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Forgotten History

I've said before that the trouble with history is that there's too damn much of it!

I just came across an example of this while browsing some photos on fotoLibra. There were several of a monument to the Battle of the Windmill, which took place in Canada in 1838. I'd never heard of this before, and I'd guess that ignorance is typical of many Brits today. (Presumably Americans and Canadians are more familiar with it, as it happened in their backyard.)

Wiki gives the details here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Windmill

And presumably as the world population is expanding so fast, so is history! :shock:
 
"54-40 or Fight" slogan of Americans believing in "Manifest Destiny" and their right to control the whole of the continental landmass.
 
Archaeologists at a military camp in North Cork have discovered one of the largest and best preserved First World War underground bunker and trench systems ever built in Britain and Ireland.

Details of the find by a team from Queen’s University Belfast, revealed exclusively to the Irish Examiner, show the underground bunkers, built around 1915, could have accommodated sleeping quarters for up to 300 troops.

Academics specialising in archaeology and geology started out on their mission after acquiring historical maps which showed huge fortifications were built at Lynch Camp, Kilworth, shortly after the outbreak of the war.

After acquiring permission from the Department of Defence and the Defence Forces to visit the camp, located halfway between Fermoy and Mitchelstown, they carried out their first reconnaissance of the land in October 2013 and followed it up with a week-long detailed examination last July.

“We were just blown away with what we found. It is certainly the best preserved in Ireland and is so significant that it could be bigger than anything found in Salisbury Plain (a huge British Army training centre in Wiltshire, close to Stonehenge). It’s a really significant find,” said Dr Alistair Ruffell, a geology expert who was co-supervisor on the project. ...

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/wwi-trench-system-unearthed-in-cork-308695.html
 
Ah, the old days of Empire.

The great Kuwaiti cat-meat scandal

In 1930s Kuwait, an accusation that a restaurant was serving cat meat might easily have ended badly for the owner. But in one case British diplomats decided it was a matter for the Crown - and rode to the rescue of the unlucky man, writes Matthew Teller.

Perhaps the stew was a bit chewy. Or maybe someone heard mewing at night. Or was it in fact a plot to defame an immigrant restaurant owner and drive him out of business?

Kuwait in 1937 was abuzz with rumour and counter-rumour, as the mayor put it about that Abdul Muttalib bin Mahin had been serving cat meat disguised as mutton. Uproar ensued. The Town Lieutenant placed Abdul Muttalib under arrest, closing his restaurant and locking him up.

And there he may have languished for some time, but for the fact that Abdul Muttalib wasn't Kuwaiti. He was Pashtun, from the borderlands between what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan - and, as such, he was a British subject. Under a 1925 colonial order, that meant he was not bound by local laws.

At the time of the arrest, Gerald de Gaury, the British agent in Kuwait, was "on a tour of the hinterland" as he put it in a dispatch. But within half an hour of his return the indignant diplomat had sprung Abdul Muttalib from prison and brought him to Britain's diplomatic residence for trial.

Judge and jury in the case would be none other than De Gaury himself.

The evidence presented against Abdul Muttalib was not of the strongest - amounting to the discovery in his house of a "herd of eight fat cats". Nonetheless, the Sheikh himself wrote to De Gaury urging deportation. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-31057350
 
rynner2 said:
St Piran's Oratory, Perranporth

This topic has only been mentioned once on this board, back in 2001!

Jump to the present:

Work to uncover St Piran’s Oratory from Perranporth sand dunes to start in Autumn
7:00am Saturday 3rd August 2013 in News

...

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/10 ... mn/?ref=mr
Click to expand...

Soon it'll be on telly!
'Magical' service for Songs of Praise at St Piran's Oratory
By CMJacqui | Posted: February 07, 2015
9448626-large.jpg

The scene at St Piran's Oratory for the filming of Songs of Praise.

ALMOST 200 people, some carrying Cornish flags, made their way to St Piran's Oratory, deep in the sand dunes above Perranporth beach, for a service this afternoon which the Grand Bard of Cornwall, Maureen Fuller described as "magical."
People had gathered at the 5th century religious building for a recording of BBC's Songs of Praise which is likely to be included in the programme being broadcast on March 1. Presenter Diane Louise Jordan interviewed some of those involved in the excavations.

