Bible Old Testament
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TWICE MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES
HIS TWO BROTHERS ALSO FELL
IN DEATH
"THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED"
CAPTAIN RUPERT AYRTON HAWDON
Mr and Mrs William Hawdon had five children, four sons and one daughter. Three of the sons died in the war, two in action and one of influenza five days after it ended.
The inscription belongs to Rupert who was the third son. He served with the Royal Garrison Artillery receiving his commission in September 1914 and joining his unit the following September. Rupert served throughout the war and was killed near Le Quesnoy seven days before the end by German rifle fire whilst reconnoitering for new positions for his guns. He was 24.
The eldest brother, the Revd Noel Elliot Hawdon, a chaplain in the Army Chaplains Department, died twelve days later of influenza. He was 33. Their youngest brother, Cecil, had been killed with three of his men on 27 June 1916. Delayed trying to cut the German wire prior to a trench raid, they were killed when the British artillery opened up. Cecil was 20
The remaining brother, Hugh, served throughout the war with the Durham Light Infantry.
Cecil's inscription, like Rupert's, was signed for by his father:
His two brothers also fell
In death they are not divided
The last line comes from 2 Samuel 1:23
"Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided."
William Hawdon also chose Noel's inscription:
He kept the faith
Deo dante dedi
All four sons were educated at Charterhouse where 'Deo dante dedi', God having given I give, is the Charterhouse motto. The first line is a quotation from 2 Timothy: 4/6
"The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."
Much of the information here has been taken from The Middlesborough Roll of Honour of the Great War. The Hawdon family lived at Upsall Grange, Nunthorpe Yorkshire. William Hawdon, an engineer, was the managing director of an iron works in Middlesborough.
WAR CANNOT BE ON ONE SIDE
17.5 DEUTERONOMY
PRIVATE LESLIE ROSE
Leslie Rose died of meningitis whilst a German prisoner of war, his body later exhumed and buried in Valenciennes (St Roch) Communal Cemetery. The War Graves Commission records this exhumation and the record includes the evidence of identity. This says, "Plate on coffin". I'm pretty sure that British soldiers were normally buried in ground sheets not coffins yet this is the second time I've come across the mention of the plate on a coffin and that too was of a soldier buried by the Germans. At this time the Germans were so short of some raw materials that shoes and boots were being made out of vegetable matter. Yet they were burying soldiers, including enemy soldiers, in coffins with coffin plates.
Rose's mother chose his inscription. It's a stern rebuke to everyone, she is not blaming the other side she's saying that it takes two to quarrel - "war cannot be on one side". She then follows this statement up with the reference to a passage in Deuteronomy. She's identified it as Deuteronomy 17:5 but most people would say 5:17. And what is the quote"? "Thou shalt not kill."
MANY WATERS
CANNOT QUENCH LOVE
NURSE ALCE HILDA LANCASTER
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
Song of Solomon 8:6-7
This vehement assertion of the power of love was chosen for Alice Lancaster by her father, Thomas Lancaster JP of The Cliffe, Monk Bretton, Barnsley, Yorkshire. Alice went to France as a Special Military Probationer Nurse attached to the Territorial Nursing Service at the end of May 1918. A week later her father received this letter:
6 June 1918
Sir,
It is with deep regret that a report has been received in this Office stating that Miss Alice Hilda Lancaster, Special Military Probationer, was drowned while bathing on the 3rd of June, 1918.
I beg that you will accept this expression of my sincere sympathy.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant.
Sir Alfred Keogh
Director General
Army Medical Services
According to a Court of Enquiry, both Alice and the friend she went swimming with were caught by a strong current. The friend managed to get ashore but Alice was drowned.
There is more information about Alice Lancaster and her family on the Barnsley Historian Blogspot.
"BEHOLD, I TAKE AWAY FROM THEE
THE DESIRE OF THINE EYES
WITH A STROKE"
EZEK. 24.16
PRIVATE ROBERT GEORGE BISATT
The Bisatt's God was a fierce God, a jealous God, one who took away from the prophet Ezekial "the desire of thine eyes with a stoke": his wife. God then forbad Ezekial to either mourn or weep. It's a difficult biblical passage but it appears to be a graphic way of demonstrating to Ezekial the level of sorrow God's people should be feeling as they continue to disobey His ways. As a consequence of this disobedience the people will be punished: their sons and their daughters "shall fall by the sword" and then "ye shall know that I am the Lord God". In other words, you will be forced to acknowledge how powerful I am
George Bisatt chose his son's inscription; it would appear that he believed the war was God's way of punishing people for the callous decadence of early twentieth-century life. He wasn't alone in believing this, nor alone in believing that having purged the world of sin, the post-war world would be a better world, one where there was no more war and where mankind would live together in love and brotherhood.
Private Robert Bisatt was the eldest son of George and Sarah Bisatt of St Fagans, Cardiff. George Bisatt was a flour miller's clerk, Robert Bisatt had been a clerk with the Great Western Railway before he was called up. His nineteenth birthday was in the first quarter of 1918 so he cannot have been at the front long. He served with the 15th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers and was killed in action on 2 November 1918 as the British army tried to cross the Sambre-Ojse canal, a task they achieved two days later.
SON OF COL. G.C. ATKINSON
"IS IT WELL? IT IS WELL"
MAJOR OWEN DAYOT ATKINSON MC
Owen Atkinson's father, Lieutenant-Colonel George Charles Atkinson, Indian Army, quotes from a poem by Rudyard Kipling for his son's inscription. Called The Nativity, the poem compares the anguish of the Virgin Mary over her son's death with that of a mother whose son has been killed but who has no known grave, "she knows not how he fell", nor "where he is laid".
Published in the Daily Telegraph on 23 December 1916, the poem echoes the Kipling's own grief. John Kipling had gone missing during the Battle of Loos on 27 September 1915. His body was never found and his parents had to face the agony of having to believe he was dead but hoping against hope that he was alive.
