Father of the Guards

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

Death rode through the tall gate of an estate at Marlow-on-Thames last week, to seek a great soldier born almost 101 years ago. Five sovereigns have honored him: George IV (monarch 1820-30); William IV (1830-37); Victoria (1837-1901); Edward VII (1901-10) and the present King-Emperor George V. Britons to a man feel only affection and respect for "The Oldest General of the Crown," General Sir George Wentworth Alexander Higginson, "Father of the Grenadier Guards" (TiME, Dec. 6), who died last week. Great Friends. Sir George said, late in life, "I have learned to set a higher value on friendship than on fame." Rather curiously, his fame was founded on his friendships. For, though he served through the Crimean War (1853-56) with honor, and was for 71 years a Guardsman, fate never made him a Wellington, or even a Paul Revere. His fame springs from a long life extraordinarily well spent, not from an orgy of conquest or a single striking act. Memories. Sir George kept a clear, balanced mind and memory to the last. Examples of his reminiscences:* Greatest Beau. "We passed a night [when he was ten years old] at Caen . . . and ... I noticed the not very striking features of an Englishman who had nodded to my father. ... An invitation to drink tea was made by the stranger and accepted. . . . Our host was Beau Brummel. . . . "It is well for society that, since his time no similar . . . arbiter elegantiarum . . . should have arisen . . . nor can we readily understand how a man of obscure origin, with hardly a claim to be educated or gifted with taste for aught but dress and the gaming table, could have acquired the posi-tion in the world of fashion which he undoubtedly held. . . . "Someone who wished to disconcert him by allusion to his low parentage once asked: 'Pray, Mr. Brummel, how are your good father and mother?' 'Thank you,' was the reply, 'quite well, when I left them half an hour ago; but by this time they have probably cut their throats [Pause] . . . They were eating peas with their knives. . . .'" Victoria. "A crazy fellow named Pate . . . struck a violent blow with his cane on the Queen's forehead as Her Majesty was driving out. . . . I happened to be at the Opera that night. . . . In the front of the royal box, alone . . . stood Her Majesty, the red mark of the ruffian's blow on her forehead. . . . 'God save the Queen' resounded through the house. ... I shall never forget the intensity of feeling ... a force which our national reserve is often believed to be incapable of exhibiting. . ." Early 19th Century London. "A bathroom was unknown, and a tub a rarity supposed to be only necessary for an invalid. . . . We ate our pudding before our meat at dinner. . . . A glass of home-brewed beer was not thought to ba an unsuitable beverage for children . . . five o'clock tea was unknown. . . . "Often I watched with sympathy and amusement the nurse's efforts to strike a light with flint and steel and a tinder box. . . . Gas in houses was almost unknown. . . . "Until quite late in '40s a white tie in the evening was unknown. Evening dress consisted of a long black satin cascade* adorned with two pins connected by a chain, a black velvet or richly embroidered satin waistcoat, black or blue coat with high collar, and blue or buff trousers. . . . "For a man to smoke in the presence of a lady would have been equivalent to an unforgivable slight. . . . The captain of the Queen's Guard at St. James's Palace concluded his daily report with his signed certificate that 'no smoking had taken place in any of the rooms'. . . . The Iron Duke (of Wellington) himself declared: '. . . The practice of smoking by the use of pipes, cigars and cheroots . . . is not only in itself a species of intoxication occasioned by the fumes of tobacco, but undoubtedly occasions drinking and tippling by those who acquire the habit.'"

* Seventy-One Years of a Guardsman's Life--General Sir George Higginson (1916). * A fall of gathered material.