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Introduction
Anna Temkin
Assistant Obituaries Editor, The Times
Perhaps the most effective way to study history is to read the obituaries of those who have shaped it. Many would agree there is no better place to do so than in the pages of The Times. Its notices have long been a prime source for scholars; to this day, contributors to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography are invariably advised to start their research by consulting the relevant Times obituary.
The pieces chronologically assembled here, from Lord Kitchener to Lee Kuan Yew, form an enthralling snapshot of the past 100 years. Over that period The Times house style has of course changed – to include details of survivors, for example, and a final paragraph recording the date of birth and date of death. The comprehensive first edition of Great Lives, edited by Ian Brunskill, was published in 2005 and closed with the obituary of Pope John Paul II. In the ten years since, great lives have continued to be recorded in The Times. Many of these would be worthy of appearing in this second edition and the selection process has necessarily involved making invidious choices. Who to include and who to exclude, while still giving due coverage to the worlds of entertainment, sport et al? Apart from the two most high profile deaths in recent years – those of Baroness Thatcher and Nelson Mandela – the new contenders were generally open to debate. Choosing which to add and which, very reluctantly, to remove meant avoiding a number of risks: too many politicians (farewell Earl Attlee), too few writers (stay put Enid Blyton), too much music (so long Glenn Gould), not enough science (welcome Sir Bernard Lovell). All these were important considerations when updating this edition.
Rosa Parks, who died in 2007, was at the forefront of the civil rights movement and, appropriately, is now among the vanguard of the new obituaries in this compendium. Between the Iron Lady and South Africa’s much-loved ‘Madiba’, the world also lost Seamus Heaney, whose poetry caused nothing short of a literary sensation, and the doyen of television interrogators Sir David Frost, who famously teased a confession out of President Nixon over Watergate. Sir Edmund Hillary modestly described his life as merely a ‘constant battle against boredom’ but Britain held its breath as he became the first climber to reach the summit of Everest. Again, how could anyone forget the visionary Steve Jobs whose name will forever be synonymous with the ubiquitous Apple?
The perennial power of the obituary is that it brings the dead to life. At its most compelling, it combines biography and historical context with anecdotes and telling quotations; such is the art of the skilled obituarist. The majority of Times notices are written in house, but when necessary the paper avails itself of specialist knowledge from outsiders. All, however, are unsigned. This policy of anonymity ultimately allows for a fairer, fuller account of the subject’s life and the obituarist need not fear any backlash following publication. After Nubar Gulbenkian, the Armenian business magnate, was embroiled in a bitter feud with his father, a famous oil millionaire, he was concerned which side of the dispute his obituary in The Times would take. He therefore invited members of the paper’s staff for lunch at the Ritz, offering them £1000 for a view of his draft obituary. He never saw it and when the notice actually appeared in 1972, it gave a balanced portrayal of the family feud. That kind of proportional representation, as it were, is exemplified in many of the pieces reproduced here. Michael Jackson’s obituary, for instance, acknowledges his reputation as the king of pop while also addressing the sensational allegations of impropriety levelled at him.
These pages contain some of the most extraordinary lives that have defined the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries; within them are stories of genius, innovation, adversity and, at times, sheer eccentricity. Thomas Carlyle declared, ‘History is the essence of innumerable biographies’. His ‘Great Man’ theory that the past can be explained by the influence of leaders and heroes may not be infallible (after all, some of the most significant could not be regarded as either noble or heroic). Yet there is no doubt that all the men and women of this collection left an indelible mark on both the world they knew and the one that we now inhabit. Their obituaries have stood the test of time and are, in that sense, a fitting reflection of The Times itself.