George and Margarita Atkinson did know that their son was dead. Wounded on 21 October 1918, he died six days later and was buried in the grounds of the Hautmont Abbey; his body exhumed and reburied in Y Farm Military Cemetery in February 1920.
Atkinson had already followed his father into the army before the outbreak of war. He attended the School of Military Engineering in Chatham and was gazetted a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on 1 April 1914. He crossed to France with his unit, the 200th Field Company, on 15 November 1914 and served with them for one month short of four years, rising to the rank of major.
He was wounded on 21 October 1918 and died six days later. The Engineers were trying to bridge the River Scheldt near Helchin and according to the war diary, Major O.D. Atkinson was "wounded while making reconnaissance for bridge across Schelte near Helchin". The Allies didn't manage to cross the River Scheldt until the beginning of November and by then the war was virtually over.
Kipling's poem has an interesting number of religious references for a man who was generally considered not to have believed in a Christian God. The phrase in the poem, "Is it well with the child" is a quote from 2 Kings 4:26. One day the prophet Elisha has an unexpected visit from the Shunammite woman, a wealthy woman who has befriended him. He sees her from a distance and sends his servant to ask:
"Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well."
In fact the Shunammite woman's child is dead but her words indicate that whatever God does 'it is well', and that 'it is well' with those who are dead too since they are with God. The last verse of Kiplng's poem indicates that this is how this mother also feels. Her child has died in God's cause, so it is well with him:
"But I know for Whom he fell" -
The steadfast mother smiled,
"Is it well with the child - is it well?
It is well - it is well with the child!"
THE LORD BLESS THEE
AND KEEP THEE
LANCE CORPORAL JAMES KIRKPATRICK
Mrs Kirkpatrick has quoted from a beautiful blessing in the Book of Numbers, Chapter 6 verses 22 to 26, for her son's personal inscription:
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them,
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:
The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
I haven't really been able to identify James Kirkpatrick, other than that he was the son of Mrs M Kirkpatrick, 116 Bonnington Road, Kilmarnock and that he was entitled to the War Medal and the Victory medal which means that he wasn't a 1914 or 1915 volunteer His medal card says he is James M Kirkpatrick, and the Kilmarnock war memorial lists a James McC Kirkpatrick. From this slight information I have concluded that he is the son of David Kirkpatrick, a journeyman tailor, and Mary Kirkpatrick nee McCutcheon, and that he had two brothers, David and George, and a sister, Mary. I could very well be wrong.
Kirkpatrick, who served with the 7th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, died of wounds in a Casualty Clearing Station at Haringhe on 2 October 1918. There were three casualty clearing stations in the area known to the troops as Dozinghem, Mendinghem and Bandaghem, the soldiers' humorous Flemish names for what went on there - dosing them, mending them and bandaging them. Haringhe CCS was Dozinghem
The 7th Battalion had taken part the previous day in an attack on the village of Dadizeele when 73 other ranks had been wounded. There's no record of what happened to Jame Kirkpatrick but he may well have been one of those wounded that day.
LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH
LIEUTENANT WILLIAM VOIGHT THERON
William Voight Theron was a South African of Dutch ancestry. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in August 1917 but didn't join 205 Squadron until May 1918. 205 Squadron's role was to carry out bombing raids on ports and airfields flying DH4s, light bombers.
I haven't been able to find out exactly what happened on 20 September 1918 but 205 Squadron was based at Bois de Roche in Northern France, about 75 km from Proyart where Theron was originally buried. This would suggest that he was on a bombing raid over the German lines. Between August and September 1918 No. 9 Casualty Clearing Station was based at Proyart and Theron is reported to have died of wounds. 2nd Lieutenant JJ Rowe who was flying with Theron, whether as observer or pilot I haven't been able to tell, was also wounded but survived.
E. Theron Esq. of CapeTown, South Africa chose Theron's inscription. The War Graves Commission's Register doesn't have any details of Theron's parentage so I can't tell who E. Theron was. He has chosen to quote from the Old Testament Song of Solomon 8:6-8:
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy as cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly contemned.
HE WAS A FATHER TO HIS MEN
THE END OF THE UPRIGHT MAN
IS PEACE
LIEUTENANT FREDERICK GEORGE LEWIS
The paternal relationship officers had with their men has often been commented on and here it is confirmed by one officer's mother. Of course an officer was concerned that his men had the correct equipment, were on time for parades and duties and remained fit, but there was more to it than that. Lieutenant Ewart Alan Mackintosh expressed it most powerfully in his poem, In Memoriam, written in 1916. This is verse 5:
Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers',
For they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you while you died.
Mackintosh was 23 when he wrote the poem - he was killed the following year. Lewis was nearly ten years older.
The second part of Lewis's inscription references Psalm 37, which is much concerned with the just deserts of the virtuous and the wicked man. The inscription comes from verses 37/8:
Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.
But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.
Frederick Lewis's mother not only chose his inscription but also filled in the form for the Roll of Honour of Australia, making an unusually thorough job of it. Beside the request for 'Unit and number if known' she has replied, 'In Command D Company, 42 Battalion, 3rd Australian Division'. And asked for where he was killed she has put, 'Peronne Sector, N.E. Mont St Quentin, Near Clery sur Somme'. She also tells us that he was 'a valued officer - staff - of the Bank of New South Wales, Brisbane Branch' and that he had been a scholarship boy at Brisbane Boys Grammar School.
Lewis was killed in action on the 1 September 1918 in the Australian attack on Peronne.
HE OBEYED
WENT OUT NOT KNOWING
WHITHER HE WENT
CORPORAL JOHN MCNEILL
There's a scene in Hislop and Newman's Wipers Times where General Mitford informs Captain Roberts that Madame Fifi, owner of the local brothel, has just been executed by the British as a German spy. General Mitford hopes that Roberts never imparted any military secrets about the war to her. Roberts replies that he couldn't, he doesn't know any secrets, he just sits in his trench and has no idea what's going on.
