Menin Gate Pilgrimage Fund
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The Yeres Times.
The forerunners of our great New Armies picked up on that same ground beyond the
Menin Gate the sword that was falling from the almost dead hand of our Regular Army,
and in that same battle our Terriers and Yeomanry followed and set an example of devoted
heroism that will hang like a halo round the Salient for ever. From then on, the men
from the cities and shires of the British Isles, from the Dominions and the Colonies, from
the seas and lands of all the Empire, came to march out through the Menin Gate, to die in
scores of thousands in the dreary flats beyond it.
So it is very well that from the shattered fragments of the old Gate they knew the
new Memorial should rise to bear the names of the Unknown Dead, and look out across
the graves of the Known Dead who strove and suffered throughout the war to keep invio
late the Salient and the City, who fought to the end, and to the death, to hold the gate.
Reprinted by kind permission of The Graphic."
MENIN GATE.
In the woods of Inverness, Glencorse, Sanctuary and Polygon much of the fiercest fighting of
tile War took place. It was in Inverness Copse, on August 22nd, 1917, that the Germans for the
first time made use of liquid fire.
O dolorous way! Of all ways but one
The holiest, most terrible, most fair
For at thy breast was seen the lovely
stair
When lordly men went out with night, or
sun.
Not Salamis, Thermopylae have won
The corridors of Fame so unaware
As those grim woods that thy flanks
proudly bear.
O Inverness! O Glencorse! Polygon!
Not Dante with his visions sombre, keen,
Could have set down the horror of those
nights
When Inverness was lit with baleful
flames
That belched and roared from tubes like
things obscene,
Yea, there the tumbled fount whereat
Hell's lights
Saw glory of the spirit kindling aims.
R. Hendersox iii.axn.
The originator'of the above Fund was Mr. D. G. Somerville, engineer-constructor of
the Menin Gate Memorial, who generously gave the sum of £500 to pay the expenses
to Ypres of relatives of the missing," who would otherwise have been unable to witness
the unveiling ceremony. Mr. Somerville wisely entrusted the organisation of the
Pilgrimage to the Rev. M. Mullineux, M.C., Founder of St. Barnabas' Pilgrimages, the
Ypres League being invited to join and give assistance. This it did at once by giving
a donation of 100 guineas from the Ypres League Appeal Fund, and taking over a portion
of the office work.
So numerous were the applications, so piteous the letters received, that it was soon
realised_that some appeal to the public must be made to enable us to send out a larger
number~of pilgrims (especially those living in country districts), than was possible with
the funds at our disposal.
The matter was brought up at a committee meeting of the Ypres Memorial Church
Fund on July 8th, when Field-Marshal Lord Plumer offered to broadcast a message,
