Pearls before Poppies

by Rachel Trethewey

  Her gifts to the Red Cross were just one of the ways she did her bit for the war effort. When the war was declared, Luton Hoo became the 3rd Army Headquarters. However, Birdie was not happy with the arrangement. She wrote to the king’s private secretary, Lord Stamfordham, complaining that she felt like a guest in her own house. She said that she had only stayed on to make sure everything was done properly. She provided the Officers’ Mess with fruit, game, cigars, wine and flowers, but there were complaints that she kept too many rooms for herself and had removed many works of art and rugs from the rooms the army were using.

  As well as writing to Lord Stamfordham, she also contacted Lord Kitchener. Her concerns were listened to and within a fortnight her beautiful home was returned to her. Later in the war, Luton Hoo became a convalescent home for officers and Birdie contributed £1,000 to the running costs.31 She also donated £500 to a base hospital in France and occasionally opened her London home for fundraising events for war charities. However, when she was offered an OBE for her war work she refused, saying that it would be criminal to own Bath House and not give parties.32

  Birdie was not the only person who raided their possessions to support the Red Cross. Soon, thousands of gifts were flooding in for the 1916 auction. However, as Christie’s were once more busy with their own work, at the same time as coping with a depleted staff, the Red Cross decided that they would collect the goods themselves. To accommodate all the items, they set up a depot at 48 Pall Mall and several subcommittees were formed to deal with the different types of gifts. Lady Northcliffe volunteered to help in the china and furniture department. She was to use the experience she gained, encouraging contributions, sorting out the donations and then cataloguing them, two years later in the Pearl Appeal. As The Sketch noted, she was particularly suited to the task as she had ‘long been known to have the flair for serendipity in the world of curio-shops: on motor journeys with her husband hers has always been the eye that singled out the likely showpiece in the likely shop, in the likely village’.33

  In the run-up to the sale, the Red Cross volunteers were inundated. Thousands of gifts came pouring in at the back and front of the depot. The parcel post was always at the door and vans were constantly arriving and unloading. Grand ladies slipped in, quietly left their valuable gifts and disappeared again.

  Poorer people were just as ready to contribute to the Red Cross auctions as the rich. However, the public’s generosity caused some problems. The Red Cross privately reported:

  The deluge of almost valueless things, dear to their owners but almost useless as money-makers, threatened at one time to overwhelm the willing assistants at the depot. It is a mistake, therefore, to invite the population to turn out their old drawers and cupboards and send the contents to the Red Cross for a Christie’s Sale.34

  At the depot, all donations were recorded before being sent to Christie’s in King Street. Inevitably, mishaps occasionally arose. One list read:

  2416. Lady Glitterham, a diamond tiara.

  3750. Miss Smith, a cup and saucer.

  When the tiara could not be traced, a frantic search took place at the depot. Finally it was rediscovered, but it turned out to be not an aristocratic heirloom but a paste bangle. The second entry passed unnoticed until someone asked, ‘What do you think of the Sèvres écuelle?’ Miss Smith’s ‘cup and saucer’ was in fact a piece of priceless porcelain.35 There were also some bizarre gifts, as a Times journalist asked, ‘What was an already overworked staff to do with a live goat which presented itself one day at the office demanding to be sold by auction at Christie’s?’36

  The sale scheduled to be held in April 1916 lasted for fifteen days and, on this occasion, raised nearly £64,000. For the second year running, Punch magazine donated a cartoon done especially for the event. In 1915 the cartoonist F.H. Townsend had drawn a cross between Britannia and Lady Diana Manners in a Roman toga with the St John and Red Cross emblems on her front. She stood with her empty hands outstretched waiting to receive gifts, above the caption, ‘For the Wounded’. In 1916 the same figure made a second appearance, this time with her hands holding back the curtains as if she is on a stage. Representing the return of the Red Cross Auction, the caption reads, ‘Recalled’. It was bought by a member of the Red Cross Committee, who presented it to Christie’s as a token of the charity’s appreciation of the auction house’s generosity.

