, little food, and while there were muskets and pistols for hunting, there was almost no ammunition! And even if they’d brought grains and plants with them, there wasn’t a single farmer in the entire colony. The governor, former captain Arthur Phillip and a thousand of his fellow Englishmen, women and children, were quite literally stuck on a desert island with no way home.

Within months, things were beginning to deteriorate. While Governor Phillip had brought enough food (if rationed very strictly) to last about two years, once that food ran out, there was nothing to sustain the colonists. They needed a supply-ship and they needed it fast. They also needed a lot of women. And they needed them rather desperately. Men outnumbered women three-to-one in the colony and colonial officials feared that, without lots more women to balance out the population, the men would soon devolve into homosexual maniacs, engaging in sodomy, buggery and generally savage behaviour. Chicks were needed to bring the boys under control.

Enter the Second Fleet.

The need for women was so important that when the ships of the First Fleet sailed for England, a message was sent back with them that the next fleet back to New Holland had better be swarming with girls. So back in England, female convicts were rounded up in an almost exclusively all-girl transport-fleet bound for Australia. To be specific, a transport-fleet of young, vibrant women of marriagable and child-bearing age (this was mentioned specifically in the letter sent to England!).

The second mission to Australia comprised of a fleet of six ships. One ship, the Lady Juliana carried a cargo of 222 women onboard (originally 226, but four died on the way over). The ship gained a reputation for sex, prostitution and loose morals, leading to the nickname the ‘Floating Brothel’.

The Second Fleet dropped anchor off the coast of New South Wales and Port Jackson in 1790, two years after the establishment of the colony. The women who came aboard were horrified to see a town (Sydney) that was on the brink of collapse! The men that were still there were surviving on starvation-rations and despite the pleadings by the colonial officials, for women to be sent to the colony, when the girls finally showed up, the convicts and freemen living around Port Jackson at the time registered disgust and disbelief that the bigwigs back in London had sent them a boatload of girls, when what they really needed at that desperate time was healthy young men who would be able to work and build houses, chop down trees, split firewood and grow crops!

A bit too late to complain about that now.

Branching Out

As Sydney grew more and more crowded, people began spreading out across what was then ‘New South Wales’. The next major settlement was on the banks of the Yarra River in present-day Victoria. This settlement, eventually called ‘Melbourne’, was formally established as a town in 1835. It was the main urban center in what became known as the ‘Port Phillip District’, because it centered around Port Phillip Bay, into which the Yarra River empties. John Batman, the man who was responsible for establishing Melbourne, picked out a likely spot on the north bank of the Yarra River (around where the Central Business District is today), and declared:

“This will be the place for a village!”

And what a place it is. Fresh air. Lots of land. Running water! A hundred and eighty years later, and I reckon he was right. This will the place for a village.

Except that Batman overlooked the fact that he’d established Melbourne on a floodplain. Every time southern Victoria gets heavy rainstorms, the center of town becomes a lake. Nice going, Mr. B…or not.

Another important thing happened around this time. Or rather, it happened about ten years before.

The continent had gone from being Terra Australis Incognitia to ‘New Holland’, and in 1824, it officially received its current name: “Australia”.

The word ‘Australia’ had existed since the early 1600s, and European explorers (including the British) had referred to the continent as such, but probably only because it was easier to write than having to scribble out “Terra Australis Incognitia” over and over and over again. There had been pushes to name the continent ‘Australia’ ever since the early 1800s, when colonists and explorers had finally established a proper and functioning colony there. In 1824, the Admiralty in England finally agreed. New Holland was out. ‘Australia’ was in, taken from the continent’s ‘original’ Latin name, ‘Australis‘, meaning ‘South’.

The Victorian Gold Rush

The gold rush that most Americans know about is the California Gold Rush of 1849, that turned a tiny, sleepy, seaside town like San Francisco into a gigantic, bustling west-coast metropolis. And for a short while, at least, the gold rush in California attracted world attention.

Until in 1851, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, colonists digging around in the newly-formed and separate Australian colony of ‘Victoria’ (named after Her Majesty, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom), struck it rich.

To be fair, there had been gold found in Australia for quite a few years before 1851, but no news of these discoveries were widely circulated. But the 1851 gold-rush was a once-in-a-lifetime event! People charged into Australia from all over the world! America, England, Europe, China! Everyone wanted a piece of the action. Victoria’s population (and the population of Melbourne) skyrocketed upwards! Don’t believe me? Let’s see…

In 1835, when Melbourne was established, the population was negligable. Five years later, it had reached a population of 10,000 people. In 1851, when gold was discovered, the population shot up from 10,000 people to 29,000 people. And by 1854, the population had exploded to 123,000 people! Melbourne was growing so fast that soon, the original town established on the bank of the Yarra River was too small to contain everyone and Melbourne rivaled Sydney as the population center of colonial Australia. The incredible wealth produced by the goldmining operations meant that Melbourne could now boast exsquisite public buildings such as a parliament house, a university, a public library, post-office and a grand town hall. A lot of the old Victorian-era buildings found in central Melbourne today would not be there without the wealth (and the population-boom) triggered by the gold rush.

Australian-Aboriginal Relations

Australia has not had a good reputation with the natives, much like how America didn’t have a good reputation with the American ‘Indians’, and Australia’s record of handling aboriginal affairs is hardly something to boast about. Indeed, from the very start of European interest in Australia, the Aborigines were largely ignored altogether.

Tahitians, as described by earlier explorers were friendly, helpful, engaging people. They assisted the Europeans and welcomed them to their shores. Capt. Bligh wrote highly of them in his account of the Mutiny on the Bounty. The New Zealand Maori were a savage and warlike people. Europeans learned to respect them if they didn’t all want to be butchered in their beds. This led to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, between representatives of the British Crown and the chieftans of the Maori tribes in New Zealand.

In Australia, however, there was no such friendship and no treaty. The Europeans recognised the Tahitians as owners of their land and they recognised the Maori as the rightful inhabitants of New Zealand, but no such recognition or courtesy was ever extended to the Aborigines of Australia. Mostly due to Terra Nullius.

Terra Nullius is a lovely-sounding Latin phrase. It means “No Man’s Land”, and was originally part of Ancient Roman law. The British revised the notion of Terra Nullius when they went around carving up the world.

They interpreted Terra Nullius to mean that a native people only had a right to sovereignty and rulership of their lands if they altered or changed it in a manner indicative of civilisation. Such indicators included farming, fishing, agriculture, the building of huts, villages, buildings, using tools and so-forth. In the eyes of the British, the Tahitians and the Maori were civilised, intelligent people, capable of construction, farming, fishing, making tools and utensils and generally displayed elements of civilisation. Because of this, the British saw them as being intelligent people who, like the British, had bent the land to their will. They could therefore be seen as having legitimate right to boot off, fight or negotiate with the Europeans who might want to live there. After all, they’d clearly shown that this was their land and they knew how to work it.

By contrast, the Aborigines were perceived, even by the standards of the day, to be backwards and simple-minded people. The Tahitians and the Maori, the two races of dark-skinned people that the British were most familiar with, had concepts of rulership, ownership, cultivation, farming, construction and the use of fire. Apart perhaps from the use of fire, the Aborigines appeared to have none of the other prerequisite characteristics, traits or abilities that would cause them to be seen, in the eyes of the British, at least, as legitimate rulers of their land.

Since Australian land was therefore ‘untouched’ by the Aborigines, who had not cultivated it, established settlements or reared livestock of any kind, it was deemed to be ‘uninhabited’, and therefore, free for the taking. And the British were the ones to take it.

The Aborigines were unlike any other race of people that the British had yet encountered. Tahitians were friendly and welcoming, helpful and curious. Maori were warlike and demanded respect or death. The Aborigines on the other hand, were simply stupified, and the British couldn’t work them out at all. This lack of understanding, as is generally the case in circumstances like this, led to severe and fatal communications breakdowns. Indeed, it was believed by the British that the Aborigines would soon just die out. It wasn’t until the 1960s that Aborigines were allowed to vote in Australian elections or were even considered Australian citizens! And it wasn’t until 1992 that Australian courts officially recognised Aboriginal sovereignty over Australian land (something that the original British explorers and settlers never did) and declared Terra Nullius to be invalid.

This is just a small part of Australia’s history on its slow march to nationhood. I wasn’t able to cover everything that I wanted in this posting, but I will cover more in any future posting made on this blog about the history of Australia.

Some handy documentary films if you want to find out more information:

“Tony Robinson Explores Australia” .

“The Floating Brothel”.

26/01/2012 by scheong

Quotes of Conflict – The Backgrounds of Famous Wartime Quotes

How many wars can you name? Two? Four? Eight? A dozen? How many battles could you name? Twelve? Twenty-four? Fifty?

The history of mankind is full of conflict. Conflict marked by dozens of wars and hundreds of battles. So many battles and wars, in fact, that many of these great plays of armour, and the acts that made them up, have passed into history and out of memory, and common knowledge. Most people only know of the Big Three: World War One. World War Two. Vietnam.

However, a select few of these hundreds of battles have survived in the public consciousness to this day; remembered not because they were famous and not because they were big. Not even, perhaps, because they were even won…or lost; but rather because someone said something that has remained with us ever since. This article looks at some of the most famous battle-quotes in history, and the battles and wars that made them famous.

Let us begin with one of the most famous…

“Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”

Who said It? Admiral David Farragut.
When was it Said? August, 1864.
Where was it Said? Battle of Mobile Bay, Mobile, Alabama, C.S.A.
Conflict? American Civil War (1861-1865).

This is one of the most famous quotes in history, often paraphrased and used as a show of defiance, pluck and determination. But what happened?

It is August, 1864. The South is on the losing end of the American Civil War. The Union Navy and Army are charged with taking the Confederate port of Mobile Bay, near Mobile, Alabama. In an attempt to starve the South into submission, the Union forces are ordered to attack, occupy and render defenceless, all of the South’s seaports and harbours, to prevent shipments of supplies and reinforcements. Mobile Bay is the last of these ports still held by the Confederacy. It is heavily defended by soldiers, gunners, sea-mines and powerful shore-batteries of cannons facing the mouth of the harbour.

By this later stage in the war, the South was running low on almost everything. Manpower. Food. Metal. Weapons. Clothing. Medicine. Ships. Gunpowder. And luck.

The Northern forces outnumbered the South to such an extent that victory was almost certain even before the battle started. The North had eighteen warships, compared to the four that the South had. And the North had nearly five times more men than the South.

Enter Union Admiral David Farragut. It was his job to force the harbour. With his heavily-armed and heavily-armoured ships, including the newfangled, steam-powered, plate-armoured ‘Monitor’ ships, he had to break through the Southern shore-defences, neutralise the shore-batteries (or get out of their range) and render the Southern ships a negligable force.

On the day of the battle (5th August, 1864), Farragut sent his ships in. Ironclad monitors on the outside to provide protection and to deal with the shore batteries, and the wooden ships inside, to deal with the Confederate naval ships once they’d made it beyond the harbour’s mouth.

Once they’d passed the shore-batteries and were out of their range, one ship, the USS Tecumseh (as in William Tecumseh Sherman, of ‘March to the Sea’ fame) struck a sea-mine. The mine exploded and the ship sank in less than five minutes. At the time, these maritime explosives were called ‘torpedoes’. The power of the explosion and the speed with which the Tecumseh sank caused other Union captains to panic and want to retreat! When Farragut yelled to his junior officers and captains what the holdup was, they replied “Torpedoes!”. On the very cusp of a war-changing victory, Farragut wasn’t about to let a few mines get in his way.

Exactly what Farragut said isn’t recorded. He issued a variety of orders to the captains under his command, all with the same gist: To ignore the torpedoes, speed up and capture the Confederate navy by surprise. Over time, the quotes were all melded together to the now familiar cry: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”.

“Fire When Ready, Gridley!”

Who Said It? Admiral George Dewey.
When was it Said? 1st of May, 1898.
Where was it Said? Battle of Manila Bay, Manila Bay, The Philippines.
Conflict? Spanish-American War (April-August, 1898).

