Bible Old Testament Psalms
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SATISFIED
PRIVATE PERCIVAL LEONARD TIMMS
There is no question mark after the word 'satisfied' so no this is not Alfred Timms asking the world whether it's satisfied now that it's killed his son - and many other people's sons. I have a feeling that that's how a lot of people who see this single-word inscription today would interpret it. But that is not it at all.
The word is a quotation from Psalm 17 v 15:
"As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with they likeness."
I say this confidently because I have seen the last ten words quoted fairly frequently in personal inscriptions. And what do they mean?
The psalmist asks:
"Keep me as the apple of thy eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,
From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about."
The psalmist knows that there is danger everywhere, and that there are easier and more prosperous routes to follow in this life than God's ways. But he will try to keep to God's ways so that when he dies it will be as a righteous person who will awake in God's presence. At which point he will be 'satisfied'. Alfred Timms is therefore telling the world that his nineteen-year-old son, Percy Leonard Timms, by fighting the Germans, doing God's work, will now be in God's presence and be 'satisfied'.
Timms was the eldest son of Alfred and Kate Timms' five children. He was born in Brize Norton, Oxfordshire. In 1978, Howell Powell was asked by the Brize Norton Parish Council to record his memories of those who'd died in the First World War. He said of Percival Timms:
"After leaving school he worked on Tom Pratt's farm (Tom Pratt kept the Chequers [pub] as well) Perce must have put his age up to join up. He died as he was being taken to a Prisoners Camp hospital. It was his first trip to France."
"MAY I GO
UNTO THE ALTAR OF MY GOD"
(EXTRACT FROM POCKET BOOK)
Unidentified
Priest: O send out thy light and thy truth: that they may lead me, and bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy dwelling.
Server: And that I may go unto the altar of God, even the God of my joy and gladness: and upon the harp will I give thanks unto thee, O God my God
These words from Psalm 43 form part of the preparation for an Anglo-Catholic Mass. Christopher Lange had written them down, slightly altered, in his pocket book. These were books that soldiers carried with them at all times. They contained everything he needed to know about matters practical, procedural, organizational and legal to do with his military service. Lange had the book on him when he died of wounds at a Casualty Clearing Station at Aubigny.
Christopher Lange was the youngest of Henry and Ellen Lange's twelve children. Henry Lange was a cabdriver and groom at a private house in London. He died in 1899. After his death, Ellen went out to work as an office cleaner.
It's strange the social history that emerges from the censuses. Ellen was an office cleaner, most cleaners I've come across have been charwomen. Her daughter Annie was a police detective, and two other daughters were cigarette makers. Christopher Lange had been a solicitor's clerk.
SUBMISSION
I WAS DUMB
AND OPENED NOT MY MOUTH
FOR IT WAS THY DOING
SECOND LIEUTENANT LESLIE GORDON PEASTON
There are many ways of expressing submission to the will of God 'Thy will be done', 'Not my will but thine O Lord', but this one seems particularly stark. The words come from Psalm 39 verse 10 and are closer to the version in the Book of Common Prayer than in the King James Bible: "I became dumb, and opened not my mouth: for it was Thy doing".
Leslie Peaston was the youngest of the four sons of George and Caroline Peaston of 66 Narbonne Avenue, Clapham Common. Caroline Peaston, by now a widow, chose the inscription. Whatever she might have felt like saying, however she might have felt like complaining, Mrs Peaston felt she couldn't because she knew that it was the will of God that her son Leslie had to die and that therefore she must submit herself to it.
Peaston served originally in the Royal Fusiliers, rising to the rank of corporal. He transferred to the Middlesex Regiment and was then commissioned into the Fusiliers in June 1917. He served with the 1st Battalion and was one of two officers killed in action at Vendelles on 21 March when the Germans subjected their lines to a heavy bombardment of HE and gas shells.
As with many of the casualties on this first day of the German offensive, Peaston's body was not initially buried. In September 1919, it was exhumed from map reference 62c R2 B5-6 and identified by the fact that his shirt had his name on it.
SO TEACH US
TO NUMBER OUR DAYS
THAT WE MAY APPLY OUR HEARTS
UNTO WISDOM
PRIVATE EBENEZER HORATION MILLER
Ebenezer Miller's inscription comes from Psalm 90, the beautiful psalm that begins:
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
And continues:
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night.
