In search of water

Allan Cunningham, a British botanist who spent many years exploring Australia’s outback, was born 230 years ago today. Very soon after arriving in Australia, he joined an early expedition across the Blue Mountains being led by John Oxley, one of the colony’s first explorers and surveyors. Despite following river beds, water supply was a daily problem at times, as were the natives whose presence in the landscape was felt more often than seen.

Cunningham was born in Wimbledon, near London, on 13 July 1791. His father was a head gardener at Wimbledon House. Allan studied at a private school in Putney before training for the law. But after doing some clerical work at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he was chosen by Joseph Banks to travel abroad to collect plants for Kew. He was sent to Brazil between from 1814 until 1816, and then to New South Wales, Australia.

In 1817, Cunningham joined John Oxley’s expedition through the Blue Mountains along the Lachlan and Macquarie rivers; and then in the following years, until 1822, he sailed five times as botanist with Phillip Parker King’s hydrographical surveys of the north and north-western coasts of Australia. Thereafter, he undertook further inland explorations, such as those in Queensland where he determined Darling Downs, and Cunningham’s Gap.

Cunningham returned to England in 1831, but went back to Australia as a government botanist in 1837. Soon after he resigned to become superintendent of the Sydney Botanical Gardens. He died in 1839. Further information is available from the Australian Dictionary of National Biography or Wikipedia. The Allan Cunningham Project has a wealth of information about the man and his writing.

For some of his expeditions at least, Allan Cunningham kept journals and these appeared in print for the first time in Early Explorers in Australia. From the log-books and journals published by Lee Methuen & Co in 1925. Both The Allan Cunningham Project and Gutenberg of Australia have the full text freely available online. Here are a few extracts from Cunningham’s diary of his early expedition through the Blue Mountains.

5 May 1817
‘We departed from our last encampment about 9 o’clock, and having crossed a small creek which intersected our course, we ascended the gentle rising hill which I had visited yesterday. The view even on this eminence being much confined, Mr. Oxley took bearings of the most remarkable ranges of hills around it at a distance from the top of a lofty Callitris. Descending to the flats we were again deceived by a long chain of ponds or lagoons which we fell in with, but perceiving our mistake we crossed it in a dry situation and came to the banks of the Lachlan. Such was the confusion created by this mistake that we were all scattered and divided and taking different courses. Our people in the boats fired guns to inform us of their situation.

Calling to one another we were answered by strange voices, which left us in no doubt of natives being near us. It was a great point we should all join again, which at length we did, after some of us had passed over several miles on a cross-course, the labour of which might have been saved. Our people came up with seven or eight of the natives, who were clothed with mantles of skin reddened with a pigment from the river. There appeared not the most distant symptoms of hostility among them! They evidently had seen a horse before, and could pronounce some words of English, such as bread, and they had every appearance of having been with those at the Lachlan Depôt, from which we are now 54 miles west. From the columns of smoke ascending from the trees to which these harmless beings were advancing there is no doubt of their encampment being there situated, and it might be inferred that their gins or wives were there, from their evident objection to our people attempting to accompany them to their fires. The delay and loss of time occasioned by the above adventure had allowed our boatmen to work themselves through all the numerous windings of this intricate river and overtake us.

We all started again in a body, travelling immediately on the river bank about 4 miles, when we were stopped by a deep muddy creek connecting the river with the chain of ponds above alluded to. We passed this gully with considerable difficulty, being obliged to unload our horses. Accompanied by Mr. Oxley I went to an extensive open plain about half a mile N.W. of our course, which we found of very considerable extent. It is a flat that receives the inundations of the Lachlan; it is of a light loamy soil and at this time very damp and slimy, in consequence of the recent rain.

This plain, which is clear of timber and is skirted by Acacia pendula we have called Solway Flats, from its slight similarity to a place of that name in North Britain.’

11 May 1817
‘It is as large as the northwest river which we intend to continue upon, and which we are induced from appearances to conclude will not be of long existence as a river. We fathomed the deepest part and found it did not exceed 19 ft. It is evident that these plains are inundated by the river in great floods from the eastward, for in fact the highest land (the few rocky hills excepted) is on the immediate bank of the river, so that the floods rising over the banks descend down upon the plains on each side this channel. On the plains we observed two native companions (Grus australasiana), and our people shot two swans. From the circumstance of having seen two bark canoes moored among the reeds on the river’s left bank, and from the body of smoke ascending above the small trees at the base of Mount Melville on the opposite side of the plain, it is evident that there are some natives existing in these parts. We, however, saw none.

It was a matter of surprise that we fell in with so very few natives, whose marks are daily before our eyes, but it appears sufficiently obvious that experience has taught them to retire from a river where a supply of food is extremely precarious, and where a sudden inundation would in a moment sweep them away. Choosing rather to retire to the hilly country where they are enabled to obtain a daily subsistence with greater facility, and are not liable to be surprised and overtaken by floods.

N.B. It appears they only visit the river in great drought, when there is but little water in its channel, and are then able to procure the large horse mussel from its muddy bottom, which they cannot possibly obtain in floods and strong currents. They have no idea of angling or have any method to catch that we know of. The viviparous Pancratium purpureum] grows extremely luxuriant on these slimy plains. An unfortunate accident happened us this day. The horse that usually carried the barometer fell beneath his load and broke that valuable instrument.’

18 June 1817
‘At daybreak we sent two others to the range of hills near us in search of water, with directions to continue in the course of Mount Barrow should they not be so fortunate as to find any nearer on the range or in the gullies proceeding from it. They returned with a small quantity, enabling us to distribute to each a pint for our breakfast. Our people who had been sent to bring up the horses reported that there was some good grass a mile and a half distant in a valley between the hills. Anxious to remove to a more hospitable spot where water would in all probability be found, sufficient for ourselves and horses, we proceeded forward with the most necessary and the lightest of our provisions and luggage, leaving five casks of pork, which we could send back for in the course of the day. About 2½ miles N. easterly over some rocky hills we descended to a fine rich valley of good grass and some holes of rain water in the gullies, enough for ourselves and horses. We accordingly pitched our tents in the valley and turned our horses out to feed. Mr. Oxley sent the strongest of our animals for the casks of pork left at our last resting place.

As a proof of the badly watered condition of the country we discovered a hole that had been made with great labour by the natives very recently, and containing a little dirty water. It is obvious that the gullies were dry three days since, and that the late rains have supplied these cavities with the water we now enjoy!! Our dogs killed a native dog, which was devoured among us! The natives had not left the valley many days, because their huts of green branches and remains of fires were so fresh.

Upon taking a survey of our dry stock of provisions in hand there appeared a deficiency of a considerable quantity of flour, which at first view could by no means be accounted for. It appears, however, from a little investigation that took place this afternoon, that when on the river our boatmen hauled up one of the boats too short - by her painter - to a tree on the bank, and in the course of the night the water had fallen a foot, leaving the boat resting on her stern whereby many casks were rolled out into the river and 300 lbs. weight of flour totally lost. It was an accident they were fearful to communicate to any of us till now by dint of cross-examination. This is a severe loss to us and will oblige us to be content with a half ration.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on I3 July 2011.

My second birthday

‘The day has come to an end, - this 29 April, for the rest of my life I shall celebrate it as my second birthday, as the day that my life was given back to me.’ So wrote Edgar Kupfer, inmate of Dachau concentration camp, in a secret diary on the day American troops liberated the camp. Kupfer died 30 years ago today.

Kupfer was born in Koberwitz, Germany, in 1906, the son of an estate manager. He studied in Bonn, Regensburg and Stuttgart, but when his parents were divorced he left school to support his mother and sister by taking unskilled jobs. Disappointed in love, Kupfer left Germany for Italy and France. He undertook a variety of jobs over the next 15 years, including journalism (for which he used the pen name Kupfer-Koberwitz), and weaving (in Paris), From 1937, he worked in a travel company on the island of Ischia. In September 1940, he was expelled from Italy, to Innsbruck, for disparaging the Nazi regime and Italian fascism. There, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp - for the duration of the Second World War. From November 1942, be was given the role of clerk in a satellite camp, one that provided slave labour for an armaments factory. Once in this position, he was able to keep a diary secretly recording camp life on tiny slips of paper which he hid among administration papers. Later, he buried the diary.

Despite nearly being consumed by typhus, Kupfer survived his imprisonment at Dachau and was liberated along with 67,000 other prisoners by US forces on 29 April 2945. A week later, he led the Americans to the location of his diaries (some of which had sustained water damage), and two years later they were used as important evidence during the Nuremberg Trials. After the war and until the late 1950s, Kupfer lived in Chicago, but then he moved back to Europe to reside in a village on Sardinia. In 1986 he returned to Germany, first living with friends and then in a nursing home near Stuttgart. Apart from writing about Dachau, he also published poems and essays on vegetarianism. He died on 7 July 1991. Further information can be found online at Wikipedia.

