Category Archives: The Fallen

George Constantine Paul

19151017_Paul,GC_2 George Paul was born in Belgium. His father, Paul Paul (1865-1937) was an eminent landscape and portrait painter who also painted under the name Politachi. His mother, Marion, died in 1909 when George was just 13 years old. He started at Westminster the following year in Ashburnham House and remained at the school until July 1914.

George Paul played an active part in House life. He was tanned [beaten] by a monitor, McCulloch for ‘coming into upper [the senior boys study] when not properly dressed’. He made up for his misdemeanours by his sporting ability and was awarded house colours and later full pinks. In 1913, thanks to Paul’s help, Ashburnham House managed to win both the inter-house Football and Cricket competitions.

Paul played football for the school, although it was wryly noted in The Elizabethan that he and a contemporary Veitch would never be ‘of much value till they realise that feeding their forwards well is nearly as valuable as robbing their opponents of the ball’. He can’t have been that bad a player as he made it on to the 1st XI during his last year at school, although the report for the season state that ‘he must learn to keep his eye on the ball when he tackles instead of making rather a blind dash for it.’

That summer, following the outbreak of war with Germany, he joined the army. He served in The King’s Liverpool Regiment. He was killed in action at Ypres, Belgium when he was just 19 years old.

(c) Bushey Museum and Art Gallery; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
One of George Paul’s father’s paintings now held by the Bushey Museum and Art Gallery.
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Nicholas George Berwick Lechmere

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The cap badge for the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment

Nicholas was the youngest son of Sir Edmund Lechmere who was MP for Worcestershire. He arrived at the school up Ashburnham in May 1895 and studied modern languages and science, rather than Classics. He left in Election 1897 and four years later he enrolled at RMC Sandhurst.

He became 2nd Lieutenant of the Scots Guards in May 1902, just when the Scots Guards were returning home from the Boer War, but he retired from the army in 1906.

On the 23rd June 1904, Nicholas married Mary Katherine Pegg of Basingstoke, who was the only daughter of Major John Pegg, but she died after only six years of marriage. They had no children.

When war broke out, he re-joined the army as Captain of the 10th Service Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment and was attached to the 2nd Battalion. He was sent out to the western front in June 1915.

He was killed in action, aged 34, while attempting to capture the Hohenzollern Redoubt, near Loos

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Leslie Cozens

19151014_Cozens,LeslieLeslie Cozens, known as “Tim” to his friends, was in Ashburnham House from 1908-1911. He was also educated at Malvern and Cherbourg. On leaving school he was employed at his father’s leather works at Hatherton Street in Walsall, and played cricket and golf. He was commissioned into the 5th South Staffords in 1912, eventually being promoted to the rank of Captain in the field in May 1915, taking over command of “A” Company.

Lieutenant-Colonel Raymer wrote to his father on receiving news of his death:

“On the afternoon of the 13th the battalion attacked the German trenches. Your son was in command of “A” Company, and was lying on the ground with his company, just at my side, when he was hit…I ask you to accept from myself and all his surviving comrades our deepest sympathy with you in your sad loss. He was a keen and fearless officer, and we are very sad at parting with him.”

Leslie Cozens is memorialised at Lichfield Cathedral, where his name was carved into a cover on the font cover by Albert Arthur Kitchen. The close ups below were kindly provided by Kitchen’s great-grandson, Marcus.

Litchfield Cathedral Font Copyright Walwyn: https://www.flickr.com/people/overton_cat/

 

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Laurence Anderson

Laurence Anderson was born in Tokyo in 1874. His father, William, was working there as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Imperial Naval Medical College, and was becoming known as a collector of Japanese art. Laurence was six when the family relocated to London, where his father returned to work at St Thomas’s Hospital.

In January 1888, Laurence was admitted to the School as a Homeboarder, and then went on to Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1895. He went into business in Siam for several years before moving to Malacca, Malaysia in January 1911 to take up a position as manager of Devon Estates, which was in the process of acquiring a large piece of land in the Merlimau District.

