Bible New Testament
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DRINK OF MY CUP
PRIVATE JACK EDWARD THROWER
Jack Thrower was his parents' only surviving child. He enlisted on 15 September 1914 giving his age as 19 and one month. The records tell a different story: his birth was registered in the fourth quarter of 1897 therefore in September 1914 he was still only 16. Three months after his enlistment he was discharged from the army, not because he was underage but because of defective vision, which meant he was "not likely to become an effective soldier". Nevertheless, the same Jack Thrower, or shall we say someone called Jack Thrower who lived in the same tiny village of Aspall in Suffolk, whose father had the same name and who was the same age as the Jack Thrower who had been discharged from the army, died of wounds in a Casualty Clearing Station in France on 31 August 1916. He was 18 and if the army knew his correct age he would have needed his parent's signed permission to be at the front.
Robert Edward Thrower signed for his son's inscription - his mother had died in 1913. 'Drink of my cup'. The words come from St Matthew 20: 22-23. 'The mother of Zebedee's children' asks Christ if her sons can sit on either side of him 'in thy kingdom'. Christ replies, 'Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of ...?' In other words are you prepared to face the agonising death that I know I must face. The sons reply, 'We are able' to which Christ says: 'Ye shall drink indeed of my cup".
The inscription is one of the many that show how relations equated the death of their sons and husbands with that of God's son. As it said in Sir John Arkwright's hymn:
These were his servants; in His steps they trod
Following through death the martyr'd Son of God:
Victor He rose; Victorious too shall rise
They who have drunk His cup of Sacrifice.
If they sacrificed themselves as Christ had they to would gain a place with him in the kingdom of heaven.
The words in the King James Version are 'Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of?'. The only place where I have found the words written exactly as on Jack Thrower's inscription is in the Jehovah Witness Magazine, Watch Tower, where they appear as the yeartext for 1915, "Are ye able to drink of my cup?" However, many Jehovah's Witnesses were pacifists and far from volunteering were conscientious objectors.
EVEN SO, FATHER
LANCE CORPORAL GORDON FRANCIS TURNER
'Even so, Father' might sound enigmatic to us today but in an age more familiar with the bible it would have been recognised as the equivalent of 'Thy will be done'. The words are spoken by Christ, 'Even so Father for so it seemed good in Thy sight', St Matthew 11:26. The meaning is the same as the much more popular inscription: 'We cannot Lord Thy purpose see but all is well that's done by Thee'.
Henry and Abigail Turner had two sons, Henry and Gordon, and two daughters, Muriel and Winifred. Gordon joined the London Rifle Brigade in 1912, serving first with the 1st Battalion and then with the 5th. He died of wounds in a base hospital on 7 May 1915. Henry, serving with the 23rd Battalion London Regiment was killed in action nineteen days later - 26 May.
Henry Turner had been due to marry Evelyn Worley. Her brother, Robin Worley, serving with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Gallipoli, died of wounds on 28 August. Her sister's husband, Charles Saunders had been killed in action on 28 April.
'Even so Father for so it seemed good in Thy sight.'
COME OVER
INTO MACEDONIA
AND HELP US
CAPTAIN ERNEST ALBERT ISAAC TAYLOR
Ernest Albert Isaac Taylor gave up his job at the Union of London and Smith's Bank, Nottingham on the outbreak of war and was commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery in December 1914, serving with the BEF in France and Flanders from May 1915, first in the Second Battle of Ypres and second at the Battle of Loos. The following month, October 1915, his battery was posted to Salonika.
The British army went to Salonika to prop up Serbia but by the time in got there Serbia had been defeated. Nevertheless the army remained in the region, establishing the Macedonian Front that stretched 480 km from Albania to Eastern Thrace. The front was designed to prevent Bulgaria's advances into the region, part of the country's plan to gain overland access to the Mediterranean.
In July 1918, Taylor was wounded by a bursting shell. One report says that he died two weeks later, another that he died the same day. His colonel told his father:
"Captain Taylor's death has cast a gloom over the whole brigade, as he had endeared himself to both officers and men by his devotion to duty and his kindly nature. He was one of my most capable officers, and a most loyal and loveable comrade."
Taylor was born in Japan where his father, the Revd Isaac Taylor, was a missionary with the British and Foreign Bible Society. It was his father who chose his inscription, which despite appearances has nothing to do with the First World War but is a quote from the New Testament:
"And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately, we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them"
Acts 16: 9-10
However, from his choice of inscription, the Revd Isaac Taylor implies that the British Army was doing God's work in Macedonia.
"AS UNKNOWN
AND YET WELL KNOWN
AS DYING
AND BEHOLD WE LIVE"
LANCE SERJEANT ALBERT HAMPSHIRE
As the Cenotaph in Whitehall is taciturn so the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey is loquacious. The Cenotaph has a mere three words carved onto it - The Glorious Dead - and originally just the dates MCMXIV - MXMXIX (1914-1919). These have now been joined by two more dates MCMXXXIX - MCMXLV (1939-1945). The tomb of the Unknown Warrior has 155 words. There is the main dedication, sonorous, resonant, explicit, and then round the edge of the stone, four texts.
Albert Hampshire's inscription is one of these texts. The words come from 2 Corinthians 6:9 and suggest the comfort that even those who are not famous are 'known', and that through Christ we shall all 'live'.
Hampshire had been a regular soldier. The 1911 census shows him to have been a private in the Coldstream Guards, living in Victoria Barracks, Doncaster. But he was no longer a soldier by the outbreak of war. One of his parents' eleven children, their father, George, was a farmer in High Melton, Yorkshire. Albert's younger brother, Richard, was killed in action at Passchendaele on 9 October 1917; George Hampshire died in January 1918, and Albert was died of wounds in hospital at Etaples three months later. Richard Hampshire is commemorated on the Tyne Cot memorial, Mrs Eliza Hampshire, their mother, chose Albert's inscription.
HE IS NOT HERE
FOR HE IS RISEN
LIEUTENANT HUGH ALEXANDER WARK
"In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen ... "
St Matthew
Chapter 28:1-6
This is the central tenet of Christianity, the belief that Jesus Christ:
"for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven,
And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,
And was made man,
And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
He suffered and was buried,
And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures,
And ascended into heaven ... "
Nicene Creed
Book of Common Prayer 1662
In this way, Christ overcomes death making it possible for mortals to enter the kingdom of heaven:
Jesus lives! henceforth is death
But the gate of life immortal:
This shall calm our trembling breath,
When we pass its gloomy portal.
Hymn 207
Hymns Ancient & Modern
Lieutenant Wark's father, the Revd James Reid Wark, chose his inscription. Wark himself was destined for the ministry but when the war broke out he was in his third year at Aberdeen University reading English. He immediately tried to get a commission in the Gordon Highlanders, but was prevented by poor eyesight so he enlisted in the ranks and served in the Territorials for a year before eventually being commissioned in December 1915.
Wark served in France and Flanders with the 6th Battalion Gordon Highlanders for two years and four months before being killed while in the line on 14 March 1918. There is no mention of any deaths in the battalion war diary, which simply says that all available men who were not actually in the front line were "in Support and Intermediate lines working 8 hours per day on wiring and general trench repair."
WHY SEEK YE THE LIVING
AMONG THE DEAD?
THE REVEREND WILLIAM DAVID ABBOTT
Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they [the women from Galilee] came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen."
St Luke 24:1-6
By his death, Christ overcame death therefore don't look for those who are alive among the dead. The comfort of the resurrection, the idea that the dead live beyond the grave, which is one of the central tenets of Christianity, is a very strong theme in personal inscriptions. It's not therefore surprising to see it on the grave of an army chaplain.
The Revd David William Abbott died from pneumonia in hospital in Dieppe three weeks after the end of the war. Deaths from pneumonia were often a consequence of the influenza pandemic raging through the world at this time and Williams was in the most vulnerable age group, adults between the ages of 20 and 40. However, a report in the Boston Guardian on 21 December 1918 stated that the pneumonia followed on from a chill he'd contracted whilst officiating at military funerals.
Abbott, the son of a vicar, trained at Lichfield Theological College and was ordained in 1909, the same year he married Ruby Williamson. The couple had two sons. Abbott became a Chaplain to the Forces in June 1918 and went to France that August.
In July 1922 a memorial was unveiled at Litchfield Theological College to the six priests and four laymen from the College who had died in the war.
