Physical Characteristic
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IN LOVING MEMORY
OF THE MOST UNSELFISH
AND LOVEABLE NATURED MAN
LANCE CORPORAL WILLIAM HEDLEY FRANK REDGATE
What a lovely tribute from a wife to her husband - unselfish and loveable natured. I'm always very impressed when the next-of-kin say what they want to say rather than feel constrained into saying something conventionally formulaic.
Maude Ethel Redgate had been married to her husband for seven years when he was killed at Passchendaele. At the time of the 1911 census they had no children. However, when Mrs Redgate died in 1957 - 40 years after her husband and still living at the same address - probate was granted to Daisy Beatrice Cant, married woman. I'd like to think this was a daughter.
William Hedley Frank Redgate was a waiter before he joined up. He served with the 10th Battalion Essex Regiment, which, at the time of his death, was in the trenches at Bulow Farm. The war diary for 14 October records that the battalion moved into the line, holding the front from: - V.26.a.2.4 to V.19.d.9.9. The next day, the day Redgate was killed, it simply says, "Holding line. Patrols pushed forward during the night 15/16th Oct. 1917".
Redgate's body was not found until September 1919 at map reference V.25.b.4.7. There were three other members of the Essex Regiment found at the same spot. This looks to me like one of the patrols.
OF BRIDGE OF DEE
CASTLE DOUGLAS
WEE JOE
TO MEMORY DEAR
PRIVATE JOE CONNELLY
"Wee Joe" was not just his parents' fond diminutive but a physical description since Joe Connelly, a flat race jockey, was small. Born and brought up in the tiny community of Bridge of Dee, part of the parish of Balmghie, Castle Douglas, Kirkudbrightshire, where his father was a horse dealer, by 1918 Joe was working for a racing stable near Aston Tirrold on the Berkshire Downs. From here he joined up in March 1918 and was serving with the 2nd/4th The Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment when he died of wounds in a Canadian Casualty Clearing Station at Esquelbecq.
The 2/4th Queen's War Dairy throws no light on Joe Connelly's fate. The Battalion spent the 11th, 12th and 13th September in the line without incident. The weather was continuously wet but the enemy was generally quiet, "confining his activities to M.G. fire, occasional bursts of artillery fire, sniping and very little use of trench mortars".
Nevertheless the casualty summary for September 1918 records that two officers and 14 other ranks were killed and one other rank died of wounds - presumably this was "Wee Joe".
A MERE BOY
BUT A GREAT SPORTSMAN
CORPORAL LEONARD EDWARD ROWE
We can know nothing about this young man - other than the fact that he was one of the 19,240 men killed in action on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Somme campaign - and that according to his mother whose chose his inscription, he was "a great sportsman". Rowe was the son of a Spanish General Produce Merchant who lived in Clapham. He served with the Second Battalion the London Regiment Royal Fusiliers whose task on the day was to divert the German artillery and their reserves from the main attack south of the Ancre. Unfortunately the Germans were expecting the British attack just where the Second Battalion were to create their diversion.
A CHEERFUL VOICE
A SMILING FACE
ALAS NO ONE
CAN FILL HIS PLACE
PRIVATE HORACE HOBAN SIMPSON
Horace Simpson was a 21-year-old Labourer from Prahran, Victoria who enlisted on 10 August 1915. He embarked from Australia on 15 September 1915 and served with the 5th Battalion Australian Infantry who were at that time on Gallipoli. Withdrawn from Gallipoli in December 1915 the battalion was sent to Egypt to defend the Suez Canal. In March 1916 it was transferred to the Western Front. Over the next two years the battalion saw action at Pozieres on the Somme, at Ypres both in the winter of 1916-17 and then later that spring and was involved in the German Spring Offensive of 1918. After three years of action Simpson was killed on the second day of the great Allied offensive launched near Amiens on 8 August 1918 that eventually brought the war to an end.
OUR LAD
RUDDY OF HAIR
AND STRONG OF LIMB
PRIVATE LEWIS NORMAN SHEPHERD
This is such a wonderful inscription: tender, proud and direct. It gives us a vivid image of this red-headed, well built, twenty-one-year-old butcher from Penguin in Tasmania who died of wounds at a Casualty Clearing Station in Puchevillers. Lewis Shepherd's brother, Ernest Victor Shepherd, was killed in action at Armentieres five months later on 2 January 1917.
"HIS WAS THE JOY
THAT MADE PEOPLE SMILE
WHEN THEY MET HIM"
LT. S.L. REISS
LIEUTENANT RONALD WILLIAM POULTON PALMER
"By the death of Lieutenant Poulton Palmer Rugby football has lost one of its most brilliant exponents. As a three-quarter back - he could play either in the centre or on the wing - his name will go down to posterity as probably the greatest player of all time."
