Between Bradford's Alhambra Theatre and the Science and Media Museum, there is a small memorial garden. It contains a grand statue of Queen Victoria by Alfred Drury, cast from 3 tons of bronze and standing 12 feet high, flanked by two stone lions. It was unveiled in 1904, after her death in 1901.
In front of this is the large civic war memorial and some smaller commemorative stones. The main cenotaph was erected in 1922 to commemorate the 37,000 Bradford men who served in the First World War. Many men in the 'Bradford Pals' battalions died in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
On the same site, there are 'Public Standards of Length' gauges, installed in 1913. Britain's official standards of weight and length were originally kept in the Palace of Westminster and were lost in a fire in 1834. The Astronomer Royal, George Airey, was charged with restoring the standards and decided to disseminate them across the country in publicly accessible sites, so that people could check their measuring chains and yard rules. The first were installed in Greenwich in 1859. It took longer for them to appear in the industrial powerhouses of the North. WWI got in the way of the trend and anyway, by the turn of the 20th century, chains were being superseded by steel tapes and slip gauges that were more accurate and less prone to stretching. So the measures remain as interesting but ultimately obsolete objects.
The public standards of measurement are interesting. Awe inspiring statue of Victoria.
ReplyDeleteLike diane b has commented, I find the public standards of measurement very interesting. I don't think I have seen anything like it here in Germany, but I remember my maths teacher at school telling us that the "original metre" is in a museum in Paris.
ReplyDeleteWhat lovely memorials to your country’s and city’s past. The measures are definitely a surprise one doesn’t expect to find often!
ReplyDeleteI love the measures.
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