In a corner of Cartmel Priory, I spotted this marvellous marble edifice. Carved in the late Victorian era, I naturally thought it was a tomb but it isn't, it's a memorial to Lord Frederick Cavendish who was murdered in Phoenix Park, Dublin on the night of May 6th, 1882. His true grave is in St Peter's churchyard, Edensor near Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. He was buried on May 11th 1882 with thousands of mourners in attendance including some three hundred members of parliament.
So why the marble memorial at Cartmel? Well, near to Cartmel is a lavish country house called Holker Hall and it was where Frederick Cavendish spent much of his childhood. He was the second son of William Cavendish, the 7th Duke of Devonshire. Holker Hall was just one of the properties that this fabulously wealthy noble family owned.
Incidentally, when you follow the money trail back through time you discover that the source of that wealth goes right back to the the eleventh century when William the Conqueror divided up the kingdom and doled out vast swathes of land to French noblemen and loyal supporters.
South of Sheffield, the names "Cavendish" and "Devonshire" are rooted in the landscape. You see them in pub and street names but of course they are mostly associated with Chatsworth House which even has its own signal colour - Chatsworth blue:-
That same colour also appears around Cartmel.
Chatsworth blue
Anyway, getting back to poor Frederick. He was a politician, close to Prime Minister William Gladstone and at the age of forty five he had only just been appointed as The Chief Secretary for Ireland. Walking with a companion through Phoenix Park, he was set upon by militant Irish nationalists armed with knives. Those seven men were later brought to justice and hanged.
Lots of things happened in Britain in 1882 but on the political front the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish was surely the most momentous - sending shockwaves around the country. He might well have succeeded Gladstone as prime minister.
Funeral of Frederick Cavendish by Rev Thomas Bowden May 11th 1882
After one hundred and forty years, he has become a forgotten figure. I guess that is what the passage of time does. It blots out so much.
I have been in Edensor graveyard before but I plan to return in the near future to find Lord Frederick's grave. The last time I was there, I went to seek the grave of Kathleen Kennedy - sister of John F. Kennedy who married into the Cavendish family but was killed in a plane crash in 1948.
Lord Frederick Cavendish
(1836 - 1882)
A fascinating history lesson!
ReplyDeleteNice to uncover it.
DeleteThe Cavendish folk don't seem to have had much luck do they? Well, apart from their vast wealth of course.
ReplyDeleteFabulously wealthy and their name lives on.
DeleteI went down a rabbit hole about the Cavendishs and ended up at the dissolution of the monasteries. Who knew?
ReplyDeleteIt's like Alice in Wonderland. Once you go down a rabbit hole it is hard to find your way back.
DeleteFrederick Cavendish's murder in Phoenix Park tolls memory bells for me.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of biographies of Charles Stewart Parnell, James Joyce's childhood hero.
And I have at least one life of Gladstone, who would have settled the Irish question, and spared Ireland its travails, and Britain its long running sore.
As a schoolboy I was angry that our SCE History Higher did not cover the Famine in any detail, now viewed as the worst social catastrophe in 19th C. Europe.
My history master said, *It's not on the curriculum, Haggerty.*
John Campbell's biography of Haldane, Britain's forgotten statesman is now in paperback (2022) and has me enthralled.
I hope Keir Starmer reads it.
0ur toxic government borrowed money to give the super-rich tax breaks while our poor freeze in their homes and live on pot noodles.
It will go down in the annals of Tory infamy.
Thanks for the tip. Seems like an interesting biography. 'Although it ought not to be on the curriculum', eh? ;-)
DeleteBritish coal mining disasters were also blotted out of the history curriculum. I guess those workhorses didn't mean much to The Establishment.
DeleteThe curriculum's bias was not intentional, Sean.
DeleteIn its blindness it blotted out mining disasters as Neil said.
Our history teacher saw me reading The Housing Question by Engels, which belonged to my elder brother, and asked if my brother was in the Party.
The old boy had no time for Marxism even in its pre-Soviet phase.
My brother was a posturing art student, a fan of Fidel Castro and Che.
General Gordon of Khartoum was the Victorian hero who hated Victorians.
*I dwell on the joy of never seeing Great Britain again,* he wrote.