On the outbreak of war, Laurence returned to Britain to enlist as 2nd Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment on the 19th September 1914. He was attached to the 1st battalion, and sent to the western front.

Killed in action on 11th October 1915, leaving his wife Eleanor behind. He is buried at Loos-en-Gohelle and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial.

The Loos memorial and the Dud Corner Cemetery (taken between the wars)
The Loos memorial and the Dud Corner Cemetery (taken between the wars)
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Geoffrey Wilkins

Geoffrey Wilkins was in Homeboarders House between 1898 and 1900. All we know about his time at school is that he played football for his house on two occasions against Grant’s. Homeboarders were beaten on both occasions — the score for one of the matched was 7-0!

We do not know what he did after leaving school but he joined the army on the outbreak of war, enlisting in the Artists’ Rifles on 2nd September 1914. He married Letitia Gertrude Hill on 10th October before going to the front. By May 1915 he was transferred to the Northumberland Fusiliers.

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He died of wounds received in action on 3rd October 1915 at the Battle of Loos. As with many soldiers he was given a temporary grave until he could be properly buried in Chocques Military Cemetery. The plain wooden cross used to mark this makeshift burial was sent to the church where Wilkins had worshiped — All Souls in St Margarets, Middlesex. Together with the cross from the grave of Corporal Lawrence Richards, another local man it flanks the church’s hand lettered Roll of Honour listing all the men from the parish who were killed in the war. Underneath the names the following caption is carved:

“In the year 1914 England waged war against Germany that faith should be kept between nations and life might be ordered by right and not by violence. For this end Englishmen left their homes and fought and suffered for 4 years. Amongst them men of this parish of whom 86 lost their lives in helping to gain the victory. Wherefore their names are enshrined above in grateful and loving memory and in hope that their deeds and sacrifice may inspire Englishmen for all time.”

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Philip Moses Marks

Philip Moses Marks was born in the United States, the son of British-born author and art critic Montague Marks and grandson of David Marks, England’s first Reform rabbi, minister of the West London Synagogue. His mother Agnes’ family were also illustrious — his maternal aunt was the poet Emma Lazarus whose sonnet ‘The New Colossus’ is engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

Marks was in Ashburnham House from September 1902 to Easter 1905. We do not know much about his time at school, except that he was frequently tanned (beaten) by monitors in his House for misdemeanours. We do not know what he did between leaving school and the outbreak of war, although he did get married in 1911 to Cynthia Dow White. In 1914 he joined the 17th (Empire) Battalion Royal Fusiliers. By June 1915 he was attached to the 4th Battalion, The Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment) and went out to the Western Front. He was killed in action at Hooge in Flanders on 29th September 1915.

Hooge Crater Cemetery by Olive Mudie-Cooke, c. 1917
Hooge Crater Cemetery by Olive Mudie-Cooke, c. 1917
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Cyril Vernor Miles

LT_CVMilesJust over a month after his younger brother Alfred was killed in action, Cyril Miles was sent to fight in the Battle of Loos.

At school, Cyril was a keen sportsman, participating particularly in Cricket and Football — receiving a Pink in footer in Lent 1911. But he also earned himself a reputation for playing pranks.

In his third winter at the school, Miles and a group of friends were discovered “very busy emptying pails of water in yard to make a slide for tomorrow if it freezes”, and got into trouble for being on the roof “and snowballing people in College Street, to their amusement and their victims’ disgust as theyÔǪ were quite invisible so they say”. One evening in January 1909, Miles produced a dead mouse that had just been caught in Hall, which his friend Hobson — an aspiring doctor — skinned.

When he left the school in 1911, he went on to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he continued to be a core member of the sporting scene. In Feburary 1914, he was mentioned in The Elizabethan:

Mr. C.V. Miles is a tower of strength to the all-victorious Pembroke Soccer team, which we believe to be so far unbeaten. He owns a small motor of a somewhat obstreperous disposition, which has on at least one occasion dragged him into the jaws of that legal code which he is said to be studying.