The Spanish-American War of 1898 was a short conflict that had been simmering for months, as America watched Spain and Cuba duke it out, as Cuba fought for independence from its Spanish masters. During this conflict, the American battleship, the USS Maine exploded and was sunk in Havana Harbour, Cuba. Although the likelihood that the Spanish were responsible for this was slim, it was one of the factors that pushed Spain and America to war.

The Battle of Manila Bay in the Spanish posessions in the Philippine islands, was one of the first major American victories in this short-lived war. It was also the first major action between the two countries after war was formally declared.

The point of the battle was to destroy the Spanish Pacific Fleet then at anchor in Manila Bay. When Dewey showed up with his captains and his ships, the situation was so perfect it was almost unbelievable.

The Spanish commanding officer, Admiral Montojo, had been given woefully outdated warships to patrol the Philippines and with which to defend the Bay. He also believed that the Bay had certain natural defences that meant that sailors unfamiliar with the area would not be able to attack it until morning, when there would be enough light to see the hazards lurking in the water. Comforted by this fact, Montojo took his time preparing for the coming of the American fleet.

The American fleet showed up on the 1st of May, 1898, just a few weeks after war had been declared. Unbeknown to Montojo, Admiral Dewey had been supplied with charts that told him how to navigate around the waters off of Manila Bay. And the U.S. Navy had more modern, more powerful warships. Instead of waiting for daybreak, Dewey decided to attack while it was still dark!

By the time Dewey reached the bay, it was about 5:15 in the morning. The Spanish shore-batteries that defended the Bay opened up with ranging-shots (shots fired to test the effective range of the gun, hence the name), and Spanish ships did the same. Dewey suddenly realised that the Spanish firepower was so outdated that they posed almost no threat at all! He ordered his ships to sail into formation and prepare for battle. The job was simple:

The ships would line up, bow-to-stern and sail in a zig-zag pattern, back and forth, turning at the end of each pass, a bit like that boring ‘Snake’ game you have on your old mobile-phone where you eat the seeds to make the snake grow longer. All the while, the American ships would be firing ceaselessly at the Spanish defences. With their faster, more powerful and better-equipped battleships, the Americans could shoot further and faster than the Spanish and were able to hit them well out of the range of the Spanish shore-batteries and cannons.

Once the ships had started in formation and began moving slowly towards the Spanish lines, Dewey told his second-in-command, Capt. Charles Vernon Gridley: “You may fire when ready, Gridley”.

And Gridley did. And the rest is history.

As the American ships drew closer and closer and their long-range guns became even more and more accurate with every passing tack, the Spanish defences were obliterated. The Spanish defences were being blown to pieces and even if they managed to engage the Americans, they knew that they were hopelessly outnumbered.

Gridley appeared to have taken Dewey’s order to ‘fire when ready’ exceedingly to heart. By 7:45am (a little over two hours after the battle started), Gridley had exhausted almost all of their ammunition. Dewey ordered a general retreat (he told his men that this was so that they could eat breakfast!).

The battle ended shortly after midday, when the Spanish ran up a white flag and lowered their colours, admitting total defeat. American losses? Seven wounded and two seriously injured. Number of deaths? One. From a heart-attack!

“Forward the Light Brigade!”

Who Said It? Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
When was it Said? 9th December, 1854.
Where was it Said? Tennyson’s famous poem about the Crimean War.
Conflict? Battle of Balaclava, the Crimea. Crimean War (1853-1856).

The most that the average person knows about the Crimean War is what they learned about in English class, studying poetry as a child, specifically, the poem written in 1854 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson titled ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’. It is one of the most famous and iconic poems in the world. But what was the Charge of the Light Brigade? And what happened to it?

The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire on one side, and the French Empire, British Empire, Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia (part of modern Italy, today), on the other. It took place in the Crimean Peninsula, which sticks out off the coast of the Ukraine and is surrounded on three sides by the Black Sea (which is northeast of the Mediteranean Sea).

The Crimean War started when the Russian Empire began threatening the Ottoman Empire over control of the Holy Lands (the Crimea and Turkey being extremely close to the lands of Palestine, Persia and Arabia, the birthplaces of Islam, Christianity and Judaism). When Russia forced itself into Ottoman affairs, the French and British Empires came to the Ottoman defense to drive the Russians out of Ottoman territory. And so began the war.

The famous Charge of the Light Brigade took place during the Battle of Balaclava (25th October, 1854). So what happened?

The British, French and Ottomans were trying to take the city of Sevastopol, an important Russian fortress and naval port. To do this, they laid siege to the city. In an attempt to end or shorten the siege, the Russians attacked the siege-lines the north of the city of Balaclava. During the battle, the Ottomans were overrun and were forced to abandon their frontmost line of defence. They retreated to their second line, which was held by both British and Ottoman soldiers. The combined strength of both forces held the Russians at bay, but left the guns which the Ottomans had previously been manning in the hands of the Russians (the cannons being too heavy for the Ottomans to wheel away during their retreat).

A daring cavalry charge by the British sent the Russians into retreat. As they fell back, they decided to help themselves to the cannons that the Ottomans had abandoned earlier. Commander of the British forces, Lord Raglan, saw the Russians’ plans and sent a message to the commanding officer of the Light Brigade to stop the Russians from stealing the guns! Unfortunately for the other guy, Lord Lucan, Raglan’s orders were so ambiguous that they were impossible to understand! Don’t believe me? Here are the texts of the original orders:

1. “Cavalry to advance and take advantage of any opportunity to recover the Heights. They will be supported by infantry which have been ordered. Advance on two fronts“.

If you read this carefully, you’ll see what the problem is. You’re standing on an enormous battlefield in a huge valley with heights, ridges and hills all around you. There is no indication in the above order as to which direction the Light Brigade was expected to move, how far they were supposed to move and what amount of infantry was supposed to be providing them with backup! There’s no mention of compass directions or which of the ‘heights’ the cavalry is meant to try and capture. Remember that there are hills all around you. Lucan stayed where he was, twiddling his thumbs and waiting for clarification. A few minutes later, the second order from Lord Raglan showed up:

2. “Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front – follow the enemy and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns – Troop Horse Artillery may accompany – French cavalry is on your left.”

Again, this order did nothing but confuse Lucan and his officers. The Russian soldiers who were stealing the guns were on the southern heights (called the ‘Causeway Heights’), far removed from Lord Lucan’s line of sight. He simply couldn’t see them from his position in the valley. The only guns he could see were the Russian cannons that were lined up at the far end of the valley, just a few miles to the east, creating a corridor of death on three sides. He assumed that Lord Raglan meant those guns! Charging them with cavalry would be suicide, but Raglan had ordered him to attack the enemy (the Russians) with the guns!…So he did!

“‘…Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred…”

The problem was that Lord Raglan, who was issuing these orders, was high on the hilltop. He could see the entire battlefield and he could see the cannons that the Russians had captured to the south, and were trying to make off with. Lord Lucan and his subordinate, Capt. Nolan, stuck in the valley between the heights where Raglan was stationed, and the northern and southern heights on either side, could not. To try and uncomplicate matters, Capt. Nolan went to Lord Raglan himself to ask what the orders were. He was told to attack the enemy with the guns! But then, in warfare, every enemy has guns…woops!

Confused as ever, Nolan headed back into the valley and relayed his lordship’s orders to the officer in charge, Lord Lucan. The following heated exchange took place:

Nolan: “Attack, sir!”
Lucan: “Attack WHAT? What guns, sir!?”
Nolan: “There, my lord, is your enemy! There are your guns!”

Nolan gestured wildly to the east to indicate the guns. What he should have done was pointed to the south where the Russians had captured the British cannons. What he had actually pointed at was the valley which the Russians had surrounded with cannons! Time was running out and Raglan obviously wanted the light cavalry to move quickly, so Lucan decided to act.

He passed the order to his second-in-command, Lord Cardigan. Cardigan and Nolan charged off into the valley, followed by 670 cavalry.

“…Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred…”

The cavalry charge was a complete disaster. Outgunned on three sides, Cardigan and Nolan and all their horsemen were fighting a losing battle. Of roughly 670 men who went in, only about half managed to come out in one piece. Nolan was killed in the advancing charge, his body blown apart by cannonfire.

Cardigan survived the charge and lived to the respectable age of 70. He is remembered today from the fuzzy, knitted garment that bears his name…the cardigan! Another fuzzy, knitted garment came out of the Crimean War as well…the Balaclava, named for the fuzzy, full-face masks that the soldiers wore to keep them warm during the freezing Crimean winters. Every bankrobber in the world should thank the British for this ingenious invention.

“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—-“

Who Said It? Major General John Sedgwick.
When was it Said? 9th of May, 1864.
Where was it Said? Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia, C.S.A.
Conflict? American Civil War (1861-1865).

The Battle of Spotsylvania (yes, such a place actually exists) Courthouse was a battle during the American Civil War. Union general, Ulysses S. Grant was trying to fight Confederate general Robert E. Lee in such a way that would give Grant the advantage (Lee having thusfar proved to be too hard a nut to crack).

During the battle, Confederate sharpshooters kept the Union troops hiding behind walls and down in their trenches. Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick couldn’t believe what a bunch of sissies his men were! He told them off for being cowards and hiding from a few stray bullets! He insisted that they stand up and fight and shoot back at the enemy like real men! To prove his point, Sedgwick stood up so that the top of his body was exposed to enemy fire. To try and inspire his men, he told them that “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance!”; ‘they’ being the Confederate soldiers.

Unfortunately for Sedgwick, he wasn’t an elephant. A couple of seconds after he started speaking, he was shot in the face by a sniper’s rife and fell to the ground…stone dead. Depending on the sources you read, Sedgwick didn’t even finish saying the word ‘distance’ before he was killed outright.

“Shoot straight, you bastards!”

Who Said It? Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant.
When was it Said? 27th of February, 1902.
Where was it Said? Pretoria, South African Republic (Transvaal Republic).
Conflict? Second Boer War (1899-1902).

Harry Harbord ‘Breaker’ Morant and his comrades, Peter Handcock and George Witton were three Australian soldiers who were arrested and court-martialed during the Second Boer War. After their commanding officer, Captain Hunt, was killed, the three soldiers killed a number of Boer P.O.Ws and a priest who was witness to these killings, in reprisal for their comrade’s death.

It was for these actions that the three men were court-martialed. For their crimes against the Boer prisoners, all three soldiers were sentenced to death by firing squad. Witton’s sentence was later changed to Imprisonment for Life (and later still, he received a pardon); Morant and Handcock, however, were both condemned to death.

On the morning of their execution, the men were led to the chairs on which they would be seated while they were executed. They sat down and were offered blindfolds. Both men refused. The executing soldiers raised their rifles, ready to fire. It was at this time that Morant said his famous last words:

“Shoot straight, you bastards! Don’t make a mess of it!”

The execution of Morant and Handcock remained controversial for decades. Witton, the one soldier who escaped execution, wrote a book in 1907 about the experience. He titled it “Scapegoats of the Empire”.

The effect of the execution on both Witton and Major James Francis Thomas (the lawyer sent to provide their defence) was significant. Thomas’s life collapsed after the failure of the court-martial and he died a broken man in November of 1942. Witton had died a few months earlier in August.

“Kiss me, Hardy”.

Who Said It? Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson.
When was it Said? 21st of October, 1805.
Where was it Said? Battle of Trafalgar, H.M.S. Victory.
Conflict? The Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815).

Horatio Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar is one of the most famous maritime battles in history. But the price of victory was steep. The admiral was struck by a sniper’s bullet while he stood on the quarterdeck of his flagship, the H.M.S. Victory. The bullet hit the admiral in the right shoulder, passing down through his body to lodge at the base of his spine. He was carried below to the ship’s surgeon, Dr. William Beatty.

