Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rochdale Cenotaph/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 06:11, 24 September 2017 [1].

Rochdale Cenotaph[edit]

Nominator(s): HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:12, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, another war memorial! This one's in Rochdale, a large town in the north west of England that most non-Brits have probably never heard of, but it has an impressive war memorial. The article has had an A-class review at MilHist and I've tinkered with it slightly since then so I believe it meets the criteria. Nonetheless, I'd be very grateful for any feedback. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:12, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Image review. All images appropriately licensed. DrKay (talk) 12:21, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source review and spot check. Information in the article appears to match that in publicly available sources. DrKay (talk) 12:21, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Meets all the criteria. DrKay (talk) 12:21, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. Well done. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 15:04, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support (my review "disclaimer" here). A very interesting article. Two very minor comments from me, neither of which affect the support, but are worth considering:

Commissioning
  • "Thiepval Memorial to the Missing (the largest British war memorial in the world..." Isn't Thiepval a Commonwealth memorial, rather than solely British?
  • Yes, good point.
  • The last two "Lutyens" in the section could be swapped for "He" and "him" respectively, if you wished.
  • They could, but for flow and clarity I think it's better as it is.

Aside from these very minor bits, an excellent article. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 17:44, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. I'm glad you liked it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:13, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support But a few comments to prove that I've read it.

  • Public subscription raised £29,443 10s, covering the £12,611 cost of the memorial. Any idea what happened to the rest of the money?
    • My guess would be hospital beds or a war widows' fund but weirdly the sources don't say.
  • many other memorials in Britain and the Commonwealth. Suggest linking to Commonwealth of Nations. (I always trip over that term, because in Australia we use "Commonwealth" to refer to the Federal government.
    • Done.
  • The recumbent figure is described as a "soldier" in the lead, but a "human figure" in the article. Is he dressed in a uniform?
    • He's covered by a coat up to his neck, but he's definitely a soldier.
  • Since we are noting Samuel I 25:16, I would point out Ecclesiastes 44:14: "Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore."

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:10, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That second quotation is from Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha (e.g. KJV), not Ecclesiastes — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.251.186 (talk • contribs)
It actually has a slightly more complicated provenance in this case. Rudyard Kipling recommended it to the IWGC and Lutyens adapted it for several of his British memorials and it became almost ubiquitous with war memorials (there's probably enough to support an article there; I might even write it one day if nobody beats me to it), but that's probably too much detail for this article. Whereas the other verse was chosen specifically for this memorial from suggestions by local people so it seems more worthwhile to include it. Thanks very much for the review. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:12, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with minor comments:
  • "Consensus was that the town..." - is there a word missing here? ("The consensus was..."?)
    • I don't think so, but perhaps I've got too used to the way the word is used internally on WP
  • "He designed the Cenotaph on Whitehall..." - he hasn't done that yet in February 1919; "He would design..."?
    • Done (with "went on to" rather than would).
  • "The plan was abandoned when Alderman William Cunliffe, a former mayor, bought the Manor House or the Orchard, a dilapidated 18th-century house and donated the site for the war memorial." - felt like it needed a comma after house, as the sentence becomes a bit hard to follow otherwise.
    • This has been bugging me for while, so I rewrote the sentence.
  • "the building was used as a recruiting station during the war." - "had been"? (imperfect tense feels odd here)
    • I'm not so sure about this, but done.
  • "light grey Cornish granite " - any chance of a link? (at least to granite)
    • We don't have an article on Cornish granite (I always link Portland stone, which Lutyens used a lot) but I can link granite.
  • "another Lutyens design" - should that be "Lutyens'"? Hchc2009 (talk) 18:30, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Errors

  • 1. You've got: "He went on to design the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London, which became the focus for the national Remembrance Sunday commemorations and went on to design the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing on the Somme in France and many other memorials in Britain and the Commonwealth." Notice anything wrong?
    • That's me rewriting the first half of the sentence without paying enough attention to the first. Fixed.
  • 2. You've got: "The flags flank a second, smaller tier with a semi-column at either end and culminates in a smaller plinth supporting a catafalque on which is a sculpture of a recumbent soldier draped with his coat" So, the flags .... culminates. Subject-verb agreement.
  • 3. Do the flags really "culminate" in a smaller plinth (supporting a catafalque on which ...)? From the photo it looks as though the pylon "culminates" thus. The flags appear not to reach the same level as the catafalque. Surely this upper plinth is a design feature of the pylon rather than the flags.
  • 4. RE: "on which is a sculpture of a recumbent soldier". Better might be: atop which, laid upon which, supporting a sculpture of, etc.
    • I've rewritten the entire sentence to fix all three of these (it's the tiers that culminate, not the flags).
  • 5. RE: "Painted stone flags appear in several of Lutyens' designs. They were rejected for Whitehall's Cenotaph in favour of fabric flags, but appear on several other memorials". Notice anything?

