Christ Church - a picture of the age

A Picture of the Age: 1849-1999
Written by Graham Citrine to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Christ Church

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1849 - 1874
1874 - 1899
1899 - 1924
1924 - 1949
1949 - 1974
1974 - 1999

1849-1874

In 1849, when Christ Church was opened, Britain was the ‘workshop of the world’ - richer than any other two or three countries combined. In happy contrast to the excesses of her Hanoverian uncles, Victoria (still in her twenties and blissfully happy in her marriage to Albert) mirrored the simple pleasures of most of her subjects - and there were still more than 50 years of her reign to come. Guarded by her great navy, equal to any two others combined, surrounded by sea and separated from a continent torn by revolution, Britain seemed prosperous, peaceful and law-abiding. We talk today of a single currency; then, there was a currency acceptable the world over - the English sovereign, or the Bank of England notes which promised to exchange any note for its value in gold. She was the envy of other countries so that Prince Metternich, the Archconservative from Austria, Louis Philippe, the ‘citizen king’ of France, and the revolutionary Karl Marx, could all find a safe haven in Britain. The people, though poor and disadvantaged by modern standards, were generally better fed, clothed and housed than ever before in history. Prices were stable or falling, wages were stable or rising: the British truly believed that they were blessed by God, and parents could teach their children with confidence:

‘I thank the Goodness and the Grace

Which on my birth has smiled,

And made me in these Christian days,

A happy English child.’

The Prime Minister in 1849 was Lord John Russell, younger son of the Duke of Bedford; his Foreign Secretary was Lord Palmerston -’those two dreadful old men’ as Victoria called them. Both born in the 18th Century, they were to dominate politics until the 1860s. They had supported the extension of the vote to the middle classes, but were reluctant to go further, agreeing to change at home only with the greatest misgiving. They were to be followed by Lord Aberdeen, Lord Derby, then again, Lord Palmerston in the 1850s and early 1860s -the House of Lords still provided most of Britain’s leaders. But waiting impatiently for his time was the young Gladstone, son of a Liverpool cotton merchant - the industrial middle classes were about to replace the aristocracy as Britain’s leaders.

Income Tax, introduced in the 1840s by Robert Peel, was 7d (3.5p) in the £ on incomes above £150 p.a. - and this was virtually the only major tax in Britain. It was to fall to 4d in the £ under Gladstone, who had hoped to dispense with it entirely to make Britain the only comparatively tax-free country in the world, but his dream was never realised.

In 1867 the Conservative Benjamin Disraeli gave the vote to the working man in the towns, and these elected Gladstone to office in 1868. "I come to you unmuzzled" he declared. In the following six years he introduced a series of reforms he believed necessary to advance Britain towards the 20th Century. A High Church Anglican, his chief supporters were the non-conformist voters in the industrial towns and in South Wales. His Whig Party was now universally known as the ‘Liberal’ Party because of its support for total freedom of trade with the rest of the world. Gladstone truly believed that if all countries traded freely and openly then there would be universal trust and inter-dependence so that wars would finish for ever; there would be no need for expensive armies or navies; the money saved could be used to advance the people morally and economically. He believed that this was the Christian way for the modern world, and truly believed that he was doing God’s will. "I do not object to Gladstone’s always having the Ace of Trumps up his sleeve," said a contemporary, "but only to his belief that God has put it there." A shy man who could only relax happily with his beloved wife and family, Gladstone was not a favourite of Victoria. "He speaks to me as if I were a public meeting," she complained, and he was never invited to sit in her presence. Nevertheless, the people loved him for his honesty; he became the ‘Grand Old Man’, the ‘People’s William’. He hoped to remove Irish grievances by reforming the Church of Ireland and the ownership of land, thus bringing Ireland into the forefront of British politics, where it still remains; he opened up he Civil Service and the Army to men of ability rather than birth,; entrance to the Civil Service was by examination as was entry to Sandhurst; the Universities were opened to Non-Conformists; Trade Unions were legalised; married women were allowed to keep their property rather than surrender it to their husband - they were no longer ‘his chattel’; vote by ballot meant that voters need not fear the displeasure of employer or landlord; and perhaps most important of all - compulsory education for all - ‘we must educate our masters’. School Boards were set up in towns to build Council Schools, but until enough were built, churches continued to provide basic education. In our own church hall 760 children were taught under the stern eye of the Headmistress sitting on her platform, until the school on Borough Road was opened in the 1880s. Many non-conformists objected to sending their children to C of E Schools - and having to pay for the privilege; education was not free, only the poorest received free education, others had to pay a small sum weekly, perhaps 2d or 3d a week, or more, depending on the father’s income, paid on the Monday morning. My mother born in 1890 attended St. John’s School in Birkenhead and her stern welsh, non-conformist mother would send her to school on Monday morning without her weekly 3d. Monday was the day for serious religious education – possibly building on the foundation of the previous day – but mother was sent home for her ‘school money’. Once at home, she would be required to help with the family washing and to run errands, returning to school only when her mother was sure that C of E teaching had ended; mother hated the humiliation of it but she was not alone – others (always the girls) were treated similarly – of what use was education to a future wife and mother ? My Grandfather, born in 1863, was one who benefited greatly. He too attended the church school, starting at the age of 7 and leaving at 11! The criteria for leaving was that a pupil had to have the basics of the ‘3 R’s’: this granddad had achieved and he was needed to work in the uncertain industrial climate beginning in 1874. His first job was with the firm of ‘Moorhouses’ – a soft-drinks firm which sold herbal drinks – Nettle Beer, Dandelion and Burdock etc. in brown stone flagons taken round the streets on horse-drawn carts – some may remember the Birkenhead Company. Granddad’s job was to wash the returned flagons under a cold water tap (hygiene at its most basic) and scrape off the label with a blunt knife. For this he was paid 1/6d (7.5 p) for a five and a half day week. That sum would provide three meals for a normal family. Whenever he wrote a letter he would always use the small ‘I’ rather than the capital. When I, with my grammar school education, and with the arrogance of youth, tried to point out his mistake, he demanded, ‘Why ?’ and I could not explain why. ‘Right’, he said, with a look of utter contempt for my lack of education, ‘until you tell me why, I’ll do it my way.’

How did people amuse themselves? Drink was very cheap and there was no restriction on children: mothers took their babies with them and if the infant cried, then a finger dipped in the gin and given to the baby to suck was a sure way of inducing sleep, while the baby was introduced to alcohol at an early age. The Music Hall was at first a Public House, where a singer or comedian would entertain the customers: as a result such entertainment was not for the respectable! But the true theatre was acceptable after the Queen was known to have visited a London theatre.

The great entertainment, however, was reading - although only about 40% of the population could read. The practice was for stories to be read aloud; with the restricted lighting available, only the reader needed sufficient light, the listeners sat in the gloom - which no doubt helped create the atmosphere for many of the stories. The most important book was the Bible of course, followed by Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim’s Progress. Books of sermons had a wide sale, often to clergymen who simply read one out each Sunday, thus saving themselves the burden of writing a sermon. (There is no evidence of this practice at Christ Church!) Poetry was also widely read and enjoyed. Wordsworth was the Poet Laureate in 1849, but he was no longer the giant of former years, he was long past his earlier greatness so that it could be written:

Two voices are there…one is of the deep…..

And one is of an old half-witted sheep ..........

And Wordsworth, both are thine."

The most popular true poet was Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose ‘In Memoriam’ was selling three or four editions a year after its publication in 1850. But he was easily outsold by Martin Tupper, a poet never heard of today but whose ‘Proverbial Philosophy, a Book of Thoughts and Arguments Originally Treated’, sold by the million. Many books were of the moralising kind - the Rev. L. Richmond’s "The Dairyman’s Daughter" sold more than 2 million copies: it tells of a girl who on becoming a Christian then converts her mother, father and sister before death carries them all off. Herman Melville’s "Moby Dick" was a book read by men only, it being described as being ‘reprehensible throughout, . . . not the work to be seen by any mother in the hands of her daughter, and as such not suitable to lie on the drawing room table.’ The most popular novelists were Thackeray and Dickens, both of whose work was published in weekly parts before being offered in book form. Thackeray’s "Vanity Fair" sold in its thousands, but Dickens sold his in tens of thousands. "Dombey and Son" sold at the rate of 30,000 a month and "David Copperfield" , after a slow start, at 40,000 a month. In 1848 W.H. Smith opened his station bookstalls, following them in 1849 with his cheap lending library, with books being lent at 1d each, thus offering books to a wider public than ever before. But by far the greatest sales were achieved by the ‘Penny-dreadfuls’ - Gothic Horror novels with intriguing titles: "The Skeleton Clutch or the Goblet of Blood", "Fatherless Fanny or the Mysterious Orphan", both written by Thomas Prest, whose most famous work was "Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street". One of the most notorious of these books "Varney the Vampire or the Feast of Blood" ran for more than 200 chapters, and was a book which made Bram Stoker’s "Dracula" seem like a nursery story. No respectable person bought these - they were bought by servants and young people, no doubt to be confiscated by the stern father or master - and read secretly by them !

Children’s books were equally stern and moralising in their content. Children had to learn that life was hard and to be endured. "I’m five years old today, Father," said the young child. "Five years nearer to your death, my boy," was the reply. "Pilgrim’s Progress" was a favourite story with children, as was "Robinson Crusoe". A book for Christmas in 1849 was "The City Apprentices or Industry and Idleness Exemplified" by the Rev. T. Murray, and written for 5 -8 year olds. It tells of Thomas Idle and Francis Goodchild. The latter becomes Lord Mayor of London, while the former was brought to execution at Tyburn - the young child would be familiar with public executions, even if he had never seen one. But to be fair, in the same year there was also "Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales" with most of the familiar stories and Hans Andersen’s "Wonderful Stories for Children!

Children also played board games – draughts, chess, backgammon were of course well-established games going back several centuries, but other games were now appearing – Snakes and Ladders was introduced – the child having to experience defeat or disappointment when near to victory – there were more snakes on the top line of the board than anywhere else; this game, like so many others, came from India, now an important trading area for Britain. The British love of horse racing was also featured – and again I am sure that many remember this game played on a board showing an oval track, with various hazards to be overcome – falling into the ditch, being unseated etc. The Victorians could never resist giving a moral or educational purpose to their games and this is well illustrated in the Geography game where players must travel through Europe visiting towns and cities, each of which carried a description of some point of interest – e.g. ‘Lyons, the second city of France – remain for one turn to see its silk manufacture in which more than100,000 people are employed’. ‘Warsaw, the capital of Poland, a large city but very dirty. Go back to Ratisbon and complain to the Imperial Diet’. Finally – ‘London – the capital of Britain and her Empire; the greatest city in the world’.

In 1850, Darwin’s "Origin of the Species" was published, leading to great anger and furore in the Church, as it seemed to deny the truth of the Bible. In time, most Christians were able to reconcile its teaching with their theology and it did cause people to examine their beliefs rather than accept them unquestioningly.

Sport was the province of the wealthy; professional sport was not yet available to attract the ordinary man, who had neither the time nor the money to indulge. Horse racing was popular – Derby Day being one of the great social occasions for both rich and poor in the South while the Grand National played a similar part in the North.. Bare-knuckle fighting also attracted rich and poor - but only the less respectable elements. Fights continued until one fighter was unable to continue. Rounds continued until a man was knocked down, his seconds then having a minute to ‘bring him up to scratch’ - the line drawn in the centre of the ring. Though illegal, Britain produced the world champions at this sport until an Irish-American, John L Sullivan , took the title to become the last bare-knuckle champion of the world. He in turn was to lose it to another Irish-American, ‘Gentleman Jim’ Corbett who later lost the title to Robert Fitzsimmons, ‘Ruby Robert’, a Cornishman and the last native-born Englishman to hold the heavyweight title. These fights were fought under the rules laid down by the Marquis of Queensberry – fighters to wear padded gloves, rounds to last no more than three minutes, and if a fighter was knocked down, he had only 10 seconds to rise to his feet, by his own efforts, no help given by his seconds.