Beatty, already busy amputating shattered arms and legs and extracting musket-balls and splinters from other injured sailors, took some time to come to Nelson’s aid. When he did, he determined that the admiral’s wound was inoperable. The musketball had lodged in such an inaccessible part of the admiral’s body that it would be impossible to remove it without almost certainly killing or permanently paralysing Nelson. Early 19th century surgery didn’t leave Dr. Beatty many options.

Knowing that he would in all likelihood, die before the end of the battle, Nelson allowed himself to be made comfortable in the corner of the surgeon’s quarters. His officers made constant reports to their ailing commander, feeding him news of the progress of the battle. Nelson was dying from blood-loss and internal bleeding. He watched Beatty working on other men, men that the doctor actually had a chance of saving. As Nelson lay on the floor, he instructed his officers: “Fan fan, rub rub, drink drink” as they fanned him and fed him lemonade and watered-down wine to keep him cool and hydrated. As Nelson became weaker and weaker, he told one of his officers, Sir Thomas Hardy, “Kiss me, Hardy”.

And Hardy did! Twice, in fact.

It’s widely believed that ‘Kiss me, Hardy’ were Nelson’s last words. In fact, his final words, as recorded by the ship’s chaplain, were “God and my country”. Nelson died at 4:30pm on the afternoon of the 21st of October, 1805.

23/01/2012 by Scheong

Behind Closed Doors – Upstairs and Downstairs

There’s always a lot of costume dramas and historical TV shows on the air. The new series of “Upstairs, Downstairs”, the immensely popular “Downton Abbey” and of course, older series such as the original “Upstairs, Downstairs”, “Jeeves and Wooster” and “Lord Peter Wimsey”. Add to this movies such as “Gosford Park” and so-forth, and it seems that film and television producers can never get enough of the “good old days” of servants, bells, starched collars and telegrams delivered on silver trays.

The natural habitat of such shows always alternates between the English country manor-house and the terraced London townhouse, both locales with plenty of space to accomodate the goings-on both above and below stairs. But given that a lot of these shows take place in a time-period almost out of living memory, what were all the rooms that were central to this way of life? Of masters and servants? What were their functions? And why did you have so many rooms?

Here are some of the more well-known rooms that you might come across when watching a period costume drama set in a large house or an aflluent townhouse in the Victorian era or in the first half of the 20th Century. This posting will cover some of the more obscure rooms that you might find mentioned in movies, TV shows or old books. They’re are not presented in any specific order, so don’t try to find any! The more common (and obvious) rooms aren’t included.

The Drawing Room

No costume drama would be without its drawing room. It’s unthinkable! But what is a drawing room?

Despite the name, it is not a chamber meant for painting, writing, drawing or any other kind of artistic pursuit.

The drawing room comes from the word ‘Withdrawing’. In large, formal households, the drawing room is where people would withdraw to, after dinner or other substantial meal, for quiet conversation or relaxation. In most houses, the drawing room did double-duty as the general living-room for entertaining or receiving guests and visitors. On formal occasions, parties might be held in the drawing room.

The Morning Room

The morning room is the chamber in a house with multiple rooms, which was typically used during the early hours of the day (hence the name ‘Morning Room’). It was any reception-room built with the windows facing east, so as to make the most use of the morning sun. The room most commonly shown in the TV series ‘Upstairs Downstairs‘, is the morning room.

The Library

What a library is, is rather obvious. It’s where books are stored. In times past, books were significantly more expensive than they are today. Don’t forget that it was only until after the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s that books could be mass-produced by steam-powered printing and binding-presses. Prior to this, books were laboriously printed, cut and bound by hand, making them significantly more expensive than they are today. Any house with a significant collection of books would store them in their own room, the library, where they could be read in comfort and returned once reading was finished, to prevent them being lost. In some libraries, books were locked in glass-fronted bookcases to prevent damage and theft. The library might do double-duty as the study or office of the house because of easy access to reference materials and information. Particularly large libraries might come equipped with a specially-made set of library stairs.

Library stairs ranged from simple folding stepladders (that might or might not also double as stools), to long ladders on casters, affixed at the top to a rail that ran along the top of the bookcases, or they might literally be a set of movable stairs on caster-wheels:

A set of antique library stairs, with casters for moving them around the library and accessing high shelves

The Long Gallery

The gallery was the long passageway inside many large houses that date back to the medieval era. It would be the main corridor that would connect one or more wings of the house and was often brightly illuminated by large windows on one side (and possibly, on either end). Because Long Galleries could be rather boring if all they were, were connecting passages, some rich folks tried to dress them up a bit by hanging pictures on the walls. This gave us the modern “Art Gallery”.

The Larder

Ah, the larder! It’s where Mrs. Patmore and Mrs. Bridges put all their food. It’s the place where the kids in the Famous Five and the Secret Seven go to pinch all the choicest leftovers before going off on their adventures. It’s the magical room which kids (and if Jeeves and Wooster is to be believed, Tuppy Glossop) go to steal food from after midnight for a little nibble.

But what is a larder?

First off, a larder is not a pantry.

A pantry is a room or a large store-cupboard where bread and baked goods are stored. It’s cool and dry and free of vermin.

A larder takes this one step further. In essence, a larder is a cold-store. A specially-designed, specially-constructed room (or in some cases, building), which is made to be as cold as possible. Larders are built of stone to keep in the cold. Good circulation to keep out the heat. And with shelves and ceiling-beams with hooks to keep the food away from the vermin.

Before the days of effective, electrically-powered home-refrigerators, the larder was where you stored all your perishable foods such as dairy-products (milk, cream, cheese etc) and meat and poultry, such as sausages, meat, fish, steaks and any leftover food from dinner.

Although the residential icebox did exist at the same time, you have to consider that ice wasn’t accessible in every part of the world, all-year-round. Or even in every part of a particular country all year round. So homes without ice-based refrigeration (or for homes for which such refrigeration was impossible or too impractical and expensive), the larder was their fridge. Effective electric fridges of the kind we have today didn’t show up until the 1930s.

The Scullery

The Scullery is the domain of the scullery maid. Said maiden being the lowest-ranking of the female servants in a wealthy household. The scullery is the washroom. In larger houses, the scullery and laundry might be two different rooms (one for dishes, one for clothes and linen), but in smaller houses, the scullery did double-duty as the wash-up room for the silverware, glassware, China, kettles, pots and pans, and as the laundry for towels, bedsheets, clothes and undergarments.

The Butler’s Pantry

A ‘pantry’ is the room in which bread is stored. Originally, it was the domain of the ‘pantler’ or the servant in charge of bread (from the Latin ‘Pannus’; ‘Bread’). The butler’s pantry has nothing to do with bread. Or food.

The Butler’s Pantry was the domain of the butler. The head of the servants. In the pantry were stored such things as the family silverware and silver-cleaning implements and chemicals. Just understand, please, that the family ‘silver’ was a lot more than just knives and forks. Silverware could include ANYTHING made of silver. Candlesticks. Trays. Serving-trolleys. Tureens. Platters. Jugs. Cups. Saucers. Cake-servers. Cake-stands. Gravy-boats. ladles. Chocolate and coffee-pots. Milk-jugs. Cream jugs. A wealthy family might have a small fortune of silver stored away down in the servants’ quarters. And all of it had to be locked in the Butler’s Pantry, under the watchful eye of the Butler. Every single piece that went out had to be accounted for, and every single piece that went back had to be checked. If so much as a single teaspoon went missing, then the ENTIRE house would be searched for it. And the servants would be locked outside while the search happened!

So the pantry would house the silver-cupboard, the butler’s bedroom and private quarters, as well as important keys and important documents such as account-books, the silver-book and the wine-book, all of which had to be checked and updated regularly.

The Servants’ Hall

The servants’ hall is the main room for domestic servants in a wealthy household. You see it in ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’, in ‘Downton Abbey’, ‘Gosford Park’, and it’s mentioned in other TV shows such as ‘Jeeves and Wooster’. It must be a pretty important room. But what is it?

The servants’ hall is the break-room. It’s the room where servants would eat their meals and spend leisure-time. It’s the room where most of the work was carried out as well. In some houses, the servants’ hall was a separate chamber. In smaller houses, the kitchen might double as the servants’ hall.

The servants’ hall was the domain of the unfortunate Hallboy. The hallboy was the lowest-ranking male servant. He had the unenviable task s of doing all the heavy labour. Carrying coal. Firewood. Cleaning the servants’ hall and doing just as much housework as any of the female staff. Because he was the lowest of the low in the male servantry, the hallboy might not even have a bedroom. If he didn’t, he’d sleep in the hall as well!

The main panel of servants’ bells (which connected through wires and cables to the bell-pulls in the rooms upstairs), might be located in the servants’ hall or in the kitchen, where there would always be at least one person to keep an eye on the bells.

The Ballroom

The ballroom was the chamber reserved (in the largest of houses) for formal dance and parties (balls). In smaller houses, the drawing-room might double as the ballroom. Specially-built ballrooms came with their own dancefloors and musician’s galleries, where orchestras or bands could perform to project the music around the room, but keep out of the way of the party-guests.

The Parlour

The parlour is a reception-room in a house with multiple reception-rooms. Often, it was near the front of the house and was the room in which visitors would be shown into when they arrived. It comes from the French word ‘Parler‘ (‘to speak’). So it was quite literally the ‘speaking room’, or the room where you could engage in friendly discussions and conversations.

The function of the parlour changed a lot over time. These days, the parlour is a bit like the sitting-room or living-room in a modern house. In older times, when doctors still did housecalls, the parlour was also the room where funerals were held if there was a death in the household. This gave rise to the term ‘funeral parlour’.

The Nursery

The Nursery was the domain of the Nurse and her assistant (if she had one), the nursery-maid. The nursery was the room where young children and babies were looked after. In wealthy households, the lady of the house would hire a professional child-rearing nurse to take care of her newborn children if the mother couldn’t do it herself. For the sake of safety, the nurse and/or the nursery-maid would sleep in the nursery (or in a room next door) at nights to attend to the babies if they cried or woke up at odd hours.

The Gun Room

It’s pretty obvious what’s stored in here.

Found in large country manors where the masters of the house enjoyed hunting and hosting shooting-parties, the gun-room was the chamber which contained all the household’s firearms. It was a large, secure, vault-like room which was kept locked for obvious safety reasons. Firearms like shotguns, rifles, and their ammunition, accessories and cleaning-materials were stored here. As firearms could be extremely expensive, the gun-room was kept under lock and key to prevent theft just as much as to prevent injuries and death.

The Billiard Room

Billiards, Pool, Snooker and 9-Ball were all very popular during the Victorian era. And in a number of great country houses, an essential chamber for the gentlemen to retire to after dinner was the billiard-room. These rooms were of necessity, large chambers with plenty of space to move around the billiard-table. Apart from the table, the room would have the snooker scoreboard, a list of rules, a rack for the cues and cabinets and cases for the balls, the racks, the blocks of cue-chalk and possibly, spaces and cabinets for storing and playing other games. Traditionally, billiard-balls were made of elephant-tusk ivory. This made billiards almost exclusively, a game for the wealthy. It wasn’t until the invention of the first plastics in the early 1900s that billiards and pool started being played by the middle and lower classes.

The Smokehouse

Depending on the people who lived there and location of the estate, a large manor house might have a smokehouse on the premises. In larger estates where the land might be used for farming and the rearing of cattle and sheep, the smokehouse was essential.

In the days before modern food preservation, the smokehouse was where joints of meat, poultry, fish and even cheese, would be smoked. The food to be smoked would be placed in a special container or rack (called a smoker) and a fire would be lit underneath it. The smoke rising from the fire would dry, flavour and preserve the food above it. Different woods are used to provide different tastes to the food.

Once smoked, dried and possibly, salted, food might be stored in the smokehouse for a couple of weeks or even up to a year or more, before it would have to be either eaten, or thrown out.

14/01/2012 by scheong

Things You Didn’t Know About…Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill. One of the most famous people in history. You might know that…

– He was the leader of the United Kingdom for most of the Second World War.

– He was a great orator famous for his morale-boosting speeches.

