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Landships II -> Landships WW1 Forum -> Miscellaneous -> Lord Roberts' Workshops' Dummy Tank
Post Info TOPIC: Lord Roberts' Workshops' Dummy Tank
James H


Legend

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Lord Roberts' Workshops' Dummy Tank
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Recently came across an episode of a miniseries called "The First Modern War." This one "Armoured Beasts."

It isn't too bad. Several American historians, plus David Willey from Bovington (Tank Museum) and Christy Campbell (author of Band of Brigands). Swinton gets too much credit, as usual. Fleeting glimpse of A7V Elfriede, and no mention whatsoever of French tanks. A British narrator but American vocabulary and the usual hopeless pronunciation of foreign place names. (Why don't they ask someone?)

But that's not the main thing.

As normal, the footage of tanks is entirely random. Marks I to V* in no chronological order at all.

Even worse, for a few seconds, there's a still of what the commentary says is people celebrating the victory at Cambrai. It quite clearly isn't - it's some men wearing dust coats and standing on a dummy tank.

Cheering.jpg

This rang a bell. I was sure I'd looked into this before, but I can't find anything in the archives, so maybe I just read about it. But no matter, because something new has come to light.

The mock-up tank was built to take part in fund-raising parades, by men working for the Lord Roberts Workshops. Field Marshal Lord Roberts V.C. was a distinguished British soldier of the Victorian era who championed the cause of disabled and limbless ex-servicemen. This tells you all about him:

https://www.dollshousespastandpresent.com/issue17june2013p4.htm

Dolls' houses were one of the workshops' principal products. Terribly sad. https://www.britishpathe.com/video/lord-roberts-workshop-memorial-home/query/+LORD+ROBERTS+WORKSHOP

But anyway, that's not all they made.

Robertstank.jpg

 

And the dummy shown at the top of the page. Now these pictures are up for auction. I've taken the liberty of downloading them for safety.

Also, there are a couple of short video clips.

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/londons-model-tank-to-be-used-in-connection-with/query/LORD+ROBERTS+tank

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVA6MQJP23R2YV7B378CULYTJTYM-DISABLED-SOLDIERS-CONSTRUCT-TANK/query/LORD+ROBERTS+tank

The driver of the vehicle is Sergeant Alfred Joseph Richards, V.C., who appears to be this gentleman, one of the 6 won by the Lancs Fusiliers at Gallipoli.

I doubt that anyone will scratch-build it, but I hope it's of interest.

 

 

 



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Tim R


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Wow!!!! Nice find, thanks for sharing.....



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elbavaro


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Yes indeed a nice find!

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James H


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This is a puzzling thing. When I saw the still, I thought I'd come across it before and had a vague feeling that it had some connection with charity or fundraising and some dignitary. But I can't find anything relevant in my files. So if I had seen it before, I mustn't have done anything about it. But now I can't remember how I managed to find it this time, if you understand me. I must have just punched in some key words, and it worked.

Tim - no disrespect to our American friends, but there are some terrible mispronunciations in a lot of documentaries. What happens nowadays is that the "voice actor" gets the script (used to be by fax, now email) and reads it down a line to a studio somewhere. Friend of mine makes a very handsome living doing this, without leaving his home studio. Clients all over the world. The voice-over person doesn't necessarily know anything about the subject, so they're not guaranteed to spot mistakes (hence Kenneth Branagh getting the date of the Armistice wrong!) In the doco I watched, the actor couldn't pronounce "Flers." Villers-Bretonneux is out of the question. They really should ask someone. When I was at the BBC I used to tell people that unless they were absolutely and utterly certain how to pronounce something they should check.

Some docos on the subject are OK. Some are better that others. All could be improved. There's one that discusses Burstyn's contribution and accompanies it with a photograph of his brother! no

 

 

 



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