Talk:Equestrian statue of Edward Horner

Equestrian statue of Edward Horner or Biography of Edward Horner

This article covers the Equestrian statue of Edward Horner thoroughly, and it does provide biographical information for Edward Horner aka Edward William Horner, but readers will only find the biographical information from the two redirects. Should there be a straightforward biography? --Dthomsen8 (talk) 01:39, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Probably not, considering that almost all the biographical information available in the sources is in the article and that most of the sources discuss him in connection with the statue. He's not really notable other than for the statue; although he's from a prominent family and he had prominent friends, he never got chance to make much of a mark on the world. He wasn't the heir to a title, he didn't get far in his legal career, he didn't rise to high rank in the army, he wasn't decorated for gallantry, so there's not much to write. There's plenty of precedent on WP for articles about the deaths of specific people and I'm sure we have other articles on memorials to people who aren't otherwise notable. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:26, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Kitchener Poster

The "Your Country Needs You" and variants posters, were directed at encouraging enlistment of civilians, not at those already in the TF to accept Imperial Service (i.e. overseas). Even if he did volunteer for foreign service shortly after the publication of the "Lord Kitchener Wants You" recruiting poster, then correlation does not imply causation. Nedrutland (talk) 12:12, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

@Nedrutland: Apologies for the belated response. The source explicitly mentions the Kitchener poster as stoking the patriotic attitudes that were cultivated in public schools (especially Eton) at the time and the effect on Horner and his friends. It may have been aimed at civilians, but Horner was far from an experienced military officer by then. I think it's worth including. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:17, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

@Nedrutland: It's been a couple of weeks. If you still have concerns I'm happy to discuss them here, but I've removed the tag. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:32, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

@HJ Mitchell: It remains highly doubtful. Horner was commissioned in August 1914, the posters did not appear until September. Even if the posters appeared before he accepted Imperial service, where is the evidence that it was because of seeing them? Nedrutland (talk) 22:25, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

@Nedrutland: Having slept on it and revisited the book, I'm less attached to it than I was so I've removed it. Thanks for the details from the Gazette. Just FYI, I've got a little bit more background on the Horners and Mells that I want to add, then I'm planning to nominate this at FAC. Depending on whether I get round to making those edits before my current FAC wraps up, I'll either put it up once that FAC is done or I'll nominate the Civil Service Rifles War Memorial first and this will follow once that's done (probably mid to late January). Merry Christmas. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:43, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Home of our delight exhibition

The story of this statue featured in an exhibition in Mells: Centenary exhibition at Rook Lane Chapel, Frome (September-October 2016). Resources include the exhibition panels and an exhibition booklet. May be worth mentioning in some way. Carcharoth (talk) 00:50, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Additional sources

Following on from the FAC, a couple more sources: See here for another description of the memorial. It may also be worth trying to get hold of this book (Memoirs of a veterinary surgeon by Reginald Cuthbert Greatrex Hancock in 1952). That led me to this and then (much more useful) this, which leads to 'a full account of the work can be found in the second part of Munnings's autobiography, The Second Burst (1951)'. From what is visible online, that sounds like it is essential. Carcharoth (talk) 00:54, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Tangential sources

This blog may be useful, or give pointers. It certainly gives more context. There is certainly enough out there to expand The Coterie. FWIW, I found the obituary for Edward Horner in The Times (Thursday, Nov 29, 1917; pg. 5; Issue 41648). Written by "F.S." (not sure who that was). There is also a bit out there about the role Hilaire Belloc played in getting the tablets erected in France (one for his son, one for Edward and one for Raymond). See Life of Hilaire Belloc:

In 1924 Belloc had a tablet erected in Cambrai Cathedral to the memory of his son. It was placed at the entrance to the Lady Chapel, and he had arranged for a similar plaque to the memory of Edward Horner to be fixed opposite. On a pillar in Amiens Cathedral, just behind the tablet to the British and Canadian dead, a third plaque was put up to Raymond Asquith, and here again Belloc had used his influence with the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. It cost him many months of wearisome negotiation and delay. For Belloc these memorials had a representative value; for behind the names which they commemorated may be read the names of all those others whom the war had taken from him.

There is more on this in the Letters of Hilaire Belloc (a number of letters from him on the subject of the French tablets). And an article in Stand To!: The Journal of the Western Front Association (somewhere in issues 75-80, page 44) also goes into more detail on the French tablets, the Asquiths, the Horners, Belloc and Lutyens. FWIW. (I've found it is very hard to pin down details of obscure tablets in French cathedrals!) That article does bring out one point that I need to add to the Raymond Asquith article, namely that Belloc's wording on the plaque distressed the (Protestant) Asquith family, as he used the Catholic injunction to pray for Raymond's soul! (Katharine, brother of Edward, widowed on Raymond's death, had converted to Roman Catholicism.)

A bit tangential, but gives a flavour of how interconnected people were in these circles. Carcharoth (talk) 00:51, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Various other photos

Found some photos of the family, plus one that is not strictly relevant, but am putting it here as it is part of the whole story of the Horner family erecting memorials: photo of one of the memorials erected to Mark Horner.

• NPG collection of Edward Horner (these may be public domain, but maybe not)

  it depends if they were published before the NPG digitised and published them

• NPG collection of Lady Horner (Edward's mother)
• NPG photo of John Horner (Edward's father)

There are also other family members in the NPG collections.

• The best photo is the one of Lutyens and Lady Horner together, seen here. That may have come originally from this wikitree page. Looking at this image page, it seems like descendants of the Horners uploaded the photo from family papers. Might be worth contacting them to see if they are willing to release it under a free licence.

Carcharoth (talk) 00:22, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Clare College lantern donation

Apparently (stumbled across this while looking for something else), Horner was among those who attended staff training courses at Clare College and made donations towards a lamp (or his family did). See here and here. Not entirely sure how that fits with the dates, and no-one seems to have written about this anywhere, so just leaving it here for now. Carcharoth (talk) 17:55, 2 March 2020 (UTC)