– He was famous for popularising the “V for Victory” sign.

– He lived in a country house with his family. It was called ‘Chartwell’.

But here are some things about Churchill you probably didn’t know. The things that the history books in school don’t tell you about, because these things ‘aren’t important’. But things which are nonetheless interesting to know. For example. Did you know that…

– Churchill once appeared naked in front of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

It’s true.

During a trip to the United States shortly after the Attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, Churchill was finishing his bath while talking to Roosevelt at the same time. During their conversation, Churchill’s towel accidently fell off, leaving him in a state of total undress while in the president’s company. Without skipping a beat, Churchill promptly declared: “You see, Mr. President? I have nothing to hide!”

– Churchill suffered a heart-attack during the War.

During the same trip to America, Churchill suffered a mild heart-attack. Due to the serious complications that would arise if the whole world knew that Churchill had a heart-attack, the issue was hushed up. Except by Churchill’s bodyguard and doctor, who recorded the incident privately in their records.

– Churchill liked playing Bezique.

Never heard of Bezique? Neither have I. Bezique is a card-game which is probably totally forgotten today, surpassed by Poker, Gin-Rummy, Blackjack, Snap, Bullshit and other more popular games. It was invented in France in the 1600s and was a popular card-game up until the late Victorian period. It died off quickly during the 20th century. But Churchill loved playing it with his wife whenever they had a spare moment alone.

– Churchill had a pet cat.

Yes he did! Or to be more precise, he had SEVERAL cats. The PM’s fondness of moggies isn’t widely known, but it’s true. Churchill’s most famous pet cat was called Nelson (as in Admiral Nelson). Churchill once declared that Nelson was doing his own bit for the war effort. Yes he was! Nelson saved on heating-costs and valuable coal by sleeping with Churchill and doubling as his hot-water bottle on cold nights! Despite the strict rationing that was enforced throughout Britain during the War, Churchill used to sneak Nelson slices of salmon when he thought Mrs. C. wasn’t looking. The last cat that he owned was given to him as a birthday present on his 88th birthday. The cat’s name was ‘Jock’.

A cat named Jock has been at permanent residence at Churchill’s country house of Chartwell ever since 1975 (when the original Jock died). The current cat of the household is Jock IV.

– In case any ship he was sailing in was attacked and captured or sunk, Churchill never used his own name while on a journey during the War. Instead, he was called ‘Colonel Warden’ to protect his identity.

– Churchill was a prolific drinker and smoker, consuming up to two bottles of champagne a day.

– Churchill’s nakedness wasn’t just limited to the bathroom where it might be expected. While he dictated speeches, or was busy sounding out new ones, he would sometimes get so distracted by his work that it wasn’t unknown for him to wander around Chartwell completely naked and forget that he wasn’t wearing any clothes! This fact was gleamed from the director’s commentary of ‘The Gathering Storm’, if anyone wants to know.

– Churchill was a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan.

– When Nazi leader Rudolph Hess landed in England in an attempt to broker a peace-deal with the British, upon being told of Hess’s arrival, Churchill famously declared: “Hess or no Hess, I’m off to see the Marx Brothers!”

– Churchill suffered from Depression.

Probably not surprising, considering what he went through in life! Churchill and his doctor called his melancholia his ‘Black Dog’. The Black Dog Institute (an organisation that deals with people suffering from Depression) is named after Churchill.

– Churchill didn’t die until he was 90 years old! He died on the 24th of January, 1965. His father also died on the 24th of january…1895! And his father died at the age of 45. Churchill lived to twice his father’s age and died on the same day!

– Churchill was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom TWICE. Once from 1940-1945 (his most famous term), and again from 1951-1955.

31/12/2011 by Scheong

What’s In A Name? Occupational Surnames

A discussion I had with some friends recently about names made me think of…well…names. But specifically, the origins and meanings of what are called ‘occupational surnames’. That is, the surnames that are derived from various historical occupations. The following posting is a list of some of the more common occupational surnames that have sprouted up over the centuries, and the origins of the names and the professions which they spring from. Maybe your surname’s in here somewhere?

Bowyer

As in: Thomas Bowyer (witness in the ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders of 1888).

If your surname is Bowyer, chances are that centuries ago, one of your ancestors was active in the manufacture of the high-powered weapon of the Middle Ages. The longbow. When the longbow was in its prime, it was most often made of the wood of the Yew tree. Bowstrings would’ve been made from linen or in even older times, animal sinew. Not for nothing was it called the longbow, however. For maximum range, speed and penetrating force, longbows were made as big as possible, often being the same size as the person who shot it. So a bow could be anywhere from five to six feet in height.

Butler

As in: Rhett Butler (Character in ‘Gone with the Wind‘; of ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!’ fame).

The surname ‘Butler’ comes from the French word ‘Butuiller’, or ‘bottler’. The ‘Butler’ was therefore the guy who looked after bottles…of wine! It’s from the same root and the same word that we get the occupation of ‘Butler’ as a domestic servant. Although in popular culture, the Butler is the all-seeing, all-knowing, discreet and conniving head of the household servantry, the post actually started out as being the official custodian of the home’s wine-cellar where the bottles that gave him his title were stored.

Chandler

As in: Raymond Chandler (Famous American crime-fiction writer).

If your name’s Chandler or if your last name’s chandler, then once upon a time, quite possibly, a long time ago, your ancestors worked in the lighting industry. A ‘chandler’ was the name given to a maker of candles. From which we also get the word ‘Chandelier’. The chandler’s job was to manufacture candles using wicks and wax (either natural beeswax or cheaper tallow, a sort of waxy substance derived from…animal fat!). Candles were made in a variety of ways. Longer stick-candles were usually made by tying the wicks to wooden frames and suspending the frames over vats of molten wax. Dipping the candle-wicks into the hot wax over and over and raising them out after each dipping caused the wicks to be coated in wax. The wax then dried and the candles were dipped again…and again…and again.

This was a long, slow process but it produced nice, slender candles. The other method for candlemaking was to lower the wicks into the middle of a mold and to just pour the candle-wax into the mold around the wick. This was used to make larger candles, but pouring boiling hot liquid wax could be extremely dangerous. Anyone who’s ever had wax get onto their hands while trying to blow out those big fat ornamental pillar-candles will know how painful a wax-burn can be!

Collier

As in: Peter F. Collier (of ‘Collier’s Weekly‘ fame)

The title ‘Collier’ was given to any person who had anything to do with coal. Whether he mined it, sold it, dug it out of the ground or even made charcoal (by burning wood). The collier had an important job. Coal, in its various forms and varities, was needed for a lot of things. Blacksmiths required coal to fire their forges, manufacturers of gunpowder required specially-made ‘charcoal’ (crushed to a powder) to mix with potassium nitrate and sulphur to create old-fashioned gunpowder, and ordinary homes required tons of coal to fire stoves and fireplaces.

Cooper

As in: Merian Caldwell Cooper (American filmmaker who created the 1933 classic ‘King Kong’).

‘Cooper’ is another occupational name. In older times, the ‘cooper’ was the man who made barrels…you know, the stuff that wine’s stored in? The place he worked in was called the cooperage. The word ‘Cooper’ comes from the Dutch word ‘Kup‘, meaning ‘tub’.

Any settlement, village, city or town of significant size was likely to have at least one cooperage and at least one cooper. Barrels were required for a lot of things, and not just wine. In 1605, the Gunpowder Plotters stored eighteen hundredweight (nearly a ton!) of black gunpowder in barrels in the undercroft of the House of Lords in London, in their epic (but failed) assassination-attempt of James I of England. Two hundred years later in 1805, the cooper’s craft was used to store something else. When Lord Horatio Nelson was killed by a sniper’s bullet during the Battle of Trafalgar, his corpse was stuffed into a barrel and was preserved during the voyage home to England for his funeral, by being submerged in brandy!

Falconer/Faulkner

As in: William Faulkner (American writer).

If your surname is ‘Falconer’ or it’s variation, ‘Faulkner’, then it might be possible, once upon a time, a long time ago, that one of your ancestors might, just might, have had a very special job. Not a very comfortable job. But certainly one that was very special.

A falconer is a man who trains, looks after and handles a falcon. One of these things:

Isn’t he just the most adorable, cuddly, snuggly little birdie?

This is a falcon. The falcon is a bird of prey that attacks small game. Because of their speed (grown Falcons can dive at a speed of up to two hundred miles an hour!), strength and predatory nature, they were prized as hunting-birds by medieval royalty. Falcons were caught, tamed and then trained to hunt small game such as smaller birds and rabbits for their masters. The person who looked after the falcons was called the falconer. His job involved a large number of duties all related to this very prized bird. Duties which included housing the birds, feeding them, exercising them, carrying them around (such prized birds would never dare sully their royal wings by flapping through common air!) and of course, recovering any prey or quarry that the falcon had managed to capture. Given that only kings and queens were allowed to hunt with falcons, being a falconer meant that you were a servant of someone rich and powerful. Of course, failing to look after your master’s falcons could result in some nasty punishments. If the falcon went missing, you, as the falconer, had to go after it. And even if you found it, the falcon was then allowed to remove 6oz. (about a third of a pound) of flesh from your body as punishment! Ouch!

Fletcher

As in: Dustin Fletcher (Australian football player).

A fletcher is an arrowmaker. The name comes from the ‘fletching’ that the arrowmaker attaches to the ends of the arrow-shafts. Fletching being the nice, colourful bits of bird-feather which he sticks on the ends, to give the arrows the required aerodynamic properties to spin in the air and be as accurate as possible. Before the rise of firearms in the Early Modern period, the fletcher had the important job of creating the most advanced and lethal form of ammunition then in existence. Bowmen had to train every single weekend for hours at a time to ready themselves for battle. An arrow tipped with a steel point could be fired with enough force to pierce plate-armour, chainmail and penetrate flesh. In the Battle of Hastings, King Harold of the Anglo-Saxons was killed by an arrow to the eye. That is the fletcher’s craft at work.

Fuller

As in: Kurt Fuller (American actor).

‘Fuller’ is one of the less obvious occupational names that has survived through the centuries. A fuller was a cloth-worker. A worker who was occupied in the task of ‘fulling’. Fulling is the act of cleansing freshly-woven (but dirty) cloth, of impurities such as aminal-oils, dirt, grit or other gunk, and binding the fibres of the cloth together to make it thicker and stronger. Traditionally, the cloth was woven wool. And traditionally, people employed as fullers were given the privilege (probably) of being allowed as many urinary bathroom breaks as ever they could wish!

Why?

Because fulling used to be done by dumping the cloth into an open tub and then drenching it in gallons of stale piss! The chemicals in human urine (specifically, the ammonia, which gives it that delightful scent) help flush out the impurities in the fabric and binds the fibres of the cloth together to make it stronger. Fortunately, a cleaner method of fulling involving a type of earth (called ‘Fuller’s Clay’), replaced urinal fulling, which in turn, was replaced by a much, much cleaner fulling medium – soap!

Page

As in: Anita Page (American actress).

A ‘page’ is a knight in training. In medieval times, armies had footsoldiers, cavalry, archers and knights. Knights were the elite, specially-trained soldiers who fought on horseback. The training was gruelling to say the least. To become a knight, you went through three stages of training. Starting at age 7, you became a page, apprenticed to a full knight. You would be sent to live with the knight and with the local noble family. Obviously, to do this, your family had to be pretty rich, too.

Because you (or your family) paid for everything. That ‘everything’ included the chainmail, the sword, the shield, the horse and of course, the shining armour. For seven years, a page learnt reading, writing, music, languages, how to behave in a royal or noble court, and then he entered his formal training at the age of 14. From 14 to 21, he was a squire. As a squire, he learnt how to clean, repair, take off, put on, wear and move around in armour. He learnt how to fight on horseback and on foot. He would wear his armour as often as possible to get used to the weight. A suit of armour could weigh upwards of 100 pounds…not including the sword…scabbard…woolen undershirt…chainmail…and shield. If you had proven that you were brave, strong and intelligent enough, or had rendered a suitably courageous service, you would be knighted sometime after your 21st birthday.

