{"id":6878,"date":"2012-07-09T23:09:48","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T03:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=6878"},"modified":"2012-07-10T08:11:54","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T12:11:54","slug":"sic-transit-gloria-mundi-can-you-recognize-any-of-these-celebrities-from-1914","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2012\/07\/09\/sic-transit-gloria-mundi-can-you-recognize-any-of-these-celebrities-from-1914\/","title":{"rendered":"Sic transit gloria mundi: Can you recognize any of these celebrities from 1914?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I shared a 1917 infographic about aviation<\/a> with you last week that shows how far we’ve come in nearly a century, and now I’ll share an advertisement from an earlier edition of the same newspaper that reflects the passage of time in an entirely different way\u2014for it’s filled with the names of famous people whose patronage is supposed to make us desire a product\u2014and 98 years after their fame, I have no idea who any<\/em> of these people were!<\/p>\n

Time doesn’t always erase the famous. After all, last year I showed you an 1898 ad for Vin Mariani<\/a> in which the product was touted by the likes of Jules Verne, Emile Zola, and Alexandre Dumas. But as for these famous men and women, who thought that “Peps possess a real germ-killing quality” in the November 7, 1914 issue of The Graphic<\/em>, I don’t recognize a single name.<\/p>\n

Do you? Take a look at the ad below, and then tell me whether\u2014without doing online searches\u2014the names carry any meaning for you.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Give up? I did.<\/p>\n

But here’s what I learned from my own Googling.<\/p>\n

Starting in the upper left and going clockwise, we have Lord Rossmore<\/strong>, whose 1914 memoir Things I Can Tell<\/em><\/a> revealed gossip about King Edward, followed by the Hon. Mrs. A. R. Grant<\/strong>, who was famous enough to appear on the frontispiece <\/a>of a 1908 issue of Country Life Magazine<\/em>, but about whom I can divine little else. Then we have the “famous singers” Madame Clara Butt<\/strong> and Mr. Kennerley Rumford<\/strong>, famous enough that there was a picture postcard<\/a> made, followed by Dr. Gordon Stables, R.N.<\/strong>, who may or may not be<\/a> “one of the most prominent of the English imitators of Jules Verne,” depending on whether Peps would run a testimonial from someone who died a few years previous.<\/p>\n

Then comes the Hon. Mrs. M. Brett (nee Zena Dare)<\/strong>, who lived long enough<\/a> to play Mrs. Higgins in the original London production of My Fair Lady<\/em>, followed by Seymour Hicks<\/strong> (famous for the role of <\/a> Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol<\/em>) and his wife Miss Elleline Terris<\/strong> (best known<\/a> for her roles in Edwardian musical comedies).<\/p>\n

Continuing on, we come to E. Marshall Hall, Esq. K.C., M.P.<\/strong>, who defended so many people accused of notorious murders that he became known<\/a> as “The Great Defender,” and finally, The Hon. Alexander Peckover<\/strong>, banker and philanthropist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I knew none of these ten celebrities. How did you do?<\/p>\n

I’m guessing there’s only person on this planet who might know them all without the aid of the Internet.<\/p>\n

Kim Newman, are you listening?<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong> So Kim Newman ended up recognizing three of the 10—Hicks, Butts and Rossmore. How about you?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I shared a 1917 infographic about aviation with you last week that shows how far we’ve come in nearly a century, and now I’ll share an advertisement from an earlier edition of the same newspaper that reflects the passage of time in an entirely different way\u2014for it’s filled with the names of famous people whose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-6878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-old-magazines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}