Abridged Introduction
to the First Edition
Ian Brunskill
Former Obituaries Editor, The Times
From its beginnings in 1785 The Times has recorded significant deaths. Often in the early days this amounted to little more than a list of names of people who had died, and on more than one occasion The Times simply plagiarized a notice from another paper if it had none of its own. It was under John Thadeus Delane, Editor of The Times from 1841 to 1877, that this began to change. Delane clearly recognized that the death of a leading figure on the national stage was an event that would seize the public imagination as almost nothing else could, and that it demanded more than just a brief notice recording the demise. ‘Wellington’s death,’ Delane told a colleague, ‘will be the only topic’.
Delane instituted the practice of preparing detailed, authoritative – and often very long – obituaries of the more important and influential personalities of the day while they were still alive. The resulting increase in the quality and scope of the major notices ensured that, even if the paper’s day-to-day obituary coverage remained erratic, The Times in the second half of the 19th century rose to the big occasion far better than its rivals could. The investment of effort and resources was not hard to justify. The Times obituaries not only found a ready following among readers of the paper but were soon being collected and republished in book form too. Six volumes of ‘Biographies of Eminent Persons’ covered the period 1870-1894.
It was not until 1920, however, that The Times appointed its first obituary editor, and it was some years later still before the paper began to run a daily obituary page. As late as 1956, the publisher Rupert Hart-Davis could complain in a letter to the retired Eton schoolmaster George Lyttelton: ‘The obituary arrangements at The Times are haphazard and unsatisfactory. The smallest civil servant – Sewage Disposal Officer in Uppingham – automatically has at least half a column about him in standing type at the office, but writers and artists are not provided for until they are eighty.’
That was a little unfair, even at the time, but if matters have improved since then, it is in large part due to the efforts of the late Colin Watson, who took over as obituaries editor in the year Hart-Davis expressed that disparaging view and who remained in the post for 25 years. He built up and maintained the stock of advance notices so that there were usually about 5,000 on file at any one time, a figure that has remained more or less constant ever since.
Watson, in an article written on his retirement, gave a revealing and only half-frivolous account of what the whole business involves. It was – is – a relentless, if rewarding, task: ‘You may read and read and read,’ he wrote, ‘particularly history; turn on the radio; listen for rumours of ill-health (never laugh at so much as a chesty cold); and you may write endless letters – but never dare say you are on top.’
If Watson may in many respects be said to have brought the obituary department into the modern world, it fell to his successors, particularly John Higgins and Anthony Howard, to show how effectively the paper could respond when other newspapers, from the mid-1980s, began to expand their obituary coverage to match that of The Times. There were some elsewhere who claimed, in the course of this expansion, to have invented or reinvented the newspaper obituary in its modern form – chiefly, it often seemed, by treating all their subjects like amusing minor characters in the novels of Anthony Powell. In fact, as I hope this collection shows, the obituary form as practised for more than a century in The Times had at its best always been both broader in range and livelier in approach than may generally have been assumed.
Lord Kitchener
5 June 1916
Horatio Herbert Kitchener was born at Gunsborough House, near Listowel, in County Kerry, on June 24, 1850. He was the second son of Lieutenant-Colonel H. H. Kitchener, of Cossington, Leicestershire, by his marriage with Frances, daughter of the Rev. John Chevallier, dd, of Aspall Hall, Suffolk, and was therefore of English descent though born in Ireland.
He was educated privately by tutors until the age of 13, when he was sent with his three brothers to Villeneuve, on the Lake of Geneva, where he was in the charge of the Rev. J. Bennett. From Villeneuve, after some further travels abroad, he returned to London, and was prepared for the Army by the Rev. George Frost of Kensington Square. He entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1868 and obtained a commission in the Royal Engineers in January, 1871. During the short interval between passing out of Woolwich and joining the Engineers he was on a visit to his father at Dinan, and volunteered for service with the French Army. He served under Chanzy for a short time, but was struck down by pneumonia and invalided home. He now applied himself vigorously to the technical work of his branch, and laboured incessantly at Chatham and Aldershot to succeed in his profession.
