The Alexandra Bedspread

Back in January of 2019, I was really pleased to be involved in helping to research a couple of people whose name was embroidered on the Alexandra Bedspread. Geroge Cattan, a student at Loughborough College, and his motorcycle accident in 1923 will stay with me for a very long time! And this is how I first came to meet Deborah! Our paths have crossed many times since, either at Friends of Charnwood Museum talks, or in the Town Hall! Many thanks to Deborah for her fascinating account of the origin of our unique bedspread!

The Alexandra Bedspread 

By Deborah Moxom

What is the Alexandra Bedspread?

The Alexandra Bedspread

The Alexandra Bedspread is a wonderful patchwork textile we have here in Loughborough. It was created between 1920 and 1923 as part of the fundraising effort required to pay for the building of our town’s war memorial, the Carillon Tower.

The Bedspread measures 8ft 7ins by 7ft 5ins (2616mm X 890mm) and is made up of cream cotton squares, 510 of which have a signature of a donor embroidered on it. People paid a shilling to sign their name which was then embroidered in navy cotton by local girls. The central panel of the bedspread depicts the Carillon Tower embroidered in various stitches. This was done by students at the Technical College.

The Story of the Bedspread

In 1919 a committee was formed to oversee the fundraising and building of Loughborough’s war memorial. It had been decided that this would take the form of a Carillon tower with 47 bells.

The General Committee, as it was known, was split into smaller committees including finance and the Ladies committee. It was estimated that between £16,000 and £18,000 would be needed to complete the project.

Money came in via personal donations, workplace subscriptions and many other fundraising ideas but it was in 1920 that mention of holding a Grand Bazaar was noted in the committee meetings.

The Grand Bazaar was held over 3 days in Queen’s Park and the Corinthians football fields (now the Leisure Centre on Brown’s Lane) and it was here that the Alexandra Bedspread made its first public appearance. It appeared on the Malines stall run by Mrs Frances Bond and the public were invited to guess the weight of the Carillon Tower to win the bedspread.

Mr and Mrs Bond, centre of photo, outside their stall at the Grand Bazaar. Reproduced with permission

The Bedspread was made at 94 Leicester Road, the home of Mr William and Mrs Frances Bond.

The Bonds originally came from Yorkshire but work brought them to Loughborough around 1904. Mr Bond worked for the Prudential Assurance Company and became the local superintendent here in Loughborough.

Their extended family lived in Ireland and Canada some of whom themselves came to Loughborough to study engineering and the family married into the local community.

Mrs Frances Bond was a member of the Carillon General Committee and a postcard has been found of Frances proudly displaying the completed bedspread in her garden (Postcard image courtesy of Christine Harris).

Mrs Bond and the bedspread. Reproduced with thanks, courtesy of Christine Harris.

We believe Frances had this postcard made to be sent out to donors who lived further afield to show them what they had contributed to.

The bedspread was won by Mr James Ernest Collins, the landlord of the Volunteer Inn, Devonshire Square, Loughborough. Mr Collins was extremely proud of the bedspread and after winning it the Collin’s family added their names and Mr Collins added the word Owner below his signature.

An example signature

He named the bedspread in his will, where he left it to his daughter Ivy in 1937.

The Volunteer Inn, Ward's End pictured in 1900. Reproduced with permission.

Ivy kept it until 1950 when she gave the bedspread to Charnwood Borough Council in whose care it remains today. Unfortunately the bedspread is unable to be permanently on public display at the moment but ideas are being considered on other ways to tell its story.

The Story of the Signatures

Signatures of Queen Alexandra, Princess Helena, Winston Churchill and Emma Cunliffe-Stamford

Interesting Signatures

The bedspread is named after Queen Alexandra now, but was actually known as the War Memorial Bedspread in 1923.

Queen Alexandra’s signature was obtained as late as May 1923 and it was through her connection to a local family that it appears on the bedspread.

At the time she signed, the Queen was a widow and her son King George V was on the throne. Queen Alexandra was godmother to Alexander Robert Cunliffe- Owen who had come to live in Loughborough after his Mother, Emma had married a local doctor.

Emma Cunliffe-Stamford had been born in London and her father Sir Francis Cunliffe-Owen had been the first director of the South Kensington Museum, which became the V&A and Science museums. The family moved in royal circles and also knew Lord Kitchener. Emma married Dr Robert Basil Stamford in 1919 after her first husband died and settled here in Loughborough living on Burton Walks, at the Red House, until her death in 1950.

During WW1 Emma and her first husband Edward decided to recruit their own battalion of men to fight. They called them The Sportsmen’s Battalion, later to join with the Royal Fusiliers.

Overall, Emma and Edward managed to recruit a total of 5,000 men and personally supervised their training, as well as ensuring they had the correct clothing and equipment. For 11 months, Emma administered the battalions under the supervision of the War Office, working from 8.30am until 11pm every day.

The Cunliffe-Owen’s presented each man they recruited with a silver medallion.

An example of the silver medallions

 

Emma was awarded an OBE in 1920 for her contribution to the war effort.

Princess Helena’s signature was also obtained by Emma Cunliffe-Stamford. Princess Helena was the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria and sister-in-law to Alexandra. It seems that Helena’s signature may have been obtained before Alexandra’s as Helena was gravely ill by May 1923 and in fact, had died before the bedspread was won.

