Language Latin

"VALE"

STAFF SERJEANT WILLIAM VAZIE LANGDALE SIMONS SIMONS

William Vazie Langdale Simons' inscription was signed for by his brother, Robert John Jermyn Simons (the brothers were known as Vazie and John). 'Vale' is the Latin word for farewell and it's possible that John was inspired by a poem written by the Roman poet Catullus, which he addressed to his dead brother who, like Vazie, was buried far from home.

By ways remote and distant waters sped,
Brother, to thy sad grave-side I am come,
That I may give the last gifts to the dead,
Since she who now bestows and now denies
Hath taken thee, hapless brother, from mine eyes.
But lo! these gifts, their heirlooms of past years,
Are made sad things to grace thy coffin shell,
Take them, all drenched with a brother's tears,
And, brother, for all time, hail and farewell!

The last line, 'Atque in perpetuam frater ave atque vale', is one of the most famous lines in Latin literature. And if John didn't know it from Catullus, he may have been aware of Tennyson's poem, Frater Ave Atque Vale, which Tennyson wrote in the year following his own brother's death, after visiting Catullus' villa at Sirmio.
Vazie and John were the sons of Vazie and Maud Simons. The parents married in Australia, where Maud was born and where their eldest child, Clara, was also born. By the time Vazie Jnr was born in 1893, the family had returned to Merthyr Tydfil for Vazie Snr to join the family law firm, Messrs Simons and Plews. In 1907, Vazie Snr committed suicide - shooting himself through the heart at his office desk.
Vazie Jnr joined the Royal Field Artillery in 1912 as a territorial. He was called up on mobilization and served with the BEF in France and Flanders from November 1915. In 1916 the battalion went to Egypt and served through the Palestine Campaign, taking part in the two battles of Gaza. Vazie was awarded a Military Medal for conspicuous bravery in the field during the first battle.
In late 1917, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and was killed during flying training on 25 January 1918. He is buried in Ismailia, a small town on the west bank of the Suez Canal.

AVE! MORITURI SALUTAMUS

LANCE CORPORAL EDGAR ALLAN BELL

Edgar Bell died in Queen Alexandra's Hospital, Millbank, London on 3 January 1918 of wounds he'd received in France in May 1917. The only indication as to the nature of his wounds comes from the letter his officer wrote to his parents: "You will be pleased to hear that he behaved splendidly, and did not so much as make a sign that he had been wounded until I turned and saw him".
The son of Alexander Brown Bell and his wife Agnes, Edgar Bell was born in Sheffield on 13 January 1894. His father was a journalist, at the time of his son's death on the Yorkshire Evening Post. On leaving school, Edgar began to train as an architect and in 1913 joined the Yorkshire Hussars as a territorial soldier. He volunteered for foreign service and went with the regiment to France in February 1915. In March the following year, he transferred to the 6th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment and was serving with them when he was wounded.
Alexander Bell signed for his son's inscription. At one time it was firmly believed to be the greeting gladiators gave to the emperor on entering the arena before a fight - Ave Impuratur , morituri te salutant, Hail Emperor, we who are about to die salute you. George Bernard Shaw, in his 1913 play Androcles and the Lion, gave the line to the Christians who were about to be fed to the lions: 'Hail, Caesar! Those about to die salute you'. However, it is now thought to have been at a one-off event when a crowd of condemned criminals, who were about to be forced to kill each other in a mock sea battle, hailed the Emperor Claudius with these words in the hope that he might pardon them. He didn't.
Why did Alexander Brown choose this inscription, what did he mean? It's possible that he had in mind the same sentiment as that implied by Simonides' famous inscription to the Spartan dead killed at the Battle of Thermopylae: "Go tell the Spartans, passer by, that obedient to their orders here we lie". Edgar Bell had done his duty by his country and had known the risks he was taking in so doing. Interestingly, it is the only instance of this inscription that I've come across. I could have imagined it being much more popular among a generation where the classics played such a large part in their education.

