First Public Two-Minute Silence

Date: May 14, 1919 • Location: Cape Town, South Africa

Sir Harry Hands, the mayor of Cape Town, performed the first public observance of a two-minute silence in remembrance of those killed in World War I.

Sir Harry Hands was a British colonial politician, who served from 1915 to 1918 as mayor of Cape Town, South Africa. He is credited with instituting the first practice in the world of an official two-minute silence to honour loss of life in conflict, following the death of his eldest son Reginald Hands in World War I, at the suggestion of councillor Robert Rutherford Brydone.