"I keep six honest serving-men
They taught me all I knew;
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who."
Elephant's Child in "Just So Stories" - Joseph Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936

 

We found this unlabelled photo in our inherited family album, with my wife's grandfather in the centre (uniformed without hat). Who is in the photo? The Kipling family, including prospective son-in-law, are comfortably seated to the right of the front row...

 

 

Others in the photo include the Duke of Connaught (Prince Arthur) seated fourth from left, next to General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien, standing tall behind them Colonel Herbert Thomas (Tom) Goodland, Deputy Controller of the Imperial War Graves Commission, US Chief Justice William Howard Taft,  formerly 27th US President (back row, fourth from right, in straw hat), behind the Duke looking like a vicar is John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon, barrister, later to become Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Major General Sir Fabian Ware KCVO, KBE, CB, CMG, founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission (seated second from left).

 

We know When the photo was taken: bear with me!

• Taft was on a three week fact-finding visit to Britain, 16th June-8th July 1922, his only visit to this country.
• The Duke wears black armband: he is in mourning for the death of his close friend Field Marshal Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, shot by IRA gunmen in London, June 22nd 1922

So we have a date range of 23 June – 8 July 1922. 

 

As for How, that may be why our humble ancestor, a Warrant Officer in the ASC, comes to be in the photo, looking over Tom Goodlands shoulder.. His army career consisted of moving horses, mules, men and supplies on a huge scale to where they were needed in the Great War. Since the war end he had been in charge of dismantling army camps around the UK, eg Summerdown Camp in Eastbourne. Our feeling is that, whatever the event, he could have been relied on to organise it.

 

 And now for the missing honest serving men, What and Why have been worring me since 2012. It may be connected with freemasonry: there are architects present who designed the war memorials built by the IWGC, all members of the Builders of the Silent Cities Lodge (for IWGC staff), so named by Rudyard Kipling. Perhaps it was a fund-raising event for the Masonic Million Memorial Fund set up to rebuild Freemasons’ Hall as a memorial to the 3,000 members who died on active service in the Great War (when Kipling lost his son). The Duke was Grand Master of British freemasonry.

 

That just leaves Where was the pavilion? Perhaps the Duke's estate, Bagshot Park? Viscount Simon's home, Fritwell Manor, Oxfordshire? Bisley Camp? Wherever, there is a waitress clearing tables in the window behind, so presumably guests have been fed.

 

We have searched the Kipling archives at Sussex University, have contacted the freemasons and the War Graves Commission, no reference has been found to this event: the latter two said that many records had been lost in WW2. It must have been important, with all the top brass, politicians  from home, the US and the empire, architects and family members. We can just make out, extreme bottom left, a quarter of a circle of an official photographers mark.

 

If you would like to inspect the photo more closely I can email a copy, it is quite high resolution and too large to attach to this message.

 

All comments, ideas, polite suggestions etc. most welcome!

 

Paddy Moindrot