RECTE FACIENDO SECURUS

LIEUTENANT ROBERT INGLIS MC

Recte faciendo securus - by acting justly you need fear nothing - is the Inglis family motto.
Robert and Isabella Inglis of Lovestone, Girvan, Ayrshire had ten children: four daughters and five sons. I think you might be able to tell where this is going. The eldest son, Alexander, was killed in South Africa in 1901, the youngest son, David, was killed in France on 19 December 1914, Charles, the third son, on 25 September 1915, and Robert, the second eldest, died of wounds on 5 October 1918. William was the only one of the five sons to survive.
Prior to the war, Robert Inglis had been joint factor with his father of the Bargany Estate in Ayrshire and a sergeant in the Scottish Horse Yeomanry. In September 1914, he was commissioned second lieutenant and after a period of service in England embarked on 1 January 1916 to join the Egyptian Expeditionary Force on the Suez Canal. In October 1916 the Scottish Yeomanry became the 13th Battalion Royal Highlanders (Black Watch) and in June 1918 the battalion was moved to France. Inglis was wounded on 3 October 1918 when 'C' Company co-operated with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in an attack on Le Catelet and Gouy. The battalion war diary mentions that "there was considerable sniping causing several casualties". Inglis died the next day.
Recte faciendo securus - by acting justly you need fear nothing. The reference of course is to salvation rather than to having nothing to fear in this earthly life.

TERIBUS

MAJOR WILLIAM FRANCIS BEATTIE

By choosing this single Latin word, Teribus, William Beattie's father elegantly linked many aspects of his son's life. The word itself is said to have been part of the battle cry of the men of Hawick during the Battle of Flodden in 1513 - 'Teribus ye Teri-Odin'. A nineteenth-century song by James Hogg tells of the months after the battle when bands of English soldiers plundered the surrounding countryside, devastating the towns and villages. This continued until the following year when a group of brave men from Hawick turned the tide by attacking a band of English soldiers at Hornshole and carrying off their flag. The song claims that this action led to the turning of the tide against the English marauders who subsequently turned tail for home. The factual history of the event may be questionable but the legend has remained very powerful and the skirmish is still commemorated in Hawick to this day.
In June 1914, to mark the 400th anniversary, a bronze statue of a horseman holding the captured English banner was unveiled in the centre of the town. The sculptor was William Francis Beattie who had been born in Hawick, which made him a 'Teri', a Hawickman. Although the statue was unveiled in June 1914, the outbreak of war two months later meant that the final touches were not put to it until 1921, three years after Beattie's death.
Beattie had been a member of the Lothian and Border Horse since 1910, but in April 1915 he took a commission in the Royal Artillery in order to see some action. Four months later he was in France. Awarded a Military Cross in 1917 for the rescue of some wounded soldiers under a heavy artillery barrage, he was badly gassed in April 1918 and spent five months recovering before returning to the front on 20 September. He died of wounds thirteen days later in a Casualty Clearing Station in Tincourt.
On 29 July 1921 the Hawick News and Border Chronicle reported that a workman had that week finally cut the memorial inscription into the base of the 1514 monument:

"Erected to commemorate the return of Hawick Gallants from Hornshole in 1514, when, after the Battle of Flodden they routed the English marauders and captured their flag"

The work was carried out by William Beattie's father, Thomas, who also carved another inscription:

Merses Profundo Pulchrior Evenit
Sculptor: Major William F. Beattie MC RFA
A native of Hawick
Born 1886 Killed in France 1918

The paper reports that the Latin line is a quotation from Horace suggested as appropriate by Sir George Douglas, Bart, the meaning of which is - "You may overwhelm it in the deep; it arises more beautiful than ever".
William Francis Beattie was his parents' only child.

