Death and glory

It is repeatedly said at present that, although the only British prime minister in this or the last century to be accorded a state funeral has been Winston Churchill, in recognition as his role as leader during the second world war (the simple description 'war leader' is no longer particularly distinguishing amongst modern British prime ministers), nineteenth-century prime ministers such as Disraeli and Gladstone were given state funerals.

It appears to be a mistaken belief and that they also were given not state but public funerals:

"A public funeral was one paid for by Parliament through a resolution to the monarch. It was, and remains, a very rare event. In the nineteenth century only Nelson, Pitt the Younger, Charles James Fox, R. B. Sheridan, George Canning, the Duke of Wellington, Palmerston, and Napier of Magdala had been so buried (several had been offered and declined, for example Beaconsfield and Russell). Palmerston was the best precedent (and he had made the same requirement about his wife), but he had died in the Parliamentary recess and the procedures had had to be short-circuited. The Wellington funeral had been a lavish but rather chaotic affair; the catafalque being too heavy for the road which gave way under it in St James’ and too large to get through the gates of St Paul’s (where both Nelson and Wellington were buried) and the congregation was thus kept waiting for over an hour. Gladstone’s funeral was to be the first public funeral with a recognisedly modern aspect – worldwide press coverage via telegraph and the procession filmed."  

Moreover, the records of Glastone's funeral show it as, by current standards, a rather subdued affair without pomp and bombast. It was also the custom that the monarch, or members of the royal family, did not attend and Victoria had no intention of doing so (having ensured that news of Gladstone's death was entirely omitted from the court circular by means of an 'oversight', in contrast with the effusive mention of Disraeli's death, which she had herself written - Victoria, for all her popular reputation, was not the model of propriety that is our present queen). However, the prince of Wales defied her and acted as one of the pall bearers.

Gladstone left the rather ambivalent instruction in his will that his burial was "‘to be very simple unless they [his Executors] shall consider that there are conclusive reasons to the contrary’. Of course there are other ways of arranging one's own funeral.

The deaths of others

Julius Stwertka (Concertmaster, Violin I)

Julius Stwertka was 66 years old when Nazi Germany carried out its infamous Anschluss with Austria in March 1938. A distinguished musician, recruited by Gustav Mahler, he was violinst and then Konzertmeister with the Philharmonic, and is pictured in a black and white photo from 1935 sitting in the pit next to Wilhelm Furtwängler. The Anschluss unleashed 250 new anti-Semitic laws and a wave of anti-Jewish violence. Stwertka and his wife Rosa were deported to the Jewish ghetto in Theresienstadt. He survived for just a few weeks, dying in December 1942. His wife was sent to Auschwitz in 1944. Her date of death is unknown.

Armin Tyroler Armin Tyroler (Oboe II)

Armin Tyroler was one of the Philharmonic's most celebrated musicians. A teacher, professor of music, and a campaigner for better conditions for his less fortunate colleagues, Tyroler was honoured by the city of Vienna in 1933. In his acceptance speech he argued that musicians could only be artists if they were freed from hardship. He called Vienna his "adored city" and said he wanted it to be a "city of songs, a city of happiness". In 1940 Tyroler and his second wife Rudolfine were forced to move home, then in 1942 sent - together with the Stwertkas - to Theresienstadt. In the ghetto Tyroler founded a Jewish cultural organisation and took part in a concert. On October 28, 1944, he and his wife were deported to Auschwitz. He was gassed two days later. His wife's date of death is unknown.