Whether it could be called entertainment is doubtful, but a public execution was still the great draw for crowds. The execution of John Gleeson in Liverpool drew a crowd of more than 100,000, the railways laying on special cheap excursion trains for the event in 1849

Fox hunting was the sport for the wealthy, though the poor enjoyed the spectacle as hunt followers. There is an apocryphal story that the Rector of Woodchurch was accosted by one of his parishioners: "Good Morning, Rector; I am sorry to say that you will not be going to heaven when you die for you are not a Christian."

"I am sorry to hear that. Why not ?"

"Because I heard that you had shot a fox, and no Christian would ever do such a thing. Good day, Sir!"

Religion was important and could raise passions. When the Pope decreed that he was about to establish Roman Catholic Sees with Bishops and Archbishops in Britain, there were cries of ‘No Popery!’ A Liverpool Vicar called for the death penalty for any who accepted a title from the Pope or for any priest who heard Confession. It was suggested that any person accepting such a title from a foreign ruler was a traitor and guilty of High Treason. Lord Russell was forced to introduce an Ecclesiastical Titles Bill refusing the establishment of Popish titles. The Bill was never enforced, the titles came in, Catholics did not become traitors and the Bill was quietly repealed later by Gladstone.

In 1850 British pride was shaken when the Cowes Yacht Race was won by the American yacht "America", defeating the best Britain could produce. Now, 150 years later, the ‘America’s Cup’ has still not been returned to Britain, despite many attempts.

In the same year it was proposed that Britain should stage a ‘Great Exhibition’ to show her achievements to the world. Presided over by Prince Albert, it was to be housed in the Crystal Palace, conceived by Joseph Paxton, who in 1847 had designed Birkenhead Park, the first Municipal Public Park in the world. The Crystal Palace shows Victorian England at its best - nothing was impossible if one had confidence and trust. At a cost of only £79,000, it covered more than 18 acres, was more than a quarter of a mile in length, and over 100 feet high. From the time that the design was accepted to its erection, the building took only 22 weeks! [Compare this with the £750 million and years of construction of the Millennium Dome!] It was a beautiful building, light and airy, graceful and well-proportioned. To try to describe all of its exhibits would require a book to itself, though not all objects were useful - there was a cast-iron pram weighing close to 4 cwt and a knife with more than 100 blades which made the present Swiss Army knife seem simple by comparison. Of interest to us at Christ Church was the great ‘Father Willis’ organ of 4,500 pipes, built especially for the exhibition by the premier organ builder in Britain (and therefore by implication in the world) - a fore-runner of our own magnificent instrument.

Thousands visited the Exhibition, the railways running cheap excursion trains to bring people from all over the country to London: the days when a person was born, lived and died in the same village were ending for ever. The profits from the Exhibition were used to build the Royal Albert Hall as a major concert hall for the capital and also the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The 1840s saw a change in fashions. In the Regency period and after, men had dressed in bright clothing - plum reds, greens, blues, with large brass buttons, and they were usually clean-shaven. Now, in the new, hard-working prosperous Britain, men would dress in sober black with a forbidding top hat squarely on the head; beards lent an air of severity, age and dignity. Look at the stern, unsmiling faces of our 19th Century vicars compared with the gentler appearance of the 20th Century incumbents in the photographs displayed at the back of Church. Indoors, a gentleman would wear a smoking jacket and cap, it being believed that the smell of tobacco on clothes would be too much for the delicate sensitivity of the ladies! The whole effect was soberly rich and solid, but rather dull and not a little pompous.

It was the ladies who showed the brighter side of fashion - the ‘good wife’ was one who stayed at home to manage the house and its servants. Their clothes reflected their husband’s wealth and position, and they appeared over-dressed and fussy. The crinoline had not yet come in, so in the 1850s a lady would dress in at least four petticoats, one of them being of a heavy stiffened material and others starched to give them strength to support a huge dress of 3 to 4 yards of material in the skirt alone. Add to this the fashion for very tight stays of whalebone and it was understandable that women fainted in the heat of summer, giving them the reputation of being the ‘weaker sex’. The narrow waist was the height of fashion, the smallest recorded being a mere 13 inches. It was chiefly the wealthier ladies who followed this fashion – a working woman would find it impossible to work if she were constricted in this way. The price was paid in the health of these young ladies and by their children for many babies were born with deformities - dislocated hips, curved spines etc. By the 1860s the crinoline had been invented, a sort of cage of steel and bone which reduced the need of heavy petticoats. Its disadvantage was its tendency to rise up in a strong wind, or if one sat down suddenly and carelessly, much to the embarrassment of the wearer, for even the showing of an ankle was considered risque at this time. I imagine they would be a major problem in our church with its narrow aisles and very narrow pew seats. Imagine a Victorian family of mother, father and three or four children sitting in one of our pews on a hot summer’s day and one can have real sympathy as well as admiration for the Victorians. Ladies’ dresses also became brighter. The discovery of aniline dyes in the 1850s led to very bright scarlets, greens, yellows, almost any colour imaginable conceived by the scientist in his laboratory. The reserved softer colours produced by vegetable dyes were disappearing in the face of stronger colours. In 1859 the Empress Eugenie of France celebrated her husband’s victory over the Austrians by wearing a huge crinoline dress in a purplish-red colour, called Magenta after the battle. Victoria and Albert’s love of Scotland was reflected in an outburst of colourful tartans, using the new dyes; tartans never known by any clan appeared everywhere. Prince Albert designed his own ‘Balmoral’ tartan, to be worn at the house he had designed as a summer home. Visitors were startled by rooms where the carpet, upholstery and wallpaper were all in various shades of tartan - it was known to give sensitive people a headache simply sitting there. By the 1870s the size of women’s dresses had become ridiculous and with the change to flat fronted dresses with the crinoline reduced to a small cage drawn round the back, known as the bustle, dresses became lighter and easier for movement.

In order to dress as they did, ladies needed a servant. Even modest families had at least one servant. A housemaid/general servant would earn £12 p.a. for a 15 hour day and one afternoon off per month; a cook/general received £30 p.a.; a kitchen maid £5 and a bootboy £6. For less than £100 a year, a moderately wealthy family could have five or six servants to do all the everyday chores, and most families with £2 or £3 a week had at least one servant. Servants had to ‘know their place’ - hence the existence of ‘free’ pews in the balconies at Church - here sat the servants, their entrance being the side doors now seldom used, while their master and mistress used the main doors on Bessborough Road and at the West End.

Few people bought houses, most rented. A good family house with out-buildings and servants quarters would cost £30 a year; a cheaper house with room for one servant would be £15 p.a. First class travel by boat and train to Paris was £1.8s.0d. (£1.40p). First class to New York with all meals was £25-£30.

In the country, ‘Hiring Fairs’ still remained: farm workers would stand in a line to be hired for the year; farmers out-bid each other for the young, fit, skilled man whose reputation would be well-known. He would be offered a cottage for his family and pay could reach £30-£40 a year for a very good man. As a worker grew older, however, his value fell; the most pitiful were the very old who might be hired to do the simplest work, his pay being a simple bed in the barn and his meals. If no work was forthcoming, then the Workhouse awaited - the ultimate disgrace for any poor person. The aim of the workhouse was to make life so unpleasant inside that any work was better than entering one of these places. With Victorian prosperity in the middle of the century, there was full employment for all, so the workhouse would stand empty unless filled with orphans or the very old, people for whom they were not designed. For an old person to enter a workhouse meant permanent separation between husband and wife, except to see each other in the church on Sunday, and also the recognition that they had no-one to care for them, they were at the bottom of the heap. Even life in prison was better, for in prison there were new rules concerning food, the provision of books, some exercise and social mixing with fellow inmates, and even the chance to earn a little money for luxuries by sewing mail bags - and also one could leave prison without having to die to obtain freedom.

In 1840 the ‘Penny Post’ was introduced: this encouraged the use of the mail to send letters and a new phenomenon, the Christmas card. As the first stamp in the world, the British had no need to distinguish their stamps from others, so that the British stamp, unlike others, had no need to state the name of the country - and this continues to the present day. Again, the increase in communication meant that the old barriers between people were breaking down.

Following the Great Exhibition, it seemed as if a change had occurred - life became less secure, doubts and worries began to appear. In 1854 the Crimean War ended 40 years of peace - the longest period of European peace since the Middle Ages. Britain and France united to keep Russia away from the Mediterranean. There was no doubt that the Western Countries would win against the most backward country in Europe, but it was the manner of winning. The war should have been over within six months, instead it lasted for two years. Officers who had been young subalterns in 1815 were now General Officers, without the experience of commanding armies in battle; there was confusion over supplies - an order for 10,000 pairs of boots was carried out, but while 10,000 right boots sailed for the Crimea, 10,000 left boots followed three months later - by which time the right boots had been lost! Men froze in tattered uniforms while greatcoats and blankets rotted in stores three miles away. The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava showed that courage still remained, but it showed also that ‘someone had blundered’. The news of the suffering of the wounded at the hospital at Scutari reached the British people by the new electric telegraph, so that the day’s news could be read the next morning. It resulted in Florence Nightingale and her devoted band of nurses going to the Crimea and the death rate in the hospital falling from 85% to below 20% simply by the provision of cleanliness and comfort. She returned a heroine, to start her Royal School of Nursing at St.Thomas’s Hospital, to put Britain in the forefront of nursing training. The war saw the introduction of an award for gallantry - the Victoria Cross, the bronze medal made from the guns captured from the Russians at Balaclava. But British self-confidence, so evident in 1851, had been shaken. It was to be shaken even more in 1857 with the Indian Mutiny, which led to the Government’s having to take responsibility for control of the sub-continent from the East India Company.

Further wars followed, both on the continent and overseas. Britain was not directly involved, but the results were to affect her status. In 1859, France helped Italy to defeat Austria, and Italy appeared as a new kingdom. The war is noteworthy for the Battle of Solferino when Henri Dunant saw the suffering of the defeated Austrian wounded left to die on the battlefield, causing him to start the Red Cross, dedicated to helping anybody in need and with its HQ in Geneva.

In 1861 the American Civil War began, in theory over slavery but in fact over world trade - the industrial North of America wanted to erect barriers to British trade to protect its own markets. The cotton-growing South favoured free-trade with Britain, its biggest customer for cotton picked by slaves. The Government, in theory, was neutral, but in fact favoured the South; the workers supported the North, which they saw as fighting slavery. Ill-feeling came from the launch of a Laird’s built ship, "The Alabama", which for nearly two years destroyed Northern shipping. There was no danger of war - the U.S.A. would never risk a war with Britain whilst fighting her own bitter war, but the North’s victory in 1865 meant that Britain lost many of her markets in the U.S.A. On the credit side, the exploits of the ‘Alabama’ won for Laird’s a reputation for excellent ships which served them well in the future. This war was noteworthy in many ways - it saw the first battle at sea between ‘ironclads’, marking the end of the wooden sailing ship on which Britain’s sea domination had rested; it also saw the advent of trench warfare, and attacks on the civilian population as the weakest element in an adversary. The first appearance of machine guns and the breech-loading rifle, the importance of railways for the swift movement of men and materials – all these should have provided lessons for the future, but few military men recognised their importance. The war also led to massive unemployment in Britain, the first sign that industrial prosperity was not guaranteed. With no unemployment pay, suffering in the new industrial towns was widespread and the numbers were so great that the workhouses could not accommodate them all, so that food had to be given outside the system.

