Unveiling of the monument to Henry Kendall [27 November 1886]

[Editor: This article about the unveiling of a monument on the grave of Henry Kendall was published in The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (Sydney, NSW), 27 November 1886.]

Unveiling of the monument to Henry Kendall.

The ceremony of unveiling the monument erected to the memory of the Australian poet, Henry Kendall, was performed in Waverley Cemetery on Saturday afternoon by his Excellency the Governor, in the presence of a large assemblage. From the entrance gates, the view of the cemetery across the grassy slopes to the ocean was bewitchingly pretty, the flowers and turf being imbued with the aspect of freshness in a pleasing degree. The ceremonies were arranged and carried out by Messrs. D. O’Connor, M.L.A., P. J. Holdsworth, T. Butler, P. F. Fagan, T. J. Murray, and W. Martin, Mayor of Waverley. These gentlemen, with the Right Hon. W. B. Dalley, and the aldermen of the borough, viz., Messrs. J. Macpherson, W. H. Simpson, A. C. Hewlet, F. Guest, D. J. Cooper, T. J. Dickson, A. Allen, and R. T. Orr, received his Excellency the Governor at the cemetery gates.

The site upon which the monument stands is at the north-east corner of the vault section of the Church of England burial ground, and was given by the Waverley Council for the purpose to which it has been put. A little more than a month ago, the remains of the deceased poet were removed to their present resting place, after having lain for four years in that part of the cemetery known as the selected section. The monument rises to a height of 25 feet above the adjacent pathway, and is of Italian marble. It exhibits three columns, the centre one being 20 feet high, and the one on either side being much smaller. They rest upon a bluestone pedestal, which, in its turn, is affixed to a base of blue granite inlaid with marble. Each column supports an urn upon which is depicted a scroll and some drapery. The memorial bears the inscription — “Here lies Henry Kendall, poet: Born, 18th April, 1841, died, 1st August, 1882. Some of those who loved and admired him have in grateful and lasting remembrance of his genius built this monument above his ashes.” Beneath this are written the words of Shelley:—

“Awake him not! Surely he takes his fill
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.”

The monument is surrounded with chains, supported by eight small iron standards. It was erected under the supervision of a committee composed as follows: — Messrs. D. O’Connor, M.L.A., Thomas Butler, Peter F. Fagan, T. J. Murray, W. Martin (Mayor), and P. J. Holdsworth (honorary secretary).

Upon Lord Carrington stepping on the platform to perform the ceremony which he was to carry out, Mrs. Kendall, the widow of the deceased, was introduced to him. Subsequently, this lady’s little daughters, Persia Evelyn and Roma, handed to Lord and Lady Carrington respectively wreaths of choice flowers, Mrs. Kendall’s three sons being present at the time. His Excellency then said that it was with very much pleasure that he had accepted the invitation to unveil the monument. He thereupon drew a cord, and thus displaced the two British Ensigns, two Union Jacks, and two colonial ensigns, which had obscured the masonry from view. The Governor having placed the wreaths referred to upon the monument,

Mr. Dalley, in the course of his address said: We have not come here to-day to indulge in any elaborate criticism of the works of a man of genius. As far as we are concerned we have long passed that stage. Our action here would be meaningless if we had not felt his title to our admiration and thankfulness unassailable. Nor are we called upon to vindicate his fame or our judgment in erecting this memorial. We gratefully recognise in such work as we have received at his hands one of the great services that such ministers of refinement and tenderness as he was render to civilisation. (Applause.) What are our obligations to a man of his gifts? They are as varied as our duties, and as deep as our passions. It was one of the noblest and most patriotic of our English statesmen, Charles James Fox, who called “poetry the great refreshment of the human mind — the only thing after all — that men first found out they had minds by making and tasting poetry.” If we feel — as we have felt — that we owe this refreshment to his genius, we need now do no more than express our thanks. We may indeed fondly linger for a short time (and this is perhaps our proper function to-day) over the circumstances which characterise his gifts, and invest them with a charm and beauty which make them more precious and attractive. And thus to enable you to do this, and to think of him tenderly, you must think not only of what he brings to you and lovingly lays at your feet, but of how little the asks of you in return. He invites you to look upon glades and woods and dells with his eyes, to hear with his ears what the trees are saying, and what is the speech of streams. Not from great halls of learning of the old world — from courtly society — from homes of beauty and culture does he come to you and tell you what is in his heart. But he tries to sing to you of a “river in the range” which he loves to think about, and of which he hopes that “the searching feet of change have never found it out;” and he tells you how he has longed to steal the beauty of a brook and put it in a song. It is a boy in your own Australian bush who comes to you and tells you of that screen of gold and green that shades loved places and hides secrets only known to the birds and waters. You read some of these touching pieces with a peculiar tenderness for the gifted but solitary child whose heart is so full of beauty, and of the passionate desire to speak of it. And you feel as if you could wish the young eager singer a future of peace and love and simple pleasure — saying to him, with dear Charles Lamb to Leigh Hunt’s little child in prison,

“Birds shall sing
For thy delight each May morning.”