Kupfer’s diaries were first serialised in the journal Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte under the title Als Haftling in Dachau. In 1954, Kupfer donated the diaries to the University of Chicago. They were published in German in the 1990s as Dachauer Tagebücher: die Aufzeichnungen des Häftlings 24814. No translations into English appear to have been published, nor can I find any substantial extracts online. More information about the diaries, though, can be found at the Mother Jones and Passport-collector websites, as well as in David Chrisinger’s article for The New York Times (most readily available here). Several websites quote an English translation of one entry, the one made by Kupfer on 29 April 1945, liberation day. The following is as found at the Birkbeck, University of London website . 

29 April 1945
‘While I’m writing there are big explosions nearby.

A very unpleasant, but apparently true, bit of news: it’s said that there’s still a whole company of SS in the camp, but no Wehrmacht. So we rejoiced too soon and are now in danger twice over: partly from the SS and partly from the war that is now raging around us. […]

Suddenly, there are shouts outside and people running about: “The Americans have arrived, they’re in the camp, yes, yes, they’re on the roll call square!”

Everybody starts moving. The sick leave their beds, those who are nearly well and the nursing staff run out into the block street, jump out of the windows, climb over the partition walls. Everybody is running to the roll call square. One can hear people shouting hurray from a long way off. They’re shouts of joy. People keep running around. The sick have excited, ecstatic faces. “They’ve arrived, we’re free, free!” […]

Hardly any violence has occurred, although we had always thought it might. Everybody’s feelings of joy were evidently stronger than their feelings of hatred […].

So, as far as the majority is concerned, what happened to the hatred, the burning hatred that everybody believed that they felt inside them? Joy trumped all that and … hatred is probably a sign of powerlessness, but now we are no longer powerless. But the fact that we are not behaving as the SS would have behaved, that’s only as it should be, but … it’s still a good thing.

The day has come to an end, this 29 April, - for the rest of my life I shall celebrate it as my second birthday, as the day that my life was given back to me.’

City of virtue and vice

Thomas Asline Ward, a man who devoted himself largely to serving the town of Sheffield, was baptised all of 240 years ago today. He may have well have been forgotten but for his diary, which was first published in instalments in a local paper. Ward visited London in the early part of the 19th century, and his diary provides an interesting and colourful account of the busy city.

Ward was baptised in Sheffield on 6 July 1781. He married Ann Lewin in 1814, though she died just 12 years later. He worked for the Cutlers’ Company being Master Cutler in 1816, and he served as Town Trustee from 1817 to 1863, including nearly two decades as Town Collector. He was also a magistrate from 1836. He seems to have become something of a local celebrity, but on trying for Parliament failed to be elected. He died in 1871. There is a very little information about Ward online, although a few details can be gleaned from Sheffield History and from the Staniforth family website.

Ward is largely remembered because of his diary. This was edited by Alexander B Bell and serialised in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph in 1907-1908. A year later it was published as Peeps into the Past being passages from the Diary of Thomas Asline Ward by W C Leng & Co with an introduction and annotations by Robert Leader. In his introduction, Leader says: ‘The value of the diary is the insight it gives into the details of the singularly beautiful life of a citizen of high rectitude, endowed with fine mental gifts, cultivated by assiduous reading.’

Here are a few extracts from Ward’s diary, all but the first about a visit to London in 1804.

6 July 1802.
‘I completed my 21st year. The workmen, to the number of 100, supped at Mr Bellamy’s, the sign of the Royal Oak, in New Street. Father, Brother Saml. and I staid till nearly 12 o’clock. We went at 7. Expense, £10 10s.’

16 August 1804
‘After a long and fatiguing day’s business I accompanied Mrs Dalby to Vauxhall Gardens, where a great number of people were assembled, it being a Gala Night on account of the Duke of York’s birthday. We first noticed the orchestra, which is erected amidst trees, and ornamented by coloured lamps in various forms and devices. A band of music and some of the first singers in town occupied it, and at the time we entered Mrs Bland was singing. In a short time they left the orchestra for a little repose, and it was occupied by the Duke of York’s military band which played several martial spirit-stirring airs. 10 o’clock arrived and suddenly a bell rang which announced an exhibition of waterworks, after which the restless auditors and spectators again flocked to the orchestra, which was again the theatre of singing til’ 12 o’clock, when they finally concluded, and the fireworks commenced. After this spectacle the gardens are generally a scene of merriment and jollity. The Pandeans, German, Turkish and military bands are stationed in various parts of the place, and some of them are continually playing, while parties of joyful visitors “trip it on the light fantastic toe.” Here might be seen fat clumsy boors dancing with the taper, light London Miss, a jumble of oddity and levity truly ridiculous. Long covered promenades (with little cells in which were spread a profusion of refreshments) served to protect the votary of pleasure from dire effects of the midnight air, which many, more ardent, braved in the dark green alleys, whose cool and kindly shade afforded a charming retreat to the lovers of darkness. Should the pitiless rain intrude its unwelcome patter, all take refuge in a large room which is elegantly fitted up with various patriotic and emblematic devices, where the walk, the dance, the music, and the supper, continually offer themselves to the senses. The lights, the transparencies, the trees, the magic-resembling, fairy-like whole, formed for me a truly new scene. Mrs D and I retired 2 hours before the usual time it closes, which is 4 o’clock.’

20 August 1804
‘Mr Dalby and I walked to Hungerford Stairs, where we took a boat, and landed near Billingsgate. Having inspected this famous fishmarket, we walked to the Tower, where we saw wild beasts kept there, the regalia and the armouries. The ancient armour is interesting, and the modern is beautiful; for the swords, pistols, musquets, etc. quite clean and ready for service, are ranged in the most perfect order, and with the nicest art are placed so as to imitate columns, stars, and other devices.

After seeing the curiosities of the Tower, we sailed to the new docks, appropriated for the vessels in the West India trade, of which 300 homeward bound may lie in the basin at one time, and a dock for those outward bound is making. The fleet was arrived only 2 or 3 days, and we saw an immense crowd of them pressing towards the yards to discharge their lading. The buildings are of stone, 7 stories high, built very strong to contain the heavy stores which are frequently put in them. A moat, wall, and palisade surround the whole, and sentinels are placed to prevent depredations. The circumference is great, but I cannot guess at it.’

21 August 1804
‘And now, London, I must bid thee “Farewell.” Thou art the centre of Good and Evil, of Virtue and Vice! How many and how various are the characters which inhabit they walls! How magnificent thy palaces! How mean they cottages! How miserable some, how happy others! Some fatten on the spoils of poverty, others starve in the midst of plenty. How many thousands are insufficient to supply the luxury of some, while others want a crust of bread to satiate the calls of hunger! . . .’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 6 July 2011.

Conquistador in love

Pedro de Alvarado, one of Spain’s most successful and famous conquistadors, conqueror of much of Central America, died 480 years ago today. He seems to have left behind very little autobiographical material, but there are a few hand-written English translations of diary entries made at the time when the Aztec chief, Moctezuma, was being seized by Hernán Cortés. They tell less of military matters than of his falling in love with an Aztec princess.

Pedro de Alvarado was born into a large noble family in 1485 in Badajóz, Extremadura, close by the Spain’s western border with Portugal. Little is known of his early life, but in 1510 he sailed with his father and several brothers to Hispaniola, a Spanish colony (the island now being shared between Haiti and the Dominican Republic). In 1518, he was appointed leader of an expedition to the Yucatán, and, the following year, he captained one of the 11 ships led by Hernán Cortés to Mexico. The fleet arrived at their first stop in Cozumel, then sailed around the north of Yucatán Peninsula making their way to Cempoala where they set about establishing alliances. Cortés managed to imprison king Moctezuma, but left Alvarado in the control of the restless capital, Tenochtitlán (now, Mexico City). 

When the indigenous gathered in the square to celebrate a festival, Alvarado feared an uprising and ordered his men to strike first. About 200 Aztec chiefs were massacred. In turn, the Spanish quarters were besieged by an angry mob. Upon his return, Cortés quickly planned a nighttime retreat from Tenochtitlán. On the night of 30 June 1520, known as noche triste (‘sad night’), Cortes and his men attempted to leave the city quietly but were spotted by the Aztecs. Fierce fighting erupted, and Alvarado, who was leading the rear guard, narrowly escaped. The Spanish recaptured Tenochtitlán in 1521, and in 1522 Alvarado became the city’s first mayor.

In 1519, Alvarado had taken a Nahua noblewoman as concubine, and in time she gave him three children. He was formally married twice to high-ranking Spanish women, though had children with neither. He also had two other illegitimate children.

