Biographical information
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FELLOW OF
THE ROYAL SOCIETY
OF PAINTER ETCHERS
LIEUTENANT LUKE THOMPSON TAYLOR
Put "Luke Taylor" etcher into Google and then go to 'images' and the first few rows will all show Taylor's work. Some of it will be pencil studies of trees and landscapes for his own work and some will be etchings for the reproduction of the work of artists like Constable and Turner.
Born and brought up in York where his father was a cabinet maker, Taylor was living with his widowed mother at the time of the 1901 census. He described himself as an artist living on his own account. By 1911 he was living in London at 197 Bedford Hill, Balham. He still described himself as an artist and was emplying a married couple as cook and general servant. He also had eight boys living in the house aged between 14 and 18, some still at school and some apprenticed. He has bracketed them together and written, "This is a boys' home and these boys are under my care".
At this time Taylor was teaching etching at the London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts. In later days Ernest Blaikley remembered him as "not only a good etcher but also a man of exceptionally high ideals. He had a burning desire to serve his fellow men and at the earliest moment he was in uniform and went out to the war in the spirit of a crusader, losing his life after an all too short period of service".
Taylor joined the Inns of Court OTC on the outbreak of war before taking a commission in the 8th Battalion the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. The battalion went to France in September 1915. Taylor lasted nine months. He was wounded during the fighting on 21 May when the Germans made a determined attack on Broadmarsh Crater. He died at No. 42 Casualty Clearing Station, Aubigny and was buried there the following day.
Both his parents being dead, his brother Arthur chose his inscription.
WAR CORRESPONDENT
TO "THE TIMES"
IN NORTHERN FRANCE
BEFORE ENLISTING
PRIVATE GEORGE AUBREY MANATON
The Times
29 July 1918
Mr George Aubrey Manaton, who died on July 25, at the age of 26 years, was a journalist of great promise. Early in 1914 he joined the editorial staff of The Times from the London News Agency, and in the early weeks of the war he rendered good service as a Special Correspondent at the French ports. Although far from strong, he volunteered for military service and joined the Inns of Court OTC. After a few weeks of brave endeavour he broke down in training and was discharged from the Army suffering from consumption. To the deep regret of his colleagues he was unable to resume his work in Printing House Square, and, after spending some months in a sanatorium, he went home to Braunton, North Devon. There he did a great deal of journalistic work, including a series of articles in the style of the chief war correspondents, for the Newspaper World, and awaited the inevitable with the cheerful courage of a fine character. The funeral will take place in Braunton this afternoon.
George Manaton was one of the five children of William and Sarah Manaton of Bruanton, Devon. His elder brother, Frederick, had died of wounds received at Thiepval on 17 September 1916.
PRES. O.U.B.C. 1908-1909
CAPT. LEANDER 1912
BARRISTER-AT-LAW
CAPTAIN ALISTER GRAHAM KIRBY
The Times 3 April 1917
An Oxford Rowing "Blue"
Captain Alister Graham Kirby, London Regiment (Staff Captain Divisional Artillery), who died in hospital abroad on March 29, while on active service, was one of the most famous oarsmen of the last decade. He was the younger son of the late A.R. Kirby and of Mrs Kirby of 81, Cromwell Road S.W.. and was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He secured a commission in the London Regiment in August 1914, and saw much active service. Captain Kirby started his rowing career at Eton ... [He went up to Magdalen in 1905] A stylish and powerful heavy-weight oarsman, there was never any doubt about his Blue and he rowed against Cambridge in each of the four years he was in residence. In the first three of his races, D.C.R. Stuart stroked Cambridge to Victory, but Captain Kirby had the satisfaction of winning his last race, and the unexpected victory of Oxford was largely due to the way in which he backed Bourne at stroke .... He was captain of the Leander Club in 1912, and the duty of selecting a representative eight for the Olympic Regatta at Stockholm devolved upon him. He rowed '7' in the crew, which at Henley lost the final of the Grand to Sydney (N.S.W.), but at Stockholm three weeks later turned the tables on the Australians and carried off the trophy for eight-oar rowing. A man of kindly and unassuming character he was very popular with a wide circle of rowing friends.
Alister Kirby's brother, Claude, a lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy, chose his inscription. Although their mother was still alive theur father was dead. Captain Kirby died in hospital at Marseilles of an unspecified illness.
