Lest We Forget - Arthur Dryden

I hadn't really planned a post today, but I was given this info yesterday about my Great-Great Uncle Arthur. I knew he died during WWI and his name is on one of Gravesend's many War Memorial's, but I knew no information about him at all.

I was chatting with a work colleague Debbie, who gave me a book that her husband Andrew was giving away, in was a collection of WWI soldiers dairy entries. Debbie then mentioned her husband also raises money and restores war memorials in the Gravesend area. I explained that I had two relatives on a memorial at Windmill Hill in Gravesend, giving the names Dryden and mistakenly Hopson (after speaking to my Dad it should have been Dadson).

Anyway Debbie came back the next day with a booklet that Andrew had written and published himself about the sinking of the SS Minnehaha on 7th Sept 1917. In the booklet was the above information..........how fantastic!!

Thanks Debbie & Andrew



Windmill Hill Memorial, Gravesend.

'God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle line,

Beneath whose awful hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!'



Crimean War Memorial

On New Year's Day, me and the wife took my two youngest daughters up to Hamley's toy store in London, to spend some Christmas and birthday money, we went up by train,  for an extra £4 we went on the new fast train via Ebbsfleet station. It was fantastic, we were in central London in less than 15minutes,  it usually takes 40 minutes for a fast train from Gravesend.

We walked down to the Cenotaph, but it was blocked off for the New Years Day parade, but I took a few photo's of the Crimian War Memorial, which is is located on Waterloo Place, at the junction of Lower Regent Street and Pall Mall in London, about a quarter of the way from the Duke of York Column to Piccadilly Circus. I've been in the area loads of times and never noticed the memorial before and was very impressed.
Originally it was unveiled in 1861, consisting of the statues of three Guards Men, with the female allegorical figure referred to as Honour. It was cast in bronze from the cannons captured at the siege of Sebastopol. The sculptor was John Bell.
On the front, by the statues of the Guardsmen are two plaques. The uppermost states: "The Guards' Memorial was pulled down in the year of our lord 1914 and was re-erected 30 feet north in order to permit the erection of the Florence Nightingale and Sidney Herbert statues." The Lower one states: "The foundation stone of the Guards' Memorial was laid in the year of our lord 1861 by Margaret Johanna Bell."'
On the back facade of the monuments, facing the road up to Piccadilly is another plaque, a shield surrounded by foliage and mounted on guns, this reads:
"To the memory of 2152 Officers, Non-Com. Officers and Privates of the BRIGADE OF GUARDS who fell during the war with Russian in 1854-56. Erected by their Comrades."