Manipulating the metonymic: The politics of civic identity and the Bristol Cenotaph, 1919-1932

Journal of Historical Geography

Volumn 30, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 665-684

  Gough, Paul ^a   Morgan, S ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND   (United Kingdom)

^b MASSEY UNIVERSITY   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

Bristol; Cenotaph; Civic identity; Memorial

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL IDENTITY; MEMORY; POLITICAL HISTORY;

BRISTOL [ENGLAND]; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; ENGLAND; EURASIA; EUROPE; UNITED KINGDOM; WESTERN EUROPE; WORLD;

EID: 18744376005     PISSN: 03057488     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0305-7488(03)00002-1     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. S. Michalski Public Monuments: Art in Political Bondage 1870-1997 1998 London 82
2. S. Michalski Public Monuments 1998 78
3. E. Carter J. Donald and J. Squires Space and Place: Theories of Identities and Location 1994 London ix
4. J. Harris Private Lives: Public Spirit: Britain 1870-1914 1994 London 17-18
5. H. Lefebvre The Production of Space 1991 Oxford 220
6. M.K. Matsuda The Memory of the Modern 1996 New York and Oxford 6
7. M.K. Matsuda The Memory of the Modern 1996 15
8. M. Foucault Space knowledge and power: Interview conducted with Paul Rabinow in: N. Leach (Ed.) Rethinking Architecture 1997 London and New York 378
9. S. Morgan Memory and identity in the urban landscape: A tale of two barons in: S. Bennett J. Butler (Eds.) Advances in Art and Urban Futures: Locality, Regeneration and Divers[c]ities 2000 Bristol and Portland 27-39
10. J. Winter Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning 1995 Cambridge 104
11. E. Hobsbawm Nations and Nationalism since 1780 1992 Cambridge 131
12. J.R. Gillis, Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity, Princeton, 1994, Princeton, 3-20.
13. E. Hobsbawm Nations and Nationalism since 1780 1992 88
14. G.L. Mosse Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars 1990 New York
15. K. Inglis Entombing unknown warriors: From London and Paris to Baghdad History and Memory 5 1993 7-31
16. J. Winter Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning 1995 90
17. J.E. Young The counter-monument: Memory against itself in Germany today in: W.J.T. Mitchell (Ed.) Art and the Public Sphere 1992 Chicago 52
18. R. Samuel Theatres of Memory 1996 Oxford
19. B. Graham and C. Nash (Eds), Modern Historical Geographies, 1999, London
20. See also. E. Laurier, D. Atkinson, A sanitized city? Social exclusion at Bristol's 1996 International Festival of the Sea, Geoforum 29 (1998) 199-206.
21. M. Dresser, Slavery Obscured: The Social History of the Slave Trade in an English Provincial Port, London, 2001
22. S. Morgan, Memory and the merchants: Commemoration and civic identity, International Journal of Heritage Studies 4 (2000) 103-113.
23. C. Clarke Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol 1922 Bristol
24. J. Latimer The History of the Society of Merchant Venturers of the City of Bristol 1903 Bristol
25. B. Little The Story of Bristol 1991 Bristol 64
26. Edward Colston 1636-1721 was born in Bristol, but from the age of 18 lived in London. A trader with Spain and other Mediterranean countries, he also became a member of the Royal African Company in 1680 and took an active part in the planning and financing of slaving ventures to Africa, his name appearing in the company records for 11 years. Colston was a popular benefactor to the City of Bristol, providing money for various charities throughout his life. The bronze statue by John Cassidy was erected in Colston Avenue, Bristol and unveiled on November 13th 1895.
27. R. McGrath The Merchant Venturers of Bristol 1975 Bristol 211
28. In 1902, five years after the opening of the Cabot Tower, the Wills family funded a new museum and art gallery for the city, and a decade later donated one hundred thousand pounds for the completion of new university buildings. Significantly, its crowning glory, the Wills Memorial Tower, is some 30 m taller than the Venturer-funded Cabot Tower several hundred yards away. See also K. Walton Bristol Art Gallery, 1905-1980 1981 Bristol
29. J.S. Watkins Furnished with Ability: The Lives and Times of the Wills Families 1991 Bristol 112
30. Burke was elected as an MP for Bristol in 1774, a seat he held for six years. Engraved on the plinth are the words: 'I wish to be a member of parliament to have my share of doing good and resisting evil'. The bronze statue, by James Havard Thomas (1854-1921) standing in Colston Avenue, is not, as is often stated, a replica of a marble one in St Stephen's Hall, Westminster. For an analysis of the confusion surrounding the replica sculpture see D. Merritt Bristol's Statue of Edmund Burke, in Reflections: The Newsletter of the Edmund Burke Society The University Bookman 42 2002 57-58
