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Interesting facts about South Africa
Index
2 Minutes of
Silence
Research has uncovered several different origins for this
tradition, some going back to antiquity. It seems that the tradition
of ‘silence’ is a fairly universal one, spontaneously arrived at as
a mark of respect to honour the dead or revered.
The favourite nominee, however, is Sir Percy
Fitzpatrick, a South African statesman born at King
William’s Town, Cape Colony on 24th July 1862. Most
research has pointed to Sir Percy as the actual
originator of the ‘Two Minutes’ Silence’ on
Armistice Day. he was certainly an interesting
character. Arrested after the Jameson Raid, he
received a prison sentence but was released by
President Kruger on the promise that he would not
meddle in South African politics for three years. He
has the distinction of having defeated General Botha
for the seat of Pretoria East in a general election,
and for being the author of Jock of the
Bushveld and The Transvaal From
Within. Both his obituary in The Times
and his entry in the Dictionary of National
Bibliography state,
To him also is due the initiation
of the two minutes’ silence observed on
Armistice Day.
(Dictionary of National Bibliography, 1931-40)
Apparently, on his farm Amanzi at Uitenhage a
charge of dynamite was fired every Armistice Day as
a signal for the ‘Two Minutes’ Silence’.
However, although the actual act of initiating
the annual ‘Two Minutes’ Silence’ can perhaps be
attributed to Sir Percy - as the letter from Lord
Stamfordham, the King’s private secretary,
reproduced in The Legionary (Vol. VII, no.
5, Nov. 1932) shows - another name must also be
mentioned, J.A. Eggar. Mr Eggar was a well-respected
local businessman in the Surrey town of Farnham.
Local pride and rumour attributes to him the honour
of establishing the custom in Great Britain, and a
motion was recently put to the town council to erect
a memorial plaque to Mr. Eggar. According to an
article in the British Legion, this
gentleman was a South African businessman living in
Cape Town during the First World War, and he
suggested a two minutes’ silence at a special
service held in 1916.
Whatever the debate over the origins of this
custom, it was adopted after the First World War as
an act of homage to the untold dead resulting from
that conflict. It is for this that it will be
chiefly remembered. The idea having been put to and
approved by King George V, the following appeal was
printed in The Times on November 7th, 1919:
“To all my people” Buckingham
Palace, 7th November, 1919.
Tuesday next, November 11th, is
the first anniversary of the Armistice, which
stayed the world-wide carnage of the four
preceding years and marked the victory of Right
and Freedom. I believe that my people in every
part of the Empire fervently wish to perpetuate
the memory of that Great Deliverance, and of
those who laid down their lives to achieve it.
To afford an opportunity for the
universal expression of this feeling it is my
desire and hope that at the hour when the
Armistice came into force, the eleventh hour of
the eleventh day of the eleventh month, there
may be, for the brief space of two minutes, a
complete suspension of all our normal
activities. During that time, except in the rare
cases where this may be impracticable, all work,
all sound, and all locomotives should cease, so
that, in perfect stillness, the thoughts of
everyone may be concentrated on reverent
remembrance of the Glorious Dead.
No elaborate organisation appears
to be necessary. At a given signal, which can
easily be arranged to suit the circumstances of
each locality, I believe that we shall all
gladly interrupt our business and pleasure,
whatever it may be, and unite in this simple
service of Silence and Remembrance.
George R.I.
The overseas dominions were also exhorted to stop
and observe an ‘Empire Silence’.
Source:
http://collections.iwm.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.3165
Another candidate for the originator of the Armistice Day silence
is Edward George Honey.
Honey published a letter in the London Evening News on 8 May 1919
under the pen name of Warren Foster, in which he appealed for
five-minute silence amid all the joy making planned to celebrate the
first anniversary of the end of the War. 'Five little minutes only',
he wrote, 'Five silent minutes of national remembrance. A very
sacred intercession … Communion with the Glorious Dead who won us
peace, and from the communion new strength, hope and faith in the
morrow. Church services, too, if you will, but in the street, the
home, the theatre, anywhere, indeed, where Englishmen and their
women chance to be, surely in this five minutes of bitter-sweet
silence there will be service enough'.
No official action was taken on the idea, however, until, more
that five months later, on 27 October 1919, one Lord Milner
forwarded a suggestion from his friend, Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, to
the King's private secretary, Lord Stamfordham, for a period of
silence on Armistice Day, 11 November, in all countries of the
British Empire.
Sir Percy wrote, 'When we are gone it may help bring home to
those who will come after us, the meaning, the nobility and the
unselfishness of the great sacrifice by which their freedom was
assured'.
King George V was evidently very moved by the idea and took it up
immediately. There is no record that Sir Percy was prompted by
Honey's letter in the London Evening News, but with the King, both
Honey and Sir Percy attended a rehearsal for a five-minute silence
involving the Grenadier Guards at Buckingham Palace. Five minutes
proved too long and the two-minute interval was decided upon.
On 7 November 1919 the King issued a proclamation asking 'that at
the hour when the Armistice came into force, the 11th
hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, there
may be for the brief space of two minutes a complete suspension of
all our normal activities … so that in perfect stillness, the
thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of
the glorious dead'.
Source:
http://www.defence.gov.au/ARMY/traditions/documents/Silence.htm
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