This nugget is from an 850 page paperback by Bruce Robinson:
*They All Love Jack - Busting the Ripper* (4th Estate).
Robinson's book is a dark voyage into the City of Dreadful Night like Hallie Rubenhold's *The Five : The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper*.
Ms. Rubenhold's Victorian London was a city where many slept rough.
A single woman, working as a seamstress, could fall into suicidal poverty just by failing to maintain payments on her sewing machine.
Clement Attlee created the Welfare State in order to end generational poverty like this.
Liberal Party legislation failed to solve the problem.
The term Welfare State was coined approvingly by a bishop in the Church of England.
It took Mrs Thatcher & President Reagan to demonise welfare.
Haggerty
Funny how blood can make so much of a difference in a life. Born in one family and you're born a rich man, born in another and you're destined to be a pauper. At least, that's how it used to be. I wonder how much that's changed?
ReplyDeleteWith certain aristocratic families in Britain, they remain exceedingly wealthy but keep a bit quieter about it these days.
DeleteSo Joyce was but three months and four days young when it happened. Well, but Leopold Bloom 16, after all. And bad luck for Cavendish to accompany Burke. Parnell, Gladstone ... oh well, those were interesting times, as a Chinese would probably say.
ReplyDeleteIt's a nice blue, by the way, the Chatsworth blue.
And this was another interesting post, Neil. Thank you.
I try my best. Thanks for reading it Sean.
DeleteFunny how some article can send us of on a long exploration. The Cavendish name is used somewhere in Canada.
ReplyDeleteWealth can be like a snowball rolling down a hill. It just gets bigger and bigger.
DeleteThat's a very nice shade of blue.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes see that blue on remote farms and it is pretty certain they belong to the Chatsworth estate.
DeleteThank you for an interesting read to go with my muesli this morning.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know about Frederick Cavendish, but maybe he was a decent man who really would have served his country well, had he been allowed to live longer. In the photo, he looks like a rather lugubrious character. But maybe he simply had not slept well the day the photo was taken (eyebags!).
My sister-in-law and her family are Chatsworth House fans and visit as often as they can; maybe one day I get a chance to go with them. I didn't know about the special blue, but I like it.
I am not a big fan of lavish country houses but the workmanship at Chatsworth is quite fantastic. No expense spared.
DeleteMeike has a point.
DeleteLord Frederick looks lugubrious as do photos of Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Yet a sketch of Tennyson (by Sir Edward Burne-Jones online) as a clean-shaven youth is more pensive than lugubrious.
There is a brown wash sketch by Dante Gabriel Rossetti of a bearded Tennyson reciting his poem, his left leg at a crooked angle.
He has large workmanlike hands like a stonemason or blacksmith.
Remember, people had to sit very still in the photographer's studio.
It was a solemn business so all Victorians tend to look solemn.
Someone observed that Freud looked daunted before a camera, but as soon as the ordeal was over, he was smiling and lighting up a cigar.
I've done a lot of reading about the Cavendish family over the years. We have a "Cavendish arms" pub in a local village called Brindle.
ReplyDeleteMy interest in the family started as I became aware of Bess of Hardwick who was a great friend of Elizabeth the first. She was married three times and amassed a huge personal fortune. Her last marriage was to William Cavendish and their son became the first Duke of Devonshire.
There is a fabulous book about the Cavendish family by Roy Hattersley. Well worth reading.
Thanks for this, Mr pudding. Sometimes it's good to be remembered about the stuff I've forgotton!
There are so many twists and turns in the Cavendish story.
DeleteI didn't know (or had forgotten maybe) that bit of history. We live only a few miles from Chatsworth and drive through the park frequently. Time to stop and ponder the history a bit more thoroughly perhaps.
ReplyDeleteI might see you in Edensor churchyard Jean.
DeleteAn interesting history. I haven't heard of this guy at all, though I recognize the Cavendish name from various geographical places in London (like Cavendish Square).
ReplyDeleteFascinating history YP. I always enjoyed visiting Chatsworth and the gardens - a favourite place of mine. The TV programmes about the logistics of the Chatsworth run-up to Christmas made interesting viewing.
ReplyDeleteThat shade of blue seems to be turning up in some of the trendier kitchens these days.