And has the well known words:
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Then it asks the question:
Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
Which it answers:
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
So the message is, in effect, don't let's waste our all-too-short-days on this earth in the sort of activities that earn us God's wrath. Private Miller's mother, Mary Albertha, chose his inscription and I think we can read it as a reprimand.
Ebenezer Horatio Miller was born and brought up on Tobago. He enlisted on 22 November 1916 in Bellevue, Ontario and on 16 May 1917 was discharged as medically unfit. The reason? He was tall, 5'9", and very slim, with a 29 and a half inch chest, and a one and a half inch expansion. In the medical officer's opinion he was "not likely to stand the strain of military service". Why? Because he "seems a man would be subject to tuberculosis", even though he was in good health at the moment.
Miller's record notes that his conduct was good, his habits were good and his temperance was good. And under the section asking about distinguishing features the officer has written, "None, only colored". Ebenezer Miller was black.
The form also asks how long it is thought he will be medically unfit and the answer is - "permanent". So it's rather surprising to see that Miller enlisted the next day and appears to have been accepted. The verdict on his health was "Slight defects, not enough to cause rejection".
Miller joined the 21st Battalion Canadian Infantry in France on 21 December 1917 and was killed in action on 4 March 1918. The 21st had only just taken over a section of the front line at Lens, the relief being completed at 11.30 pm the previous day. At 5.45 am the next morning the Germans launched a large-scale raid on their section of the line but were driven back.
A few days later the Toronto Star published a heroic account of the raid, describing how three hundred specially picked enemy assault troops were driven off:
"Our chaps killed a great many Boches in the trenches, and during his retirement many Germans were lying dead in No Man's Land. Not a man of ours is missing, so he failed absolutely in his mission, which we learn from prisoners was himself to take prisoners and gain information."
'Not a man of ours is missing'; no but three officers were wounded, three other ranks killed and 38 wounded. Ebenezer Horatio Miller was one of those killed.
I had meant to finish here but the name Horatio fascinated me. There were nine West Indian sailors listed as being on board HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. Perhaps one of them was Ebenezer Miller's ancestor and the name was a legacy.
WOULD GOD
I HAD DIED FOR THEE
O WILFRED, MY SON, MY SON
PRIVATE WILFRED DUNN
Mrs Jemima Dunn has quoted from the Book of Samuel, substituting her son's name for that of King David's deeply loved son Absalom, his favourite child, who was killed fighting in a rebellion against his father. After he hears the news of his son's death,
"the king was much moved, and went up to the Chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!"
[2 Samuel 18:33]
It's a passage echoed in 'To You Who Have Lost', a poem by John Oxenham, (William Arthur Dunckerley 1852-1941), which was published during the war:
I know! I know!
The ceaseless ache, the emptiness, the woe, -
The pang of loss, -
The strength that sinks beneath so sore a cross,
" - Heedless and careless, still the world wags on,
And leaves me broken ... Oh, my son! my son!"
Wilfred Dunn came from Cassava River, a district of Glengaffe in Jamaica. He served with the British West Indies Regiment, formed during 1915 from Caribbean volunteers. Dunn was with the 11th battalion, like all the other battalions in the regiment a non-combatant labour battalion - an indication of the British government's reluctance to use coloured troops in combatant roles.
Dunn is buried in Taranto, a town on the southern tip of Italy. The town had been used by the Royal Navy since Italy entered the war on the Allied side in May 1915. After the summer of 1917, its importance increased greatly when it became the main port, at the end of the overland route from Cherbourg, for supplying men and materials to the war in the eastern Mediterranean. The British West Indies Regiment was used for loading and unloading vessels and numerous other labouring roles, much to the disappointment, and in some cases increasing dissatisfaction, of many of those who served in it. The cause of Dunn's death is not known.
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.
"SCATTER THOU THE PEOPLE
THAT DELIGHT IN WAR"
PSALM 68.30 VERSE
PRIVATE LEONARD STANLEY BLACKWOOD
I wonder which people Mrs AM Blackwood had in mind when she chose this inscription for her son? Was it warmongers in general or did she have some specific people in mind? I have a feeling that it was the latter. The reading of the psalm implies that God's people are people of peace and that it is only necessary for the people of war to be crushed for there to be no more war. This was the reasoning behind the claim that the 1914-18 war was the war to end all war. In other words, it was only necessary for German militarism to be utterly crushed for there to be no more war. For this reason I believe that to Mrs Blackwood the people who delighted in war, the people who needed to be scattered, were the Germans - the people of peace of course being the people of the British Empire!