In 1523, Alvarado conquered the Quiché and Cakchiquel of Guatemala, and in 1524 he founded Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala. This became the first capital of the captaincy general of Guatemala, later including much of Central America, of which Alvarado was governor from 1527 to 1531. In 1532, he received a Royal Cedula naming him Governor of the Province of Honduras. He was then appointed governor of Guatemala for seven years and given a charter to explore Mexico. Subsequently, he was preparing a large expedition to explore across the Pacific as far as China, but he was called to help put down a revolt in Mexico. There he was crushed by a horse, and died on 4 July 1541. Further information is available at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Catholic Encyclopedia.

The only evidence I can find of Alvarado having left behind any autobiographical works is the two letters addressed to Cortés in 1519 (which can be read in The Conquistadors: first-person accounts of the conquest of Mexico by Patricia de Fuentes). However, the Newton Gresham Library at Sam Houston State University has several pages of diary entries, handwritten transcriptions in English from a diary kept by Alvarado. Apart from providing digital copies of just eight pages, it offers no further information or provenance for the material. Here are two of the entries - both seemingly about the writer falling in love. (I have indicated - by question marks in square brackets - where I cannot read the handwriting to be sure of the exact spelling of a name.)

13 November 1519
‘Such a thrilling adventure Don Pedro has had today! We accepted the Moctezuma’s invitation to visit the temple this morning, and on our way our procession was suddenly stopped by the appearance of a palanquin a short distance ahead. How frightened the richly liveried servants did appear when I spurred my horse forward to see what infidel they were carrying! Lifting the curtain of the carriages, I was startled to look into the face of the beautiful lady I had seen watching from the temple the day we entered the city. Her dark eyes revealed the fear caused by my abrupt appearance and she drew herself into a corner of her palanquin. What a rude fellow I was to frighten her.

When we arrived at the temple, our page Orteguilla, attracted my attention, drew me aside, and presented me with some exquisite flowers.

“Señor”, he said, “a slave from the princess Nenetzin [?], daughter of the great being, told me to give these roses to Tonatiuh with the red beard. If thou woulds’t care to see a beautiful infidel read the flowers and follow me.”

In the shade of the turret, I found my lovely princess whom I had frightened in the carriage. Cierto! Such a charming lady no other cavalier has been so fortunate to behold! How beautiful she appeared in white with the long scarf concealing half of her radiant face and falling to the mat upon which she was sitting. Masses of dark hair gave her a majestic crown which her sparkling black eyes and mischievous smile brought enchantment to a noble knight’s heart. I kissed the flowers and returned them to her. Through the services of my page, an interpreter, I was convinced of her love for me. She told how she had dreamed of my coming; how she had pictured my white face, my big blue eyes, and my golden locks flowing over my shoulders. I must take that my beard falls in proper ringlets upon my breast. She believes me a god and has given me the name Tonatiuh meaning “child of the son” Ah! Holy mother, she has won Don Pedro’s heart. She is too true and beautiful to be an infidel. I took my chain with iron crucifix, given me by my dear mother, and asked her wear it always for my sake. [. . .] and my beautiful princess is no longer a heathen, but a Christian. From this day forward, Alvarado doth pledge his heart and sword to Princess Nenetzin [?].’

16 November 1519
‘A happier warrior than I cannot be, for the best of fortune has been mine today. My princess Nenetzin has been worshipping at our Christian shrine, and has rejected her former belief in order to accept that of our holy faith.With true reverence and understanding did she permit me to place my chain with crucifix around her next, as a seal to her love for Christ.

Moreover, there is exceedingly great joy among all our company tonight, for the might Moctezuma, successfully coerced by Señor Cortes and his noble companions, now resides in our palace under our protection.’

Bubbling over with fun

‘What a concert that was! [Paderewski] gave eight encores. [. . . He] showed no sign of strain or fatigue. On the contrary, he was bubbling over with fun.’ Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who was as famous for his piano recitals as he was for his staunch advocacy of Polish independence, died 80 years ago today. This commentary, and many others, on the famous Polishman can be found in the diaries of Aniela Strakacz, wife to Paderewski’s personal assistant.

Paderewski was born in 1860 to Polish parents in the village of Kuryłówka in the Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine). His mother died soon after his birth, and he was largely brought up by an aunt (his father was arrested in connection with the so called January Uprising of 1863). He showed a strong interest in music from an early age, and, in 1872, was admitted to the Warsaw Conservatory. Upon graduating in 1878, he worked as a piano tutor. In 1880, he married a fellow student, Antonina Korsakówna. The following year she gave birth to a severely handicapped son. She herself died only weeks later. Paderewski left his son in the care of friends, and in 1881, went to Berlin to study music composition with Friedrich Kiel and Heinrich Urban.

Encouraged and financed by the actress Helena Modrzejewska, Paderewski moved to study in Vienna from 1884 to 1887 under Theodor Leschetizky. During this period he also taught at the Strasbourg Conservatory. From 1887, he made his first public appearances as a pianist, in Vienna, Paris, London, becoming extremely popular with audiences. In 1898 he settled at Riond Bosson near Morges in Switzerland, and the following year he married Helena Górska, Baroness von Rosen. In 1891, he made his first successful tour of the United States, a country he would continue to tour every year or two for the next half century. Despite his busy tour schedule, he also composed much music which he included in his recitals. In 1901, he premiered his opera Manru in Dresden. In 1909, his Symphony in B Minor was premiered in Boston; and that same year he was appointed director of the Warsaw Conservatory.

During the First World War, Paderewski became a member of the Polish National Committee and was appointed its representative to the United States. There, he urged President Woodrow Wilson to support the cause of Polish independence. After the war, the provisional head of state, Józef Piłsudski, asked Paderewski to form in Warsaw a government of experts free from party tendencies. He took the portfolio of foreign affairs for himself but soon realised he wasn’t suited to frontline politics. He returned to Riond Bosson in 1919 - never to return to Poland. In 1921 he resumed concerts in Europe and the US, mainly for war victims. In 1932, he performed at the Madison Square Garden for an audience of about 15,000, raising money for unemployed American musicians.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Paderewski led an anti-Nazi campaign from his home in Switzerland. In 1940, he became the head of the National Council of Poland in exile in London, and again turned to the US for help, speaking to its people directly over the radio. He also restarted his Polish Relief Fund and gave several concerts to raise funds. He died in New York on 29 June 1941. He was much honoured during his lifetime. The Academy of Music in Poznań is named after him, and many major cities in Poland have streets and schools named after him. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Culture Poland. 

There’s no evidence that Paderewski himself left behind any significant diaries, but Aniela Strakacz did. She was the wife of Sylwin Strakacz, Paderewski’s personal assistant from 1918 for many years, and the executor of his will. Aniela’s diary was published in English by Rutgers University Press in the late 1940s as Paderewski as I knew him - from the diary of Aniela Strakacz (translated from the Polish by Halina Chybowska). This can be read freely online at Internet Archive. Here are several extracts.

4 December 1920
‘This has been a red-letter day at the League because today Paderewski addressed the delegates. All week the League‘s secretariat had been besieged with requests for passes for this occasion.

Long before he was scheduled to speak, every seat on the floor was taken and the spectators gallery was jammed with standees.

At last, Paderewski came up on the platform - a leonine figure radiating moral strength. Accustomed though I am to seeing him, my heart skipped a beat. The audience rose in a spontaneous gesture of welcome and burst into loud and long applause. Paderewski acknowledged the tribute with a dignified low bow and waited for the ovation to subside. From the first minute of his speech, the audience was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. For more than an hour Paderewski addressed this assemblage of the world’s greatest diplomats in French without notes and held them as spellbound as if he were playing Chopin for them. When he finished, he received another ovation lasting several minutes. Then, to everyone’s undisguised astonishment, Paderewski launched into an English version of his own speech. He’s the only delegate who has perfect command of both languages.

The meeting was adjourned following Paderewski’s bilingual performance. To have any other speakers after him would only have been an anticlimax. Delegates and spectators gathered in knots in the corridors to exchange comments about the oration they’d just heard.

What the President’s appreciative audience did not know was how hard he had worked to make this - and, as a matter of fact, every speech of his - the masterpiece of clear thinking and brilliant verbal form that it was. Time ceases to exist for Paderewski when he is in the throes of composing a speech. If he works on it during the day, lunch or dinner are hours late. Nobody dares interrupt the President. So we all wait mournfully, stealing a snack as best we can, for none of us would dream of sitting down to a meal without him. Sometimes we wait so long that lunch practically runs into dinner. Woe to the guest who has been invited for such a day - he must wait with the rest of us.

When the President writes at night, he often works until the small hours of the morning. At such times we, too, go without sleep because nobody retires without bidding Paderewski good night. We all stay up, even Mme. Paderewska and her secretaries. Before the President finally goes to bed, he and Sylwin still have to play a game of cribbage.

