New Plan for Immigration

Dr Maya Goodfellow
Research Fellow, Sheffield University.

Just when I am in full flow about the awfulness of the Republican Party’s gross rush to pass legislation suppressing voters in 43 States in the U.S., [ over 350 separate pieces of legislation, and counting…] I bought a New York Times yesterday [2/04/2021] and the lead political column on the front page was entitled: A Britain Now Built On Cruelty. The writer, Maya Goodfellow, a Research Fellow at Sheffield University, was commenting on the new immigration plan put forward by the ghastly Priti Patel, Home Secretary. Maya describes its proposals as “deeply sinister

Priti Patel.

”. Apparently, Priti, [I suspect a deeply authoritarian upbringing here!], proposes to welcome immigrants only coming via re-settlement schemes [fewer than 1% globally]. Others taking the only ways open to them of paying huge sums to people-smugglers, hiding on boats or on/under lorries, risking all, including loss of life, to reach Britain from non-E.U. countries, will be blocked from State support if they successfully arrive, given diminished family rights and be permanently liable for removal even if granted asylum.

Since Boris et al came to power, the UK immigration system has hardened. From January 1 this year, a points-based system was introduced which applies to both E.U and non-E.U. countries, thereby extending the unjustness of the non E.U. immigration rules to

Europeans, who before Brexit could go to live freely anywhere in the UK. Thus, there are now outrageously high immigration fees; limited or no access to basic state support; annual high fees to use the National Health Service [whether or not individuals pay taxes] In addition there is the new points system; thus 20 points if an immigrant has a job offer from a Government-approved firm;

Boris with flag collage.

10 points for a job-appropriate PhD; minimum income offered of £25,000 per annum; plus certain mandatory, job-specific skills. Effectively, low-paid workers are excluded. This increasingly immigrant-hostile system, since the General Election in 2019, has enabled Govt. representatives to ignore strong advice from a variety of civic organisations, to ensure all migrants were protected from Covid19, regardless of status, including access to health care and other public services. Some immigrants have remained locked in detention centres in spite of Covid outbreaks in some, and while ample travel advice and warnings against international travel have been available to the general population, immigrants have continued to be detained and many to be deported, often removed from family in Britain. Over 20 deportation flights took place during 2020, as boasted by Boris. There is, obviously, no safety net for the many who are already in the U.K. who dare not seek health advice or treatment in case of official apprehension and deportation.

It makes me even more ashamed to be British to learn from Maya that this anti-immigrant rhetoric and context, which I have vaguely heard but not considered, has been official policy for decades, at least since the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act aimed at making it more difficult for people of colour to go to the UK to live and work. This links uncomfortably but surely to the wretched colonial system which enriched Britain among others, while draining wealth from the colonies. Boris et al are simply taking it to the next level; interesting, nay, enraging, how a self-proclaimed liberal bon viveur, often a stranger to the truth, will tighten the screws on the unprotected once he has the power to do so.

And meantime, I have been waxing indignant, not to say furious, at the Republican cult, ignoring a basic principle that electors choose their political representatives, as the G.O.P. seeks through law to choose its preferred electors and disenfranchise the unwanted, the poor and the blacks, all in the ‘game’ of acquiring, and keeping, power.. Quite apart from other considerations, it is irritating not to be able to feel a tiny bit more superior to the racist former slave states but, thanks to Boris et al, I cannot.

I always shudder, inwardly, at American racism, especially visible in the Southern States, and the strong American belief in its own exceptionalism. And now with Boris and the Brexiteers firmly in control in the UK, I am dismayed, indeed horrified, to witness the degree of anti-immigrant legislation and open hostility of the Government towards migrants. Plus, there are Conservative murmurs of British exceptionalism and ……….unbelievably ………talk of flags on municipal buildings. Horror of horrors! The leading taken-for-granted facet of American life which never fails to repel is the way ALL politicians have to affirm their belief in God [the Christian one, obviously] AND in patriotism. And I haven't even mentioned Trump who gave permission for, encouragement to, people to display their worst inclinations.

Trump mania intermixed with religiosity.
Frightening combination.

Difficult to get rid of the imperialist mindset.

Maya Goodfellow is the author of, Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats.

Catching My Eye.

 

The incomparable Yo Yo Ma and his cello.

  Two or three news items have recently caught my eye plus, a local bakery’s innovation deserves mention.