"The Bishop, in the course of his address, pointed out that war was always an evil. The wickedness of man brought it about [so] that sometimes he had only a choice between two evils. He ought then to choose the lesser evil. The Bishop stated that it was his firm belief that the country rightly chose the lesser evil in 1914. So did those who offered their lives for their country who were being commemorated. But it was not enough for them to die for the cause of justice and mercy. We had to complete their work by living for it. And no class of people could do more for that cause than the priesthood to which his hearers were hoping to attain."
Staffordshire Advertiser
22 July 1922
JESUS SAID
TO-DAY THOU SHALT BE
WITH ME IN PARADISE
PRIVATE SAMSON FREDERICK JAMES
"And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. ... And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise."
St Luke Chapter 23 v 32-42
Christ's words provide the evidence that his death will save mankind from the consequences of its sin - 'To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise'. If this is to be true of the malefactor being crucified beside Christ then it must be true for everyone. Private James' mother chose her son's inscription, finding comfort in the reassurance of these words.
Samson Frederick James was the son of Thomas and Ellen James of 23 Chestnut Street, Worcester, England. He enlisted in the Canadian Infantry in July 1917 giving his address as, 662 Lexington Avenue, New York and his occupation as valet. He left Canada on 3 February 1918 and after several more months training in Britain joined the 14th Battalion, the Royal Montreal Regiment, in France on 14 August.
Two weeks later, the battalion took part in a major operation to capture the Drocourt-Queant Line. Pages 238 to 243 of the regimental history give the details of the operation: two days of endurance and bravery, enemy treachery and enemy magnanimity, which resulted in the loss of thirty-seven officers and 260 other ranks. Many of these casualties would have died had Major EE Graham, Chaplain of the 13th Battalion, not taken command of the German prisoners, who were surrendering in large numbers, and used them to carry casualties to the rear.
The cemetery where Private James is buried was used by fighting units, which suggests that he was not among the wounded but was killed in action.
"FATHER FORGIVE THEM
FOR THEY KNOW NOT
WHAT THEY DO"
S. LUKE 23.34
LANCE CORPORAL THOMAS NORMAN JACKSON VC
Citation for Award of Victoria Cross
London Gazette 26 November 1918
"For most conspicuous bravery and self-sacrifice in the attack across the Canal du Nord, near Graincourt. On the morning of the 27th September, 1918, Lce Cpl. Jackson was the first to volunteer to follow Capt. C.H. Frisby, Coldstream Guards, across the Canal du Nord in his rush against an enemy machine-gun post, with two comrades he followed his officer across the Canal, rushed the post, captured the two machine-guns, and so enabled the companies to advance. Later in the morning, Lce. Cpl. Jackson was the first to jump into a German trench which his platoon had to clear, and after doing further excellent work he was unfortunately killed. Throughout the whole day until he was killed this young N.C.O. showed the greatest valour and devotion to duty and set an inspiring example to all."
Two days later, the Sheffield Evening Telegraph elaborated on the story:
"Lce. Cpl. Thomas Norman Jackson ... was the elder son of Mr and Mrs Edward Jackson 3, Market Street, Swinton, near Mexborough ... he enlisted voluntarily in 1916. He went to France in October 1917, and in a few days took part in the great Tank drive to Cambrai ... Up to September 27 last he had come through some of the severest fighting imaginable without receiving a scratch. The only hint he conveyed to his parents of the nature of his work was a passage in one of his letters which ran: 'Fancy such as me standing up to the Germans and bayoneting them without turning a hair!' He was a leading member of the Primitive Methodist church and Bible class at Swinton, and possibly he had that in mind."
"A leading member of the Primitive Methodist church", this comment is probably the clue to Jackson's inscription: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do". These, the words Christ used to ask God to forgive the men who had just nailed him to the cross, are the words Mr Thomas Jackson chose for his son's inscription. Was he asking forgiveness for his son's killers? Perhaps, but if he too, like his son, was a Primitive Methodist, he was asking forgiveness for the whole of mankind for indulging in the war. Two days before the outbreak in 1914, Arthur Guttery, the President of the Primitive Methodists, had given an impassioned anti-war speech:
"A wave of madness has swept over Europe and Britain is invited to plunge into a fury that is insane ... It is the policy of bedlam and it is the statecraft of hell."
Never mind that a week later Guttery had changed his mind and was prepared to encourage his followers to fight for liberty against tyranny, some of his followers never changed their minds. Lance Corporal Jackson's father was possibly one of these. That is how I read the inscription: Mr Thomas Jackson is criticising the madness and insanity that has gripped the world. A world that not only killed his son but had him glorying in the bayonetting of Germans. Would it have been any consolation to have learnt from his son's lieutenant that, "Your son was magnificent - his example altered the course of the whole battle".
".. NEVERTHELESS NOT AS I WILL
BUT AS THOU WILT"
MATT. XXVI. 39
PRIVATE JOHN JOSEPH QUINN
Private Quinn's father quotes Christ's words in the Garden of Gethsemane for his son's inscription. Knowing what is to come, Christ prays that he might be spared:
"And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt."
This is not just the acceptance of God's will as in, 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven', but a declaration that this is not what I want to happen but if it is God's will then I will accept it.
John Joseph Quinn was born in Ireland to John and Mary Quinn. He grew up in Altrincham, Cheshire where his father was a domestic gardener. He served from 1916 with the 9th Battalion Manchester Regiment.
On 21 March 1918 the battalion war diary records that they were in the reserves at Hervilly when at 4.30 am they were ordered:
"to take up battle positions owing to enemy activity. This was done through heavy gas bombardment which caused about 30 casualties. The Battalion went into action and continued in action until April 1st."
The next few days saw constant enemy attacks, counter attacks, withdrawals and regroupings until 31 March when the battalion were finally relieved. Knowing this you can understand why Quinn's date of death is given by the War Graves Commission as between 21st and 31st March. In the chaos it was impossible to keep track of the fate of every soldier. However, on the 31st the diary writer records:
"During the time from March 21st/31st, the Battalion was continuously in action and fought very hard. The casualties were 25 officers and 630 ORs."
What happened to Quinn? Red Cross records show that he was taken prisoner by the Germans and then buried by them in the military cemetery at Bohain. In March 1925 his body was exhumed and reburied in Premont British Cemetery.
LOVE YOUR ENEMIES
PRIVATE HERBERT SALT
But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
St Luke 6:27-8
It would appear to me that Mrs Sarah Ann Salt, Herbert Salt's mother, was making a statement against war when she chose her son's inscription. It was something she really wanted people to hear. The family were Welsh speakers. They filled in the census return in Welsh, yet Salt's inscription is in English. Many, many Welsh families composed Welsh inscriptions but filled the census up in English. With the Salts it was the other way around. The message was too important to limit to Welsh speakers.
The Salts lived in Cwm-y-Glo, a small slate-mining community in Caernarvonshire where father, Joseph Salt, was a quarryman. Herbert was his parents only son. He had three sisters, one was his twin, Hilda.
Salt served with the 19th Battalion Welsh Fusiliers and was killed in action on the 8 January 1918. At that time the battalion were in the trenches near Bullecourt. The war diary brackets the dates 5-9 January with the words: "Everything quiet during this tour. Fighting patrols were sent out each night".
Salt is buried in Mory Abbey Military Cemetery, as are four other soldiers of the 19th Battalion who were all killed on 8 January. It sounds to me as though some members failed to return from one of these fighting patrols. Nevertheless, in the terms of the diary writer everything was quiet during this tour. Relatively speaking, it probably was.
JESUS SAID TO HER
"THOUGH HE WERE DEAD
YET SHALL HE LIVE"
LIEUTENANT ALBERT NEAVE WESTLAKE MC
Army and Navy Gazette 19 January 1918
Information Required
Lieut. A.N. Westlake MC RFC missing Jan 4. Will relatives of prisoners of war in Germany kindly ask for news of him?
Mrs Westlake, Wayside, Warham, Dorset
A week later Mrs Westlake, Lieutenant Westlake's mother, put another, identical notice in the Army and Navy Gazette. Nearly three months later, Flight magazine carried the following article:
4 April 1918
In the Hands of the Enemy
The following is an official list, published in Germany, of British machines which the Germans claim fell into their hands during the month of January 1918.
Among the planes listed was Bristol No B 1542 and beside it the comment Lieut AW (sic) Westlake dead.
