Memorial at Peninsula

[sjb]

Hi Guys, i would just like to introduce my web site to you all http://www.memorialatpeninsula.org i hope this site will interest you all. We are all ex RGJs trying to erect a Tribute/Memorial that will represent The Ox and Bucks(43rd and 52nd), RB, KRRC, Green Jacket Brigade, the Green Jackets and The Royal Green Jackets who have all served at Peninsula Barracks Winchester, the ancestral Home of the Green Jackets, Please give us your support we have our own f/b Group Called Memorial at Peninsula Barracks its a closed group just ask to join, we have made our own DVD you can down load it from our web site under articles. PLEASE SUPPORT OUR PROJECT

[SWB]

Hello

Very good looking site.

I wonder if you can help? As you probably know the Rifle Brigade and KRRC memorials for the Anglo-Boer War were in Winchester Cathedral.

The KRRC memorial was removed in 1948 at the request of the Dean of Winchester. I don't know when the RB memorials were taken away.

I wrote to the RGJ museum about 20 years ago asking if they knew - they didn't.

If you can shed any light on the fate of these memorials I would be most grateful.

Regards
Meurig
Anglo-Boer War Memorials Project http://www.casus-belli.co.uk/abwmp

[Brett Hendey]

Meurig

I was surprised to read that the Dean of Winchester Cathedral had ordered the removal of the KRRC and RB ABWmemorials. What was the reason?

Regards
Brett

[sjb]

We will try to look into this for you,

[SWB]

Hello Brett,

It seems the Dean was an interior designer:

" In 1948 the body responsible for the fabric of the cathedral and its contents, the Dean and Chapter, decreed that the plaques were in "poor artistic taste" and had to be removed, which they were. "

From my survery of ABW memorials: http://www.casus-belli.co.uk/abwmp/Survey/abwmp_-_survey.html

Regards
Meurig

[sjb]

hi i found this the tablet was put back in 1997. But we still have nothing in Peninsula Barracks Winchester, and that place is History in it self !!

SERVICE OF DEDICATION
OF A
REGIMENTAL MEMORIAL TABLET
Field Marshal Lord Bramall of Bushfield KG, GCB, OBE, MC, JP gave the
Following address during a Dedication Service of a Regimental Memorial
Tablet at Winchester Cathedral on Friday 17th October 1997:
Address at Winchester Cathedral


http://www.krrcassociation.com/archives ... er1997.pdf

[SWB]

I don't understand, the link refers to a memorial to the regiment's dead between 1945 and 1965 - no mention of the Anglo-Boer War.

Regards
Meurig

[sjb]

We shall dig a little deeper for you, leave it with us

[Brett Hendey]

Meurig

Thank you for exposing that shameful episode in the history of Winchester Cathedral. I hope the KRRC dead used their bayonets to divert the Dean southwards after he joined them in the hereafter.

Regards
Brett

[SWB]

Morning Brett,

The Church of England do have some questions to answer on the care of memorials.

In addition to this case, I know of a number of others where memorials are left in redundant churches to their fate when the church is deconsecrated and sold off.

I have a very fine marble memorial to a Cpl Genge, IY, that was due to be broken up by the builders converting the deconsacrated church. The memorial's rescue was sheer luck - the chap who got it for me just happended to be passing at the time and stopped in to have a look.

It is not easy to get a memorial erected in a church - the authorities are pretty picky about what they let in. If they agree you agree (or did in Victorian times) to hand over the memorial into their "care" (actual word used).

Regards
Meurig

[Brett Hendey]

Hi Meurig

It is disturbing to read of the fate of some church memorials in the UK. This is no different to thieves selling off to scrap dealers the metal panels from war memorials. Many years ago a friend took me to a church somewhere in Sussex (near Lewes, I think), which was all that was left of an abandoned hamlet. The purpose of the visit was to see the memorial to a villager who had served in the Zulu War. I will have to hunt for more details about this church. That visit left me with the belief that even unused churches in isolated places in the UK were still maintained in good order by church authorities. I have been disillusioned!

If this is the situation in Britain, I doubt that there is any hope for disused churches and their memorials in South Africa. St Matthews Church and cemetery in Estcourt are now disused and I wonder what has become of the contents of the church. It contained at least one Boer War memorial plaque.

Regards
Brett

[Brett Hendey]

The church I visited in 1978 was the Hamsey Old Church and the Zulu War veteran commemorated in it was Sir John Shiffner RA. Other Shiffner's with memorials in the church died in the Penisular War, Crimean War, World War I and World War II.

An Internet search revealed that the church is still in use, perhaps more so now than in 1978, so this is one English church story with a happy ending (so far). As an 'Empire Loyalist' of long standing, my respect for the Church of England is partly restored.

Brett

[SWB]

Morning Brett

That is good news!

An anecdote I learnt when I was busy recording ABW memorials: apparently during the height of the Anti-Apartheid movement in the UK some vicars took the opportunity when their church was replaced with a modern building to not re-erect ABW memorials. This would have effected only a very small number of memorials - I don't think I have recorded an instance of it though. Certainly modern churches tend not to have lots of wall space for memorials and I remember visiting one modern church to find their ABW memorial in a cupboard.

If you come across any memorials in churches in danger in SA please let me know. Something must be done!

Regards
Meurig