The first one a week or two ago, featured world-famous cellist, Yo Yo Ma who took along his cherished cello when he attended the Berkshire Community College for his second Covid19 vaccination. He had, no doubt, cased the joint as they say, on his first visit so, after his jab, he sat in the entrance hall for maximum listening availability and played for fifteen minutes, calming down the background chatter and clatter, and delighting the listeners who had, by chance, happened upon a mini spontaneous concert of rare beauty. He subsequently said that he wanted to give something back. I thought how lovely his gesture had been but what totally cracked me up was the comment of Lesley Drage, lead clinical manager of the vaccination site. She thoughtfully ruminated, “So weird how peaceful the whole building became, just having a little bit of music in the background!” Would guess, Yo Yo, that the lucky audience really appreciated your little bit of background music and would like to join me in thanking you for your wonderful and generous idea..

And now, today, the news that the Thornton’s
sweet and chocolate shops are all to close, the latest victim of the change in shopping habits and customer taste. At its heyday in the 60s and 70s, Thornton’s had 450 shops and had tried repeatedly over the last decade, as it gradually closed some shops, to diversify with cafes and ice cream but to no avail. The remaining 61 shops will close with the loss of 600 jobs. Immediately I saw the name, I vividly remembered my mother always buying my children for their Christmas stockings, a flat metal tin of Thornton’s toffee complete with little metal hammer for the subsequent, satisfying smashing of the almost impenetrable adamantine goo. Anything from Thornton’s was a Treat with its ‘handmade’ Continental chocolates and delicious toffee but I suppose, looking back, it never essentially up-dated its product or experimented with its produce. It was light years away from the chic, elegant, unexpected offerings of, for example, Hotel Chocolat. I suppose that the British palate has also moved much more to dark chocolate than the overwhelming milk chocolate so popular in the 60s and 70s. And, unnoticed, the British palette has become more sophisticated, not a phrase I ever expected to write!!

Jeanine Pirro fulminating against anything said
by Immigration Attorney, David Leopold

Today, during what I always consider ‘a well-earned’ coffee break, I idly looked at my phone. Chanced across an extract from the David Packham Show featuring a clip from the dreaded Fox News,

Fox News H.Q. New York.
Unlikely to the choice of thinking people.

Justice With Judge Jeanine.. The interviewer who seemed permanently intoxicated with rage, was opining that Biden was sending all these immigrants infected with Covid across the Southern borders. Her guest was an Immigration Attorney, David Leopold, whose quiet answers seemed in danger of being swamped by the interviewer, Jeanine Pirro. He simply answered questions factually, when allowed, about the current refugee and Covid situations but truly and finally set his hostess alight when he veered into opinion and said calmly that it was Biden who was doing so much and making America great again. Complete immolation of hostess Jeanine who promptly cut him off, after thanking him “for nothing”, saying [hilariously] “I don’t tolerate lies on my show!” Beyond parody! Apparently the millions of Trump [or “Former Guy 45” as Tony Dortie now refers to him] supporters watch Fox. Apart from initially wondering why, I do understand that it is because opinion, often inflamed opinion, is presented as Fact and the audience chiefly knows no better, that the deeply-flawed Fox News is felt to be authentic and satisfying. It can safely be relied upon to support, encourage and inflame feelings of White extremism, racism, uncompromising, Godly Right Wingery and distrust/dislike/fear of Government. America, perhaps much of the world, has a huge problem if millions do not understand the difference between opinion and fact, AND moreover, do not wish to know the difference.

And finally …………… a tribute to my local bakery, Sint Paulus, who, as well as selling a fab range of breads, also has cakes/tarts, milk, yoghurt, eggs, jams and cheeses for sale, introduced a small range of Gin during Lockdown. Not sure if this was out of concern for the all-round mental health of its customers, or simply a worthy attempt to distract from the restrictions of Lockdown. Whatever! Seems inspired. Sint Paulus is one of the many reasons why I so love living here!

Customer eye's view of Sint Paulus

Pure Pink Gin
Royal Premium
No Nonsense Gin.
The inspired latest offering from the wonderful
local bakery!

A lovely addition to a nearby building
which may open as a cafe\
Eventually.

Upstart Crow.

Maggie O'Farrell.