In the 1860’s also, Prussia became the new leader of Germany, defeating Denmark, France and Austria to unite all the German States into a new German Empire under the King of Prussia, now to be known as the Kaiser. This new Germany in turn began to industrialise itself and in so doing closed its markets to British goods - again, unemployment began to grow in the manufacturing towns. France became a Republic following this war, her ex-emperor, Napoleon III, coming to Britain where he was kindly received by the Queen. He died shortly afterwards, his son, the Prince Imperial, was killed later serving in the British army in Africa. His widow, the elegant Eugenie, lived on in Britain until the 1920’s and until recently, there was a lady living in Oxton who had been a personal maid to the Empress, keeping her portrait beside her bed. My wife, a District Nurse, had treated her and learned of her history. In this war, the French , worried by the tendency of butter to ‘go off’ in the hot weather, had produced a butter-substitute made from vegetable oil to which they gave the name ‘margeron’ meaning ‘pearl’ – hence our margarine. In each of these wars, the Prussians had won swiftly and spectacularly by careful planning – having their troops in the right place at the right time and destroying the opposition in a single battle. The conviction grew that to win wars, the Prussian pattern was to be followed – guaranteeing a short sharp victorious war.

For France, the great desire was for revenge; for the newly-united Germany there was the belief that success could be won by war rather than peaceful negotiation: the seeds of the future World War were sown.

The wars divided the Royal Family: Prince Albert had always favoured a united Germany under Prussian rule; his beloved eldest child, Vicky, had married the Crown Prince of Prussia and Albert hoped for a liberal parliamentary Prussia to be a co-equal of Britain, the two to control the world. Albert died in 1861, causing Victoria unimagined grief and despair. She retired almost completely from public life, retiring to Windsor or to Osborne in the Isle of Wight, where portraits, busts and statues of Albert were in every room and Albert’s valet continued to lay out his clothes, prepare his bath and shaving water as always. Victoria continued to sign state papers and place them on Albert’s desk, as always, and when she dined alone or with family, Albert’s place was laid at table. All male children and grandchildren carried the name of Albert and she believed that this would be the name for all future British kings. Because of this she tended to favour the Prussian cause. Her son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, loved France and the French, and he was married to the beautiful Alexandra (the Princess Di of that time), Princess of Denmark, they tended to be anti-Prussian as a result. Though fond of his sister and brother-in-law, he had no time for his nephew, the young Prince William. Because of Victoria’s retirement from public life, the Prince of Wales set up his own rather raffish court, and for the first time in Victorian Britain murmurs of republicanism began to be heard.

So, at the end of our first 25 years, the prosperity and confidence of the 1840s had been replaced by unease and a growing industrial slump, with widespread unemployment, whispers of republicanism, and a lack of certainty for the future. In 1874, Gladstone was defeated in the election, and was replaced by Benjamin Disraeli and a Conservative Government to try to re-establish that old confidence.
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1874-1899

The second twenty-five year period in the life of Christ Church witnessed so many important changes that it becomes difficult to decide what to include and what may be safely left out.

Perhaps the most significant changes relevant to our lives took place in the condition of the people, particularly the women. In the earlier years of the century, indeed throughout history, women from middle-class, fairly prosperous, homes, stayed at home to learn the skills of being a housewife and mother. Poorer women had always worked because they had to - there was no room for a non-wage earner in a working-class family: women as well as children were expected to provide a small amount to the family budget. Indeed, there was a great deal of resentment in many working class households at the introduction of compulsory education, for it stopped young children contributing to the family income. One of the reasons for the extended summer holiday throughout August, which still remains, was not to give children a time of rest in the sun - May and June were better times for that - but to free them for work on the farms to bring in the harvest; without that provision the Act might not have been passed.

The period beginning in 1874 saw a time of unemployment; I have mentioned earlier the need for my Grandfather to leave school to earn his living at the age of 11. It was the aim of all boys at the age of 14 to become apprenticed to a trade which would give some guarantee of employment as a skilled worker. At that age, therefore, my grandfather was fortunate in gaining an apprenticeship on the railway as a plumber, but in order to take up the post, he had to report at Preston in Lancashire at 8 a.m. Accordingly, his mother woke him at 3 a.m. and by 4 o’clock he was on his way - the ferry across the Mersey was 1d, he then walked to Exchange Station in Liverpool, not to catch the train – such luxuries were beyond the family finances – but to walk to Preston, some 25 to 30 miles away, by following the railway line. He arrived in time to be taken on and of course, once he was a railway employee, he was allowed free travel on the railways for the rest of his life, rising to become a master-plumber with the old L.M.S. Railway and taking great pride in his work – I can remember as a child being taken by him to the Gents’ Lavatories on Chester Station and having all the elaborate plumbing work explained – I visited it years later with my own children and as far as I could see it was still working unchanged from when my grandfather had first installed it more than eighty years before. One wonders how many young people of today would be prepared to walk 25 miles to ensure their employment.

However, one of the results of the Education Act was to create a pressing need for educated women with their greater understanding of and patience with young children to become teachers - teachers who would be prepared to work for a lower rate of pay than men. (It was not until the middle of our own century that women teachers were given equal pay with men.) It became a ‘respectable’ job for daughters of the lower middle-class.

Respectable work, also in offices when the typewriter was invented. Before that all letters and their copies were painstakingly written out by hand in ‘copperplate’ handwriting by male copy clerks - every office had two or three such young men. With the coming of the typewriter, one reasonably educated young woman, using carbon papers, could type two or three times more letters, plus copies, than had previously been written by the copy clerks. Add to this the coming of the telephone - by the early 1880’s a telephone exchange was set up in London and by the 1890’s the instrument had spread throughout the country -and the need was for young ladies with the greater dexterity of their sex to carry out this new work. For the first time, women were going out to work not necessarily for economic reasons but because they wanted to, and soon preferred the greater freedom and independence this gave to them. In time, this independence was to lead to their demand for the vote - but not yet!

One of the inevitable results of these changes in employment was a change to a more sensible form of dress. It would be impossible for a crinoline-clad lady to sweep around a schoolroom or office. The crinoline disappeared, remaining for a short time as the bustle, a small cage at the back of the dress, but this too disappeared very quickly in the 1880’s. Dresses now, though long, conformed to the general shape of the figure and therefore became the basis for modern fashion. Dresses were lighter and more comfortable, and this trend was increased further with the growth in sport for young ladies.

Croquet and Archery had long been acceptable out-door pursuits of both men and women, but the more energetic sports were confined to the men. In the 1870’s Lawn Tennis was introduced - known at first as ‘Sphairistike’. In 1877 the Wimbledon championships began for both men and women, and though by no means as energetic as the present day game it did require ladies to move fairly quickly about the court and this in turn demanded a greater freedom of movement in dresses light enough and designed for the purpose. And of course, once women experienced the new freedom there was no going back to the old ways.

Perhaps the greatest boost for the freedom of women was the invention of the ‘Safety Bicycle’. The upper-classes were accustomed to ride horses, but the bicycle - a development of the ‘velocipede’ or hobby-horse of the early century - was to give mobility to the middle-classes. The early bicycles were known as the ‘ordinary’ or ‘Penny-farthing’, dangerous machines ridden only by daring young men - and quite unacceptable for women. But by 1888, the safety bicycle using a chain to drive the wheels, and with Dunlop’s new pneumatic tyres, meant comfortable, easy-to-ride machines for both sexes. The freedom to explore the countryside cheaply and easily again gave a freedom to all, but particularly to young women, never known before in history. Again, this led to lighter, more suitable clothing - there was a move for women to copy the knickerbockers favoured by men, but these were seen as unseemly. Instead, ladies’ cycles had the cross bar lowered so that they could ride in their long skirts.

The 1880’s saw another significant step forward in transport, for in Germany Benz produced a carriage driven by a petrol engine - he named the vehicle ‘Mercedes’ after his daughter. In 1888, Gottfried Daimler, another German, patented the internal combustion engine, and the Motor Age had begun. Britain was not in the forefront here because of a law which demanded that any horseless carriage could travel no faster than 4 miles per hour and must be preceded by a man carrying a red flag.

This dated back to the early century when steam carriages had overturned at speed or had frightened horses. It was not until 1896 that the law was repealed and it was celebrated by car enthusiasts with a rally from London to Brighton in November of that year. In 1897 the Royal Automobile Club was founded to encourage the use of cars, but most cars in Britain came from Europe, particularly from France. It would not be until the next century that British cars began to appear. What the introduction of the car showed was that Britain was no longer in the forefront of new design and technology: she was facing challenges - more of this later.

In the 1870’s, the Bank Holiday Act had decreed that Easter Monday, Whit Monday, the first Monday in August, and Boxing Day were to be universal holidays in addition to Christmas Day and Good Friday. Also, many employers were allowing their workers an annual holiday, often with pay. The working-class man had leisure time unknown in the past. In addition to Bank Holidays, there came the practice of the five and a half day week - Saturday afternoon became a time for relaxation. This was partly to avoid the practice of Monday absenteeism - ‘St. Monday’ as it became known. Saturday afternoon became the time for watching sport, particularly football. Association Football had its roots in the Public Schools, its laws being drawn up by Cambridge students in 1863. In 1871 the F.A. Cup was established, its first winners being amateur teams, and this continued for the next 12 years until 1883 when Blackburn Rovers won. By the 1880’s most large towns and cities had a football team. Where there was a strong Irish element there could be two teams - one supported by the Catholics and one by the Protestants, as happened in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. Professionalism came in because working-class men could not give up time and money to train and to play. Rugby, named after the School where it was first played, also divided into professional and amateur codes - Rugby Union remaining strictly amateur until this century, Rugby League being the professional version of the game.

Class prejudice was seen in the descriptions of these games, professionalism being seen as something with which no gentleman would involve himself. Association Football, ‘Soccer’, was described as a gentleman’s game played by hooligans; Rugby Union as a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen; Rugby League as a hooligan’s game played by hooligans.

The same prejudices existed in cricket where again there was a strict divide between amateur and professional. Cricket was more of a rich man’s game because of the time needed to play and to watch - sometimes over several days. It may be that one of the causes of England’s decline as a cricketing nation is the present reliance on one-day, limited overs matches which are exciting and draw in the spectators but which do not produce batsmen who can stay at the wicket for several hours, taking the shine of the bowling. In the 1870’s and 80’s, W.G. Grace was the colossus of English cricket. A Gloucestershire doctor, he was as well-known by his initials as W.E. Gladstone himself; many of his records remain to the present day. The Captain of England and every County Captain was an amateur. In reports in the papers, amateurs were always distinguished by the prefix ‘Mr’. Professionals were simply called by their surnames, followed by initials. Many county grounds had two dressing rooms -one for ‘gentlemen’ and one for ‘players’, and separate gates for them to enter or leave the pavilion. It was taken for granted that England would win any match against any opposition, so when a visiting Australian team defeated England by 7 runs in 1882 there appeared an obituary in the ‘Sporting Times’ declaring that English cricket had died, had been cremated, and its ashes taken to Australia - thus starting the famous Test series which still continues. Working-class cricketers played their games in parks and on village greens on Saturday afternoons. [I can remember in the 1930’s a gentleman who insisted on walking across the pitch whenever Birkenhead Park were playing to assert his right to walk in the public park wherever and whenever he wished - the players used to applaud him, then carry on with the game.}

In 1896, Baron de Coubertin began the Modern Olympic Games in Athens, basing his ideal on the English Public School amateurism. Very few countries entered. Indeed an English visitor to Athens attended the Games and was asked to represent Britain in the Long Jump. He agreed, found some suitable clothing which he borrowed from another athlete, went into the arena and won the Olympic title! That is when the Games were truly amateur. These early games included sports such as tug-of-war – again, usually won by the British; it is interesting to remember that until the Montreal games in 1976, Britain led the world in the number of Olympic Medals held. Since then, of course, she has been overtaken by the USA and by Soviet Russia, and at each new series of games, continues to fall further behind.

