FIELD OF REMEMBRANCE: FALLEN LEAVES AMONGST THE FALLEN

 I HAVE LIVED in London for well over 60 years, but it was only this November (2021) that I first became aware of, and experienced, something that has been happening annually on the north side of Westminster Abbey since November 1928 (www.poppyfactory.org/about-us/history-timeline/#). For eight days following the Thursday preceding Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday closest to Armistice Day, the 11^th of November, the day on which WW1 ended, the field bounded by Westminster Abbey and its neighbour, the church of St Margaret’s Westminster, is covered with a myriad of mostly tiny wooden memorials hammered into the grass. The memorials are mostly cross-shaped, but some are in the form of crescents, six-pointed stars, and other shapes including some that bear the Sanskrit symbol representing ‘aum’ (or ‘om’). Each of these tiny wooden items commemorates a fallen service person or other victim of war. The shapes of the wooden pieces denote the religion of the person or persons being remembered, be they Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Moslem, Jewish, or of no religion. Many of the wooden memorials have red poppies attached. Oddly, few if any of the Islamic crescents had poppies on them. The small wooden memorials are arranged in groups, according to which service or regiment or organisation the remembered people were members of, or associated with. The whole ‘event’ is organised by The British Legion Poppy Factory. This annual garden of memorials is called The Field of Remembrance.

Fallen leaves amongst the fallen

The Poppy Factory, a charity, was founded in 1922 by Major George Howson (1886-1936) to provide employment for veterans injured during WW1. He bought a site in Richmond (south-west London), where he established a factory to manufacture Remembrance poppies and other related items to be sold to raise money for The British Legion’s Red Poppy Appeal, a charity that supports the Armed Forces community.

 

Apart from the small wooden memorials, there are many badges and emblems of the groups in which those remembered were members. Looking at these and the small wooden memorials is both fascinating and extremely moving. The fascination lies in the huge variety of regiments and organisations, too many to list, which lost people during military conflicts (and terrorist incidents) since the onset of WW1.

 

One group of memorials interested me because of their emblem that incorporates a heraldic creature, which has fascinated me for several decades. The creature is the double-headed eagle (‘DHE’), currently used as an emblem by countries including Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, the Indian state of Karnataka, and Russia. The DHE appears on the crests of some of the various regiments of The Royal Dragoon Guards. The Dragoon Guard regiments were first established in the 18^th century, in 1746, and consist of mounted infantry. While the Austro-Hungarian Empire existed, it also used the DHE. In 1896, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (1830-1916) of Austria-Hungary was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the 1^st King’s Dragoon Guards, some of whose members are remembered in the Field of Remembrance. The emperor allowed the regiment to wear his empire’s emblem (https://web.archive.org/web/20130303033912/http://www.qdg.org.uk/pages/Uniform-1843-Onwards-81.php), the DHE. In addition, the regiment adopted “The Radetzky March” as one of its official march tunes; it is still used today. It was sad that in 1914, Franz Joseph, became the ruler of one of the powers against whom Britain and its allies were fighting. Some of those who fought in the British Royal Dragoon Guard regiments with the DHE on their headwear were killed by allies of the emperor in WW1, who had earlier been appointed their C-in-C. They are commemorated the Field of Remembrance. Judging by the small wooden memorials planted in the Royal Dragoon Guard’s section of the Field of Remembrance, members of at least four religions fell while serving in these regiments. I wondered why the DHE was retained even after Austria-Hungary became one of Britain’s opponents in war.

Double-headed eagles of the Royal Dragoon Guards

 

Returning to the Field of Remembrance as a whole, it is a poignant sight to behold. Although war is both horrific and ugly, this annual memorial is both moving and beautiful. The Field is laid out beneath trees lining its northern edge. Seeing the dead leaves from these trees lying fallen amongst the thousands of tiny memorials to victims of war seemed most apt to me.