Leonard Blackwood had been a boot clicker before the war, the person who cut the uppers from the leather skins. He enlisted on 26 January 1916, embarked from Australia in April and left Britain for France that August. Blackwood was wounded in the Australian attack at Broodseinde Ridge on 4 October 1917. According to the records of No. 2 Casualty Clearing Station, Lijssenthoek he had a fractured skull and gun-shot wounds to his face. He died of his wounds three days later.
IF I TAKE THE WINGS
OF THE MORNING
THERE SHALL THY HAND LEAD ME
LIEUTENANT EDWARD HORACE PEMBER
This lovely inscription comes from the Book of Common Prayer version of Psalm 139 verses 8 & 9:
"If I take the wings of the morning: and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there also shall thy hand lead me: and thy right hand shall hold me."
It was chosen for nineteen-year-old Lieutenant Pember by his father, Francis Pember, Warden of All Souls College, Oxford.
Pember, who went to Harrow with a Classical scholarship, won a Mathematics exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford in December 1914 when he was still only 16. He never took up his place at Oxford but rather took a commission in the Royal Field Artillery in July 1915, when he was 17. He served in Gallipoli and Egypt and then joined the Royal Flying Corps in the autumn of 1916, aged 18. In May 1917 he joined 5 Squadron in France. Five months later he was killed when:
"On the morning of September 30th he was flying over enemy lines taking photographs when he was attacked by four enemy scout machines, who came down on him suddenly from a great height. His machine was brought down, and both he and his observer were killed."
Flight magazine 11 October 1917
"If I take the wings of the morning ..."
WEEPING MAY ENDURE
FOR THE NIGHT
BUT JOY COMETH
IN THE MORNING
PRIVATE ALBERT SYDNEY ALEY
Private Aley's inscription was chosen by his brother, Archer, and comes from Psalm 30 verse 5 in the King James' Version:
"For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."
The version in the Book of Common Prayer is rather more poetic:
"For his wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye, and in his pleasure is life: heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning"
Is the night referred to a single night or a period of darkness? And is the morning simply the next day or perhaps death, as in the very popular inscription: "Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away?
Albert Ayley was a tailor from Sydney. He enlisted in December 1916 and embarked from Australia a month later. On 4 October 1917 his battalion attacked at Broodseinde Ridge. Aley was wounded. A witness to the Australian Red Cross and Wounded Enquiry Bureau reported:
On Oct. 4th during the attack on a ridge at Ypres Aley was with me on a carrying party. We had gone up and taken our position and were returning for ammunition when I saw Aley walking towards the D/S [Dressing Station].He had his arm bandaged but did not seem to be wounded elsewhere. I afterwards heard he D/W [died of wounds] Oct. 9th. Aley was about 22, delicate looking, 5' 4, and had relatives in England ...
Others agree with this witness as to the nature of Aley's wounds, which seems a bit strange as the report from No. 3 Casualty Clearing Station, Lijssenthoek states that Aley "died of shrapnel wounds on right leg".
I AM FOR PEACE
BUT WHEN I SPEAK
THEY ARE FOR WAR
PSALM 120.7
SERJEANT PERCY TUCKER
Serjeant Tucker was killed in action in a local attack at Leuze Wood near the village of Combles, which is where his body was discovered in a temporary grave in 1920. His brother Reginald had been killed in Flanders two months earlier. Their father Jonah, chose both their inscriptions. Reginald's says:
We are more than conquerors
Through him
That loved us
This comes from Romans 8:37 and is an introduction to the beautiful passage about nothing being able to separate us from the love of God - "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature". If Reginald's inscription is about the permanence of God's love, what is Percy's about? It sounds like the words of a conscientious objector - whenever I speak in favour of peace I am shouted down. I don't think Percy Tucker can have been one or he wouldn't have achieved the rank of serjeant, but that doesn't mean to say that he didn't speak out in favour of peace.
