Talk:The King's Pilgrimage

Pictures

Are there any usable pictures of the King actually on his pilgrimage? Likewise are there any of Kipling? I think that if there are, they would enhance the article. DuncanHill (talk) 15:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a postcard picture here (from here) and a photo here (from here). The best source for pictures would be a copy of the actual 1922 booklet itself, which included B&W photographs. Maybe someone can buy a copy (it is a bit expensive now) or find a copy in a library and ask if it can be scanned. Pictures of Kipling in France would be harder to find (and might not be the right date), and in any case, I wanted one that would evoke thoughts by the reader of Kipling writing the poem. This article is about three things: the poem, the book and the journey. If I get hold of a copy of the book, I'll add more about the journey. There is not too much about the poem, but when the article is a bit larger, I'll add a couple of quotes from the book, the poem, and the King's speech at Terlincthun. For now, I'm going to quote the text accompanying the postcard (because a Google advert covers it up):

"At Terlincthun War Cemetery on May 13th, 1922, the King concluded a pilgrimage to the graves of soldiers of the British Empire who fell in France and Flanders. The burial ground looks from the high cliffs near Boulogne across the English Channel, and on clear days the white cliffs of our own coast shine clearly. At the Cross of Sacrifice, standing with the Queen, and important representatives of the British and French Armies, the King spoke movingly of the dead, whose graves girdle "the whole circuit of the earth", and who, in France, "lie in the keeping of a tried and generous friend""

The full text of the King's speech is well worth reading, and can be read here (scroll down to find it - opening words are "For the past few days..."). Very moving, and you can well believe it was composed by Kipling (as most sources say). it includes the famous quotes about how the "whole circuit of the earth is girdled with the graves of our dead" and the oft-quoted "multitude of silent witnesses", but also includes some other lovely turns of phrases, such as the references to Napoleon's memorial and armies. Carcharoth (talk) 11:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

There's a plate in my copy of the Birkenhead biography of RK of the King and RK visiting War Graves in Belgium in 1922, and a larger version of the same picture (less cropped) as plate 32 in Gilmour's The Long Recessional captioned as "The King's Pilgrimage", credited to the Hulton Archive. DuncanHill (talk) 02:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I've seen pictures in various books I have too. I've also found an online copy of the 1922 book, so I'll add a link to that into the article in the expansion I'm currently working on. Carcharoth (talk) 00:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sir Frank Fox

Do we know who Sir Frank Fox of the Imperial War Graves Commission was? Possibly Sir Francis Fox - he was involved in humanitarian work during the war, but ODNB does not mention work for the commission. Anyone know any better? DuncanHill (talk) 22:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, no it wasn't him, it was this chap [1] - we don't seem to have an article about him yet. DuncanHill (talk) 22:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm going to add a footnote about that. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 05:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you know if there's an Australian biographies wikiproject? If there is, that would be a good place to ask for an article. DuncanHill (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

There's an Australian Dictionary of Biography article on him, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080585b.htm but that doesn't mention CWGC or the pilgrimage either. David Underdown (talk) 10:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Further things to do

Listing of some more things to do.

• Get better pictures (see above). The pictures in the book are credited at the front, so it may be possible to track some of them down and see what the copyright status is, though as the pictures are not individually credited, will have to search by photographers, not by subject.
• Contemporary newspaper reports - find some and add details to article. There are a few on Google News, but not a lot. There will have been more, but this would need more effort to locate them. Can't be comprehensive, but give examples of reports in the major newspapers of the UK, India, the Dominions (Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Newfoundland) and other countries (France, Belgium, USA).
• More critical reaction to the poem and literary analysis of the poem. Look especially for negative reactions, if any, and whether anyone has assessed what the overall reaction was. Also, place in context with Kipling's other works - it is a relatively obscure work.
• More details of the book. Likely sales figures in archives of Hodder and Stoughton, or in archives of the charities and organisations receiving money from the sales of the book (e.g. The Ypres League or the St Barnabas Association).
• Some of the details of the Pilgrimage could be extended still further. Try to balance with sources other than just Fox, because Fox was an "imperialist" (like Kipling) so his reporting (in the form of the book) would have been imperialist in tone. And this needs to be made clearer in the article (the fact that both Kipling and Fox were ardent supporters of the Empire, though many were at that time, of course, but the contrast here is with those who wanted the Dominions to be more independent, but still within the Empire).
• Try to make clearer what Kipling's role in the speech was, and also that he was a friend of the King's, and if it was common for Kipling to help write the King's speeches, say this as well - which leads into Kipling's role as "prophet of imperialism" (see Rudyard Kipling).

Please do add more items above, or comment, or add sourced additions for the above. Carcharoth (talk) 06:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

• On the Kipling note, it might be worth bringing in discussion of The Debt, a short story Kipling wrote a few years later dealing with the journey. (It was collected in Limits and Renewals with a different poem as a pendant to it - this poses the interesting question of why Pilgrimage wasn't used) Shimgray | talk | 15:54, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks for pointing this out. Sorry for not noticing this before. I've made the following changes. Carcharoth (talk) 06:45, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Carcharoth, DuncanHill, Andrew Gray: Not sure how active you are these days, but the book is in the public domain, and I will likely be uploading some images from the book's Hathitrust scan to this commons later today. There may be better quality scans, but I'm not aware of them. I think this article could be nominated for GA with a bit more work-- Let me know if any of you are interested in working more on it (with or without me) Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 13:21, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

@Eddie891: thanks - I'll probably do my usual picking over for typos and the like. Pictures would be great. DuncanHill (talk) 14:38, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

DuncanHill, Sounds good, and thanks a lot for looking over Fabian Ware. I guess I'll upload all the pictures from the book onto commons (might as well) and then I'll post the commonscat here. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 17:04, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

@Eddie891: (thanks for the ping), DuncanHill: my recollection of this (I have a copy of the book) when I created the article is that it was difficult to ascertain which of the images were public domain. My memory is that the photo credits at the start of the book credited various news agencies (who would have retained the copyright of the photos), and I am not sure the photos themselves are public domain. It would be good if they were. Not much time at the moment to work on this, but will try and check in now and again. Carcharoth (talk) 13:15, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Carcharoth, (thanks for getting back and hope all is well) I didn't upload the images to commons for that reason, but my understanding is that they are PD on enwiki as published before 1925 and we can upload some under {{PD-US-expired-abroad}}. I think it would be excessive to upload all 60, but certainly some (particularly the title page) is doable. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 13:20, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@Eddie891: thanks for the quick reply! Will keep an eye out. Have just been looking at your excellent work over at Fabian Ware. Will try and review/comment over there (especially if/when that goes to FAC), but as I say may not have time (though all is well, thanks for asking). Carcharoth (talk) 13:23, 28 May 2020 (UTC)