Parents
GIVEN BY A LOVING FATHER
AND MOTHER
WITH PROUD BUT ACHING HEARTS
GUNNER FRANCIS JOSEPH GELL
Who else 'gave' their son? It was God:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
Without any intended blasphemy, many parents believed that their sons had made a similar sacrifice to God's son - their sons too had died to save the world. It was an idea confirmed in that wonderful old Remembrance Day hymn, 'O Valiant hearts':
These were His servants, in His steps they trod,
Following through death the martyred Son of God:
Victor, He Rose; victorious too shall rise
They who have drunk His cup of sacrifice.
And this is why although Mr and Mrs Gell's hearts were aching they could feel proud; they too had 'given' their son in a noble cause.
Francis Gell was a sign writer and printer from Geelong in Victoria. He enlisted in December 1915 and left Australia for Europe in April 1916. He served with the 55th Battery of the Australian 36th Heavy Artillery Brigade, which had just taken delivery of its brand-new 9.2-inch howitzers. These were the seriously big guns. They had a working crew of fourteen and could fire their 132 kilogram shells almost 10 kilometres. Normally well behind the lines, the guns were occasionally moved forward, when they became very vulnerable should the German guns get their range. This is what happened the day Gell was killed, the opening day of the Battle of Broodseinde.
Gell's mother appealed to the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau for information. All the witnesses were agreed that the gun had received a direct hit, some were specific about the casualties - fourteen killed and seventeen wounded. The witnesses were again united about Gell's fate, but less so about the details: "I saw him afterwards; he was just recognisable"; "There were several bodies unrecognisable, and Gell was amongst them".
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.
DEARLY LOVED YOUNGEST SON OF
WILLIAM JOHN & MARY AINSLEY
OF 1, ST JOHN'S GROVE, LEEDS
YORKS
PRIVATE DONALD AINSLEY
Donald Ainsley, was a clothiers assistant in Leeds, as was his father, although at the time of the 1911 census the father is recorded as 'not working'. Donald was killed on 25 September 1916 in the Battle of Morval, the attempt to secure the ruined villages of Morval and Lesboeufs.
SON OF W. AND M. HALL
PLEASELY, NOTTS
PRIVATE GEORGE RICHARD BAKER HALL
George Hall worked at Pleasley Colliery before he enlisted in September 1914. The family wrshipped at St Barnabas Church where George sang in the choir. The Mansfield Chronicle Advertiser reported that a few days before going into battle he sent his mother a beautiful card with the words 'God be with you 'til we meet again'. He was killed on the first day of the Somme, 1 July 1916, in the Sherwood Foresters attack on the Leipig Salient.
His elder brother James Northage Hall died on the Greek Island of Lemnos of dysentry on 9 December 1915. His wife assures him in the inscription she chose that he was "Gone but not forgotten", even though she was now married to someone else.
OF MANILA
PHILLIPINE ISLANDS
SON OF F.G. DAVIDSON
OF SUEZ, EGYPT
LIEUTENANT GERALD LOUIS DAVIDSON, MC
"For conspicuous gallantry in action. He led an attack across the open in daylight to take a strongly fortified 'stop'. His attack was successful and enabled the whole trench to be seized and consolidated. He was twice wounded."
Award of Military Cross to Lieutenant GL Davidson
London Gazette 25 August 1916
The above action took place on 9 July 1916 during an attack on the Quadrangle Support between Mametz Wood and Contalmaison. The British held the trenches but Lieutenant Davidson's wounds were serious and he died two days later at the Casualty Clearing Station in Heilly, Mericourt-L'Abbe.
Gerald's sister, Helen, signed the form confirming his inscription. It's not clear whether their parents were still alive or were still living out of the country. FG Davison, the father, was an agent for P & O and before working in Suez he had been in Singaore where it appears that all the children were born. Before the war Gerald and another brother, Francis, worked in Manila for Messrs Smith, Bell & Co, shipping agents. Their eldest brother, Robert, worked for Messrs Boustead & Co in Singapore. Robert served with the Devonshire Regiment and was killed in action on the first day of the battle of the Somme, just ten days before Gerald succumbed to his wounds. Sister Helen chose Robert's inscription too:
Late of the Malay States
Elder son
Of Gerald Davidson
Suez, Egypt.