A clear blue sky shone down on the service which started over 10 minutes late because the BBC sound crew had been lost in the huge dunes. "I found them wandering around in the dunes and led them to the Oratory," said Mrs Fuller.
"It was an absolutely spiritual service, magical. It is a pity we couldn't go into the Oratory itself as the holy spring has flooded it, but it was wonderful weather for it, balmy, not at all cold. This place is so special, how many other places have the church of their patron saint in their own land."

The Bishop of St Germans, the Rt Rev Chris Goldsmith, praised the work of the St Piran's Trust, who, led by Eileen Carter, had worked hard to get the site of the early Christian Church excavated." They have made this a place to be seen and to be appreciated," said the Bishop.
"St Piran lived and breathed in this place. An Oratory is a place dedicated and set aside for prayer, a place where we can rediscover what it means to pray."

The service was introduced by the Rev Caspar Bush, Curate of Perranzabuloe, and included music and a song in Cornish by the group Keur heb Hanow. One verse of Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer was also sung in Cornish.
A collection was made for the St Piran's Trust towards their ongoing work to conserve the Oratory.

Read more: http://www.westbriton.co.uk/Magical-service-Songs-Praise-St-Piran-s-Oratory/story-25990667-detail/story.html#ixzz3R8wHTpea

Forgotten no more!
 
Just discovered this author. It seems that he was not always sticking close to the truth.
The following quote is quite horrific, but it doesn't match the mountaineering books that I've read. I read about many frozen toes and fingers (and even one reproductive organ) but never about eyelids.

The Italian journalist Curzio Malaparte recalled in his novel Kaputt how he had watched the German troops returning from the Eastern Front, and was in the Europeiski Café in Warsaw when "suddenly I was struck with horror and realised that they had no eyelids. I had already seen soldiers with lidless eyes, on the platform of the Minsk station a few days previously on my way from Smolensk.

"The ghastly cold of that winter had the strangest consequences. Thousands and thousands of soldiers had lost their limbs; thousands and thousands had their ears, their noses, their fingers and their sexual organs ripped off by the frost. Many had lost their hair… Many had lost their eyelids. Singed by the cold, the eyelid drops off like a piece of dead skin… Their future was only lunacy."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/...-World-War-Frozen-to-death-by-the-Fuhrer.html
 
Way back, I recall an arctic or antarctic explorer being interviewed on a teatime news programme. Out of the blue, he casually blurted out that he had just been (or was just going to be) circumcised. Better have the thing cut off than frozen off, don't you know! We choked on our crumpets! Granted it was the seventies, before they started putting condoms on bananas and all that as a pubic service. :D

You would think the hat would provide a bit of lagging but it seems it was a liability, more likely to turn gangrenous than the purple head.

Is there any evidence for the statement in the Telegraph comments that Hitler's troops were kitted out by secret Communist sympathisers? I thought not. :p
 
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JamesWhitehead said:
Way back, I recall an arctic or antarctic explorer being interviewed on a teatime news programme. Out of the blue, he casually blurted out that he had just been (or was just going to be) circumcised. Better have the thing cut off than frozen off, don't you know! We choked on our crumpets! Granted it was the seventies, before they started putting condoms on bananas and all that as a pubic service. :D

You would think the hat would provide a bit of lagging but it seems it was a liability, more likely to turn gangrenous than the purple head.
Click to expand...

Does this mean the legendary image of the loyal wife or girlfriend knitting a "willy warmer" for her partner is nothing more than an exercise in futility? It could mean double the protection. Someone get Sir Ranulph on the phone...
 
Cast your eye across a map of northern Chile and amid the Spanish and indigenous place names, one name stands out as peculiarly English.

Humberstone is a former mining town in the Atacama Desert, a few hundred kilometres from Chile's borders with Peru and Bolivia. It was named after James Humberstone, a British chemical engineer who emigrated to South America in 1875. He made his fortune from saltpetre, which was dug out of caliche - the nitrate-rich crust of the desert - and used to make fertilizer.

For a while in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, almost all the saltpetre in the world came from the Atacama Desert. It was known as "white gold" and was in huge demand in the industrialising countries of Europe, which needed fertilizer to help grow food for their rapidly expanding populations.

"During the golden age of saltpetre, from 1880 to 1930, it was monumentally important," says Julio Pinto, a historian at the University of Santiago in the Chilean capital.

"It accounted for between 60% and 80% of Chilean exports and between 40% and 60% of Chile's fiscal revenue. Chile literally lived off one product: saltpetre." ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-31090757
 
Heres a post I made on another board, the links might be of interest to some here. Post I was responding to in Italics.

quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by earwicker
I think it'd be difficult to argue with Du Bois' analysis of capitalism in his day. It's quite outdated now, though.