I wondered whether this was the implication behind Corporal McNeill's inscription, a covert criticism of the fact that so many soldiers went blindly to their deaths not knowing what was going on. However, I wasn't sure that McNeill's father would have used the old-fashioned word 'whither', so I looked the sentence up and discovered that it comes from Hebrews Chapter 11 verse 8:
"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went."
Abraham put his trust in God, he had faith in Him, he obeyed His instructions just as Noah had done, and Moses, and numerous other characters from the Old Testament. None of these people knew what God had in store for them but their faith had brought them to a "better country, that is an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a city".
This is therefore not an unusual inscription for a God-fearing Scot to choose, but I'm still not one hundred per cent convinced that there's no hint of criticism in it. Many people did use the words of the bible and the prayer book to make covert criticisms of the war. For example, Lieutenant Robert Carpenter's inscription: An only son / "To what purpose is this waste?" / S. Matt. 26.8.
John McNeill was born in Gargunnock, Stirlingshire, where his father was the gardener to the Stirling family of Gargunnock House for forty years. McNeill was a bank apprentice when he joined up in February 1916 at the age of 18. He served with the 11th Battalion Royal Scots and was killed in action on 12 October 1917, the opening day of the Battle of Passchendaele.
A MAN SHALL BE
AS AN HIDING PLACE
FROM THE WIND
SERGEANT RONALD DANIEL WALLACE
It may not be immediately obvious but this inscription is one of the numerous ways that next-of-kin declared their trust in God. The words come from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, 32:2 and were chosen by Sergeant Wallace's fiancee, Ruth Wright.
"And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
In other words, this man, who will be our shield from the wind, our shelter from storms, who will be like refreshing water on dry land or shade from the burning sun, will be the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And it is in Jesus that Sergeant Wallace's fiancee will find her 'hiding place from the wind', her comfort in her grief. It's a very beautiful image.
According to a letter in his Red Cross file, Wallace died from gas poisoning:
"His dug-out at Hill 40 was blown up by a gas-shell on the 19th. He not only got himself out but he managed to get his mate Serg. Murray out as well and this is what killed him; he had no business to do it when he was gassed. The flesh was blown off Murray's feet and Wallace dressed him and then noticed the gas; but it was too late then. He came over to my dug-out about 2 am. I had two tubes of ammonia and gave him that and some tea and kept his mask on (you get more gas from the clothes than from the air) and kept him there the rest of the night and then sent him to the D/S [dressing station] in the morning. He died in Hosp. on the 27th but I do not know what Hosp. and I was too sick myself with the gas to make much enquiry at the time.
He was a School-teacher at Greenbushes; his people live at Jarradale Junction. He was engaged to Miss R. Wright; I have just got her address (Kenilms, Shenton Road, Claremont, W Aus) from his brother and I will write to her myself. "Ronnie' Wallace was a 'white man'; he would have had a commission but got on too well with his men. He was thoughtful for everyone. He had said to me 'I would not call you up; you have done your bit and there are plenty of big Sergts to do the work!
I was a Rifleman at that time; now S/B. He was C Co.
H.V.Sforcina
Calais 6.4.18
Ronald Wallace's eldest brother, Corporal Stephen Hubert Christian Wallace, was killed in action at Bony on 29 September 1918. His body was never found and he is commemorated on the Villers Bretonneux Memorial.
OF WHOM THE WORLD
WAS NOT WORTHY
SECOND LIEUTENANT GEORGE SINCLAIR SMILLIE
George Smillie's mother chose his inscription. To begin with I thought it sounded rather defensively bitter - the world was not worthy of my son who was killed for you undeserving lot. Then I discovered it was a quote from the bible, Hebrews 11:38:
"And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."
Hebrews 36-38
The meaning here is that these men, who suffered all these hardships, were good men who did not deserve it. They were not worthy of this fate because they were among the best of men, and yet this happened to them. I imagine that this is what Mrs Smillie meant to imply by her choice.
George Smillie's medal card shows that he was commissioned from the rank of Warrant Officer in May 1917. He had first entered a theatre of war on 12 December 1914, serving in both India and France, latterly with the 121st Brigade Royal Field Artillery. He died of wounds received near Ypres.
"NEITHER SHALL
THEY LEARN WAR ANYMORE"
ISA. II. 4.
LANCE CORPORAL ALEXANDER GIBBON STRACHAN
Yesterday's inscription expressed the hope/belief that this would be the war to end all wars. But this was a hope that was as old as the hills, certainly as old as the Old Testament book of Isaiah, which dates from the 8th Century BC.
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
More than 2,500 years later man was and is still 'learning war'.
Alexander Strachan, born in Islington the son of a former artillery man, enlisted in York and served with the 1st/8th Battalion West Riding Regiment. He was killed in action on the opening day of the battle of Poelcapelle. His mother chose his inscription.
IN MEMORY OF MY DEAR SON
SOME DAY
THE SILVER CORD WILL BREAK
PRIVATE JOSEPH FELTON
Private Fulton's inscription is taken from the first line of a hymn by the prolific, American hymn-writer, Fanny Cosby, 1820-1915:
Some day the silver cord will break,
And I no more as now shall sing,
But, O, the joy when I awake
Within the palace of the King.
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story saved by grace.
Cosby in turn took the imagery from the Book of Eccelsiastes 12:6: "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern", all of which are metaphors for death. In the hymn, when the silver cord breaks we shall see God face to face, but somehow I feel that Mrs Felton believes that when the silver cord of her life breaks the 'He' she will see 'face to face' is her son.
The War Graves Commission has Private Joseph Felton, army number 11985, as aged 19 when he died. But the Joseph Felton 11985 who attested in West Bromwich on 19 September 1914 gave his age on that date as 19 and 88 days. He could have been lying but the 1901 census seems to confirm the fact that he would have been 19 in 1914 and 22 in 1917. Felton served with the 5th Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment and was killed in action on 5 October 1917 following the attack at Poelcapelle.
