THE RIGHT TO REMEMBER

Personal memory may differ from a collective one. Acts of remembrance can and do alter over time but if they are rendered into a memorial they become a reflection of the tastes and ideals of the society who raised it. The failure of Haileybury to understand the need to devote a specific space to remembrance drew attention to the differing meanings of ‘memorialize’ in the first three decades of the twentieth century.

oppoSite: The unveiling of the Cross of Sacrifice on 7 July 1923. General Sir Alexander Godley KCB, KCMG (Th. 1880.1) performed the unveiling. Godley said to the assembled pupils ‘I would specially commend this memorial. Read the motto on the service paper: “In remembrance of those who did their duty, even unto death.” Think of that and let it be an example to you. Keep it before you, honour it, treasure it, and when you leave here and go out into the world, and troubles and difficulties come to you, just think of this memorial and the motto that is on it. Remember how small must be your difficulties as compared with all the dangers and difficulties that must have confronted all those Haileyburians to whom this memorial is erected, whose courage, whose self-sacrifice, whose team-work, which we learn at a School like this, whose playing of the game was such a splendid thing in the Great War.’

The meetings of Old Haileyburians held at the Sports Club and Goldsmiths’ Hall before the end of the First World War were well intentioned but exclusive events. There were at least 2757 OHs on active service in January 1918 who were unable to attend either event. It was the older generation of Old Haileyburians who decided how the School was to memorialize the War.

The failure of the Fund’s architects Sir John Simpson and Maxwell Ayrton, to respond appropriately to the vision for a memorial hall, and the slow progress in the programme of fund raising were apparent. By 1922 there was considerable unrest about the situation amongst the younger Old Haileyburians. Letters sent to the secretary of the Memorial Fund expressed concerns about a failure in raising a memorial to those who had died in the War.

In The Haileyburian, Lancelot Lempriere (C. 1886.3), the School’s Resident Medical Officer and former officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps, wrote suggesting the erection of a temporary cross in front of the Chapel’s apse. Anthony Russell (C. 1910.2), who had lost two brothers in the War, expressed the view that the Memorial Committee was failing in its duty. Russell observed that strangers were asking about the type of memorial the School had erected and that answering in a negative response was becoming embarrassing. In his letter Russell identified a tension arising from the creation of a memorial and its use as a dining hall. The blending of a practical space with a memorial did not appear to be desirable or seemly. Noel Tennant (M. 1899.3), an assistant master at the School, felt passionate enough to write to The Haileyburian to voice his agreement with Lempriere. In his letter Tennant drew attention to the fact that the senior members of the Society were deciding the objectives for the Memorial Fund whilst his generation had been excluded from the process.

Haileyburians, such as Tennant and Russell, were losing patience with the older generation. In an anonymous letter from members of the Sixth form it was claimed that the funds were needed to improve conditions in the School. Rather than embark on one large project some pupils wanted to see investment in the day-to-day life of the School rather than the construction of a large hall. The growing tensions were such that the editor of The Haileyburian closed correspondence on the subject and directed that the interested parties should send their correspondence to the secretary of the War Memorial Fund. On 18 January 1923 at the meeting of the General Committee of the War Memorial Committee, which had met only once since its foundation, members were finally forced to address the concerns of Old Haileyburians, former parents and grieving families. The Fund’s committee had received communications informing them that the Haileybury community were no longer willing to wait for £65,000 to be raised before a memorial to the dead could be commissioned. The General Committee accepted that people wanted a small memorial but it continued to refuse to erect one in case the associated costs impacted on the plan to build a dining hall. The potential for a damaging conflict between the two camps of Haileyburians was only averted by the timely intervention of John Charrington (Th. 1869.3). At the meeting Charrington, a member of Council, made the offer to fund the memorial himself, thus preventing a potentially divisive issue from continuing to grow. oppoSite: A letter from Sir Reginald Blomfield to the Bursar, Colonel Robert Maclagan CB, CSI, CIE (L. 1874.2), dated 27 March 1923. Blomfield was making suggestions about the cutting of the inscription on the base of the Cross of Sacrifice (see page 13).

The generosity of John Charrington and the natural deference to authority of the establishment from the younger Haileyburians prevented any further chances of a schism. The outcome allowed the Fund to continue with their plans to build a new dining hall, commission a memorial and extend Reginald Blomfield’s Roll of Honour in the western Cloister. Unsurprisingly, it was Blomfield’s Cross of Sacrifice design that was selected by the Memorial Fund to act as the ‘small memorial’.

On 7 July 1923 the Memorial Cross was unveiled by General Sir Alexander Godley (Th. 1880.1) and dedicated by the Bishop of Southwell, Edwyn Hoskyns. The speech given by Godley was largely devoted to the scale of service by Haileyburians and their successes. Similarities between the themes covered in Godley’s speech and the one given by Montague Butler at the unveiling the South African War Memorial in 1903 are striking. Godley spoke of the ‘2,528 rewards’ given and that such a record was one for the school to be proud of. He went on to emphasise to the pupils that the memorial should act as a reminder of their duty to serve. Following Godley’s speech, Hoskyns’ prayer was for the Haileyburians who had died serving the Empire’s cause.

The unveiling and dedication ceremony did not allude to the idea of a ‘lost generation’; the majority of the ceremony was devoted to memorialising a culture devoted to service. Lionel Milford (L. 1867.2) described the event as ‘an inspiration to all lovers of Haileybury for the rest of their lives’. Whilst Anthony Russell and his contemporaries believed that it was their generation who remembered the dead and the suffering caused by the effects of war. For some of Russell’s generation the memorial on Terrace was to be a locus point for their memories rather than a source of inspiration. Even after its erection there were still divisions within the community as to what the memorial meant.