Captain of the 11
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
George Calderon, 1912
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
George Calderon c.1901
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920Recent Comments
- John Pym on Two anniversaries We are all, followers and occasional contributors, beholden to you, Patrick, for reminding us for ten years that the past is worth remembering and for keeping alive the... (August 17, 2024 at 1:06 pm)
- Patrick Miles on A second Family Bible Very many thanks for fleshing that point out -- and so entertainingly! (I love your reference to creative writing courses, which are a phobia of mine.) Although several... (August 2, 2024 at 11:03 am)
- Laurence Brockliss on A second Family Bible When I say that the British Republic of Letters was dead by 1880, I don't mean to imply that thereafter there were no men and women outside universities, institutes and... (August 2, 2024 at 9:19 am)
- Patrick Miles on A second Family Bible Thank you for devoting valuable time to writing this fascinating Comment. If I may say so, it is awe-inspiring to see the author of a monumental work standing back from that... (July 31, 2024 at 5:32 pm)
- Laurence Brockliss on A second Family Bible Male Professionals in Nineteenth Century Britain was a new departure for me. For most of my adult life I have worked on seventeenth and eighteenth century France. It is also... (July 24, 2024 at 11:31 am)
Category Archives: Edwardian character
15 September 1914
On this day, Calderon was thrown from his horse at the riding school. He was quite a short man (five foot nine and a half), slightly built. The horse tossed him against a wall and his back was very badly … Continue reading
Things
There is no documentation of what Calderon did between now and 15 September. Presumably, however, he had to set about equipping himself for active service. Officers had to buy some of their equipment, clothes, and food themselves; they even had … Continue reading
9 September 1914
On this day the B.E.F. began to cross the Marne. Momentously, an emissary from Moltke had arrived the day before and now persuaded both von Kluck and von Bülow that they must retreat northeastwards or be encircled by the Allies … Continue reading
Interpreter preparation
Calderon was fluent in French, had ‘learnt Flemish while shaving in the mornings’ (according to his composer friend Martin Shaw), and incredibly enough had once made a special study of Walloon dialects. His German was also competent. He had absolutely … Continue reading
‘The Godfather in War’
About now 1914, George Calderon went again to see his golfing acquaintance Coote Hedley. He turned up at his house at 9.30 in the evening, wearing his O.T.C. ‘reach-me-down’. However, as Hedley told Mrs Hedley, ‘even in that awful old … Continue reading
25 August 1914
On this day the first accounts of the Battle of Mons started appearing in British newspapers. The Times headed its main report ‘Namur Lost, German Success in Belgium’ and led off: ‘The battle is joined and has so far gone … Continue reading
Determined
Calderon’s approach to issues of the day (Russia, suffragism, unionism) was to study them in depth, analyse them, then decide what was the right course of action for him and stick to it through thick and thin. This was why … Continue reading
Training and War Games
Then we lived in an atmosphere of drill – I don’t only mean the drills etc and general training that he was going through, but at home: books on drill, books on everything, Morse codes, other codes, German military handbooks … Continue reading
3 August 1914
Of course the Adjutant turned him down – saying he was far too old. It must have been a bitter blow to Calderon, yet it is very unlikely that he showed it. He may have tried to reason, perhaps he … Continue reading
Calderonia – A Writer Goes to War
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not. —Wilfred Owen George Calderon was killed on 4 June 1915 at the murderous ‘Battle of Achi Baba’ on the Gallipoli Peninsula. When his death was officially confirmed in 1919 The … Continue reading
‘Who is George Calderon?’
Obviously, this is a question I am often asked. Sometimes it is even delivered with a kind of reproach, as to say: ‘Why are you writing this biography of somebody no-one knows, rather than of someone we all know, (a … Continue reading →