Some day, when fades the golden sun
Beneath the rosy-tinted West,
My blessed Lord will say, "Well done!"
And I shall enter into rest.
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story saved by grace.
A NOTABLE EXAMPLE
TO SUCH AS BE YOUNG
TO DIE WILLINGLY
AND COURAGEOUSLY
GUNNER ERNEST TOMSETT
This sounds as though it's a rather stilted extract from a letter of condolence, but it isn't, it's a quote from the Old Testament book of Maccabees. Eleazor, an old man in his eighties, is a supporter of the Maccabees, defenders of the Jewish faith. He refuses to obey an order from the Seleucids, who are trying to suppress Judaism, despite the fact that he knows this means he will be put to death. Eleazor even refuses to pretend to comply with the order as well-meaning friends suggest he does. No, he says:
I will shew myself such an one as mine age requireth, and leave a notable example to such as be young to die willingly and courageously for the honourable and holy laws.
2 Maccabees 6.27-8
Eleazor dies with the following tribute from the writer:
And thus this man died, leaving his death for an example of a noble courage and a memorial of virtue, not only unto young men, but unto all his nation.
Gunner Tomsett's wife chose his inscription. It's the dedication on the Douglas Head Memorial on the Isle of Man but otherwise, for all its appropriateness, it's quite rare. So is the address she gave: 2 Married Quarters, Detention Barracks, Windmill Hill, Gibraltar. I can only assume that Tomsett had been stationed on Gibraltar before being posted to France.
BEHOLD HE TAKETH AWAY
AND WHO SHALL SAY UNTO HIM
WHAT DOEST THOU
PRIVATE CHARLES ANDERSON
This bitter rail against God is not what we've come to expect from Job who is more usually quoted as having said, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord" [Job 1:21]. Here [Job 9:12], Job speaks of the unchallengeable power of God who has made the universe, can move mountains, shake the earth and, if he feels like it, "breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause". Some bible commentators claim that Job is simply speaking of his own unworthiness in relation to God's perfection, and maybe he is, but it feels as though Private Anderson's mother is definitely quoting these lines from Job as a challenge, a complaint against God.
The sense of hostility towards authority is compounded by the fact that Anderson's inscription, which is original and strong, is the only information the family have provided for their son. The War Graves Commission register doesn't have a Christian name for him nor any family information.
Charles Anderson was the son of Charles Anderson, a fisherman 'on his own account' from King's Lynn in Norfolk, and his wife, Fanny. Unusually, under the census heading 'occupation', which almost all women leave blank, Fanny has written 'Home duties'. Private Anderson's medal card shows he was not entitled to the 1914-15 Star so he didn't join the army until 1916 when, aged 18, he would have been conscripted - the Military Service Act having been introduced in January 1916. He served with the 1st/5th Norfolk Regiment in Egypt and Palestine and was killed in action on the opening day of the Second Battle of Gaza when the regiment suffered 75% casualties.
THE BEAUTY OF ISRAEL
IS SLAIN
UPON THE HIGH PLACES
PRIVATE HUGH MCCREATH
Hugh McCreath used David's lament for Saul and Jonathan, who were killed in the battle at Mount Gilboa, for his son, Hugh, killed on the Mansura Ridge in the Second Battle of Gaza: "The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!" [2 Samuel 2:19]. The beauty of Israel refers to the flower of the race, and 'thy high places' doesn't mean high in terms of height but in terms of belonging to. Hugh McCreath used the definite article 'the', not the possessive 'thy' for high places.
The Second Battle of Gaza ended in a second defeat for the Egyptian Expeditionary Force just under a month after the first. Allied casualties were huge, greater than the authorities wanted to admit. Official figures were 509 killed, 4,359 wounded, 1,534 missing and 272 taken prisoners of war. However, 767 of the burials in Gaza War Cemetery relate to the dates 17-20 April 1917 and 767 of the names on the Jerusalem Memorial to the missing of the Egypt and Palestine campaigns.
Private Hugh McCreath was one of the nine children of Isabella and Hugh McCreath, a ships' carpenter from Partick in Lanarkshire. He and his younger brother, Gilbert, joined up together receiving adjacent army numbers. Both served with the Army Cyclist Corps in the 52nd Lowland Division, and both went with it to Gallipoli, arriving on 28 July 1915. After Gallipoli, the Corps went to Egypt and then to Palestine, arriving in time to take part in the first and second battles of Gaza. Gilbert survived the war.
HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER
SERGEANT GEORGE HOSTRAWSER
Sergeant Hostrawser's father, William, has chosen a succinct but profound way to express his son's sense of responsibility for his fellow man. When God asked Cain where his brother Abel was - just after Cain had killed him - Cain replied, "I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?" [Genesis 4:8] In other words, how should I know, what do I care where he is? Cain's words have become a shorthand for man's unwillingness to look out for his fellow man, to only be interested in himself. But George Hostrawser was not this sort of man, he was, "His brother's keeper". A factor I would suggest in him being a sergeant by the age of 20.
Hostrawser, the youngest of his parents twelve children, enlisted in Brampton, Ontario on 18 December 1915. He served with the 116th Battalion Canadian Infantry, which in October 1917 was in the Weiltje area, near Ypres. It came out of the front line on 28 October but remained in the forward area to provide working parties. This was a dangerous business: four others ranks were killed and two wounded on the 29th, and two were killed on the 30th. On 1 November the war diary reported: "Strength 31 officers, 617 other ranks. Our casualties on the 31st of October were 7 killed and 3 wounded".
THE LORD WATCH
BETWEEN ME AND THEE
WHEN WE ARE ABSENT
ONE FROM ANOTHER
LIEUTENANT COLONEL ARCHIBALD JOHN SALTREN-WILLETT
Western Morning News Saturday 20 October 1917
"Lt-Col Archibald John Saltren-Willett (killed in action on Oct.11) was the son of the late Capt. John Saltren-Willett, of Petticombe, Torrington, and Newington House, Oxford. He was born in 1866, and after leaving Cheltenham, entered the RMA; he passed out of Woolwich into the Royal Artillery in April 1885, reaching the rank of lieut-col. in Feb. 1913. He had served on the Staff as Assistant Inspector of Warlike Stores."
