What do Lord Kitchener, Mark Twain, Arthur Balfour and innumerable royals from across the world have in common? The answer is that they are among the many worthies who were greeted by S T Mann at Windsor Station during his tenure as Station Master, a position he held from 1903 to 1925.
In 1941, Mann wrote a brief memoir of his time as Windsor Station Master, and the result is a fascinating record of the diplomatic and cultural influence exerted by the Royal Family from their base in Windsor during the early years of the twentieth century. Windsor acted as a place where foreign heads of state – be it the King of Siam, the Czar of Bulgaria, or the President of France – could witness the British Royalty in all its rich majesty and decorum.
The memoir also acts as a rather poignant record of the political upheaval that occurred in the early years of the 20th Century. For example, 1905 saw a visit from King Carlos I of Portugal. Around three years after the visit, he would be assassinated in Lisbon. His son Manuel succeeded him and visited Windsor in 1909, where he presented Mann with "a beautiful diamond pin with his initial M in the centre". A year later, the Portuguese monarchy was overthrown, and Manuel was forced to flee. A similar fate would befall King George I of Greece, who visited in 1909 and was assassinated in 1913.
But the most notable example is Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, who visited in 1914. S T Mann's memoir generally provides minimal historical context and is sparing in descriptions. However, in this case he paints an unusually expressive when describing the Archduke and Archduchess's departure from Windsor following a lavish banquet:
"...we had the Station well lighted and as they all came down just as they had been at Dinner it was one of the most brilliant scenes I have seen, the jewels sparkled in the brilliant light and the steel breastplates of the Life Guards shon[e] like silver"
Perhaps it is unsurprising that Mann's recollection of this event should be so vivid. After all, at the point when he was writing, he knew what was about to follow. In case the reader is unaware, he quite bluntly describes what happened next in the following sentence:
"Soon after they returned home they were both assassinated and that was the start of the Great War"
During the four long years of World War One, S T Mann's stayed on as Windsor Station Master, but his role changed considerably. Organising the arrival and departure of celebrities and foreign dignitaries on their way to lavish parties was largely replaced by the management of vast numbers of injured soldiers coming in by hospital trains. When there was a royal event, it had a very different tone. For example, in 1916 there was an enormous tea party hosted in Windsor Grand Park for wounded soldiers.
On this day, Mann recalls seeing "two men walking down the platform, both had lost both legs well above the knee". He describes them as "very cheerful and smoking cigarettes, but looked in the distance like little boys".
Mann held the position of Windsor Station Master for seven years after the Great War, retiring in 1925 (though briefly returning during the 1926 General Strike). The war saw the overthrow of many monarchies across Europe, so such visits were less frequent, and often less lavish. S T Mann's short memoir provides a remarkable insight into an incredibly volatile period in European history, one which saw a marked decline in imperial and royal power. He regularly met and interacted with figures that were, or would prove to be, the embodiment of that decline. And yet, in his memoir he is clearly not interested in conveying any kind of grand historical narrative. It is simply a record of a man who performed his duties as Station Master with diligence, care, and pride.