George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Captain of the 11
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
George Calderon, 1912
George Calderon c.1901
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920Recent Comments
- Patrick Miles on Guest post by Philip Andrews-Speed: The concept of path dependence explains much in today’s world All this is HIGHLY relevant to my question, Philip -- thank you yet again. I must say, to the uninformed observer like myself it seems as though China studiously cultivates... (October 28, 2026 at 3:42 pm)
- Philip Andrews-Speed on Guest post by Philip Andrews-Speed: The concept of path dependence explains much in today’s world Thank you, Patrick. I will answer your question indirectly. It can be argued that China's political and legal cultures continue to reflect a mix of Confucian and Legalist... (October 28, 2026 at 11:58 am)
- Patrick Miles on Guest post by Philip Andrews-Speed: The concept of path dependence explains much in today’s world Excellent summary, Philip, thank you enormously as my O Level history of China is very thin. This is political culture, but what about other forms of culture? Could their... (October 27, 2026 at 2:48 pm)
- Philip Andrews-Speed on Guest post by Philip Andrews-Speed: The concept of path dependence explains much in today’s world A trite answer, Patrick, that makes no reference to path dependence would be that after decades of chaos the Party leadership sought stability. After the collapse of the... (October 27, 2026 at 2:39 pm)
- Patrick Miles on Guest post by Philip Andrews-Speed: The concept of path dependence explains much in today’s world Thank you so much, Philip, for your time in writing these succinct and admirable responses. I was very interested to read that Pierson switched from 'increasing returns'... (October 27, 2026 at 12:24 pm)
Category Archives: Personal commentary
Watch this Space
12/10/15. There were dozens of books published by English and American visitors to Tahiti between about 1890 and 1930, and Rupert Brooke’s poems about the island became extremely well known. I have to admit that this literature is so large that I … Continue reading
Watch this Space
25/9/15. A natural consequence of turning the blog into a Website is that no-one (it seems!) wants to leave a Comment, because visitors who followed it every day last year no longer have a reason for looking in, and casual viewers now … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Arts and Crafts, Clare Hopkins, comments, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Percy Lubbock
2 Comments
Watch this Space
25/8/15. If you haven’t seen the latest cracker of a Comment from Clare Hopkins, I recommend that you do (top right)…and contribute to the discussion! A special part of my in-depth research of Kittie’s life 1915-22, for the next chapter, has … Continue reading
Watch this Space
16/8/15. If you haven’t seen the latest cracker of a Comment from Clare Hopkins, I recommend that you do (top right)…and contribute to the discussion! I have been away for a week. This necessitated carting the manuscript with me and a … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, Clare Hopkins, comments, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Percy Lubbock, publishers, Tahiti
Leave a comment
Watch this Space
6/8/15. I was flabbergasted last week when the TLS featured ‘Calderonia’ a second time on its very popular blog, this time to mark our closing (see link on right under ‘Related’ to ‘Second TLS blog post’). I cannot thank Michael Caines … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged appling, Constantinople, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Helen Peel, Hoffman Philip, Kittie Calderon, Michael Caines, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Robert Peel, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, TLS, TLS blog, War Office, World War I
Leave a comment
Watch this Space
31/7/15. Blogged out, I am chilling out — slightly. I’m particularly interested in the reception of Patrick Marber’s stunning play THREE DAYS IN THE COUNTRY at the National Theatre, as it is based on my literal translation of Turgenev’s A MONTH IN … Continue reading
30 July 1915: ‘Ends’
It does not seem exactly a year since the small boys Jack and Roly Pym ran across from their holiday home at Seaview on the Isle of Wight to greet George Calderon, a kind of uncle to them, who had … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Anton Chekhov, Ashford, biographies, biography, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, Carl Jung, Clare Hopkins, comments, Dardanelles, Derwent May, Elizabeth Ellis, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Harvey Pitcher, Isle of Wight, Jack Pym, James Muckle, John Dewey, John Pym, Johnnie Pym, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Louisa Scherchen, Michael Welch, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Percy Lubbock, Peter Hart, Roly Pym, Sam Evans, Seaview, Sheet, Tahiti, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Violet Pym, White Raven, World War I, Ypres
8 Comments
29 July 1915
29th July, 1915. The Military Secretary presents his compliments to Mrs Calderon, and begs to thank her for her letter of July 26th, and to inform her that a form of enquiry on behalf of her husband will be sent … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged American Embassy, comments, Constantinople, Coote Hedley, Dardanelles, Foreign Office, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Gertrude Bell, Hoffman Philip, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Military Secretary, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Percy Lubbock, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, War Office, World War I
Leave a comment
The War
Im Westen nichts Neues is the title of Erich Maria Remarque’s famous novel, usually rendered in English as All Quiet on the Western Front. Its literal translation, however, is In the West Nothing New. The deadly sniping, sapping, night raids, shelling … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged All Quiet on the Western Front, ANZAC, Battle of Loos, British Expeditionary Force, comments, conscription, Dardanelles, Edwardianism, Erich Maria Remarque, Erich von Falkenhayn, Gallipoli, General Douglas Haig, George Calderon, Ian Hamilton, Imperial War Museum, Jack Harley, King's Own Scottish Borderers, KOSB, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Peter Hart, Sir John French, submarines, Suvla, The Carpathians, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, V.I. Lenin, Vilna, Warsaw, World War I, Ypres, Zeppelins
Leave a comment
26 July 1915
Today, Monday 26 July 1915, Kittie wrote the above letter to Military Secretary 3 (Casualties) at the War Office. I have not transcribed it, as she has written it as clearly as possible. Even so, she has omitted an apostrophe … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Percy Lubbock, prisoners, Sergeant Smith, Sergeant-Major Allan, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Turkey, War Office, World War I
Leave a comment
Flashback — and tourbillions in Time (again)
The Imperial War Museum invited me to contribute a post to their Research Blog, and I promptly accepted. I am not, of course, a military historian, and when I started researching the last ten months of George’s life I was … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', biographies, biography, C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, Captain Grogan, Captain Hogan, Captain Paterson, Clare Hopkins, comments, Daniel Joiner, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Jack Harley, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, KOSB, Major G.B. Stoney, Official History, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Peter Hart, R.M.E. Reeves, Robert Graves, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I
4 Comments
Dialogue at a dinner
SHE: Who is this man you are talking about? ME: He’s Edwardian. SHE: Is Edwardian? Surely you mean he was Edwardian? ME: Well no, he is Edwardian. SHE: No no, you can’t say that. He was Edwardian! ME: Er… Next entry: De-appled
Watch this Space
26/10/15. It was remiss of me, in my last Comment, not to address the first paragraph of Clare Hopkins’s last Comment, which concerned commemoration. Clare began the paragraph by asking ‘Can there ever be a last word on the subject … Continue reading →