Sandler

As in: Adam Sandler (American actor).

Derived from the Hebrew word “Sandlar” – “Sandal-maker” or “Shoemaker”. In times past, a shoemaker was a skilled and valued person. The manufacture of quality footwear was important in times when roads were little more than dirt tracks and most streets were rivers of filth and muck. Then, as now, most shoes were made of leather.

Sawyer

As in: Tom Sawyer (Fictional character created by Mark Twain).

In older times, a ‘sawyer’ was a woodworker. More precisely, he was a…sawyer. A man who worked with a wood-saw to cut long slats of wood (planks!) for people to use in building and the manufacture of furniture and other essential items made of wood (such as carts, gates, fences and so-on). The sawyer profession still exists today, but with the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of steam and water-powered sawmills with enormous automatic saws, it’s not as common as what it once was. Sawyers often worked in pairs because the logs they cut were so large and the massive saws that they used, so incredibly long and heavy.

To saw a plank, a prepared log was placed over a pit and was held in place by wooden beams called ‘dogs’. It’s from here that we get the expressions “top dog” and “underdog”. The ‘top dog’ was the sawyer who was ‘atop the dogs’ or outside the pit, holding the top end of the saw. The ‘underdog’ was the man down in the pit, holding the bottom half of the saw, quite literally ‘under the dogs’. It was the top dog’s job to guide the sawteeth. It was the underdog’s job to apply pressure on the downwards strokes, and to lift the saw on the upwards strokes. He was the underdog in more ways than one, though. All the sawdust that came from the constant abrasion of the sawteeth would fall into the pit and get all over the underdog. Not a pleasant job.

Slater

As in: Christian Slater (American actor).

Related to the thatcher and the tyler (or ’tiler’), the slater was the man who worked specifically with a type of rock…Slate…to tile the rooves of buildings. The characteristics of slate means that it can be split into thin sheets or plates. These plates or ‘shingles’ can then be hammered onto the roof in overlapping layers to create a leakproof roof.

Smith

As in: Dame Maggie Smith (British Actress).

Smith is one of the most common surnames in the world. But what is a ‘Smith’?

A smith was a metalworker. There are many kinds of smiths. Blacksmiths (who worked with iron and steel). Brownsmiths (who worked with copper). Tinsmiths. Silversmiths. Goldsmiths. Locksmiths. The list is almost endless. But almost without exception, a smith was a person who worked in some way with metal. The place where a smith worked, officially called a ‘forge’ was often nicknamed just the ‘Smithy’, as in ‘the village smithy’. The blacksmith is often considered the king of the Smiths…as well as the king of all artisans and workers. The blacksmith was the guy who made the stuff that everyone else used to make stuff with! He made the axes, the swords, the saws, hammers, nails, horseshoes, door-knockers, candleholders, knives, shovels…anything made of metal had to go through his hands first before someone else could use it!

A tinsmith (one of the varieties of smiths) was also called a ‘tinker’: Someone who fiddled around with small, metal household objects (such as pots, pans, ladles and other common household utensils).

But how does something like ‘Smith’ have anything to do with metal? The surname ‘Smith’ comes from the Old English word ‘Smite’. As in to ‘Smite them down!’. To ‘Smite’ someone or something literally meant to hit them. Since half a metalworker’s time is spent in beating the red hot metal to the correct shape before it cools (and becomes too hard to work), the word ‘Smite’ was applied to their professions, which eventually evolved to ‘Smith’, which is still used today.

A lot of our expressions today come from the humble village blacksmith. To ‘Strike while the Iron is Hot’. To go at something ‘Hammer and Tongs’.

Spencer

As in: Lady Diana Spencer (Princess Diana).

The surname ‘Spencer’ is originally of French origin. It comes from the occupation of the ‘Dispencier‘, or the dispenser of provisions. The surname ‘Spencer’ is unique in that it’s probably one of the few surnames that can be traced back to ONE person. That person being Robert d’Abbetot. d’Abbetot followed King William (William the Conquerer) to England during his conquest of the British Isles. His occupation was the royal dispenser (of provisions and materials for William’s armies). As such, his name was listed as “Robert le Dispencier’ (“Robert the Dispenser”). Robert eventually changed his name to that of Robert le Dispensier as opposed to Robert d’Abbetot. Over the following generations, le Dispensier became ‘Dispensier’, then ‘Spensier’ and eventually…’Spencer’.

Tanner

As in: Bill Tanner (Character in the James Bond universe).

A tanner was a processor of leather, the material produced from animal hides. The place in which he would have worked was the tannery. Being a tanner was a terrible and revolting job. For one, it involved stewing the cow-hides in vats of water and dog-droppings! The full tanning process went like this:

1. Stick cow-hides in vats of water and lime (the stuff you make old-style concrete out of, not the stuff that goes in your drink!) Let it soak. This loosens up all the hair on the hide.

2. Remove the hide after two weeks’ soaking. Place the hide on a sloped board while you shave off all the hair and fur with a massive knife.

3. Flip the hide over. Using another big, scary knife, slice and shave away all the fat on the inner-side of the hide.

4. Dunk the entire hide, free of hair, fur and fat, into a huge bath full of dog-doodies and water. Stew and simmer (literally. There would be a fire under the water-and-dog-poo pit to keep things nice and hot) for a few weeks. Let old Fido’s bowel-movements and the bacteria that they contained, work with the water to remove the lime (from Step 1) from the hide and soften up the skin until it’s nice and floppy. Then, remove the hide, hang it and leave it to dry.

All this made the leather nice and soft and pliable. And when you consider all the things that leather was used for back in the old days, this was a horrible, but very necessary job. You needed leather for…shoes, aprons, belts, book-covers, desktops, razor-strops, gloves, bags, boxes…all manner of things!

Tyler

As in: John Tyler (10th President of the United States of America).

The surname ‘Tyler’ comes from the occupation ‘tyler’. Or to be more precise…’Tiler’. As in the guy who installs tiles. In older times, the tyler was the man who repaired or installed rooves (roof-tiles) in villages or towns where rooves were more commonly made of slate shingles, clay tiles or wooden slats. In London, rooves used to be all made of dried grass which was stacked and bundled onto the roof creating a thatched roof. In 1666, the Great Fire burned damn near the entire center of town to ashes. When the city was being rebuilt, Charles II decreed that no buildings were to be built of flammable materials, and certainly not with thatched rooves. Tylers around London must’ve made sacks of gold fulfilling all their orders; over 13,000 buildings were burnt to the ground during the four days the fire lasted.

Webster

As in: John Webster (17th century English playwright).

A webster, webber or weaver was a person who worked with threads or cloth, weaving the strands and threads together to bond them and make fabric. The strips of cloth or fabric stretched across the frames of couches and chairs (which support the padded seat above) is still called ‘webbing’ today.

Wright

As in: Wilbur and Orville Wright (pioneer aviators).

A ‘wright’ was an Old English word for a woodworker. The word ‘wright’ was therefore applied to occupations that traditionally made things out of wood, such as a ‘shipwright’ or a ‘wheelwright’. A builder of boats and a manufacturer of cart and carriage-wheels.

07/12/2011 by scheong

Pearl Harbor: A Date Which Will Live in Infamy

The Second World War is full of “Where were you when…?” moments. Lots of us have asked our grandparents those questions. Where were you when war was declared? Where were you on V.E. Day? Where were you on V.J. Day? Where were you when Churchill became Prime Minister or when Italy surrendered or when the A. bombs were dropped on Japan? Today is the 7th of December, 2011. It’s 70 years to the day since the events of the date which would live in infamy, took place at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. So, what happened on that day? What caused it? Why did it happen? What was life like before it happened? What was life like after it happened? This was a world-shaking event that shocked almost everyone in the world, but what made the 7th of December such a date of infamy?

Let’s find out together.

What is ‘Pearl Harbor’?

Pearl Harbor is a naval base belonging to the United States Navy. It gets the name ‘Pearl Harbor’ from the Hawaiian words ‘Wai Momi‘, or ‘Pearl Water’, which was the name of the area where the base was eventually built in the late 1800s. ‘Pearl Harbor’ originally went by a number of less poetic names. Among them were “Naval Station, Honolulu”, and “Naval Station, Hawaii”. Originally little more than a coaling-station (the seafaring equivalent of a pit-stop or a roadside diner), serious military interest in the area of the harbor started at the turn of the last century around 1899. By 1903, the base’s name was officially called ‘Pearl Harbor’. A new community to serve the growing naval base (‘Pearl City’) was established nearby in 1911. The naval base of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii was, and remains, the United States’ main naval base off its western coast.

The United States, 1941

The contention that America joined the Second World War merely to show off, flex its muscles, beat the Axis, take all the credit for the victory and stiff everyone else is a popular one on internet discussion-forums and YouTube video comments-lists.

But it’s not true.

The United States never had any intention of trying to outperform any other of the allied countries. It never attempted to try and win total victory. It never entered the war at its own convenience just ‘because’. What most people tend to forget, over seventy years after the start of the Second World War, was that the United States actually wanted nothing to do with the European conflict.

In the eyes of American politicians and the American public, and as evidenced by popular opinion polls in the “Why We Fight” 1940s series of documentary films produced by the United States Army, America wanted no part in any future wars. A fact that might amuse, confuse and surprise many people today.

The United States in the 1930s and 40s was initially at least, extremely isolationist. It didn’t join the Great War (now more commonly called World War One) until 1917. And that was a disaster. After surviving the bloody trenches of France, American doughboys were determined not to get themselves mixed up in another European war. As far as they were concerned, the English, the French, the Germans, the Italians and the Russians could play fisticuffs until the cows came home and America was going to pay absolutely no attention at all.

Or at least, that was the plan.

One of the biggest anti-war, anti-involvement and pro-isolationism supporters was a prominent American celebrity of the 1930s, a famous aviator called Charles Augustus Lindbergh. Famous for flying across the Atlantic Ocean nonstop in his airplane ‘The Spirit of St. Louis’, Lindbergh became even more famous as an outspoken supporter of American isolationism. So famous and so outspoken in fact, that when war finally was declared, Lindbergh’s previously almost legendary reputation was severely damaged.

Despite the official stance of neutrality, it’s often said that nobody is ever truly neutral, and the United States supported Great Britain in almost any way that it could apart from giving outright military support. And up until 1941, this remained the fullest extent of American involvement in World War Two.

Southeast Asia, 1941

The Far East was in turmoil in 1941. The Second Sino-Japanese War between the Chinese and the Japanese had been raging since 1937. By now, Japan controlled vast swathes of Chinese land and the Chinese National Revolutionary Army was in full retreat with little hope of foreign aid. Feeling invincible, the Japanese Imperial Army, Navy and Air Force wanted to conquer all of Asia. It would take everything that wasn’t nailed down or defended to the death, but those two small inconveniences wouldn’t stop them, either.

But, to take such enormous amounts of land in the Southwest Pacific, the Japanese required naval superiority. The powerful Royal Navy of Great Britain, which had dominated the seas since the early Georgian era in the 1700s, was elsewhere engaged in 1941, but there was still one force to be reckoned with. The United States Navy. No Japanese actions in the Pacific could go ahead with the United States Navy protecting American holdings in the Pacific. If the Japanese intended to dominate Asia, they first had to neutralise the American threat. They had to destroy Pearl Harbor.

American Reactions

America was under no illusions about the threat of the Japanese. It was one of the fastest growing countries in the world at the time, changing rapidly from a backwards society of feudalism and agriculture, to a powerful modern force that adopted Western teachings and technology with surprising swiftness. With Japanese actions in China in the 1930s, the United States began to fear quite rightly for its own safety. In the years and months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, American-Japanese relations began a serious deterioration. In 1940, America, which had previously supplied Japan with raw resources and military hardware, stopped all such shipments to Japan. It was hoped that, without American aid, the Japanese war-effort in the Pacific would die out and fizzle away. But it didn’t.

