A massive tea party and important historic facts today...

There are probably not a lot of times that over 300 Victoria Cross recipients gathered in one place at the same time. But it happened back in 1957 and on June 26th. There was lots of fanfare at London's Hyde Park and so their should have been. The military were on parade in their finest uniforms and anyone who was anyone was also there to see the sea of Victoria Cross recipients march past as HRH Queen Elizabeth ll and Prince Phillip took the salute.

The occasion was the 100th anniversary of the very day that HRH Queen Victoria presented the first ever Victoria Crosses on the chests of just over 60 men. Other were entitled but duties in far away lands prevented their travel to England. But by order of the Queen very special ceremonies were held around the world in all places the recipients were then serving. One such ceremony took place in Canada and was written about in this space. And back at London, among those 60 and a few more stood the proud cavalryman Lt Alexander Dunn, born at Toronto, and the only officer  taking part in the historic Charge of the Light Brigade that would later be awarded the VC.

But moving forward to 1957, at Hyde Park the 300 and more again gathered and did their finest march past once again for royalty. There were more than 2 dozen Canadian recipients on that parade and thank goodness for photographers, an image of the 24 that could make the photo opt, had appeared in this space a number of times. I bring it to you again today. As you read the names below, you will hopefully recall having read stories of many of these Canadians also in this space in the past.

Here is that keepsake historical picture..with the recipients names also included....

The following day Sir Anthony Eden, Prime Minister of England hosted a "Thanksgiving "  tea party for the recipients at Westminster Hall.

Britain does not normally celebrate this north American event, said to have started by the pilgrims back in the early 1600's. We in Canada of course just finished our weekend of celebrations and yesterday or Sunday most had their traditional turkey dinners. Our American neighbours celebrated Columbus Day on the 13th. This of course celebrated the Italian explorer's so called discovery of the continent inhabited by Europeans for quite some time and by Native People even long before. In the US Thangsgiving will be celebrated on the 4th Thursday in November.

And while speaking of giving thanks, the President of the United States gave thanks 5 days after the traditional Canadian Day of thanks... but back 130 years ago... in 1884 to Canadians Henry Williams, Phillip Moore, George Low and Robert Sweeny in a General Order that presented these men and many others with the US Medal of Honor.  Sweeney of course a few years back was shown not to be a Canadian. Despite internet repeatedly getting it wrong about there being only 19 Double Medal of Honor recipients, of the 21, Sweeney joined that most historic group of North American heroes. he and the others have all been written about in this space before.

But now I want to bring you some exciting news. And its about George Low... who's surname is not Low but in fact EVATT.

For well over a century it was thought that Low was his real last name and that Evatt was an alias. It is exactly backwards. After spending many hours dissecting 164 pages of information discovered on this naval hero, his true name had come to light. So to, has his place of birth.. hidden since he joined the US navy back in 1872.

Here is the first extract from his file...

In 1907 he was interviewed with regards to a pension application. The interviewer's notes include the above caption where his home is revealed for the first time to history in probably well over 100 years. He was from Port Hope which is about 60 miles east of Toronto Ontario.

As revealing, he gives the names of 2 brothers and with the first, the SURNAME... EVATT. Subsequent verification has been obtained from a mid 1800's census listing his mother and father, himself, 2 brothers a sister and that his father was a medical doctor. They lived in a 2 floor wooden house and had a 17 year old female, unrelated, living with the family, possible as a maid. All the other children were listed as being in school.

The file contains some very interesting information about George. He served for about 5 years in the merchant marines. Joined the navy and left. returned and then served several terms. But his service was at times less than stellar. In the Merchant Marines, in England he deserted from a vessel. He had signed up as Evatt, his real name, but after running away, he boarded another vessel to escape the country. In that service he entered with the surname Low. Yet to be verified, this may have been his 2nd given name.

When in the US in the 1870's he first signed up in the navy under EVATT again, and yet  again within less than 2 years deserted. About 7 years later he returned under the name Low, which stuck for the next 100 years and more. In 1881, as noted in a past article, he was serving on the USS Tennessee when he dove overboard to rescue a drowning shipmate, for which he was awarded the above noted MOH in 1884, for the actions of bravery in 1881.

Here is his accounting for the name change with the interviewer in the early 1900's...

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More work still needs to be done on his life after the military and as that is done I will update this most interesting story.

Back on Sunday.

Bart