Westlake served with 27 Squadron RFC and on the morning of 4 January he and 2nd Lieutenant Ewart took off at 09.50/10.50 from the airfield. It was reported that they were then seen "gliding down from 13,000 feet south-west of Denain in combat with EA (enemy aircraft) on return from bomb run to Denain". It's possible that B 1542 was shot down by German ace Wilhelm Reinhard who claimed his seventh victory that day in the area.
Both Ewart and Westlake were buried by the Germans at Niergnies - where they are still buried, the only two allied servicemen in the cemetery.
Albert Neave Westlake was the only son of Albert and Agnes Westlake of Wareham in Dorset. Educated at Shrewsbury School, he was the classic 'golden' schoolboy: head boy, a member of the 1st XI for both football and cricket and stroke in the 1st VIII. Not only this but he won a scholarship to New College Oxford, where he took a first at the end of the first part of his degree. However, he abandoned his degree to join the army.
Commissioned into the North Staffordshire Regiment, he was in France by August 1915. His Military Cross was awarded in the summer of 1917:
"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty as Battalion Intelligence Officer. When our attack was held up, he went forward under intense shell fire to the most advanced posts, and brought back accurate and valuable information. Later he passed through the enemy's barrage to obtain further information, and finally led a relieving company to the front line under heavy fire. His fearlessness and devotion to duty were beyond all praise."
This citation was published in the London Gazette four days after his death.
Mrs Agnes Westlake chose his inscription. It's a contraction of the words of St John Chapter 11 verse 25. Lazurus is dead and Jesus has just assured Martha that her brother he will rise again. She replies that she knows he will, in the resurrection at the last day:
And Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whoseoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
HIS LAST MESSAGE HOME
"MY PEACE I LEAVE WITH YOU"
JOHN 14:27
PRIVATE THOMAS L LINDSAY RATTRAY RATTRAY
The words in the inverted commas aren't Thomas Rattray's but those Christ used when he warned his disciples that he wouldn't be with them for much longer.
"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
St John 14:27
Christ was comforting the disciples with the promise that he would leave them with his peace: the knowledge that through his death they would be assured of eternal life. This will have been the meaning of Rattray's last message, that he trusted in Christ words - presumably with the hope that they would be a comfort to his wife. As it was his wife, Mary Young Rattray, who chose the inscription, it would seem that they might have done.
Rattray came from Largo in Fife, where his father, Andrew, was a tailor clothier. He served with the 6th Battalion Black Watch, was not entitled to a 1914 or 1915 Star so can't have entered a theatre of war before 1916. He was killed in action on 26 October 1918 when the battalion, part of the 51st Highland Division, captured the village of Maing, which had been in German hands since the beginning of the war. He is buried in Maing Communal Cemetery Extension a small cemetery with only eighty-five graves, all belonging to soldiers killed between 11 October and 5 November, sixteen of them belonging to soldiers of the Black Watch killed between the 24th and the 27th.
LET NOT YOUR HEARTS
BE TROUBLED
PRIVATE WILLIAM FREDERICK GIBBS
Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
In my father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
St John 14:1-3
The opening words of St John Chapter 14 offer instant comfort and most people at the time would have recognised them since the passage always was, and still is, a popular reading at funerals with its promise of a home in heaven for al- comers and its suggestion that there we shall all meet again.
William Gibbs was the son of Eli and Lizzie Gibbs of Buckland Common in Buckinghamshire. Eli described himself in 1911 as a farm servant, his sons William and Jesse as agricultural and farm labourers respectively. William served originally with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry before transferring to the 11th Battalion Royal West Surrey Regiment. He died of wounds in a casualty clearing station in Moorseele, 20 km east of Ypres, twelve days after the town had been taken from the Germans.
TO MEMORY DEAR
VENGEANCE IS MINE
I WILL REPAY SAITH THE LORD
RIFLEMAN FRANK EDMUND BROWN
This is a difficult inscription and on one level I am surprised the War Graves Commission accepted it. It was chosen by Rifleman Brown's mother, Henrietta, and it sounds as though she's saying that the Lord took vengeance on the Germans and ensured they lost the war as a punishment both for starting it and for killing her son.
Considering the circumstances of her son's death you can imagine that she had vengeance in her heart. Frank Brown was wounded on 30 November 1917 when the Germans made an attack on the trenches near Bourlon. For a long time it seemed as though they would break through the British lines but the Queen's Westminster Rifles hung on until the situation stabilised. They were relieved at 1 pm on 1 December by which time the regiment had suffered 117 casualties of which 25 were missing. Frank Brown was among the missing. Taken prisoner by the Germans, he died a month later in German captivity. Perhaps his mother assumed they had done nothing to save his life.
It's not possible to tell how Brown was treated but he died in Valenciennes, about 40km behind the front line, which would indicate that he was being cared for in a German medical unit and shows that he had not been shipped straight back to Germany to die in a prisoner-of-war camp.
Brown was buried by the Germans in Valenciennes, his body exhumed and reburied in February 1922. The War Graves Commission's 'concentration' records ask what evidence of identity there has been and the answer on the form is 'plate on coffin'. I find this very interesting, especially as I'm not sure that many British soldiers were buried in coffins. It would indicate that Brown and his fellow British casualties were buried with the same dignity as German soldiers.
So, did Mrs Brown have vengeance in her heart or was she more aware of the context of the words than many of us are today?
"Bless them which persecute you: bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."
ROMANS 12:14-21
New Testament King James Version
NOW LETTEST THOU THY SERVANT
DEPART IN PEACE
RIFLEMAN FREDERICK THOMAS MOON
Frederick Moon died as a prisoner of war in Germany. There is very little else I can tell you about him other than that he had been a professional soldier who in September 1914 was still on the reserve. In 1911 Moon was in Malta serving with the 2nd Battalion The Prince Albert's Somerset Light Infantry. Later in 1911 the Battalion went to China and then in 1914 to India where it remained until 1917. However, Moon earned the 1914 Star by entering a theatre of war on 21 September 1914. This is why I conclude he must have been still on the reserve when war broke out.
Moon is now buried in Cologne Southern Cemetery but he could have died in any one of the 180 different prison camps in the Hanover, Hessen, Rhine or Westphalia regions. After the war it was decided to gather all the British dead from these areas into the Southern Cologne Cemetery, which was to be one of four cemeteries in Germany into which the exhumed bodies of prisoners of war were reburied. There is no record of when Moon was taken prisoner and no record of his cause of death.
Born in Williton, Somerset to Edward and Emma Moon it was a Mrs E Cheshire of 11 Havelock Road, Wealdstone, Middlesex who chose his inscription. In the absence of any other information I would suggest that this was his mother, remarried, or a married sister. She chose an extract from the Nunc Dimittis, an ancient canticle that has been part of the Church of England's service of Evening Prayer for centuries, as well as part of the funeral service:
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
"TO THIS END WAS I BORN"
PRIVATE HERBERT HENRY SOMERSET MARKS
This sounds rather a harsh inscription for a parent to chose for their son: "To this end was I born". It comes from St John's gospel and was chosen by Private Mark's father, Major Herbert Beaumont Marks. In St John, Christ has been brought before Pontius Pilate to be tried.
"Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
St John 18 v. 37
The inscription implies that Major Marks was one of those who believed war with Germany to be inevitable, the logical conclusion of the growth of German militarism. And this being the case, that he knew his son was in line to be sacrificed in the forthcoming war. In 1910, Major HB Marks had been appointed Area Officer for the town of Townsville in Northern Queensland. This put him in charge of the local militia and of recruitment, making sure that even the young men of Townsville were prepared for war.
His son enlisted on 20 May 1916 when he was 18 and 9 months. Prior to this young Marks had been working as a station hand. He embarked from Australia in September 1916 and served with the 41st Battalion Australian Infantry. This took part in the Australian attack on Peronne on 1 September 1918. It was a terrible battle, the machine-gun fire, especially the enfilade, the greatest the battalion had ever experienced causing many casualties. The war diary is unusually descriptive:
"This fire also prevented us from removing some of our casualties from the front line as the Boche fired on stretcher bearers, killing and wounding a whole team. We took a large number of prisoners, some two hundred and fifty, together with five Field Guns, the teams of which "D" Coy. Lewis Gunners shot on reaching their objective, while the enemy was trying to withdraw them."