Sylwin yawns scandalously but plays; I’m generally so sleepy I’m groggy; only Paderewski shows no sign of fatigue and never yawns.

After he writes out his speech, the President commits it to memory word for word. For the meeting of the League of Nations today he accomplished the prodigious feat of memorizing two speeches, one in French and one in English.’

3 November 1931
‘I can’t seem to stay in Warsaw long. No one knows how happy I am. For the first time in my life I’m going to England and on a concert tour at that. The President will give a number of recitals in England and this will be my first tour with him.

I’ve heard him play so little. Often at Riond Bosson we’d station ourselves outside his study when we heard the sound of piano-playing, but it never worked out very satisfactorily. Even though Paderewski practises eight hours a day, he never plays anything to completion. He starts playing something, pauses over a chord and fusses around with it until he thinks it’s perfect, then plays a few measures more, stops again, and strikes another chord over and over again. Only when he’s absolutely satisfied with the way it sounds does he go on to the next measure. I don’t think I‘ve ever heard him play a single piece all the way through without interruption in all the summers I’ve spent at Riond Bosson.

I’m delighted to be going to England and I’m thrilled about the concerts, but it’s getting more and more difficult to leave home. I‘ve had to board Anetka out in her school because there’s nobody to leave her with at home. Too bad I can’t entrust her to Father. That would be something, if Father gave her the run of the house the way he did me. His theory of rearing children is to put on his eyeglasses, survey Anetka carefully and then remark: ”Come a little closer, my dear. Let me have a look at you. Hm, you don’t seem pretty enough to me. Oh well, don’t worry, you’ll grow up into a pretty young woman.” ’

15 November 1931
’In a few minutes we shall leave for PaderewskI’s concert in Albert Hall which holds six thousand people. I thought this evening would never come. How different everything is on the day Paderewski is scheduled to play. Of course I haven’t even seen him today, nobody has. There is no lunch, everyone eats on his own. We all know that the President suffers dreadfully from stagefright before every concert and never touches food until after the recital.

Today is a particularly important occasion. A London concert and in the largest hall in Europe to boot. I’ve caught the President’s nervousness myself. It’s silly to be scared about the way Paderewski will play, but I can’t help it. I’m worried sick. I even went to church to offer a little prayer for the success of the concert.

Later

Well, it’s all over. I couldn’t even say what Albert Hall looks like. All my amazed eyes could make out was a sea of human heads thousands upon thousands of them. The boxes were bulging with standees. When I looked for the stage, I couldn’t find it; a second look located a small black dot - the piano. But how was the President to get to it? What was supposed to be the stage was so tightly packed with chairs seating part of the overflow audience that those closest to the piano could have reached out and touched it.

The lights dimmed and Paderewski walked in slowly as if trying to fit into the narrow passage that had been left for him. Everybody rose spontaneously and there was prolonged applause. Finally Paderewski sat down at the piano. He began to play only when the silence grew so deep you could have heard the buzzing of a fly.

It was so quiet I didn’t dare look at my program to see what the President was playing for fear the paper would rustle. Gradually I fell under the spell of the music and no longer felt any need to consult the program. The unearthly beauty of that music transported me to another world where neither time nor space existed, and where everything was fine, noble, and sublime.

A lady fainted during the second part of the concert and was carried out without the slightest noise. It couldn’t have taken more than a minute altogether. Still, after the concert the President asked me: “What happened during the concert, did someone faint?” It’s beyond me how the President saw, heard, or sensed the incident because it occurred in an obscure comer of one of the balconies behind him. Sylwin says the President always notices everything that goes on while he is playing.

What a concert that was! The President gave eight encores.

Following the recital there was a tremendous supper for some twenty-odd guests in a private reception room of the Hotel Carlton. The President attacked the food with a healthy appetite. He was in excellent humor and very gallant toward the ladies.

The supper was fit for a king, deliberately so for the benefit of Jancio H., who has the reputation of being the greatest gourmet in Paris. Rumor has it that a chef at the Ritz fainted when he heard that Count H. was in the restaurant.

Paderewski showed no sign of strain or fatigue. On the contrary, he was bubbling over with fun.’

Erect as a duck

‘It thunders & rains hard & the prospect is shall have to delay my journey another day. I start Tuesday afternoon for Cassopolis & am caught in heavy thunder shower about 4 o’clock, which I keep off with my umbrella and cloak, which wrapt close around me & kept myself erect as a duck. [. . .] it was time for me to return to my tavern, which [I] attempted to do but could only find my way while the flashes of lightning lasted, which were very vivid & answered very well for light. But when I arrived at the tavern I found they were lockt up & gone to bed, & at this moment it commenced raining in torrents & I became pretty well drenched before I could get the landlord to let me in. I had my clothes hung up by the kitchen fire & went to bed, where I slept very well.’ This is from the travel diary of one Nehemiah Curtis Sanford, an industrialist and politician who helped found the US city of Birmingham. Information about Sanford - who died 180 years ago today - is scarce online, but the diary, which has recently published with two other diaries kept by his son, are said to ‘provide a fascinating picture of [a] lost world’.

Nehemiah Sanford, son of Sarah Curtis and her husband Stephen Sandford, was born in 1792. He became an important industrialist, and was one of the founders of Birmingham, Connecticut. In 1833 he was elected to the Connecticut Senate for the 16th District. He married Nancy Bateman Shelton (a direct descendant of Thomas Welles, a Governor of the Connecticut Colony), and they had one son, Henry, who would become an important US diplomat and would found the city of Sanford in Florida. Nehemiah died on 23 June 1841. There is very little further information online other than that in the brief Wikipedia entry. 

However, Sanford left behind an expedition journal. This and others written by his son were published very recently (2019) by Michigan State University Press as The Western Journals of Nehemiah and Henry Sanford, 1839–1846 (edited by Kenneth E. Lewis). Some pages can be previewed at Amazon.

The publisher provides a summary of the contents: ‘The late antebellum period saw the dramatic growth of the United States as Euro-American settlement began to move into new territories west of the Mississippi River. The journals and letters of businessmen Nehemiah and Henry Sanford, written between 1839 and 1846, provide a unique perspective into a time of dramatic expansion in the Great Lakes and beyond. These accounts describe the daily experiences of Nehemiah and his wife Nancy Shelton Sanford as they traveled west from their Connecticut home to examine lands for speculation in regions undergoing colonization, as well as the experiences of their son Henry who later came out to the family’s western property. 

Beyond an interest in business, the Sanfords’ journals provide a detailed picture of the people they encountered and the settlements and country through which they passed and include descriptions of events, activities, methods of travel and travel accommodations, as well as mining in the upper Mississippi Valley and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and a buffalo hunt on the Great Plains. Through their travels the Sanfords give us an intimate glimpse of the immigrants, settlers, Native Americans, missionaries, traders, mariners, and soldiers they encountered, and their accounts illuminate the lives and activities of the newcomers and native people who inhabited this fascinating region during a time of dramatic transition.’

The book contains the texts of three separate journals, covering: Nehemiah’s travel from Connecticut to Michigan and Chicago in mid 1839; Henry’s journey from Connecticut to Michigan in 1844; and Henry’s so-called ‘Buffalo Hunt Journal' in 1846.

The editor explains at the beginning of the first of these journals, that, although Nehemiah’s trip was ostensibly conducted for the purpose of overseeing a speculative venture in Michigan lands, it combined business with a sightseeing voyage around the Great Lakes. The editor elaborates: ‘In the late spring of 1839 the Sanfords left their home in Derby, Connecticut, and traveled up the Hudson by steamboat, across New York State by rail and the Erie Canal, and to Detroit by steamboat on Lake Erie. They departed the city by rail, but crossed Michigan’s Lower Peninsula by stagecoach, the era’s ubiquitous form of overland transport. After spending time in the state’s southwestern quarter to investigate its real estate market, our travelers proceeded to Chicago by steamboat. Then, after visiting associates, they returned via lakes Michigan and Huron, stopping briefly to conduct business at Detroit. Their return trip through New York by rail and water brought the Sanfords to the home of relatives in Auburn, New York. Their arrival closed the circle of an adventure that introduced Nehemiah and Nancy to a new, distant world in the midst of rapid and continuous change. The journey exposed them to people, places, and situations that differed markedly from the familiar experiences of their eastern home. Although Nehemiah’s journal carefully recorded his examination of lands and dealings with agents and others in his efforts to exploit economic opportunities presented by the growth of antebellum America, his observations were not limited to business matters alone, and his perceptions of the country through which the couple traveled, the incidents they observed, and the individuals they encountered provide a fascinating picture of this lost world.’