31. M. Heffernan For ever England: The Western Front and the politics of remembrance in Britain Ecumene 2 3 1995 293-324
32. J. Winter Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History 1995 Cambridge
33. C. Moriarty The absent dead and figurative first World War memorials Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society 39 1995 7-40
34. K. Grieves Investigating local war memorial committees: Demobilised soldiers, the bereaved and expressions of local pride in Sussex villages, 1918-1921 The Local Historian 30 2000 39-58
35. A. King Memorials of the Great War in Britain: The Symbolism and Politics of Remembrance 1998 Oxford
36. A. King Memorials of the Great War in Britain 1998 3-4
37. N. Johnson Cast in stone: Monuments, geography and nationalism, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (1995) 51-65
38. C.M. Boyer The City of Collective Memory 1996 Massachusetts 32
39. For further reflections on the issue of collective memory see J. Young The Texture of Memory 1983 New Haven
40. P. Nora Les Lieux de Memoire: Vol1. 1984 Paris 32
41. J. Bodnar Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century 1992 Princeton 8
42. J. Bodnar Remaking America 1992 149
43. M. Rowlands Remembering to forget: Sublimation as sacrifice in War Memorials in: A. Forty S. Kuchler (Eds.) The Art of Forgetting 1999 Oxford
44. M. Cousins Inside, outside Tate Magazine winter 1996 36-41
45. J. Winter BBC History November 2000 22-25
46. K.S. Inglis The homecoming: The War Memorial Movement in Cambridge, England Journal of Contemporary History 27 1992 583-605
47. For an examination of utilitarian memorials in Britain see A. Gregory The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day 1919-1946 1994 Oxford
48. B. Osborne In the shadow of the monuments International Journal of Heritage Studies 7 1 2001 5982
49. King Memorials of the Great War in Britain 1998 65-70
50. King Memorials of the Great War in Britain 1998 68
51. M. Rowlands Remembering to forget: Sublimation as sacrifice in War Memorials in: A. Forty S. Kuchler (Eds.) The Art of Forgetting 1999 Oxford 131
52. J. Belsey The Forgotten Front: Bristol at War, 1914-1918 1986 Bristol 73
53. R.F. Lyne, Bristol Evening Post, 8th November 1946.
54. During the 1920s Bristol's Remembrance Day services were held around a temporary cenotaph approximately two metres high which was erected annually on St Augustine's Bridge in the Tramways Centre.
55. Proceedings of the Council, 8th January 1929, Bristol Public Records Office (hereafter Bristol PRO).
56. Proceedings, 24th September 1929, Bristol PRO.
57. The Special War Memorial Committee comprised: Alderman Frank Sheppard, Mr Frederick Berriman, Mr Edwin Parker, Mr Charles Gill, Mr Walter Hennessy, Mr Robert Lyne, Mr Adam Cottam Castle, Mr John Inskip, Mr Arthur L.H. Smith, Mr Ernest Brookhouse Richards (resigned November 1929, replaced by Mr James Bicker) Richards was Council representative on the Bristol and District War Pensions Committee. The first five members voted for the Berriman amendment of 8th January 1929 which proposed that any memorial should 'take the form of some provision for the dependents of those who made such sacrifice'. The amendment was carried 49 votes to 17, with five abstentions.
58. Bristol Times and Mirror, 6 November 1929.
59. Proceedings, 26 November 1929, Bristol PRO.
60. Bristol Times and Mirror, 27 November 1929.
61. Written by Chas. Wells under the strapline 'Notes of the Day', 12 November 1929.
62. Composed of elected councillors, Watch Committees controlled city and borough forces and were the centres of power in borough policing, including operational policy. They acted under the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act which empowered Local Authority Watch Committees to set up Police Forces.
63. Report, 17 June 1930, Bristol PRO.
64. Proceedings, 14th July 1931, Bristol PRO.
65. Exponents of the College Green site and the signators to the letters of July 1930 were: P. Burges (Col., late Commanding 12th Btn Glos. Regt), RL Austin (Major Royal Artillery (T) retired), GS Castle (LT Col T.A. reserve), TA Green, Lt Col TA, late commanding S.M.F.A.), G.E. Gedye (former Captain), L.B. Cogan (Captain RNR). A further six ex-Servicemen started the petition and put their names to an accompanying letter: CH. Bacon (Royal Irish Regiment), WA. Bezer (Royal Irish Regiment), PC. Nash (The Devonshire Regiment), WH Barnes (12th Glo'sters), H. Essex Lewis (Royal Field Artillery), AH. Spreckley (Grenadier Guards).
66. Western Daily Press, 2 August 1930.
67. Ex-serviceman, Western Daily Press, 6 August 1930.