Winston Churchill was not a serving M.P. when he signed the bedspread but was a close friend of Edward Louis Spears who was M.P. for Loughborough in 1922. Edward and his wife Mary also signed the bedspread.

Edward and Winston had met on the French front line in WW1 and became firm friends for the rest of their lives. In the 1921 census Winston and his wife are staying with Edward and Mary Spears in Sevenoaks, Kent.

Edward Louis Spears had been a career soldier. Born in France he was a fluent French speaker and was deployed to the front line in 1914 as a translator between the British and French Generals. During his time there he met a nurse named Mary Borden.

Mary was an American, daughter of a silver tycoon and she had inherited a fortune. At the outbreak of WW1 Mary was living in London with her husband and had just given birth to their third daughter. Having no experience of nursing and unable to speak French Mary nevertheless joined the French Red Cross and travelled to France to work in a hospital in Dunkirk. What she witnessed appalled her, and she approached the chief of the French Forces, General Joffe and offered to finance and staff her own mobile hospital. Her offer was accepted and for the rest of the war Mary headed up a hospital that moved with the fighting, at times being within shelling distance of the front. Her idea of a mobile hospital was revolutionary and resulted in her having a survival rate of 4 out of every 5 casualties, a number unthinkable before.

When Mary and Edward met, they began an affair and in 1918, after the dissolution of her first marriage they married in Paris.

Mary won many awards for her outstanding war work and she also wrote poetry and novels about her experiences. One of her poems, Beyond the Deepening Shadow, was used as a soundscape to the flaming torches installation at the Tower of London in 2018.

A Local Signature

Frank Stockall 1937

Frank Stockall was 28 in 1922 and was living at 55 Park Road, Loughborough. [1]

Frank had attended Loughborough Grammar School from 1908-1912 and on leaving school went to Chemnitz in Germany where he was studying at a German bank. He had also intended to spend time at a French bank before returning to London where he hoped his experiences aboard would prove useful to him in a future career.

His father William was managing director of the Nottingham Manufacturing Company, a hosiery company here in Loughborough. They had a factory in Chemnitz which is why Frank chose to go there.

At the outbreak of WW1 Frank remained in Chemnitz and in 1915 was interned as a British Civil Prisoner of War in Engländerlager of Ruhleben-Spandan, west of Berlin. At Christmas 1915 he sent a message back to his school sending greetings and wishes for a brighter New Year and saying that a printing press had been set up in the internment camp.

In 1922 Frank gave a talk at Loughborough Grammar entitled “Experiences in a German Prison Camp”. There was a record attendance where he told them of his arrest, internment and inhumane treatment. He had become seriously ill whilst in Ruhleben and had been sent home in an exchange of prisoners before the Armistice which ended WW1.

Frank made a visit to Malines (now named Mechelen in Flemish) in Belgium to visit their Carillon Tower and the School of Carillon Music in 1922 and on his return gave another talk at his old school which demonstrated the passion he felt about Loughborough erecting their own Carillon Tower.

 “Can we picture the German troops dancing on the floor of our Parish Church as they danced in the cathedral of Malines in 1914? Can we imagine the houses round our Parish Church utterly destroyed by bombardment as the houses for many yards round the Malines tower were destroyed? Can we imagine returning to homes in ruins, our rooms covered in debris and dirt, as some of the Malines men found theirs, when they returned after four years? To the town the Memorial can therefore never be great enough, great as it will be.”

Frank worked as a hosiery salesman for the Nottingham Manufacturing Company so never realised his ambition to work in a bank. On the 5th June 1924 he married Gertrude Margery Amatt and remained in Loughborough until he died in 1969.

There are so many stories to tell behind the signatures on the bedspread. I have been researching since October 2018 and still the research continues. The bedspread is a wonderful depository of social history and tells the story of 1920s, post-WW1 Loughborough. Through the signatures a story is told of manufacturers, educators, shopkeepers, hoteliers, doctors and nurses, and everyone else needed to make up a thriving market town. I hope to share more of the stories I have found through local talks and perhaps a publication.

Deborah Moxom

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About Deborah 

Hi, I am Deborah Moxom and I moved to Loughborough in 1995 when my husband came to study engineering at the University. I have worked locally as a nurse and gardener but in 2007 I joined the team at the Town Hall working as an usher in the theatre and latterly on the box office and helping in the SOCK Gallery, our art space. Having researched my own family history for over 20 years I was very excited to be asked to look at the Alexandra Bedspread in 2018 when it was to go up on display in the gallery. I was immediately hooked and have spent the last, nearly 5 years researching the creation of the bedspread and all 510 signatures on it. It was absolutely wonderful to share my research through the recent exhibition at the Town Hall and also through talks I give to local groups and clubs. In the future I hope to produce a publication of  my discoveries so that as many people as possible can discover what a wonderful treasure we have here in Loughborough.

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NOTES and Further resources

[1] No.55 Park Road was once the home of the widowed Laura Clarke, whose family had been involved in the dyeing industry.

There are a number of posts in this blog which talk about the Alexandra Bedspread, particularly in relation to signed artefacts, and in comparison with other signed textiles. A short entry also appears in 'A-Z of Loughborough' although since publication it has since been confirmed that there are more than 500 signatures, and that the bedspread was not allowed to be raffled, hence the 'guess the weight' competition. 

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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