Support - I'm not seeing any real issues here, and enjoyed reading. A few small comments

  • Some of technicalities of listed buildings seems unnessesary, eg Grade II is applied to structures of "special interest, warranting every effort to preserve them", about 92 per cent of listed buildings.
  • Actually, I included these as a result of suggestions in reviews for previous articles, and I think it's worth noting that grade I listed building status isn't trivial (of England's thousands of war memorials, only a couple of dozen have that status).
  • Public subscription raised £29,443 10s will be incomprehensible to non-British Isles under 40s; link old money pounds and shillings signs
  • Done.
  • Can you check that Tomb effigy = recumbent effigy
  • Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean but the sources all use "recumbent".
  • Does the the leading English architect of his generation need to be quotes.
  • I suppose the punctuation isn't absolutely essential, but that is a direct quote.
  • Grand, but quotes should be avoided as much as possible; the claim is strong enough and could be couched as "widely regarded as", or something. Not something I'd loose sleep over however. Ceoil (talk) 23:22, 15 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • country houses for wealthy patrons, as English country house is linked, is "wealthy patrons" necessary.
  • I quite like it because it gives context but if you feel strongly it can go.
  • Naa...your the boss for these preferences, and I did say these were minor quibbles only. Ceoil (talk) 23:22, 15 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:50, 15 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • One last thing: By raising the figure above the ground on the pylon, Lutyens gives him anonymity - how so? As worded, I would have thought the opposite. Above the ground rather than in the grave? Ceoil (talk) 00:07, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Harry, I don't think this last point was acknowledged or actioned, but OTOH I don't think we need hold up promotion while you consider... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:11, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from KJP1[edit]

Support - Very nice article on one of the most impressive of the memorials. Just a few thoughts/comments:

  • Listing date in Infobox - I've puzzled over this one before. Does one put in the date of first listing, as here, or the date when the listing was most recently modified, in this case to Grade I on 28 October 2015? I really don't know.
  • I've always gone with the date of first listing. There's normally no reliable way to tell the date of the upgrading, only the date of the last (non-minor) amendment.
  • "He designs the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London" - I know you've been round this, but the present tense reads oddly. "He later designed"? You could replace the second "later" in the sentence with "subsequently".
  • If I have to rewrite that sentence one more time I might cry. I don't think the average reader would be as worried about it as we've been. Ceoil changed it from "went on to design" to "designs" and I've just changed it back (sorry Ceoil!). I'm generally wary of "subsequently" because it's widely misused, but this seems like a legitimate use for it.
  • "the river flowed openly through the town centre but has since been culverted." - And subsequently unculverted [2]. Might be worth a brief mention? Although a little way from the war memorial, it has dramatically improved the town hall setting.
  • I didn't know about that, but I only mentioned the culverting because Lutyens' first proposal was a bridge over the river.
  • "The memorial was constructed by Hobson Limited of Nottingham" - a cite for Hobsons [3]?
  • It's already cited, and mentioned in multiple sources already being used. Much as I love the IWM's project, their entries don't go into any detail that isn't included in the books or the NHLE entry.
  • "The design for the column is based.." - I got a bit confused, thinking that the "column" was a separate feature. "The design for the pylon or cenotaph"? You use both earlier.
  • Pylon works. Done.
  • "allowing onlookers to impart their own emotions onto the memorial" - is this a direct quote from King? I think I know what's meant - the anonymity of the figure allows onlookers to see him as their father/brother etc. Could it be more clearly expressed?
  • It's not a direct quote. What King is suggesting and what Lutyens was aiming for (which I couldn't source until I was looking for something else in King) is that the relative plainness of the memorial and the anonymity of the figure serve as a blank canvas, both for those who lost someone in the war and for everyone who wants to reflect on the war (100 years on, there aren't many people left who lost a close relative in the First World War). If you have a suggestion for improvement, I'm happy to look at it.
  • "Derby was....." - Rather a lot of things; DG, SoS War and Ambassador. Do we need a cite or two for this? You could take them from Lord Derby: King of Lancashire, Randolph Churchill, Heinemann, 1959, oclc=477556332, [4], if you agree. Page 187 gives you DG; page 241 gives you SoS War and page 349 gives you the Paris Embassy.
  • The details we need for this article are all in Skelton (and some of the other existing sources) so I don't think another one is really needed.
  • Wrong Boorman but right Borg. Added.
  • Cite 14 - shouldn't this be Hartwell, Hyde and Pevsner, rather than just Pevsner? And in my 2004 edition , page 56 forms part of the Introduction. The entry for the War Memorial is on page 597. Typo?
  • It's only there to identify the relevant book in the bibliography, and for the one surname (Pevsner being the best known) is sufficient. Fixed the page number though.
  • "The surrounding memorial gardens" - while we're on Pevsner, is it worth mentioning that the gardens, or part of them, form Rochdale's Second World War memorial? (Hartwell|Hyde|Pevsner|p=597)
  • Done.

Hope these are helpful. Nothing to stand in the way of Support. KJP1 (talk) 08:31, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:56, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I was hoping you would say what you said re. the listing date. I've always gone for the first and the prospect of going and changing them was very unappealing! All the best. KJP1 (talk) 05:35, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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