LEFT A WIFE &
TEN YOUNG CHILDREN
TO MOURN HIS LOSS
PEACE PERFECT PEACE
PRIVATE FREDERICK WILLIAM SAUNDERS
At the time of his death, Frederick Saunder's children were: Rose 14, Chrissie 13, Blanche 12, Florence 10, Daisy 9, Frederick 7, Cyril 6, Louisa 4, Ethel 3 and Agnes 2. A builder's labourer in Southborough near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, Saunders was in the army by September 1917.
Although a private in the 24th Battalion Manchester Regiment, Saunders joined the army as a sapper in the Royal Engineers and it's in a sapper's role that he worked for the Manchesters, digging and mending trenches and generally effecting other repairs. He served originally in Belgium before the battalion were withdrawn to Italy at the end of October 1917. Here they were based at Paderno where they spent the early months of 1918 on the Montello Hill near the River Piave constructing camouflaged areas for the artillery. It was here on 23 April, whilst he and his platoon were marching to work, that a shell burst among them. Saunders was severely wounded and died that day.
How did Mrs Saunders manage after the death of her husband? She married Lionel Skinner in the second quarter of 1919. Previously unmarried, he was 35, had lived with his parents in Southborough before the war and was a maker of cricket bat handles at Twort and Sons. The firm are known for their hand-made cricket balls but they must have made bats, or at least bat handles, too.
The last line of Saunder's inscription - Peace perfect peace - is one of the most popular of all inscriptions, and not just in war cemeteries. The words begin six out of the seven verses of a hymn written by Bishop E.H. Bickersteth, which questions how there can be peace, perfect peace in a world of sin, with our thronging duties, surging sorrows, loved ones far away, future unknown and the shadow of death hanging over us and those we love. The answer is to put our trust in Jesus,
It is enough: earth's struggles soon shall cease,
And Jesus calls us to heaven's perfect peace
Afterword:
Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser
Friday 16 September 1927
The funeral of the late Mr Lionel Skinner of 23 Edward Street, who died at the General Hospital, Tunbridge Wells last week after a painful illness patiently born, took place on Saturday at Southborough Cemetery ....
[The majority of this information comes from the Imperial War Museum's Lives of the First World site.]
FAVERSHAM
GUATAMALA CITY, F.R.C.I.
FOR EVER ENGLAND
VIVE LA FRANCE
PRIVATE NATHANIEL GEORGE READ AMIES
Private Amies' mother mixes biographical information with a line from Rupert Brooke's The Soldier and a toast to France - 'Vive la France', long live France.
Amies was born in Faversham on 17 December 1884 the son of the Reverend Stuart Amies and his wife, Frances. He was educated at St John's, Leatherhead and Denstone College, Staffordshire. In August 1905 he went to Canada. He remained there for fifteen months before moving to Guatamala City where he became a coffee planter. He returned to Britain immediately war broke out and enlisted on 1 September 1914. He went to France on 1 June 1915 and was killed by a stray explosive bullet while returning from listening-post duty. His captain told his mother:
"I got to know him well and value his good qualities. He was a keen and earnest soldier, who never grumbled at whatever job he had to do (and many of them must have been distasteful to a man of his education), and, moreover, did it well. He was a great favourite with the other men, and had a great influence for good over them, and they all feel his loss deeply. He had done particularly well in his platoon over here, and seemed to enjoy every minute of life in the trenches."
Du Ruvigny's Roll of Honour Volume 2
THE ARCHITECT
OF THE UNIVERSE
CALLED THIS PROMISING
MATHEMATICIAN
SECOND LIEUTENANT ALFRED EDWARD IKIN
The architect of the universe is how the sixteenth-century reformer, John Calvin (1509-1564) regularly referred to the Christian God. The Great Architect of the Universe is how Freemasons sometimes refer to their undefined deity who could be called God, Krishna, Buddha, Allah or by any other name according to the member's belief.
Alfred Edward Ikin's father, who went by the same name, chose his son's inscription. There is no evidence that he was either a Calvinist or a Freemason but the omission of the word 'Great' inclines me to think that if he was either it was probably the former.