Marks was one of the 120 casualties suffered by the 41st battalion that day.
MASTER, CAREST THOU NOT
PEACE, BE STILL
CORPORAL GEORGE RICHARDSON
"And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm."
MARK Chapter 4 37-9
"Master, carest thou not that we perish"? This is the question the disciples woke Christ to ask when they were caught in a storm on the Sea of Galilee. Mrs Ellen Richardson, Corporal Richardson's mother, must have wondered whether Christ was 'sleeping' when so many hundreds of thousands of people died during the war - did neither he nor God care? Mrs Richardson will have chosen her inscription well after her son's death, and well after the end of the war. Is "peace be still" a plea for a lasting peace, one that Christ will oversee?
In 1911 Mrs Richardson was a widow working as a charlady. George, her fifteen-year-old son, one of her six children, worked in a shoe factory in Olney, Buckinghamshire where most of the population were involved in the shoe trade.
George served with the 5th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment and went with it to Gallipoli, disembarking on 10 August 1915. His service with the 5th indicates that he had been a territorial soldier before the war. Evacuated with the rest of the British forces in January 1916, the 5th Bedfordshires served in the Suez Canal region until March 1917 when they went to Palestine. Here it took part in all three battles of Gaza. Richardson was killed in the Third.
FOR MANY ARE CALLED
BUT FEW ARE CHOSEN
PRIVATE HORACE WEBSTER
The quotation comes from St Matthew Chapter 22 verse 14. This is the parable of the wedding feast where a king, having sent out invitations to his feast, ejects the man who doesn't turn up wearing the appropriate garments. The meaning of the parable is that all are invited to partake of the feast - invited to partake of God's grace - but if you aren't prepared to play your part through faith and repentance - wear the correct attire - then you will be ejected - you will be found wanting on the day of judgement.
I wonder what Horace Webster's brother, John, meant to imply by his choice of inscription - that Horace would be one of the chosen - that he would be accepted on the day of judgment because he did believe? I expect this is the sense he intended it but many, many men were 'called' between 1914 and 1918. They either answered the call of the recruiting posters and volunteered, or they were called by conscription. The chosen could be those who died, having been 'chosen' by God.
Webster's medal roll card shows him to have been entitled to the War and Victory medals not the 1914 or 15 Star so he was probably not a volunteer. He served originally with the Yorkshire Regiment and then with the Welsh Fusiliers. This is either a sign that on your arrival in France, or on your recovery from illness or wounds, you were sent where you were most needed despite your original regiment.
On the day Horace Webster was killed in the fighting on the Somme, I October 1916, a total of 1,442 members of the British Empire's fighting forces were similarly 'chosen'.
AS UNKNOWN YET WELL KNOWN
AS DYING, BEHOLD HE LIVETH
LANCE CORPORAL FREDERICK ELPHICK
As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live
2 Corinthians 6:9
Unknown and yet well known, dying and behold we live
Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, Westminster Abbey
As unknown yet well known
As dying, behold he liveth
Personal inscription Lance Corporal F Elphick
The changes are subtle but they are there: in Corinthians, St Paul informs his fellow Christians that although they may be of insignificant parentage, 'unknown', their conduct has made them well known, and that whilst they are in constant danger of being put to death, whilst it's constantly reported that they have been put to death, they are still alive.
On the tomb of the unknown warrior the reference to unknown is literal - the man underneath this marble slab is totally unknown, yet, because he is Britain's unknown warrior, buried with full ceremonial in Westminster Abbey on 11 November 1920, he is well known. And by his death, by the fact that the unknown warrior sacrificed his life for us, we are all able to live.'
As unknown yet well known' in Elphick's inscription probably has the same meaning as in Corinthians, Elphick was a 'domestic garden boy' in the 1911 census, and a gardener when he joined up in November 1915, an unknown. But his death has made him well known: the death reported in the newspaper, his name carved onto the East Grinstead war memorial. But the very last three words of Elphick's inscription - 'behold he liveth' - refer to the resurrection. Just as the strangers at Jesus' tomb told the women, 'He is not here, he has risen', so Elphick's mother is expressing her belief in the resurrection - 'behold he liveth'.
Elphick's parents' lived at The Lodge, Barton St Mary, East Ginstead. This raises interesting possibilities. Elphick joined up in November 1915, giving his occupation as 'gardener'. Barton St Mary was a house designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1907, the gardens designed by Gertrude Jeykll; it looks as though Elphick could have been the gardener here.
BUT THE VERY HAIRS
OF YOUR HEAD
ARE ALL NUMBERED
DRIVER JOHN LEWIS DAVIES
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear not therefore, ye are of more value than than many sparrows
St Matthew 10: 29-31
Driver Davies' father chose this inscription, deriving comfort from the message being that as God concerns himself with the smallest details about each and every one of us, he cares about the death of every man and the grief of all who mourn.
Davies came from Abercynon in Wales, a coal mining community based round a railway junction. He was a volunteer, his medal card showing his qualifying date for the 1914-15 Star was the 20 July 1915. He served as a driver in the Royal Field Artillery and was with the 20th Divisional Ammunition Column when he died of wounds at the dressing station at Canada Farm during the Third Ypres Campaign.
WHY SEEK YE THE LIVING
AMONG THE DEAD
HE IS NOT HERE
CAPTAIN LESLIE FINLAY DUN
Two days after the crucifixion, on what we now call Easter Sunday, some of the women in Jesus's group, Mary Magdalen, Joanna and Mary the mother of James, brought spices and ointments to where they had seen him buried. They wanted to anoint his body as was the custom. However, when they arrived at the grave they saw that the stone in front of it had been rolled away and the body of Jesus had gone.
"And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: and as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen:"
Luke 24:5-7
Christians believe that Christ's death and resurrection secured eternal life for all mankind so that no one should seek the living among the dead because they are not there.
'LIVERPOOL OFFICERS DIE SIDE BY SIDE'
Liverpool Daily Post 4 October 1915
... Captain Finlay Dun (also of the Liverpool Scottish), of Hoylake. Educated at the Leas School, Hoylake, and Loretto School, he was a member of Trinity College, Oxford. A well-know golfer, he was a life member of the Royal Liverpool Club. On the outbreak of war he enlisted in the Liverpool Scottish, went out to France with the 1st Battalion in November as a corporal, and was invalided home in December owing to an injury to the knee. On recovery he obtained a commission in the 2nd Battalion, and returned to the front after the heavy losses sustained by the 1st Battalion on June 16. He was recently promoted to be temporary captain. On the morning of September 28, after the grand attack on the enemy, Captain Macleod and Captain Leslie Dun went together to inspect the guards. While they were standing talking to two of the men on guard a German shell suddenly fell amongst them, and bursting, killed all four instantly. All were buried in the soldiers' cemetery.
HODIE MIHI CRAS TIBI
PRIVATE JACOB CONROY
Hodie mihi cras tibi - today it's me, tomorrow it could be you. This is an ancient inscription, used since medieval times to warn people that death is ever present: we know neither the day nor the hour. The inscription often has the additional words, 'sic transit gloria mundi', thus passes the glory of the world.
Private Conroy's sister, Elizabeth Watson, chose her brother's inscription. It was to her that he had willed his effects, £4 12s 3d, probably in gratitude for the fact that she took the family under her wing following their mother's death sometime between 1901 and 1911. In the 1911 census, Elizabeth and her husband George were living in a three-roomed house with their own four children, aged from 7 to 11 months, and with her father, Thomas 52, and two of her brothers, Thomas 22 and William 20. Jacob Conroy was boarding with a family in Fife where he was working as a coal miner.
Conroy joined up on the outbreak of war. His qualifying date for the 1914-15 Star is 21 May 1915, the date the battalion arrived in France. He survived the liquid fire attack at Hooge at the end of July and was killed in action at Loos on 25 September.
After her brother's death, Elizabeth had another son whom she named in his memory Jacob Conroy Watson.
IF THIS CUP
MAY NOT PASS AWAY
EXCEPT I DRINK IT
THY WILL BE DONE
DRIVER ROBERT CHRISTMAS YAXLEY
It's the words "except I drink it" that are the most chilling - these are Christ's words in the Garden of Gethsemane, St Matthew 26:42. Christ knows that the only way the terrible future that is in store for him can be overcome, can 'pass away', is by going through with it, through with his betrayal, his flogging and his crucifixion. There is no other way. In the same way that soldiers had no alternative but to stand and face whatever was in store for them, and the next-of-kin were forced to 'drink' the bitter cup that was given to them.