And it is I think in all the pieces in which he shows a child’s simplicity and tenderness — and sings of Nature and her mysteries of loveliness rather than of men — in those pieces written before the shadow of the prison-house had begun to close upon the young boy — it is in these that he most strongly and tenderly appeals to our hearts. His own education had been that of a child of Nature owing comparatively little to schools, systems, or masters. It is not to be wondered at that when his first verses were submitted to the judgment of English critics one of them should have immediately perceived and said that it was among Australian scenes and in describing incidents of Australian life that he was most happy — and should have selected such pieces as “A Death in the Bush,” “On the Paroo,” “On a Cattle Track,” and “The Hut by the Black Swamp” — as essentially poetical and containing vivid descriptions of Nature. It may be remarked that there is in his formal and modest solicitation of a review at the hands of the editor of an English magazine a proof of how much he felt that with the scenes of his own life and struggles his hopes of poetic fame, however slight, were indissolubly associated. In what the “Athenæum” calls the very sensible letter with which he sends his MSS. at the close of 1865, or beginning of 1866, he says, “In my spare hours, and whenever health and the choking troubles of a really hard life have suffered me, I have written and written on, and the accompanying verses, alive as they must be with a certain intensity of feeling, and naturally shadowed with a remarkable gloom, are at least the genuine results of some of them.” He says, moreover, that he is very anxious for the existence and recognition of an indigenous native literature, and suggests that the editor might devote an article to the subject. Kindly and gracefully and encouragingly does the English critic select two of the pieces sent to him to express his approval of the quality of the work; and advise him to persevere, to seek in the great life around him those human powers of humour, pathos, and beauty which, touched by the gifted hand, cannot fail to win the hearts of the public; and to use his local colouring, a precious treasure, to illustrate truths which are universal. And now we may rest with the conviction that what was urged upon him as the goal of his ambition he endeavoured to attain. Patiently — always very humbly — with hard struggles. with many sharp sorrows and hitter disappointments, amidst distresses and uncongenial employments, he kept fresh in his mind those scenes of strange loveliness which had first met his eyes and gladdened his heart — and gave the pictures of them to us as an eternal enjoyment. Of him it may be said, as Coleridge said of himself, that the scenes of his childhood were so deeply written on his mind that when upon a still shiny day of summer he closed his eyes, the river Otter ran murmuring down the room with the soft tints of its waters, the crossing plank, the willows on the margin, and the golden sands of its bed.

On the motion of Mr. O’Connor, seconded by Mr. Martin, a vote of thanks was accorded Lord and Lady Carrington for their presence.

In reply to the sentiment, his Excellency said he regarded it as a compliment to have been asked to unveil the monument to the memory of one who held so high a place in the literary world. He had been gratified to learn that shortly after the death of Henry Kendall, the Government of the day had placed at the disposal of the widow a position of trust. He was pleased, too, that the eldest son had been very carefully looked after, and he also expressed the hope that the brothers and sisters of the deceased would not in the future be forgotten.

Source:
The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (Sydney, NSW), 27 November 1886, p. 1117

Editor’s notes:
The illustrations of “The Kendall monument” and “The late Henry Kendall” appeared on pages 1114 and 1117, respectively, in the same issue of The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser.

The section about the government having “placed at the disposal of the widow a position of trust” is a reference to Henry Kendall’s widow being given a government job.
See: “Monument to Henry Kendall”, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW), 22 November 1886, p. 3 [“the Government gave Mrs. Kendall a Government position”]

Charles Lamb = (1775-1834), an English author and poet
See: “Charles Lamb”, Wikipedia

Coleridge = Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), an English author and poet
See: “Samuel Taylor Coleridge”, Wikipedia

Dalley = William Bede Dalley (1831-1888), lawyer, NSW politician; he was born in Sydney in 1831, and died in Darling Point (Sydney, NSW) in 1888
See: 1) Martha Rutledge and Bede Nairn, “Dalley, William Bede (1831–1888)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “William Bede Dalley”, Wikipedia

Leigh Hunt = James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), an English author and poet
See: “Leigh Hunt”, Wikipedia

Lord Carrington = Charles Robert Wynn-Carington (1843-1928), 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire (known as Lord Carrington 1868-1895, and Earl Carrington 1895-1912), a British politician; he was Governor of New South Wales 1885-1890
See: 1) A. W. Martin, “Carrington, Charles Robert (1843–1928)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Charles Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire”, Wikipedia

MSS. = (abbreviation) manuscripts

Otter = the River Otter, a river in Somerset and East Devon (England)
See: “River Otter, Devon”, Wikipedia

pathos = compassion or pity; an experience, or a work of art, that evokes feelings of compassion or pity

Shelley = Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), an English poet
See: “Percy Bysshe Shelley”, Wikipedia

thy = (archaic) your

Union Jack = the national flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

[Editor: Changed “J Macpherson” to “J. Macpherson” and “P J. Holdsworth” to “P. J. Holdsworth” (inserted full stops).]