NB The spelling of Phillipine in the inscription is as it was signed for on the form.
SON OF
MICHAEL & MARIA O'DONNELL
BANIXTOWN, CLONMEL. BORN 1884
R.I.P.
SECOND LIEUTENANT PERCY O'DONNELL
The O'Donnells were a prosperous Roman Catholic farming family from Fethard, County Tipperary, Ireland. Their eldest son, Percy, who gave his profession as 'bank official', enlisted on 17 August 1915. He was comissioned into the Royal Field Artillery on 1 September 1915 and left for France on 18 November, arriving in the fighting lines on the 24th. He was wounded six months later at 'Clapham Junction' in the Stirling Castle Sector of the Ypres Salient, and died of his wounds, "compact skull injury" in No. 10 Casualty Clearing Station, Lijssenthoek at 9.45 pm on 6 May 1916.
The O'Donnells lived at Bannixtown House, mispelt in the inscription as Banixtown, where in addition to farming they bred horses.
Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, where O'Donnell is buried, is one of the great witnesses to the tragedy of the Great War. The town, a few miles behind the front line and close to the Poperinghe-Hazebrouck railway, was the site of four big Field Hospitals and four Casualty Clearing Stations with a total of almost 4,000 beds bewtween them. Nearly 10,000 patients, soldiers wounded in the fighting, are buried in the cemetery. The town has developed a Visitor Centre and website for which they have collected, and are collecting, personal information about those who died. Much of my information on Percy O'Donnell comes from this site. Particularly poignant is a a list of personal effects returned to his family, amongst which is a protractor - he was an artillery officer - a chapelet, identified further as a rosary, and some flowers "1 of wax, smashed."
ONLY BELOVED SON OF
OF GEORGE AND LOUISE ALMAS
HAMILTON, ONT. CANADA
LIEUTENANT ERNEST NORVAL ALMAS
Ernest Almas enlisted in Toronto on 17 December 1915, served in Flanders with the 38th Battalion Eastern Ontario (Ottowa) Regiment and "Died of wounds (shrapnel wounds, face, right arm, shattered shoulder) at No. 11 CCS" on 31 October 1917.
OUR DEAR SON
OF ST. JOSEPH'S RECTORY
BARBADOS B.W.I.
FELL NEAR BAPAUME
LOVE NEVER FAILETH
PRIVATE WILLIAM LAWRENCE HUTCHINSON
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.
1 Corinthians 13:8
American Standard Version 1901
William Lawrence Hutchinson was born on Barbados in 1899 where his father, the Reverend William Gordon Hutchinson, was the Anglican priest-in-charge at St Philip-the-Less. In 1910 father moved to St Joseph's on the east of the island. Both parents remained on Barbados until they died, father in 1942 and mother, Priscilla, in 1947. The surviving children inscribed their parents' memorial in St Michael's Cathedral, Barbados with the same quotation that the parents had chosen for their son, William Lawrence: "Love never faileth".
IN MEMORY OF THE DEAR SON
OF MR. AND MRS. HILLS
OF ALBANY, AUSTRALIA
PRIVATE CHARLES HILLS
Charles Hills was born in England, in Norwood, Surrey where his father was a carrier on a farm. The family emigrated to Australia in 1911 and settled in Albany. Charles enlisted on 4 March 1916 and sailed for England on 11 August that year. He took part in the battles of Pozieres and Bullecourt, where he was wounded on 11 April 1917 and spent three months in hospital in England. Returning he fought in the battle of Bapaume and was killed in action on 29 March 1918.
