The Battle of Britain commemorative lace panel

 

The 80th anniversary of the Victory in Europe day, following the second world war, seems an appropriate time to blog about the Battle of Britain commemorative lace panel. The large panel (it is 450 cm long and 163 cm wide) was made by the Nottingham lace company of Dobson and Browne between 1942 and 1946 to celebrate the famous air battle of 1940, which was a pivotal moment in the war. In 1940, Britain was the only major power opposing the Nazis and Adolf Hitler planned to invade Britain to bring an end to that final opposition. He knew that without a functional airforce an invasion of Britain would probably succeed. The German offensive began in July 1940 targetting airfields and cities and the British retaliated by bombing German sites.

The most intense battle occurred on 15 September when the Germans sent two waves of 500 aircraft across the English Channel. It resulted in the greatest defeat the German airforce had experienced and we know it as the Battle of Britain. Two days later Hitler cancelled the invasion plans although the bombing continued until May 1941.

The bombing was very destructive of lives and property and photographs of the bomb damage in London were used as the basis for the images in the panel. This panel depicts the damage to St Clement Danes Church, while the image above shows the dramatic moment a building collapses in Queen Victoria Street.

This depiction of St Paul’s Cathedral shows the undamaged building rising above the smoke and destruction of the Blitz and became an iconic image representing the resilience of London and Londoners. The commemorative panel was designed by Harry Cross, a professional lace designer, and includes eight images of bomb scenes as well as St Paul’s, a cottage and castle and the floral emblems of the commonwealth airforces that took part in the battle. It also includes a stylised image of the aircraft involved and an airman preparing for the battle as well as an abbreviated version of Winston Churchill’s famous and very apt words that ‘Never was so much owed by so many to so few’.

If you are interested in finding out more about the panel I’ve written about different aspects of it in various publications (as well as this blog), most recently in Reading the thread edited by Lesley Millar and Alice Kettle, published by Bloomsbury. I’ve also written about its production and my commission to produce a contemporary response to it in Textile: cloth and culture 18(1) 24-38 which you can access for free via the link below https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/4FNFA2Z8U8DBTUWKP4ZK/full?target=10.1080/14759756.2019.1646497