Alfred Jnr was the eldest son of Alfred and Eliza Ikin. Alfred Snr was a scientist and an educationalist who retired as the Director of Education for Blackpool. Alfred Jnr's obituary in the Yorkshire Post & Leeds Intelligencer on 23 March 1918 explains in what way he was a promising mathematician:
"At 14 [he] gained honours in Cambridge Local Examinations and passed the London Intermediate Science Examination three years later. Afterwards he won a Board of Education Exhibition of £50 a year at Cambridge and also an open scholarship at Clare College."
Ikin never took up these scholarships. Instead, on leaving school he enlisted in the 28th London Regiment before transferring to the Royal Flying Corps.
Reports of his death simply state that he was killed while flying in France. The 4 April 1918 edition of Flight Global records that,
"For two months before going to France Mr Ikin had been engaged in night flying against enemy raiders; but more recently he had taken part in night-bombing over the enemy lines and on other special flight work."
The newspaper account of his death concludes with these words from his commanding officer:
"The service has lost a keen and intrepid pilot, and I have lost one of the most efficient officers of my flight."
REARED BESIDE
THE TUMMEL AND THE TAY
HE LIVED SIMPLY
& DIED BRAVELY
DRIVER ROBERT ALEXANDER DUFF
Robert Alexander Duff was born and brought up on a farm in Ballinluig a small community in Perthshire, close to the confluence of the rivers Tummel and Tay, just as his father, Duncan Duff, said on his inscription. It's a beautiful part of the world with its pastures and woodlands and distant mountains, all evoked very simply by just the two words Tummel and Tay.
Duff appears to have been mobilised on the outbreak of war, which would indicate that he was either a territorial or a regular soldier. However, he was discharged as medically unfit one month later. Nothing daunted, he re-enlisted in the Army Service Corps and served with the 3rd Army Auxiliary Horse Transport Company in France and Flanders from 4 September 1915.
At some point he volunteered as an observer with the Royal Flying Corps and was attached to 22nd Squadron based at Auchel. On 30 January 1918 Duff, with the pilot Second Lieutenant Godfrey Gleeson Johnstone a New Zealander, were on an offensive patrol when their plane was seen to fall in flames during aerial combat. Reports say that, Duff, without any flying training, tried to bring the plane down on the allied side but the plane crashed and he died soon afterwards from burns and injuries.
Whilst Duff's inscription evokes his home in Scotland, the pilot's ties him to the land of his birth:
Born Motuotaraia, Hawkes Bay
New Zealand
THOUGH COMPARATIVELY LITTLE
I DID MY BEST
PRIVATE THOMAS JAMES SKIPPER
Private Skipper was 5 ft 6 inches tall according to his medical records, not that little by the standards of the day. His brother, Michael John Skipper, his next of kin, chose his inscription. They sound like Thomas James' own words.
Thomas James Skipper was 43 when he enlisted in 1916 - comparatively old. His brother said he was an accountant, Skipper himself said he was a gold prospector. He had certainly been a prospector; there's a newspaper cutting from The Daily News, Perth, dated 21 September 1899, showing his claim to a parcel of land under the terms of The Goldfields Act 1895. There's no indication he made any money from it.
Skipper enlisted in February 1916 and embarked for France the following November. He served with the 51st Infantry Battalion and on 2 April 1917 was wounded in action with a gunshot wound in his knee. He was hospitalised in Britain he was never again fit for active service and in July 1917 was posted permanently to the No 3 Command Depot at Hurdcott, Wiltshire.
On 31 December 1917, he became seriously ill. Admitted to the military hospital at Fovant, he died on January 7th of phthisis, tuberculosis.
In his own words, he had done his best.
Much of this information comes from the Compton Chamberlayne War Graves site.
B.A. JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
SERVED AS
SECOND LIEUTENANT
13TH BN. MIDDLESEX REGT.
PRIVATE ERNEST GEORGE DE LATHOM HOPCRAFT
This may not seem like a very interesting inscription but there's a very interesting story that lies behind it - and rather a sad one too, not that all these stories aren't sad.
I've given Hopcraft the rank of private, which he was, but it doesn't say so on his headstone, the place where his rank should be is blank. And I've given his regiment as the 20th Battalion London Regiment, which it was, but again it doesn't say so in the normal place on his headstone. I can't imagine what force of character Hopcraft's father must have applied to achieve this with the War Graves Commission ... but he did. What lay behind it?