Robert Yaxley, a railway platelayer, served with the 45th Battery, 42nd Brigade Royal Field Artillery and died of wounds in a Casualty Clearing Station at Duisans. His mother, Anne Yaxley, a widow, chose his inscription.
WATCH AND PRAY
PRIVATE MALCOLM MITCHELL
On the night before his crucifixion, Christ went with his disciples to Gethsemane. He asked Peter, James and John to watch whilst he went to pray. But when he came back he was dismayed to see that they they had fallen asleep:
What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
St Matthew 26:41
Malcolm Mitchell's mother signed for his inscription, 'Watch and pray'. It's the refrain of the hymn, 'Christian, seek not yet repose' . Watch and pray because you are in the midst of foes who lie in wait to ambush you, watch and pray because that is what Christ asked you to do:
Watch, as if on that alone
Hung the issue of the day;
Pray that help may be sent down:
Watch and pray.
Mitchell, in 1911 a plumber's boy, joined the 8th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, a territorial battalion, on the outbreak of war. It was immediately sent to Egypt to defend the Suez Canal. However, Mitchell cannot have been with them. His medals came up for sale recently and they included the 1914-15 Star, not the 1914 Star. He was with the battalion when it landed in Gallipoli on 5 May 1915 and was killed in action two months later in the Battle of Krithia.
THE LAST ENEMY
TO BE DESTROYED
IS DEATH
CORPORAL ARTHUR SAMUEL BENNELL
Chelmsford Chronicle
26 October 1917
Essex Roll of Honour
Cpl. A.S. Bennell R.F.A. son of Mr and Mrs Bennell 41 Queen Street, Colchester, was killed in action aged 21. Before the war he was employed by Messrs. E. Scott and Son, grocers. Three other brothers are still serving.
Corporal Bennell's father, John, chose his inscription. It comes from I Corinthians 15:26 in the English Revised Version of the New Testament, first published in 1881. The passage declares that Christ's death and resurrection have destroyed death so that when we die we will have overcome our last enemy and are assured of everlasting life.
Bennell's inscription is yet more evidence of comfort families received from their belief in an afterlife. To some it was just the thought that they would all meet again whereas to others it was the full Christian belief in the resurrection and the life of the world to come.
LOVE ONE ANOTHER
AS I HAVE LOVED YOU
CORPORAL RICHARD JACKSON
"Corporal Richard Jackson, who was killed in action last month, served with the Inniskilling Fusiliers. He leaves a wife and seven children who reside at Derrylileagh, Portadown."
Portadown News 21 April 1917
His wife, chose his inscription. It comes from the New Testament, St John 13:34-5:
"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."
These are the instructions Jesus gave to his disciples after the Last Supper, knowing that it was his last night on earth. Were these Richard Jackson's instructions to his wife as he left for war, or was this Mrs Jackson's plea to the world in the wake of the war?
Jackson, a farmer, was a member of the Derrylileagh Orange Lodge, which would make him a fierce Protestant, a fierce Unionist and a fierce supporter of the British Crown.
MI Y YMDRECHAIS YMDRECH DEG
CAPTAIN THOMAS THOMAS
This Welsh inscription, a quotation from 2 Timothy 4:7, translates as 'I have fought the good fight'. The verse continues, 'I have finished my course, I have kept the faith'. It's a popular inscription but strange as it may sound it appears to be only popular on officers' graves. I can't think of any reason for this.
Thomas Thomas was commissioned into the 13th Battalion, Welsh Regiment on the outbreak of war. Raised in Llanelli in August 1914 it didn't cross to France until December 1915. Initially in the Ypres sector it moved down to the Somme in June 1916 where it took part in the capture of Mametz Wood. It was then moved north again to Ypres. On 31 July 1917 it took part in the capture of Pilkem Ridge where it suffered heavy losses. After being rested, the battalion returned to the front line on 20 August, going into the trenches along the line of the Steenbeek. Thomas was killed by shell fire on the 23rd.
"IF, DOING WELL YE SUFFER
THIS IS ACCEPTABLE
WITH GOD"
1 EPIS. PETER 2.20
LIEUTENANT EDWIN LEOPOLD ARTHUR DYETT
Three British officers were executed in the course of the First World War and one of them was Edwin Dyett: Dyett and 2nd Lieutenant Poole were executed for desertion, 2nd Lieutenant Paterson for murder. Paterson was in fact arrested for desertion, four months after he had disappeared, but in attempting to escape arrest he shot and killed the arresting sergeant so the charge was murder. Of the three, Dyett's is the best documented case, and the least clear cut, seemingly based more on opinion than evidence.
On 19 December 1916 Dyett was charged on two counts:
"The accused, Temporary Sub-Lieutenant Edwin Leopold Arthur Dyett RNVR, an officer of the Nelson Battalion 63rd Division, is charged when on active service with deserting His Majesty's Service ... In the field on 13th November 1916, when it was his duty to join his battalion, which was engaged in operations against the Enemy, [he] did not do so, and remained absent from his battalion until placed under arrest at Englebelmer on 15th November 1916.
There was a second charge of "conduct to the prejudice of good order and Military discipline", which stated that Dyett "in the field on 13th November 1916 did not go up to the front line when it was his duty to do so".
The trial was heard on Boxing Day, 26 December. Dyett pleaded not guilty to both charges but did not give evidence nor were any witnesses called for the defence. The Court found him guilty of the first charge and not guilty of the second and sentenced him to death, before recommending leniency:
"He is very young and has no experience of active operations of this nature. And that the circumstances of growing darkness, heavy shelling and the fact that men were retiring in considerable numbers were likely to affect seriously a youth, unless he had a strong character."
The sentence was passed up the chain of command and on 28 December Major General C.D. Shute, Commander 63rd (RN) Division, wrote:
"The Division did very well on the Ancre and behaved most gallantly. Added to this Sub Lieutenant Dyett is very young and inexperienced. Beyond the above I know of no reason why the extreme penalty should not be exacted. I recommend mercy."
However, the next link in the chain, Lieutenant General Macob, Commander V Corps, decided on 30 December:
"I see no reason why the sentence should not be carried out."
And on 31 December at the next level the Commander of the Fifth Army, General Gough, wrote:
"I recommend that the sentence be carried out. If a private had behaved as he did in such circumstances, it is highly probable that he would be shot."
Then finally, on the 2 January 1917, the sentence reached the very top where Field Marshal Douglas Haig confirmed it - "condemned". Dyett was executed at dawn, 7.30 am, three days later, 5 January 1917.
On 4 January he wrote to his mother:
Dearest Mother Mine,
I hope by now you will have heard the news. Dearest, I am leaving you now because He has willed it. My sorrow tonight is for the trouble I have caused you and Dad ... I feel for you so much and I am sorry for bringing dishonour upon you all ... So now dearest Mother, I must close. May God bless and protect you all now and for evermore. Amen.
It was Dyett's mother, May Constance Dyett, who chose his inscription - his father was by then dead. She puts the words specifically in quotation marks and identifies the biblical passage from which they come - yet these are not the words of the passage, which read:
"For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God."
1 Peter 2.20
If you suffer having done something well (or perhaps in this case having not done something wrong) and you accept it patiently, God will admire your behaviour. Perhaps He will see it as the ultimate in turning the other cheek. I wonder whether the quotation marks indicate that Mrs Dyett was quoting from somewhere other than the bible - perhaps from the letter the Chaplain, who spent the last night with Dyett in his cell, wrote to her. The Dyetts did not believe their son was guilty and before he died Edwin's father, Commander Walter Dyett, RN, led an unsuccessful campaign through the pages of the magazine John Bull to have his son pardoned.
A good account of Dyett's case, which I have found very useful, can be found in Shot at Dawn: the Fifteen Welshmen executed by the British Army in the First World War by Robert King.
LOVE NEVER FAILETH
THE REVEREND THEODORE BAYLEY HARDY VC, DSO, MC,
Theodore Hardy's inscription comes from one of the most popular passages in the bible:
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth;
1 Corinthians 13:8 Revised Version.
Theodore Hardy was the most decorated army chaplain of the war. This is his memorial plaque in Carlisle Cathedral:
In memory of Theodore Bayley Hardy Vicar of Hutton Roof. Appointed C.F. Aug. 1916: Attached 8th Lincs. Regt. & 8th Somerset Lt Infantry. Awarded D.S.O. July 1917: M.C. Oct. 1917: Victoria Cross April 1918. Chaplain to the King Sept. 1918. Was Wounded Oct. 1918. Died at Rouen Oct. 18 1918.