And here is the journal text for the first two weeks of the expedition (without footnotes).

‘Start from home, Birmingham, Ct. on Wednesday, 29 May 1839 & bound for Michigan & Chicago. A cloudy & unpleasant morning, but clear & prospect of a fine day on our arrival at Bridgeport [Connecticut]. A pleasant enough passage to New York, where we arrive at 2 o’clock & stop at Mrs. Shepard’s. Thursday, 30th May. Engaged passage on board the p/b [packet boat] Rochester, secured births 54 & 41. Arrive at Albany Friday morning, take the cars to Amsterdam, where we arrive about 10. Go out myself with brother to his stone quarry. Leave Amsterdam at 10 Saturday night & arrive at Utica at 3 o’clock pm. Leave Utica at 4 in packet boat Rochester, Capt. Сопку. Arrive at Rochester Monday morning, 3 June, go to the Eagle Hotel for breakfast. Leave Rochester at 8 for Buffalo, where we arrive on Sunday the 4th at 6 o’clock am. Stop at U.S. Hotel, where we spend the day. Engage passage on board S/B Buffalo, which leaves at 9 this evening.

Just as we are leaving the hotel to go on board I go to my trunk for some money & find my pocket gone. Can have no doubt in my mind but it was stolen by some of the hands while on board the packet Rochester. Advised with the landlord about what way it was best to proceed. He advised me to write to the Capt. Сопку describing the p[ocket] book & contents, which I did & sent the letter by the return packet to Rochester, informing the capt. of the contents of the letters & requesting his good offices. Those I have informed of the loss seem to believe that any efforts which I may make for the recovery would be hopeless. The only chance will be to watch for any bills which may be paid by any of the hands which are [the] F[armers] & M[echanics Bank of] Hartford & Mechanics] B[ank of] New Haven.

Leave Buffalo at 9 in the evening of the 4th. Should be in very good spirits were it not for the loss of p[ocket] book, which I regard almost as much as the money it contained, it heretofore having stuck by me more than 20 years, being my constant companion at all times & I do not remember that I never before intrusted it to a trunk when traveling. There was from 200 to 240 dollars in it. The loss is something, but no worse than many have met with & is something consoling that I followed the old adage to not carry all my eggs in one basket, but that I have enough in my wallet to yet bear my expenses around should we have the blessing of health during the journey.

We found a Mr. and Mrs. Stevens of Danbury [Connecticut] at U. S. Hotel who were going to visit the falls. A Mr. Wing & wife & a Mr. Noble of Monroe, Michigan, who have been to attend the convention of Presbyterians at Phila[delphia], and a Mr. Stanley of Ind[iana], whose passages with us from Rochester, likewise a Mr. Ord of Washington City, all of whom go on with us to Detroit. Arrive at Erie about daylight on Wednesday the 5th of June, but do not go on shore there not being time. Said to be improving fast, Mr. Cary from Poughkeepsie is a fellow passenger. He went round the lake in the T Jefferson with self & Edward in 1835. 2 gents with him from Poughkeepsie, a Mr. Williams & [blank].

We have stateroom No. 11 & take as much comfort as can be expected in a crowded tho good boat & filled with every kind of men & waggons & 10 horses besides. We arrive at Cleveland at 4 o’clock & are told the boat will stop but 3/4 of an hour. Nancy & myself set on a quick walk to call on Miss. E. Hull, found she had gone into the country, and we hurried back to the boat walking as fast as our feet would carry us. Our haste was needless for the boat did not leave till near an hour after we arrived on board.

My ideas of Cleveland are confused enough for my head was turned while there, north being south & east west, & though I had a recollection of what it was in 1835, I could not make it appear the same place now, though there were some few places I recognized. Mr. Baldwin of Syracuse, & of life preserver memory, came on board, informs me that he has been out of health & has just returned from Texas very much recovered. Says he saw Mr. Blackman at Havana [Cuba] & should think he, Mr. B., had recovered his health entirely. Mr. Baldwin says he speculates some in goods which he carried between Texas & Havana & should come out minus he did not know how much, but that he had bought some Texas land which he was in hopes would make him good.

We arrived at the mouth of Detroit River about sunrise & had a delightful sail up the river to Detroit, where we arrived at 8 o’clock Thursday morning, the 6th of June. Both sides of the river from the lake up to Detroit are cultivated, some handsome dwellings & the farms very beautiful large orchards & fruit & shrubbery & gave every appearance from the boat of being as finely cultivated as the shores of the Delaware between Trenton & Phila[delphia]. We had with [us] a passenger of Phila[delphia], who had with him his wife & heir, who was traveling to see the wonders of the West. He expressed himself much, surprised at seeing grounds so highly cultivated & such an air of comfort about them where he full expected to find a wilderness.

We stop at the National Hotel kept by Mr. Wales, and as most of new acquaintances do who on in the Buffalo. Mr. Wales was himself a passenger with us & of course managed to form acquaintance with those who were visiting Detroit, very disinterested no doubt. His house is large and commodious & is said . . . We were told by a passenger, Mr. Noble, that his sales of champaign alone was over $2,000 the past year. Luxury extravagance of every kind finds its way to the far West almost as soon as New York & the champaign & extravagant luxuries are paid for with creditors’ money as much here as at other places. I learn that Romaine, an extravagant fellow as I thought, who went round the lakes in 1835, being on a wedding excursion at the time, having his wife & his wife’s sister with him & who drank champaign for common drink at dinner, was now living at Detroit. That he had built the finest house in the city, gave the most expensive parties, was implicated in some way respecting the money borrowed by the state from the Michigan Canal Bank, which it was said did not hold out count when it arrived at Detroit, was principal in two wildcat banks which spending is now stopt by the legislature, & I should believe he would after this would find himself willing to be content of good wholesome water.

We left Detroit on Friday morning the 7th of June by r[ail]road. [At] Ypsilanti where we took the stage for Niles at 4 o’clock & arrived [at] Tecumseh where we had our stage at 6 pm, passing through Clinton, the land & scenery fine, the crops of wheat & oats looking very fine & most of the land from Clinton to Tecumseh under cultivation. I was told the school lands not cultivated [were] sold by the state that spring at auction on a credit of 10 years with int[erest] at from 20 to 30 dollars per acre. They are mostly or all oak openings.

From Tecumseh we traveled all night & saw but little of the country, there being no moon, & breakfasted at Coldwater at about 8 o’clock Saturday mor[ning], pretty well fatigued by traveling 24 hours, Nancy somewhat feverish & both almost concluding to rest thru the day & get recovered before another ride of 24 hours on the stage. After resorting to the contents of a champaign basket to increase an appetite & eating our breakfast we concluded to keep on, which we did, passing thru Sturges Prairie to the beautiful White Pigeon Prairie, where we took our supper. White Pigeon Prairie is very handsome & [a] great part of it has crops of wheat upon it, which looks very fine, which it is certain will yield from 35 to 40 bushels the acre. Probably 10,000 or more acres in this vicinity are now covered with wheat. Here again we found the contents of our champaign basket very useful in reviving our spirits & giving us strength to continue the journey thru the night. We set off from White Pigeon about 7 in the evening. Not many hills but some deep hollows to go over which made it slow traveling, it being steep to descend into the hollows & again very hard for the stage to get out of them & up again on to the high ground. The horses all the way thru were fine ones & the drivers seem disposed to keep them so, for they drive very slow, not averaging 4 miles the hour. We passed the night much better in the stage than we did the first night, the stage not being so full & then again by becoming more accustomed to it we were enabled to sleep much more than the first night.

We arrived at Niles at 6 o’clock Sunday morning the 7th, pretty well fatigued & sought again for the contents of our champaign basket, but found we had been anticipated. The driver or someone had broken it open & supposing no doubt it was a subtreasury & had appropriated the contents to their own use. It would have done no good to complain, so we put up with the loss with as much composure as possible & went to bed where we slept till nearly 12 o’clock, when we soon cleaned ourselves & eat our breakfast & dinner at the same time, about 1 o’clock. Thought of attending church in the afternoon, but there was not an Epis[copal] church & upon the whole felt too stupid & languid to attend any. After tea I called upon Mr. P. Lyon with a letter & was received very cordially, & on Monday morning after breakfast walked down with Nancy to Mr. Lyon’s, where she concluded to stay while I travel to Prairie Ronde. Mr. Lyon offers to find & furnish me with a horse & waggon & I propose to sett out on Tuesday morning.