  Christie’s had created just the right atmosphere for the sales. They had ‘the ideal auctioneer’ in their senior partner, Lance Hannen. His encyclopaedic knowledge of art values and his ‘finish and finesse’ made him perfectly suited to his task. Once he entered the rostrum, he never orated but simply introduced ‘Lot One’. As he looked over his half-rimmed spectacles, assessing potential bidders, his style and timing were faultless. As one columnist noted, ‘The drop of the eyelids, somebody said the other day is very like the Lord Chief Justice’s […] only the King Street L.C.J. is a trifle more blasé.’37

  In the run-up to the third great Red Cross sale in 1917, conditions in the labour market had become very difficult. Christie’s’ staff was reduced to a minimum as men had been replaced by untrained girls. The printers who produced the catalogue were also short staffed, and paper was growing scarce. Knowing the constraints Christie’s were working under, the Red Cross Committee tactfully tried to obtain a smaller number of gifts of greater value for this year’s auction. However, the desire to give did not decrease and 2,132 items came in.38

  Red Cross volunteers did everything they could to reduce the pressure on the auction house and Birdie Wernher was more involved than ever behind the scenes. As The Sketch journalist wrote, she was ‘head over heels in a hundred little responsibilities’ connected with the auction.39 This year she had a particularly personal reason for being so active. During the war all three of her sons fought for their country. Her youngest son Alex insisted on leaving Eton when he was only 17 to join the army, however, at first he was refused a commission on medical grounds because he had poor eyesight. Disappointed, but determined to do his bit for the war, he worked with the Red Cross, then he went to Rouen as an interpreter before finally getting a commission in the Royal Bucks Hussars in 1915. The following year, he transferred to the Welsh Guards and fought with them at the Front. His family knew that he would never be happy until he had served in the trenches.

  In September 1916, he was injured in the leg during the Battle of Delville Wood. Left in no man’s land for a time, he was being dragged back to an ambulance when he was shot by a sniper in the head. He was 19 years old when he died.40 Just a few months later, Lady Wernher contributed £2 million to the government’s war loan in his memory. As one newspaper commented, drawing on all the hyperbole it could muster, this was ‘the greatest loan that any private individual has ever made out of pure love of country in the history of the world’.41 Helping at the Christie’s sales was another way for Birdie to commemorate her son and distract herself from her grief.

  The auction in March 1917 raised nearly £72,000. Birdie was under the rostrum in King Street for the twelve days it ran, ‘gingering up other bidders and generally setting the pace in scores of small deals, ranging from 10 shillings to a thousand pounds a piece’.42 At this sale, she bought a Fred Walker painting, ‘The Plough’, for £5,400 and then donated it to the nation. Perhaps the most unusual lot at the sale was the original ‘golliwog’, and the drawings and manuscripts of the eleven golliwog children’s books, presented by the artist, Florence Upton. The shy creator of the much-loved books came to the auction to hear the final speeches. Although she knew Lady Northcliffe and Sir Robert Hudson, who were also in the room, she described the event as a terrible trial for her nerves. As her name was mentioned she felt panicky and soon left Christie’s with trembling legs and stiff muscles.43 However, Florence was delighted with the result, her creations raised £1,995. The book with the, to modern ears, contentious politically incorrect title The Golliwog Fox Hunt, was presented to the London Museum, while the golli
wog dolls went on loan to the prime minister’s country residence, Chequers. The proceeds from this quirky donation were used to buy and equip an ambulance which went immediately to France. On each side of the vehicle, beneath the Red Cross sign, was printed in large letters, ‘Florence Upton and the Golliwogs gave this ambulance’. No doubt the inscription would have amused many of the young soldiers who had grown up on the golliwog books.44

  The fourth Red Cross sale, held in April 1918, made the most money, realising £150,000. Perhaps this was because unlike the first auction three years before which had been like a white elephant stall, this time it was more like a ‘young museum’. There was Hepplewhite furniture, Persian carpets, sable coats and a unique tortoiseshell birdcage on sale. Lord Kitchener’s family donated scimitars and pistols from his collection. The artists Frank Dicksee, John Lavery and William Orpen all agreed to paint a portrait for the highest bidders.

