Lest We Forget, part 9: Between the Wars: Learning the Ritual

Part 9 of 13 of Lest We Forget, a history of remembrance in Harpenden and St Albans. Read the whole illustrated book.

In the 1920s and 1930s, remembrance moved from shock to routine, and the two towns' memorials became the place where it happened every November. By then each community had a cross, a day and a silence, and ex-servicemen's organisations began to give the occasion its shape.

Peace and mourning in 1919

The war ended in stages. The Armistice of 11 November 1918 stopped the fighting, but peace was only formally signed in June 1919, and the nation held a Peace Day on Saturday 19 July. Some communities celebrated, and others felt uneasy, with critics arguing that the money would be better spent helping returning servicemen who needed work, homes and treatment for physical and mental injuries. In both Harpenden and St Albans, planning for permanent memorials ran alongside the celebrations.

The first Armistice Day silence in 1919 was followed in 1920 by the Cenotaph and the Unknown Warrior. When Harpenden's cross was unveiled in October 1920, the silence was already a year old, and the permanent Cenotaph followed a month later. Local ceremonies took their lead from the national ones.

The British Legion arrives

The British Legion was formed in 1921 from several ex-servicemen's groups, and began its Poppy Appeal that November. In St Albans, a museum exhibition notes that the Legion ordered nine million poppies for the first appeal and sold them on 11 November that year. Nationally the appeal raised about £106,000, which in modern terms is several million pounds.

Local branches followed. Harpenden's branch of the British Legion was formed on 3 May 1922, with its headquarters in the former Institute, the same building that had been a military hospital in 1915. General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston opened it officially on 26 July 1922. Frank Popplewell served as its president from 1922 until 1978, a remarkable 56 years. In 1933, when the Society of Friends took over the Institute, the branch moved to a wooden shed in the grounds of the water tower in Shakespeare Road.

Lists, tablets and a second war in the shadows

The memorials were kept up as well as visited. In 1939, a handwritten list of the names on the Church Green cross was newly inscribed and framed in St Nicholas Church. Across the 1930s, remembrance also became a more contested subject nationally. For some, Armistice Day meant honouring service. For others it meant a pledge never to repeat the war, and groups such as the Peace Pledge Union gained wide support.

That debate ended in September 1939. The Harpenden Branch notes that during the Second World War, its members joined the other voluntary civil defence groups in the town to organise welfare and other work. A generation that had watched its memorials go up in 1920 now found itself preparing for a second war.

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All 13 parts

1. Introduction: Why We Remember
2. August 1914: Two Towns Go to War
3. Harpenden in the Great War: Camp, Hospital and Home Front
4. St Albans in the Great War: A Garrison Town
5. The Fallen: The People Behind the Names
6. Building Memory: The Memorials of 1920 and 1921
7. The Street Memorials of the Abbey Parish
8. Private Edward Warner VC: The Straw Hat Maker from Cannon Street
9. Between the Wars: Learning the Ritual (you are here)
10. 1939 to 1945: Harpenden at War
11. 1939 to 1945: St Albans at War
12. Adding the Second World War Names
13. Remembrance Today: Services and Walks