Tuesday, 11th June. It thunders & rains hard & the prospect is shall have to delay my journey another day. I start Tuesday afternoon for Cassopolis & am caught in heavy thunder shower about 4 o’clock, which I keep off with my umbrella and cloak, which wrapt close around me & kept myself erect as a duck. I arrived at Cass[opolis] just at sundown & after supper went over to call on Mr. [Elias B.] Sherman, where I stayed till something after 7 when I was reminded by the thunder that it was time for me to return to my tavern, which [I] attempted to do but could only find my way while the flashes of lightning lasted, which were very vivid & answered very well for light. But when I arrived at the tavern I found they were lockt up & gone to bed, & at this moment it commenced raining in torrents & I became pretty well drenched before I could get the landlord to let me in. I had my clothes hung up by the kitchen fire & went to bed, where I slept very well.

In the morning, Wednesday the 12th, I concluded as the roads were very bad, occasioned by the rain, & as I had found by my journey the day before how difficult it was to find the road, I hired a man & 2-horse waggon to go with me & be my driver & pilot. We drove hard thru Wednesday, which [was] an extreme warm day, & arrived at Schoolcraft between 4 & 5 & found our horses very much fatigued as well as ourselves & concluded to spend the night there. In the morning, Thursday, I went down to see our land & was some disappointed to find less wood on it than I expected & less meadow. But it is an excellent lot of land, lying just 4 miles south & one east of Schoolcraft, & the land improved, almost all of it, from Schoolcraft to it, & buildings & families, quite a neighborhood with a distillery within 1/2 a mile. I do believe it worth $10 the acre, tho at this time it would not bring but $5, which [I] am offered for 160 acres. But [I] cannot see why it will not be better to keep it for the present. What a grain farm it would make for some industrious Yankv. He might raise wheat & corn enough upon it to supply a whole town.’

Reith on Hitler, Churchill

Baron Reith of Stonehaven, the first and very influential manager of the British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation - BBC), died half a century ago today. His diaries, when they were published posthumously, revealed a man rather admiring of Hitler policies in the pre-war years, and one with a very strong and long-lasting antipathy to Winston Churchill.

John Charles Walsham Reith was born in 1889 into a religious family at Stonehaven in Scotland, the youngest of seven children. He studied at Glasgow Academy and at Gresham’s School in Norfolk. He was commissioned into the 5th Scottish Rifles and served in the First World War until he was invalided out in 1915. He spent two years in the US, supervising armament contracts before returning to work for an engineering firm in Glasgow. In 1921, he married Muriel Katharine and they had two children.

Unsatisfied with his lot, Reith moved to London and became secretary to the London Unionist group of MPs in advance of the 1922 general election. Looking around for more ambitious work, he chanced on an advertisement in The Morning Post for a general manager of the British Broadcasting Company, being set up by a consortium of radio manufacturers to produce programmes to be heard on their wireless sets. In time, Reith oversaw the organisation’s transformation under a Royal Charter to the British Broadcasting Corporation; and he became its first Director-General in 1927. Regular television broadcasts began in 1936 just before Reith left the BBC in 1938. In terms of his legacy, he is given considerable credit for having established the tradition of independent public service broadcasting.

After leaving the BBC, Reith served a term as chairman of Imperial Airways. In 1940, he was created Baron Reith of Stonehaven. The same year he was given a government appointment as Minister of Information; and, subsequently, he was elected MP for Southampton. Under Churchill, Reith also served as Minister of Transport and then as First Commissioner of Works. Later, though, he claimed Churchill had not given him enough to do during the war.

In 1946, he was appointed chair of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Board, and other chairmanships followed (Colonial Development Corporation and the National Film Finance Corporation). In later years, Reith held various directorships, was Lord Rector of Glasgow University, and, from 1967, was Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He died on 16 June 1971. Further biographical information is available from the BBC, Wikipedia or Spartacus Educational.

Reith kept a diary for most of his life, amounting to some 4,000 pages, and two million words. Extracts were chosen and edited by Charles Stuart and published in 1975 as The Reith Diaries by Collins.

The book created some media attention at the time because it revealed precisely how Reith, in the 1930s, had been an admirer of the German way of doing things. Stuart says, in his introductory notes, that all Reith’s inclinations were in favour of Germany. On 9 March 1933, for example, Reith wrote: ‘I am pretty certain . . . that the Nazis will clean things up and put Germany on the way to being a real power in Europe again. They are being ruthless and most determined.’ And after the July 1934 Night of The Long Knives, in which the Nazis ruthlessly exterminated their internal dissidents, Reith wrote: ‘I really admire the way Hitler has cleaned up what looked like an incipient revolt.’ After Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Nazis in 1939, he wrote: ‘Hitler continues his magnificent efficiency.’

Stuart, however, suggests that this aspect of Reith’s character was only typical of the times: ‘. . . he combined great self-confidence in the correctness of his opinions with very little sign that he had much knowledge or understanding of the realities of foreign affairs. It was a posture he shared with other leading figures and his attitudes are of more interest as symptoms of the times than illustrative of any great originality on his part.’

The diaries also drew attention to the extraordinary depth of Reith’s hatred for some people, especially Winston Churchill. An article by Ron Robbins, available at The Churchill Centre website, calls the ‘mutual antipathy’ of the two men ‘a strange and somewhat sad chapter in British politics’. He says: ‘Reith’s spleen is written large in his diaries . . . His criticism of Churchill often dribbles on quite absurdly and finally he descends to this: “I absolutely hate him.” But it has to be said that Reith had a remarkably long hate list dating from his early days. Churchill’s genius and magnanimity were beyond Reith’s reach and comprehension. Reith was handicapped by an off-putting, austere nature that contrasted too starkly with Churchill’s warm friendships which had the hallmark of loyalty.’

Here are a few extracts from The Reith Diaries. In the first few, Reith records his involvement in the very earliest days of the BBC; and, in the last two, he reveals how his passion for the very organisation he had nurtured has turned bitter.

13 December 1922
‘This morning I had the interview about the BBC. Sir William Noble [head of the committee selecting a candidate to manage the BBC] came out to get me and he was smiling in a confidential sort of way. Present, McKinistry, Binyon and one other [representatives of the wireless manufacturers]. I put it all before God last night. They didn’t ask me many questions and some they did I didn’t know the meaning of.’ [Note inserted later: ‘The fact is I hadn’t the remotest idea as to what broadcasting was. I hadn’t troubled to find out. If I had tried I should probably have found difficulty in discovering anyone who knew.’] ‘I think they had more or less made up their minds that I was the man before they saw me and that it was chiefly a matter of confirmation. . . They asked what salary I wanted and I said £2,000. Noble came to the door with me and almost winked as if to say it was all right.’

14 December 1922
‘. . . At 3:45 Sir William Noble phoned to ask if I would come along to see him at once, so took a taxi and went. He received me very nicely, . . The Committee had unanimously recommended that I be offered the general managership of the British Broadcasting Co. He said he had tried hard to get the salary of £2,000 but some of the others didn’t want it to start over £1,500, but that if things went OK I should get a rise soon. Later he recommended me to take £1,750 as he thought he could get that approved. After a cup of tea and a general talk, I departed. I am profoundly thankful to God in this matter. It is all His doing. There were six on the short list.’

29 December 1922
‘Newcastle at 12:30. Here I really began my BBC responsibility. Saw transmitting station and studio place and landlords. It was very interesting. Away at 4:28, London at 10:10, bed at 12:00. I am trying to keep in close touch with Christ in all I do and I pray he may keep close to me. I have a great work to do.’

10 September 1923
‘Everything is now in shape for the BBC magazine and from various alternatives I chose Radio Times for the title.’

28 September 1923
‘The first issue of the Radio Times appeared and was sold out.’

19 April 1924
‘Opening of the Wembley Exhibition [British Empire Exhibition]. Everything went most successfully, including the broadcast which went out all over the country, and was the biggest thing we have done yet.’

And 40 years on . . .

30 March 1964
‘I feel immensely sad (and more than that) at the eclipse, or rather complete overthrow and destruction, of all my work in the BBC. It was my being prepared to lead, and to withstand modern laxities and vulgarities and immorality and irreligion and all. No-one was ever in such a position as I; I did what my father and mother would have wished - to universal amazement. All gone. Feeling most melancholy.’

2 April 1964
‘The Dean of Westminster wrote asking me to come to a service on the 19th to signalize the start of the Number Two television BBC. I wouldn’t on any account go to that, nor to anything associated with the BBC.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 16 June 2011.

Toynbee and depression

Philip Toynbee, a British literary novelist and critic, died 40 years ago today. Best remembered, perhaps, for his reviews in the Sunday broadsheet, The Observer, he also left behind two published diaries written after a debilitating period of depression and electroconvulsive therapy. The diaries record, more than anything else, Toynbee’s search for some meaning in his life.

Toynbee was born in 1916 in Oxford, the son of the famous historian Arnold Toynbee. He was educated at Rugby (from where he was expelled for rebellious behaviour) and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was the Union’s first communist president. He worked as a journalist and then, during the war, served in the intelligence corps before being seconded to the Ministry of Economic Warfare. He was promoted to captain and joined the staff of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium in 1944-1945.