Ernest George de Lathom Hopcraft was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant on 29 December 1914, transferring from the Reserve to the 13th Battalion Middlesex Regiment on 15 May 1915. In April 1916 he went to France where he was a billeting officer. Some French people were very reluctant to have British officers billeted on them and one woman in particular was very uncooperative. In an attempt to get him out of her house she began hitting and slapping him ... and he retaliated. Hopcraft was arrested, court martialled and on 19 February 1917 dismissed from the service for "committing an offence against the person of a resident."
Hopcraft's father, also called Ernest, obviously found it very difficult to accept this, but despite appeals to the War Office his son was not reinstated. Ernest Junior therefore re-enlisted in the Rifle Brigade, transferred to the London Regiment and was killed in action on 27 September 1918.
His father told the story as he wanted it to be known on a memorial plaque in All Saint's Church, Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire:
Ernest George de Lathom Hopcraft
Aged 32 years. The only son of Ernest Hopcraft J.P. Northants, of Brackley and
Middleton Cheney. Who answered duty's call and volunteered and was given a
Commission in the 13th Middlesex Regiment. He gave his life, his all, for his King and
Country.
After having fought in Palestine he fell in action, at the assault on the German
Hindenburg Line at Marcoing near Cambrai. September 27th 1918; 5 weeks and 4 days
Before the Armistice.
Gone but never forgotten.
At the Battle of Flesquieres near Marcoing he gallantly attacked, single handed a German
Machine gun post and was killed.
Strangely, had Ernest Hopcraft Senior not said what he did on his son's headstone I would never have bothered to see what was going on. And had he not insisted that neither his son's rank nor his regiment should appear on the headstone other people's curiosity wouldn't have been aroused either. I got much of the information for this inscription from a Great War forum for which I am very grateful.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
MY DEAR HUSBAND
THE KENT AND ENGLAND CRICKETER
SERJEANT COLIN (CHARLIE) BLYTHE
On 16 November 1917 The Times announced Colin Blythe's death with the headline, 'A Famous Slow Bowler'. Underneath it summarised his fifteen-year career, which began when he played his first match for Kent in 1899 and took a wicket with his first ball. His best season was 1909 when he took 215 first-class wickets for 14 runs, but his best work was done in 1907. He was England's mainstay in the Test matches against South Africa, and on one day in a match for Kent against Northamptonshire, took 17 wickets - ten for 30 runs and seven for 18. He played for England nineteen times.
Blythe enlisted on 27 August 1914; he was 34 and a married man. He served with the Kent Fortress Royal Engineers which was involved in laying and maintaining railway tracks between the trenches and the ammunition stores. It was dangerous work since it always attracted the attention of the German artillery. In the autumn of 1917, whilst attached to the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, Blythe was in Passchendaele when, on the night of 8 November, a single shell exploded over the working party he was supervising killing Blythe and three other members of the group.
Y PRIFARDD HEDD WYNN
PRIVATE ELLIS HUMPHREY EVANS
Ellis Humphrey Evans was reluctant to be a soldier. Not only was he a Welsh non-conformist who remained true to its firm pacifist beliefs, but he was a shepherd on his father's farm and therefore involved in work of national importance - producing food for the nation. However, with the introduction of conscription in January 1916 either he or his brother had to join up and Ellis decided that as the elder brother it should be him.
In June 1917 he joined the 15th Battalion the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in France and at the end of July was killed in the Battle of Pilkhem Ridge. His inscription - Y prifardd Hedd Wyn - reveals him to be the Chief Bard Hedd Wyn whose poem, Yr Arwr (The Hero), written whilst he was in the army, led to him being posthumously awarded the bardic chair at the National Eisteddfod.
In 1923 his home town of Trawsfynydd in Merionydd erected a statue to his memory showing the poet as a shepherd not as a soldier. Below it is a bronze plaque inscribed with the details of his death and below that is an 'englyn', a short piece of verse, which Evans wrote in memory of a friend killed in action in 1916:
Ei aberth nid a heibio- ei wyneb
Annwyl nid a'n ango
Er i'r Almaen ystaenio
Ei dwrn dur yn ei waed o
This translates as: "His sacrifice and his dear face will not be forgotten even though Germany has stained her fist of steel in his blood". The first two lines of this inscription can be found on the graves of more than one Welsh soldier, including Gunner Evan Evans of the Royal Garrison Artillery, who died on the same day as Ellis Humphrey Evans and is buried in Dickebusch New Military Cemetery and Extension.