A war memorial next to the north door of Westminster Abbey

Remembering some Jewish people who fell whlst fighting

St Margaret's Westminster behind The Field of Remembrance

An Albanian Eagle in London

The double-headed eagle, national symbol of Albania[i], has an ancient ancestry. Its earliest known manifestation is amongst artefacts dating back to Ancient Babylon, 2000-3000 years BC[ii].

Recently, I was walking along London’s Fleet Street when I happened to notice a building with a double-headed eagle above its main entrance. This building houses the private bank C Hoare and Co. The bank, founded in 1672, has had premises on this site since 1690, when its founder Richard Hoare moved his business there from “The Sign of The Golden Bottle” on Cheapside[iii]. The golden bottle is the bank’s emblem; the double-headed eagle is that of the Hoare family.

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[i] And many other places!

[ii] See for example The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient by H Frankfort, (4^th ed.) publ. by Penguin Books, Harmondsworth: 1970.

[iii] Historical information about the bank comes from Hoares Bank – A Brief History, published by the bank as a four page handout. I was given a copy of this by the doorman, who shared my interest in the double-headed eagle.

The founder of the Hoare (or Hore) family was Robertus who, in about 1330, married an heiress of the family of Fforde of Chagford in the county of Devon[i]. Earler than that, there was a Sir William le Hore, who besieged and captured the Irish town of Wexford in 1169. His standard[ii] bore a double-headed eagle[iii]. One of his descendants, went over to Devonshire in England to seek his fortune and married the heiress of Fforde. He settled at Chagford and founded the Devon family which was at first known as ‘Hore’ and later as ‘Hoar’ or ‘Hoare’. Other branchs of the family settled in the South east quarter of Devonshire. This family has its armorial insignia described in the record of the earliest visitation of Devonshire as ‘Sable an eagle displayed with two necks within a bordure engrailed argent’. The London bank, whose premises are in Fleet Street, was founded by member(s) of this Hoare family.

 I wonder why the curious heraldic device of the double-headed eagle was adopted by this family. From what I have already written, it is evident that the family was employing it in the 12^th century, certainly by 1169. This was before 1256 when Richard, Earl of Cornwall, was elected to become King of the Holy Roman Empire, one of whose most well-known emblems is the double-headed eagle. So, it is unlikely that the family picked up the double-headed eagle from that source.

            The eagle with two heads was certainly used by the Byzantine Empire and also the Seljuk Turks. It has been claimed by some that people returning from the Crusades, which began in the late 11^th century, may have brought this symbol to Western Europe. However, there is evidence that it reached this part of the world even earlier. Emile Male wrote that there is a cloth dating back to the 9^th or 10^th century AD at Sens in France[iv]. Although he believed it to have been of Byzantine origin, I suggest that the presence of it and other similarly decorated textiles in Western Europe may have helped to have brought the double-headed eagle to the attention of those living in France, many parts of which were under control of the Normans who were also ruling England.

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[i] The history of the Hoare family, which I have consulted, is that written by Edward Hoare. It appears in http://neergaard.org/CGTGenealogy/Family%20Histories/Family%20Histories-%20Crests/History%20of%20Hoare%20Family.html, which I accessed on the 19^th May, 2015.

[ii] i.e. flag or crest.

[iii] See also: A General Armory of England, Scotland, and Ireland, by J & JB Burke, publ. by Edward Churton, London: 1842.

[iv] See: L’art Religieux du XIIe Siecle, by E Male, publ. by Librairie Armand Colin, Paris: 1922.

When I told the porter of the Hoare Bank in Fleet Street about my interest in double-headed eagles, he told me that he had often wondered about the curious eagle above the door where he stands all day. His view was that the Hoare family chose to use the double-headed eagle sometime after the bank was founded simply because nobody else was using this heraldic symbol[i]. As I hope that I have demonstrated, the use of this symbol by the Hoare family goes back much further than the founding of the bank. Lastly, I must point out that I have a tenuous connection with Hoare’s bank. Some years ago, my wife used to work for an offshoot of this venerable bank.

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[i] The double-headed eagle is usel rarely in British heraldry. Most of the families that use it come from the West Country, which includes Devon and Cornwall.

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