Strange, this doesn't sound anything like the man that I have discovered. In the first instance he had a wife who chose his lovely inscription, she doesn't get a mention in any of the death announcements, of which thee were several. In the second, at the time of his death Saltren-Willett was in Flanders, at Zonnebeke right in the centre of the battle serving as a commander of a 1st ANZAC Heavy Artillery Battery Group.
Compare the above newspaper announcement with this:
"SECRET
Routine Order No: 62 13th October 1917 by
Brigadier-General L.D. Fraser CMG RA
Commanding 1st ANZAC Corps Heavy Artillery
1. Obituary: It is with deep regret that the B.G.H.A. announces that Lieut-Colonel A.J. Saltren-Willett, Commanding 66th H.A.G. was killed in action on the 11th instant.
Full of energy, and at all times keenly solicitous for the welfare of those serving under him, the loss of this gallant officer will be deeply felt by those serving under him so recently, and by the Royal Regiment in general."
This link to the unit war diary for October 1917 on the Australian War Memorial website shows, page after page, how deeply involved the 1st ANZACs were in the Third Ypres campaign. The site also has a digitised copy of his Mention in Despatches:
"For conspicuous energy and devotion to duty and untiring supervision of his group of counter-batteries during the offensive E. of Ypres in June, July, August and September 1917.
On active service since 10/10/1916
Dated 20th September 1917"
Saltren-Willett was killed three weeks later whilst "directing the batteries of his Group, which were then in action at Zonnebeke, he was hit by the fragment of a German shell and killed instantaneously".
In 1900 he married Helen Margaret Bird in St Peter's Lahore. His inscription comes from Genesis 31:49, "The Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another". This loving blessing, often represented by the single word Mizpah, is used whether the couple are separated by distance or by death.
LO, THE WINTER IS PASSED
PRIVATE NATHAN DOUGLAS TEALE
'Passed' is not how the King James Version of the bible spells the word, but plenty of Christian writers do when they quote the extract:
"For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of the birds is come,"
Solomon's Song 2: 11/2
I wonder what Private Teale's mother meant by her choice of inscription? I can't imagine she was saying that the worst part of her mourning was over but it could be that she can take comfort from the fact that whatever happens, spring follows winter, seedtime gives way to harvest, night will follow day and sadness will give way to joy when she is reunited in death with her son. It's this passage from Solomon's Song that ends five verses later with one of the most popular of all headstone inscriptions: 'Until the day break, and the shadows flee away' Solomon's Song 2:17.
Nathan Teale was the seventh of his parents' thirteen children, eight of whom were boys. And it seems as though he was the only one to die in the war. At the age of 17 he was a pupil teacher in Garforth, Leeds. He joined the Coldstream Guards and served with 3 Coy 2nd Battalion. He was killed on 14 September 1916, the day before the Guards Division attacked at Lesboeufs, perhaps he was caught by shell fire as the battalion took up their battle positions. This is all the war diary says:
"14 September 1916 - At 8 pm the Battalion moved up to Ginchy and took over trenches from 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards. Relief completed about midnight."
The Battalion attacked at 6.20 the following morning and by the end of the day had lost 417 officers and men killed, wounded and missing.
SET ME AS A SEAL
UPON THINE HEART
FOR LOVE
IS AS STRONG AS DEATH
LIEUTENANT CLAUD ALGERNON FELIX-BROWN
"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death;"
Solomon's Song 8:6
With these words, Ernest Felix-Brown states the permanence of his love and remembrance for his eldest son who was killed on Boxing Day, 26 December 1916.
Lieutenant Felix-Brown enlisted on the outbreak of war in the London Rifle Brigade and went with the 1st Battalion to France on 5 November 1915. According to his obituary in the Hendon and Finchley Times, Felix-Brown was invalided home with shell-shock in December 1914 but returned to the Front in February 1915. A few months later he received a commission in the West Yorkshire Regiment. He went to Gallipoli attached to the Lancashire Fusiliers and spent Christmas 1915 in hospital in Alexandria.
In April 1916 Felix-Brown joined the newly formed 46 Squadron Royal Flying Corps and went with them to Belgium that October. Flying two seater Nieuports, the Squadron was engaged in artillery spotting and reconnaissance. On 26 December, Felix-Brown and his pilot, Captain John William Washington Nason, were shot down over Railway Wood by the German 'ace' Alfred Ulmer. They were 46 Squadron's first deaths and the third of Ulmer's five kills before he too was shot down on 29 June 1917.
[There does not seem to be any agreement over whether Felix-Brown was a hyphenated surname or not, nor whether Claude was spelt with an 'e' or not. I have been consistent but I am not necessarily correct.]
IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?
PRIVATE EDWARD A COOK
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
Lamentations 1:12
Edward Cook's inscription is taken from the Old Testament book of Lamentations 1:12, although it's possible that Emma Cook, Private Cook's mother, might have known the words from Stainer's 'Crucifixion' where they are spoken by Christ on the cross. As a declaration of grief it is very powerful; Mrs Cook might have been comforted to know that that for those who pass by her son's grave today it is not 'nothing' to them.
Cook was killed in the 1st Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry's successful attack on the old German front line. A and B companies attacked at 5 am on the 18 April when eleven soldiers were killed and twenty-five wounded. The next day, the 19th, B and D companies continued the attack, but the regimental history does not list the number of casualties.
WHAT BETTER SACRIFICE
SAPPER JAMES BRADLEY
References to sacrifice in these inscriptions are usually references to the sacrifice of God's only son Jesus Christ who suffered death on the cross "for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world" (The Prayer of Consecration from the service of Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer). To many relations their own sons had made a similar sacrifice to save their country.
