George Calderon, 1912
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906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?
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Captain of the 11
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George Calderon c.1901
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Recent Comments
- Stuart Randall on 4 June 1915: The Third Battle of Krithia Thank you for your kind words, Patrick. On Wednesday morning, I reminded my three brothers that the 110th anniversary of the battle was upon us, and pointed them towards this... (June 7, 2025 at 9:07 pm)
- Patrick Miles on 4 June 1915: The Third Battle of Krithia Thank you for leaving this wonderful comment. I am so moved: you have brought the very spot almost unbearably close on this the 110th anniversary. Like George Calderon, your... (June 6, 2025 at 9:34 pm)
- Stuart Randall on 4 June 1915: The Third Battle of Krithia Thank you so much for putting this online. My great-uncle, Private William Pitt, served with the 4th Btn. Worcestershire Regiment. He was posthumously mentioned in despatches... (May 21, 2025 at 5:29 pm)
- Stephen Rust on Guest post by John Pym: Games Ancient and Modern A wonderful post. John, I've always adored your writings about Merchant Ivory and would love to chat more about them someday. I teach cinema at the University of Oregon,... (May 16, 2025 at 6:45 pm)
- Patrick Miles on Source? Dear Katy, it's lovely to hear from you again! I hope you are well down there in Kent. Would you believe it, I too typed in that first line, as I thought it was perhaps the... (May 12, 2025 at 11:45 am)
Category Archives: Personal commentary
…then three come along at once
When I started my deeper research for this biography in 2010, one of the things I did was trawl the Web for manuscripts of George’s that were up for sale. I found only one item, which we bought for the … Continue reading
‘Tributes’
A Russianist who has read Percy Lubbock’s George Calderon: A Sketch from Memory (1921) asks me why I have not posted more tributes to George than my own. The reason is simply that tributes were not published until his death became … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A.B. Lowry, Clare Hopkins, commemoration, comments, Dardanelles, For the Fallen, G.F. Bradby, Gallipoli, George Calderon, H.C. Bradby, Harold Dowdall, John Masefield, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Lawrence Le Breton Hammond, Leonora Bagg, Manolo Ordoño de Rosales, Percy Lubbock, Sir Coote Hedley, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Thomas Sturge Moore, tributes, Trinity College Oxford, World War I
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Commemoration (to be continued 2)
Plan A for a commemoration of George’s death (see yesterday’s post) was really dictated by long accepted British forms of commemorative ritual. These have loosened up in recent years, of course, to a point where you have extended, all-singing-and-dancing customer-devised … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged commemoration, comments, Dardanelles, Evey Pym, Foxwold, Francois Rabelais, Gallipoli, George Calderon, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Peter Hart, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Violet Pym, World War I
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Commemoration (to be continued 1)
The organisation of a public commemoration of George Calderon’s sacrifice on 4 June 1915, and the experience of the form it eventually took, have raised a huge number of questions in my and other Calderonians’ minds. Very long emails were … Continue reading
‘Things fall apart’
Since George Calderon’s death at noon in the Third Battle of Krithia on 4 June 1915 the timeline of this blog has frayed almost to nothingness. I understand the disorientation and even irritation of some followers who have emailed me. … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', 1/5th King's Own Scottish Borderers, Alexandria, biography, Captain James Grogan, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Gertrude Bell, Hoe Benham, Imbros, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, KOSB, Lemnos, Percy Lubbock, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I
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The biographer blurts
Ah dear, it’s time to come clean. The ‘disaster’ has happened: this blog is now a fortnight ahead of the writing of my biography itself. I finished Chapter 14 of the biography with George going over the top on 4 … Continue reading
Action
Both Constance Sutton (Astley) and Nina Corbet (Astley) knew only too well the nervous and physical effects that anxiety tended to have on Kittie. But Kittie had her own well-developed pattern of techniques for coping with it. She clung to … Continue reading
6/7 June 1915
By the end of 4 June, seven out of the twelve available reserve battalions of VIII Corps had been sent in to reinforce the failure of the attacks on the left and right flanks — although it has been suggested … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged 1/5th King's Own Scottish Borderers, 52nd (Lowland) Division, Captain Grogan, comments, Dardanelles, Final days, Fir Tree Wood, Fir Tree Wood Cemetery, Gallipoli, General Kitchener, George Calderon, identity tag, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, The Great War, Twelve Tree Copse, Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery, World War I
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4/5 June 1915
The first wave of the KOSB attack at noon on 4 June was, as the Official History put it, ‘practically blotted out’. The carnage was so terrible that on his own initiative their commander delayed the second wave. At 12.35, however, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged 127th Manchester Brigade, comments, Dardanelles, Final days, Gallipoli, George Calderon, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Krithia, Lieutenant-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, Manchester Territorial Brigade, Peter Hart, Royal Fusiliers, Royal Naval Division, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Worcestershire Regiment, World War I
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‘We’re the Jims’
Hunter-Weston’s VIII Corps (in effect, all the British forces on the Helles front) issued its orders today, Thursday 3 June 1915. They were meticulous and ‘for the first time accompanied by a trench diagram, showing the various objectives to be … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged 29th Indian Brigade, Achi Baba, Battle of the Brickstacks, Colonel Hawkins, comments, Dardanelles, Elizabeth Ellis, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Gully Ravine, Jim Corbet, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Krithia, Shady, Sir Roland James Corbet, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Tommy, World War I
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31 May 1915
Today the fate of George Calderon and several thousand other British soldiers at Gallipoli was sealed. Sir Ian Hamilton, Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, decided to fight a general action on the Helles front without waiting for the extra … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, General Henri Gouraud, General Kitchener, George Calderon, Ian Hamilton, Lieutenant-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I
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28 May 1915
It may have seemed surprising, or even shocking, that Calderon did not end his letter to Kittie yesterday with any endearments to her, only a ‘warm embrace’ for their dog! But its beginning — ‘Oh dearest Mrs P.’ — is … Continue reading
‘New Western Polovtsians’
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Achi Baba, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, H.M.S. 'Majestic', Helles, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Michel Fokine, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Polovtsians, The Great War, Tommy, U-21, World War I
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‘Hunter-Bunter’s’ plan
As an essentially literary chap, I do not propose to embroil myself in controversy about the Commander of the 29th Division at Helles, Sir Aylmer Gould Hunter-Weston (1864-1940), popularly known as ‘Hunter-Bunter’. He has been described as ‘one of the … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Personal commentary
Tagged ANZAC, armistices, Aubrey Herbert, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, General Douglas Haig, General Henri Gouraud, George Calderon, Ian Hamilton, Peter Hart, Second Battle of Krithia, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I
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Gallipoli: planning a disaster
The Third Battle of Krithia, in which George Calderon was killed on 4 June, may have been the bloodiest single battle fought by the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force at Gallipoli, i.e. in terms of its own losses. Enemy losses, both in … Continue reading →