Percy Tucker was an elementary school teacher in London when he enlisted in the 2nd Battalion The London Regiment, Royal Fusiliers. Reginald was a miller's clerk in Chippenham, Wiltshire where both brothers had been born and where both are commemorated on the Tabernacle Congregational Church Memorial. There's a Frederick Tucker on this memorial too. Percy and Reginald's eldest brother was called Frederick but it has not been possible to establish whether this is their brother.
TO MAKE WARS TO CEASE
UNTO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
MY JOY AND CROWN
PRIVATE J A WALKER
Private Walker died on Christmas Eve, the same night that long ago the heavenly host is said to have greeted the shepherds with the words: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men" (Luke 2:14). Mrs Daisy Walker, Private Walker's widow, in choosing the words of the Psalmist for her husband's inscription, asserts that it is in God's power to end war:
"He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire."
Psalm 46 v.9
What does she mean by "My joy and crown"? St Paul meant that the Philippians were his joy and crown, his reward and his blessing, and exhorted them not to fall away from their belief in Christ.
"Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved."
Philippians 4:1
Mrs Walker may have had another person in mind as her 'joy and crown' but was stating that she would not fall away from her belief in God.
Private Walker served with the 5th (London) Field Ambulance, part of the 47th London Division. A Territorial Force, it had been in action since March 1915. The History of the 5th London Field Ambulance describes the locations where it served, lists the 50 men who were killed, and concludes with a wonderful piece of verse:
The Chorus of the 'Fifth'
by R. Wyatt
The Fifth the fliers
The Fifth the triers
The Fifth that never tires
And that never makes a fuss,
Oh we will tell you on the strict Q.T.
Just the sort o'kind o'chaps we be
We are the Fifth London Ambulance R.A.M.C.
SO SOON IT PASSETH AWAY
AND WE ARE GONE
SECOND LIEUTENANT WILLIAM CHARLES TRIMMER
The days of our age are threescore years and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years: yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow; so soon it passeth it away, and we are gone.
Psalm 90:10
from the Book of Common Prayer
"The days of our age are threescore years and ten": William Charles Trimmer was 19. None of those who died in the First World War reached the age of 70. But in the great scheme of things, as the psalm from which this is quoted says: 'A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday: seeing that is past as a watch in the night ... so soon it passeth away and we are gone'. 'And we are gone', together with the issues that were so important, so earth shattering. And now that all those who could remember the young men who fought and died are gone - and those who remember the dead of the Second World War are fast disappearing too - we should not just be remembering THAT they died but that intolerance, ignorance and nationalism helped cause their deaths. Is this not what Remembrance should also be about today?
Trimmer's mother chose his inscription. She and her husband had two children, one son and one daughter, Dorothy. A young boy fresh from school, William Charles was commissioned into the 1st Buckinghamshire Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.
On the night of the 20th/21st July the Battalion was ordered to carry out an attack on the German positions between Ovillers and Pozieres. This was to be the Battalion's first serious attack. Zero hour was fixed for 2.45 am. At 2.30 the Germans, obviously expecting something, opened up their machine guns and kept them firing after 2.45 so that when the signal came to advance few men got very far. Casualties in the Battalion amounted to 154; Trimmer was among the twelve who were killed.
Dorothy Trimmer was therefore her parents' only surviving child. She married in 1919, a man who added her surname to his own so that she became Dorothy Trimmer-Thompson. Their son, Charles Edward Adrian Trimmer-Thompson, was killed in action in North Africa on 17 March 1943.
THEN THOUGHT I
TO UNDERSTAND THIS
BUT IT WAS TOO HARD FOR ME
PRIVATE THOMAS LITTLE
Thomas Little's inscription comes from Psalm 73 verse 15 in the Book of Common Prayer. In the psalm, the speaker cannot understand how it is that the ungodly always seem to prosper compared with those who live good lives. Is this what Little's family were referring to? Perhaps, or perhaps they were making a veiled comment about the war and the death of their son - 'Then thought I to understand this but it was too difficult for me'. It's the same sentiment as the many families who chose 'Some day we'll understand' for an inscription. It's a way of questioning what they had been fighting for. In fact it was not uncommon for people to quote the Bible, or Prayer Book, as a way of covertly making a comment on the war, see for example "To what purpose is this waste, or 'Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity', which has to have a certain irony to it in a cemetery dedicated to the war dead.