 My son recently sent me a copy of Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020. It is an extraordinary novel, its prose is often lyrical and beautifully sustained in describing emotions and events, funeral rituals and detailing the journey of the plague. Sometimes its story is unbearable. The heroine is Anne Hathaway, rechristened as directed by her father in his will, as Agnes. She is a woman in her mid twenties from a family of affluent yeoman farmers, old, then, to be unmarried; she married the 18 year old son of a brutish Stratford glove-maker, a bully and an unpopular man. The son, never named, has had a good education and has become a Latin tutor to the children of the wealthier citizens of Stratford, those with pretensions. When they wed, she is pregnant and six months later, gives birth to Susanna; two years along the road, identical twins Hamnet and Judith [named after friends and neighbours of the couple] appear…

William Shakespeare 
April 23rd 1564-
April 23rd 1616.
He was 52, quite old in an age when
the average age of death was 35.

Agnes dominates the narrative; her husband is never named and she appears not to notice, or to dismiss, his gradual success as a playwright and the leader of a theatre company, appearing at Court from time to time. Chiefly, he lives in London. The gradual wealth he earns and sends home, is never discussed even when it permits the removal of the family into a huge and beautiful new home in Stratford. Everyone seems mystified as to how the Shakespeares have managed to become wealthy. The prescient details of how the plague spreads from a cabin boy and a monkey in Alexandria by degrees and chance encounters, to Stratford is brilliantly observed and should offer pause for thought to anti-vaxxers now. Twin Judith is infected but despite all, it is her twin Hamnet who catches the plague from her and dies at 11. The grief of both mother and twin is overwhelming but it is the grievous loss to the oft-absent father which is even more moving. He writes Hamlet three years after his much-loved son’s death in a sort of atonement and perhaps to demonstrate to his wife and himself the overwhelming grief he feels over their loss. Hamnet and Hamlet were “entirely interchangeable” names as seen in parish records in Stratford during the late

Globe Theatre, built by Shakespeare's company of players,
1599,destroyed by fire.
   June 29th 1613.

16^th and early 17^th centuries.

Having just been moved with sadness and admiration for Maggie O’Farrell’s lyrical re-imagining of the death of Hamnet and the Shakespeare story. I happened to see the phrase, “upstart crow” somewhere and I remembered the Shakespearean connection. In fact the description is the title of Ben Elton’s adaptation of the critically-acclaimed BBC TV sitcom starring David Mitchell which moved to the Gielgud Theatre in February 2020. It is a satirical Black-Adderesque comedy which has been much-lauded. I hadn’t known that the description came from one of Shakespeare’s rivals, Robert Greene, who published, “at his dyeing request”, a tract called Greene’s Groats-Worth of Witte bought with a million of Repentance. It describes” the follie of youth, the falsehood of make-shifte flatterers, the miserie of the negligent, and mischiefes of deceiuing Courtezans” and makes public criticism of his many enemies. Its singular title quotes, “an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers” and this is meant for Shakespeare. It is the first mention of Shakespeare in print [September 20, 1592.], and is both an accusation of his plagiarism and the intellectual disparagement of Shakespeare as someone who had not attended university. [Greene had attended both Oxford and Cambridge!] Greene also refers to Shakespeare as “an absolute Johannes fac totum” [or Jack-of-all-trades] a reference to the fact that Shakespeare was an actor-manager as well as a playwright.

Kenneth Branagh as Will
in All Is True.

/Ben Elton

A timely footnote is that I happened across Kenneth Branagh’s All Is True [2018] on Netflix the other evening; it is a story suffused with melancholy as it tells the elegiac tale of Shakespeare’s retirement in 1610 after the complete destruction by fire of the Globe Theatre. He sets about trying to establish himself as part of the Stratford household he knows so little, and re-designing his large garden as he ponders his life, often regretting past events. The narrative is imagined differently from Hamnet in some ways, in particular Hamnet’s death, and the portrayal of Anne/Agnes, but the stoical sadness of Anne, his wife, and the clear unhappiness of his daughter Susanna in her marriage, and of Judith, Hamnet’s twin, who lives with her parents, suffuses his life. Interestingly, the script-writer for both Upstart Crow and All Is True is Ben Elton who seems to be developing a Shakespearian monopoly. His script-writing is impeccable.

Globe interior.

Robert Greene's Groats-worth of Witte

Southwark where Shakespeare spent much
of his life and wrote most of his body of work

Cover of Maggie O'Farrell's
extraordinary book.

Georgia on my Mind.