SON OF
SIR HENRY & LADY HEPBURN
OF BRADNINCH, DEVON
SECOND LIEUTENANT ROGER PAUL HEPBURN, MC
Educated at Rugby School and Magdalen College, Cambridge, Roger Hepburn had just graduated with a 1st Class degree in Natural Sciences when war was declared. He and three friends, who were all still up in Cambridge during the Long Vacation, immediately left with their motorbikes to join the BEF as despatch riders. Two of them survived the war but Hepburn, who was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in May 1915, survived the Somme but was hit by a shell on 1 August 1917 and died of wounds in Casualty Clearing Station at Poperinghe two days later.
Paul Hepburn was the youngest son of the late Sir Henry Hepburn, formerly Chairman of Devon County Council. The family, who owned Hele Paper Mill, which produced high quality paper used for bank notes throughout Britain and the Empire, lived at Dunmore House, Bradninch, Devon.
IN MEMORY OF DEAR BOB
SON OF MR. AND MRS. W.H. GOODWIN
COOMA, N.S.W.
SERJEANT ROBERT BOYD GOODWIN
Bob Goodwin was a draper from Cooma, the main town in the Monaro region of New South Wales. He was killed in action on 11 March 1917 and originally buried at map reference 57c.R.3.c.5.8 before being reinterred in Lesboeufs in July 1919.
27 YEARS
BELOVED SON OF
C. AND E. GREEN
BURRA, SOUTH AUSTRALIA
LANCE CORPORAL HAROLD TEMPERLEY GREEN
"Green was badly wounded - shot through the head and fell beside me. After being bandaged he was carried to the Dressing Station and on their return the bearers told me he was dead."
Private J. Davy to the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau 14.10.1918
"I saw above named on a stretcher just after he had been wounded (about 9 pm) at Merris. I spoke to him, S/B Wright (No 452) of same Battalion) bandaged him up. The face (mouth portion) had been blown in."
L/Cpl J McFarlane to the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau 21.10.1918
"I saw Pte. (sic) J Green fatally wounded by shell while holding the lines in front of Merris on the 30th July 1918 ... The ground was held."
L/Cpl W Bartch 14.10.1918
"3333 Pte. (sic) Green H.T. 10th Bn. died of wounds at our Dressing Station Borre at 5.45.a.m. on 30/7/18. Wound received was S.W.skull compound fracture. He was unconcious on admission and died soon after. Burial took place at Military Cemetery Borre same day."/ Signed by Major, Acting CO 1st Australian Field Ambulance, [signature unreadable]
Harold Green's elder brother Edward Owen Green "died of accidental injuries" near Tripoli in Syria, according to his father when he filled in the circular for the Roll of Honour of Australia. Edward Green is buried in Bierut War Cemetery in the Lebanese Republic. His inscription, which was signed for by his father rather than by his mother as Harold's was, reads:
Beloved son of
C. and E. Green
Of World's End
South Australia.
DEARLY BELOVED SON OF
MR AND MRS ROBERT ANDERSON
COOMINYA, QUEENSLAND
GUNNER JAMES ANDERSON
James Anderson was a farmer from the small community of Coominya in Queensland, which even today has scarcely more than 1,000 residents. He enlisted on 9 September 1915 and embarked for Europe on 11 May 1916. He died of shrapnel wounds to his left leg in No 10 Casualty Clearing Station, Lijssenthoek, Belgium.
BELOVED SON OF
H.C. AND I. RAWLINS
13 GROVE PARK, LIVERPOOL
LANCE CORPORAL BERTRAM LLOYD RAWLINS
"In the early morning of 15 March Lance-Corporal B.L. Rawlins, this very capable N.C.O. in charge of the Battalion Engineering Section, was out in front of the trenches on the right of the sector putting out barbed wire. At this point the enemy's trenches were only about 80 yards away and he was seen and mortally wounded by a sniper. Captain Ronald Dickinson, O.C."X" Company, in front of whose trench Rawlins was lying, wished to go out himself to bring him in but was forcibly held back by his men, who would not allow him to take the risk. Four men, Lance-Corporal A.G. Davidson, Privates W.W. Howarth and J.L. Wallace of "X" Company and Private S.G. Gibson of the Engineering Section, at once went out and under heavy fire brought Rawlins in."