VESTIGIA NULLA RETRORSUM

LIEUTENANT MALCOLM BARTLETT BEATTIE

I can give you the literal translation of these Latin words - footsteps do not go backwards - but I can't tell you exactly what Cyril Beattie, Malcolm Beattie's father, meant by them. To the 5th Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, whose motto it is, the words mean 'we do not retreat'. To the Earls of Buckingham, whose motto it also is, the words mean, 'we never go backwards'. To some it means that you've taken a step you can't go back on, to others, rather more romantically, that you can't call back time. Looking at Cyril Beattie's family history, I rather wonder whether he meant don't look backwards.
Cyril Robert Beattie was born in Britain but in 1871, aged 7, he and his elder brother Malcolm Hamilton Beattie, 8, were boarders at a school in Kingston, Surrey. This suggests to me that their parents lived abroard, I would guess India. Nine years later Cyril began four years indentured service with the Merchant Navy. In 1893, he emigrated to New Zealand and in 1901 founded Beattie, Lang and Co, dairy and general produce merchants which did a huge trade with Britain. His brother Malcolm went to India where he served with the Bengal Pilot Service on the Hooghly River. Both brothers married and both had sons who they each called after the other.
Malcolm Bartlett Beattie, born in New Zealand in 1896, was educated at Wanganui Collegiate School, which he left in 1914. He sailed for England in February 1915 with the intention of studying medicine but he joined up instead. Commissioned second lieutenant in the 5th Royal Berkshire Regiment on 5 September 1916, he went with it to France the following month. Awarded the Order of the Crown of Belgium and the Belgian Croix de Guerre in August 1917 for rescuing a soldier from the German lines, he was wounded two months later on 15 October and died the next day.
There is another possible explanation for Cyril Beattie's choice of inscription, perhaps he had in mind a poem by the Scottish born, Australian poet William Gay (1865-1897) called Vestigia Nulla Restorum. If so, Cyril Beattie meant that however dark the road you can only keep going forward:

O steep and rugged Life, whose harsh ascent
Slopes blindly upward through the bitter night!
They say that on thy summit, high in light,
Sweet rest awaits the climber, travel-spent;
But I, alas, with dusty garments rent,
With fainting heart and failing limbs and sight,
Can see no glimmer of the shining height,
And vainly list with body forward bent,
To catch athwart the gloom one wandering note
Of those glad anthems which (they say) are sung
When one emerges from the mists below:
But though, O Life, thy summit be remote
And all thy stony path with darkness hung,
Yet ever upward through the night I go.

ADSUM

LIEUTENANT CYRIL SHAKESPEAR BEACHCROFT

"At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat a time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, "Adsum!" and fell back. It was the word we used at school, when names were called; and lo, he. whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered his name, and stood in the presence of The Master."
The Newcomes 1855
William Makepeace Thackeray 1811-1863

This is a very touching and many-layered inscription. The fictional Colonel Thomas Newcome, who died at The Charterhouse, was educated at Charterhouse School, just as Thackeray had been - and Cyril Beachcroft too. 'Adsum' is the word Carthusians answered and still answer to their names at registration. It means 'present', and on a gravestone it implies still living and present with Christ.
The name Colonel Newcome became a byword for a virtuous man, a gentle, even perhaps a literary, soldier. So much so that when in 1906 the playwright Michael Morton adapted The Newcomes for the stage under the title 'Colonel Newcome', there was much public speculation about which actor might be worthy enough to play the role - and much dubious criticism when Herbert Beerbohm-Tree was chosen. Some people thought his German ancestry made him unsuitable; the idea of his 'guttural accents' uttering the famous 'Adsum' was too much for them to contemplate. In the event, Tree was a triumph in the role. The play was even more popular when it was revived during the First World War. Tree, still in the title role, toured with it through the United States and Canada during the winter of 1916-17. The ostensible aim of the tour was to raise money for Britain's wounded soldiers, but presumably it was hoped it might also raise support for Britain's war.
In 1914, Cyril Beachcroft, a solicitor with the family firm of Beachcroft, Thompson, Hay and Ledward, was married with two daughters. Having been a member of the Inns of Court OTC between 1909 and 1912 he rejoined it immediately on the outbreak of war. By October 1914 he had been commissioned into the Dorset Yeomanry where he spent the three years on home service, training troops. In July 1917 he requested a transfer to the Household Battalion, an infantry battalion drawn from reserve units of the Household Cavalry, so that he could be sent to the front. Within six weeks of his arrival he was dead, killed leading his men into an attack at Poelcapelle, his body not recovered from the battlefield until December 1919.
It was his wife who chose his inscription, linking him through a single word with Charterhouse, the Resurrection and a fine, even though fictional, English gentleman.
Beachcroft, who had managed to survive for the junior officer's classic six weeks, also earned a classic tribute from one of his fellow officers:

"We all feel we have lost a man who can never be replaced ... Quite fearless, and always cheerful; he is an example of all one loves best in a man."