Another innovation of greater leisure time was the annual seaside holiday. As more people were granted holiday time, so resorts began to grow, dedicated to the holiday-maker. Employers were beginning to realise that workers worked more efficiently, were more contented and loyal, if they were treated properly. In 1871 there had been only 48 seaside towns designated as holiday places: by 1891 there were more than 200. Most followed a pattern - promenade, large hotels or boarding houses, pier (so people could ‘go to sea’ without the discomfort of seasickness), often a fairground or other amusements, small shops selling anything the holiday maker might want – buckets and spades for the children, shrimping nets, beach balls, and that unique English treat – seaside rock with the name of the resort printed through the middle - nowhere else does that particular sweet occur, it takes its place with Humbugs, and Liquorice Allsorts. as typically English sweets. Sea bathing became popular, but for obvious reasons men and women no longer bathed in the nude (on separate beaches or at different times of course). Instead, voluminous costumes were worn and changing took place in the bathing hut, which would then be pulled into the water so that there was no threat to modesty. It also saw the innovation of the seaside postcard - a cheap and easy way to let others know of your good fortune, the card always showing the resort at its best with no clouds or rain visible. It also saw the beginning of the comic postcard, possibly unique to Britain. Most view cards came from Germany and by the turn of the century several hundred million cards were being sent annually, often with the same message - ‘Wish you were here!’ In Lancashire, where the Wakes weeks allowed a week’s holiday to the cotton workers, the resort of Blackpool began to grow, and also the more refined Southport. Indeed, many resorts had their popular areas and their more respectable part, so that Brighton had Hove, Blackpool had St. Anne’s, and New Brighton had Harrison Drive, etc.

There was certainly a need to escape the towns: a description of London in the late 1870’s by a visiting Frenchman will, I am sure, bring back memories of the English Sunday - "Sunday in London in the rain: all the shops are shut, the streets deserted, the aspect is of an immense well-ordered cemetery ...... There is water everywhere, water impregnated with an odour of soot. A yellowish fog fills the air ..... after an hour’s walk in London on a Sunday, one contemplates suicide." To improve on this, public parks were established, and on Sundays there would always be a brass band playing popular tunes while the people walked slowly along, dressed in their Sunday best - again, a picture which must bring back memories to many, for the custom continued until 1939.

The Music Hall was becoming more respectable rather than a mere drinking place. Its performers were also now accepted into society - performers such as Albert Chevalier (‘My Old Dutch’), Vesta Tilley, Tom Costello (‘After the Ball’) and others were invited to perform before Royalty itself (but not Marie Lloyd, the most popular singer, who was considered far too vulgar).

Drinking of alcohol was still an escape for many: most streets in working-class areas had their corner public house. Prices were cheap - mild beer was 4d a quart, best Burton Bitter 3d a pint. Figures show that in the 1870’s spirits consumption was 1.3 gallons per head, and beer 34.4 gallons. When one considers the number of non-drinkers in the many Temperance Societies, then the drinkers must have taken in huge amounts of this liquor. Not surprisingly, William Booth’s Salvation Army took its fight directly into the public houses, where it waged it greatest battles, winning for itself at the same time huge admiration for its courage. No publican ever stopped its members from selling its "War Cry" in the pubs on a Saturday night.

What were people reading at this time? George Eliot was at her height, her greatest novel, ‘Middlemarch’, selling hundreds of thousands in its cheap edition; Dickens, despite the fact that he had died in 1870, continued to sell by the million. His only rival was Mrs Henry Wood, whose ‘East Lynne’ ("Gone, gone, and never called me mother!") also sold more than a million and was turned into a popular play. Ouida, whose ‘Under Two Flags’ gave exaggerated descriptions of other countries, was also popular, though not quite respectable. The new Education Act meant that more people could read, and this led to cheap editions of good books [Shakespeare’s plays could be bought for 1/-each] and the generosity of Andrew Carnegie meant that cheap lending libraries were established in many towns, including Birkenhead. Books were still serialised in magazines, the most famous at this time being George Newne’s ‘Strand Magazine’ with its Sherlock Holmes’ stories by Conan Doyle - who incidentally hated his invented character, wanting to be known for his serious historical novels.

One poet who fails to get the recognition he deserves is the great William McGonagall who produced a series of poems at this time in the most execrable verse ever encountered in the English language. He wrote a poem to celebrate the opening of the Tay railway bridge praising its construction, and when that bridge collapsed in a terrible storm in 1879, he wrote another on the tragedy ending with the memorable lines:

‘I must now conclude my lay

By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,

That your central girders would not have given way,

At least many sensible men do say,

Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,

At least many sensible men confesses,

For the stronger we our houses do build,

The less chance we have of being killed.

The Times’ was still the most widely read serious newspaper, but was now being challenged by ‘The Daily Telegraph’. It was the ‘Telegraph’ which in the 1870’s, in conjunction with the New York ‘Herald’, sent Stanley to Africa to seek Livingstone, bringing stories of interior Africa which were to have profound results on that country. The poor tended to buy ‘Police News’ and ‘Police Gazette’, both sensational papers dealing with the more lurid and titillating crimes of passion and murder. The murders by ‘Jack the Ripper’ in the 1880’s gave these papers a huge boost in circulation. Two men stand out in the production of cheap popular papers - George Newnes and Alfred Harmsworth. Both provided what the less educated wanted to read. In 1881 Newnes produced ‘Titbits’, followed in 1888 by Harmsworth’s ‘Answers’. They were full of small items of news and trivia, scraps of simple amusement and basic information (e.g. if all the sausages eaten in Britain were laid end-to-end they would reach Australia). Appealing to the less literate, they had short paragraphs, illustrations and though shallow, they gave no offence and were often very moralising in their answers. Selling at 1d a week, both had sales of more than half a million.

Harmsworth also appealed to children with his ‘Comic Cuts’ and ‘Chips’, weekly half-penny comics which remained popular well into the 20th Century. I’m sure many older readers will remember ‘Weary Willie’ and ‘Tired Tim’ in ‘Chips’, and possibly the ‘Comical Capers of Constable Cuddlecock’! Looking at my copies of these comics now, I am amazed at the amount of reading matter and how they did broaden the vocabulary of children: in one edition there were at least seven words for ‘laughter’ - snigger (usually by an unpleasant character), chortle, chuckle, titter, guffaw, giggle and cackle: each means the same thing but with a subtle difference as to when the word should be used. Apart from the usual ‘bubble’ speeches in the pictures, there was always a short sentence or two beneath to explain the action and inside at least 20 columns of close print of complete stories and serials -e.g. "Tug Wilson, the Schoolboy ‘Tec". A more serious publication was "Boys Own Paper", price 6d, again twenty or more pages of close print. My copy has a serial by Talbot Reed and another by Jules Verne - ‘The Clipper of the Clouds’, about a warship which could fly - stories which appealed to the imagination and spirit of adventure. In 1896 came Harmsworth’s ‘Daily Mail’ - a truly popular paper, again with the strong headlines, short paragraphs, and illustrations which form the pattern for all papers today. Described by Lord Salisbury as "a paper written by office boys for office boys", it became the largest selling paper in Britain.

What of national and world affairs in the period? In 1874 the Prime Minister was Benjamin Disraeli and he faced problems only too familiar to us today: recession and unemployment. There were a number of causes, but the basics were that Britain was no longer the unchallenged industrial power, though she remained the richest and greatest economy. She now faced competition from newly united Germany, an expanding USA and France trying to restore her position after defeat by Germany in 1870. Each of these countries raised trade barriers against British goods while Britain continued with her belief in total freedom of trade. Germany and the USA were able to develop huge sources of coal and iron, using the expertise that Britain had been a century in attaining. More importantly, perhaps, was the massive import of cheap American grain as the Middle West was opened up. Most European countries saw the danger to their farming and stopped American imports. Britain allowed the cheap grain to flood in, so that British farming could no longer compete. The result was a severe depression in the countryside, forcing workers to leave the country for the town, but it also meant much cheaper food, so that though there was unemployment, the workers did not suffer as they might have done in the past. Britain became the only country dependent on imported food: she was always only three months from starvation and therefore, despite her great wealth, the most vulnerable country in Europe. Her Navy was now a vital necessity to keep those trade routes open and she dared not quarrel with her major food supplier, the USA.

What was the answer to these new circumstances? Disraeli conceived the idea of ‘Imperialism’ - the building of a large overseas empire. Britain already had an empire, but it was not seen as vital to our interests: Canada, Australia and New Zealand were self-governing dominions, loyal to Britain but having little real contact with her. Disraeli’s plan was to establish an empire which would be a market for British goods and at the same time supply Britain with the food and raw materials vital for her industry. The key to his plan was to be India. In 1875 Britain bought a half share in the Suez Canal for £4 million, opening a short sea route to India. India was to be a co-equal with Britain , with its own Army, Navy and Civil Service, ruled by the Viceroy with an elected parliament. In 1877, much to her delight, Victoria was created Empress of India, the ruling princes of India swearing allegiance to her. From India Britain would dominate the Far East. In the 1880’s came the ‘Scramble for Africa’. Stanley’s explorations had revealed to Europe the massive untapped wealth of Africa - gold, diamonds, copper, aluminium, zinc. Tales were also told of the backwardness of the natives, tribal wars, slavery, etc. Thus there was a great moral justification to move in to improve the lives of the people, bringing them the benefits of Western civilisation, and at the same time, of course, to develop the untapped wealth waiting there. The drive for colonies took place peacefully and Britain with her Navy obtained the lion’s share occupying huge areas in both East and West, plus much of the South of the continent. Britain now gloried in her empire, covering more than a quarter of the world. It gave great pride to see huge areas of the map coloured red, but it was to lead to great problems in the future.

Inevitably, empire-building led to wars: to go into the causes and results of all these wars would be far too much for this article. Suffice it to say that between 1874 and 1899 Britain found herself at war with African tribes - the Matabele, the Zulus, the Ashanti; with the Dutch Boers of South Africa (twice); with the Dervishes in the Sudan; with Egypt; in Afghanistan; and numerous ‘police actions’ in Abyssinia, Nepal, China. In all of these areas victory was won chiefly because of the ability of the Navy to bring pressure to bear anywhere in the world and at the same time prevent others from interfering. Britain also was in danger of going to war with Russia, France, the USA, and even Germany. The crisis with Russia in 1878 brought a new word into the language - ‘Jingoism’, from a music hall song:

"We don’t want to fight, but by jingo if we do,

We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too."

Germany had always been seen as a friend, Britain’s traditional enemies being France and Russia. In 1880 Victoria’s son-in-law, the Emperor Frederick, died of cancer. He loved Britain and had he lived history might have been different. He was succeeded by his son, Victoria’s eldest grandchild, William II, who became the new Kaiser. A complex, mercurial, man, he had a love-hatred of Britain, wanting always both to emulate and to surpass her. In 1896 he had expressed his support for the Boers in their quarrel with Britain and implied active German help. Britain immediately put a ‘Flying Squadron’ of battleships and cruisers into the Atlantic. These were spare ships, unattached to any of her many fleets scattered about the world - but they were stronger than the Imperial German Navy ! . The Kaiser was humiliated and gave orders to build a comparable Navy for Germany. In 1887 and 1897 Victoria had celebrated her Jubilees, when Britain’s power and wealth were displayed. Her relatives sat on every throne in Europe, her empire was one on which ‘the sun never set’, covering more than a quarter of the world, and in 1897 visitors to Portsmouth saw her review a Home Fleet consisting of more than 30 miles of warships drawn up in lines each of which was more than six miles in length. Britain still revelled in ‘splendid isolation’, but many of her leaders were realising that though strong and rich we did not have a friend in the world, and indeed some countries positively hated us. At that review in 1897 there appeared a small ship moving through the fleet at more than 30 knots: "The Turbinia", using new turbine engines showed the future - all that mighty fleet was, in fact, now effectively out-of-date. Britain’s great Naval lead over her rivals could now be eliminated. Britain faced the new century with some misgivings: the former confidence was weakening - she would not dominate the new century as she had done the 19th.
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1899-1924

1899 and Christ Church was 50 years old, her longest serving vicar, Rev. (later Canon) W.H.F. Robson, was fully in charge of the largest church in the area. Birkenhead was enjoying a period of great prosperity, with a booming ship-building industry. By now, the lovely pink sandstone with which the church was built was stained black with soot. Each year more than 8 tons of soot fell on the town from the innumerable coal-burning fires, leading to despair among housewives trying to keep clothes clean, and causing those brownish yellow fogs which persisted all day in the winter, but which are seldom seen now. Not for nothing was bronchitis known as the ‘British disease’.

