Lady Maud Hoare and the silver trowel by Janie Hampton

Lady Maud Hoare in 1941

Some years before she died, my mother gave me an old silver trowel as a birthday present. With its chunky, solid, ivory handle it has the weight and shape of a real builder’s trowel, and does the job of picking up cake and flans very well.
I recently received an email from the Royal Air Force College in Cranwell, Lincolnshire. They had found an empty presentation box with an indentation of a pointed trowel. Now they wanted to find the actual trowel that had been used to lay the foundation stone of their college in 1929. The box was duly sent to me, and sure enough, like Cinderella’s shoe, my trowel fitted. The only problem was, it had the wrong inscription. Made in Sheffield in 1926, the ornate inscription reads: 'Presented to the Lord Bishop of Chester, to commemorate the laying of the foundation stone of St Chad's Church, Blacon. June 11 1929.' (This Anglican bishop, Luke Paget, came from an unusual family: his father was Bishop of Oxford, one brother was the Archbishop of Central Africa and another an army general - their mother must have been very proud!)
RAF Cranwell College had been founded in 1920, and housed in barrack huts built during the First World War. In order to foster tradition and inspire the air cadets, they needed a permanent building. Sir Samuel Hoare (1880-1959), the Minister for Air since 1922, also understood that the RAF Cadet College was a temporary and precarious service and for the future defence of Britain, it was important that the RAF had equal standing with the other British armed forces, the navy and the army. Early in 1929, Sir Samuel formed a plot. He obtained the authority to commission architect’s plans for an RAF College and commissioned Sir James Grey West (1881 –1951), an eminent architect in the Office of Works. His first design was inspired by London’s elaborate Victorian-Gothic St Pancras Railway Station. This was rejected, possibly on grounds of taste. His second set of plans, based on the  Royal Hospital Chelsea designed by Christopher Wren in 1692, was accepted. But the Ministry of Air had no authority or budget from the government to construct the building, and a General Election was due in a matter of weeks. No expenditure had been authorised for anything other than the plans, and Sir Samuel could soon be out of office. There was no time to lose. Sir Samuel realised that whatever the outcome of the election, if the building of Cranwell College had started, whether the government was Conservative, Liberal or Labour, they were likely to finish it. The Marshal of the RAF, Lord Trenchard, (1873 –1956) and Sir Samuel quickly arranged for an official laying of the foundation stone before the dissolution of parliament. The night before, the RAF cadets held a clandestine mock ceremony, sharing caricature performances of the leading dignitaries.
The 29th April, 1929, was wet and windy but the ceremony went ahead. It began with a parade of the Cadet Wing, Airmen’s Wing and the College Band under the Assistant Commandant, Wing Commander Douglas Strathern Evill. Sir Samuel was received with the Air Salute, and after inspecting the Guard of Honour, joined the other guests on a wooden platform, erected in the field near the temporary huts. The VIPs included Lord and Lady Trenchard and Commandant of the RAF College Air Vice-Marshal Frederick Crosby Halahan, (1880 –1965), the architect Sir James Grey West and Sir Samuel’s wife, Lady Maud Hoare(1882–1962). Two years before she had been appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for flying 12,000 miles to inaugurate the London via Cairo to Delhi air service. The Times newspaper reported that ‘She is the first woman ever to fly so many miles. There had been snow, rain, fog, sandstorms, but not a spare part was needed for the air ship.’ 

Samuel Hoare VI as Honorary Elder Brother of Trinity House in 1956. By Aubrey Claud Davidson-Houston. 

With so little time to make arrangements, Sir Samuel probably borrowed a ceremonial trowel from his brother-in-law Luke Paget, the Bishop of Chester, who was about to perform a similar duty on a new church in his diocese. Or maybe Sir Samuel bought a new silver trowel, there was no time to inscribe it and he then passed it on to his brother in-law to lay the foundation stone of St Chad’s Church in Cheshire.
Sir Samuel handed the silver trowel to his wife Lady Maud who placed some cement onto the foundation. The first stone was lowered by a small crane into place. The Chaplain-in-Chief, the Venerable Robert Edward Vernon Hanson, (1866–1947) said a prayer and then Sir Samuel gave an address, before the parade marched past the saluting base to close the ceremony. 

This was an act of bluff to persuade the government to fund the building; and an act of faith that the next government, whoever they were, would finish the job now it had been started. On 30 May 1929, the Labour party, under Ramsay Macdonald, won the most parliamentary seats for the first time but failed to achieve an overall majority. However, the new ‘hung’ government accepted the RAF plan and proceeded with the building, which was finished in 1933. Sir Samuel then presented over 100 lime trees (Tilia x europaea) stating that an avenue was an ‘indispensable attribute to a great house’. And when tea was rationed during the Second World War, lime blossom made an acceptable alternative.

As a British M.P., in 1935 Sir Samuel piloted the India Independence Bill through the House of Commons and as Home Secretary, in 1938 introduced Kindertransport  to allow European Jewish children entry into Britain. A brilliant politician, he knew how to achieve his goals, even if it meant using his wife to wield his brother-in-law’s silver trowel. There might have been a different silver trowel, inscribed with the details, but no-one has found it. Unless a diary or note revealing any of this emerges, or the trowel appears one day on Antiques Roadshow or Cash in the Attic, we will never know.

Sir Samuel & Lady Maud, now Lord and Lady Templewood in 1957.