  When Max Beerbohm offered to do a caricature of the Christie’s auction, Birdie Wernher could not resist buying it and then presenting it to Christie’s as an enduring reminder of their support for the Red Cross. The atmosphere at these auctions was captured in Beerbohm’s cartoon. Beneath the elegant portraits, the saleroom is dominated by rather grotesque men of all shapes and sizes in top hats and bowlers. They include the writers J.M. Barrie, Joseph Conrad and Edmund Gosse, the actor Gerald du Maurier and the Red Cross champion and politician, Lord Lansdowne. The only woman present is the imposing fur-clad figure of Birdie.

  The Red Cross auctions altered the way the art world was perceived. The image of it as an elitist and self-indulgent clique was broken down as Christie’s and many artists gave their services for free, and wealthy art collectors donated their much-loved treasures. The element of sacrifice involved impressed the public. Instead of being enjoyed by only the privileged few, luxury items were now used as a type of currency to redistribute wealth to be spent on those who most needed care.45

  The earlier Red Cross auctions paved the way for Lady Northcliffe’s sale of the pearls. It drew on many of the same principles and people. However, one of the main differences between the Pearl Necklace Auction and the other Christie’s sales was that this time the auction was a uniquely female tribute to the war heroes. With an emotive story behind each pearl, it promised to be the most poignant Christie’s sale of all.

  Fifteen

  THE PEARL NECKLACE AUCTION

  On the day of the Pearl Necklace Auction, London was preparing to show its pride in its heroes. At 1 p.m. on Thursday, 19 December 1918, Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig and his generals arrived in the capital for a victory parade. Escorted by a fleet of aeroplanes, they had travelled from Dover by special train to Charing Cross Station where they were greeted by the Duke of Connaught, on behalf of the king, and the past and present prime ministers, Asquith and Lloyd George. They then travelled through Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly, Hyde Park and along Constitution Hill to lunch with the king and queen at Buckingham Palace. Thousands of people lined the route and, as the carriages passed, those standing on balconies showered flowers on the victors.

  However, the parade was not staged as a full-blown military pageant because the official welcome was reserved for ‘when the men come marching home’. Haig was determined that nothing should rob his ‘comrades’, the rank and file of servicemen, of their share of the glory.1 As this parade was more a personal and spontaneous demonstration of gratitude rather than a formal, organised event, Haig’s homecoming had a special quality. One newspaper commented, ‘We who are the most emotional people in the world, and most habituated to the control and repression of our emotions prize the spontaneous expression most. It is only when we do let ourselves go, as did the cheering crowds yesterday, that our real warmth appears.’2

  The clamour had hardly died down before some members of the patriotic crowd rushed off to Christie’s for the Red Cross Auction. Haig’s arrival had only been announced a few days before and, knowing that many people would want to attend both historic events, at the last minute, Lady Northcliffe and her team postponed the auction by half an hour.

  It was only a short walk from Haig’s parade to Christie’s in King Street. As supporters of the Red Cross gathered in the auction house’s impressive red-walled saleroom beneath historic portraits and paintings, there were many more women present than at most sales. Many members of the committee were there, hoping that all their hard work would now pay off. Joining Lady Northcliffe and Lady Sarah Wilson was Alice Keppel. The auction had all the cachet of a society event. The former prime minister’s daughter, Elizabeth Asquith, was there with her fiancé, Prince Bibesco, while Birdie Wernher had brought along her daughter-in-law, Lady Zia Wernher. Zia added to the glamour of the occasion.