Outdated, yes, scholarship and analysis moves on. But its still noteworthy.

Makes me think of Class Struggle In The First French Republic by Daniel Guerin; again scholarship moves on and whilke it doesn't give a full story it still provides a good overview of the dynamics of the French Revolution. I don't think I really understood what was going on until I read that book. $135 on Amazon!

Another perhaps less dated book is The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C. L. R. James. Sadly General Humbert appears in it at the head of an army bent on the re--introduction of Slavery.

Heres an article which is an appreciation and analysis of The Black Jacobins: International Socialism: CLR James and the Black Jacobins http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=639&issue=126

A good few copies on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Jacobins-LOuverture-Revolution/dp/0679724672
 
Going right back to the OP, I grew up just a couple of minutes, if that even, from the site of the Victoria Hall Disaster. It's said that every family in the town knew of at least one child who had died. It seems to have become more commemorated in recent years, although I remember learning about it at school in Sunderland. There's a statue in the park opposite to where the building stood.

I also recall reading about ghost reports of kids appearing in the park shortly afterwards.
 
vardogr said:
Going right back to the OP, I grew up just a couple of minutes, if that even, from the site of the Victoria Hall Disaster. It's said that every family in the town knew of at least one child who had died. It seems to have become more commemorated in recent years, although I remember learning about it at school in Sunderland. There's a statue in the park opposite to where the building stood.

I also recall reading about ghost reports of kids appearing in the park shortly afterwards.
Click to expand...

That statue in Mowbray Park scares the shit outta me...! :eek:

Here is a curious one, if true... Man posts himself home to Australia as air freight.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31700049
 
After reading his story, it's a good thing he didn't have a big meal before he climbed into his crate.
 
Search launched for Crossways WW2 wall art airman's family
_81676289_81671187.jpg

The painting was found on the wall of a former YMCA hostel at RAF Warmwell

Campaigners have launched a search for the family of a World War Two airman whose painting remained hidden behind a shop's fridge for 70 years.
In 1942, Sgt Sidney Beaumont painted a gremlin in a plane on the wall of a former RAF hostel in Crossways, Dorset.
The artwork, which had come under threat amid plans to turn the building into a supermarket, was saved after a local campaign.
Local historians have said Sgt Beaumont's family tree is "a mystery".

Crossways was the site of former airbase RAF Warmwell and the shop, Tree Stores, was a YMCA hostel when airman Sgt Beaumont, of 263 Squadron, decided to paint on the wall there.
Colin Shaw and his wife Suzanne garnered support to save the unusual piece of wartime art via a Facebook page.
The artwork had been preserved over the years and was never painted over, but the bid to save it was launched when plans to turn the shop into a Co-op supermarket were revealed.

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-31904946
 
This story is not exactly forgotten, but it's not well known either - I live not far away from the site of the targeted oil tanks, and I'd never heard about this before!

Widow of hero of German bomb attack on Swanvale dies aged 98
First published Friday 13 March 2015

The Falmouth born widow of a World War Two seaman dubbed the ‘Hero of Swanvale’ has died in Seattle aged 98.
Nellie Bishop, nee Retchford, was the wife of American Bosun’s Mate Phillip Bishop, who was honoured by King George VI and American President Franklin Roosevelt for his brave actions following a bombing raid on oil tanks in Swanvale in May 1944.

The Falmouth Packet reported that after the attack, which split the tanks and sparked an inferno which was pouring towards houses in the area, chief bosun’s mate Bishop commandeered a bulldozer and, “defying the intense heat generated by the blazing tanks,” built an earth dam to block the fuel as it poured downhill.
He was awarded the British Empire Medal for his brave actions, as well as the American Navy and Marine Corps Medal.

etc...

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/new...f_German_bomb_attack_on_Swanvale_dies_agd_98/

The tanks aren't there now - they were removed recently to create land for a housing estate. The tanks were buried in the ground, so only trees and grass were visible. It was one of the last 'green lungs' of the mega-suburb that Falmouth is rapidly becoming. We used to see foxes around here, but not anymore... :(
 
A sort of follow-up to the above story is in the other local paper. But it doesn't name American Bosun’s Mate Phillip Bishop, or mention the recent death of his widow in Seattle. It does however offer a picture gallery of the fire. (Unfortunately this seems slow to work, for me anyway.)