DEARLY LOVED HUSBAND
OF EFFIE
& LOVED DADDY
OF LITTLE MARJORIE
CAPTAIN THOMAS HENRY BONE
Thomas Bone was a school teacher from Subiaco, Western Australia who enlisted in January 1916, almost six months after his younger brother. He served with the 44th Battalion Australian Infantry, which arrived in the trenches in December 1916. The battalion saw extensive service in the Ypres sector where it's reported that only 158 men out of the whole battalion were unwounded by the time it went into rest on 21 October. Bone had been killed on the 4th. (NB The War Graves Commission gives the date of death as 5 October but all the witnesses say it was the 4th.)
As usual the Red Cross reports vary but it seems that during the battle of Broodseinde his spine was pierced by a very small piece of shrapnel that otherwise scarcely damaged him. He died almost instantly and was buried the next day.
Bone's brother, Cecil, died on 25 April 1918 of cerebro-spinal meningitis "due to exposure while on military duty". And what happened to Effie and little Marjorie? History does not relate.
M.A. HONS. GLASG.
B.A. HONS. OXON.
SECOND LIEUTENANT GRAHAM BRYMNER THOMAS JARDINE
Graham Jardine was a scholar - as his parents have implied on his headstone inscription - the top scholar of Glasgow Academy in 1908, the holder of two prizes at Glasgow University and of a Lodge Exhibition at University College, Oxford. In July 1915 Jardine took a commission in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and in May 1916, attached to the 5th Battalion the Cameron Highlanders, went to France. He was killed five months later in an attack on the Butte de Warlencourt.
These are the bare bones of his life. However, in the Marquis de Ruvigny's Roll of Honour, a friend has provided us with a brief personal insight:
"I never met a man who had less fear of death. We talked of it more than once ... He always said that to give one's life for a cause one believed in was the most intense kind of self-realization that anyone could achieve."
CAPTAIN OF ST PAUL'S SCHOOL
SCHOLAR-ELECT OF
BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
LIEUTENANT DENIS OLIVER BARNETT
Denis Barnett won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford which in the normal course of events he would have taken up in October 1914. Instead of which he enlisted in the Artists Rifles on the outbreak of war and went to France with his regiment in October 1914. In January 1915 he received a commission in the Leinster Regiment and died of wounds received at Hooge that July.
The diary of a fellow officer, Captain Frank Hitchcock, gives the details:
15th August: Barnett got a bullet through the stomach when he was guiding a working party of 1st North Staffords along the Menin Road ...
16th August: Barnett died of his wounds. The Doctor told us that he stuck his wound splendidly and that men who were only hit in the arms and legs were groaning all around him in the dressing station. Barnett had a presentiment that he would get killed, and told us so when we got orders for Hooge ... "
Quoted from Leinster Regiment Journal 10 July 2009
As his inscription makes clear, Barnett was at St Paul's where he was something of a superstar. He played in the 1st XV for three seasons and was Captain of School for two years. An obituary in The Pauline, the school magazine, gives something of his quality:
"Fine brains, powerful physique, complete moral and physical courage, unfailing good humour, charming frankness of manner and absolute straightness ... ".
Denis Oliver Barnett: In Happy Memory: his letters from France and Flanders, October 1914-August 1915 was privately printed in 1915.
M.A. (HONS) POSTH. GLAS. UNIV.
SON O' MINE
CAPT. J. ERSKINE
GORDON HDRS. & R.A.F.
CAPTAIN THOMAS BARRIE ERSKINE MC
Thomas Barrie Erskine was reading Medicine at Glasgow University when he decided to enlist on the outbreak of war. He served with the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders and was killed on 20 July 1915, five days after being awarded a Military Cross for "gallantry during active operations against the enemy".
Erskine's father composed his inscription, recording the award of his son's posthumous degree and his own wartime service. James Erskine lost both his sons, Ralph and Thomas, in the war, his wife had died of consumption in 1901 and a baby daughter in 1896. His only surviving child, Agnes (Nancy) also lost her husband in the war when Captain Jack Lee was killed in action on 31 July 1917. And, in the final act of the tragedy, Ralph's son, who was born within two weeks of his father's death, was killed in action in Tunisia on 23 April 1943.
It's not possible to be sure of the source of the phrase "Son o'mine" but one that fits well is a song from Maurice Baring's four-act play The Death of the Black Prince (1903).