The Times 8 May 1915
Poulton captained the English side during the 1913-14 season leading England to a 10-9 victory against the Welsh, 17-12 against the Irish, 16-15 against Scotland and 39-11 against the French. In all the close run games it was generally agreed that Poulton's contribution, both as player and Captain, had tipped the balance.
After his death it distressed his father that the newspapers concentrated on his sporting career. In the memoir Edward Poulton wrote of his son he was keen to point out that to Ronald rugby had only been a game. His main interest was Boys Clubs to which he had devoted much of his free time since his school days. Wherever he went, Rugby, Balliol, Manchester or Reading, he helped out at these clubs on a weekly basis. He believed firmly that by talking, teaching, playing and praying with these boys, who came from poor and disadvantaged families, he could help them break the cycle of poverty and deprivation which so reduced their chances in life. As a good sportsman he was greatly admired by the boys but he never overestimated the impact he was having on them. Describing one club evening he reported to his sister: "I think it was rather successful, and they were fairly quiet - that is to say they only whistled and talked and threw chairs about".
After Oxford Poulton went to work for his mother's uncle, G.W.Palmer, in the family biscuit business of Huntley and Palmer in Reading, as his heir. It was 1912, and when his uncle died in 1913 Ronald adopted the name Palmer as he promised his uncle he would. This is how he comes to be known as Ronald Poulton Palmer.
In 1912 he also joined the Territorials, the 4th Battalion the Royal Berkshire Regiment, believing that "in no other position could I so place myself that my training at Oxford [in the OTC] might be of use in a future war". And when the war broke out he volunteered for foreign service, even though his family felt strongly that his first duty was to the company. In response to his family he told them that although he considered war to be a ridiculous way for two countries to resolve their differences, he was a trained soldier, his country required his services and everyone should obey their own conscience. In a letter to his parents, who were in Australia when the war broke out, he put it rather less pompously: "You cannot realise in Australia what is happening here. Germany has to be smashed, i.e. I mean the military party, and everybody is volunteering. And those who are best trained are most wanted and so I should be a skunk to hold back".
After all the drama and excitement of mobilsation the battalion spent seven months in training and home defence in Chelmsford before embarking for France on 30 March 1915. Edward Poulton later expressed his regret at his inability to speak of anything personal on Ronald's last leave; he said had not wanted to cast a shadow over the occasion but was sure that his son "knew he was loved; he knew the fears we felt, speech was not needed to tell him this".
If Poulton's family hadn't felt able to speak to him his friends not only felt they could but did. William Dimbleby from the Reading Boys' Club wrote later, "His heart was not in it at all. He went solely from a sense of duty and as an example to others". And his landlady in Chelmsford claimed, "He didn't want to die, he had everything on earth ... he couldn't imagine anything better in heaven". One of his very best friends, William Temple, later Archbishop of Canterbury, recorded his last evening with Poulton in his diary. Poulton had said:
"I don't want to be killed yet; there is such a lot I wanted to do, or try anyhow." I asked if he felt sure he would be killed; "Oh yes" he said, "sure of it". I said nothing and again there was a long silence. Then he suddenly said, "Of course it's all right; but it's not what one would have chosen."
The 4th Battalion went into the trenches on 4 April. Poulton wrote home regularly, constantly referring to the danger from snipers. "The snipers are very good shots. We had three periscopes smashed, and yet they only show 3" by 3" over the parapet and the German trenches are quite 500 yards away". Not surprisingly his family were obsessed by the need for him to take care. On 29 April he wrote to reassure them, "Don't worry about me in this respect ... I am always thinking of it and keeping my head down". However, it was only six days later that they received the following telelgram: "Regret your son killed last night. Death instantaneous. Colonel Serocold."
In the early hours of 5 May Poulton had been superintending a working party when he was shot through the heart. A brother officer assured Poulton's parents, "I reached him the moment after he fell but he never spoke or moved again". His father was one of many who felt sure that the Germans had made a point of killing him, knowing what a huge blow this would be to British morale. However, reports suggest that Poulton was caught by an unfortunate ricocheting bullet.
Whatever the cause, his men were devastated. As Lieutenant Crutwell told Poulton's parents, "When I went round his old company as they stood to at dawn, almost every man was crying". He was buried in Ploegsteert Wood on the evening of 6 May in the presence of his whole company. Captain Sharpe reported the event to his wife, "I wept like a child ... as did many of us". The next night the Albert Road Lads' Club in Reading, of which Poulton had been president, recorded in its Log Book, "The saddest day the Club has known. We could not hold a club, no one felt like it".
Poulton's inscription comes from a letter written by a Balliol friend, Lieutenant Stephen Reiss, to Ronald's father. Reiss was killed on 13 October 1915.