IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Stroud Crescent, LONDON, SW15 3EL

The main access road into and through Putney Vale Cemetery

In the burgh of Wandsworth.

Putney Vale Cemetery. Howard Carter, the archaeologist who discovered Tutankhamun's tomb is buried here.

The quotation inscribed on this stone - the first thing you see on reaching the plot - is from the Epistle of James: 'Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whither so ever the governor listeth.' (James, 3.4.) To me this seems an odd choice of text, woefully under-estimating the power of the elements - and ironic, when the one event in Bruce Ismay's life which everyone remembers is the sinking of the Titanic. See: Image

Bruce Ismay was the chairman of White Star Line who commissioned RMS Titanic - and, notoriously - a survivor of the sinking. The Ismay family plot is a large one. This tomb-chest stands in the centre of the plot, but there are also an upright slab (with biblical inscription), an elaborately carved stone bench (with a verse inscribed), and a plain tomb-slab (marking the graves of other members of the family). The tomb-chest has low-relief carvings of sailing ships on three sides, and a similar representation of a ship's compass on the fourth. It is signed 'Gerrard 1939' - which I take to mean A.H. Gerrard, later professor at the Slade School of Art. The Ismay plot lies in the southernmost corner of the cemetery, on a north-facing slope - and for much of the year is heavily shaded by trees. See: Image Image Image Image

Bordered on two sides by Wimbledon Common and Putney Heath, Putney Vale Cemetery was opened in 1891 and the crematorium in 1938. Putney Vale's only rival in the London area for the number of famous people buried or cremated here is Golders Green Crematorium. Among those whose funerals were held here were Arthur Askey, Stanley Baker, James Beck of Dad's Army, Howard Carter who discovered Tutankhamun, James Hunt who won the Formula One Drivers' Championship, Hattie Jacques, J Bruce Ismay who was a passenger on the Titanic and Chairman of the White Star Line, Daniel Massey, Bobby Moore, Kenneth More, Jon Pertwee, Roy Plomley of Desert Island Discs, Nyree Dawn Porter, Joan Sims and Vesta Tilley. Joseph Bruce Ismay was born in Liverpool on 12th December 1862. He was the eldest son of Thomas Henry Ismay, the owner of the White Star steamship company. He was educated at Elstree and Harrow. In 1888, he married Julia Florence Schieffelin of New York, the heiress to a pharmaceutical fortune. Upon the death of his father in 1899, Bruce gained control of the White Star Line but, within three years, was forced to sell to J. Pierpoint Morgan, although he remained as Chairman. As such, he was on board the Titanic and his role was subject to much scrutiny and condemnation afterwards as he managed to get into one of the lifeboats and was saved. Ismay never recovered from the public reaction to the disaster and died on 17th October 1937. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-17694824 and https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/j-bruce-ismay.html

There are eight images of ships carved on the tomb-chest: three on either side, one at each end - though one of those is obscured by the image of a ship's compass. All seem to be based on the same model - a three-masted sailing ship, square-rigged on the main and fore-masts, fore-and-aft rigged on the mizzen (making it, I believe, a barque). All round the chest runs a frieze of angular waves - an almost child-like means of conjuring up the sea. On the right in this photo is what I take to be the sun, its rays wrapping round the corner of the chest. The sculptor was Alfred Gerrard (1899-1998), who - according to Wikipedia - had in the past painted murals as part of the decoration of ocean liners, no doubt for White Star Line. I find it intriguing that the Ismays turned to him, rather than commissioning a design from, say, Lutyens - who would have produced something far more formal. Did the Ismays consider Gerrard a family friend? See also: Image

This bench stands at the far end of the Ismay plot, some way back from the cemetery perimeter road. The steep bank behind it marks the boundary with Wimbledon Common. The inscription on the back-rest is partly obscured by algae and lichen, but reads as follows: The little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness, His rest. My friend ceridwen http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/6699 tells me this is the final verse of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'Rhyme of the Duchess May' (which runs to all of one hundred and eleven verses!). http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/54455/ The bench was - I believe - carved and inscribed by A.H. Gerrard, who taught at the Slade School of Art. A clearer impression of his style can be had here: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2902174 Gerrard's name is no longer well-known, though he was highly thought of in his day - at 55 Broadway, Westminster (adjacent to St James' Park Underground) his work appears alongside that of Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore and Eric Gill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Broadway For more about the Ismay plot, see: Image

At the far end of the plot, close to the cemetery fence, stands this stone bench. The back-rest carries the following inscription: The little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness, His rest. That - it turns out - is the final verse of 'The Rhyme of the Duchess May', by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which runs to one hundred and eleven verses. http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/54455/ (Many thanks to ceridwen http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/6699 for identifying this for me). I'll confess I'm puzzled by the design carved into the bench-end. The overall pattern could be read as vegetation - I think I can see leaves and flowers - but that just doesn't square with the waves which form a frieze round the bottom of the bench (and there are even a few fishes!). I've visited this site many times (as we have family graves nearby) but this was the first time that I've seen the bench lit up by sunlight. A steep, wooded bank rises just behind it - and since that direction is south, trees and bank keep the bench in chilly shade for much of the year. For more about the Ismay plot, see: Image