From the bleak sand and the grey sand
(O son o' mine, good-bye),
To the shore of gold and the cornland
To conquer or to die.
The low cloud and the grey cloud
(O son o' mine, good-bye),
It hangs and lowers like a shroud
Across the blood-red sky.
The soft sound and the loved sound
(O son o' mine, good-bye),
"Mother, I have a mortal wound,"
It is my own son's cry.
The horn call and the glad call
(O son o' mine, good-bye),
"Now dig the grave and weave the pall,
For I am soon to die."
The lone bell and the sad bell
(O son o' mine, good-bye),
"Tell them, mother, before I fell,
That I fought gallantly."
The known tread and the strong tread
(O son o' mine, good-bye):
"One told me you were cold and dead.
But I heeded not the lie."
By sunshine or by moonshine
(O son o' mine, good-bye),
"Come back to me, O son o' mine,
I've waited patiently."
The loud song and the strange song
(O son o' mine, good-bye),
I've watched and waited now so long,
Come back before I die"
From the bleak sand and the grey sand
(O son o' mine, good-bye),:
To the shore of gold and the cornland,
To conquer or to die.
M.A., B.C.L
OF BALLIOL COLLEGE OXFORD
THE DEARLY LOVED SON
OF GUSTAF AND ANNIE ROOS
CAPTAIN GUSTAF OSCAR ROOS
Gustaf Roos was a well developed man with auburn hair and about 5 foot 9 or 10 inches in height. How do we know? Because this was the description of the body exhumed on 26 June 1924 from Fremicourt Communal Cemetery where it had been buried by the Germans in July 1916 under a cross inscribed with his name.
Captain Roos's fate can be traced through the war diary of the 14th Battalion the York and Lancaster Regiment, the Barnsley Pals', for July 1 1916 . 'A' Company, under Captain Roos was:
"To proceed in file across "No Man's Land" immediately following assaulting waves. To consolidate and hold German Trench K30a4085 to K23a7510 and to construct and hold strong points A and B along that line."
Reporting on the attack the diary later states:
"No report of any sort was received back from A or B Companies once they had left Nairne. From reports by wounded men who had got back from "No Man's Land", very great casualties were sustained by A and B Coys, while crossing towards the German wire, on the left flank of the attack."
At the end of the day the Battalion war diary reports 26 men killed, 153 missing and 96 wounded. Of 'A' Company's officers, Captain Roos and Lieutenant RDB Anderson were missing, 2nd Lieutenant W Hirst had been killed and 2nd Lieutenant W Kell wounded.
Later reports suggested that Captain Roos had been seen to enter the German trench at the head of his men but had been wounded, captured by the Germans and died of wounds in a German hospital. All this is confirmed by his burial on 4 July 1916 in Fremicourt Communal Cemetery, where the Germans were burying those who died in the hospital they had set up in the local church. And what were his wounds? I'll let the exhumation report tell you: "Both legs broken, body badly smashed".
Gustaf Roos must have been some man. He had been a Queen's Scholar at Westminster, taken a 1st Class degree in Jurisprudence from Balliol College, Oxford, which he followed with a B.C.L., a Bachelor of Civil Law. He worked as a solicitor in London, often acting as 'Poor Man's Solicitor' at Toynbee Hall. He volunteered to fight in the South African War where he was badly wounded. So badly wounded that he found it difficult to persuade anyone to take him seriously when he volunteered to fight in 1914. Eventually, in October 1915, he got a commission in the York and Lancaster Regiment, which is how at the age of 47 he found himself leading 'A' Company across No Man's Land at 7.10 on the morning of 1 July 1916.
KILLED AT LOOS AETAT 22
ST PAUL'S SCHOOL R.M. ACADEMY
FRANCE AUGUST 1914
PRO PATRIA
LIEUTENANT JOHN BATHO
These few words encompass twenty-two-year old John Batho's brief life. However, he has an extensive obituary in Volume 2 of the Marquis du Ruvigny's Roll of Honour. Whilst people tend only speak well of the dead, one of the letters quoted was written on 1 January 1915, whilst he was still alive. Lt Colonel Arthur Daly, in a letter to another senior officer wrote: "I have two wonderful sapper subalterns called ... and Batho. They have only got about 18 months' service each and are perfect heroes, both of them, and work night and day without sparing themselves, and no know fear: always cheery and always full of resource. I should like their people to know what splendid boys they have got, and how proud they ought to be of them."
