Flagging memories of a link up across the world
Let's fly the flag for Wellington. Step one: Find flag.
The other day we told the story of how in 1911 school children in Wellington, New Zealand, sent a Union Jack as a gift to their counterparts in Wellington, Shropshire, in a gesture of pan-Empire kinship at the time of the Coronation of King George V.
But what happened to it?
With help from Dave Barnett of Arleston, who has a small brass plaque which obviously relates to this piece of Wellington history, we think we've found out (and the news is not good, read on).
The inscription reads: "This flag was presented to the school children of Wellington, Shropshire, England, by the school children of Wellington, New Zealand."
Dave, 79, said: "When we were trying to set up a museum in Wellington, we were collecting material, and Cecil Lowe's wife, who must have been getting on, gave us a few things."
The items included the plaque and some of Mr Lowe's medals from the Great War, during which he was a Private in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry and was gassed.
As head of Wellington's Constitution Hill School, Mr Lowe organised in 1913 for a Union Jack to be sent by the school to Wellington, New Zealand, in a reciprocal gesture.
With the Wellington museum idea not getting off the ground, the plaque and medals were given to Dave for safe keeping. They have since been used in historic displays in Arleston.
The existence of the plaque suggests that it was on some sort of frame, or flagpole, on which the Union Jack was mounted. Dave speculated that the gift from New Zealand was probably kept at the Wellington school, which closed in 1940.
In this he seems to be right as Cecil Lowe lived to a ripe old age and, in March 1972, when he was in his 90th year and living at Cockermouth, Cumbria, he reminisced about the flag story in a feature in the Shropshire Star.
And, according to the feature, "our New Zealand flag wore out with years of use on the lofty flagstaff at Constitution Hill School."
Of course, another question now hangs in the air - does Wellington, New Zealand, still possess the Union Jack, emblazoned with the Shropshire coat of arms, sent there in 1913 as a gift from Wellington, Shropshire?