There you have it - fearless and cheerful, it's what soldiers most admired in each other.
Cyril Beachcroft's elder bother, Eric, served with the Dorset Yeomanry in Palestine where he was severely wounded in November 1917. Invalided home, he remained in hospital and then convalescent until discharged from the army in 1919.

NON OMNIS MORIAR

CAPTAIN WILLIAM MORRISON

Captain Morrison's Latin inscription comes from Horace's Ode 3.30. Horace claimed 'I shall not wholly die, non omnis moriar, because I have created a monument more lasting than bronze, and loftier than the pyramids, which neither time nor the weather will be able to diminish. Horace's monument was his poetry. Morrison's brother, Alexander, chose the inscription. For him his brother's immortality would rest on his war service.
William Morrison was born in 1886, the year after his father, who for 29 years had been the Free Church of Scotland minster in Boharm, Banffshire, died. Educated at Milne's Institute, a Free School in Fochabers, and Edinburgh University, Morrison joined the British East Africa Medical Service after graduating in 1909. He returned in March 1915 to take a temporary commission in the RAMC, serving with the 14th Field Ambulance.
Morrison spent two years at the Front except for a few months during the winter of 1916-17 when he was recovering from shell shock. This could be related to the MC he was awarded on 25 November 1916. The citation reads:

"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. Although himself wounded, he tended and dressed the wounded under very heavy fire, displaying great courage and determination."

The 14th Field Ambulance was part of the 5th Division, which joined the Third Ypres offensive just before the Battle of Polygon Wood (26 September 1917). It took part in the battles of Broodseinde (4 October), Poelcapelle (9 October), First Passchendaele (12 October)and Second Passchendaele (20-22 October). Morrison died of wounds and gas poisoning on 23 October before the end of the offensive on 10 November.

"SPES TUTISSIMA CAELIS"

GUNNER MAURICE DUNCAN BENJAMIN

The word is spelt 'caelis' in the War Grave Commission's records whereas some people would spell it 'coelis' but the meaning is the same - heaven - the surest hope is in heaven. I can't work out the significance of the quotation marks though. The phrase is the motto of some armigerous British families, but I haven't been able to discover a link between the Benjamins and these families.
Maurice Benjamin was killed at Passchendaele on 26 August 1917. In 1921 the bodies of five unidentified soldiers wearing Australian uniforms and boots were discovered at map reference 28.I.29.b.20.25. The Commission's records note:

"These five Australian soldiers' remains were properly buried in blankets and the graves equally spaced and probably all Artillery men as all were dressed like cavalry men."

It's the first time I've noticed this comment, that the bodies were "properly buried", and that this meant wrapped in blankets and equally spaced out. And it turns out that they were all Artillery men, all Gunners from the same Battery and in all probability from the same gun. All killed together and buried together by people who did it properly - even though the graves were not initially found and recorded by a Graves Registration Unit - and all subsequently identified.
Despite the fact that all five men were missing presumed killed in action none of their families instituted a Red Cross Enquiry. In fact, there is a Red Cross file in Maurice Benjamin's name in which there is a copy of a letter dated "September 17th 1917", to "The Manager, Bank of Queensland, 4 Queen Victoria Street, E.C", following up "our telephone conversation this morning", which says:

"We understand that you do not wish us to make inquiries for details of his death and burial."