The period we are covering is one of the most dramatic in world history and I beg forgiveness if important topics are only mentioned briefly - no matter how fascinating they would take far too much space to describe them fully. In 1899, Britain and her Empire were at war with the Boers of South Africa. The causes need not concern us here, but in 1899 the Boers declared war on Britain, expecting to be helped by others, particularly Germany. This was not to be: the Royal Navy ensured that while Britain’s armies could move swiftly in strength to Africa, nobody else dared intervene. It was thought that the war would be over quickly: indeed, when the last of the major Boer armies was defeated and Mafeking was relieved in May 1900, there was an outburst of celebrations unprecedented in our history.

But the war continued for another two years; the Boers formed small armed groups or ‘commandos’ which raided British supply lines then disappeared into the country, living off the farms in the area. Only by clearing the countryside of all people and destroying the farms was Sir Herbert Kitchener able to force their eventual surrender. The displaced people were put into hastily established ‘concentration camps’, where poor water supplies and sanitation led to the deaths of thousands of old people and children, blackening Britain’s name throughout the world. It is to the credit of Britain that when the facts became known she tried to make amends in the peace treaty -the Boers were given full self-government within the Empire and Britain paid compensation for the damage to their farms caused by the war - the first time that victors had given the defeated all they desired, and paid them for their losses. The result was that the Boer leaders, Botha and Smuts, both became loyal servants of the Empire, giving staunch support to Britain in two world wars.

Another effect of the war was that the campaigns were carried out chiefly by the cavalry, so that cavalry officers won promotion - Generals French, Haig, Allenby and others were to be Britain’s leaders in the Great War, which was entirely an artillery and infantry war. Another aspect of the war was that Germany felt humiliated by her inability to help and began the building of a High Seas Fleet as a direct challenge to the Royal Navy. Britain realised that not only did she have few friends in the world, but also that some were undoubted enemies. For the first time in her history she began to seek friends and allies in peacetime.

There was little danger from the German Kaiser so long as his Grandmother, Queen Victoria, reigned. For more than 60 years the ‘Grandmother of Europe’ had controlled her numerous relations, ensuring that no matter what their quarrels they would live in peace. The Kaiser genuinely adored his grandmother and respected her; for her part, she understood him and knew how to control his mercurial character. By 1900, though, she was an old lady. In the Spring she visited Ireland and insisted on driving without escort through Dublin, cheered by loyal crowds. It is one of the tragedies of Ireland that had Home Rule been granted the very real love and loyalty of the Irish would surely have been preserved. By forcing them to fight for their freedom the stage was set for the tragedies with which we are all too familiar. To underline their loyalty, Victoria created a new Guards’ Regiment, the 4th or Irish Guards, drawing a major part of their numbers from the South, and I know from personal experience that most of that Regiment was from the Catholic South rather than the Protestant North, and they are among the most loyal to the British Crown.

In the Summer of 1900, Victoria heard that her eldest daughter, the Dowager Empress of Germany, was dying of cancer, as was her son, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and she seemed to lose the will to live. She continued to do her duty, but her ministers could see her decline. On January 13th 1901 she made her last entry in her diary: "Had a fair night but was a little wakeful. Rested, signed some papers, dictated some letters." There were no more entries. Her children were summoned to Osborne and the Kaiser hurried over from Germany. The great Queen was dying. Telegrams came from every world leader, including her enemy, Boer leader Paul Kruger. On Sunday, 22nd January, at 6.30 in the evening, Victoria died in the arms of her grandson, the Emperor of Germany.

The longest reign in British history had ended: she had seen power pass from the great landowners to the votes of the people, her country was the richest and most powerful in the world, her Empire was the greatest in history and its like will never be seen again. The adjective ‘Victorian’ is used in every country to imply genteel, perhaps somewhat ‘stuffy’, gentility, but on which many look back with some nostalgia for being a more dignified and peaceful time. At the end, Victoria was revered by her people, her birthday, 24th May, being remembered as ‘Empire Day’ - a holiday to be celebrated and enjoyed by children up until 1939. (Do any of my older readers ever remember rain on Empire Day?)

The new King, Edward VII, (‘Teddy’ to his subjects), was popular with the people, but not with his Imperial nephew. Britain’s attempts to reach an understanding with Germany to control the Navy Race which was developing, failed. Bismarck, had he lived, would have welcomed any agreement with Britain. He did not fear her army ("If it lands in Europe, I shall send a policeman to arrest it."), but he did fear her navy, her Empire, and the fact that she had the same language, customs and democratic government as the USA, and therefore the two were potential allies. He also saw that to antagonise Britain must bring her closer to Germany’s enemy, France. In 1904, his warnings ignored, his fears were realised when Britain signed an ‘Entente Cordiale’ - a ‘Friendly Understanding’ with her former enemy, France. It was not an alliance, but over the years, owing to the Kaiser’s clumsy diplomacy, the friendship strengthened to become an unspoken alliance. In 1907, a similar agreement was made with Germany’s other enemy, Russia, once Britain’s greatest enemy. The Kaiser blamed his Uncle Edward for this, claiming that Britain was surrounding Germany with naval and military alliances, and this caused him to exert even greater efforts to out-build Britain’s fleet.

The ‘Navy Race’ which developed cost both countries millions - it certainly brought prosperity to the workers in shipyards and steelworks, but it also meant less spent on social reform, which was the great aim of Asquith, Lloyd George and Churchill in the Liberal Government of the day. In 1906, Britain launched a new battleship, the ‘Dreadnought’, faster, heavier and more heavily armed than any other warship in the world. On its own, it could out-shoot and out-run all of the German navy; Germany was forced to accept that every ship she had built over the past seven years was out-of-date. But so too was the mighty Royal Navy. Both countries were now starting again! It led, in 1909, to the great naval scare that Germany might out-build Britain and would dominate at sea as she did on land. As Churchill later described it: "The Admiralty asked for six ships, the Government offered four, so they compromised on eight." By now, Britain was building twice as many ships each year as Germany, and by now, too, the ‘Super-Dreadnought’ was being built - ships with massive armament, which would still be in formidable use in the Korean War in the 1950s. Germany had effectively lost the Navy Race, but in competing, the two countries became bitter enemies.

This enmity was exacerbated by the Northcliffe press: Harmsworth (now Lord Northcliffe) owned the Daily Mail, The Sketch, the newly launched Daily Mirror, TheTimes, and The Observer. He was the Rupert Murdoch of his day, stirring up anti-German feeling among his readers. His warning was that there were thousands of trained German soldiers in Britain, with hidden arms, ready to act when the German army, guarded by its fleet, fell on British shores. This secret army, he declared, was employed as waiters, tailors, etc, in every town and city. "Refuse to be served by a German waiter!" he thundered, "and if he claims to be Swiss, demand to see his passport." The prospect of demanding to see a waiter’s passport is ludicrous in the extreme, but the insidious message was put across - there would be a war and Germany would be the enemy. Patriotism, which is love for one’s own country, was being replaced by Nationalism, which is hatred of other countries. National pride showed itself in other areas, particularly in the new Atlantic liners. The ship which crossed the Atlantic in the shortest time would hold the coveted ‘Blue Riband’’. Both Britain and Germany were in competition. Companies aimed to have two or three great ships doing weekly crossings, following a regular timetable. The Germans built the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II’ to wrest the Blue Riband from Cunard, which had held it for many years. With its sister ship, ‘Kronprinz Wilhelm’, they had two floating palaces, unrivalled for luxury until Cunard replied with the ‘Mauritania’ and its sister the ‘Lusitania’. ‘Mauritania’ won back the record and was to hold it until the 1920’s, when the race began again. It is possible that the great White Star liners ‘Titanic’ and ‘Olympic’ might have won the race, but the tragedy of the ‘Titanic’ in 1912, when the suspicion is that she was trying to break the record, put an end to their challenge.

So often, in history books or social histories of these time, the Edwardian Age is shown as a time of peace, harmony and glorious summers. This is far from the truth, there was tension in the air and as always this was reflected by artists, poets and composers – these people seemed to connect with the underlying fears and worries of the age. Paintings showed scenes of chaos, Picasso and Braque were overturning the ‘chocolate-box’ image favoured by so many artists; listen to Holst’s ‘Planet’ Suite and hear the sheer menace in ‘Mars - Bringer of War’; in 1913, Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe premiered a ballet by a young Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky, ‘The Rite of Spring’ – where the beauty and hope of Spring is sacrificed, in the guise of a beautiful virgin, to the old. This was not the classical ballet of ‘Swan Lake’ or ‘Sleeping Beauty’ with their wonderful melodies; here, there were discordant rhythms, full of violence and dissonance, this was not ballet, it was revolution. The audience erupted in howls of derision, patrons were ejected but the performance carried on – the death of one young maiden seemed to foretell the death of youth and beauty, and many did not want to face such a prospect. The painter, Ludwig Meidner in Germany painted a Berlin being destroyed by huge guns fired by German soldiers, the people seemingly helpless before their inevitable fate. For young people, too, there was a new music – from America came ‘Ragtime’ with its syncopated rhythms – very different from the traditional music of Europe.

This fever was most apparent in Germany, the country which was now the leading Industrial power in Europe – Germany led the world in steel production, in chemistry, in engineering, but all the great wealth was given to an almost feudal state where all power was concentrated in the hands of one man – the erratic and unstable Kaiser – the people who created the wealth had no say in how it was to be spent. In 1912, the largest and most revolutionary Social and Democratic Party in Europe won the greatest number of seats in the Reichstag, the German parliament but it had no power to assert its authority; at the same time, the Kaiser’s birthday was celebrated with a massive parade of the most powerful and reactionary military caste in the world. Such an unstable mixture was certain to produce an explosion, and when Germany, at the heart of Europe, is unstable, then all of Europe begins to feel uneasy.

In the years before 1914, there were many crises, each one of which could have led to war. In 1905, Germany challenged France over Morocco, but Britain supported France; in 1911, another quarrel over Morocco saw a strong warning to Germany from Britain and once again Germany was forced to retreat. In 1909, troubles in the Balkans saw Germany, Austria and Russia at odds. Bismarck had always seen this area as the chief cause of trouble - a weakened Turkey was losing control of her Balkan empire, and the Slavs of the area took advantage to take their freedom. The problem was that though they hated the Turks they hated each other more - the Catholic Croats were at odds with their Orthodox Serb neighbours and with Moslems from Bosnia; equally, Serbia, the most warlike of the countries, had ambitions to unite all the Slavs of the area under her rule and to reach the sea via Bosnia or through Albania, and form the state of Yugoslavia, the ‘Southern Slavs’! This would mean that she would include the hated and despisd Moslems in her country. Russia supported Serbia’s ambitions, Austria wanted to keep Serbia under control, and as Turkey retreated Austria had ambitions to advance into her territories. Germany was the close ally of Austria, France was the close ally of Russia - each was bound to help its ally in the event of war. Because of the Navy Race, Britain was reluctantly being drawn in to the system. In 1909, in 1912, and again in 1913, Balkan problems led Europe to the brink. Each time, war was avoided as diplomats worked out a face-saving agreement, and it was confidently expected that this would always be the case. Nevertheless, when 1914 came there seemed greater harmony among the powers than at any time in the past five years.