Palestine and Cyprus
His first chance of adventure arose owing to a vacancy on the staff of the Palestine Exploration Society. Kitchener was offered the post in 1874 and at once accepted it. He remained in the Holy Land until the year 1878, engaged first as assistant to Lieutenant Conder, re, in mapping 1,600 square miles of Judah and Philistia, and then in sole charge during the year 1877 surveying that part of Western Palestine which still remained unmapped. The work was done with the thoroughness which distinguished Kitchener’s methods in his subsequent career. He rejoined Conder in London in January, 1878, and by the following September the scheme of the Society was carried through, and a map of Western Palestine on a scale of one inch to a mile was satisfactorily completed. The work entailed considerable hardship, and even danger. Kitchener suffered from sun-stroke and fever. He and his surveying parties were frequently attacked by bands of marauders, and on one of these occasions both Conder and he barely escaped with their lives. On another occasion Kitchener pluckily rescued his comrade from drowning. His survey work in Palestine led directly to his nomination for similar work in Cyprus, where he began the map of the island which was eventually published in 1885.
Egypt and the Red Sea
Realising that trouble was brewing in Egypt, Kitchener managed to be at Alexandria on leave at the time of Arabi’s revolt. He served through the campaign of 1882, and, thanks largely to his knowledge of Arabic, became second in command of the Egyptian Cavalry when Sir Evelyn Wood was made Sirdar of the Egyptian Army. He left Suez in November, 1883, to take part in the survey of the Sinai Peninsula, but almost immediately returned for service in the Intelligence branch. He was sent southward after the defeat of Hicks Pasha in order to win over the tribes and prevent the further spread of disaffection. His personality and influence did much. The Mudir of Dongola in response to Kitchener’s appeal, fell upon the dervishes at Korti and defeated them. But the tide of Mahdi-ism was still flowing strongly. By July, 1884, Khartum was invested, and upon Kitchener fell the duty of keeping touch between Gordon and the expedition all too tardily dispatched for his relief.
Kitchener was now a major and daa and qmc on the Intelligence Staff. In December, 1884, Wolseley and his troops reached Korti. Kitchener accompanied Sir Herbert Stewart’s column on its march to Metemmeh, but only as far as Gakdul Wells, and consequently he was not at Abu Klea. When the expedition recoiled, it became Kitchener’s painful duty to piece together an account of the storming of Khartum and the death of Gordon. For Kitchener’s services in this arduous and disappointing campaign there came a mention in dispatches, a medal and clasp, and the Khedive’s star. In June, 1885, he was promoted lieutenant-colonel. In the summer the Mahdi died and the Khalifa Abdullahi succeeded him. Kitchener had resigned his commission in the Egyptian Army and had returned to England, but he was almost at once sent off to Zanzibar on a boundary commission and was subsequently appointed Governor-General of the Red Sea littoral and Commandant at Suakin in August, 1886. Here he soon found himself at grips with the famous Emir Osman Digna.
After some desultory fighting round Suakin Kitchener marched out one morning, surprised Osman’s camp at Handont, and carried it with the Sudanese. But in the course of the action he was severely wounded by a bullet in the neck, and was subsequently invalided home. The bullet caused him serious inconvenience until it was at last extracted. In June, 1888, he became colonel and adc to her Majesty Queen Victoria, who had formed a high and just estimate of Kitchener’s talents and ever displayed towards him a gracious regard. He rejoined the Egyptian Army as Adjutant-General, and was in command of a brigade of Sudanese when Sir Francis Grenfell stormed Osman Digna’s line at Gemaizeh. Toski, in the following summer, was another success, and Kitchener’s share in it at the head of 1,500 mounted troops won for him a cb.
Three less eventful years now went by while the Egyptian Army, encouraged by its successes in the Geld, grew in strength and efficiency. In 1892 Kitchener succeeded Grenfell as Sirdar, and in 1894 was made a kcmg.
