John Thurloe (1616-1668)

Oh I like this one, I really do.

I found it on my walk back to Liverpool Street Station from Oxford Circus after my last trip to London. I was out of the West End and wending my weary way through legal London thinking of the London walk that Ma and me did a couple of years ago, pretty much every building there is linked in some way to another to the legal profession or the needs of lawyers - photocopying shops, wine bars, newsagents... I took a bit of a detour around the LSE and was heading east when I spotted this little beauty

John Thurloe was born in Essex, his father was a rector, he became a secretary to the parliamentary commissioners at the Treaty of Uxbridge which ultimately failed to end the Civil War and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1647. After the war he became Secretary of State. Then things start to get interesting. He became head of intellegence in 1653 for which you may read "spymaster" this at the time of the commonwealth, with a sizable portion of the country mourning the death of the king and wanting the return of the crown...

He created a code-breaking section, his department broke a number of royalist plots including the Sealed Knot. He became MP for Ely in 1654. In 1656 he was made head of the Post Office which obviously gives him access to as much private information as you can shake a stick at.
I cant help but see parallels between Cromwellian England and Soviet Russia. Edward Sexby's and Miles Sindercombe's assassination plots were foiled although his own department was infiltrated. Thurloe supported Richard Cromwells succession in the power struggle after Cromwells death again as a precursor of Soviet Russia. Later that year he was accused of arbitrary action as head of intellegence and he lost his post.
After the restoration he was arested for high treason but was never tried on condition that he wopuld aid the new government. He served behind the scenes in the field of foreign affairs...

George Edwards (1908-2003)

Within a stonesthrow of Vincent Richmond's plaque is one on the corner of Hales End Road, Chingford. It notes the place of birth of George Edwards, a pivotal figure in British aviation (and a rather more successful one than "Dope" Richmond.) He was described as “one of the world’s foremost aircraft designers and administrators - an architect of the age of flight”


The plaque notes that he was born above his fathers toy shop and I can't help but wonder if maybe he was inspired by the toy aircraft that he saw there. He like many learned his trade in the war years and they were skills that were badly needed. He became a senior designer draughtsman with Vickers in 1935 and worked on a special version of the Wellington, became Chief Designer in 1945 and Director and General Manager in 1953.

The post war years and the growth of commercial air travel provided opportunities especially when Britians farflung empire was still around. His designs were both civil and military. The Viscount, The Valiant (one of the cold war V bombers that were a part of Britain's "independent" nuclear deterrant), The VC10, The Jaguar and Tornado and of course Concorde. So his career also marks a change in the aviation industry, were once a single manufacturer would be responsible for the entire development and construction of an aircraft projects like the Tornado and Concorde mean unprecendented cooperation between not only businesses but countries.

I guess that thats true of a lot more than the aircraft industry. Huge conglomerates dominate markets, lobbying hard to get an edge on the opposition. Gone are the little names swallowed by Kraft or Nestle or Unilever...

Anyway that was my little visit to aeronautical Chingford. Hopefully well manage one more London trip before the madness of Yuletide is in full force...

Lt. Col. Vincent C. "Dope" Richmond (1893-1930)

Yes, that really was the guys nickname. And not because he was a fan of the green either.



An age ago I went on a course at Cardington in Bedfordshire, the area is dominated by two vast structures. Built during the First World War to house the British airship programme that would rival the German Zeppelins, they were 700 feet long - and were enlarged after the war when the airship programme was developed to serve the need for communication throughout the empire on which the sun will never set...





It never really took off (pun intended) with the improvements in aeroplanes and also a series of high profile disasters the most famous of which is of course the Hindenburg explosion at Lakehurst NJ.



The R100 and R101 were rival designs, the R100 being buyilt by a commercial company and the R101 by the Air ministry with radically different agendas. The R101 had all the weaknesses of being designed by committee, it was alos subject to meddling from the Air Ministry and as the Air Ministry wanted a high public profile by press attention.