What of life in Britain at this time? Cars were beginning to appear in greater numbers. By 1910, more than 100,000 licences were issued (cost £1 from any post office, no driving test needed). The Rolls-Royce ‘Silver Ghost’ had appeared in 1908, setting a new standard of engineering excellence, but the market was dominated by Henry Ford’s Model ‘T’ - a quarter of all cars built in Britain by his company. The only British challenge to his cheap car came from William Morris, whose ‘bull-nosed’ Morris Oxford was coming into production as war broke out. Most British cars were for the richer market - Armstrong-Siddely, Daimler, Vauxhall, Napier - famous names, many now long gone.

It is interesting to learn that in these years it was possible to buy an aeroplane (in DIY kit form) at a cheaper price than a car. When the Wright Brothers flew for the first time in 1903, enthusiasts world-wide experimented with their own aeroplane designs. The ‘Daily Mail’ encouraged this by offering cash prizes for pioneer flights. In 1909, the prize of £1,000 for the first crossing of the Channel was won by Louis Bleriot of France. The ‘Daily Graphic’ of the time noted with foreboding: "A machine which can fly from Calais to Dover is not a toy but an instrument of warfare of which soldiers and statesmen must take account." Britain’s Navy was no longer the guaranteed defence against attack. The writer H.G. Wells wrote a novel which told of a ‘plane dropping what he called an ‘Atom Bomb’, where the potential energy of the atom was released to destroy a city from the air and against which there was no defence. The book was not one of his best sellers! The early fliers were true pioneers: an account from 1914 tells of a young man sitting on the wing of a bi-plane with a rolled-up parachute on his lap. His theory was that it would open and he would drift down to earth in safety, but the only way to test it was to leap into space - which he duly did and proved his theory to be correct.

Other events during these pre-war years: in 1910 came the arrest, trial and execution of Dr. Crippen. It is remarkable inasmuch that had it occurred a few years earlier he would probably have escaped. He was caught because of the new invention of wireless telegraphy. The Captain of the ‘Montrose’ on which Crippen and his lover, Ethel Le Neve, were travelling was able to receive messages and send them, confirming that the wanted pair were aboard his ship, hoping to reach USA under assumed names. Once there, they could have disappeared on the continent of America. Instead, they were arrested before they landed and were returned to Britain. Ethel Le Neve was found not guilty and lived the rest of her life quietly in London, dying in 1967. Radio was also a factor in the loss of the ‘Titanic’ when, for the first time, the new international distress call of SOS was used; but help came too late for most on board. In 1912, also, came the failure of Scott’s expedition to be the first to reach the South Pole. Lauded as a hero, in fact he foolishly ignored advice to use dogs to pull his sledges, preferring horses which needed considerable amounts of food and were in no way suitable for Antarctic travel. It seemed that Britain was becoming the home of glorious failures.

The theatre flourished, though most people preferred the light comedies of Barrie and others to the more serious plays. Nevertheless, plays by Shaw, Galsworthy and Conrad drew the crowds - Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion’ causing outrage and scandal by the use of the word ‘bloody’. Thousands flocked to enjoy being scandalised by that one word! More popular still was the Music Hall and Birkenhead’s Argyle Theatre was one of the most influential. Its owner, Tom Clarke, recognised the talent of a young Scottish singer and contracted him to appear each year during Grand National week for £5 a week. The singer was Harry Lauder and within two years he was commanding fees of more than £200 a week. Clarke kept him to his contract despite Lauder’s attempts to escape. My father, a teenager at this time, told of a good night out for 6d (2.5p) - 2d for a cheap seat in the ‘gods’, 1d for four oranges (no ice creams in those days), 1d for five ‘Woodbines’, and on the way home 1d for chips and 1d for fish. The cinema was increasingly becoming the new entertainment - early films were simple one or two reels of madcap comedy - Chaplin and Stan Laurel had already taken their genius to the U.S.A., but films such as ‘The Great Train Robbery’ and ‘Birth of a Nation’ showed that more serious stories of high drama could be attempted. Birkenhead’s first cinema was a converted music hall, ‘The Claughton’, later the ‘Astor’, at the corner of Exmouth Street and Claughton Road. For young people, particularly boys, in 1908 appeared an anti-hero who came to dominate the magazine he appeared in - Frank Richard’s ‘Magnet’ and the stories of Greyfriars School. The heroes, Harry Wharton, Frank Nugent and others paled before the lazy, greedy, stupid William George Bunter. Billy Bunter, with his ‘Crikey’, ‘I say you fellows, I’m expecting a postal order’, etc., passed into English literature.

In 1908, the Olympic Games were held at the White City in London, and in those truly amateur days Britain could more than hold her own - she won 56 Gold medals, plus a great many silver and bronze; the U.S.A. came second with a mere 22! The Games were noteworthy for the marathon, which was extended from 26 miles to 26 miles 385 yards, so that the finish would be at the Royal Box - the distance has remained unchanged. Britain no longer seemed to produce heavyweight champions of the world. Our last home-grown world heavy-weight champion was Bob Fitzsimmons, a Cornishman who also held the world Middle-weight and light-heavyweight titles – he had taken the championship from ‘Gentleman Jim’ Corbet at the end of the 19^th Century. The British champion in 1914 was a handsome but rather muscle-bound boxer, Bombardier Billy Wells, better known to many, perhaps, as the muscular athlete beating the gong for so many J. Arthur Rank films in the 1940’s and 50’s - his hobby was knitting! In 1905, there was a sensation when a footballer was transferred from Middlesborough to Sunderland for £1,000 - football was now the most popular spectator sport in the country, drawing crowds of thousands.

Perhaps the most outstanding phenomenon before the Great War was the beginning of the militant Suffragettes. Women were increasingly employed in industry, teaching, offices, and even in medicine. They were still seen, though, as totally dependent on men; no woman was allowed to continue working once she was married - her task then was to manage the home and raise the children. But they were now increasingly becoming taxpayers and therefore demanded the vote. Peaceful petitions were simply ignored, so Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Sylvia and Christabel formed the Women’s Social and Political Union - the WSPU, with its colours of purple, green and grey. In 1908 they began a period of militant action, demanding the right to be heard and respected. Many people were outraged at their behaviour, for these were mainly educated upper-middle class ladies, seen always as law-abiding and submissive. Pillar boxes were burnt, windows smashed in Downing Street (leading to the posting of a policeman permanently on guard outside No.10 - still in operation today), and protests in Parliament, causing the fixing of a grille over the Ladies’ Gallery in the Lords. It culminated in the death of Emily Davidson, who threw herself under the King’s horse at the 1913 Derby. Imprisoned, the suffragettes endured hunger-strikes, forcible feeding, and the cruelty of the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’, where they were freed from custody to rebuild their strength, then re-arrested to complete their sentence. All failed to break the women’s spirit and their courage won the admiration of the people, helping to lead to the growing unpopularity of the Liberal Government before the war. The outbreak of war caused Mrs Pankhurst to call off the campaign, urging women to devote their energy to the country. In 1918, their reward came when women of 30 plus were given the vote: this was extended in 1928 to all women over the age of 21.

In 1906, the Liberals, under Henry Campbell-Bannerman, took office and began a period of reform which established the foundations of the welfare state. With the help of Asquith, Lloyd George, and Churchill, a series of Acts designed to help the less fortunate was passed: free or cheap school meals, medical examination, and free hospital and dental treatment for all school children (though we remember with horror the ministrations of the school dentist, preferring instead to ‘go private’); peaceful strikes and picketing were made legal, a Workmen’s Compensation Act for injury or ill-health caused by work; an eight hour working day in coal mines; the 1908 Children’s Act to protect children from ill-treatment, drink, smoking, overwork, etc.; Labour Exchanges to provide guidance for finding work; the National Insurance Act to provide unemployment pay and health care for workers; a Minimum Wages Act; and perhaps most important of all, the Old Age Pensions Act offering 5/-d (25p) a week at the age of 70, later rising to 10/-d a week at 65. In addition, of course, the Government had to find the money to pay for the increased Navy and to modernise the Army. This led to a dispute with the House of Lords and in the Elections which followed the Liberals lost heavily, becoming dependent on support from the growing Labour Party and the Irish Home Rule Party. The Liberals were never again to hold a majority in the House of Commons.

In the Summer of 1914, the Government was struggling with the Irish problem - Home Rule had been promised to the Catholic population, but this was unacceptable to the Protestant North. Their leader, Sir Edward Carson, proclaimed ‘Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right’. Civil War seemed certain, when news came of the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne at Sarajevo in Bosnia. Austria demanded assurances from Serbia for future conduct, and events now moved swiftly. It has been said that the Great Powers in 1914 were like climbers roped together - if one fell, all the others would be pulled down. Within one week in July and the beginning of August, Austria declared war on Serbia, Russia mobilised her army, whereupon Germany declared war on Russia to defend her Austrian ally. Germany then declared war on France, Russia’s ally, and attacked France via Belgium. Britain had no treaty to help France, but was pledged to defend Belgium. On August 4th 1914, Britain declared war on Germany. With their respective empires, this European war was now a World War. As war was declared, Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, who had worked ceaselessly to bring peace, said "The lights are going out all over Europe; we will not see them lit again in our lifetime." Winston Churchill at the Admiralty ordered the Navy to begin its blockade of Germany’s trade routes - as the Germans rose on 5th August they could see the faint smoke from the blockading ships - these would stay until the German defeat more than four years later.

There is no space here to describe the horrors of the Great War in detail, therefore only the basic facts can be given:

1914: All believed it would be a short war - no country could afford the losses and expense of a modern war; remembering the success of Prussia in 1870, therefore, all had plans to finish it quickly. Germany was unworried by General French’s ‘Contemptible British Army’ (hence, the ‘Old Contemptibles’), nor was she worried by the blockade; it would ‘all be over by Christmas’. However, this time, all had their armies in the ‘ right place at the right time’ and within weeks, the elaborate war plans had all collapsed. By November, the Russian ‘steam roller’ had ground to a halt, the French were defeated and back in their great frontier fortresses, the Germans had not destroyed the professional British Army or the French, and both sides had dug great defensive trenches stretching from the Channel to Switzerland, guarded by barbed wire and machine guns. This presented an obstacle never met with before and was outside the experience of any General from either side.

1915: Britain began recruiting a huge volunteer army - Kitchener’s accusing finger demanded action from thousands of posters. The Germans used gas to try to break through the lines at Ypres, but failed. British attacks equally failed to break through despite the loss of thousands of lives. The execution of Nurse Edith Cavell and the torpedoing of the liner ‘Lusitania’ showed that the Germans might be clever but they were not very intelligent, for these acts turned the U.S.A. against Germany and American supplies now began to flow into Britain - the Germans began to realise that the blockade was leading them to starvation

Bitterness against Germany had risen to such a degree, often because of attacks in the Northcliffe Press and by an M.P. , Horatio Bottomley (later imprisoned for fraud in mismanaging a saving scheme involving millions), the Royal family was forced to abandon its German family name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and adopt instead the more British name of Windsor, Prince Louis of Battenberg, the First Sea Lord, had to anglicize his name to Mountbatten..

1916: The year of the great battles: Verdun, when the Germans tried to destroy the French - more than one million casualties to gain a mere five miles; The Somme, when for the first time Britain fielded a continental-sized army and suffered continental-sized casualties - 20,000 dead on the first day - the same losses had been recorded at Waterloo, but that had been a single battle ending in complete victory: the Somme produced slim gains for more than half-a-million casualties; Jutland, when the German High Seas Fleet tried to break the blockade. After two days of confused fighting, Britain had lost 14 great ships to Germany’s 11, but the German Fleet returned to port, the Royal Navy remained at sea, the blockade continued, and Germany starved.