However, I don't believe that this is the sacrifice referred to in Private Bradley's inscription. I think this sacrifice is that of 1 Samuel 15:22. Samuel rebukes Saul for not obeying "the voice of the Lord", for not destroying the spoils of war - the sheep and the oxen - but letting the people offer them up as sacrifices:
"Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice".
God asks for obedience, James Bradley obeyed the call of his country and died as a result, he was "obedient unto death" (Philippians 2:8) - "what better sacrifice".
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.
"THE FIRST BORN IS MINE"
SAITH THE LORD
PRIVATE JOHN BEDE CARROLL
John Bede Carroll was indeed his parents' first born child but the inscription they chose for him is chilling - their God is a savage God. The text comes from Numbers 3:13
"Because all the first born are mine; for on the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast: mine shall they be: I am the Lord."
John Carroll was 16 when he enlisted on 23 May 1915, giving his age as 18. He served in Gallipoli from September 1915 until the evacuation in December. In March 1916 he transferred to the Western Front with the rest of the Australian contingent. According to his father, writing on the form for the Roll of Honour of Australia, John Carroll served as a stretcher bearer throughout the Battle of Pozieres, July-August 1916, and was fatally wounded at Factory Corner, Flers. He does not give a date for this but in November 1916 Australian medical units were posted to caves in this area. Conditions in the region were by now truly appalling, the rain having reduced the terrain to thick, deep, viscous mud, making fighting or the carrying of either casualties or supplies virtually impossible.
YR YDYM NI YNER GARU EF
AM IDDO EF YN GYNTAF
EIN CARU NI
PRIVATE THOMAS ROSSER DAVIES
A Welsh wife chose this Welsh inscription for her Welsh husband who was killed on 19 October 1916 whilst serving with the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles. The family came from Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, Wales, Davies was born in Ammanford and his wife's address after his death was in Ammanford. There is nothing to suggest that Davies was ever in Canada, he could just have been drafted into the Canadian Mounted Rifles to replace their casualties rather than having been a Canadian.
Davies' inscription is a quote from the First Epistle of John Chapter 4 verse 19, "We love him because he first loved us". Did his wife, Mrs Annie Davies, notice the next verse: "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" Or was she purposely making a veiled criticism about war?
There is no information about how Davies met his death but as the 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles were not in the trenches on the day he died, and as he's buried at Contay British Cemetery where two Canadian Casualty Clearing Stations were based, he is most likely to have died of wounds received between the 9th and the 13th October when the battalion were last in the front line. For these four days the battalion war diary records that 13, 2, 37 and 17 other ranks were wounded on each of the successive days, days when it usually described things as "situation normal with intermittent shelling" and occasionally, "hostile enemy activity".
AWAKE AND SING
YE THAT DWELL IN DUST
CAPTAIN ARTHUR INNES ADAM
There could be an element of joy in this headstone inscription, joy that after four years with no news of her son's fate, Mrs Adela Marion Adam eventually discovered that he had died on the day that he went missing and that the Germans had buried him. In 1920 she published a memoir of her son, 'Arthur Innes Adam', in which she was forced to conclude, "Exhaustive enquiries in Germany, and through several neutral countries and America, have failed to discover the least vestige" of his fate, "there is no glimmer to lighten the impenetrable darkness".
In their history of the Cambridgeshire Regiment, ≈'The Cambridgeshires 1914-1919', Riddell and Clayton record how on 16 September Lieutenant Shaw led an attack on a German strong point, which failed. Shaw withdrew his men successfully but went back when he discovered one man was missing. Captain Adam went with him. He was not meant to have been there but, as the History relates [pp55/6]:
"Under the scheme for the attack Shaw was to be the only officer with the party; but they were all mere lads, and who could blame one so young and fearless for desiring to be with those he commanded in their hour of danger? He had worked for his men day in and day out, and loved them all. As a soldier he was wrong, but as a man he felt he could not leave them."
Both Shaw and Adam were shot and wounded. Another officer went out to find them. He too was shot. During the night another party was sent out but had to be withdrawn as it grew light. The following night a patrol went out and discovered, "All traces of the wounded officers and stretcher-bearers had disappeared".
In September 1920 the Graves Registration Unit located Adam's body in Achiet-le-Petit Communal Cemetery German Extension. And in 1924 it was exhumed and reinterred in Achiet-le-Grand.
Arthur Innes Adam was a prize-winning scholar at Winchester and Balliol College, Oxford. He never returned for his final year but took a commission in the Cambridgeshire Regiment, relieved that his extreme shortsightedness hadn't in the end prevented him from foreign service. He was full of ability and potential but his mother concluded her memoir by saying, "It is idle to enquire what he might have become; let us sing Laus Deo for what he was".
But we might allow ourselves to speculate. On 2 November 1915 he wrote to his sister, Barbara, saying that for the last two years he had had 'a kind of hope in him' that some day they might be able to work together towards lessening the misery caused by wrong-doing. And that "at least, if I am killed, I will now have mentioned the idea to you ..." . Barbara Adam married Jack Wootton in September 1917. He died of wounds six weeks later. In 1958 Barbara Adam, "an acknowledged expert in criminology, penology, and social work" [Oxford DNB], was created Baroness Wootton of Abinger. What might her brother have done too?
AMICUS USQUE AD ARAS
GUS AM BRIS AN LA
AGUD AN TEICH
NA SGAILLEAN
SERJEANT ALASDAIR MARTIN
Serjeant Martin's inscription combines a Latin saying with a Scottish Gaelic quote from the Old Testament. Look up the Latin saying - Amicus usque ad aras - and ninety-nine times out of a hundred you will be told that it translates as 'a friend to the altars', with the meaning 'a friend until death'. This is no doubt the meaning Alasdair Martin's mother intended But, despite its acquired meaning, it's worth making the point that this is not what the words originally meant. Plutarch records them being said by Pericles, and they do indeed translate as 'a friend to the altars'. Roman oaths were taken at altars, it was like swearing on the holy bible. So Pericles was telling his friend, who had asked him to lie for him, that although he was his friend he was not prepared to lie on oath for him.
