Apocrypha
"IN THE HAND OF GOD"
CAPTAIN SYDNEY VYVYAN TREVENEN, MC
The quotation marks make this a very specific reference; you may think that there are a lot of references to God's hands in the bible but in fact there are only two that actually say, "in the hand of God": Wisdom 3:1 and Ecclesiastes 9:1. And both say pretty much the same thing: that the righteous are in the hand of God. If I were to choose I would say that Sydney Trevenen's mother, who chose the inscription, was referring to the Book of Wisdom since the line comes in one of the readings suggested by the Book of Common Prayer for the service of the Burial of the Dead:
"But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure is taken for misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction: but they are at peace. For though they be punished in the sight of men, yet their hope is full of immortality. And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself. As Gold in the furnace hath he tried them, and received them as a burnt offering."
WISDOM 3 1-6
'Righteous' is not a word in common use today - other than as self-righteous and righteous indignation and both of these give the word a negative connotation - it means to be a virtuous, to be a morally good person.
Sydney Trevenen was a professional soldier, educated at Cheltenham College and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Gazetted second lieutenant in December 1913, he had been in France with the 49th Battery, 40th Brigade Royal Field Artillery, since 20 August 1914, the very earliest days of the war. In 1916 he won a Military Cross for "crawling a thousand yards across No Man's Land" in order to bring back vital information. Soon after this the Gloucestershire Echo reported that he had been wounded. There is no follow up information to this, but on 11 June 1918 the same paper reported that Trevenen had been wounded for a second time. This time the follow up came three days later:
TREVENEN - On 10th June, at a hospital in France, of septic bronchial pneumonia, following gas poisoning, Capt. Sydney Vyvyan Trevenen, MC, RFA, only and dearly-loved son of the late SW Trevenen and Mrs Trevenen, of Welton, Christ Church Road, Cheltenham.
THEIR BODIES
ARE BURIED IN PEACE
BUT THEIR NAME
LIVETH FOR EVERMORE
SECOND LIEUTENANT DONALD LYLE WHITMARSH
If you think that the words sound familiar it's not because they form a popular headstone inscription but because the last five words appear on Lutyen's Stone of Remembrance, which can be found in almost every War Grave Commission cemetery, only left out when the cemetery was too small to take it. Anxious not to upset any of the religious denominations among the soldiers of the Empire, and in this case in deference to the Hindus, the Commission omitted the words 'Their bodies are buried in peace'. Hindus cremate their dead.
This was not a consideration for the Mr W J Thomas of Myrtle Cottage, Westbere who chose this inscription for Donald Whitmarsh. For a long time I couldn't work out why WJ Thomas should have chosen his inscription, who was he. Whitmarsh appeared to have parents and a wife. But the Whitmarsh family had fragmented following the parents' divorce in 1887 when Mrs Whitmarsh had confessed that her two youngest children, which would include Donald, were her lover's. Following the divorce, Mrs Whitmarsh went to New Zealand and it seems that her sister-in-law, Alice, brought up the children. Donald married Margaret Guglielmo in July 1915, but when he was killed, just over two years later, it was his eldest sister, also Margaret, who was named as his next-of-kin. And WJ Thomas was her husband, Donald's brother-in-law.
Donald Whitmarsh served with the 12th Battalion Hampshire Regiment but at the time of his death was attached to the 2nd Battalion. He was killed in action on 22 August, a day that saw heavy fighting all along the Langemarck sector as the British attempted to push forward against fierce German resistance. His body was discovered in an unmarked grave early in 1921 and identified by the name on his shirt.
HE BEING MADE PERFECT
IN A SHORT TIME
FULFILLED A LONG TIME
CAPTAIN WILLIAM VICTOR TREVOR ROOPER
William Rooper was a twenty-year-old flying ace. He joined No. 1 Squadron in the summer of 1917 and was credited with eight victories between his first on 28 July 1917 and his death on 9 October. He was shot down in aerial combat over Polygon Wood, becoming the seventh victim of Xavier Dannhuber.
Rooper's inscription comes from the Book of the Apocrypha, the Wisdom of Solomon 4:13-14:
He, being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time:
For his soul pleased the Lord: therefore hastened He to take him away from among the wicked.
IF OUR TIME BE COME
LET US DIE MANFULLY
FOR OUR BRETHREN
MACC.IX.10
LIEUTENANT RONALD LUCAS QUIXANO HENRIQUES
Lieutenant Henriques was killed during the Battle of the Aisne. Having led his men to within thirty yards of the German positions, he was shot straight through the centre of his forehead just after he had uttered the word 'Advance'. A regular soldier, Ronald Henriques transferred from the 2nd Battalion to the 1st in order to be able get to the front immediately.
Ronald Henriques is thought to have been the first Jewish officer to be killed in the war. His inscription comes from 1 Maccabees. To Protestants, Maccabees is part of the Apocrypha, meaning that it is a non-canonical text considered to have no doctrinal worth but to be of interest perhaps for lessons in life and manners. It is valued in much the same way in Judaism where it is not a religious text either. The particular line that Ronald's parents chose concludes, "and let us not stain our honour".