68. Western Daily Press, 15 August 1930.
69. Western Daily Press, 20 August 1930.
70. Western Daily Press, 15 August 1930.
71. On 31 July, Lyne (accompanied by Col. E. Knox DSO and Capt. G.S. James, leading members of the ex-servicemen's memorial committee) had met at Lloyds Bank, Corn Street Bristol, with the leading petitioners to consider their draft letter. After a lengthy discussion, it was agreed that the 'letter should be published in the Press with a view to( testing the strength of public opinion in favour of erecting the Memorial on College Green'. The letter was published on 1st August and subsequently it was decided to start a petition 'as the only practical way in which a definite expression of opinion could be obtained'. (Newspaper cutting, 21 October 1930, Newspaper library, 1102.9).
72. Letter of 31 July by F.D.V. Narborough, Canon-in-residence, Bristol Cathedral, to George Gedye, reprinted in Western Daily Press, 2 August 1930.
73. The Tramways Centre was the terminus for the tram and later bus services in the city. Boats used to moor there until the early 1900s, when the river was gradually covered over. Up to that point the River Frome flowed as an open river into the harbour, but in 1891 the authorities set to work to cover over the area in order to cope with ever increasing road traffic. By 1893 the Frome was no longer to be seen. The exposed waters of the harbour to the right of the Tramways bridge was covered over in the late 1930s to form the City Centre Gardens.
74. Western Daily Press, Letters to the Editor, 15 October 1930.
75. Reply from the Dean, H.L.C. de Cadole, published in Western Daily Press, 5 December 1930.
76. Evening Times, 20 January 1931.
77. Evening Times, 20 January 1931. By 10 November 1930 the Council's War Memorial Committee consisted of: Mr Robert Lyne, Alderman Frank Sheppard, Mr John Inskip, Mr Owen, Mr George Plum, Mr Arthur L.H. Smith, Mr Parish.
78. The Builder 19 June 1931.The winning design is rectangular slab of Portland stone-shelly limestone-set on a stepped plinth with plain square blocks approximately 1.1 m high at each corner. The top is moulded in the form of a fascine with scrolled consoles at either end and a sarcophagus on top. At the centre of both the north-east and south-west faces is a large wreath with a central sword. The dates '1914' and '1981 were carved below the wreath, on either side of the sword. The dates '1939' and '1945' were subsequently added. Below the dates are bronze plaques with a band of service badges, including those of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and Royal Air Force, running around the monument at the level of the plaques. The plaque on the north-east face of the monument carries the legend: 'O VALIANT HEARTS WHO TO YOUR GLORY CAME/THROUGH DUST OF CONFLICT AND THROUGH BATTLE-FLAME:/TRANQUIL YOU LIE, YOUR KNIGHTLY VIRTUE PROVED,/YOUR MEMORY HALLOWED IN THE LAND YOU LOVED:/SPLENDID YOU PASSED, THE GREAT SURRENDER MADE/INTO THE LIGHT THAT NEVERMORE SHALL FADE/ALL YOU HAD HOPED FOR, ALL YOU HAD, YOU GAVE/TO SAVE MANKIND, YOURSELVES YOU SCORNED TO SAVE.' The plaque on the south-west face is inscribed: 'SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF BRISTOL'S SONS AND DAUGHTERS, WHO MADE THE SUPREME SACRIFICE. THEYDIEDTHAT MANKINDMIGHTLEARNTOLIVEIN PEACE' Onthe narrow, south-east and north-west facing, sides are the arms of the City of Bristol in bronze. Some 10 mfromeach of the square blocks at corners of the plinth there are four bronze openwork lamp standards with globe lamps each with a lion's head roundel on every side. The reference to daughters' is an unusual, possibly unique, feature of the Bristol monument.
79. Bristol Evening Post, 27 June 1932.
80. D. Lowenthal The Past is a Foreign Country 1985 323
81. Editorial, Bristol Evening Post, 27 June 1932.
82. Press cutting file, April 1930, Bristol Central Library. Also cited in D. Boorman At the Going Down of the Sun: British First World War Memorials 1988 York 154-155
83. Press cutting, 22 October 1930. The Cenotaph is recorded in the Bristol Urban Archaeological Database as BUAD 529M.
84. Oliver Walker, Bristol Evening Times, 16 August 1930.
85. Uncredited newspaper clipping, dated 23 July 1930, Bristol Central Library. Robert Southey (1774-1843) was a Bristol born dramatist and writer, and a friend of Wordsworth and Coleridge. For thirty years (1813 until his death) he was the Poet Laureate.
86. One of the councillers-Mr Culverwell-suggested this during the November 26 meeting (reported in Bristol Times and Mirror, November 27 1929).
87. M. Heffernan For ever England 300-301
88. Evening Post, 19 March 1946.
89. Western Daily Press, 30 March 1946.
90. Notes of the War Memorial Committee, reported in Western Daily Press and Bristol Mirror, 30 March 1946.