Family History 1.109

Gaze History: NSG Memoir

Momentous Times 

Noel was in later years very aware of the momentous times through which he had lived. Twice in his lifetime the world had shifted on its foundations.  And his years were marked by a series of amazing technological inventions. 

The first few years of the Twentieth Century were a period of change.  The awareness of that change did not become common until the Great War had been running for some months, but the death of Queen Victoria in 1900 really did signal a change in the atmosphere. 

Probably the greatest change we can see from a century later is the attitude that the community, as organised in the state, has a responsibility to improve the lot of its needier citizens.  In Victorian times, private charity by individuals and large voluntary organisations was the norm.  But by the first years of the new century, the responsibility for welfare was being taken up by the Government.  In the UK this happened under the leadership of people like Winston Churchill and Lord Beveridge, and in New Zealand it had already started under Seddon and Reeves a few years earlier. 

But even in the Nineteenth Century, the most far-sighted of philanthropists had also seen that there was a role for them in working in Parliament to have the laws changed to make life less brutal for the urban poor.  One of the most notable of them was the Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, whose work was admired by many liberal-minded people in the English speaking world.

So great was this admiration, that Fred and Julia gave their son the second name of Shaftesbury. 

The second shift, was a political and international one.  The lines in Europe had always been drawn between the German area of influence and the French one.  Along with the German princes and the Austrian Emperor went England.  On the side of France were Spain and some of the Italian states.  But by the early years of the Twentieth Century the balance had shifted.  The UK became more friendly with its old enemy, France, and they forged links with the Russian Empire, thus surrounding the nations of central Europe. 

Noel’s father was named after a Prussian King, probably under the influence of a German doctor whom Charles met on the ship on his way from London, who had worked for the Prussian rulers and sang their praises all the way from one side of the world to the other.  By 1902 that would not have been so likely.

(to be continued)