Little was the son of a prosperous marine and mechanical engineer. Interestingly, the 1911 census describes his mother as an architect. She wasn't an architect in the 1901 census. However, the Littles built an Arts and Crafts house, Daweswood, in Patterdale, which was begun in 1908. It's possible that Elizabeth Little was responsible for the design.
Not much is known about Thomas Little, other than the fact that he served with the 1st Battalion the South Wales Borderers and went missing on 10 November 1917. The History of the South Wales Borderers relates what happened that day. Having taken Passchendaele Village on 6 November, the British were desperate to secure the high ground behind it. The date was fixed for the 10 November and the Borderers were detailed to take part in the attack. On the night of the 9th the regiment moved up to the front:
"The night was pitch dark, with rain at intervals, the country was a mixture of glue and water, churned up indescribably by the bombardments so that off the duck-board tracks a footing was hard to obtain. In places the duck-boards themselves were under water, and if a man slipped off he usually fell into a deep shell hole full of water and would be lucky to escape alive."
Add to this the fact that the men were weighed down with rations, ammunition and equipment, that the German artillery had all the duck-board tracks accurately registered so that it's not surprising that the men were in trouble before the fighting even began. Zero hour was at 5 am. At 7.15 am the first counter-attack began. The regiment held out all morning, harassed by German aeroplanes, but didn't achieve its objectives. By the time the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment relieved it that evening it had suffered almost 400 casualties killed, wounded and missing. Little was one of the missing, his body not discovered until 23 March 1920 when it was identified by his disc.
BEHOLD
HOW GOOD AND HOW PLEASANT
IT IS FOR BRETHREN TO DWELL
TOGETHER IN UNITY (MOTHER)
PRIVATE JAMES PETER ROBERTSON VC
27th Battalion Canadian Infantry War Diary
6 November 1917, Passchendaele
"Battalion in front line in front of Passchendaele. Weather dull. Wind N.E. Battalion assembled for the assault and all in position at 4 a.m. Zero hour was 5 a.m. Battalion attacked the village of Passchendaele with the 31st Battalion on the left and the 26th Battalion on the right. All objectives captured at 7.40 a.m. Day spent in consolidating position. 9 machine guns and 76 prisoners were captured. Approximate casualties were: 13 officers and 240 O.R.s."
Private Robertson took part in this assault and won a posthumous Victoria Cross for his actions. It's interesting to compare the above diary entry with the citation for his award; it doesn't sound like the same event.
"When his platoon was held up by uncut wire and a machine gun causing many casualties, Pte Robertson dashed to an opening on the flank, rushed the machine gun and, after a desperate struggle with the crew, killed four and then turned the gun on the remainder, who, overcome by the fierceness of his onslaught, were running towards their own lines ... He inflicted many more casualties among the enemy, and then carrying the captured machine gun ... He selected an excellent position and got the gun into action, firing on the retreating enemy who by this time were quite demoralised by the fire brought to bear on them ... Later, when two of our snipers were badly wounded in front of our trench, he went out and carried of them in under very severe fire. He was killed just as he returned with the second man."
And now look at Robertson's inscription, it's the first verse of Psalm 133: "How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity (Mother)". I think we can assume from her choice that we know what Mrs Janet Robertson felt about the war - how much better the world would be if men could live in harmony together. Interestingly, it was not uncommon for families to quote passages from the bible in a manner that indicated their attitude to the war but stopped short of being overtly critical.
UNDER THE SHADOW
OF THY WINGS
LIEUTENANT ROBERT HAY SQUAIR
Glasgow Herald
Tuesday 23 October 1917
Deaths on Service
Squair - Died of wounds received in action on 12th October, Robert Hay Squair, Second Lieutenant, Seaforth Highlanders, eldest son of the late Francis Hay Squair JP and of Mrs Squair, Barone View, Rothsay
Robert Squair was commissioned into the 7th Battalion the Seaforth Highanders in August 1915. The Battalion took part in the Battle of Loos in September 1915, the Somme Campaign, July to November 1916, the 1st and 2nd Battles of the Scarpe during the 1917 Arras Campaignm and Third Ypres where in the First Battle of Passchendaele they suffered heavy casualties attacking over sodden ground against the well-defended German machine guns. Squair was wounded on the first day of the battle and died the next day.
His inscription comes either from Psalm 36 verse 7:
How excellent is thy loving kindness O God: therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings
Or from Psalm 17 verse 8:
Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings.