Nine months later, on the night of the 26/27 September, he was shot by a sniper whilst supervising work just 100 yards from the German front line. He died in a Casualty Clearing Station three days later. In a letter to his parents on behalf of the section Sergeant McQuiston wrote, "We all loved him and would follow him anywhere, full of confidence when he was leading us. We shall never find one better, but we are living in hopes of getting one half as good."
ARTIST, OLDHAM, LANCASHIRE
PRIVATE JOSEPH FRANKLIN KERSHAW
Joseph Franklin Kershaw studied at the Royal College of Art and is commemorated on their war memorial. He was born in Oldham, where his father was a prosperous ironmonger, and educated at Oldham Hulme Grammar School. Oldham Library and Art Gallery have three of his paintings, and there is one in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport's Collections. These paintings can be seen on the BBC's Your Paintings site.
Kershaw married in 1908 and it was his widow, Effie, who confirmed his inscription, even though the War Graves Commission doesn't mention her in its register, simply saying that Joseph Franklin was the son of Joseph and Hannah Kershaw of Oldham. I wondered whether there was some antipathy between Joseph Franklin and his parents over his marriage because the 1911 census gives Effie's age as 42, which would have made her 16 years older than her husband. However, the cemetery register for Backup, where Effie was buried on 31 March 1966, gives her age as 85. This means that although she was a couple of years older than her husband she certainly wasn't 16 years older than him. In 1911 the couple were living in Fulham but when Effie Kershaw filled in the War Grave Commission's form she was living in St John's Cross, Storth, a remote house on the shores of Morecombe Bay. Private Joseph Kershaw is commemorated on the Storth war memorial too.
BYATT OF SUMMERFIELDS
CHARTERHOUSE
CLARE COL. CAM.
LONDON HOSPITAL
"AD SUM!"
CAPTAIN HARRY VIVIAN BYATT BYATT
Captain Byatt's epitaph summarises his life history, only omitting his years in the Royal Army Medical Corps, which he joined in 1909. He was killed, shot through the chest by a rifle bullet, whilst dressing a wounded man's head injury. Although he was taken to the Field Ambulance at Estaires he died soon afterwards.
'Ad sum', is the Latin for I am present, or I am here. Is it a significant motto, or perhaps the quotation marks imply that the words come from the dead man, 'I am here ', death is not the end.
M.A. BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD
VICAR OF RANDFONTEIN
TRANSVAAL
PRIVATE THOMAS GRAY HOPKYNS
The Reverend Thomas Gray Hopkyns was the Vicar of Randfontein, a gold-mining community in the Transvaal. In 1917 he enlisted in the South African Infantry and served as a stretcher bearer with the South African Medical Corps. He was killed in action whilst on stretcher-bearing duties.
His father was the vicar of Long Wittenham in Oxfordshire. There is a stained glass window in the church commemorating both father and son, which shows soldiers receiving communion at the front. This would indicate that Thomas Hopkyns acted as a priest as well as a stretcher bearer. His headstone inscription shows the importance his parents placed on the fact that their son should be known as more than simply a private in the South African Infantry.
LATE CABINET MAKER
& NEWSAGENT, BOLTON RD.
DARWEN, LANCASHIRE
PRIVATE AMOS TAYLOR
It was important to Amos Taylor's mother, a widow, that she recorded her son's occupations and his place of work on his headstone. They had been his father's occupations too but her husband, Richard, had been dead since before the 1891 census was taken.
SEVENTH BARONET
OF BREAMORE HOUSE, HANTS
KILLED AT NEUVE CHAPELLE
12TH MARCH 1915. AGE 25
CAPTAIN SIR EDWARD HAMILTON WESTROW HULSE
Sir Edward Hulse, his parents' only son, inherited the baronetcy in 1903 at the age of 13, after his father killed himself. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, he was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards in 1912 and went with them to France in August 1914, transferring to the Scots Guards in November. He was killed during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.
In a letter of condolence to Sir Edward's mother, Lieutenant Archibald Jarvis, as the senior surviving officer in the company, described what happened.