The second part of the inscription, 'Gus am bris an la agud an teich na sgaillean' is a quotation from the Song of Solomon 4:6, 'Until the day break, and the shadows flee away'. It's a popular inscription in any language. And, like the Latin inscription above, its actual meaning has been replaced; it's now a reference to the time when the living will be reunited with their dead. In the Song of Solomon it's the words of a lover who is relishing being in her presence until the day breaks.
Six soldiers died on 23 October 1916 and were buried at map reference 57c.T.9.b.2.8. In August 1919 the Graves Registration Unit exhumed their bodies and was able to identify five of them as being members of the 2nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, including Sergeant Martin. They were re-buried them in the Guards' Cemetery, Lesboeufs.
A GOOD LIFE
HATH BUT A FEW DAYS
BUT A GOOD NAME
ENDURETH FOR EVER
CAPTAIN WILLIAM HAROLD NICHOLLS
Captain Nicolls' inscription was chosen by his wife. It comes from Ecclesiasticus in the Book of the Apocrypha.
Have regard to thy name; for that shall continue with thee above a thousand great treasures of gold.
A good life hath but a few days: but a good name endureth for ever.
Ecclesiasticus 41:12-13
'Name' was a great preoccupation after the first world war. The names of the dead were recorded on memorials all over the Empire, great effort being exerted to ensure that no name was excluded. The statement "Their name liveth for evermore", the words from Ecclesiasticus 44:14, were carved onto Lutyen's Stone of Remembrance in all but the smallest war cemeteries, and was often the dedication on memorials in churches, villages, schools etc, all over the world. A similar sentiment was expressed on the the next-of-kin memorial scroll, "let those who come after see to it that his name be not forgotten", although here the responsibility for the names living for evermore lies with the generations who come afterwards. Name, or as in the case of this inscription, a good name, also has to do with renown, something that is above 'great treasures of gold' and which will endure for ever.
Billie Nicholls had emigrated to Australia and was working in the crockery department of Messrs Cribb and Foote, Ipswich, Queensland, when war broke out. He enlisted in the Australian Infantry and served throughout the Gallipoli campaign, earning a commission. The newspaper report of his death tells that he was so popular with his fellow soldiers that they all clubbed together to buy him a complete officer's kit.
Nicholls was born in Wales and his parents still lived there. In September 1916 he married Lily May Fuell in Holy Trinity, Llandbradach, South Wales. Returning to the front after a short holiday, he was killed on 26 January 1917. A shell dropped on the dugout where he had just gone for a rest and he was killed by concussion. This was the general conclusion of an Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau search, most of the witnesses assuring his wife that his body appeared untouched.
UNTIL THE DAY BREAK
AND THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY
LIEUTENANT GEORGE NEVILLE PATRICK YOUNG MC
Lieutenant Young's inscription comes from the Old Testament, The Song of Solomon 2:17 and 4:6. It's a popular inscription even though the songs appear to be a series of erotic love songs. George Young's father quotes the biblical phrase exactly, most inscriptions add an 's' to the end of the word break. As used in memorial inscriptions, the phrase refers to the breaking of the day when the speaker will be reunited with the person he mourns, i.e. at his own death.
George Young was wounded on the night of the 10/11 July 1915. His friend Dennis Barnett reported to his mother that Young "got a shrapnel bullet nicely through the shoulder, and insisted on walking round the line to say good-bye to everyone before starting for the dressing station. There was no despondency there. He'll get a good holiday which he's earned if anyone did."
Unfortunately Young didn't get a good holiday, he died from gangrene two weeks later on 25 July.
BUINIDH NA
NITHEAN DIOMHAIR
DONTIGHEARNA
PRIVATE NORMAN MCDONALD
Norman McDonald's inscription was chosen by his father, Alexander McDonald, who lived in Portree on the Isle of Skye. It is written in Scottish Gaelic and is a quotation from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy Chapter 29 verse 29:
"The things that are secret belong to the Lord our God."
Gaelic is not really a written language and the version of the quotation I found was spelt:
Buinidh na nithe diomhair do n' Tighearn ar Dia.
And what does it mean? One needs to see the context. Moses tells his people of the covenant with God, and of what will happen to them if they fail to keep it: the anger of the Lord will be kindled against them destroying their land and bringing sickness among them.
"The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law."
I think Mr Alexander McDonald believed that the war was God's punishment for nations not keeping the word of His commandments:
"And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass growth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zebolm, which the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath."
Deuteronomy 29:23
The words of Deuteronomy, describing the punishment God will visit on his disobedient people, seem to describe very well to the devastated landscapes of the First World War battlefields, especially the wasteland of the Western Front.
UNDERNEATH
ARE THE EVERLASTING ARMS
CAPTAIN EDWIN GERALD VENNING
The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.
Deuteronomy 33:27
In August 1914 Edwin Venning was an actor performing in Brighton with a touring company. He joined up on 7 September and was commissioned that December, promoted Second Lieutenant in January 1915 and Captain on 9 June that year, two months before he was killed. We know slightly more about Venning's war than his rapid promotion tells us because two letters to his sister were published in Laurence Housman's 'War Letters of Fallen Englishmen', 1930.