Maurice Benjamin worked as a teller for the Bank of Queensland in Sydney before he joined up in October 1916. He left Australia in February 1917. It was 1930 before his mother filled in the circular for the Roll of Honour of Australia and this is something else I've never noticed before,the stamp on the front of the document, which indicates the length of time that it took for these records to be compiled. In Gunner Benjamin's case:

Next-of-kin communicated with for records and relics
Letter no. 12/11 3890
Date 6 Aug 1930

AQUILA NON CAPTAT MUSCAS

LIEUTENANT D'ARCY REIN WADSWORTH

Aquila non captat muscas - the eagle does not catch flies, what kind of an epitaph is this? It's a Latin proverb, an admonishment to spend your time on worthwhile endeavours not to waste it on trivia, not to get distracted but to concentrate on your goal, just as an eagle only pursues quality prey not flies.
Employed at the Bank of Montreal, D'Arcy Rein Wadsworth enlisted in May 1915 and was commissioned into the Canadian Infantry the following month. Sent to England in June 1916 with the 75th Battalion, he was in Flanders by August and on the Somme in September. Sometime during these months Wadsworth attended a bombing course and afterwards was appointed battalion bombing officer. On 14th October the battalion came out of the trenches at Tara Hill and two days later Wadsworth was mortally wounded whilst taking bombing practice when one of the bombs exploded prematurely. The battalion diary has the bald details. He died two days later.

VIVAT SHIRBURNIA

SECOND LIEUTENANT HAROLD GOSTWYCK MAY

Vivat Shirburnia - long live Sherborne the centuries-old independent school in Dorset where Harold Gostwyck May had been a pupil from 1902 to 1907, and briefly, in the autumn of 1914, a master. The inscription was chosen by his father, Richard Cooke May, a stockbroker, who lived at Sherborne, 77 Woodside Green, Croyden, Surrey.
May joined the army soon after the outbreak of war and was commissioned into the Dorsetshire Regiment. He had been out in France for less than three months when he was wounded in a German attack at St Eloi on 14 March. In a letter from his hospital bed to the headmaster of Sherborne, Nowell Smith, May recounted what happened.
"Suddenly the most awful hail of shrapnel came over the the crest of the dugouts. A whole battery fired high velocity shrapnel for over an hour - down came the trees, up came tons of earth. The men scurried up into the trench pretty quick and one shell burst alongside me and sent me toppling down the hill into a pond at the bottom ... it felt like being hit on the thigh at footer, though of course the shell made a beastly mess of the leg."
'Vivat Shirburnia, Sherborne School and the Great War 1914-1918' pp 44-5
Patrick Francis, 2014
After nightfall stretcher bearers carried him to the Battalion dressing station, from there he was taken to a Casualty Clearing Station in Poperinghe and then by train to a base hospital in Boulogne. Once here it was decided that his leg needed to be operated on but May failed to survive and died on 27 March.
There are details and a photograph of May on the Sherborne School Archives website.

CUI FLOS IUVENTUTIS
INTEGRAE RESECTUS EST
REQUIEM IN PACE

SECOND LIEUTENANT AUBREY WILLIAM FYLDES

Aubrey Fyldes Latin inscription does not appear to be a quote. It translates as:
For what purpose has the flower of this generation been cut back?
Rest in peace

The inscription was chosen by Aubrey's mother. One thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven soldiers from the British, Australian, New Zealand and Indian armies died on Gallipoli the day her eighteen-year-old son died, 9 August 1915 - just a fraction of the total number killed in the war, the flower of the Empire's youth. And this was multiplied many times over when you include the youth of all the combatant nations.
On the Twitter account I have made a mistake in the first line of the inscription, it should be 'flos', flower, not 'flus'.

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

USQUE DUM VIVAM ET ULTRA

CAPTAIN THE HON. JULIAN HENRY GRENFELL DSO

Julian Grenfell, author of the poem 'Into Battle', was the eldest son of Lord and Lady Desborough of Taplow Court in Buckinghamshire. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, he joined the army in 1910. On 13 May 1915, he was hit in the head by a shrapnel fragment and died in hospital in Boulogne thirteen days later.
His inscription is part of a longer Latin quotation the origins of which I have been unable to discover: Hieme et aestate, et prope et procul, usque dum vivam et ultra - In winter and summer, near and far, during life and beyond. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff recorded the inscription in the notes to his diary (1896-1901), saying that it was said to have been found in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. Berchtold Brecht quotes it in his play 'Life of Galileo' written in 1948. The words imply constancy, unchangeableness, - usque dum vivam et ultra.