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. October, 1941

In a show of force, then-president of the U.S.A., the famous Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ordered the United States fleet then at-anchor in San Diego, to relocate to Pearl Harbor. The purpose of this was to scare and intimidate the Japanese into calling off their attacks. America was now within striking-distance of Japan and if Japan didn’t play nice, the country with a former president who said that one should talk softly and carry a big stick, was going to bring that stick smack-down on Japanese heads. But Japan didn’t listen.

In July, 1941, the Americans stopped exporting oil to Japan in another attempt to starve and coerce the Japanese into ending their conflict, but this too, failed to intimidate the Japanese. The Americans were running out of options.

The Attack on Pearl Harbor

By mid-1941, American patience with the Japanese was wearing out, and Japanese aggression was heating up. The Japanese wanted more and the Americans weren’t giving it. The Japanese would have to take the resources that they needed for their war by force, and for that to happen, America had to be dealt with in the most direct way possible: An open military attack on its naval base at Pearl Harbor.

The Naval base at Taranto on the Italian coast, in the 1930s

By this time, the Japanese were planning the attack on Pearl Harbor. To learn about strategic aerial bombardment, the Japanese studied the recent Battle of Taranto, in which the British attacked the Italian naval base of Taranto in the Mediterranean back in November of 1940. The attack was a success for the British, who wreaked significant damaged on the Italian base with only minimal losses.

The Japanese practiced their raids on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor relentlessly. They ‘bombed’ a model of the harbor repeatedly in the months and weeks leading up to the attack until their hit-rate had reached an accuracy of 80%. On the 26th of November, 1941, the Japanese set sail from their home ports. To totally annihilate the Americans, their task-force was equipped with:

Six aircraft-carriers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, nine destroyers, eight tankers for refuelling, twenty-eight submarines (five of which were midgets) and 414 airplanes.

During the journey to Hawaii, the Japanese maintained radio-silence (abstaining from the use of radio in case their signals might be detected by the Americans) to hide their position from the enemy.

December 7th, 1941

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a complete and total surprise.

Although the Japanese had intended to formally declare war on the United States prior to the attack, the declaration never reached the U.S. Government in time and by the time it had, the attack had already started. It commenced at 7:53am on the morning of December 7th, 1941.

Because of radio silence, the Japanese were able to get extremely close to Hawaii and Pearl Harbor before unleashing their attack. The first wave of Japanese airplanes, comprising of ninety bombers armed with torpedoes and bombs, fifty-four dive-bombers, each equipped with 500lb general-purpose bombs, and forty-five of Japan’s famous Mitsubishi ‘Zero’ fighter-planes. Their targets were battleships, airfields, airplanes and aircraft-carriers.

The purpose of the first wave was to attack and destroy as much of the important infrastructure and military equipment as they could which was stationed at Pearl Harbor. Ships. Planes. Airfields. Hangars. Fuel and ammunition-dumps. Shortly after, the second wave took off. Their task was to destroy anything that the first wave had missed.

The second wave comprised of bombers, dive-bombers and fighters. 171 in total. Their targets included aircraft carriers, hangars, cruisers and aircraft, with the fighter-planes (again, Japanese Zeros) providing air-superiority.

U.S.S. Shaw explodes after her forward magazine is hit

The third wave of Japanese planes, which were designed to finish off Pearl Harbor, never took flight. By this time, it was feared that the Americans would have ammassed some sort of defense to intercept the third wave and that the element of surprise had been lost. Indeed, the growing American defense was wreaking havoc on the second wave and sending in additional Japanese reinforcements would’ve proven a waste of manpower and machinery.

The American Response

To say that America was caught off-guard by the Japanese attack is an understatement. They had absolutely no idea that any such attack was imminent. While American radar-stations on Hawaii had picked up on Japanese airplanes (scouts which had been sent ahead of the main attack-force), they were presumed to be American fighter-planes returning from a scheduled training-exercise. No significance was attached to their presence in the area.

At the time, American sailors and airmen were asleep in their barracks and bunks, blissfully unaware of everything that was going on. It wasn’t until the first bombs dropped and the sounding of a general alarm that the base realised it was under attack. And in the meantime, Pearl Harbor was a sitting duck.

Warships in Pearl Harbor were set up in neat rows alongside the docks. The famous “Battleship Row”. Clustering ships together like this made them a big, fat red target to the Japanese. It was impossible to miss them. In addition, few of the artillery pieces and machine-guns on Pearl Harbor were loaded or manned at the time of the attack. Ammunition was stored in locked ammunition-cages and lockers which the defending Americans had trouble accessing during the raid, delaying the speed of any counter-attack.

For fears of sabotage if their airplanes were kept locked in their hangars (“out of sight, out of mind”), American airplanes were instead parked on the tarmacs, outside their hangars in rows, where they would be easily visible (to deter tampering by enemy agents). This clustering of airplanes, just like with the ships, merely presented a big fat target to the Japanese, who decimated American airfields.

American battleships were woefully unprepared for any enemy attack. With guns unloaded and ammunition stored in locked bunkers and lockers far from their guns, much time was wasted in attempting to load guns with the correct ammunition to launch a successful response to the Japanese.

At the time, the Americans had 402 aircraft stationed on Hawaii. Of those, nearly half (188) were destroyed outright by the Japanese. Another 159 were damaged beyond immediate use. This left a mere 55 planes available to fight off a Japanese airborn force of 353 out of a total of 414 airplanes. Of those, only eight managed to get into the air.

The Aftermath

The attack was surprisingly swift. From when it started at 7:53am, it was all over in about two hours, ending at 9:55. The damage wrought by the Japanese was significant.

Eight battleships (Arizona, Oklahoma, California, West Virginia, Nevada, Tennessee, Maryland and Pennsylvania) were targeted. Three were sunk, one capsized, one beached. The rest sustained relatively minor damage. The biggest disaster was the U.S.S. Arizona. When it sank, it took 1,177 men with it. Today, it is the Arizona Memorial. Along with the eight battleships, one training ship was struck along with three destroyers and three cruisers, which received relatively minor damage. A minelayer, a repair-ship and a seaplane tender were also hit during the attack but also received only minor damage.

The attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,402 Americans, against 64 Japanese killed. Nearly half of the 2,402 Americans who died (1,177) were killed when the U.S.S. Arizona was hit, exploded and sunk.

December 7th, 1941 is a big date in history. Not just because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but because of the huge Japanese offensive that happened soon afterwards. Within hours of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attacked almost every other country in the southeast Asia region. The countries that the Japanese attacked included British Malaya, Hong Kong, Wake Island, the Philippines, Guam and the International Settlement in Shanghai, China.

However, the biggest impact of December 7th was, undoubtedly, the entry of the United States of America into the Second World War, a conflict which it had previously attempted to remain out of, and only supporting its ally, Great Britain through economic aid. Overnight, public feeling in the United States swung the other way and by the next afternoon, America was at war with Japan, Germany and Italy.

The Infamy Speech

On the afternoon of December 8th, 1941, one of the most historic and important speeches of the 20th century was broadcast across the United States, live. It was the address to the United States Congress given by then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Today, it’s best known as the “Infamy Speech”. The name of the speech (and the title of this posting) comes from the speech’s opening lines.

The speech was delivered at 12:30pm (a half-hour after midday) on the 8th of December, 1941 by the President of the United States. Within a half-hour of the speech being given, the U.S. Congress voted ‘YES’ to going to war with Japan.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the Declaration of War against Japan

The text of the Infamy Speech is transcribed below, from the original broadcast:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.
As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

25/11/2011 by scheong

The History of the Collared Shirt

The shirt is probably the most common item ever worn by man and any well-dressed man is likely to have several of them in many colours and styles. But where does the shirt come from and how has this simple garment evolved over time?

Where Does the Shirt Come From?

The modern shirt that a typical man wears on an almost daily basis is a garment that dates back into the Middle Ages and before. Exactly when it was invented is unknown. Most shirts were cheap and handmade at home out of wool, but by the 1300s, men started looking for people who made shirts for a living. It was at this time that the shirtmaker started to rise in European cities, manufacturing comfortable shirts out of cotton, silk and linen. These shirts felt much better against the skin than ordinary wool and the demand for comfort meant that the shirt began to spread around the world. The basic shirt remained the same for centuries, as it does today. It was the components of the shirt that changed with the times.

The Rise of the Shirt

Originally, all shirts, as with all other garments, were handmade. If you wanted a shirt, you went to a shirtmaker, just like if you wanted shoes, you went to a cobbler, and a tailor for your suits. In the 1700s and the 1800s, the rise of the Industrial Revolution meant that shirts could now be mass-produced cheaply from cotton, mostly grown in the Deep South of the United States of America and sent to cotton-mills in the nothern states, or to England and Europe. While the shirt’s popularity spread, its status remained the same.

A Social History of the Shirt

These days, it’s common for men to show off their shirts. You wear a shirt open-collared with a pair of trousers or jeans. Or you open the front of your jacket to show off your shirt. Or you wear a waistcoat but ditch the jacket, to show off your shirtsleeves. Or you might spend fifteen minutes trying to figure out whether or not a particular tie goes with a particular shirt. However, this trend of showing off your shirt as an item of ‘designer fashion’ and style is actually a pretty modern one. Prior to the second quarter of the 1900s, good manners dictated that you never showed your shirt in public. At all. Not the back, the front, the sleeves and certainly not the shirttails. Why? Because the shirt, like your briefs or your boxer-shorts, was considered an item of underwear, a frame of mind that had existed for centuries before.

Because the humble shirt was, for centuries, relegated to and given the same level of decency as your lucky boxer-shorts with the picture of the ‘Blasting Zone’ roadsign on the back, a typical shirt was rarely washed. While today it’s common for a man to change his shirts every couple of days, prior to the end of the First World War, most men wore shirts for much longer intervals. It wasn’t uncommon for one shirt to be worn for two days. Three days. A week. Two weeks. Sometimes even a month…or more. Don’t forget that the modern washing-machine hasn’t been around for very long. Before its invention, the family wash was an event that took several days of boiling, soaking, soaping, scrubbing, beating, rinsing, scrubbing, rinsing, mangling, drying, ironing, starching and folding. Because of the effort and time required to do a single load of laundry, which could take up to a week, men were eager to wear their shirts for as long as possible and to only wash them when it was absolutely necessary. And because of this, the shirt was naturally kept hidden from public scrutiny as much as possible.

Anyone who’s done a lot of work in a shirt and worn it for a while and then had to handwash it, will know that a shirt’s collar and cuffs can turn black from the accumulation of grime, sweat and skin-flakes that comes away from the human body during the course of the day. With the majority of a man’s shirt hidden by a waistcoat and jacket or a sweater or some other suitable overgarment, it wasn’t necessary to change it until it was absolutely essential. But the exposed parts of the shirt – the collar and cuffs, which could become filthy after just one day’s heavy use, would naturally have to be changed on a regular basis, since this was something that couldn’t be hidden from the public eye.

Collar Studs…

…and how they’re used

Collars and Cuffs

To combat the problem of infrequent and long wash-days, early shirts came with detachable collars and cuffs, not something found on most shirts today. While a shirt was worn for days or weeks on end, the collars and cuffs were changed and replaced as necessary, perhaps once a week, or more, if needed. The collars and cuffs on shirts were held on with special buttons called studs. There were two studs for the collar (front and back) and additional studs for the cuffs (one stud for each sleeve). While most people are familiar with all manner of cuffs, from one-button, two-button, convertible cuffs and the variations of the French cuff (for which cufflinks must be worn), detachable shirt-collars have largely slipped from the public consciousness. Here’s some of the more common collars…

Wing Collar

The wing-collar, so-called because of the two ‘wings’ at the front, is popularly associated with the turn of the last century. Wing-collars are typically worn with more formal attire, such as White Tie, but they were also popular everyday collars. This particular type of collar retained its unique shape thanks to copius amounts of starch used in the ironing process that helped the collar stay stiff, even in the hottest, soggiest weather. As you may have guessed, the wing-collar doesn’t fold down. So if you’re going to wear one, you better know how to tie a good necktie or bowtie, because any imperfections in the knot will be extremely visible.

