The Orange Lilies – Brighton & Hove in the Somme project welcomes booking for a free upcoming WWI community history event commemorating the end of The Somme in Brighton and Hove.
Come along on Friday 18th November 2-5pm to hear speakers, view exhibitions and resources, and enjoy free tea and pastries courtesy of the Gateways to the First world War project.
To book your free place, please visit: http://bit.ly/2du2tPV
Details below and here: the-orange-lilies-community-history-event-18th-nov-2016
Contact: theorangelilies@gmail.com with any queries
https://theorangelilies.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/events/284261738620279/
Tag Archives: Somme
Free Heritage Open Day event
The Orange Lilies – Brighton and Hove in the Somme
Come along and find out more about our WWI themed project and look at ways to learn about film making and get involved with training and activities as well as research skills.
Strike a Light, in partnership with Brighton & Hove Library and Information Service, and Fabrica showcases its WWI themed project The Orange Lilies – Brighton and Hove Soldiers in the Somme.
The project focusses the city’s legacy of the Somme and a significant event on the eve of this (where huge numbers of Brighton soldiers fell), The Battle of Boar’s Head (also known as The Day that Sussex Died), as a key part of WWI, and its’ subsequent impact on Brighton and Hove.
Frederick George Stoner (1914)
Come along and find out more about this epic piece of local history, and find out ways to get involved with the project, learn about film making and gain research skills. Arts and heritage organisation Strike a Light and partners will – through key activities, training, collaboration and mentoring – work with young people to commemorate the effects of the Battle of the Somme on the city, uncovering Brighton’s Great War heritage for future generations.
Using archives and artefacts to inform creative learning, our unique approach involves young people researching and producing a series of short films to share this WWI centenary theme; creating textile interpretations of significant battles; and attending talks and study days; whilst receiving support from local historians, including a local Royal Sussex Regimental military expert.
https://theorangelilies.wordpress.com/
Image courtesy of Letter in the Attic project from QueenSpark Books
Opening Times
- Friday 9 September: 1-7pm
- Saturday 10 September: 1-5pm
Booking Details
No booking required
Access
Inside Brighton’s Open Market (off London Road) on the top Mezzanine Level. Access lift beside stairs to the Mezzanine level
Additional information
Through The Orange Lilies project, we will aim to show the seismic changes in Brighton and Hove society as a result of the Somme. On 1st July 1916, the start of the battle of the Somme, it was said you could hear the cannons from France at a cricket match in Brighton. This project focuses on the city’s legacy of the Somme and a significant battle on the eve of this, Boar’s Head, as a key part of WWI, and its’ impact on Brighton and Hove. We seek to explore, through the lives of the local soldiers and residents, the effects on the life of the city as a result.
Directions
There is an accessible lift by the stairs to the Mezzanine level and doors upstairs are wheelchair accessible.
Website
theorangelilies.wordpress.com/
theorangelilies.wordpress.com/blog/
Organised by
Strike a Light
Unveiling The Orange Lilies project logo
Introducing our new project logo for The Orange Lilies. We’ve used the Hadley font which is a WWI era style one, with an orange hue to match our project title, overlaid with a map of Brighton and Hove. We hope you like it!
Get involved with our new project!
Get involved with our new The Orange Lilies project which has just begun and which is researching and commemorating the role of Brighton and Hove born Royal Sussex Regiment soldiers in the battle of the Somme in 1916.
We’re seeking volunteer researchers, project participants, young people who are interested in learning about making short films, and creative young people to participate in a series of free textile workshops between June 2016 and June 2017. If you would like to find out more, then have a look at our new project website here or email theorangelilies@gmail.com to participate in the project.
We’d love to hear your stories, find out about family history, uncover information about Brighton and Hove at home during the battle of the Somme, and those city soldiers abroad who served on the battlefields and what happened to them.