The Reconquest of the Sudan
Lord Salisbury’s Government decided on March 12, 1896, that the time had come for a forward movement on the Nile. Their immediate object was to make a diversion in favour of Italy, whose troops had just been totally defeated by the Abyssinians at Adowa, but the natural impetus of the advance carried the Sirdar and his army eventually to Khartum. Kitchener was ready when the order to advance was given. He had 10,000 men on the frontier, rails ready to follow them to Kerma, and all preparations made for supply. At Firket he surprised the dervishes at dawn, and at a cost of only 100 casualties caused the enemy a loss of 800 dead and 1,000 prisoners. A period of unavoidable inactivity ensued to admit of the construction of the railway, the accumulation of supplies, and the preparation of a fleet of steamers to accompany the advance. Cholera ravaged the camp and sandstorms of a furious character impeded operations, but the advance was at last resumed, and after sharp fights at Hafir and Dongola, the latter town was occupied on September 23, and the first stage of the reconquest of the Sudan was at an end. Kitchener was promoted major-general, with a very good, but not yet assured, prospect of completing the work which he had begun so well.
From the various lines of further advance open to him Kitchener chose the direct line from Wady Halfa to Abu Hamed, and formed the audacious project of spanning this arid and apparently waterless desert, 230 miles broad, with a railway, as he advanced. The first rails of this line were laid in January, 1897, and 130 miles were completed by July. Abu Hamed was captured on August 7 by Hunter with a flying column from Merowi, and Berber on August 31. The remaining 100 miles of the desert railway were then completed. Fortune favoured Kitchener at this period. Water was found by boring in the desert, but the construction of the line was still a triumph of imagination and resource. There were risks in the general situation at this moment, for the position of the army was temporarily far from favourable. There was a specially difficult period towards the close of 1897, when large dervish forces were massed at Metemmeh and a dash to the north seemed on the cards. But the Khalifa delayed his stroke, and when in February, 1898, the Khalifa’s lieutenant Mahmud began to march to the north Kitchener was ready for him.
The Atbara
Mahmud and Osman Digna, with some 12,000 good fighting men and several notable Emirs, had concentrated on the eastern bank of the Nile round Shendy, and marching across the desert had struck the Atbara at Nakheila, about 35 miles from its confluence with the Nile. Kitchener, while holding the junction point of the rivers at Atbara Fort, massed the remainder of his force at Res el Hudi on the Atbara, prepared either to attack the dervishes in flank if they moved north or to fall on them in their camp if they remained inert. The reconnaissances showed that the dervishes had fortified their camp in the thick scrub, and that the dem could best be attacked from the desert side. An attack seemed likely to be costly, and Kitchener hoped that the dervishes, who were short of food, would either attack the Anglo-Egyptian zariba or offer a fight in the open field. The dervishes did not move, and not even a successful raid on Shendy by the gunboats carrying troops affected their decision. After some telegraphic communications with Lord Cromer, Kitchener drew nearer to his enemy, advancing first to Abadar and then to Umdabia. Here he was within striking distance, and in the evening of April 7 the whole force marched silently out into the desert, and after a well-executed night march came within sight of Mahmud’s lines at 3 a.m. on the morning of Good Friday, April 8. A halt was made about 600 yards from the trenches and the artillery opened fire, while the infantry was reformed for the assault, Hunter’s Sudanese on the right and the British on the left. At 7.40 a.m. Kitchener ordered the advance. A sustained fire of musketry broke out from the dervish entrenchments and was returned with interest by the British and Sudanese, who advanced firing without halting and as steadily as on parade. The din was terrific and the attack irresistible. In less than a quarter of an hour the dervish zariba was torn aside and Kitchener’s troops inundated the defences. The dervishes stood well and even attempted counter-attacks, but they were swept out of the dem into the river and the bush, leaving 1,700 dead in the trenches, including many Emirs. The wily Osman escaped, but Mahmud was made prisoner, while comparatively few of the dervishes who escaped regained Khartum. In this brief but fierce and decisive action the Anglo-Egyptian force suffered 551 casualties.
