George and Kittie Calderon 1905
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George Calderon, 1912
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Captain of the 11
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
George Calderon c.1901
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.Recent 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)
Monthly Archives: June 2015
Another Calderon signs up
At Edmonton, Alberta, on this day in 1915, George’s eldest brother, the architect Alfred Merigon Calderon (q.v.), applied to join the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force — as their youngest brother, Frederick Elwyn, had on 23 September 1914. It is not … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alfred Merigon Calderon, Canada, Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, census, Clara Calderon, Edmonton Regiment, Fred Calderon, Frederick Calderon, George Calderon, Middlesex Rifles, Philip Hermogenes Calderon, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Zillebeke
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…then three come along at once
When I started my deeper research for this biography in 2010, one of the things I did was trawl the Web for manuscripts of George’s that were up for sale. I found only one item, which we bought for the … Continue reading
‘Tributes’
A Russianist who has read Percy Lubbock’s George Calderon: A Sketch from Memory (1921) asks me why I have not posted more tributes to George than my own. The reason is simply that tributes were not published until his death became … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A.B. Lowry, Clare Hopkins, commemoration, comments, Dardanelles, For the Fallen, G.F. Bradby, Gallipoli, George Calderon, H.C. Bradby, Harold Dowdall, John Masefield, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Lawrence Le Breton Hammond, Leonora Bagg, Manolo Ordoño de Rosales, Percy Lubbock, Sir Coote Hedley, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Thomas Sturge Moore, tributes, Trinity College Oxford, World War I
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Commemoration (to be continued 2)
Plan A for a commemoration of George’s death (see yesterday’s post) was really dictated by long accepted British forms of commemorative ritual. These have loosened up in recent years, of course, to a point where you have extended, all-singing-and-dancing customer-devised … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged commemoration, comments, Dardanelles, Evey Pym, Foxwold, Francois Rabelais, Gallipoli, George Calderon, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Peter Hart, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Violet Pym, World War I
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Commemoration (to be continued 1)
The organisation of a public commemoration of George Calderon’s sacrifice on 4 June 1915, and the experience of the form it eventually took, have raised a huge number of questions in my and other Calderonians’ minds. Very long emails were … Continue reading
‘Things fall apart’
Since George Calderon’s death at noon in the Third Battle of Krithia on 4 June 1915 the timeline of this blog has frayed almost to nothingness. I understand the disorientation and even irritation of some followers who have emailed me. … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', 1/5th King's Own Scottish Borderers, Alexandria, biography, Captain James Grogan, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Gertrude Bell, Hoe Benham, Imbros, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, KOSB, Lemnos, Percy Lubbock, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I
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20 June 1915
Today at Hoe Benham Kittie received George’s last two letters (1 and 3 June 1915 — see my posts of those dates 2015), redirected from Hampstead at 5.45 p.m. yesterday. The Field Post marks are clearly 1 and 3 June … Continue reading
Life at Hoe Benham
We may assume, then, that two days ago Kittie arrived at The Cottage at the Crossways, Hoe Benham, to stay for an indefinite period with the closest woman friend in her life, Nina Astley (Corbet). She would have travelled to … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage
Tagged Acton Reynald, Benham Valence, Boxford, Constance Sutton, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Hoe Benham, Jim Corbet, Kittie Calderon, Lesbia Corbet, Nina Astley, Percy Lubbock, Reginald Astley, Sir Richard Sutton, Sir Roland James Corbet, The Crossways, The Great War, World War I
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The biographer blurts
Ah dear, it’s time to come clean. The ‘disaster’ has happened: this blog is now a fortnight ahead of the writing of my biography itself. I finished Chapter 14 of the biography with George going over the top on 4 … Continue reading
Fast developments
Yesterday and the day before I did some entirely new research on correlating what documents we have about these few days of Kittie’s life. The result is, of course, still only an hypothesis, but I think it is a plausible … Continue reading
16 June 1915
Unless you are from a military background, you might not realise that soldiers on active service strive to report back to Battalion HQ at home, or how much other regiments exchange information from the battlefield with each other at home, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage
Tagged Arthur Maxwell Labouchere, Bovington Camp, Captain Hogan, Captain James Grogan, Dardanelles, Dorchester, Dorset, Fort Brockhurst, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Wareham, Wool, World War I
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14 June 1915
Bell received Kittie’s letter this Monday morning and replied immediately in her rapid administrator writing: Dear Mrs Calderon, We telegraphed yesterday about Mr Calderon, at the request of the War Office. I do so very deeply sympathise with your anxiety … Continue reading
Action
Both Constance Sutton (Astley) and Nina Corbet (Astley) knew only too well the nervous and physical effects that anxiety tended to have on Kittie. But Kittie had her own well-developed pattern of techniques for coping with it. She clung to … Continue reading
Letter from a concerned friend
Today, Saturday 12 June, at Brinsop Court (q.v.), Constance Astley wrote Kittie a four-side letter. We do not know when Kittie received it, as Constance herself says she knows Kittie is ‘in the country now’, but not where, and therefore … Continue reading
11 June 1915
Sometime today, which was a Friday, Kittie received the following telegram: O.H.M.S. I certify that this telegram is sent on the service of the WAR OFFICE [Signature] 2nd Lieut. Calderon Oxford Light Infantry attached K.O.S. Borderers was wounded June 4th. … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage
Tagged Belgium, Flanders, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Hampstead, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, KOSB, Nina Astley, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, telegrams, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, War Office, Well Walk, World War I, Ypres
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Gallipoli: planning a disaster
The Third Battle of Krithia, in which George Calderon was killed on 4 June, may have been the bloodiest single battle fought by the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force at Gallipoli, i.e. in terms of its own losses. Enemy losses, both in … Continue reading →