 

Potus

I try hard to be less obsessive about American politics; a little easier in this relatively Trump-free period. My horror at his person and his personality and his politics has reduced in intensity as his exposure has been reduced and his power, diminished. The profound gratitude for his relative absence from the stage is coupled with relief at the policies of the rather more grown-up Biden administration. However, my interest in American politics continues despite good intentions, as I witness what seems to be the withering of democracy in that benighted country, always pronouncing itself as the greatest while showing, day to day, its entrenched racism and appetite for corruption in the search for political power. One State’s example will suffice before I move on with the vow to donate no more time and space on this blog to American politics!

Anti-democratic reverberations
from Trump's Big Lie.

Georgia ran one of Trump’s “rigged” 2020 elections with alleged widespread voter fraud for which no evidence emerged. Following Trump’s example that no evidence means you can just make up alternative fiction providing it is destructive, this week the Georgia Legislature passed a flurry of measures aimed at protecting the integrity of their elections by restricting voting access, primarily aimed at black voters. The proposals directly target the methods used in the run-up to the 2020 election to increase the black vote. Limiting early Sunday morning voting, for instance, is a direct attack on “Souls to the Polls”, a ‘get-out-to-vote’ exercise led by Black churches. A CNN analysis found that black voters made up 34.6% of the voters who cast early ballots on the three weekends preceding the election; these would be
eliminated under the new proposals. The same bill prohibits free food and drinks from being served to those standing in the apparently endless queues waiting to vote;

volunteers frequently served pizza and chips to voters waiting to vote at predominantly Black precincts in the Atlanta area. Who knew that the battle to reduce the black franchise would importantly involve the humble pizza?

The legislative package which passed in the State Senate, [it must be said, by “a narrow majority”], would also repeal the so-called ‘no excuse absentee voting’, a method used by 1.3 million Georgia voters in last November’s election. I think absentee voting means postal voting for which no excuse is normally needed in democracies; it is simply an alternative way to vote which has in-built safeguards. Repealing this absentee voting measure is deemed advantageous to 65+ white voters while being disadvantageous to millions of black voters. It takes a certain dedication, and perhaps panic, to custom-build this degree of cynical manipulation into the electoral process. AND astonishingly, to do it in the full glare of publicity in the comfortable knowledge that white voters in Georgia approve. Mass white protests are not expected!!

Demonstrators chained together outside the
State Capitol building. March 2021.

While these [and other] Georgian, presumably Republican, measures suggest that truly democratic voting available to all, means that Republicans believe that they cannot easily win fair elections in the future. Martin Luther King, son of the famous father, suggests that more than 250 legislative measures, currently being hastily assembled across 43 states, are a more “sophisticated” version of the Jim Crow practices which prevented black voting in the past. If passed, almost nationwide, these anti-democratic ‘rules’ would certainly reduce the black vote by providing sufficient obstacles to ensure voter apathy. So now we see how the “greatest democracy in the world” operates! Voting suppression aimed at blacks through lawful means. Let us hope that Biden & Co manage to enact counter measures nationally which protect, and encourage, the black vote. Surely at some point, all those red-faced, angry people in MAGA hats which really read, Make America White Again, will begin to understand that America’s future is indeed, multi-coloured. And perhaps ALL Americans will realise that their democracy is currently being degraded possibly beyond repair.

Lt Gov. Geoff Duncan [centre]

Stacey Abrams.

I now read of Hope appearing in Georgia! A leader of the Georgia business community, Andrea Young, said that her group would block all voting restrictions with appeals to the State’s corporate interests. “As a business community, you can’t talk about racial justice and then stand by and let voting rights be pushed back,” she told a CNN interviewer this week. Georgia’s Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, [no lily-livered liberal one would assume from his website] who normally presides over the Senate, left the chamber Monday during the debate to signal his opposition to ending no-excuse absentee voting and to demonstrate his own stated belief that simply modernising and updating the franchise system would be preferable. And there is, of course, the redoubtable Stacey

Abrams, CEO of Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group which she founded and grew with fanatic energy! Her intentions are to go as far as the courts and Congress in the search for franchise fairness; a large part of the Democrats’ recent election successes in Georgia can be attributed to the Herculean efforts of Stacey et al over several years and it is their successes in November 2020 and January 2021 that are causing the unseemly panic to restrict black votes in Georgia [and far beyond]. As voting rights attorney, Marc Elias said on the Rachel Maddow show, on Tuesday last, “in Iowa, in Arizona, in Montana, in Florida, in Texas, in Missouri, in Georgia …..” democracy is under threat in many states through legislation leading to voting suppression.