As Kitchener rode up to greet and to thank the regiments while they were reforming the men received him with resounding cheers. He may not have won their love, for no man, not even Wellington, ever less sought by arts and graces to cultivate popularity among his men, but he had given them a fight after their own hearts, and their confidence in him was unbounded and complete.
Omdurman
By June, 1898, the rails reached the Atbara, and preparations were continued for the final advance at the next high Nile. The army was gradually concentrated by road and river at Wad Hamed, on the west bank of the Nile, 60 miles from Khartum. From this point, 22,000 strong, it set out in gallant array, on a broad front, covered and flanked by the gunboats and the mounted troops. The sun was scorching and the marching hard, but the men were in fine condition and their spirit was superb. By September 1 the plain of Kerreri was reached – the plain which, according to prophecy, was to be whitened by skulls – and the cavalry now reported that the enemy was advancing. Kitchener drew up his troops in crescent formation, their flanks resting on the river, the British brigades on the left. A night attack by the dervishes was expected and might have proved dangerous, but fortunately it was not attempted, and when dawn came on September 2 the fate of the Khalifa’s host was sealed. Kitchener had ridden forward at dawn to Jebel Surgam, a high hill which concealed the two armies from each other, and returned in serious mood, for he had seen some 52,000 dervishes advancing in ordered masses to the attack, and their aspect was formidable. Well marshalled and well led, they swept away the Egyptian cavalry and camel corps, hurling them down the hill, and then turned towards the river and came down upon Kitchener with flags waving, shouting their war cries, and led right gallantly by their Emirs. It was very brave but very hopeless.Kitchener gave the order to open fire when the dervish masses were within 1,700 yards. There was a clear field of fire with scarcely cover for a mouse. The hail of bullets from guns, rifles, and maxims smote the great host of barbarism and shattered it from end to end. The dervish fire was comparatively ineffective, and though individual fanatics struggled up to within short range no formed body came near enough to charge. Completely repulsed with frightful losses the masses melted away, the survivors reeled back, and the fire temporarily ceased.
Kitchener now ordered an advance upon Omdurman in échelon of brigades from the left, and this brought on the second phase of the battle. In the échelon formation Macdonald’s Egyptian brigade on the right was farthest out in the desert, and, as the advance began, the dervish reserves and other masses which had been recalled from the pursuit of the cavalry closed upon Macdonald and delivered a furious attack. The coolness of the commander and the steadiness of his troops saved the situation. Wauchope hurried to his support, while the other brigades wheeled to their right and drove the remnants of the Khalifa’s army away into the desert. A gallant attack by the 21st Lancers under Colonel Martin upon a large body of dervishes in a khor was a stirring incident of the fight on the left, but placed the Lancers out of court for pursuit. The army resumed its march, halted at the Khor Sambat to reform, and then entered Omdurman without allowing time for the enemy to recover and line the walls. Kitchener and his staff, after wandering about the town in some danger from fire, which continued intermittently throughout the night, sought shelter with Lyttelton’s brigade, which bivouacked in quarter-column protected by pickets on the desert side of the town, and from this bivouack ‘à la belle étoile’ the commander wrote the dispatch announcing the victory.