Eton Collar

Named for the prestigeous Eton College in the United Kingdom, the broad Eton Collar has been a part of the school’s uniform since the 1800s.

Spear-Point Collar

The spear-point collar was popular in the United States during the first half of the 20th century, distinguished by its excessively long, pointed collar-tips.

Club Collar

Popular during the Victorian era and well into the early 20th century prior to the Second World War, was the club collar. Unlike the other collars shown so far, the club collar has rounded collar-points.

Clerical Collar

This flat collar is the one traditionally worn by members of the clergy (hence its name), such as priests, vicars, and pastors. It was invented in the mid-1800s by the Rev. Dr. Donald McLeod of Scotland, and by the late 19th century, had become a common part of clerical attire.

Imperial Collar

The Imperial collar was another popular collar of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. This was one of the more extreme collars of the era and could be upwards of two or three inches wide. This could make it a bit uncomfortable to wear and probably thankfully, it was considered a formal collar, only to be worn on special occasions.

Because a man could have a wide variety and large number of collars in his wardrobe, they were often stored in leather collar-boxes such as this one:

While some collars were soft and floppy, others, particularly the nonfolding rigid ones such as the Wing collar and the Imperial collar, were treated extensively with laundry starch to help them keep their shape (as well as making them easier to clean).

Detachable shirt-cuffs also existed and like with collars, they were often treated with starch to make them stiff so that they would hold their shape. As mentioned earlier, cuffs were held onto a man’s shirtsleeves with cuff-studs. A pair of detachable cuffs are shown below:

The two buttonholes at the tops of the cuffs accomodated the cuff-studs. The two other buttonholes further down existed for the use of cufflinks.

A big manufacturer of mens’ shirts, collars and cuffs was Cluett, Peabody & Co. of Troy in New York State, U.S.A. They popularised the famous ‘Arrow’ brand of collars which were popular from the early 1900s up to the early 1930s. The Arrow collar lives on today in the lyrics of the Irving Berlin song ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz‘ (“…High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars…”).

Shirtsleeves

Apart from early shirts having removable and adjustable collars and cuffs, they also had adjustable shirtsleeves.

Early shirts came in one size. Extra large. Don’t forget that, because the shirt was considered an undergarment, no thought was given to its fit on a man’s body, since nobody was ever likely to see it. Shirts were sized roughly according to neck circumfrence and shoulder-width, but everything else was measured and made to be as accomodating as possible. This included shirtsleeves. Prior to the arrival of the modern shirt that we know today, shirtsleeves were all made and measured to be extra-long. This way, they would fit the largest man in comfort.

But what happened if you weren’t the largest man? What happened if, instead of being Robert Wadlow (8ft 11in), you were instead James Madison, who towered over ants at a staggering 5ft 4in.? Obviously, shirtsleeves would be too long. And if you weren’t able to find a shirtmaker, or as was more likely the case, weren’t rich enough to get a shirtmaker to custom-measure your sleeves, then what did you do?

Most men utilised these things:

Forever associated with bartenders, writers, banker-tellers and barbershop quartets, there was a time where almost every well-dressed man owned at least one pair of these things and kept them on his dressing-table. They’re called sleeve-garters. Made of elastic material (or in this case, springy steel), sleeve-garters were worn on a man’s shirtsleeves, just above the elbow. They worked by holding back the extra sleeve-material that would otherwise cascade down a man’s arms and prevent his hands from doing any useful work. They were also handy for holding a man’s shirtsleeves back if he was doing heavy work and didn’t want to get his sleeves and cuffs dirty.

Thanks to the modern, made-to-measure, off-the-rack shirt, sleeve-garters aren’t as often used as once they were. However, you can still buy them (they’re usually very cheap) and if ever you have a shirt you like but which you can’t wear on account of the sleeves being too long, you might want to break out grandpa’s sleeve-garters and slap them on. They can still come in handy.

The Modern Shirt

The shirt with detachable collars and cuffs died out during the interwar period and the shirt which we know today was born. With improvements in washing and cleaning clothes and the introduction of the first washing-machines in the 1920s, clothing could now be washed faster and more frequently. Public demand for shirts with detachable collars and cuffs gradually died away during the 1930s and by the middle of the century were more or less ancient history. Cloth-rationing during the Second World War probably played a significant part in their demise, since it would’ve been difficult to find the extra cloth needed for detachable collars and cuffs.

You can still buy shirt-collars and cuffs (either brand new or vintage) as well as collar-studs, shirt-studs and collarless shirts today, although understandably, they are much rarer than the shirts that most people have today. They’re still manufactured for formalwear, or for people seeking an authentic period look in their wardrobe for any variety of reasons from a desire for vintage style, historical reenacting or sheer convenience and comfort. Collar-boxes can still be found cheaply at antiques stores and flea-markets.

22/11/2011 by scheong

Fountain Pens and Flexible Nibs

Ballpoint pens are boring.

There. I said it.

One of the reasons why I love fountain pens is because of the variety that surrounds them. You have pens made of gold, of rubber, of wood, of steel, of silver, of plastics of various kinds, you have steel nibs and gold nibs of all kinds of writing styles and characteristics. You have all kinds of inks and filling-mechanisms and sizes and styles. Somewhere out there, is the fountain pen for you.

And perhaps you’re already out there looking for that fountain pen just for you. And perhaps you’ve been looking on websites or forums or online photo-galleries to find the best pen for you. And perhaps you’ve become interested in nibs. But not just any nib. A flexible nib. And maybe you just want to know a bit more about this curiosity of writing before deciding whether or not it’s really for you. That’s what this posting is here to do.

What is a Flexible Nib?

A flexible nib is…a…flexible…nib.

Okay that’s the short story.

The long story is that a flexible nib is a nib that bends, spreads and flexes according to the amount of pressure that the user applies to the pen. The more pressure, the more flex. Less pressure, less flex. Press down and the tines of the nib spread apart. Ease your force and the tines spring back together. Easy. That is a flex nib in a nutshell.

Why do we Want Flex Nibs?

Flex nibs are desirable for a number of reasons, although granted, they’re not for everyone. Flex-nibs are prized by people who like line-variation in their writing, by people who practice calligraphy (particularly styles like Roundhand) or people who just want a bit of fun in their writing. Flex-nibs are also handy for illustrators and artists who require line-variation in their art, such as comic-book writers and cartoonists.

I want a flex nib but…I can’t find any!

Unfortunately for the population at large, fountain pens with flexible nibs are, on a whole, no longer manufactured. In fact, they haven’t been manufactured in mainstream fountain pens for a while now. If you’re after a fountain pen with a flexible nib, for the best results, you’re almost certainly going to have to hunt for vintage pens, preferrably before ca. 1930 (or at least before the 1950s). Fountain pens with flexible nibs were particularly popular in the years between 1880 to about 1930, but their manufacture and use died away gradually since then until now they’re hardly manufactured at all. Many fountain pens made during the first two decades of the 20th century are famous for their flexible nibs and many pen companies were famous for making pens with flexible nibs. Companies such as Swan, Conway-Stewart, Wahl-Eversharp, Waterman and Conklin.

Where did Flex Nibs Come From?

Flex nibs or flex pens have a long history and they started with the quills of the Middle Ages. Quills, which were the long, flight-feathers of birds (usually geese), were prepared for writing by being de-barbed (having their frilly bits cut off), being heated and dried, and then by being cut into pen-points.

Repeated dipping in ink meant that over time, the pen-points would become soft and flexible. Writers who enjoyed this quality let their quills stay nice and soft and flexy until such time that the quill-points got so soft that they’d just break (at which point, the broken point was cut off and a new quill was cut out of the remaining feather-shaft).

When steel dip-pens started replacing quills en-masse in the 1830s, writers were so used to flexible quills that factories often manufactured steel pens with flexible points so that writers would have something more familiar between their fingers.

In the early 1900s when fountain pens began to replace dip-pens, pen-manufacturers kept flexible gold fountain pen nibs as a writing holdover from the dip-pen era.

In the 1930s and 40s, as the fountain pen became more and more popular, flexible nibs were found to be unsuitable for the office environment, where pressing a pen-nib through paper and carbon-paper meant that stronger, stiffer nibs were required. After that time, flex nibs started being manufactured less and less, and finally died out after ballpoint pens started rising to prominence in the 1960s. Today, flex nibs…true flex nibs…are rare in the modern fountain pen market. Most people who want flex generally buy antique pens, or else buy cheap, steel dip-pens (which generally have flexible properties on a much lower price-level than antique fountain pens which can cost hundreds of dollars).

Using a Flex Nib

Flex nibs are not for everyone. Because they haven’t, for the most part, been manufactured for the past several decades, public knowledge of flex nibs is low. By that I mean, the average person on the street is unlikely to have ever seen one or used one. So, is a flex nib for you? It might be, it might not be.

Using a flex nib requires a light touch. Yes, all fountain pens require a light touch, but this is especially true with flex nibs (and the more flexible the nib, the lighter the touch). Someone transitioning from a ballpoint pen to a fountain pen should get used to using a regular, stiff-nibbed fountain pen first before unleashing themselves on a flex-nibbed pen and all the uncertainties that can come with it.

It’s important to know the limitations of a flex-nib. No two flex nibs are exactly the same and there are varying levels of flex. They range from superflex (also called ‘Wet Noodles’), to full-flex and semi-flex. Superflex nibs which will bend at the lightest of touches are especially common with older pens from the turn of the last century. The majority of pens are full-flex or semi-flex. If you want to experiment with flex-nib pens and aren’t sure whether or not you can handle trying to write with a pen that’s going to jump and down like a pogo-stick, you might want to start with a more forgiving semi-flex pen. These pens will only flex a small amount, compared with say, a 1900 Waterman which would have nib-tines that literally flex like wet noodles.

If you want to experiment with flexible nibs but don’t want to fork out $200+ for an antique Parker that you might only ever use once, when you figure out that flex really isn’t for you…then what do you do?

A lot of people ask this question. “How can I fiddle with flex on a fluff?”

The answer is easy. Go to your local arts and crafts shop or arts-supply shop or fancy paperie or your local pen-shop, and purchase some steel dip-pens and a pen-holder. Even modern dip-pens (but especially older ones) can be significantly flexible. Once you’ve got the hang of preparing the pen, then you can learn to write with it and see if writing with a flex-nib is for you. Think of the dip-pens as the cheap, training-wheels, free-sample alternative to blowing big bucks on antique flex-nib fountain pen. A small stash of flexible steel nibs and a pen-holder might cost $20 (okay, a bit more if you need to buy the ink as well), and it’s a small price to pay for trying out something totally new. Plus, if you break the pen-nib, you won’t cry.

Most importantly when learning how to use flex-nibs is to know how much pressure to place on the pen when writing. A really flexible nib will require almost no pressure at all to write a line a quarter-inch wide. Semi-flex nibs might require a somewhat heavier hand to produce a similar result. Not knowing the limits and capabilities of the flexible qualities of flexible nibs can lead to the nibs being broken or sprung (where the nibs have been pressed down so hard that the tines don’t spring back together when you ease off the pressure). Sprung nibs can be repaired and hammered flat again, but it’s a fiddly, messy process that’s best avoided to begin with.

What are Flex Nibs Made Of?

The vast majority of flex-nibs (for fountain pens, at least) are made of gold. The soft properties of gold make it ideal for nibs of different levels of flex. Dip-pen nibs which contain flexible properties, on the other hand, are generally made of steel. Steel can be a little harder to work when making and using a flex-nib, but it’s cheaper and easier to mass produce for throwaway dip-pens.

