With thanks to Kate, one of the founder members of the Friends of Lawnswood Cemetery with an interest in the Victorian history of Leeds, who reminded me that I had not yet researched Lucy Whitmell. Kate also supplied the photographs of Lucy’s grave.
Lucy Foster was born in Hardingham, Norfolk in 1869. Her parents were Sir William Foster, Bart., a Justice of the Peace and Magistrate, and his wife Harriet, nee Wills. Lucy was baptised on 27th April 1869.
On 26th May 1903, Lucy married Charles Thomas Whitmell (10 July 1849 – 10 December 1919) an English astronomer, mathematician and educationalist. The couple met during a British Astronomical Association (BAA) expedition to Navalmoral in Spain to observe the total solar eclipse of 28 May 1900. Lucy’s father, Sir William Foster, Bart., was also a member of the expedition.
Lucy shared not only her husband’s interest in astronomy but also his love of poetry. During the First World War, Lucy Whitmell became famous when her poem “Christ in Flanders” was published in “The Spectator” magazine on 11th September 1915. The poem was very popular witht the troops and went on to be published in thirteen WW1 anthologies.
Lucy, who was a former President of Leeds Astronomical Society, died after a protracted illness on 7th May 1917 and Charles Thomas Whitmell died unexpectedly, after a very brief bout of pneumonia, on 10th December 1919. They are buried together at Lawnswood Cemetery in north Leeds.
“Christ in Flanders”
We had forgotten You, or very nearly -
You did not seem to touch us very nearly -
Of course we thought about You now and then ;
Especially in any time of trouble -
We knew that You were good in time of trouble -
But we are very ordinary men.
And there were always other things to think of -
There's lots of things a man has got to think of -
His work, his home, his pleasure, and his wife ;
And so we only thought of You on Sunday -
Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday -
Because there's always lots to fill one's life.
And, all the while, in street or lane or byway -
In country lane, in city street, or byway -
You walked among us, and we did not see.
Your feet were bleeding as You walked our pavements -
How did we miss Your footprints on our pavements ?
Can there be other folk as blind as we ?
Now we remember; over here in Flanders -
(It isn't strange to think of You in Flanders) -
This hideous warfare seems to make things clear.
We never thought about You much in England -
But now that we are far away from England,
We have no doubts, we know that You are here.
You helped us pass the jest along the trenches -
Where, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches -
You touched its ribaldry and made it fine.
You stood beside us in our pain and weakness -
We're glad to think You understand our weakness -
Somehow it seems to help us not to whine.
We think about You kneeling in the Garden -
Ah ! God ! the agony of that dread Garden -
We know You prayed for us upon the cross.
If anything could make us glad to bear it -
'Twould be the knowledge that You willed to bear it -
Pain — death — the uttermost of human loss.
Though we forgot You — You will not forget us -
We feel so sure that You will not forget us -
But stay with us until this dream is past.
And so we ask for courage, strength, and pardon -
Especially, I think, we ask for pardon -
And that You'll stand beside us to the last.
Was Lucy thinking about Honoré de Balzac’s short story “Christ in Flanders”, written in 1831, when she wrote her poem? Balzac tells the story of the miracle for which the Convent of Mercy was built in Ostend - about passengers on a boat when a mighty storm blows up. The rich and powerful gather together to deny a seat to a stranger late to board; the poor make room for him. When the boat capsizes, the poor are saved and the others are drowned by the weight of their sins.
The “Spectator” published a poem entitled “To the Writer of ‘Christ in Flanders”:
On the battlefields of Flanders men have blessed you in their pain:
For you told us Who was with us, and your words were not in vain.
All you said was very gentle, but we felt you knew our ways;
And we tried to find the Footprints we had missed in other days.
When we found Those blood-stained Footsteps, we have followed to the End;
For we know that only Death can show the features of our Friend.
In the Mansions of the Master, He will make the meaning plain
Of the battlefields of Flanders, of the Crucifix of Pain.
E.M.V.
Another mystery - who was E.M.V?
Sources:
https://secretlibraryleeds.net/2016/07/08/fragments-of-war-quieter-voices/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Thomas_Whitmell
https://www.britastro.org/node/19732
https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/03/christ-in-flanders.html
Find my past and Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 336
and with grateful thankst to Kate of the Friends of Lawnswood Cemetery