In this great spectacular, but all too one-sided battle there fell 10,700 gallant dervishes, while twice as many more left the field with wounds. The Anglo-Egyptian losses were 386 all told. The Khalifa’s great black flag, now at Windsor Castle, was captured, and if the Khalifa himself escaped for the time being it was not long before he and his remaining Emirs fell victims to Wingate’s troops. Mahdi-ism was smashed to pieces, Gordon was avenged, and the intolerable miseries of a rule which had reduced the population by some seven million souls were brought at last to an end. Two days after the victory a memorial service was held amidst the ruins of Gordon’s old Palace at Khartum. The British and Egyptian flags were hoisted on the walls close to the spot where Gordon fell. As Kitchener stood under the shade of the great tree on the river front to receive the congratulations of his officers, all the sternness had died out of him, for the aim of 14 long years of effort had been attained. He returned home to receive the honours and rewards which England does not stint to those who serve her well in war. He was raised to the peerage under the title of Baron Kitchener of Khartum, received the gcb, and was granted £30,000 and the thanks of both Houses of Parliament. The total cost of the campaigns of 1896–98 was only £2,354,000, of which £1,355,000 was spent on railways and gunboats. Of the total sum, rather less than £800,000 was paid by the British Government.
South Africa
Kitchener was not long left to enjoy his well-merited honours in peace. The Black Week of December, 1899, in South Africa caused Lord Roberts to be appointed Commander-in-Chief in the field, and with him there went out Lord Kitchener as Chief of Staff. During the time that Lord Roberts remained in South Africa Kitchener as much as possible effaced himself, and though always ready with counsel and assistance never gave a thought to his own aggrandizement. He was a model lieutenant and gave throughout a fine example of loyalty to his chief. He took part in all the marches and operations which carried the British flag from the Orange River by Paardeberg to Bloemfontein and Pretoria, and displayed energy in performing every duty that Lord Roberts saw fit to confide in him.
Paardeberg
When Cronje left his lines at Magersfontein and retreated eastward up the Modder, Lord Roberts was temporarily indisposed and Kitchener was virtually in command. When the morning of February 18, 1900, found Cronje still in laager at Wolvekraal, in a hollow encircled by commanding heights, upon Kitchener, in co-operation with French, devolved the duty of tackling him. Kitchener decided to strike while the enemy was within reach and issued orders for an advance upon the laager from east and west and by both banks of the river. The Boer position was bad. But the river bed afforded excellent cover and there was a good field of fire on both banks. Moreover, large bodies of Boers came up from the south and east throughout the day in order to extricate Cronje, and interfered materially with the orderly conduct of the fight. A long, wearing, and somewhat disconnected fight raged throughout the day, at the close of which the British troops had suffered 1,262 casualties without having penetrated the enemy’s lines. Kitchener rode rapidly during the day from one point of the battlefield to another endeavouring to electrify all with his own devouring activity. If the conduct of the fight was open to criticism it had this supreme merit – namely, that it was furiously energetic, and if it did not succeed in its immediate object it glued Cronje to his laager and drove away the Boers who were attempting to succour a comrade in distress. There are incidents in this fight which are still remembered with regret so far as Kitchener’s leading is concerned, but it is fair to say that in looking only to the main object set before him – namely, the destruction of Cronje’s force before it could escape or be reinforced – Kitchener was guided by correct principles, and that the subsequent surrender of the Boer force was largely due to the energetic manner in which Kitchener had smitten and hustled the enemy from the first.
The Guerilla War
When Lord Roberts handed over the command to Kitchener in November, 1900, it was generally supposed that the war was at an end. All the organized forces of the Boers had been dispersed, and nearly all the chief towns were in British occupation. But under the guidance of enterprising leaders the spirit of resistance rose superior to misfortune. On all sides guerilla bands sprang up and began a war of raids, ambuscades, and surprises with which a regular army is rarely fitted to cope on equal terms. There were still about 60,000 Boers, foreigners, and rebels in the field, and although they were not all, nor always, engaged in fighting, a fairly accountable force could usually be collected for any specific enterprise by a local leader of note. Their resolution, their field-craft, and the help of every kind which they drew from the countryside made them most formidable enemies. Their subjugation, in view of the wide area over which they operated, was one of the most arduous tasks that has ever been entrusted to a British commander. Of the 210,000 men under Kitchener more than half were disseminated along the railways and in isolated garrisons. The new commander did not possess that numerous force of efficient mounted troops which was indispensable to bring the war to a conclusion.