This tablet is erected as part of a Diocesan tribute to His heroic courage, sympathetic service and spiritual labours.
It was to Hardy that Studdart Kennedy was speaking when he offered the advice I quoted for yesterday's casualty. Charmingly, after he had been awarded his Victoria Cross, Hardy is on record as asking the Assistant Chaplain-General if he could tell Studdart Kennedy that he had often wished he could thank him properly for his advice, which "more than any other in my life, has helped me in this work."
After leading what must have seemed like a charmed life, Hardy was wounded in the thigh by a machine gun bullet on 11 October 1918. He was taken to hospital where pneumonia set in and he died seven days later.
I HAVE FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT
I HAVE FINISHED MY COURSE
I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH
SECOND LIEUTENANT WALTER MORSE JOTCHAM
There are five Jotchams on the Wotton-under-Edge war memorial, Walter, his brother Cyril, and three of his cousins: Herbert, William and Fred. Walter and Cyril share a marble memorial plaque in St Mary's Church recording the dates of their deaths and concluding with the same quotation as that on Walter's headstone:
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."
The quotation comes from the Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy in which Paul, acknowledging that "the time of my departure is at hand", his martyrdom, looks forward to the "crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day". It's the same crown of righteousness that will be awarded to all those who have endured suffering and faced death for Christ's sake - just as, in their parents' opinion, Walter and Cyril Jotcham had done.
The brothers are also commemorated in volume 5 of the Marquis de Ruvigny's Roll of Honour, which records that Walter went to America in June 1914 and settled in Washington State as a fruit farmer. However, soon after the outbreak of war he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and returned to Europe. He saw action on the Western Front from August 1915 until July 1916 when he returned to England to take up a commission in the Worcestershire Regiment. Back in France in March 1917, he was killed on the night of the 18/19 August leading his platoon across the Steenbeek in the face of fierce German fire.
Cyril Jotcham joined the Gloucestershire Yeomanry in January 1915 and served with them in Egypt and Gallipoli, from where he was invalided home with dysentery. He returned in May 1916 to serve with them in Palestine and died there of malaria on 16 August 1918. His headstone inscription comes from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress:
And he passed over
And all the trumpets sounded
For him on the other side
QUIT YE LIKE MEN
PRIVATE A SEARLE
At one time the words 'quit ye like men' were familiar in the English speaking world but 'quit' did not mean give up it meant 'act', in other words, act like a man, be brave. It's a quote from the New Testament, I Corinthians 16:13:
Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.
Private A Searle, whose Christian name I have not been able to discover, died of wounds following the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915 when the 1st Battalion, in which Searle was serving, were in the front of the attack. The British army intended to launch the attack with a gas attack, which they had to keep delaying because of the weather. Eventually, at 6.34 am, they released the gas but unfortunately the wind changed and it blew back into the British trenches causing many casualties. More were caused by the uncut German wire as well as by their machine guns etc leaving the days' total casualties for the 1st Battalion as 505 killed, wounded and missing.
BLESSED IS THE MAN
THAT ENDURETH
PRIVATE HAROLD DARWIN BURGESS
The full biblical text reads:
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
The General Epistle of St James Chapter 1 verse 12
In St Matthew Chapter 24, verse 13, Christ promised:
He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
And what would he have to endure:
... nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes
[Matthew 24:7]
Harold Burgess's mother signed for his inscription. Although I feel that her intention was to imply that her son's death had brought him 'the crown of life', her use of the word 'endure' is interesting. For all the talk of honour, patriotism and valour, it is now accepted that the quality that was of greatest value to a soldier in the trenches was endurance.
ONE HEART AND ONE WAY
WITH CHRIST
WHICH IS FAR BETTER
CAPTAIN THOMAS LEWIS INGRAM
This inscription is a combination of two biblical quotations, one from the Old Testament and one from the New. "One heart and one way" comes from the Old Testament, Jeremiah 33:39. God says that He will gather all His people together from where in his anger and fury He has scattered them:
And I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely:
And they shall be my people, and I will be their God
And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them:
Jeremiah 33:37-39
If I have read the passage as Mrs Lilian Ingram, Captain Ingram's wife, has read it, the idea is that once the war is over, God will give all nations "one heart and one way" for them to follow for ever. "All nations" mind you, friend and foe: British, French, Russian, German, Turkish, Austrian, Italian et al, "for the good of them, and of their children after them".
For thus saith the Lord; Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good things that I have promised them.
Jeremiah 33:42
Providing, presumably, they follow with one heart the one way God has given them.
The second quotation, "With Christ, which is far better", comes from Philippians 1:23.
For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.
For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ: which is far better:
Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
Philippians 1:21-24
It would have been much "more needful" for the men of his regiment, the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, if Dr Thomas Ingram had managed to "abide in the flesh" with them rather than to have been killed in action as he was - even if to be with Christ "is far better". Trained at the London Hospital, where the London Hospital Gazette has a full obituary, Ingram was a much decorated - DSO, MC and twice Mentioned in Despatches - and a much loved doctor. As one of the captains in the regiment wrote:
"If there was one, all of us who ever had the honour of knowing him would have given anything to see spared, it was our dear old doc."
But he wasn't spared. No one quite knows what happened but it was his colonel's opinion, based on a prisoner's evidence, that whilst he was looking for the wounded along the German wire he was taken prisoner, and when he tried to escape and he was shot.
THERE SHALL BE
NO LIGHT THERE
SECOND LIEUTENANT CHARLES LE GALLAIS EDGAR
Charles Edgar's inscription comes from the Book of Revelation and what sounds like a statement of despair turns out to be a message of hope and comfort for, in the new heaven and the new earth that is being revealed:
... the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring it their glory and honour into it.
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.
Revelation 21: vv 23-5
And then again in the next chapter, the very last chapter in the Bible:
And there shall be no light there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
Revelation 22:5
Charles Edgar served in the Newfoundland Regiment, which means that his digitised records are available online and produce a mass of what would be otherwise undiscoverable material. The records reveal that Edgar was one of the original 500 Newfoundlanders to enlist, that he served in Gallipoli where he was wounded at the end of December 1915 - "Gunshot wound neck slight" and that having enlisted as a private he was commissioned on 5 June 1916, a week before he received the following telegram from Newfoundland:
Mother seriously ill, incurable; very anxious to see you. Do all you possibly can get home at once for couple of months. Mildred Edgar
The telegram was dated 12 June and on 1 July the Newfoundland Regiment was to take part in the great allied attack on the Somme. By some miracle Edgar was one of the very few survivors of the attack which saw a regiment of 780 officers and men go into action at 8.40 on the morning of the 1st of which a total of sixty-eight were available to answer their names at roll call the next day. The regiment were back in action on 14 July but by then Edgar was on his way back to Newfoundland where he had been given twenty-eight days leave.
He returned to the Front in September 1916 and was killed in action on 26 February 1917, the regimental chaplain telling his family that:
He was with a working party going towards the front line when a shell exploded, mortally wounding him. He died a few minutes afterwards having wished his men 'good-bye'.
WE KNOW THAT HE ABIDETH IN US
CORPORAL EDWARD DWYER VC
My eye was caught by a pencilled note at the bottom of a standard page in one of the Commission's cemetery registers: "* This headstone is to be engraved at the Commission's expense". Curious, I looked to see if I could work out why the Commission had decided to pay for this inscription. The man had no recorded next-of-kin but what he did have was the Victoria Cross. His name was Edward Dwyer and at the time it was awarded he was the youngest soldier to win the award.
Wounded soon after incident, Dwyer was sent back to England to recover where, lionised by the public and the press, he became something of a celebrity. You can hear him talking - and singing! - in this interview.
Dwyer won his VC for "most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty at "Hill 60" on 20th April, 1915", single-handedly fending off an enemy advance when the rest of his platoon were either dead or wounded. In an interview published in the Daily Chronicle War Budget 8 July 1915, and republished by the Western Front Association, Dwyer, with typical British self-deprecation, says, "They gave me the VC because I was in a dead funk at the idea of being taken prisoner by the Germans".