"I've had rather phenomenal luck out here; twice I've found myself the only officer left. I can tell you no news owing to the Censor's vigilance, or rather to the fact that we are on our honour to impart nothing; but I can tell you the happenings of weeks, nearly months, ago at Ypres ... . I had rather a ghastly time then. I remember a certain two days during which we attacked incessantly in the open, and I had to lead two bayonet charges. ... There was an open field between ourselves and the Germans, and I got my men to the edge of it (having lost Lord knows how many from shell fire), and we started a fire fight with rifles and machine guns at about 5 yards. After some time of this I saw the right move, and gave my orders accordingly; it was my first charge, my first real big fight. We tried to spring across that field, but the fire was one block of solid lead. Literally I could see no chance for a fly in it, ... . I had to drop back owing to difficulty in getting my remaining men on. I had a shot at one, and missed him, but it settled the rest, a man by me shouting but he had his head and shoulders taken off; they sagged back from him, you know riddled in a line, and I fell behind the rest of his body just in time. Then my men broke, and I remember standing somewhere in front of the German trenches, with a wounded pal's revolver, that he slipped into my hand, yelling at my men some of the filthiest language ever heard. They were appalled and I rallied a dozen or so; as it happened, they were all killed almost at once, and I was left, so far as I could see, alone. Then I ran of the field faster than I have ever run in my life, dodging taking cover behind dead men, and in shell holes; at the edge of the field I pulled my self together. ... in two or three hours came the orders for another attack in a different place, that was worse. We attacked at dawn; the poor C.O. was killed among many others. At the end of it, I came near to blowing my own head off with my revolver, but a wounded Northumberland officer saved me, and I carried him off the field in a coat. It was a beastly business."
Despite yelling "some of the filthiest language ever heard" at his men they obviously appreciated their officer. The letter ends with Venning recounting his pleasure at the fact that, "my Q.M. Sergeant was asked to go for promotion yesterday and be made a S.M., but he heard it meant leaving me for another Company and refused to take it. My servant also refused because he would not be able to look after me. So evidently my love of men is not wasted here. I think I know the ways and peculiarities of every man of mine; it surprises them, and they like it and work well for it".
After Venning's death Sergeant-Major Utting wrote to his sister, confirming that this was true: "Your brother, Capt. Venning, was my company officer, and he treated myself and the men of my company in such a manner that has gained a respect that will last as long as there is a man of the present B Coy alive".
HE HATH BORN OUR GRIEFS
AND CARRIED OUR SORROWS
Unidentified
... to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
... He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath born our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:1-5
According to the records, Victor Stevens died of wounds. I can't reconcile this with the fact that the War Graves Commission puts his date of death as between 29 June and 4 July. The definition of died of wounds normally means that the man received medical attention before he died. Why therefore does no one know when he died, what happened to him after his wounds received attention? Open dates like this normally mean that the man's unit was in continuous action over the days and no one could tell exactly when a man was killed. It's curious.
HE BOWED HIS SHOULDERS
TO BEAR
SECOND LIEUTENANT PHILIP BINNIE
Philip Binnie's inscription, chosen by his mother, comes from Genesis 49 verse 15:
And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.
What can it mean? The context offers little help, the dying Jacob gathers his sons together to tell them of the future. Issachar, understanding the benefits of his position undertakes to shoulder the hard work necessary to maintain it. Does this mean that Philip Binnie understood the necessity for him to shoulder the burden of fighting in order to maintain the country's position, and do the words 'became a servant unto tribute', a form of slave labour, imply that he was a conscript?
Philip Binnie went missing on 26 September 1916. His body was discovered at map reference J.13.c.2.5 in July 1920. There was no cross to mark the grave but the body still had its identity disc. Binnie was born in Leith but is remembered at Strathblane, where their First World War Memorial Project the book A Village Remembers features Binnie. He is also remembered on the memorial in what is now Clincarthill Parish Church in Glasgow.
"... THE JOY THAT WAS SET
BEFORE HIM" HEBREW XII V2
CAPTAIN CLIFFORD WHITTINGTON GREEN
The full text of Clifford Whittington-Green's inscription, chosen by his mother, reads:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1 & 2
Clifford Whittington Green was commissioned into the 1st Battalion the Royal Berkshire Regiment on 14 August 1914, joining them in France on 27 November. He took part in the fighting that winter, most particularly at Givenchy on 22 December and at Richebourg on 20 May 1915. On 26 June 1915, whilst trying to get this men under cover from German shelling, Whittington-Green he was hit, dying of his wounds the next day. A First World War Memorial site for St Leonard's Church, Sunningwell gives an extensive overview of his family and war service.
THERE IS NO DEATH
SECOND LIEUTENANT PHILIP MAURICE RAMSEY ANDERSON
"In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof of there is no death."
Proverbs 12:28
Philip Anderson was a Roman Catholic educated at Beaumont College, the Jesuit school in Berkshire. At the outbreak of war he was working in Argentina but returned immediately to volunteer. He joined King Edward's Horse before receiving a commission into the Royal Irish Regiment. He died on 24 February 1915 of wounds received ten days earlier near Hill 60.
His younger brother, Alan James Ramsey, also serving with the Royal Irish Regiment, had been killed on 20 October 1914.
THE SPIRIT RETURNED
TO THE GOD WHO GAVE IT
CAPTAIN REGINALD GEORGE STRACEY
Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern,
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
The Book of Ecclesiastes, 12:6 & 7
At the very moment of death, when the silver cord is loosed, the body returns to the dust from which it came and the spirit returns to God who made it.
Captain Stracey was a regular army officer educated at Eton and Sandhurst. He served with the 1st Battalion the Scots Guards, embarking with them for France with the Expeditionary Force on 13 August 1914. He was killed in an attack at Cuinchy La Bassee when the Scots Guards were ordered to attack the German positions to the south of the La Bassee Canal.
Reginald Stracey's family came from Norfolk. He is commemorated on the war memorial in Rackheath, where Sir Edward Paulet lived at Rackheath Park, and in both St Mary with St Margaret and St Cuthbert's in Sprowston where his father, the Lord of the Manor, had lived at Sprowston Lodge.
THE LORD GAVE AND
THE LORD HAS TAKEN AWAY
OUR DEAR NORMAN
PRIVATE NORMAN DONALD MCPHEE
Private McPhee's parents quote the Old Testament, Job 1 21-2. On receiving the news of the death of all his children and the loss of all his possessions, Job falls to his knees saying:
Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall return thither: the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
Three weeks after Norman's death, his brother William James McPhee was killed, the same day that another brother was wounded, the 19 July 1916. A fourth of the McPhee brothers was wounded on 7 June 1917.