It was during the war years, that Toynbee published his first novels A School in Private (1941) and The Barricades (1943). After the war Toynbee joined the staff of The Observer as a foreign correspondent, and later became that paper’s literary critic, a job he held for the rest of his life. He also continued writing novels, some of them considered experimental.

Toynbee’s first marriage - to Anne Powell - produced two children (one of whom is the journalist Polly Toynbee) but ended in divorce in 1950. He then married married Frances Genevieve (Sally), a member of the American embassy in Tel Aviv whom he met while reporting from the Levant. They had a son and two daughters, and eventually settled in Gloucestershire, near Tintern Abbey. Toynbee, however, suffered from chronic drinking problems and recurrent depression.

For a few years, in the mid-1970s, Toynbee and Sally tried turning their home, Barn House, into a community, but the life did not suit Toynbee, and his depression got worse. In 1977, he underwent electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). He died a few years later, on 15 June 1981. Wikipedia has a short biography, as does Encyclopaedia Britannica,

In 1977 (having just completed his ECT), Toynbee began keeping a diary, recording, to a large extent, his search for some spiritual meaning. This was published in two volumes - Part of a Journey: An Autobiographical Journal, 1977-79 and End of a Journey An Autobiographical Journal 1979-81 - by Collins in 1981 and 1982. A digital copy of the first volume can be freely borrowed from Internet Archive. 

In his introduction to the first volume, Toynbee says: ‘What is presented here [is] a frank and intimate record of my daily life over a period of just over two years; but this does not mean that it is wholly spontaneous; still less that I have ‘told all’. I have been a professional writer for forty years, and as soon as I begin to think of possible publication it was inevitable that I would immediately use all my acquired skills to make it as good a book as I could. . . But in spite of . . . various adjustments and omissions I believe that this is not only as honest a book as I could make it, but also a truthful journal.’

Here are a few extracts, including the very first entry.

1 August 1977
‘More than two months have passed since I finished a course of ECT at Bristol, and for the past six weeks I have been almost entirely free of depression. No exorbitant elation, thank God, but the dazed incredulity of a prisoner suddenly let out into ordinary daylight after three years in a dungeon.

But I must beware of such extravagant images as this; for whatever purpose this diary is meant to serve it certainly won’t serve at all unless I keep it as simple and as truthful as I can. The depression, which began in a desultory way about seven years ago, was acute from 1974 to June of this year. (But the word ‘acute’ is also a dubious one, for although I was sometimes incapacitated for days on end I was often in reasonable working order for a week or more.)

Yes; but even on the best days there was that perpetual fear of a form of possession which sometimes came as suddenly as a blow.’

3 August 1977
‘How absurd it seems to me now, all that ‘humane’ outcry against ECT: as if a few electric shocks administered to an anaesthetized patient were more of an ‘outrage against the person’ than cutting open his stomach and removing his appendix. If the treatment works, as indeed it does in many cases, no experienced depressive is going to worry about the reason why.’

30 June 1978
‘Yesterday my worst depression for more than a year. Stirrings at lunchtime - always the worst of the day - carefully kept in order as we drove to Gloucester. But seeing Emily at Coney Hill, among those wrecks of old men and women, almost made me break down then and there: not at all the place for such a display. ‘Who are these?’ asked the black staff nurse. ‘These are my old master and mistress,’ said Em, proudly. ‘Your friends, Em!’ I said, knowing that this had to be said, but hearing the dreadful hollowness of those words. ‘One of the family,’ we used to say: and so did she. But also our hard-working paid servant: at the going rate.

By the time we got home I was weighed down by that heavy lassitude, that aching exhaustion which I used to know so well. I tried to meditate; but the effort was too great. I tried to pray, but all I could say was ‘Lord, have mercy, lord have mercy, lord have mercy, lord have mercy . . .’

Because I left off my anti-depressant pills? Perhaps it’s a foolish kind of pride to hate that dependance so much. Perhaps God also works through Ludomil. He certainly works through my wife, whose hand in mine is the only effective anti-depressant that I know.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 15 June 2011.

Danish flight pioneer

The Danish watchmaker Christian Hansen Ellehammer - born 150 years ago today - is not a name immediately associated with the history of aviation. However, the successful development of an early motorcycle brought him funds to indulge an interest in powered flight. He built the world’s first air-cooled radial engine, and other innovations - the triplane and helicopter - followed. Thanks to a diary-keeping cousin, we have first hand contemporary reports, albeit brief, of key moments in the testing of Ellehammer’s prototypes.

Ellehammer was born on 14 June 1871 in Bakkebølle, Denmark. He was apprenticed as a watchmaker, and then moved to Copenhagen where he worked as an electronics mechanic. In 1898, he established a company to produce electronic machinery. The first of his own successful design/inventions was a motorcycle called the ‘Elleham’ with the engine situated beneath the seating, similar in fact to the Vespa scooter 40 years later. This was a commercial success, and provided him with sufficient funds to experiment with powered flight. 

Using calculations derived from birds, Ellehammer developed an engine lightweight enough to lift himself in the air - this was the world’s first radial engine (with three cylinders). For the wings, he experimented with kites, finally arriving at a shape similar to hang gliders of the future. On 28 August 1906, Ellehammer’s cousin Lars recorded (in an old form of the Danish language) the first successful flight with a brief entry. Translated - and many thanks to Historic Wings for this information - it reads: ‘Tried with Ellehammer on board but without take off. Changed the engine timing with more preignition. Lifted off the ground then with Ellehammer on board we got momentarily off, making it 12 degrees [around the center pole].’

Two weeks later, on 12 September, they were trying again with an 18 hp engine (as opposed to the 9 hp used earlier). Lars’s diary: ‘Wind at 2-3 meters per second. Wind direction northeast.  Flew the whole way around. Hovered with the front and rear wheels [off the ground] traveling approximately [a distance of] 42 meters, reaching an altitude of 1 ½ feet high, as it came up against the [strong] wind.  Ellehammer was on board the whole time.  I took photos of it in flight . . .’

Ellehammer made over 200 flights from 1906 to 1909 in a tethered plane, all without serious accident. Step by step, he increased the engine power and refined the design, developing a monoplane, a semi-biplane and a helicopter. In 1908, he won a prize for an 11 second flight in front of Prince Henry of Prussia but, by this time, he was hearing news of more successful developments taking place in other countries. Nevertheless, he continued inventing, developing a special carburettor, a stationary air-cooled engine for airplanes, and a pump for fire extinguishers. Around 1920, he built a laboratory designed by a new firm of influential Danish architects. He died in 1946. In 1986, he was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. There is very little biographical information about Ellehammer online in English other than at Wikipedia (see also an English translation of the Danish entry) and Historic Wings.

Am I completely finished

‘Do I, or do I not, have the energy to continue? Am I completely finished, or will I feel renewed after a few weeks of rest? It is really not at all easy to say, but it is just as well that Aina gets used to the idea that I don't have the energy to continue. Then, if things go better, no damage will have been done.’ This is Tage Erlander, Sweden’s long serving Prime Minister, writing in his diaries some 15 years before he finally gave up the top job. His diaries were a key resource for Erlander himself - born 120 years ago today - when writing his memoirs, but also for his biographer Olin Ruin.

Erlander was born on 13 June 1901 in Ransäter, Sweden. He studied political science and economics at Lund University becoming involved in student politics, and graduating in 1928. After completing his compulsory military service in the Signals Corps he joined the editorial staff of the encyclopaedia Svensk Upplagsbok while at the same entering local politics. In 1930, he married Aina Andersson, and they had two children. In 1932, he was elected as a member of parliament, and, when, in 1938, he was made minister for social affairs, he left his editorial job. He was one of most senior officials responsible for the establishment of secret internment camps in Sweden during World War II. He was appointed minister without portfolio in the cabinet in 1944, and minister for education the following year. Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson died suddenly in 1946, and Erlander was unexpectedly chosen as his successor and and as leader of his Social Democratic Party.

Erlander continued his predecessor’s development of the country’s model welfare state - a middle way between capitalism and communism. He introduced a very high rate of progressive taxation which allowed him to raise pensions, put in place a child allowance scheme, introduced statutory holidays and medical insurance, and extend social services. He also expanded education for younger children and adults. Having remained in office as Prime Minister for 25 years - one of the longest terms in any democracy - he resigned in 1969, even then the Social Democrats still retained an absolute parliamentary majority. He died in 1990. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the New York Times obituary.