The houses under threat from the burning fuel don't appear to be there now - I don't recognise the architectural style, and the general topography dictates where they must have been. (But I will have to go there and check.)

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Air raid on Falmouth sparks massive blaze
By DaveCDM | Posted: March 19, 2015

It may have been the final air raid on Cornwall of World War Two, but anyone who was in Falmouth on May 31st, 1944, will never forget the events of that night.

The bombs started falling at around midnight, and scored a direct hit on a 1.25 million gallon petrol tank at Swanvale.
The resulting fire burned for an incredible 22 hours, and forced the evacuation of residents when burning fuel started to flow down a nearby stream towards houses.
In the end, the heroic actions of two US servicemen who used bulldozers to dam the stream and divert the fire saved nearby homes.
The same raid saw bombs also fall on areas including Falmouth town centre, Budock Water and St Keverne in one of the heaviest attacks of the whole war.
Despite the bombardment, only three civilians were killed and 17 injured.

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/picture...aze/pictures-26199691-detail/pictures.html#10

St Keverne is on the Lizard Peninsula, and dummy dockyard lights were rigged on nearby Nare Head to decoy bombers away from the real docks in Falmouth.
 
20 March 2015 Last updated at 03:36
Isaac Newton royal medal design discovery
By Sean Coughlan Education correspondent

A student at Oxford University has discovered that a coronation medal was personally designed by Isaac Newton and includes a hidden political message.
Postgraduate student Joseph Hone found a manuscript which revealed the scientist had designed the medal for Queen Anne's coronation in 1702.
It explained the design as symbolising the dual threats of France and rival Stuart claimants to the throne.
It was described as a "really exciting discovery" by the project leader.

Researching in the National Archives in Kew, Mr Hone found Newton's handwritten account of designing the commemorative medal.
The 50-page document had been overlooked for years, he said, as the clasp holding the pages had rusted over.
The design had previously been thought to have been the work of a court painter, but the manuscript shows that Newton, who was Master of the Royal Mint at the time, was responsible.

...

Mr Hone, an English PhD student on a Oxford and Exeter university project, says the discovery casts more light on Newton's professional career and how his work moved between science, maths and humanities.
"The modern obsession with separating science and the humanities falls down when you go back a few centuries," he said.
"It's not that he didn't see them as separate, but more that he saw them as inseparable."
He says the notes show Newton switching ideas from science to maths, classical history, politics and literature.
"It tells us that Newton didn't conceive of himself as a scientist, but a master of lots of trades. The understanding of him as a great scientist is a later imposition, he would have seen himself more as a public servant."

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31965063
 
rynner2 said:
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Air raid on Falmouth sparks massive blaze
By DaveCDM | Posted: March 19, 2015

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/picture...aze/pictures-26199691-detail/pictures.html#10
Click to expand...

I went to the site of this 'massive blaze' today, and took a couple of photos of the houses there now. There was more similarity to the houses in the 1944 photos than I'd expected, but I still think they are different buildings. The wartime houses seem two-and-a-half or three stories high, whereas the present ones are only two stories. (At the side facing the stream and the blaze, that is - because of the hill slope, the uphill sides look like bungalows!)

But closer examination of the wartime pics reveals damage to the houses - broken windows and roof tiles, etc. Perhaps the heat from the fire, and the bomb blasts, had inflicted irreparable damage, and those buildings had to be pulled down.

Here's my cropped enlargement of one of the West Briton photos:

9688147FTv.jpg


If I had more of my youthful energy, I'd investigate further - there are probably still various Council records that could shed light on exactly what happened there. Maybe there's a book waiting to be written! (Ermintrude will be on to me about that last sentence! ;))

While I was at the blaze site, I took another pic, of the one-time 'tank farm', now a building site for new houses:

DSCN4110.jpg


The houses at the top of the pic have all been built in the last few years. More will follow, down the hill, alongside the new road.

(Just to get cross-threaded, this was taken as the eclipse started, and shows the hazy nature of the sky today!)
 
Bamber Gascoigne to save 500-year-old manor after 'accidental' inheritance
Bamber Gascoigne, the broadcaster, is to sell more than £2.2 million of treasures to help save West Horsley Place after 'accidentally' inheriting 50-room mansion

...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/cel...r-old-manor-after-accidental-inheritance.html

Far too long to be summed up in a paragraph, this piece includes fascinating social history, and will also be of interest to fans of antiques and auctions. Includes many photos.
 