'We were attacking a position held by the enemy and had to cross some open plough to get into some support trenches, and while doing so the Commanding Officer, Major Paynter, who was directing the operations, was badly wounded and lay in the open. Slightly before he was struck, your son had gained cover behind a shallow trench, and upon learning that the Commanding Officer was hit, without hesitation went to see if he could render him any assistance, and in so doing was killed. He died instantly and suffered no pain whatever.'
In 1916, Sir Edward's mother privately printed a collection of her son's letters, 'Letters written from the English front in France between September 1914 and March 1915' . These include one written on 28 December (28/11/14) describing in detail Sir Edward's experience of the Christmas truce.
YOUNGEST SON OF THE
DUKE AND DUCHESS DE STACPOOLE
CO. GALWAY
R.I.P.
SECOND LIEUTENANT RODERICK ALGERNON ANTHONY DE STACPOOLE
... the whole brigade felt the loss of that dear spirited boy, de Stacpoole, a charming youngster, almost a child, with the face of a girl and the heart of a hero. He was killed carrying wire across an open and fire-swept field, leaving his men under cover, and doing the most dangerous work himself.' So wrote one of Roderick (Roddy) de Stacpoole's senior officers in a letter to his wife. Major Head, another officer, reported how he had had de Stacpoole's body brought back to the Battery for burial, recording that his grave "is on the south side of the Rue du Bacquerat, 300 yards NE of Rouge Croix crossroads on the main Estaires - La Bassee road". The Grave Registration Unit later marked the grave with a wooden cross and recorded the map reference - SH 36/M.21.d.9.1. On 12 July 1920 Roddy's body was disinterred and reburied in Pont-du-Hem Military Cemetery.
Roddy de Stacpoole was the youngest of the five sons of the Duke de Stacpoole, an Irish Catholic title awarded by the Pope in 1830. All five served in the war and Roddy's elder brother, Robert, was killed on the Aisne on 20 September 1914.
SADLY DISFIGURED
'TWAS FOR THE BEST
DAD
LANCE SERJEANT PERCY WILLIAM STAUNTON
The acceptance of fate comes in many forms. Previous epitaphs have been 'Kismet', 'Thy will be done' and 'Whatever is is best', but this is different. The inscription is signed Dad, Staunton's mother was dead, and Dad is tantamount to welcoming his son's death: 'Twas for the best'.
There's no indication what Percy Staunton's injuries were but the word his father used is 'disfigured' not wounded and that implies facial injuries. We don't need to imagine what this might mean, the work of Henry Tonks shows us only too clearly what some men suffered. Tonks, a surgeon and an artist, worked with the plastic surgeon Harold Gillies drawing soldiers' facial injuries that were both deeply humane and unsparing in their detail.
Staunton is buried in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, where the London hospitals buried their dead. He may well have been one of Gillies' patients.
[With thanks to Dr Andrew Bamji, Gillies Archivist, Royal College of Surgeons - site currently being rebuilt]
GREAT GRAND NEPHEW
TO MICHAEL DWYER
THE FAMOUS WICKLOW CHIEFTAIN
PRIVATE GERALD PATRICK HEAVEY
One hundred and twelve years after Michael Dwyer arrived in Australia having been deported from Ireland by the British as a nationalist rebel, his seventeen-year-old, Australian, great-grand nephew, Gerald Heavey, was killed in France fighting for the British. A hundred and twelve years is time enough to forget old scores but his parents made a point of recording the connection on their son's headstone. Yet all the evidence points to their son being keen to fight. Australia did not have conscription so he was a volunteer. However, at the age of 17 he was too young to have joined up, too young to be serving in France let alone too young to die.
LATE CLASSICAL SCHOLAR B.A.
OWST PRIZEMAN AND WINNER
OF DR GREEN'S CUP
CLARE COLL: CAMBRIDGE
LIEUTENANT JOSEPH SENIOR
Pilot W McArthur, with his observer navigator Lieutenant Joseph Senior, had just shot down a German plane when they came under attack from three more. Whilst twisting and turning to get away, Lieutenant Senior was shot through the stomach and had a finger smashed. Despite this he managed to keep on firing and they were able to get away and land safely. However, Senior's wound was mortal and he died in hospital that night.
Joseph Senior was one of the top scholars not only of Wakefield Grammar School but in the country. He was placed first in the entire country in the Oxford Senior Local exams, won an open scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge and graduated among the top six candidates in his year, winning not only the Owst Prize but Dr Green's Cup for General Learning. When the war broke out he was studying for his Civil Service exams.