Why, you may ask, did my mother have this trowel? Well, the Bishop of Chester was her father-in-law; and Sir Samuel Hoare was both my step-great uncle and my grandmother’s third cousin so my third cousin-twice-removed. You can see the trowel on display at the RAF Cranwell Museum. http://www.aviationheritagelincolnshire.com/

RAF Cranwell College

Ghostly Hands & Dancing Vicars by Karen Maitland

One of the great joys of historical research is the stumbling upon tales you weren’t looking for. Last week, I was researching the history of Greestone Stairs in Lincoln for my next novel. Greestone is reputed to be the most haunted street in the city. They are a long flight of stone steps which once linked the medieval dwellings in the lower part of the city, outside the city walls, to via the Postern or rear gate to which led into the Cathedral grounds at the top of the hill.

These steps are haunted by, amongst others, a Victorian woman and a monk who hanged himself from the postern archway. But perhaps most sinister of all, numerous locals and visitors alike have reported feeling someone grab their ankle as they ascended the steps, even in daylight, causing them to fall heavily and they have the bruises and cuts to prove it!

But when delving into the history of the steps and archway I came across an account written by A.F.Kenwick in 1928, which tells another story about the steps and postern gate –

‘... The cathedral towers, as well as the central one, were originally topped with tall spires of timber, coated with lead. The central spire had been blown down in a gale nearly two hundred years before it was decided by the cathedral body to remove those on the west towers, the excuse being that they had fallen into disrepair. The work of destruction was commenced on the 20th September 1726 or 1727. As the citizens in the town below saw the workmen engaged in this way, cries of indignation were raised, and towards evening a crowd of 500 men assembled to prevent the removal of the spires. The main gates of the minster yard were secured against them, but the small postern on the south side was apparently forgotten. To this the besiegers turned their attention, and, rushing up the Greestone stairs, they soon battered down the gate, and entered the close.

'One of "Old Vicars," named Cunnington, appears to have suffered especially at their hands, whether he was the chief culprit or not. He is said to have been dragged from his house in the Vicars' Court, and compelled to dance on the minster green in the midst of the mob. The crowd only dispersed on the promise that the spires should be allowed to remain.

'The next day, the Mayor and Aldermen were requested by the minster authorities to send the bellman round the city with the following message:— "Whereas there has been a tumult, for these two days past, about pulling down the two west spires of the church, this is to give notice to the people of the city, that there is a stop put to it, and that the spires shall be repaired again with all speed.” After which the mob with one accord gave a great shout, and said, “God bless the King!” … 

'A foolhardy feat was performed in the year 1739 by a man named Robert Cadman, who did fly from one of the spires of the minster, by means of a rope, down to the Castle Hill, near to the Black Boy public-house. Cadman met his death in the next year at Shrewsbury, while attempting a similar performance there ...’

 The spires were finally removed in 1807. I wonder if forcing planners today who make unpopular decisions to ‘dance on the green’ would encourage them to think again!

Sword and Scalpel by Karen Maitland

A woman fighting alongside men

In the past century we’ve seen women take up many professional roles formerly barred to them and you often hear it said that women are doing these jobs for the first time in history, but in fact women in the Middle Ages frequently work in professions which were subsequently forbidden to women – heading guilds, running businesses, working in crafts such as silversmiths, and fighting as archers and even on horseback in armour during the crusades and in battles on in Europe.

In Lincoln, Lucy de Taillebois held the office of Sheriff of Lincoln in her own right up to her death in 1136 and a sheriff in those days was far from a mere ceremonial role, for she was sworn to uphold the king’s law, deliver criminals and the king’s enemies to justice, supervise the royal lands in her area, requisition supplies for the king and preside over the shire courts.



Man and woman fencing, 1300's

 But it is in the field of medicine, a profession later closed to women, that we find many medieval women not only working but also writing, such as Abbess Hildegard of Bingen who recorded her medical advice in Causae et Curea in 1150.

We know the nunneries held a great store of medical knowledge, but perhaps more surprising is the large number of women who attended medical schools alongside male students in the early Middle Ages especially the school of Salerno where one woman or perhaps a group of women known as Trotula, became famous for writing a treatise on obstetrics which included breach births, prolapses and polyps of the womb. Her book De mulierum passionibusante, in post partum was still in use as the standard textbook by doctors centuries after women had been barred from practising medicine. It’s thought Trotula may be immortalised in the nursery rhyme which was well known by 1706, about Old Dame Trot and her cat.

Right across Europe beguines, who lived in the cities of women, set up hospitals for the local people in which the beguines worked as physicians and surgeons. Many of these hospitals are still in use today, though now in private or state hands.

Woman blood-letting by by placing heated vessels
over cuts to create a vacuum to draw off
a measured amount of blood. 1400's

 We often think of medieval medicine as being as mixture of superstition and herbal remedies practised by some old village women, and but men and women who were trained in medical schools had the skills to perform operations under anaesthetics, to undertake delicate operations such as repairing depressed skull fractures and inserting drains to help the recovery of an abdominal wound. They could drill and fill teeth with an amalgam made of ground bone.

 They were much better at preventing infection than was the case in latter centuries, using antiseptics and even rudimentary antibiotics although obviously they didn’t have the modern understanding of viruses and bacteria. And it was medieval female physician who pioneered an early form of plastic surgery, binding a patient’s forearm to his face until the skin of the arm attached itself to the wound and then cutting it away. It is reported the patient survived and both wounds healed.

Not only were many of the medical skills and knowledge lost in later centuries and had to be rediscovered, but women also lost their right to work in many professions and had to regain them. Will it happen again? Sadly in some countries it already is.




Medieval surgical instrements from 'Mirror of Phlebotomy & Practise of surgery' by John of Arderne, written in the 1400's.