Erlander was a conscientious diarist, often making entries on a daily basis. These diaries became his most important resource when compiling six volumes of memoirs. More recently, his son, Sven, has edited the diaries, in Swedish, for publication in many volumes. Some information about the published diaries can be found here. The only diary extracts translated into English that I can find are in Olof Ruin’s biography: Tage Erlander: Serving the Welfare State, 1946-1969 (translated into English by Michael F. Metcalf). This can be read online at University of Pittsburgh Digital Collections, or borrowed digitally from Internet Archive. According to the publisher: ‘This definitive political biography is both the study of an individual style of leadership and the role of the prime minister in a parliamentary state. It shows Erlander as a complex and engaging intellectual fiercely loyal to his party, agitative yet dedicated to cooperation between parties. [. . .] Ruin is the first scholar to be given unrestricted access to Erlander's diaries.’

Here are several extracts from Erlander’s diaries as translated and found in Ruin’s biography (though without Ruin’s narrative context).

10 February 1950
‘If only it could be. I return to what I wished for so much a few months ago: to find a way out so I could disappear quietly without hurting the party. It would be nothing other than a flight from reality.”

‘I must try to be more careful, more dignified, and more stiff. . . On the other hand, of course, they chose me because I am what I am. And thus my position should not make me change the very character that elevated me to that position.’

12 October 1952
‘Would I regret such a move [to retire]? Yes, in just the same way as one is sorry about some adversity or about an unfavorable article. . . . But no more than that. I felt in 1946 that my election as party chairman was a mistake, although I was exceedingly proud of what had happened. I have changed my mind to a certain extent. Things have gone better than I feared they would. But I will feel no sorrow if I am liberated.’

1 January 1953
‘Do I, or do I not, have the energy to continue? Am I completely finished, or will I feel renewed after a few weeks of rest? It is really not at all easy to say, but it is just as well that Aina gets used to the idea that I don't have the energy to continue. Then, if things go better, no damage will have been done. It is difficult to say how long it will be before others begin to question my abilities. But when [Minister of Justice] Zetterberg told me yesterday that he had not discussed his argument with Skôld with me because he felt sorry for me in view of how tired I've looked recently, then things have gone too far. People cannot feel sorry for the prime minister; it is better to dislike him!’

10 April 1954
‘He apparently found me to be all too exaggerated and eager. I should calm down. At first I thought he meant that my workload was breaking me down, but when he described how I racked my brain on Sunday by rattling off rapid replies, I understood what he was getting at. He’s probably right.’

30 October 1957
‘And what is it that you lust after so much? To have the pleasure of wrestling with unpleasant and complicated issues every day? To be subjected every day to a shower of insults and more or less hidden criticism from those who should support you? What is it that drives you? Is it a sense of duty, as we like to think it is? Nature must have some other strategem to get people to trick themselves into doing the necessary job.’

12 January 1959
‘The opening of the Riksdag is always tiring, although less so now than before. But all this swinging and swaying and standing at attention is more exhausting than a major political speech. I am interested in the latter and it prods me into formulating what I have to say. But an empty ceremony and the subsequent small talk over lunch at the Palace require continual activity. All to no purpose.’

To feel like a human being

‘I should have gone “up there,” into the mountains, to be with them [the Yugoslav partisans]. Definitely. Of course, there too, over time, you would have noticed some conflicts, some petty disagreements, some minor inconsistencies in some people, a lack of conviction or principles in others ... and it would have been even more painful, more bitter, perhaps. But at least you would feel like a human being . . .’ This is from the concentration camp diary kept by a young Balkan woman, Hanna Lévy-Hass, who survived the war, relocated to Israel, and died 20 years ago today. Though the diary was first published while she was still alive, a more recent posthumous edition contains a substantial foreword by her daughter.

Hanna Lévy was born in 1913 into a large Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jewish family in Sarajevo. She, her mother and one sister moved to Belgrade in the early 1930s, where, thanks to a scholarship, Hanna completed her studies. Another scholarship enabled her to study at the Sorbonne in Paris for a few months. She left Belgrade for a teaching position in Montenegro, ending up in Danilovgrad a small Jewish community. During the war, the area was taken over first by the Italians, and, when Italy surrendered, by the Germans. She intended to flee to the mountains to join the partisans, but friends - scared of retaliation if she did - appealed for her to stay. 

Hanna was eventually captured in 1944 by German occupation forces and spent a half year in a Gestapo jail before being sent to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany, where mass deaths resulted from starvation and disease. Before the British liberated the camp, Hanna had been put on a train with thousands of other Jews destined for Czechoslovakia. At some point in the journey she escaped, but the war was over and she found herself wandering along roads with many other liberated prisoners of different nationalities. She ended up in Dresden, before finally returning to Belgrade.

Hanna had hoped to go back to teaching, but the new Yugoslav government asked her to supervise the French broadcasts of Radio Belgrade. Later, still working for the government, she acted as a French translator. In 1948, she emigrated to Israel. She immediately joined the Israeli Communist Party, a decision which meant she was continually in opposition to the country’s prevailing Zionist ethos, and that she could not work as a teacher. She married Abraham Hass, a Romanian-born Ashkenazi Jew, and they had one daughter, Amira. From the early 1970s, Hanna gave up communism and channelled her energy into feminism. In late 1982, she revisited Europe. She died in Jerusalem on 10 June in 2001. 

There is very little further information about Hanna online, other than that connected with her diary. This was first published in 1982 by Harvester Press as Inside Belsen (translated from the German by Ronald Taylor); and was republished in 2009 by Haymarket Books as Diary of Bergen-Belsen: 1944–1945 with a long introduction by her daughter, Amira. Haymarket calls the work ‘a unique, deeply political survivor’s diary’. Jacqueline Rose, a feminist writer and academic, said this of the work (see the Roam Agency website): ‘A compelling document of historic importance which shows, with remarkable composure, that ethical thought about what it means to be human can be sustained in the most inhuman conditions. Hanna Lévy-Hass teaches us how a politics of compassion and justice can rise out of the camps as the strongest answer to the horrors of the twentieth century.’ Some pages from the modern edition can be read online at Googlebooks or Amazon.

22 August 1944
‘The very limited space and the even more limited possibilities of keeping it clean - it’s enough to push anyone to the brink. Rainy days transform the entire space into a mud pit, which farther increases the overall level of filth as well as the vermin. And it’s all accompanied by interminable squabbles systematically encouraged by the common enemy, the Nazi. It’s only the first month and already, depressed, we can foresee endless misery.

I should have gone “up there,” into the mountains, to be with them [the Yugoslav partisans]. Definitely. Of course, there too, over time, you would have noticed some conflicts, some petty disagreements, some minor inconsistencies in some people, a lack of conviction or principles in others ... and it would have been even more painful, more bitter, perhaps. But at least you would feel like a human being, free to think, to express yourself, to act. And you would be surrounded by human beings, by real men, who say human things to you, men who, today, are the only ones who deserve respect and whose words and deeds matter. Only “up there” could I know my reason for being, my true worth, and what I am truly capable of contributing, or not contributing.

Only there does suffering have meaning. Only there do faults become more obvious and easier to correct. Only there does man learn to know himself and to devote himself. And to the extent that, there too, the verdict would indicate that I am a failure ... It would only be for the better. Everything would be clearer: the only thing left for you now is to drop, like an overripe fruit that decomposes of its own accord. Why not? Such is the world. But I suspect vaguely, yet deep within me, that once “up there,” I would not necessarily have been destined to total ruin.

Maybe it’s precisely this dilemma that landed me here in this wretched camp; it’s been tormenting me for some time. On the other hand, because of it many things within me and in others have been clarified. And today I can state without fear of inaccuracy that I was made - if not absolutely then decisively - to be there with them, rather than here. In a sense, this evolution hasn’t been totally worthless to me: I came out of it hardened in my convictions, having gotten to know the enemy better and having learned more thoroughly what we must fight in the future. The knowledge acquired was worth it.’

23 August 1944
‘That’s not entirely true. I had this knowledge before, complete and alive in my consciousness. And I didn’t have to wait until my thirties to become “more hardened” at the cost of such infamous ordeals ... since so many others were able to resolve this crucial question so much more quickly and positively. That’s what’s hard. That’s what’s behind this dissatisfaction with myself that often, very logically, throws me into despair.

This struggle between two worlds being waged within me and within many others like me - will it last forever, to mortify us throughout our entire existence? Or is there some hope that it will end favorably? It seems as though it’s inevitable, like a natural phenomenon that occurs in people whose lives have unfolded in circumstances I have known, a phenomenon that most likely will not fail to manifest itself in us again in the future, on the threshold of a new life, like it does in the world described by P. Romanov, Gorki, Gladkov [Soviet novelist]. These external signs of private battles and moral suffering that destroy and consume. And struggle - the only way of life capable of putting an end to these unhealthy thoughts in an evolving man ... struggle, nothing but struggle.’