Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
George Calderon, 1912
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George Calderon c.1901
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Captain of the 11Recent Comments
- Laurence Brockliss on A new story by John Melmoth: ‘Snowballs’ What a pitch perfect short story: crisp, graphic, nostalgic, evocative and mischievous. The injustice of schoolboy punishments comes in many forms, is never forgotten and is... (March 10, 2026 at 10:09 am)
- Patrick Miles on The diary of a writer-publisher: 36 Wonderful, Andrew! Thank you very much. I will borrow that title, if you don't object... I hope you will allow Calderonia to feature your own next magnum opus after the Great... (February 28, 2026 at 8:18 am)
- Andrew Tatham on The diary of a writer-publisher: 36 A brilliantly evocative and thought-provoking medley of observations that would not be out of place in 'The collected life of a flat-cap penguin' (your words, only slightly... (February 27, 2026 at 9:48 am)
- John Pym on The essential Oxford novel Horace Hare’s acid and immensely readable Oxford Confessions deserve to sell even more pleasingly than Yale classicist Erich Segal’s Harvard/Radcliffe smash-hit weepie, Love... (January 29, 2026 at 2:39 pm)
- Graeme Wright on The essential Oxford novel If I may be so bold I'll throw into the Oxford quad Javier Marias's novel, All Souls. Here's a taste, courtesy of Penguin and Amazon: "At High Table in an Oxford College, the... (January 28, 2026 at 12:11 pm)
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The military situation
In his letter to Kittie yesterday, Calderon wrote: ‘We hear that cavalrymen on the Oise have put their horses by, and are standing in the trenches with the rest.’ This was true and highly revealing. After 9 September the German … Continue reading
A lacuna
When I wrote in my posting for 16 September 1914 that George Calderon went off to say goodbye to his ‘only visitable relation’ in London, the word ‘visitable’ was carefully chosen. George’s widowed mother was in the New Forest at … Continue reading
25 September 1914
[From Windmill Hill Camp, Salisbury Plain] Friday Mrs P., So you didn’t have too much of your sleepy mole? Well, I don’t know about any more upcomings. Next Sunday, that’s the day after tomorrow, I certainly can’t; it’s too soon; … Continue reading
17 September 1914
In the morning, George and Kittie left Ringwood and travelled to Southampton. Here they said goodbye for the time being and Kittie returned to Hampstead. After lunch George caught the train to Ludgershall and walked to the vast Windmill Hill … Continue reading
16 September 1914
This morning, ‘between us’ as Kittie put it, Calderon was got up and dressed, his luggage was put on (sic) the car, and he and Kittie came out of the house just after eight o’clock. At that moment, a telegram was … Continue reading
A friend is wounded
On 8 September 1914 the B.E.F. moved towards the Marne and began to be attacked by von Kluck’s rearguard. In one such engagement a dear friend of the Calderons was hit by shrapnel. This was the 22-year-old Sir Roland James … Continue reading
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Tagged Acton Reynald, Alexander von Kluck, Battle of the Marne, British Expeditionary Force, Coldstream Guards, George Calderon, Jim Corbet, Kittie Calderon, La Trétoire, Lady Caroline Corbet, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Reginald Astley, Sir Roland James Corbet, Sir Walter Corbet, The Great War, World War I
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7 September 1914
Von Kluck now moved the left wing of his First Army almost forty miles northwards across the front of the B.E.F. to join his counter-attack on the French Sixth Army. On this day the B.E.F. marched about fifteen miles towards … Continue reading
6 September 1914
The initial strength of the B.E.F. was four infantry divisions and one cavalry. However, the cavalry had been particularly hard worked: they had been the only effective cover and communication between the B.E.F.’s two army corps during the whole … Continue reading
4 September 1914
This evening Joffre was brought a message from Sir John French that the B.E.F. was ‘prepared to assume the offensive’, i.e. at least five days earlier than he had told Joffre on 30 August. So what had put some fire … Continue reading
30 August 1914
On this day Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the B.E.F., telegraphed Joffre, his French counterpart, that he could not contemplate putting the B.E.F. back in the front line ‘for at least ten days’ and was intending to withdraw beyond the … Continue reading
23 August 1914
At about 7 a.m. today the Germans began to attack British positions around Mons. It was the British Expeditionary Force’s first action of the war. At first the German surges were mown down by rifle-fire. Gradually, however, von Kluck’s troops … Continue reading
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Tagged Alexander von Kluck, Belgium, British Expeditionary Force, George Calderon, Mons, The Great War, World War I
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…and impatient!
Calderon had not by now heard whether he had been given a commission, so he went to see his golfing acquaintance Lieutenant-Colonel Coote Hedley, who lived not far away in Belsize Avenue, to ask what he, George, could do to … Continue reading
14 August 1914
The British Expeditionary Force was still moving up to join the French Fifth Army near the Belgian border, and in London today the weather was ‘grilling hot’ (Mark Bostridge, The Fateful Year). That evening George Calderon wrote to Clara Calderon in … Continue reading
5 August 1914
Note that George Calderon’s ‘Attestation’ simply meant that he had joined the ‘Territorial Force’ and this committed him to ‘Four Years Service in the United Kingdom’. In his excellent The British Soldier of the First World War (Shire Books, 2010) Peter Doyle … Continue reading
4 August 1914
At 8 a.m. German troops crossed the Belgian border. In the morning, presumably by telephone, Calderon made an appointment to see the Colonel of the Inns of Court Regiment, who was previously unknown to him. This time George did deploy … Continue reading