  The daughter of Grand Duke Michael of Russia and a descendant of Catherine the Great and Pushkin, she had married Birdie’s second son, Sir Harold Wernher, the previous year in the most fashionable wedding of the season. The alliance had been widely discussed in the newspapers. Inheriting much of his father’s fortune, Harold was one of the richest bachelors in England. In the past, Zia had been a social butterfly but as her family had been ruined by the Russian Revolution she now needed to settle on a wealthy husband. The more uncharitable gossip columnists described it as a marriage of convenience. ‘Eve’ in Tatler snobbishly commented on the ‘topsy turvy world’ of ‘these democratic days’ when the son of a self-made millionaire could marry the daughter of a Russian Imperial Highness.3

  However, the couple were well-matched. Zia had never cared much about status and according to one observer had ‘practically revolted before the revolution’.4 Rushing around London in her Calthorpe motor car, she was involved in fundraising for war charities. With her sister, she had come up with the idea of launching an appeal for a million gloves and mittens for the British Expeditionary Force. In response, many of their grand friends got their knitting needles out, creating an odd assortment of garments which the girls then sorted and packed to be sent to the front line.

  Harold was not just exceptionally rich, he was also a courageous soldier. He had an impressive war record, having been mentioned three times in Despatches for his bravery while fighting in France.5 By the time of the auction, the Wernhers had much to celebrate as their first son had been born on 22 August 1918.

  When the auction began at 1.30 p.m. the atmosphere at Christie’s was highly charged as the auctioneer, William Burn Anderson, entered the Chippendale rostrum. Antique ivory-headed hammer in his hand, he addressed the crowded room explaining that previous Red Cross sales had been held under the clouds of a terrible war, while the present sale was taking place after the great and glorious victory of the Allies. The cessation of hostilities did not mean that the Red Cross’ work was finished – far from it. They still needed money to tend to the wounded, and he appealed to his audience to keep that thought in their minds as they bid for the pearls today. He added that those who bought the jewels would receive ‘something which is not only of intrinsic value, but also of considerable historic interest; for these Red Cross Pearls have become historic’.6

  When the first lot, a brilliant pave ring, was put up, Mr Anderson read a letter which had been received that morning from the entrepreneur and philanthropist, Sir Francis Trippel. Offering £1,000 for the first four lots, he wrote that if they fell to him they should be put up for auction again, as he only wished to give, not to buy. His letter gave advice to other bidders: ‘Give till your sides ache, so that the financial success of the sale may be worthy of the Red Cross, the most deserving and the most humane of war charities.’7

  Before the forty-one pearl necklaces were auctioned there was the sale of other pearl jewellery, including earrings, pearl pins, brooches and rings. Many of the early jewels realised high prices. Among the buyers was Frank Partridge, an art dealer whose saleroom was based in Bond Street, near Christie’s in King Street. He bought a brooch set with five pearls and diamond scrolls for £75. Partridge had a particular reason to give th
anks. In 1915, he had visited New York to open an office on Fifth Avenue. Although warnings had been given out that any ship crossing the Atlantic flying the British flag was liable to be destroyed by the Germans, in May 1915 Frank decided to take the risk and return to England. He had been invited by eight dealer friends to join them aboard the Lusitania. However, the night before they sailed Frank became apprehensive, fearing that the ship would sink. Weighing up the options, he decided to go but he told a friend that he was going to sit on deck each night with a lifejacket on.

  His fears were realised when the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine off Kinsale, Ireland. The ship sank within eighteen minutes and out of the 1,959 passengers, only 761 survived. Frank was the sole member of his party of nine not to drown. The sinking of the Lusitania was seen as a new low point in Germany’s conduct of the war. The Germans argued, correctly, that the ship had been carrying ammunition and that Britain was also guilty of violating the freedom of the seas by enforcing its blockade of Germany. However, the Royal Navy had not sunk ships without warning and they had not deliberately killed citizens of neutral countries.8 The Lusitania had many women and children aboard and their loss particularly horrified the British and American public. A recruiting poster appeared calling on all patriots to ‘Remember the Lusitania’. It had no picture, just text describing how a mother had been thrown into the sea with three of her children. She tried to hold onto them until a lifeboat arrived but her attempts to save them failed. By the time the rescue boat came her children were all dead. With her hair streaming down her back and shaking with sorrow she gently took each of her children from the rescuers and placed them back in the sea. Lord Northcliffe took the tragic story a stage further, and under the headline ‘British and American Babies Murdered by the Kaiser’, the Daily Mail published a shocking photograph of dead children.9