A pair of Second World War stone bookends made from the bomb-damaged House of Commons, featuring British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in medallion portraits cast in lead from the House of Commons roof
London: 1941. This pair of bookends, made of stone from the bomb-damaged House of Commons in 1941, features medallion portraits of British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt cast in lead from the House of Commons roof.
Two features of this set are worthy of note. Such sets are known featuring twin medallions of Churchill or medallions of Churchill and Big Ben. This set features Churchill and Roosevelt, encapsulating perhaps the twentieth century's most significant relationship between world leaders. Second, this is the first set we have encountered to retain the ostensibly original printed sticker. This circular card sticker, originally stuck to the lower face of the bookend featuring FDR, is worn, but the still-legible portions of print, surrounding a printed image of Parliament, read “…STONE | came from the | HOUSES of | PARLIAMENT | …essed in England by | … STONECRAFT”.
The pair weigh nearly 7.5 pounds (3.4 kg) and stand 6.25 inches (15.9 cm) high. Condition is very good. The rough-hewn, modestly soiled stone is in keeping with the aesthetic of its origin. The medallion portraits of Churchill and Roosevelt are only superficially scuffed. Some (presumably original) green felt remains adhered to each base.
The Commons Chamber was destroyed a year to the day after Churchill became wartime prime minister. A year to the day after the October 26, 1950 opening of the rebuilt Chamber, Churchill would become Prime Minister for the second and final time. In the evening of March 1917 during the First World War, Winston Churchill's first biographer, A. MacCallum Scott, had been with Churchill in the House of Commons. Of Churchill and that evening, Scott recalled: "Just before we left the building, he took me by the arm and steered me into the deserted Commons chamber. All was darkness, except from a ring of faint light from concealed lamps under the gallery... 'Look at it!' he said. 'This little place is what makes the difference between us and Germany. It is in virtue of this that we muddle through to success, and for lack of this Germany's brilliant efficiency will lead her to final disaster. This little room is the shrine of the world's liberties.'" (Daily Telegraph, 17 May 1941)
It is remarkable to consider that a quarter of a century after that remark, Churchill would be Prime Minister when the House of Commons was destroyed by Germany. A year to the day after Churchill became wartime prime minister, "On May 10 the worst, and in fact final attack of the Blitz of 1941 was made on London." (Gilbert, Vol. VI, p.1086). An incendiary bomb destroyed the debating Chamber of the House of Commons. One of the iconic photographs of the war is of Churchill, who had by then already spent four decades as a Member of Parliament, standing amid the wreckage. Churchill wrote to his son, Randolph: "Our old House of Commons has been blown to smithereens. You never saw such a sight. Not one scrap was left of the Chamber except a few of the outer walls. The Huns obligingly chose a time when none of us were there.... Having lived so much of my forty years in this building, it seems very sad that its familiar aspect will not for a good many years be before me." (Gilbert, Vol. VI, p.1105)
The Commons Chamber was rebuilt after the war under the direction of architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, simplifying some of the Chamber's old decorative elements, but maintaining "its crowded atmosphere so conducive to adversarial politics." For the reopening of the rebuilt Commons, a programme was produced which noted that when the Commons Chamber was destroyed: "Amid the wreckage the moulded stone archway from the Lobby to the Chamber still stood, scarred, calcined by fire, but not destroyed. At Mr. Winston Churchill's suggestion this arch, still scarred and calcined, has been preserved to form the entrance to the new Chamber."
These large, heavy bookends will be shipped at cost.
Reference: The Book of Churchilliana, Douglas Hall, p.24 & 187. Item #007396
Price: $1,400.00