Richmond designed the outer covering of the airship where he used his revolutionary technique of stretching fabric over astructure and doping it which would cause it to shrink which while satisfactory for small aircraft was less than ideal for such a large craft.



Its unknown why the R101 crashed in Beauvais, France on 4th October 1930. The official board of inquiry found that there was a failiure of the outer cover of the upper nose which destroyed a gasbag, but with so many pressures of the court the conclusions are less than reliable.



Richmond was on board and was one of the 48 out of the 55 passengers who perished in the crash as did the dream of dirigibles...

Just one of the plaques spotted on a mammoth day of plaque spotting starting in Chingford and finishing after a long walk back from Oxford circus to Liverpool Street as Marie was on a course and I was at a loose end and unwilling to carry on with filling boxes on a lovely autumn day...

Stolpersteine

I think i shan't be doing the old "it's like....in Nazi Germany" gibe for a while.


Our little trip to Berlin was quite the eye-opener. We stayed in a nice enough hotel on Auguststrasse just off Oranienbergerstrasse which was one of the major thoroughfairs of Jewish Berlin. We could see the elaborate dome of the Neue Synagogue from our room. It was within my lifetime in the Soviet sector of the divided city which means that there is only now a move to gentrify the streets. Theres a sharp contrast between the chic galleries and the mouldering ex-industrial buildings. And its the only European City that Ive experienced with vast tracts of rough ground within a walk of the centre.


Its a scarred city too, the pocked surface of many surfaces, whether is the plaster side of a building or the columns of the museums clustered on Museum Insel or the headstones in the cemeteries. Its scars are deep too and while life goes on, lets not forget that youd have to been in early old age now to be a witness to the deaththroes of the thousand year Reich and the soviet armies utter destruction of the city there is beginning of historical pespective appearing,reassessments of the cities dark past.


One of these is Solpersteine, small brass inlays dedicated to those who used to live within the walls behind the street. Tall, tidy houses for the most part - usually divided up into apartments. Sometimes singles sometimes small groups or three or four usually with the same surname placed at residenst request by a German artist Gunther Hemnig. Its the utter banality, the ordinariness of the sites, the familiarity of the places names - Auschwitz, Theriesenstadt, Riga. Lodz that gets you. The spectres of these families suitcased, hatted being "escorted" from their homes that lingers. The quiet suburban streets not so different now from then. We were situated just round the corner from Grosser Hamburger Strasse and the desecrated Jewish cemetary not to mention the empty house - a gap ripped into the row of houses , emblematic of the gap in German society with the names and occupations of the old tenements ex-occupants.
So far over 20,000 Stolpersteine have been placed with 2,00 in berlin...

It's like collecting blue plaques in Nazi Germany part II

So we find our guide outside the Bishopsgate entrance to Liverpool Street station and soon our motley band is assembled and we debarked across the road through a maze of what were once East India Company warehouses, mute witnesses to the trade that made the city great and of course one of the driving imperatives of the immigrant communities.

We found ourselves on Middlesex Street otherwise known as Petticoat Lane, not that there was an awful lot of activity at 11a.m. on Saturday and spotted the Blue Plaque dedicated to the Jewish Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor again a reminder not only of the Immigrant community but also to the immense poverty in the area. Which is of course why Petticoat Lane market and its schmutter is there. We also spotted a discarded Pilsner Urquell half pint glass which made its way mysteriously inside M's carrier bag. Next stop on the trail was the discreetly hidden Sandy's Row Synagogue which looked so damnedly intriguing. But it being a Saturady and a high holiday as well there was no chance of gaining entry. We found our way down past a couple of the best preserved Hugenot shops around Gun Street and Artillery Lane so called for the Tudor armshouses created by Henry VIII to an old Almshouse used by many of the working girls of the area - Not least Mary Kelly the last of the canonical Ripper victims and across the way a soulless carpark on the site of a warren of old streets including Millers Court where Jack has his way with her... and she was his final victim. The culmination of a long hot summer of mounting insanity. London Walks has a couple of Ripper Walks which Id like to go on but there was a bit of crossover on this walk the alleys of Whitechapel and its teeming hordes providing Jack with his choice of victims. We turn from BellLane and its faded adverts for businesses long closed and turn East past Spitalfields Market. On either side of the entrance to Fournier Street are gorgeous Christchuch Spitalfields a Hawksmoor church saved from the demolition and on the other The Ten Bells which again has Ripper connections. "It was widely rumoured that Annie Chapman had been seen in a pub near Spitalfields Market at c.5.00 A.M. on the morning of her murder" and Mary Kelly's pitch was outside the pub and Mary Kelly was also reported to have been drinking there the night before her death...