Dwyer's celebrity was undoubtedly used and promoted by the Government for recruiting purposes, and much of what he says in his interviews will have been suggested by them. Nevertheless, it may be Government propaganda but it's Dwyer's words; to the 'slackers' who grouse about the conditions they'd have to put up with if they volunteered, "I say that if the officers can put up with the grub and the grind, and men with money can serve as privates who've always lived soft before, nobody has any right to be too particular".
Dwyer returned to the front, it is thought at his own request, and was killed in an attack on the German lines at Guillemont on 3 September 1916. His inscription, the Commission records don't say who chose it, comes from the First Epistle General of John Chapter 3, verse 24:
And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And thereby we know that He abideth in us, by the spirit which He hath given us.
"INASMUCH"
PRIVATE CHARLES BARNES
Private Charles Barnes came from Hook, a small community in Wiltshire where his father was a farm labourer. He served in the 5th Battalion the Wiltshire Regiment, which was formed in Tidworth in August 1914. This is probably when Charles Barnes joined them, quite early in the month too because the volume of recruits was so large that late comers joined the 6th Battalion.
The 5th Battalion sailed for Gallipoli in July 1915, going ashore at Cape Helles on the 17th. They were involved in fierce fighting at Sari Bair at the beginning of August. In a subsequent Turkish counter-attack, sometime between the 9th and the 11th, it is estimated that half the regiment was wiped out.
By October the regiment were in Lala Baba, constructing fire trenches, the War Diary records Barnes' anonymous death:
"... work on new fire trenches was continued. Early this morning one man was killed in the trenches. Our trenches are becoming more exposed owing to the fact that the majority of the trees are deciduous and are rapidly shedding their leaves."
5th Battalion Wiltshire Regiment War Diary 18 October 1915
Barnes' inscription contains the single word, "Inasmuch", note the quotation marks. I am assuming that it is a quotation from the Bible. Cruden's Complete Concordance gives seven occurrences of the word. Initially Matthew 25:40 was the front runner. Jesus tells those who have helped the hungry and the sick, prisoners and the lonely that:
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
However, it's possible that Private Barnes' mother, who confirmed the inscription, was referring to 1 Peter 4:12/13.
"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy."
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
BEHOLD I COME QUICKLY
STAFF NURSE MYRTLE ELIZABETH WILSON
Myrtle Elizabeth Wilson was born in Australia in 1877 where her parents had been living for ten years. A trained nurse, she joined Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service early in 1915 and was sent to Europe in April. That winter she caught pneumonia. Her decline was noted in the official diary of the Matron-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders, Maud McCarthy.
9 December:
Miss Lowndes dangerously ill. Miss Wilson and Miss Donaldson both very ill also.
19 December:
Miss Wilson, Australian, pneumonia, DI [dangerously ill] list - people in Australia, WO informed, and cousin in England.
23 December
Telephone message from 14 General Hospital saying Miss Wilson, Australian on Q Reserve, condition critical. Informed WO. Later (message) to say she had died 7.30 am.
Myrtle Wilson's funeral was held the next day, Christmas Eve. Maud McCarthy made sure that she attended and was furious to discover that no one had done anything about publicising the funeral so that there were very few nurses present. She felt very keenly that people should have had the opportunity "of paying a last respect to one who had come so far and who was among strangers."
Myrtle's inscription was confirmed by her sister May. The family's address was The Roses, Chelmer, Brisbane, Queensland, hence the first line. The second line, 'Behold I come quickly' is a line, repeated several times, from the New Testament Book of Revelation Chapter 22:
Behold I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
verse 7
And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
verse 12
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Maud McCarthy's Official Diary as the Matron-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, [WO95/3989 The National Archives], has been transcribed by Sue Light @Scarletfinders. She has created the most wonderful resource for which I am very grateful.
TYDI GAN HYNNY
GODDEF GYSTUDD
MEGIS MILWR DA
I JESU GRIST
PRIVATE TOMMY THOMAS
Private Tommy Thomas was a carpenter from Mackay, Northern Queensland. He was born in Llanfyrnach, Pembrokeshire, Wales, where his parents lived until after the war. He enlisted in the Australian Infantry on 9 March 1915 and embarked for Europe on the 29 June that year. He died of wounds in hospital in Rouen on 15 September 1916.
His Welsh inscription comes from the English-Welsh Duoglott Bible, from the Second Epistle of Timothy, Chapter 2 verse 3:
Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
FEAR NOT I AM HE THAT LIVETH
IN LUMINE TUO VIDEBIMUS LUMEN
LIEUTENANT GILBERT WALTER LYTTELTON TALBOT
Lieutenant Talbot's inscription was chosen by his father, Edward Talbot, Bishop of Winchester. The first line comes from Revelation 1 verse 18:
I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen.
The second line comes from Psalm 36 verse 9:
In Thy light shall we see light.
Talbot was killed in action leading his platoon across No-man's-land at 2.45 in the afternoon, in other words in broad daylight, in an attempt to recapture Hooge Crater. The crater had been captured earlier that morning by the Germans using liquid-fire, flame throwers, for the first time. There is a vivid description of Talbot's life and death in this blog post.
Toc-H, Talbot House, the world-wide Christian movement designed to maintain the brotherhood of the trenches into the post-war world, was so named in Gilbert's honour at his brother Neville Talbot's request. The symbol of the movement is a bronze lamp of the type used in the Roman catacombs, each Toc-H branch owns one. The inscription round the top reads: In lumine tuo videbimus lumen
OUR DEAR SON
OF ST. JOSEPH'S RECTORY
BARBADOS B.W.I.
FELL NEAR BAPAUME
LOVE NEVER FAILETH
PRIVATE WILLIAM LAWRENCE HUTCHINSON
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.
1 Corinthians 13:8
American Standard Version 1901
William Lawrence Hutchinson was born on Barbados in 1899 where his father, the Reverend William Gordon Hutchinson, was the Anglican priest-in-charge at St Philip-the-Less. In 1910 father moved to St Joseph's on the east of the island. Both parents remained on Barbados until they died, father in 1942 and mother, Priscilla, in 1947. The surviving children inscribed their parents' memorial in St Michael's Cathedral, Barbados with the same quotation that the parents had chosen for their son, William Lawrence: "Love never faileth".
"AND THE LEAVES OF THE TREE
WERE FOR THE HEALING
OF THE NATIONS"
REV.XXII.2
CAPTAIN RICHARD LENNARD HOARE
"C" Company, the centre left element of the attack, had also been hung up on uncut wire. Led by Captain Richard Hoare, who was killed by shrapnel in front of the German lines, the men desperately sought a passage through the German wire and into the relative safety of the German trenches but a hail of rifle fire and bombs was thinning their ranks by the minute."
"There went into action with the Rangers, 23 officers and 780 other ranks. Answered their names at roll call: 6 officers and 280 other ranks. Another 53 other ranks lost in the confusion or trapped in No Man's Land by heavy fire found their way back and returned to the ranks over the following days. In all, 58% of the Rangers became casualties on 1st July. Three-quarters of the officers were either killed or wounded."
1:30 am 2nd July 1916
The Rangers War Diary
Richard Hoare's inscription, which comes as it says from the Book of Revelations, was confirmed by his mother, Laura (Cator) Hoare.
And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Revelation 22: 1-2
LO I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS
LANCE CORPORAL PERCY EUSTACE PENFOLD
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Matthew 28:18-20
Lance Corporal Percy Eustace Penfold was killed in action on 7 October 1916, his brother Lance Corporal Herbert Penfold having been killed on 13 October 1915. In the intervening year it appears that their father also died. Herbert's body was never recovered so he has no headstone and therefore no memorial inscription.
I AM THE RESURRECTION
AND THE LIFE
LIEUTENANT HOLT MONTGOMERY HEWITT
Montgomery Hewitt was one of three brothers killed in the war. Two of them, Montogmery and his younger brother William, were killed on the same day, 1 July 1916, the first day of the battle of the Somme. Only one of them, Montgomery, has a grave and was therefore able to have an inscription. The other two are commemorated on memorials to the missing, Ernest at Le Touret and William at Thiepval. The fourth brother survived the war.
The boys' parents took comfort from the words they chose for Montgomery's inscription:
"Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me , though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whoso believeth in me shall never die."