PER ARDUA AD ASTRA

CORPORAL HERBERT GEORGE MUSTOE

This has been the motto of the Royal Air Force since it first came into being as the Royal Flying Corps in 1912: 'Per ardua ad astra', 'Through rough ways to the stars'. It is not an ancient, classical quotation and no one knows exactly where it came from. The story goes that it was suggested by someone who had read it in Rider Haggard's 'People of the Mist'. There it was the motto of the Outrams of Outram Hall and the inspiration for the two Outram brothers' quest to seek their fortune so as to be able to regain the family's inheritance, lost by their disgraced father:

"Per ardua ad astra," said Tom, absently reading the family motto which alternated pretty regularly with a second device that some members of it had adopted - "For heart, home, and honour."
"'Per ardua ad astra' - 'Through struggle to the stars' - and 'For heart, home and honour'," repeated Tom; "well, I think that our family never needed such consolations more, if indeed there are any to be found in mottoes. Our heart is broken, our hearth is desolate, and our honour is a byword, but there remains the 'struggle' and the 'stars'.

There is a suggestion that the RAF motto was inspired by lines from Virgil's Aeneid, Book IX Line 641 'Sic itur ad astra', 'Thus you shall go to the stars'. Virgil's lines certainly contain the words 'ad astra' but the sentiment bears much more resemblance to Seneca the Younger's 'Confragosa in fastigium dignitatis via est', 'It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness'.
Herbert Mustoe's wife, Daisy, chose his inscription. Mustoe, a house painter from Norwood, London, enlisted in the Royal Artillery during the summer of 1915 as part of the 39th (Deptford) Brigade. The brigade went to France in March 1916 where they continued their training before going into action in December. Mustoe served in D Battery, 186th Deptford (Howitzer) Brigade. We don't know exactly what happened to him but the 'Short History of the 39th (Deptford) Divisional Artillery' reports:

"During the first week in June (1917) the Divisional Artillery co-operated in two demonstrations against the enemy's trench system and batteries, especially during an attack made by troops on the right against Wytschaete-Messines and Hill 60. C/186th were very heavily shelled and compelled to leave their position after having two gun pits set on fire and ammunition blown up." This is followed by another comment: "Early in July (1917) the 186th Brigade was withdrawn having had a most unpleasant time in the past month". It was during this "most unpleasant time" that Corporal Mustoe died of wounds at a Field ambulance dressing station in Brandhoek.

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."

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.

RESURGAM

PRIVATE KENNETH POWELL

Resurgam - I will rise again - expresses the fundamental tenet of Christian belief as summarised in the Apostles Creed, "I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting". Resurgam is the word Christopher Wren had carved over the south door of St Paul's Cathedral underneath a carving of a phoenix. A stone with this word on it had been found amongst the rubble after the Great Fire and Wren had placed it at the heart of the new foundations. Is this what inspired Private Powell's father, a leather merchant in the City of London, the thought of something mighty rising from ruins. Or was he thinking of the bible, Micah 7:8:
"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise, when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me."
Kenneth Powell, educated at Rugby and King's College, Cambridge, was an Olympic athlete - representing Britain in the hurdles in both the 1908 and 1912 Olympic Games - and a Wimbledon tennis player, competing there between 1908 and 1911 and again in 1913.
He was hit by a chance bullet on the night of 17 February whilst returning from fatigue work in the trenches. He was taken to the Field Ambulance at Loker and operated on the next morning but he died almost immediately afterwards.

POST TENEBRAS LUX

PRIVATE HARRY LEONARD

The Latin phrase translates as, after darkness light. It's a comforting phrase in itself, referencing the old proverb that the darkest hour is just before dawn. More particularly however, Post tenebras lux was the watchword of the sixteenth-century Reformation. It referred to the light Luther and Calvin brought to the world with their religious reforms. Private Leonard, who was born in Edinburgh, is described by his mother as a native of Auchterarder, a small town in the Scottish Highlands. Does his inscripton say something about either his or his mother's religious allegience since the Church of Scotland, the Kirk, draws its principles from Calvin's reforms?

