On Sunday, the world will commemorate more than 17-million victims of World War One. For decades, ‘2 Minutes of Silence’ has been an integral part of Armistice Day, which commemorates the end of the War, in 1918.
Since 1919, the British Commonwealth has observed this annually at 11am on the 11th of November. The person who gave ‘2 Minutes Silence’ idea to the British was a South African – Sir Percy Fitzpatrick – who’s famously known as the author of ‘Jock of the Bushveld’.
Dr Garth Bennyworth, from the Department of Heritage Studies at Sol Plaatje University, explains. “The whole tradition of Remembrance Day actually started in Cape Town in May 1918 when the war was still in process. Every day at 12:00 there would be a 2 minute silence and this tradition carried on until the end of the war. So Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, a well-known SA novelist, whose own son had been killed in the war, was taken by the silence at the church that he attended. He then wrote to Lord Milner who then petitioned the King of Britain who immediately approved the idea. So when the first annual Armistice came up in 1919, the two minute silence was adopted. This was Cape Town and SA’s gift to the British Commonwealth.”