1917: In an effort to defeat Britain, Germany began unrestricted submarine warfare - the sinking of all ships (including American) approaching Britain. Britain was brought to the brink of defeat, but was saved by introducing rationing of food, ensuring that all received a basic allowance, and by the convoy system whereby the Navy guarded ships travelling together; some were sunk, but most got through. Russia collapsed under the strains of war and the Tsar abdicated. It is an interesting sidelight on the character of the last Tsar, Nicholas II – on the day of his removal from the throne he recorded in his diary the single word ‘Rien’ – ‘nothing’, his removal from the throne was of no importance to him. The French army, slaughtered in yet another bloodbath, mutinied and refused temporarily to fight. The British Army, under Haig, alone, was able to continue the battle . In July, the third Battle of Ypres began - usually known as ‘Paschendaele’. Described as ‘the most terrible battle ever fought by the British Army’, Paschendaele was fought in a sea of mud over ground churned up by years of shelling. When it ended in November, there were 400,000 casualties - to gain a tiny village, Paschendaele, which had been the object of the first day of battle. My father who had served since 1914 had been slightly wounded on the Somme and was more seriously wounded at Pashendaele – in a bayonet charge his left arm was ripped open from wrist to armpit and he was shot in the leg: he used to tell me that he could not remember any pain until the attack was halted. His leg wound became so infected by the mud that it never healed satisfactorily, and it was possible to se the bullet hole there until the day he died. As a child I would sit on his knee and ‘walk’ my fingers up the long white scar up his arm. Two of my uncles were gassed in this battle, one of them becoming temporarily blind; I am sure that many of my readers will remember George Williams - a more kindly Christian gentleman it would be hard to imagine, yet he served throughout the war and was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry; again, one cannot imagine him demanding counselling for any trauma. One can only guess at the mental anguish these men had to suffer and still remain kindly civilised men. A Staff Officer viewing the battlefield burst into tears as he realised what the men had suffered. There has been much criticism of the Generals, particularly Haig, but no critic has ever suggested what should or could have been done instead. In 1917, though, the U.S.A. declared war because of the losses of her ships, and the introduction of the tank showed that the trench could be beaten.

In 1918, the German believed they had the chance to win the war -the Americans had not yet arrived and the Russians were out of the war. The Germans brought their army from the Eastern to the Western Front. In March and April they attacked and drove the Allies back, almost to Paris itself, but failed to break through. By May they were exhausted; in August, Haig struck, using tanks, and pushed the German army back; by November the Germans knew they could not face another winter of the blockade - the people were starving, Spanish ‘flu had come to Europe and was to kill more in six months than had died in four years of war. The starving people of Germany were particularly vulnerable , the navy mutinied and revolution broke out in the cities. Finally, at 11 a.m. on 11th November, the Germans agreed to an Armistice -the Great War was over. The German Fleet, ordered to surrender, passed between two lines of British battleships and cruisers more than 40 miles in length, including one French and one U.S. ship: the Royal Navy was proclaiming itself the master of the seas! Possibly for the last time in history.

The War had ended, or should we say that the fighting had ended, the war and its memories would continue for ever, for many life would never be the same again - too many had died, old beliefs and certainties were gone forever. The young were disillusioned with their elders, they no longer saw them as the natural founts of wisdom and experience.

The idealism of Rupert Brooke in 1914, who could write

"Now God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,

And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping"

as he welcomed the coming of war, was replaced by Wilfred Owen (who was a regular member of our congregation here at our church) with

"What passing bells for these who die as cattle ?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns,

Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.".

It had been the war which had turned Owen into a poet – at school, where I was fortunate to be a pupil in the 1940’s, I was told by those masters who had taught him that he had been a quiet unassuming boy showing no signs of the genius within him: the war had awakened that anger.

The War had broken down old barriers - young people were freer in their morals, ladies smoked openly in company, drinking became more widespread. It was reflected also in the dress - shorter skirts, short hair, tiny hats - all the opposite of what had been the fashion before the war. Music too had been transformed, the world was entering the ‘Jazz Age’, with strange harmonies and rhythms, scandalous to the older people, but welcomed by the young. Young girls who would once have been servants in a large house for a few pounds a year now sought work in the factories where they worked shorter hours to earn as much in a month as they had previously earned in a year. Greater freedom and independence plus increased income gave women a confidence they had never had before. Also, of course, the heavy loss of life among young men meant that there was a surplus of girls who would possibly never marry: these would seek to establish their own careers and care for themselves - no longer would women see themselves as dependent on men.

At the end of the war, because so many people had earned recognition for their services to the country, a new Order of Chivalry was created – the Order of the British Empire with its grades of awards – M.B.E., O.B.E., C.B.E. AND K.B.E.

In the world, three great empires had been destroyed - Russia, Austria and Germany had lost their Emperors.

The Kaiser, as he went into exile in Holland, was heard to say "Now for a nice cup of English tea!" He was probably relieved that the burden of government was lifted at last from his shoulders and he could relax to become a kindly country gentleman, happy in his garden. His country, in 1919, was forced to sign a hard treaty, effectively destroying its ability to fight - France was determined that never again would Germany be a threat to her; the German army was cut to 100,000 and she lost her air force and her navy. Germany was forced to repay reparations of more than £6 billion, causing bankruptcy and hyper-inflation - the Mark, which had been worth 20 to the £ in 1914, slumped to 16,000,000,000,000 in 1923, ruining the savings of the middle classes and those on fixed incomes, making them open to promises of restitution from the new National Socialist Party which had appeared under the leadership of on ex-corporal - Adolf Hitler. Some have criticized this treaty as being hard on the Germans but one should remember that in1870, Germany had treated France even more harshly and had treated Russia in a similar fashion in 1917.

The Austrian Empire had divided into a number of landlocked states - Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia;, the new country of Yugoslavia took in the Catholics of Croatia, the Moslems of Bosnia and Kosovo, joining them to the Orthodox Christians of Serbia, all hating each other, and looking for help to escape from their forced union. Where there had been a great empire, there was now a group of weak states with huge neighbours, Germany and Russia, on their borders.

The Russian empire was torn by communist revolution, leading to untold misery and famine among its people.

The 1919 Treaty was described as "The war to end all wars has resulted in a peace to end all peace." The great hope was that the League of Nations, proposed by the President of America, would act as a world council for peace. Unfortunately the U.S.A. refused to join, handing responsibility once again to Britain and France, both of whom were exhausted by war. Britain, after spending more that £5 million every day on the war for herself and her allies, was virtually bankrupt and heavily in debt to the U.S.A., which insisted on full repayment. By 1924, the farcical situation had arisen where the U.S.A. made loans to Germany to restore her to some sort of prosperity, Germany paid much of this money to Britain and France in war reparations, and Britain paid it to the U.S.A. as war debt. Money was moving about, but no country was any richer as a result: if US loans halted, then the whole edifice would collapse.

But this was in the future: for the moment, Britain was trying to return to peace and it was not easy. The 1918 Election, won by Lloyd George with Conservative help, thus splitting the Liberal Party irrevocably (they would never hold office again), had promised "homes fit for heroes to live in". This was a dream, not a reality. The end of the war saw unemployment in the heavy industries of steel and ship-building as war demand ceased and return to peace was not yet settled. Also, the large number of women employed in factories meant that returning ‘heroes’ often found their old jobs were no longer available. For a few years there was wide-spread unemployment, until things began to settle down by 1923. All over the country, war memorials in towns and cities, schools and churches, were appearing. It was confidently believed that there would be no more war, therefore this war would be remembered as no other war had been. Our own memorial at Christ Church was dedicated in November 1920, the same year that the unknown soldier was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey.

The war had produced profound changes - the motor car, a rich man’s toy in 1914, was now mass-produced; the ‘Baby Austin’, selling for less than £100, appeared at this time. Aeroplanes, which in 1914 had been flimsy constructions of wood and canvas, used only for observation, had by 1918 become a major weapon of war, carrying guns and bombs which were used not only against the frontline soldier but also against civilian targets many miles away - never again would war be just a battle between armies, now it would be ‘total’ war involving everybody, the helpless civilian being a softer target than the armies which could fight back. In 1919, a British plane flew the Atlantic to win the ‘Daily Mail’ £10,000 prize, and winning knighthoods for Alcock and Brown. In the same year, an air mail service between London and Paris began, and was swiftly extended world wide. Communication was now faster and this was seen also in the spread of radio - in 1922 the British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) began transmitting from Savoy Hill and John Logie Baird began experimenting with television.

In 1924 Wembley Stadium became the centre for the Empire Exhibition and was used also for the Cup Tie in 1923. That Cup Final was noteworthy in that more than 200,000 people turned up. This was the first time that Wembley had been used. The previous year only 55,000 had turned up at Stamford Bridge, so the organisers, looking at Wembley’s capacity of 127,000, decided it was not necessary to make it an all-ticket affair. The crowds poured in, climbing over walls, turnstiles, anything to enter. The crowds spilled onto the pitch and only the presence of mounted police riding around the actual touchline to keep the spectators off the playing area allowed the game to take place. It is agreed that many a time the ball was kept in play by a spectator’s boot. Despite the huge crush there was no hooliganism, the crowd cheered the King and sang the National Anthem lustily and with due respect. The game between Bolton and West Ham was won by Bolton 2 - 0, but both sides agreed that they had not been able to play freely because of the solid wall of people standing on the touchline, so that corners and throw-ins were almost impossible.

By 1924 there began a period of relative prosperity, a short-lived Labour government under Ramsay Macdonald had given way to a Conservative administration under Baldwin - the great ‘unflappable’ Prime Minister who, it was thought, often dozed off during Cabinet meetings. American loans had stabilised Germany, and the countries of Europe had agreed not to go to war ‘except in self-defence’. The League of Nations was the great hope for future settlement of problems: there did seem hope for the future - and every 11th November, ‘Armistice Day’, the country came to a standstill for two minutes to remember the price which might have to be paid if war came again. There was a truly optimistic dream that perhaps, at last, mankind had learned to live in peace. But in Italy, the Fascist leader, Mussolini, had taken power, and in the Far East, Japan was beginning to seek out an empire to supply her needs of materials and a market for her goods. With America, the richest and most powerful country hiding herself in ‘splendid isolation’, the dream was to be short-lived. But we can leave 1924 in a spirit of optimism . .
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1924-1949

.We are now entering an age which will be within the experience of a great many of us - a time of our childhood and our youth, and therefore a time, perhaps, of real nostalgia, for these were our ‘Good Old Days’. Again, my apologies if some fondly remembered event is only mentioned briefly or not at all.

The 1920’s were a time of real optimism: people really believed that the Great War was a ‘War to end all Wars’. The great powers seemed to have settled their age-old problems and differences. At Locarno in 1924 the western powers agreed to respect their frontiers (though, significantly, Germany did not accept her eastern frontiers). In 1927, the Kellogg-Briand Pact saw an agreement by all signatories never to use war as an instrument of policy. Germany was accepted into the League of Nations as an equal, and the League was seen as a real hope for a peaceful settlement of all quarrels - old enemies seemed to be making a valiant effort to understand other points of view. In the same vein, nearer at home, in 1929 the coming-of-age of the Boy Scout Movement was celebrated with a Jamboree in Arrowe Park, Birkenhead having seen the first Scout Troop in the world being formed at the YMCA in Grange Road. [(My Scout Master, John Dudleston, had been a Patrol Leader in that first troop!] Boys from every country in the world came together and it was believed that if the nations’ youth buried their differences then peace and understanding on an international scale was possible. Britain was spending less on armaments than at any time over the past 60 years.