The O’Rahilly’s famous last charge during the 1916 Rising (VIDEO)

Ninety-nine years ago this month the famous last charge of the 1916 rebellion took place when Michael Joseph O'Rahilly (22 April 1875 –29 April 1916), known as The O'Rahilly, led an assault on Moore Street against entrenched British gunners in order to allow Pádraig Pearse and the 1916leadership to escape the General Post Office (GPO) building.


Arriving at the GPO in his De Dion-Bouton motorcar, The O'Rahilly gave the most quoted lines of the Rising: "Well, I've helped to wind up the clock – I might as well hear it strike!" Another famous, if less quoted line, was his comment to Countess Markievicz "It is madness, but it is glorious madness."

O'Rahilly was an Irish republican and nationalist. He was a founding member of the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and served as Director of Arms. Despite opposing the action, he took part in the Easter Rising in Dublin and was killed in a heroic charge on the British machine-gun post covering the retreat from theGPO during the fighting. ...

http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/h...last-charge-during-the-1916-Rising-VIDEO.html

 
Cavynaut said:
Whilst searching for information on anti-German roits in Liverpool following the sinking of the Lusitania, I came across this interesting little snippet.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/gerry.jones/ ... rtels.html
Click to expand...

The centenary next month of the sinking of the great liner the Lusitania a few miles off the Irish coast in May 1915 will be a time of sad reflection for many people here.

I've been reading a new book which vividly brings to life the horror of what happened when the ship was torpedoed and over 1,000 men, women and children perished in the waters within sight of the Old Head of Kinsale in Co. Cork.

The book is "Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania," written by New York Times reporter and narrative historian Erik Larson. It's a remarkable piece of storytelling and I strongly recommend it.

Among the controversial issues raised in the book is the possibility, even the likelihood, that Winston Churchill was largely responsible for the sinking, not by any action of his but by inaction. He knew about the danger and there were a number of actions he should have taken which would have avoided the disaster, yet he deliberately did nothing. But we will come back to that in a moment. ...

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/ir...ion-for-tragic-sinking-of-the-Luisitania.html
 
Southwark Park 'ghost' station uncovered by Thameslink workers
Rail workers have discovered a south London "ghost" station which closed a century ago.

Engineers on the Thameslink Programme uncovered the former ticket hall and platforms of Southwark Park station.

The long-lost station only served passengers from 1902 to 1915 before shutting for good.

The £6.5bn Thameslink Programme is rebuilding railway lines from New Cross Gate through London Bridge to Blackfriars and St Pancras...........

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32382231
 
crystophalax said:
someone has already posted this story (perhaps more accurately) elsewhere on the site: http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/underground.1804/page-28
Click to expand...
It's one of those cross-over things. The undergound thread is about all things that are under ground, like mines and caves. But the London Underground is also - er - underground! I think there are a few L.U. threads about too. Perhaps some Mod with a free w/e would like to rationalise things a bit! Meantime, I'm happy to find lost tube stations in Forgotten history.
 
'Lost' Shropshire WW2 airfield identified with National Trust help

A conservation charity has helped a woman identify a "lost" World War Two airfield where her father flew.

Elizabeth Halls, from Herefordshire, is making a tour of 60 aerodromes where her father, Flight Lieutenant Bryan Wild, landed Defiant planes.

Mr Wild died in 2012 and Mrs Halls used his memoirs to identify the sites, one of which, named "Uppingdon", she had struggled to find.

But the National Trust believes the site was at Uckington in Shropshire.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-32453413
 
rynner2 said:
More 20s footage:

Holmans archive footage reveals a lost Cornwall
By Louise Hubball

Archive film footage dating back to the 1920s has been rediscovered in Cornwall.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8514283.stm

One part of the company remains in Camborne, Compair Holman, which makes compressed air equipment.
Click to expand...

And, five years on, I can report that Compair Holman has gone too, replaced by a new development of flats and business premises. This 2012 pic shows part of the redevelopment:

DSCN1889.jpg


In fact, there have been other changes, especially to the road layout, since this pic was taken. I'll have to go back with my camera and update!
 
Well don't just sit there - add a torch to your kit and you're set! :)
 
Something we (seem to) have forgotten how to use - a medieval "prayer wheel".



I'm thinking more along the lines of a memory, teaching or meditation aid - but maybe I've misunderstood prayer wheel?
 
Any connection to Tibetan mandalas? Saw a film on them once, they made them out of sand. I had the impression the manufacture was as much a meditation as the religious stuff that followed.
 
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