In August 1914, Cyril joined the South Wales Borderers as 2nd Lieutenant, and was attached to the Welsh Regiment in February 1915. He was sent out to the western front, where he was promoted to Captain on 29th July 1915. His little brother Alfred, who had been there since the previous October, was killed in Vermelles in August 1915.

Only a month later, on 26th September, Cyril was killed in action at Hulloch near Loos.

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Robert William Lee Dodds

19150926_Dodds,RWLRobert Dodds was the only son of a Surrey solicitor and was admitted into Ashburnham in September 1906.During his first year at the school he achieved success in the school concert, where he “shone asÔǪ soprano”. He took part in Ashburnham’s entry for the Inter-House Glee singing competition, although they did not win. They performed the set piece The Haven by Barnby as well as the other competitors but their voluntary — Elgar’s The Sea Hath its Pearls — was “too ambitious”.

After leaving the school at Easter 1911, he became a clerk to a firm of brokers on the London Stock Exchange. On the outbreak of war, he joined the Inns of Court OTC, where he was trained in preparation for his deployment to the front line, along with fellow-OW Winfield J. Bonser. On the 19th September 1914, he became 2nd Lieutenant 13th (Service) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. Just over four months later, he was promoted to Lieutenant. On 9th September 1915, he was sent out to the western front with his battalion as senior subaltern, a role which probably included duties such as acting as a representative of the subalterns to the Commanding Officer and advising a younger officer on conduct and appearance.

Robert’s battalion fought in the Battle of Loos, the first battle in which the Allies employed chlorine gas as a weapon. On the 25th of September, the British took Hill 70 under cover of smoke-screens, but it was retaken later in the day due to a delay in reinforcements and supply of munitions. The following day, German reinforcements arrived in large numbers. So when the British attacked again, thousands of infantry men were mown down by machine guns.

Robert Dodds was one of six former pupils who were killed in the first two days of the Battle of Loos.

On the Western Front Association website, you can read an eyewitness account of the Battle of Loos as it was experienced by a 19-year-old Lewis gunner.

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Cecil Hurst-Brown

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Cecil was born in Bayswater, the middle son of William Hurst-Brown, a stockbroker, and his wife Ethel Mary Dredge Newbury Coles.

He was an active sportsman: a double pink whilst at school and then secretary of the University Association Football Club whilst at Christ Church, Oxford. He played cricket whilst at Westminster, gaining a place on the 1st XI and averaging 14.60 and 19.00 in the 1912 and 1913 seasons.

 

Upon the outbreak of war he left university and joined the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. On 16 December 1914, he was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant in the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, and was posted to the 2nd Battalion, which he joined in France on 7th June 1915. He died on 26th September 1915, having been wounded in action the previous day.

His younger brother, 2nd Lieutenant Dudley Hurst-Brown, 129th Battery R.F.A was wounded on 13 June 1915, and died two days later. A family historian said of Cecil’s death that “he was the second of two brothers killed within three months of each other. It sent my wife’s great grandmother [Cecil’s mother, Ethel] insane with grief – she spent the rest of her life in and out of mental hospitals – thus two casualties became three – very sad.”

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Kenneth Desmond Murray

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KennethMurray was a King’s Scholar from 1905 until 1911. He threw himself into every aspect of school life. He was an active sportsman who played on the school’s football and cricket teams as well as competing in fives and athletics competitions for his house. He debated, edited the school magazine, The Elizabethan, in 1910 and shared the prize for Orations in 1911 for his recitation of Song of Deborah. He starred in the Latin Play in 1909 where as Micio ‘he managed the long and trying soliloquy that begins the play with much skill, and he was at all times an excellent foil to Deme’. The chance of a leading role in the 1910 performance was snatched from him when the play was cancelled due to the death of Edward VII.

Murray was elected head to Christ Church, Oxford in July 1911 and made a promising start to his degree, receiving a 1st Class in his Classics Mods. The outbreak of war meant that he failed to finish his qualification, leaving to serve in the 9th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment in December 1914. He went out to the Western Front in August and as killed barely a month later at the Battle of Loos.

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