The Liverpool Scottish
A.M. McGilchrist
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.
CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT
SON OF A.B. AND MARY PAIRMAN
OF THE OLD MANSE, BUSBY
PRIVATE JAMES PAIRMAN
This is another biographical inscription. James Pairman's mother was a widow. Was she simply stating the facts when she recorded that he was a Chartered Accountant or was this a matter of some pride for her? James Pairman is commemorated on the Glasgow University Roll of Honour as well as that of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He was killed on the third day of the Battle of the Somme during fighting round the Leipzig Salient.
FOND SON OF
REVD. ALFRED G AND MRS ROGERS
OF GATTON RECTORY, SURREY
MAJOR WILFRID FRANK ROGERS DSO
Educated at Charterhouse and Merton College, Oxford, Wilfrid Rogers was already serving in the Royal Field Artillery at the outbreak of war. He went to France with the Expeditionary Force in August 1914 and was severely wounded in May 1915. Two years later he was killed in action whilst in command of the 45th Battery, 42nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. After hearing the news of his death, the padre, the Revd Oswin Creighton, wrote, "The Major was one of our very best, Rogers - a young fellow of twenty-seven. I had unbounded admiration for him, and his death is a bitter blow".
SON OF MANDELL
BISHOP OF LONDON
HE THAT LOSES HIS LIFE
FOR MY SAKE, SHALL FIND IT
REVEREND OSWIN CREIGHTON
Oswin Creighton was the son of the author, academic and cleric Mandell Creighton, and his wife Louise Creighton, author and suffragist. Educated at Marlborough and Keble College, Oxford, Oswin was ordained in 1907 and went to work in Canada, which is where he was when the war broke out. It was his mother who chose his inscription since his father, Mandell Creighton, died in 1901. Two years after her son's death, Louise Creighton edited and published a collected edition of Oswin's letters, The Letters of Oswin Creighton. Oswin returned from Canada on the outbreak of war, joined the Army Chaplains' Department and sailed to Gallipoli in March 1915. After the evacuation he spent some time in England before going to France in November 1916. Extracts from his letters chart his changing attitude to the war over three and a half years.
5 August 1914
I expect it may sound foolish my wishing to get back so much. There is nothing I could do, I suppose; but England is my home and I just feel I want to be there.
10 August 1914
There is no doubt England has made herself exeedingly popular. They [Canadians and Americans] feel she is democracy's and liberty's great champion in Europe.
25 September 1914
The more one thinks, the more utterly futile the whole war seems. What has anyone to gain? Why cannot it all be stopped? To what purpose is this waste?
21 October 1914
On the whole there is a calm sense of determination and readiness for any sacrifice, which is very beautiful. It seems impossible to be selfish, and one feels the greatness of England and all that she stands for ...
13 April 1915
I am afraid that when I next write, it will in all probability be a letter giving rather different experiences. There is a tremendously tough time ahead, of that there can be no doubt. Most of the officers seem to take it for granted that they are going to be killed. However, they are quite cheerful about it.
28 April 1915
The fighting started on Sunday morning and has been raging ever since. We have been watching it three miles out to sea for four days now, and have practically no news, beyond the apparently only too certain fact that my two particular regiments [Royal Fusiliers and Lancashire Fusiliers] have been absolutely cut to pieces.
5 May 1915
The strange thing I find is that I am really extremely happy. There is more goodness and true unselfishness and seriousness about on this Peninsular than there is at a race meeting for instance.
14 June 1915
Many of his remaining friends having been killed in a recent battle, Oswin became critical of the way the British effort was being managed. At this time he was working with a field ambulance 500 yards from the front in a narrow gully, Aberdeen Gully, helping the wounded and taking funerals.