LALA-GAHLE, UMTA-GWETU
PRO ARIS ET FOCIS

SECOND LIEUTENANT AYLMER TEMPLAR WALES

The word typed onto the form is definitely 'gahle' but I wonder if it was a mistake and the word should have been 'kahle'. I believe that the first line of this inscription is written in Zulu in which language lala-kahle means something like Goodnight or perhaps even rest in peace. However, I've no idea what 'umta-gwetu' means, if indeed this is what it's meant to say.
The second line of the inscription is the Latin motto of Maritzburg College, Aylmer Wales's school in Pietermartzburg, Natal. It comes from Cicero's De Natura Deorum 111.94 and translates as, for our altars and fires. This of course means much more than just altars and fires, it is what the Romans held most sacred, most worth defending, the equivalent of hearth and home, King and country.
Second Lieutenant Wales was 'commissioned in the field' just before his death. This meant that he was identified as officer material and promoted without returning to Britain for officer training. His father, Lieutenant Colonel ATG Wales, makes a point of mentioning this in the War Cemtery Register. Aylmer Wales was killed in Deville Wood where the South African Brigade suffered huge casualties during the Battle of the Somme.
Thanks to Stuart Sinclair I now know that the Zulu translates as 'Goodnight, sleep well'. The difference between ghale and kahle being explained by the transliteration of the Zulu words into Roman characters. Thank you!

OMNIA VINCIT AMOR

CAPTAIN CHARLES CADWALADR TREVOR-ROPER

The words for this inscription come from Virgil's Eclogue X, line 69, Love conquers all things. They were chosen by Charles Trevor-Roper's wife.
Charles Trevor-Roper was an actor. After taking his degree at Clare College, Cambridge he went on to study at the Academy of Dramatic Art. He toured Australia with Harry Irving's company during 1911, and at the outbreak of war was playing Captain Felix in 'The Grande Seigneur' at the Savoy Theatre.
On the death of his uncle in 1901, Charles had inherited the family estate of Plas Teg in Flintshire together with a large fortune. He was one of twelve children, ten of whom were older than him, but they were all girls. The twelfth child was another boy. Both boys, Charles and Geoffrey, were killed in the war.
Charles' only son, Richard, who had been the rear gunner in Guy Gibson's Lancaster bomber on the Dambuster Raid, 16/17 May 1943, was killed in action in another raid over Germany on 31 March 1944.

DEO DANTE DEDI

CAPTAIN GUY FRANCIS HADLAM KEENLYSIDE

Guy Keenlyside was an old boy of Charterhouse School and this is the school motto - Deo dante dedi: God having given I give. Charterhouse built a Chapel as its war memorial and inscribed on the Foundation Stone are the words, Deo dante dedurunt: God having given they gave.
Keenlyside, a professional soldier, was wounded on 26 October 1914 during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. He died in a base hospital in Boulogne three days later.

AB UNO DISCE OMNES

RIFLEMAN RICHARD MCDOWELL

Ab uno disce omnes: from one example learn all. Virgil Aeneid II:65. A rather more expansive translation would be, from one example the character of a nation may be judged, and this, I am sure, is what Rifleman McDowell's parents meant to imply about their son.

COELUM QUID QUERIMUS ULTRA

LIEUTENANT COLONEL LAURENCE GODMAN

Laurence Godman's epitaph is his family motto taken from Lucretius' De Rerum Natura III.18, 'What seek we more than heaven'. Educated at Rugby School and the Royal Military Academy Woolwich, Godman had seen service in South Africa and India before going to France with the Expeditionary Force in August 1914. He was killed by a shell whilst looking for observation posts in front of the trenches at Messines.

LAETUS SORTE MEA

LIEUTENANT RANULPH STEINTHAL DE SAUMAREZ-BROCK

The Latin phrase translates as 'Happy with my lot'. It is not the family motto. Ranulph's sister, Joan, living at the family home in Cambridge Gardens, London, signed the form confirming her brother's inscription. The de Saumarez-Brocks were a Guernsey family and Ranuph had been educated at Elizabeth College.