We’ve started to uncover stories about soldiers like Private Frederick George Stoner who died on 28th October 1916 and who’s name is engraved on the memorial at Thiepval in the Somme, France. Here he writes a postcard is to his sister Ellen (‘Nellie’) Elizabeth Stoner (later Simmons) in 1916. The front of the postcard shows ‘Inside of the church’ at Eclusier-Vaux in the Somme.
Images both with kind permission of the Letter in the Attic project from QueenSpark Books.
Conversation Cafe updates
Thank you to those who attended our Conversations Cafe session this week. We hosted a session viewing the amazingly drawn diorama of the first day of the battle of the Somme (1st July 1916) by cartoonist Joe Sacco. There is a fascinating 6 minute short about it which you can view here. It is available in the graphic novel section of Jubilee Library and I urge you to look at it. It’s so long that our whole group held each section of it!
The main theme though of our session this month was with the very well-informed Stoolball England officer Anita Broad, discussing all things related to this Sussex based sport and its’ link to World War I and rehabilitation. Anita discussed the rich history of stoolball from its early origins, via the Victorians and WWI through to the present day. The traditional Sussex sport of stoolball, which originated in Medieval times, is still played enthusiastically across Sussex today. However, during the First World War the game was reinvigorated as an opportunity to continue the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers.
Traditionally a rural village women’s game, stoolball played a significant part in the rehabilitation of soldiers injured in WWI. The eccentric Sussex landowner Maj. W W Grantham of Barcombe and Chailey was solely responsible for the promotion of the sport nationally and internationally, both as an ideal sport for rehabilitation and a fund-raising resource.
Maj. Grantham began organising stoolball matches at the Princess Louise Military Hospital at Chailey Heritage and games were played against the soldiers at the Limbless Hospital for Men at the Brighton Pavilion. The popularity of the game quickly extended around the country and between the wars there were over 1000 teams playing stoolball.
Stoolball has always been a sport heavily connected with Sussex and dates back to the Middle Ages where players would use their hand to defend a wooden stool from being hit by the ball. In its modern format, it resembles a mix of cricket and baseball with a wicket comprising a square piece of wood elevated at around head height and teams aiming to score runs with the bat whilst preventing the opposition from catching or bowling them out.
Major William Wilson Grantham is, in many ways, the modern saviour of stoolball. He was serving on a military tribunal in Britain with the 6th Royal Sussex Regiment when his eldest son received a serious injury on the Western Front. There were a variety of methods used for the treatment and recuperation of wounded soldiers during the war, such as military massage. The possibility for also participating in sporting activity and contest was highly appealing to the army but they were wary of games such as football, rugby and even cricket and tennis being to strenuous and physical for these men and, as a result, likely to exacerbate their injuries.
In response to this need, Major Grantham pioneered an inaugural stoolball match between wounded soldiers and elderly lawyers (including himself). The soldiers ran out victorious. Following the success of the match, Major Grantham began organising regular games in Sussex for injured soldiers. Such was the benefit of the sport it was played by both wounded soldiers and children at the St Nicholas Home for Raid Shock Children at Chailey Heritage.

Our next book will be a novel by local author Umi Sinha called Belonging, again provided by the Brighton and Hove Libraries Service who have been invaluable to The Boys on the Plaque project. The book concerns a protagonist ‘Lila Langdon who is twelve years old when she witnesses a family tragedy after her mother unveils her father’s surprise birthday present – a tragedy that ends her childhood in India and precipitates a new life in Sussex with her Great-aunt Wilhelmina. From the darkest days of the British Raj through to the aftermath of the First World War, BELONGING tells the interwoven story of three generations and their struggles to understand and free themselves from a troubled history steeped in colonial violence. It is a novel of secrets that unwind through Lila’s story, through her grandmother’s letters home from India and the diaries kept by her father, Henry, as he puzzles over the enigma of his birth and his stormy marriage to the mysterious Rebecca.’
See you at our next Conversations Cafe on Wednesday 13th April at Jubilee Library 2.30-4.30pm. You can find out all about next months theme Conversation Cafe April 2016