Historian Martyn Taylor turns sleuth to find location of missing 1907 Bury St Edmunds pageant plaque
In Bury St Edmunds from July 8 to 13, 1907, there was a wonderful pageant in seven episodes celebrating the rich history and heritage of our town – and it seemed as if all of the town were involved.
Earlier, an idea had been mooted that something should be done to re-enforce the pageant. A proposal was reported on St Edmunds Day, November 20, 1906, in the Bury and Norwich Post: “Arthur P Wheeler Town Clerk: At the suggestion of The London Society of East Anglians, notable people such as Thomas Clarkson, Defoe, Ouida and Crabbe Robinson should be recognised… To enable the matter to be more fully considered and an estimate made as to the cost of fixing the necessary tablets, I shall be pleased to receive any information as to any house in the borough which has been so occupied, together with such particulars to give in relation there to.”
Subsequent to this, an article appeared on page three of the Bury and Norwich Post of February 3, 1907, which had a list of 16 people, including short biographies about them, put forward to receive a plaque. Of these 16 suggestions, 12 were taken up. How they were selected, or by whom, is not known. Coinciding with the pageant, the chosen dozen were confirmed and put up.
As I had an almost ‘anorak’ interest in anything ‘written in stone’ from years ago, my appetite was whetted and my mission was to traipse the town and find these plaques.
I had delved into the Bury Records Office and discovered the 12 people commemorated and eventually found most of their locations.
They were:
King Louis Phillippe of France and scientist William Hyde Wollaston, on Angel Hill
Abbot John Reve, Crown Street
Author Louise De Rame, AKA Ouida, on Union Terrace Hospital Road
Author Daniel Defoe, on Cupola House
Abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, on 6 St Mary’s Square
Essayist William Bodham Donne, adjacent Theatre Royal
Diarist Henry Crabb Robinson, on Linnet House, Southgate Street
Bishop Charles Blomfield, on Gardiner House, Looms Lane
Author Henry Cockton, on 16 Long Brackland
House of Commons speaker Sir Thomas Hanmer, on Eastgate House.
Well, I am sure you can all count that there are 11 here and, just to confirm, they are all oval in shape. So where was the 12th to Humphrey Plantagenet? There had to be a building associated with him for this ‘missing plaque’ to be put on, but where? Unless, of course, it had disappeared, as happened to the Defoe plaque, on Cupola House, after its disastrous fire of 2012.
After a little sleuthing, I discovered what and where the connection with ‘the Good Duke Humphrey’ was – on the former medieval St Saviours hospital ruins in Fornham Road. Only the plaque on the front of the hospital was not oval, it was rectangular – in no shape or form was it oval!
So how did this come about? It turns out that while the 11 oval plaques were paid for by the Bury Corporation, a local dignitary had put his hand into his pocket and paid for it himself. That person was none other than George Gery Milner-Gibson Cullum of Hardwick – not only a renowned academic, but also a man of impeccable credentials and a pillar of society, so much so that, to date, he is the only mayor of Bury St Edmunds from 1913 not to have been a councillor.
So who was this Duke Humphrey? The plaque reads: HUMPHREY PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, SON OF HENRY IV, BROTHER OF HENRY V, UNCLE AND LORD PROTECTOR OF THE REALM, DIED WITHIN THIS HOSPITAL OF ST SAVIOURS, 23 FEBRUARY 1447.
The mysterious death of the ‘good duke of Gloucester’ coincided with the occasion Henry VI had summoned him to Bury to answer trumped-up treason charges, the King staying at the abbey and Humphrey a guest of John Harlowe, the hospital master. A great supporter of the arts, the duke was protector, in effect regent, to the infant Henry VI, but as this troubled youth attained his majority, his bouts of instability grew.
Humphrey made enemies at court, culminating in the trial in 1441 of Eleanor Cobham, his second wife, under charges of witchcraft, which destroyed Gloucester’s political influence.
In 1447, he was accused, probably falsely, of treason and was found dead in his lodgings, some said poisoned, but the official diagnosis was apoplexy – a stroke. His death, ultimately, would lead to the Wars of the Roses, 1455-87, between the houses of York and Lancaster.
As for the St Saviours plaque, it is standing the test of time, though some of the 11 oval plaques are not as they suffer from the ravages of weather.