St John 11:25-6
"IT IS FINISHED"
PRIVATE ALFRED BURDEN
This inscription quotes Christ's last words on the cross:
"After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. ... When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."
St John 19: 28 & 30
I wonder who the Mr Watson was who confirmed this inscription. He is neither Alfred Burden's father nor his step-father. It is difficult to decide what he meant by it. In the case of Christ it meant that his task on earth was done.
HE HUMBLED HIMSELF
BECOMING OBEDIENT UNTO DEATH
PRIVATE THOMAS PERCEVAL BLAKEMAN
This inscription quotes Philippians 2:8.
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
The concept might have been doctrinally completely unsound but this did not stop families equating the sacrifice their menfolk had made with that of Jesus Christ. Christ had died to save mankind on the cross, these men had died to save mankind on the battlefield. Sir John Arkwright's poem, O Valiant Hearts, encouraged the view:
All you had hoped for, all you had you gave,
To save mankind - yourselves you scorned to save.
... Christ our redeemer passed the self same way.
BELOVED ONLY CHILD
WELL DONE THOU GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT
SECOND LIEUTENANT JOHN BENNETT LINDLEY
John Lindley was educated at Repton, joined the Inns of Court OTC in August 1915 when he was 18, was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery and went to France on 22 May 1916, the day after his 19th birthday. He died of wounds almost a year to the day later - 19 May 1917 - having been struck on the head by a shell splinter. This information comes from the Trafford War Dead website.
His inscription comes from the parable of the talents, St Matthew 25:21:
And he also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them.
His Lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
SON OF MANDELL
BISHOP OF LONDON
HE THAT LOSES HIS LIFE
FOR MY SAKE, SHALL FIND IT
REVEREND OSWIN CREIGHTON
Oswin Creighton was the son of the author, academic and cleric Mandell Creighton, and his wife Louise Creighton, author and suffragist. Educated at Marlborough and Keble College, Oxford, Oswin was ordained in 1907 and went to work in Canada, which is where he was when the war broke out. It was his mother who chose his inscription since his father, Mandell Creighton, died in 1901. Two years after her son's death, Louise Creighton edited and published a collected edition of Oswin's letters, The Letters of Oswin Creighton. Oswin returned from Canada on the outbreak of war, joined the Army Chaplains' Department and sailed to Gallipoli in March 1915. After the evacuation he spent some time in England before going to France in November 1916. Extracts from his letters chart his changing attitude to the war over three and a half years.
5 August 1914
I expect it may sound foolish my wishing to get back so much. There is nothing I could do, I suppose; but England is my home and I just feel I want to be there.
10 August 1914
There is no doubt England has made herself exeedingly popular. They [Canadians and Americans] feel she is democracy's and liberty's great champion in Europe.
25 September 1914
The more one thinks, the more utterly futile the whole war seems. What has anyone to gain? Why cannot it all be stopped? To what purpose is this waste?
21 October 1914
On the whole there is a calm sense of determination and readiness for any sacrifice, which is very beautiful. It seems impossible to be selfish, and one feels the greatness of England and all that she stands for ...
13 April 1915
I am afraid that when I next write, it will in all probability be a letter giving rather different experiences. There is a tremendously tough time ahead, of that there can be no doubt. Most of the officers seem to take it for granted that they are going to be killed. However, they are quite cheerful about it.
28 April 1915
The fighting started on Sunday morning and has been raging ever since. We have been watching it three miles out to sea for four days now, and have practically no news, beyond the apparently only too certain fact that my two particular regiments [Royal Fusiliers and Lancashire Fusiliers] have been absolutely cut to pieces.
5 May 1915
The strange thing I find is that I am really extremely happy. There is more goodness and true unselfishness and seriousness about on this Peninsular than there is at a race meeting for instance.
14 June 1915
Many of his remaining friends having been killed in a recent battle, Oswin became critical of the way the British effort was being managed. At this time he was working with a field ambulance 500 yards from the front in a narrow gully, Aberdeen Gully, helping the wounded and taking funerals.
19 July 1915
Oswin was in hospital with diptheria.
31 October 1915 back in Gallipoli
What makes Englishmen so stupid? As I sit at my coffee bar and chat with some of the men in the endless line that passes, I always find the Colonial so far quicker and more intelligent, much more of a man. I cannot say I am impressed with the intelligence of Englishmen. Brains are the want out here from top to bottom, ordinary average brains and common sense; and the Colonials have them, but they're not used.
5 December 1915
Oswin is very disillusioned that so little has been done to prepare for the terrible cold of the Peninsular winter, the freezing temperatures, biting winds, snow and ice. Soon after this he was evacuated with jaundice, just before the entire Peninsular was evacuated. He spent most of 1916 in England and then in November was sent to France with an artillery division.
29 May 1917 Arras
When I went to Gallipoli war was new and its experiences had a certain amount of excitement. Now it has become an occupation, and it has a deadening, coarsening effect and one seems to lose interest in most things. More and more the world seems to have lost its charm and to offer little worth living for. Often I have thought that the simplest solution to its many insoluble problems would be to be blown to pieces. ... When you see a lot of people being killed you seem to lose interest in the real world.
28 August 1917
I think the main thing you at home have to realise is that the effects of this war are almost entirely negative. We are strangely disillusioned. I get quite alarmed at the extent of my disillusionment.
10 December 1917
Why can't we hurry peace up. The whole war is really too impossible. We cannot hope to destroy Germany without destroying ourselves, and why go on destroying each other.
20 March 1918
Personally I am enjoying life. We have had no casualties this year. The men are all very comfortable. The weather has been simply wonderful until yesterday when the rain started, and has been going on ever since ...
21 March 1918
The day after this letter, the Germans launched their Spring Offensive along the Western Front, pushing all before them with huge casualties. The German assault was so strong and so successful that many thought the war would soon be over and Germany would have won. Oswin was tremendously proud of the splendid response of all the men in his Division but was still not reconciled to war.
31 March 1918
I can only feel all the more the utter stupidity and imbecility of it all, the way so many men have to put all their energies and strength into such terribly futile things. After all, what can war decide? How hateful it all is.
3 April 1918
The old truth comes back that at whatever cost one must, regardless of all else, cling to the truth, and if possible, friendship.
9 April 1918
The war is to decide for all time whether the superman idea or the democratic is stronger.
Oswin was killed, 'blown to pieces', on 13 April in a massive German bombardment.
Oswin's headstone inscription, like the dedication his mother chose for the book, quotes St Matthew 10:39, which in context reads:
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
A PURE KNIGHT OF GOD
SECOND LIEUTENANT GEORGE GORDON WATTS
It was Sir Galahad who was the perfect knight, who in Tennyson's poem could boast:
My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
It was because he was the perfect knight that he was permitted to achieve the grail quest. And it was as a pure knight that he died having achieved it.
Lieutenant Watts' father specifically uses the term 'knight' to describe his son, but the inscription definitely has resonances of Christ's teaching at the Sermon on the Mount:
Blest are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Matthew 5:8
George Watts is commemorated on his parents' headstone in Payneham Cemetery, Adelaide with the inscription: 'A true knight of God'.
DEATH IS THE GATE OF LIFE
GOD IS LOVE
CAPTAIN PHILIP ERNEST VINEY
The first line of Captain Viney's epitaph comes from 'In Transitu S. Malachi' by St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153): Mors januae vitae: Death the gate of life, an affirmation of the resurrection of the dead. The second line comes from 1 John 4:7. - He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love.
Philip Viney was a regular soldier; he had gone to Sandhurst after Aldenham School and was commissioned into the Leicestershire Regiment in 1906. He went with his regiment to France in September 1914 and was mortally wounded by a shell on 14 December. He died three days later.
GOD IS LOVE
CAPTAIN DUDLEY EYRE PERSSE
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1 John 4 v 7 & 8
Captain Persse was a regular soldier who had been with the Expediitonary Force since the beginning of the war. He died of wounds at No. 2 Casualty Clearing Station in Bailleul. After his death a small volume of poetry, 'Seven Poems by Dudley Eyre Persse 4th Royal Dublin Fusiliers Died of Wounds Received in Action 1 February 1915', was printed for private circulation.
DIED ON HIS 20TH BIRTHDAY
FAULTLESS BEFORE THEE
WITH EXCEEDING JOY
SECOND LIEUTENANT PHILIP HAMILTON SULIVAN
The quotation comes from Jude 1.24, "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy"