Your messages and comments about
Hamlet road names...
I used to live in Honey Close which is off Knox
Road at the entrance to the prison. It was named after Charles Honey who
was a governor of the prison in the early 1950s. I believe he had
a son who was governor of Wormwood Scrubs
WT
Can anyone give me an origin for the
Name of Cintra road please?
regards Peter Wright
Peter Wright was asking about the origin of the
name "Cintra Road". The following might help...
"The Convention of Sintra 1808".
At the start of the Peninsula War (1808 - 1814), with Napoleon, the
British landed in Portugal and Sir Arthur Wellesley was the first to
engage the French in battle. The engagement was a success and the French
sued for an armistice. A Convention was signed at the city of Sintra
which has been described as an embarrassment as it allowed the French to
leave Portugal with all its arms and any booty they had gained in
Portugal. The British even supplied the ships to take the French Army
back to France with no reassurance that these soldiers would not return
to the fight. Portugal was liberated from the French and with the
convention of Sintra there was no further bloodshed.
Cintra Road, as you almost certainly know continues on from Wellesley
Avenue South, which was named after Sir Arthur Wellesly.
June Marriage.
Footnote to the enquiry and response to the
naming of this Norwich road.
Living as I do, adjacent to Wellesley Avenue South and having an
interest in The Peninsular War, I have wondered why the avenue's only
tributary was named after the only inglorious event of Sir Arthur's
otherwise splendid campaigns in Portugal. The following however shows
that he was not responsible for the Cintra Convention.
Sir Arthur had planned for the French attack at Vimiero but
reinforcements on both sides persuaded the British War Office that more
senior officers should command the imminent battle. Generals Sir Harry
Burrard and his superior, Sir Hew Dalrymple, were sent to take over from
Wellesley. In the event though, these officers did not disembark before
Sir Arthur had won the day, following which the French commander,
General Junot, sought an armistice at Cintra as described and indeed the
terms described by June Marriage were disgraceful. However, granting
such unprecedented generosity to a defeated enemy was the decision of
Dalrymple, supported by Burrard, who jointly ordered Wellesley to sign
the document, he having been the victorious general. By all accounts he
complied very reluctantly.
There was outrage in England and all three generals were recalled to
face an official enquiry. All three gave their accounts, Wellesley last
and truthfully.
For political reasons which remain obscure, all three were exonerated
but Dalrymple and Burrard were never to see active service again and
slipped into retirement.
During Sir Arthur's absence Sir John Moore took over command of British
forces in the Peninsula and was unfortunately killed at, and his forces
evacuated from, Corunna. Later, his reputation unblemished, Sir Arthur
returned to Portugal in command and, after comprehensively defeating
Marshal Soult at Oporto, eventually drove him and other French forces
out of Portugal and Spain, his campaign culminating in Soult's
abandoning the city of Toulouse to the now Duke of Wellington, he having
been successively ennobled Viscount, Earl, Marquess and Duke and
promoted to Field Marshal along the way.
Cintra thus did not end bloodshed in Portugal. There was merely a break
in Wellesley's part in the war there.
Barry Egerton