Absentee Ballot Application.

Voting line somewhere in Georgia.

Ezelstraat 83: Godshuis Sint Joos.

 

Coat of Arms of England 1471.

Part of the original Ezelstraat 83.

Someone drew to my attention recently the Sint Joos Godshuis on Ezelstraat which reputedly had an English connection in its history so I have mined the Internet to discover exactly what. I just love the history of Bruges in all its amazing complexity, echoed in its multiplicity of buildings , bridges, water pumps, canals. Discovering past connections here, often leads to such interesting results.

Ezelstraat 83 is no exception! The Sint Joos hospital was originally established in the late 1340s as a passantenhuis, a house for passers-by providing temporary accommodation for homeless people, vagrants and poor pilgrims, close to the important Ezelpoort. Jacob de Mey and his wife, Liesbette were a prominent burgher and wife who founded the almshouse within the strong tradition of charity provided by the more powerful and rich citizens of Brugge. Gratifyingly, prominent acts of charity like this, also burnished an important person’s already bright credentials. The original buildings comprised a house and nine almshouses, cameren, and they were donated, quite quickly, by the de Mey couple in 1352 to the Sint Joos Guild of which they were members. The Guild had existed before 1287 and had a long history of involvement in municipal charitable works and after 1462, when Louis de Gruuthuse became Dean of the Guild, the foundation membership was further expanded and increased donations resulted, facilitating more opportunities for charitable work.

Louis de Gruuthuse inspecting an
astronomical clock.

One of the main donors in this period, was Bruges nobleman and burgher, Joos de Bol, and from October 9th 1470 he, and Louis de Gruuthuse, both hosted King Edward 1V who had fled England to gather support in Flanders for his fight for the English crown during the prolonged Wars of the Roses [1455-1487] between the Tudors [red rose], the Lancastrians, and the Plantagenets [white rose], Yorkists. Edward stayed in Flanders, usually in Brugge, raising men and finance, until he was able to successfully invade England in April 1472 and resume the throne. To show his gratitude for Flemish loyalty during his exile, Edward awarded Joos de Bol the right to display and wear, the English national flag.

Edward 1V 

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the passenten and the house became an old people’s home with residents chosen from deserving elderly members of the Guild of basket-bearers or ‘purseekers’, by the Sint Joos Guild and the Stock Exchange Guild. The foundation’s chapel had been inaugurated in 1449 and subsequently in 1585, Canon of Sint Donaas, Joos Lambrecht founded a house of worship there for twelve elderly men. Fourteen rooms were built between 1758 and 1760 after which, eighteen men were able to stay there. Over a long passage of time, deterioration of the buildings gathered pace and by the end of the nineteenth century, the chapel had become a mere depot and the houses been gradually emptied. In the twentieth century, improvements were intermittently carried out [1924; 1955;1994] and five houses remained by 1995.

Louis's magnificent Gruuthuse Palace
where Edward 1V often stayed.

The chapel which had been richly endowed but which had, too, fallen into disrepair, was given a gradual programme of restoration from 1957 culminating in the opening of an ecumenical chapel in 1992. From 1995 the chapel was used for Orthodox worship and a few years later, was set up as an Orthodox Church for the parish of Saints Constantine and Helena. The ecumenical chapel was moved to the adjacent former caretaker’s house in the little complex.

This is the story of an act of  mediaeval charity towards the homeless and poor pilgrims which narrated its way through the ages to finish as an apparently richly-endowed Russian Orthodox Church. Astonishing indeed. Why the Orthodox religion I do not yet know but the journey from poverty to opulence is stunning.

Orthodox Church
Saints Konstantijn & Helena.

Transformation.
From passantenhuis to 
Orthodoxekerk.
1350-1995.
Celebrated 20 years of worship
April 2015.

Edward's signature on the Chronicle he issued, recording his historic arrival back in England and the recovery of his "Kingdomes" from Henry V1 in April 1471.
There were two copies, two versions. One full copy for official English use and one abridged version in French
which was sent to the citizens of Brugge in appreciation of their hospitality.

Lewis Chess Men

 

Splendid Lewis chess pieces from
the late 12th century.

Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit

The Queen's Gambit

was quite a sensation last year and apparently contributed strongly to a resurgence of interest in learning to play the game. By chance, a week ago, I watched another film from 1993 on Netflix, Innocent Moves, featuring an intuitively brilliant 7 year old chess prodigy, who worshipped Bobby Fischer and his success as world chess champion over Boris Spassky, I also noted a passing reference to the Lewis Chess men in an article in the New York Times. As a non-player who can applaud the passion for the game, I decided to unearth the history and possible provenance of the Lewis chess men. They are seriously antique but the current interest is contemporary and underlines the huge attraction this game has held for people over many centuries.

Innocent Moves

In fact chess originated in India as the ancient game of chaturanga; during the reign of King Khosrau of Persia, [531-579] a gift from an Indian Prince to his court included a chess game of 16 pieces of emerald and 16 pieces of ruby [green vs red].After the eventual Islamic conquest of Persia, the game of chess spread, via Andalusian Spain, to mediaeval Europe. It became an important part of elite mediaeval society, a way of practising and demonstrating skill and strategy in a war-like setting. Many of the mediaeval chess pieces are still familiar to those who play today. There were other contemporary games of skill, different from but similar to, chess such as tables and hnefatafl; tables is similar to today’s backgammon and hnefatafl used similar pieces to those in chess such as kings and pawns; a king, surrounded by guards has to reach a corner square before being captured by his opponent. A grid for playing hnefatafl scratched on a piece of stone was found in Inchmarnock in
Scotland, one of 35 playing boards discovered there.

Knights Templar playing chess.

Grid for playing hnefatafl found
in Inchmarnock

The Lewis Chess Men were found, buried on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides; the hoard contained 93 gaming pieces, from at least four chess sets as well as from other games. They were probably made in the late 12^th or early 13^th centuries and the style of the carving links the pieces to Trondheim in Norway; the Lewis figures’ thrones are particularly reminiscent of carving in mediaeval Norwegian churches. Most of the Lewis pieces are made from walrus ivory, probably obtained in Greenland and traded back to Norway but five of the pieces are carved from sperm-whale teeth. All the pieces belong to the Scandinavian world of which the Hebrides were then a part. Certainly at the time the sets were buried, Lewis belonged to the Kingdom of Norway and the culture was a mix of Gaelic and Scandinavian and even after the Isles were ceded to Scotland in 1266, ties to Norway remained close, with the local bishops still part of the bishopric of Trondheim.

The beach at Uig where the chess men were 
discovered.

There is no information as to who buried the chess sets and why. They may have been the valuable property of a merchant sailing from Scandinavia to Scotland, Ireland or the Isle of Man to sell these highly-prized sets. But given the close ties to Norway, Lewis would have been home to some powerful and rich people and the valuable chess men, a treasured possession of a local leader, prince or bishop. No ordinary family could have afforded to own them. But the mystery of their burial, no doubt to hide, keep safe and later retrieve, perhaps during a shipwreck, will never be solved.

The splendid treasure was discovered by Malcolm MacLeod from nearby Pennydonald, in a sand bank at the head of Camas Uig on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland in early 1831. He briefly exhibited them in his byre before selling it all to Captain Roderick Ririe in the same year. Ririe briefly showed the Chess Men on 11^th April 1831 with the Society of Antiquaries after which ten pieces were sold to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe while the other 67 chessmen and 14 table-men were bought by the British Museum. Somehow, eventually, Sharpe acquired an 11^th piece and sold all eleven fifty years later, in 1888, to Lord Londesborough who sold them on to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland from where they went, donated, to the Royal Scottish Museum of Edinburgh. A resting place in two parts following a chequered career over nine centuries, still magnificently intact. The Lewis Chess Men are a testimony first to supreme artistry; second to good fortune; third to the old urge to preserve evidence of mankind’s earlier days and last, to the strong desire to preserve continuity in our national story.

The beautiful but expensive Warder identified
and sold in July 2019.

Footnote.

After discovering, and writing, the above I stumbled upon the fact that as recently as July 2019 one of the four [always] missing Warders from the Lewis Chess Men, had been sold at Sotheby’s for the unbelievable sum of £735,000 to an anonymous buyer who purchased it from the deceased former owner’s family. It had been in the possession of this previous owner for 55 years after he had purchased it from a Scottish antiques dealer for £5 [1964] The former director of the British Museum, Neil McGregor, in his highly successful and influential History of the World in 100 Objects, included the Lewis Chess Set describing it as illustrating high status, wealth and power in its original owners, and also paying tribute to their knowledge, taste and intellect.