20/11/2011 by Scheong

The House of the Dragon Throne: Imperial China and the Forbidden City

China has not had an easy history. In the last one hundred years, China has gone from a monarchy to a capitalist, democratic republic to a communist state. China has seen great changes and turmoils. It has seen wars, famine, revolution, disease, infighting and upheaval. But what do we think of when we think of Chinese history? We think of Emperors, Empresses, princes, princesses, big, fancy houses, fine furniture, paddyfields, baggy robes, pigtails, chopsticks, incense, Taoism and the millions of Chinese peasantry.

But what was China really like back when the Chinese Empire still existed?

China: A Land of Empire

China has had a long history of tens of thousands of years and over a dozen dynasties and smaller kingdoms ruling over it, all fighting for power and control. China is a massive country and controlling the entire nation is an ambitious undertaking. For centuries, kings, armies and emperors fought each other and at various points in Chinese history, the country was united, divided, united, divided, united and divided yet again, as kings, emperors and generals fought for control. To try and cover over four thousand years of Chinese history in one article is far too ambitious…so I won’t. Let’s take a more general view of Imperial China and look at the parts of China that have entered the public, global image of China.

The Chinese Emperor and the Mandate of Heaven

In older times, China was ruled by an emperor, as were most Asian countries, such as the current Emperor of Japan. In China, the Emperor was seen as a demigod, appointed by the Chinese gods to be their representative on earth. Think of it as the Chinese equivalent of the Western belief of the ‘Divine Right of Kings’.

The Emperor held absolute power over all of China (provided of course, it was all of China that he controlled at the time of his reign). His right to this power came from the ancient belief of the Mandate of Heaven, similar to the above concept of the Divine Right of Kings in Western monarchies. In its essence, the Mandate of Heaven, according to traditional Confucian teachings, stated that so long as an incumbent emperor was reasonable, kind, just and merciful towards the commoners, he would retain the right to rule. If his rule became objectionable in any way and remained so until it became intolerable, it was the right of the people to overthrow the emperor and his dynasty and establish a new one. If the emperor was successfully overthrown and defeated, the common people would take it as a sign that the emperor had displeased the gods and had therefore, lost their blessing and protection, which meant that the blessing of the gods would transfer to the next dynasty to be established.

And this was the essence of Chinese dynastic imperial rule for centuries.

According to research of ancient Chinese documents, the Mandate of Heaven has existed ever since it was put to paper by Zhou Gongdan, brother to the first emperor of the Zhou Dynasty (established 1045 B.C). The original documents as written by Duke Zhou Gongdan, outline the eight main points of the traditional Mandate of Heaven, as was followed by every ruler of China since then for the next two thousand years. In essence, they state that:

1. The Right to Rule China is Granted by Heaven.
2. There will only be ONE ruler of China at any one time.
3. The right of the Emperor to Rule is based on his good conduct and his being the earthly representative of Heaven.
4. While the Mandate of Heaven is maintained, dynastic rule (father-to-son) is allowed. Failure to maintain the Mandate will result in the loss of the right to dynastic rule.

With these four main rules of the Mandate of Heaven came the four corresponding implications or conditions:

5. The ruling family of China must be seen as legitimate by the People of China.
6. If China is ruled by more than one family or person, the family or person that puts forward a legitimate claim to the Mandate must be able to justify it to the people of China.
7. Rulers are responsible for their own behaviour and must make the welfare of the Chinese people their first priority.
8. Rulers of China should always be mindful of revolutions. A revolution would indicate the displeasure of the people and therefore, the loss of the Mandate of Heaven.

If you read the Terms and Conditions of the Mandate of Heaven, you may notice that it doesn’t mention anything about noble birth. Noble birth is not (and never was) a condition of rulership over China, in contrast to rulership of contemporary Western monarchies. In theory, any man could become ruler of China. Of course, the men with the best chance of ruling China were those who were already close to the emperor, men like advisors, ministers and prominent royal officials.

The Imperial Examination

You might not believe it, but becoming part of the governing class of Imperial China was not as difficult as it might seem.

In ancient times, the only way to get into the Chinese Government was to ‘know the right people’.People gained access to the administrative bureaucracy by being recommended for vacancies by current bureaucrats or by prominent Chinese noblemen. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty established an examination system during his reign (141 B.C. – 87 B.C.) based on Confucian teachings. Any man could apply for these examinations if he could pay the fees and had the necessary education. Applicants or students who passed the examinations would be given posts in the Imperial Bureaucracy. From there, it was just a matter of getting promoted until you got high enough in the imperial ladder to hopefully one day, become emperor. The Imperial Examination was a part of Chinese life until the fall of Imperial China centuries later.

The Forbidden City

The most famous (and the largest) remnant and symbol of Imperial China and the Chinese Emperor: The Forbidden City in Beijing, China.

Despite what you might think, the Forbidden City was not the first palace to house the Emperor of China. In fact, the Forbidden City was not built until the second emperor of the Ming Dynasty came along. The emperor’s father, the first emperor (and founder) of the Ming Dynasty moved the Chinese capital from Peking to Nanking (what are Beijing and Nanjing today) during his reign. When his son, the Yongle Emperor came to the throne, he moved the Chinese capital back to Beijing and in 1406, ordered the start of construction of a grand new imperial residence that would eventually become known as the ‘Zijincheng‘, or the ‘Purple Forbidden City’ (In China, as was also the case in contemperous Western monarchies, purple was the colour of monarchy. Why? Because purple dye was notoriously difficult to make, and therefore extremely expensive, which meant that only kings and emperors could afford it). In time, the structure just became known as the ‘Forbidden City’.

The Forbidden City took fifteen years to build. It holds the Guiness Record as being the largest palace complex on earth. From the completion of its construction until the fall of Imperial China, it was the seat of power for the Chinese Emperor.

The Forbidden City gets its name quite simply because commoners were forbidden to enter its walls. The only people allowed inside were the Emperor’s family, government officials, servants, courtiers and of course…the Imperial eunuchs.

Eunuchs have a long history in China. They ranged from prisoners of war to men found guilty of the crime of rape (or any other crime for which castration was the punishment) and men who became slaves were also turned into eunuchs. But most famously, eunuchs were employed in their thousands by the Imperial household to act as servants to the emperor and his family. Since eunuchs were incapable of having sex, they were unable to establish their own families (and by extension, their own dynasties) which might threaten the power and position of the emperor, which was the main justification behind the employment of eunuchs by the Imperial court.

The Peculiarities of the Palace

The imperial palace, the great Forbidden City in Beijing, was (and remains) unlike almost any other palace complex in the world. To begin with, it is the largest palace complex in the world. It has hundreds of buildings and miles of walls, dozens of watchtowers, acres of courtyards, gardens and several enormous gates. The walls and gates divided the palace and servants, courtiers, officials and members of the imperial family were strictly segregated. Only certain people were allowed in the innermost areas of the palace grounds and buildings where the emperor lived with his family. In total, the palace has 9,999 rooms. This was considered good luck because the Chinese word for ‘nine’, ‘Jiu‘, is pronounced the same way as the Chinese word meaning ‘long-lasting’.

Because a number of the buildings in the palace were made of wood, there are several enormous cauldrons placed around the various palace courtyards. The cauldrons were used to collect rainwater which would then be used to put out fires in an emergency.

Despite the palace’s enormous size, because it was also designed as a fortress, there are only four gates into the main complex, and a fifth gate (the Gate of Supreme Harmony) that leads to the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the structure used by the emperor on his wedding-day and on special occasions. Because of the hall’s general inaccessibility, it was impractical to use it on a regular basis when the emperor would hold court. So, although this was officially one of the hall’s intended purposes, it was rarely occupied for this use. The Hall of Supreme Harmony is also the location of the ‘Dragon Throne’ mentioned in the title of this article. The Dragon Throne was the official seat (literally) of the Emperor of China.

Colours play an important part in Chinese culture, and some colours held special significance in the Chinese Imperial Court.

Red was the colour of happiness.

Purple was officially the colour of the Emperor of China himself, although he might also wear robes that were dyed yellow instead.

Gold or Yellow was the colour of the Imperial Family. In imperial times, only members of the Imperial Family were allowed to wear yellow or own objects coloured in yellow.

An interesting fact is that the floor of the Hall of Supreme Harmony is laid with golden bricks to symbolise the Imperial Family and the emperor. Okay, that’s not quite right. Yes, the floor of the hall is made up of bricks. But no, they don’t actually contain any gold. They get their name ‘golden bricks’ because the bricks (fired in the imperial kiln), took an incredibly long time to make. Because they took so long and were so difficult to make, each brick was considered to be worth it’s weight in gold (and probably cost just as much!), hence the name ‘golden bricks’.

The Last Emperor

The Chinese Empire lasted for centuries. But it could not last forever. And it couldn’t last in the 20th century.

The Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion of the late 19th century caused great instability in China. The last dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, was becoming increasingly unpopular with ordinary Chinese citizens…probably because it wasn’t Chinese.

That’s right. A Chinese dynasty that wasn’t Chinese. How is this possible?

The Qing Dynasty just sounds so…Chinese…doesn’t it?

Well, that was the whole point. To make it sound as Chinese as possible. That way, hopefully, people would forget the dynasty’s other name: The Manchu Dynasty.

The Manchu Dynasty got its name from where its people originated from, a geographic region northeast of China, then called ‘Manchuria’. But how does this differ from the rest of China and how do its people differ from the rest of the Chinese population?

Well, up until the mid-1600s, China had always been ruled by a Han emperor. That is to say, it was ruled by an emperor who came from amongst the Han people, the Han being the main ethnic group in China (this is why the Chinese language is called ‘Hanyu‘ or the ‘Han Language’, and the Chinese people are called ‘Hanren‘ or the ‘Han People’ in their native tongue).

But in the early-1600s, all this changed and Manchu people from the north of what is now part of China, invaded Beijing. To the ordinary Chinese people, they saw the Manchus as being foreigners and not part of the China or the Chinese people which they knew. They were not Han people and were therefore considered outsiders. But the Han seized power in the 1640s and remained in power, founding the ‘Qing Dynasty’ to make themselves sound ‘more Chinese’.

The Chinese people, who had been growing more and more displeased with the Qing Dynasty, were itching for a chance to abolish the monarchy and found a new government: A western-stye democractic republic.

In 1908, the aged and extremely bad-tempered Empress Dowager, Cixi, died of old age. She had ruled China as it’s empress for nearly fifty years after the death of her husband. When she died at the age of 72, the last emperor of China inherited the throne.

He was not a powerful man. He was not an authoratative man.

He was not a man at all.

In fact he was a boy.

And his name was Puyi.

The diminutive Puyi, just three years old when he inherited the throne, was the great-nephew of the Empress Dowager Cixi (a fact that took me a while to figure out. Imperial Chinese succession can be hideously frustrating, confusing and convoluted). He ‘ruled’ from 1908-1912, although, because he was far too young at the time, his father ruled as his regent.

In 1912, the Republic of China was declared and Puyi abdicated in 1911. He was briefly restored to power for the grand total of eleven days in 1917, but was dethroned on the 12th of July, 1917 and lost power for the second time in less than ten years; this time for good.

Puyi lived in the Forbidden City with his family and his servants and courtiers until 1924. By now, Imperial Chinese Rule had disintergrated to such a level that it was little more than a show of power and a shadow of what it once was. The palace eunuchs had all been fired in 1923 and the enormous imperial complex was virtually empty. In 1924, Puyi was finally kicked out of the palace. To prevent his returning to the Forbidden City and possibly staging a coup to take back the throne, the entire palace complex was declared a museum and the Forbidden City was given its current name: the Palace Museum.

Puyi’s life was one of constant change. Even though he was an emperor of China, he never ever really ruled anything. Not China, not even the puppet-state of Manchukou which the Japanese made him the ruler of in 1932. He finally died on the 17th of October, 1967. He was 61 years old.

Before his death, Puyi was encouraged by the government of the People’s Republic of China to write his autobiography, perhaps recognising his significant and special place in Chinese history. His autobiography (translated from Chinese) is “The First Half of My Life“. When the text was translated into English, it was given the title “From Emperor to Citizen”.

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The Forbidden City (documentary)

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