It's like collecting blue plaques in Nazi Germany

As Eddie would say...
We had a really good Saturday taking the Liverpool St. train a little before 9 and arrived in 10.15 in good time for the Immigrants London walk which started from the Bishopsgate entrance to Liverpool Street station. Fortunately we found our guide in good time. Theres a blue plaque actually on Liverpool Street station dedicated to the first Bethlehem hospital (1247-1676). It's recognised as the worlds first institute for psychiatric disorders. Its also where we get the word Bedlam from whhich speaks volumes as to the conditions that the unfortunates there undewent. It started as a religious institute, a priory run by the Order of the Star of Bethlehem. It firsat became a hospital in 1337 and first admitted psychiatric patients in 1357. Early sixteenth century maps show the hospital as a few stone buildings grouped around a courtyard, a church and a garden. The "care" provided there was shall we say minimal. Patients were routinely manacled to the floor, the lucky ones were licenced to beg . It was a royal hospital but administered by the corporation of London and managed by the governor of Bridewell. The other plaque in Liverpool Street station is rather more recent and depicts five children surrounded by parcels and bags at ground level. Behind them are the train tracks that have brought them to this point. Train tracks that began in Berlin, Leipzig, Mannheim, Hamburg, Vienna, Prague.
The story continues soon

Dissolution

On the eve of Pope Bendicts visit to these shores I'm glad to report that my magnificent octopus is finished (at least for the time being) The map of visited blue plaques is pretty much up to date. I'm missing a few which I think are on Marie's camera but it will do as a start. Were off to London at the weekend for the London Open House day so hopefully will be able to get a few more sorted out.

Last years Open House we spent around Fleet St and I was placing last years Blue Plaques and there are a couple which seemed in the light of the book that I've just began - Dissolution by C.J.Sansom. They are both very central (Newgate Street and Ludgate Broadway) and both are dedicated to monastic institutions - Grey Friars and Blackfriars. Blackfriars was a Dominican Monastery which was moved from Holborn in 1276 and was destroyed by Henry VIII in 1538 and Grey friars refers to a Franciscan house set up between 1306 and 1348 which grew into quite the institution being the second largest church in London (300 ft long and 89 feet across) featuring 11 alters. Big Hal also put an end to the monastery and donated Christ's Church to the city which underwent a bit of a reverse with materials being half-inched and monuments being defaced. The church was destroyed in the Great Fire and was rebuilt by Wren.

Im enjoying Dissolution. Ive got quite the thing for geographical/historical moiders. Im still making my way through the Cetin Ikmen back catalogue. Its quite the recreation of Tudor times and the reforming zeal that lead to the religious background of modern Britain.
And so we return to the Popes visit. There have been a couple of interesting pieces on the TV - most notably Peter Tatchell's take on the visit which was pretty close to my own. There were some nutbar interviewees most notably a Filipino lawyer who so no merits in contraception as they had a failiure rate and the home counties loon who insisted that stem cell research was murder because the most miniscule collection of cells are due human rights. Now I'm not saying that science has all the answers, I'm not saying that modern society is perfect. What I am saying is that when dogma trumps common sense its time to take stock.