It was a time for young people: the war had robbed the elders of all respect and authority - they had been the ones who had been the statesmen or generals who had led them to war, it had been the young who had died! Whereas the old might wish for a return to pre-war conditions, the young disagreed. The restrictions of the Victorian age were swept away: the ‘bright young things’, having survived the slaughter, were determined to enjoy life and they reacted against all the restrictions of the past. Ladies’ dresses, which throughout history (no matter how outrageous the top half) had always been long enough to cover the ankles, now rose to above the knee, achieving a shortness not to be seen again until the 1960’s. Stockings, which had been black or grey, were now daringly ‘nude’ or ‘flesh-coloured’. Many young girls accepted the new fashion for the boyish look -figures were flattened, the waist disappeared, tight corsetting was a thing of the past. The Edwardian hair style of elaborate curls disappeared, to be replaced with the ‘bob’ - or even the ‘Eton crop’, when girls had their hair cut very short, plastered with Brilliantine to keep it flat to the head. Hats, from being huge creations of feathers and ribbons requiring careful adjustment before a mirror, were replaced by simple pull-on felt hats needing no adjustment. Make-up was now used, often in garish colours - plum reds, purples, even greens and blues - girls were determined to be noticed as being in revolt. Smoking too became a symbol of revolt, often using long holders so they had to be noticed. Young men too were in revolt: in place of the tight, figure-hugging suits, high starched collars, heavy pocket watch, etc. of the past, there came the soft cotton shirt with turned down collar, the sports jacket, and the new ‘Oxford’ bags - wide-legged trousers with each leg up to 48 inches in circumference, followed later by ‘plus-fours’, worn with brightly coloured stockings and a large soft cap, and wearing a wrist watch! The full evening dress of tails, white tie and starched shirt was replaced by the short dinner jacket with black tie and soft shirt - the Prince of Wales being in the forefront of fashion made this acceptable. Both sexes enjoyed the new frenetic dances imported from the U.S.A. - the Foxtrot, Charleston, Black Bottom, Bunny Hug - all danced to the music of the American South, the negro-based music of jazz. Older people looked on horrified but helpless, they no longer had the authority to impose their standards.

Another effect of the war was that domestic servants were fewer in number. Young girls who had entered the factories during the war enjoyed the higher wages and greater freedom this afforded them; new industries in electronics, etc., offered opportunities for women rather than men. Indeed, what unemployment there was usually suffered by men rather than women. Middle class ladies increasingly found that they had to do their own housework, or perhaps have a cleaning lady in for two or three hours a week. This led to a demand to make housework easier, and in the 1920’s we see the growing use of vacuum cleaners, washing machines, gas or electric fires replacing the difficult-to-light coal fires, convenience foods (ready-made cake mixtures, etc.). Domestic service, of course, did not end completely, and I can remember walking along Shrewsbury Road in the 1930’s and seeing the housemaids busily cleaning the huge houses along that road – when war came in 1939, most of these wealthy families left Birkenhead and did not return, the houses were turned into flats with a shifting population, and Christ Church lost a large proportion of its older congregation.

In general, the 1920’s were a time of relative prosperity as the world recovered from the War and changed from a war-time to a peace-time economy. The techniques of mass- production used in the war now produced the cars, radios, household goods demanded by the people, and at a lower price. There was some unemployment in the old ‘heavy’ industries - shipbuilding, iron and steel, and there was also a surplus of coal as Europe tried to export its coal into Britain. To offset this threat, the coal owners believed that huge amounts of cheap British coal would guard their market. They proposed therefore to force miners to work longer hours for less pay and this led to the major industrial problem of the decade - the General Strike.

Neither the Government nor the Trades Union Congress wanted this to happen - both sides tried to negotiate. All attempts failed before the intransigent attitudes of both sides. The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, said he had never met anybody so obstinate and so stupid as the miners’ leaders - until he met the coal owners! To any offer to the miners, their president, a dour Yorkshireman, Herbert Smith, said simply "Nowt doin’": their secretary, A.J. Cook said, "Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day." The miners and the owners both wanted total victory, not a settlement; the miners expected the rest of the British workforce to support them. In May 1926, with huge stocks of coal in hand and the coming of summer, the miners were locked out. Reluctantly the TUC brought out the Railway workers in support - and soon all workers affiliated to the Trade Union movement. To some, this was a direct challenge by six million workers to a democratically elected government. Winston Churchill wanted to send in the Army (his solution to any problem was to fight - which made him a great war leader but a disaster in peacetime). Baldwin, a much wiser man who had a great deal of sympathy for the miners, refused, giving Churchill the task of editing the "British Gazette", the Government newspaper of the strike. The strikers were restricted because their printers were on strike and therefore they had no papers to put their point of view. Most workers gave only reluctant support; they could see that if the strike were prolonged then their own employers might be forced into closure, leading to widespread unemployment. Also, the strike had little impact at first - miners should not strike in summer to win their case (they were to make the same error in 1984!): a great deal of supplies, both of food and of fuel, were now able to be sent by road - there were plenty of volunteers willing to drive lorries, trains and buses - there was almost a holiday atmosphere. Talk of revolution on the Russian scale quickly disappeared when it was learnt that strikers were helping to unload food supplies for the poor in the North East, while on the Saturday of the strike football matches between strikers and police took place - Plymouth Argyle offered the use of its ground and people came in free of charge; on the Sunday, all took their traditional day off. A face-saving compromise was arranged between Owners and TUC leaders, the miners refused to accept and continued on strike for a further six months, until hunger and poverty forced them to return. The General Strike itself was over after nine days. The Strike brought in men such as Ernest Bevin and Walter Citrine, who urged working with employers, conciliation rather than confrontation. As a result, even during the worst of the 1930’s depression British workers who kept their jobs did not see cuts in pay as happened elsewhere in Europe and the USA. Employers too preferred to compromise rather than risk closure. By 1929 wages were stable, but the cost of living had fallen by more than 15 points: the British working man was buying the radios, even the cheap cars now coming onto the market, and throughout the Thirties prices generally were lower than before 1914.

At the end of 1929, however, the Great Depression began. Its causes are complicated, but put very simply, Europe, since the War, had relied on American loans. America refused to accept goods as payments for these loans, demanding instead repayment in gold. The result was that though Europe seemed to have full employment, countries were not becoming richer - any surplus wealth was sent to the USA. In 1929, America saw her stock market collapse; people were buying stock, seeing it rise in value, selling to make a profit, then buying more stock, assuming it would always continue to rise. In October 1929, prices of shares plummeted, people who had taken out loans could not repay, banks became bankrupt, loans to Europe ceased, so that by 1930 massive unemployment developed in Germany, Italy, France, and, to a lesser degree, Britain. On Merseyside, the 1930’s slump is remembered because there was a fall in demand for shipping - on the Mersey, Clyde, Tyne, wherever ships were built, there were huge numbers of unemployed. Often the only people working in a home were the women, who might have poorly paid work in department stores, or as cleaning ladies. Men, from being the wage-earner and home provider, became dependent on the wife or daughter for weekly ‘spends’ or pocket money - a most humiliating situation. In the Midlands and the South, where the new industries in car manufacture and electronics were growing, there was almost full employment. Fortunately, Neville Chamberlain had closed the workhouses, so that ‘dole’ money and Public Assistance was paid, albeit in very small amounts and then only after the dreaded humiliation of the Means Test. This was the age of the Jarrow March and other hunger marches, until finally the Government realised that help had to be given.

The opportunity came with the new outburst of nationalism in Europe: the Depression had led to the dictatorships in Italy, and later in Germany, claiming their superiority over others by ‘victories’ in every sphere. This was shown in the new transatlantic liners being built. Up to 1929 the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing had been held by the venerable Cunarder ‘Mauretania’, built before the Great War. Now, the Italian ‘Rex’ took the title, only to lose it shortly after to the German ‘Bremen’. The French replied with the ‘Normandie’, possibly the most luxurious liner ever to sail the Atlantic. Britain seemed out of the race. Here was the government’s chance: the huge ‘534’ building on the Clyde was given government aid for its completion. There is an interesting story regarding its name, which I am assured is true: Cunard had always used names ending in ’...ia’ for their ships - hence ‘Lusitania’, ‘Scythia’, etc, and they decided to call this ship ‘Victoria’. They approached the King and asked if they could name their ship after ‘the most gracious and beloved Queen of this country’. The King, George V, replied that he was delighted and that his wife would feel flattered at the honour, so it became the ‘Queen Mary’, which on its first voyage took the record and held it until the end of the 1960’s when the record became irrelevant as air liners took over the Atlantic crossing. In Birkenhead, a government grant led to the building and completion of the huge battlecruiser ‘Renown’ a sister to ‘Repulse’, beautiful ships, but lacking the armour to fight against a major battleship. This was followed by an order for the largest liner built in an English shipyard, the ‘Mauretania, the first purpose-built aircraft carrier, the ‘Ark Royal’. and later the great battleship, ‘Prince of Wales’. I was privileged to see all of these ships launched. To all intents, these orders meant that the slump in Birkenhead was over.

To live in the 1930’s, if one had work, was a good time to live. Prices were in general much lower than in 1914, while wages had certainly risen. A new house in the London suburbs with three bedrooms, gardens, garage, etc, would cost £550, or £5 deposit and payments of 12/6d a week (I will no longer translate into decimal coinage - that is an exercise for those interested). An oak bedroom suite would cost £15/15/- or 9/- a month. Cigarettes were 6d for ten, beer 4d a pint. Clothing was cheap - ‘Weaver to Wearer’ and the ‘50/- Tailor’ had shops in Grange Road supplying good cheap clothing to the people. For a ‘best’ suit, one went to Burton’s, where a tailor-made suit with two pairs of trousers and waistcoat might cost as much as £6/10/-). Ladies’ clothing was equally cheap - coats for winter at 39/11d, shoes 5/6d, silk stockings 1/6d (rather expensive and therefore a tragedy if they ‘laddered’ - for everyday wear, lisle stockings at 6d or 9d a pair were preferred). A week’s holiday in a boarding house in North Wales, full board for a family of four, was £4. Even the longest bus journey seldom cost more than 3d, and most people travelled by bus. There were cars and they were cheap - Austin and Morris both selling cars for the family at £100. Larger saloon cars built by Vauxhall, Riley, Wolsey and others might cost as much as £235 - but they were for the rich. In the whole country there were only about 2 million motor vehicles, and more than 80% of these were in the affluent South.

The side roads in Birkenhead seldom if ever saw a motor car, unless the doctor came to call. As a result, the streets were the children’s playground, and I am sure this will bring back fond memories. Games and pastimes seldom seen now filled our playtime hours:- bowling a hoop through deserted side-streets, learning to roller skate in total safety, skipping (two mums would have a washing-line stretched across the street, they would turn the rope and six or more children would skip in it together - the skill, which I never achieved, was to run in as the rope was turning and get into the rhythm of skipping immediately), marbles (‘alleys’ in Birkenhead) played along the gutter; and playing two (or ever three) balls against the wall - chiefly for girls, who could master this skill much better than boys. With these were a whole series of rhymes and songs to be used whilst one was skipping or playing ball. I was tempted to include some here, but space does not allow it; but I do feel that these should be written down before they become forgotten - a series for a future magazine perhaps! Street cricket with its own very strict rules - one hand off the wall when catching was out; over a wall was ‘6 and out’ - the batsman having the task of retrieving the ball. Knocking and asking if one knew the householder, more daringly climbing the wall if one was unsure of reception; any unpleasant person would be punished by the ritual of ‘ringing the bell and running away’. A corner house was the traditional meeting place where games would be planned, sides picked (again, more rhymes for choosing who would be ‘it’). There were ‘seasons’ for games or activities - how they started nobody knew, but start they did - a time for top-and-whip, for hopscotch, marbles, bowling of hoops -all were cheap, all required considerable amounts of energy.

There was reading - the library was free - and there were the comics. For young children, ‘Tiger Tim’s Weekly’, Enid Blyton’s ‘Sunny Stories’, the famous 1d comics of the previous century - ‘Chips’, ‘Comic Cuts’, ‘Fu