Either quotation evokes the image of a bird using its wings to both shield and shelter its young, to protect them from the elements and from predators, and to provide them with warmth and security. Robert Squair's mother chose his inscription, the subtext being that her son is now safe from harm in God's keeping.
REST IN THE LORD
& WAIT PATIENTLY FOR HIM
SERJEANT WILLIAM ECCLES HOLT
Serjeant Holt's widow quotes from Psalm 37 verse 7: "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass."
The words form the opening lines of a beautiful aria from Mendelssohn's Elijah:
O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him,
And he shall give thee thy heart's desires.
Commit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him,
And fret not thyself because of evil doers.
Holt had already served 12 years with the army before the First world War broke out. In 1897, when he was 18, he had enlisted with the Royal North Lancashire Fusiliers and served with them in South Africa during the Boer War being present at the relief of Kimberley. He retired, time expired, in 1909. On the outbreak of war in 1914, he joined the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, and went with them to France in February 1915. Holt survived the fighting of First Ypres and of both Delville and High Wood but was killed on the morning of 10 September by a shall which exploded among the working party he was bringing out from a night's work in the trenches.
A married man and the father of two daughters, his son was born eight weeks after his death. He was baptized William Eccles Holt.
GOD IS OUR REFUGE
AND STRENGTH
A VERY PRESENT HELP
IN TROUBLE
PRIVATE DONALD MCCALLUM
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
Psalm 46: 1-3
Despite this devastating blow to their lives, James and Emma McCallum can still affirm their unshakeable faith in God - "their refuge and strength" - on their son's headstone.
At the time of the 1911 census, James McCallum was head forester at Canford Magna, Lord Wimborne's estate in Dorset. Ten years earlier he had been a forester on the Dundas estate in Dunira, Perthshire. Donald was working up here as a forester before he joined up in February 1915. He was 17. Sent to France In August 1916 he was killed in action three months later in the capture of Beaumont-Hamel.
Beaumont-Hamel had been one of the objectives of the 1 July but had proved to be so heavily fortified that it was virtually impregnable. Eventually, on 13 November, the 51st Division and the 63rd Royal Naval Division, launched a much postponed attack across ground made almost impossible by three weeks of heavy rain. However, with the benefit of surprise and the help of thick fog, by the end of the day they had achieved their objective.
McCallum and thirty-two other members of the 6th Battalion the Black Watch, all killed on 13 November, were buried in Hunter's Cemetery. This tiny cemetery, with a total of only forty-one burials, was called Hunter's Cemetery after the Revd Hunter, Chaplain to the 6th Battalion, who with the Revd Gordon spent "the days following the fight, searching the battlefield under continuous shell fire, and so well did they carry out this work that every missing man of the Battalion was accounted for". [History of the Black Watch in the Great War Vol. 2 p.152 Wauchope]
Donald McCallum is commemorated in both Canford Magna and Comrie, where two of Sir George Dundas's sons are also commemorated.
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
A VERY GALLANT OFFICER
AND GENTLEMAN
TRULY DEPICTED
IN PSALM XV
SECOND LIEUTENANT TERENCE DONOUGH O'BRIEN
Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil against his neighbour, not taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
Psalm XV
Psalm 15 was known as the gentleman's psalm as it appeared to summarise the qualities of a Christian gentleman, into whatever station of life he had been born.
Terence O'Brien was the only son of Brigadier-General Edmund Donough John O'Brien and his wife Harriet. He was killed on 3 March 1916 during an aborted landing at Abeele aerodrome in which the pilot, Lieutenant RA Pierpont, is variously said to have been either injured or unhurt.
Terence O'Brien was educated at Winchester where their memorial site gives more details.
YE SHALL DIE LIKE MEN
AND FALL LIKE
ONE OF THE PRINCES
PRIVATE CHARLES FREDERICK COX MITCHELL
The inscription comes from Psalm 82:
... all the foundations of the earth are out of course.
I have said, Ye are all gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
Private Mitchell came from Vancouver and served with the 7th Battalion Canadian Infantry, the British Columbia Regiment. He was killed in action at Ploegsteert "While taking part in operations south of Messines, he was hit in the head and instantly killed by an enemy rifle bullet". Canadian Expeditionary Force Burial Registers.