19 July 1915
Oswin was in hospital with diptheria.
31 October 1915 back in Gallipoli
What makes Englishmen so stupid? As I sit at my coffee bar and chat with some of the men in the endless line that passes, I always find the Colonial so far quicker and more intelligent, much more of a man. I cannot say I am impressed with the intelligence of Englishmen. Brains are the want out here from top to bottom, ordinary average brains and common sense; and the Colonials have them, but they're not used.
5 December 1915
Oswin is very disillusioned that so little has been done to prepare for the terrible cold of the Peninsular winter, the freezing temperatures, biting winds, snow and ice. Soon after this he was evacuated with jaundice, just before the entire Peninsular was evacuated. He spent most of 1916 in England and then in November was sent to France with an artillery division.
29 May 1917 Arras
When I went to Gallipoli war was new and its experiences had a certain amount of excitement. Now it has become an occupation, and it has a deadening, coarsening effect and one seems to lose interest in most things. More and more the world seems to have lost its charm and to offer little worth living for. Often I have thought that the simplest solution to its many insoluble problems would be to be blown to pieces. ... When you see a lot of people being killed you seem to lose interest in the real world.
28 August 1917
I think the main thing you at home have to realise is that the effects of this war are almost entirely negative. We are strangely disillusioned. I get quite alarmed at the extent of my disillusionment.
10 December 1917
Why can't we hurry peace up. The whole war is really too impossible. We cannot hope to destroy Germany without destroying ourselves, and why go on destroying each other.
20 March 1918
Personally I am enjoying life. We have had no casualties this year. The men are all very comfortable. The weather has been simply wonderful until yesterday when the rain started, and has been going on ever since ...
21 March 1918
The day after this letter, the Germans launched their Spring Offensive along the Western Front, pushing all before them with huge casualties. The German assault was so strong and so successful that many thought the war would soon be over and Germany would have won. Oswin was tremendously proud of the splendid response of all the men in his Division but was still not reconciled to war.
31 March 1918
I can only feel all the more the utter stupidity and imbecility of it all, the way so many men have to put all their energies and strength into such terribly futile things. After all, what can war decide? How hateful it all is.
3 April 1918
The old truth comes back that at whatever cost one must, regardless of all else, cling to the truth, and if possible, friendship.
9 April 1918
The war is to decide for all time whether the superman idea or the democratic is stronger.
Oswin was killed, 'blown to pieces', on 13 April in a massive German bombardment.
Oswin's headstone inscription, like the dedication his mother chose for the book, quotes St Matthew 10:39, which in context reads:
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
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.
BELOVED ONLY CHILD OF
RN AND MRS WEEKES
OF MODBURY DEVON
SECOND LIEUTENANT REGINALD PENKIVIL OLIVE WEEKES
Nineteen-year-old Reginald Weekes, 10th Squadron RFC, was 'killed in aerial action returning from a bombing expedition'. His father, Captain Reginald Newton Weekes RAMC, was also serving in the war, as a surgeon at the 1st Southern General Hospital in Birmingham. I find it interesting when families feel the need to record who the casualty was in terms of their relationship with him, and to say where he lived. All this is recorded in the cemetery register; but not, I suppose, the fact that he was 'beloved' and not that he was his parents' 'only' child. For Captain and Mrs Weekes these were important details.
DEARLY BELOVED SON OF
MR AND MRS SMITH
POST OFFICE, KEOSE, STORNOWAY
PRIVATE RODERICK SMITH
Keose is a crofting township on the Isle of Lewis where Angus and Alexanderina Smith opened a Post Office in 1901. They had twelve children of whom Roderick was one. Before joining up, he had moved away from Stornoway and was working in the drapery trade in South Wales. Soon after he arrived at the front he was wounded in the right hand, which necessitiated the amputation of a finger. He worked for a time as a clerk behind the lines before returning to active service where he was injured and died of wounds whilst being transported to hospital.