NON NOBIS SOLUM

SECOND LIEUTENANT HENRY FREDERICK EDGCUMBE EDWARDES

Not for ourselves alone. The quotation comes from Cicero's De Officiis 1:22. Non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici. Not for ourselves alone are we born; our country, our friends, have a share in us. Henry Edwardes, a graduate of St John's College, Cambridge, had been a Classics master at Abingdon School before he joined up in the autumn of 1914. Their website commemorates his service.

SIC ITUR AD ASTRA

CAPTAIN EDWARD RALPH LAMBERT HOLLINS

The epitaph translates as 'Thus you shall go to the stars' and comes from Virgil's Aeneid Book IX Line 641. Edward Hollins was a schoolmaster, educated at Malvern and Emmanuel College Cambridge. He died of wounds in a Casualty Clearing Station at Lijssenthoek the day after being involved in the retaking of The Bluff. This was a strategically significant mound, a spoil heap. It was only about 30 feet high but that was enough to provide a valuable observation point over the flat lands around Ypres. The Germans had captured it on 14 February. The British recaptured it on the 2 March with the loss of 1,620 lives.

IN MEMORIAM
IN SPEM

CAPTAIN HENRY COLT ARTHUR HOARE

The Latin translates as 'In memory and in hope'; a poignant inscription for a death that led to the end of the Hoare family's ownership of Stourhead after more than 200 years. Captain Henry Hoare was the only son of Sir Henry and Lady Hoare. He was wounded on 17 November 1917 in the attack on the Mughar Ridge in Palestine. After lying out on the battlefield all night he was eventually evacuated to the hospital in Raseltin, a journey of more than three days, where he died on 20 December from haemorrhage and heart failure. His father later wrote, "Our only & the best of sons. He never grieved us by thought or word or deed. He loved Stourhead, worked for it, and with us all his life. He was deeply respected by all here who mourn his loss".
Following the death of his heir, Sir Henry decided to leave Stourhead to the National Trust as the best way of keeping the estate together.

QUI ANTE DIEM PERIIT
SED MILES, SED PRO PATRIA

LIEUTENANT JOHN RIGGALL BLAIR

These are the last lines of Henry Newbolt's poem 'Clifton Chapel'. They are not quoted from an ancient Latin author, Newbolt wrote them himself. The words translate as, 'Who died before his time - but a soldier, but for his country.' In the poem, published in 1898, a new boy at his father's old school is shown, by his father, the school chapel and encouraged to embrace the Christian and chivalric codes that constitute the public school ethos. Pointing out a brass memorial plaque on the Chapel wall, the father implies that there can be no purer following in life than to be a soldier who is prepared to die for his country. The last verse reads:
God send you fortune: yet be sure,
Among the lights that gleam and pass,
You'll live to follow none more pure
Than that which glows on yonder brass.
'Qui procul hinc', the legend's writ, -
The frontier grave is far away -
'Qui ante diem periit:
Sed miles, sed pro patria.

AMAVIMUS, AMAMUS, AMABIMUS

COLONEL FRANK RIDLEY FARRER BOILEAU

This is the same epitaph as the one on Charles Kingsley's grave. The author of 'The Water Babies', who died in 1875, is buried with his wife Fanny in the churchyard of St Mary's, Eversley, Hampshire. The Latin words translate as 'We loved, we love and we shall love', the implication being that their love is eternal. The words are also the title of a poem written in 1890 by Arthur Shearly Cripps. One of the verses ends with the lament: "Ah! the golden years have fled; Thee have reft, and me have left here alone, thy loss to mourn".

OMNE SOLUM FORTI PATRIA

CAPTAIN THE HON. ROBERT BRUCE

The Latin translates as 'Every land is a homeland for the courageous man'. Ovid Fasti Bk 1. line 493. Captain the Hon. Robert Bruce, Master of Burleigh, was the eldest son of the 6th Lord Balfour of Burleigh. The inscription is an adaptation of the family motto, 'Cuis solum forti patrium'

MENS CONSCIA RECTI

CAPTAIN CHARLES CORBOULD WALKER

The words translate as 'a mind conscious of rectitude'. The full quote from Vergil's Aeniad 1.604, 'mens sibi conscia recti', translates as 'the mind in itself and for itself conscious of its own rightness', the implication being that in your own mind you know that you have done right.