women chance to be, surely in this five minutes of bitter-sweet silence there will be service enough." Honey had been prompted to make the suggestion as he had been angered by the way in which people had celebrated with dancing in the streets on the day of the Armistice, and believed a period of silence to be a far more appropriate gesture in memory of those who had died at war. He also drew upon the experience he had in a train travelling in the west of England during a silent interlude for the funeral of King Edward VII. All trains and traffic stopped at noon on the day. Five people in his train compartment "sat uncovered" for 3 minutes. There is no record of Honey's letter having officially inspired the Remembrance Day tradition. However, his wife Millie said that journalists in Fleet Street believed Honey was the instigator of the silence Nearly 7 months after Honey's letter, records close to King George V show that on 27 October 1919, a suggestion from South African author and politician Sir Percy Fitzpatrick for a similar idea for a moment of silence was forwarded to George V, then King of the United Kingdom. The letter was sent though Lord Milner, who had previously held high office in South Africa, On 7 November 1919, King George V formally requested the observance of the two minutes' silence throughout the British Empire. Death Honey died on 25 August 1922 at the age of 36, whilst a patient at the Mount Vernon Hospital. He was buried in 'Section B' at Northwood Cemetery in North West London. A small brass plaque commemorates his life and role in the two minutes silence. In 1937, his widow reported to a journalist that she had been left penniless after her husband's death. A monument to Honey was erected by Eric Harding near the Shrine of Remembrance in St Kilda Road, Melbourne in 1965. It was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Leo Curtis on 7 May 1965. Conflicting sources of information Although the Australian government officially recognises Honey as having first raised the idea in the public domain, George V officially thanked Fitzpatrick for his contribution of the Two Minute Pause in 1920. A letter to an Australian newspaper in 1925 suggests that Honey may have been inspired by silences observed in the United States when the Maine was