Category Archives: The Fallen

Dudley Leycester Summerhays

Dudley Leycester Summerhays was in Homeboarders house for over five years between 1902 and 1908. He travelled into school from his family home in Wimbledon. He served his Articles in order to become a solicitor, but on the outbreak of the war enlisted in the East Surrey Regiment. He soon got a commission in Queen Victoria’s Rifles, with whom he saw nearly six months’ service at the Front.

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The Landscape, Hill 60 by Paul Nash
┬® IWM (Art.IWM ART 1155)

After his death a fellow Old Westminster wrote to the school’s magazine, The Elizabethan:

‘SIR, As a brother officer and old Schoolfellow of Mr. Dudley Summerhays, with whom I spent five months in the trenches in Belgium, I feel I must place on record how much he was beloved by the officers and men in his regiment. All through the hardships of the winter one quality in his fine character was always apparent, that of his great unselfishness. He was ever thinking of others and never of himself, and he is mourned by officers and men as a comrade in the truest sense of what that word means. Yours faithfully, KENNETH W. JOHNSON, Queen Victoria’s Rifles.

His Colonel wrote to his father on the 22nd April, 1915:

MY DEAR MR. SUMMERHAYS, It is with the most profound regret and distress we tell you that your boy has given his life for his country, being killed yesterday morning. He died a hero’s death on Hill 6o, having taken his men forward to assist Major Lees who was gallantly holding a crater against tremendous odds ; he was killed close to Major Lees, and instantly, being hit by a bomb on the head.

It is perhaps some consolation to know that his superbly gallant conduct has kept the above hill, from which the enemy dominated our positions, entirely in our hands, and we have been able to make the position good and can now hold it I trust to the great advantage of the whole army. I cannot tell you in any way adequate what a loss he is to the Regiment and myself, his many sterling qualities and his devotion to duty endeared him to one and all of us indeed; it was their love for him that prompted his men to follow him and stick to him to the last. The whole night through they fought on and on and stuck to their leaders who so heroically led them.

You must forgive me if I have been blunt or curt in writing this, but I have just come through a big strain, and am still surrounded by the incessant noise of heavy artillery. We of the Regiment will never forget the superb example set us by your son, and can only hope when our time comes to try to emulate his heroic behaviour and utterly unselfish patriotism.

Believe me, Yours very sincerely, R. B. SHIPLEY.

P.S.-Please accept and convey to your family the most sincere and heartfelt sympathy of my Regiment and my own self.’

 

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Esmond Lawrence Kellie

Two years after leaving school in 1912, Esmond Kellie had passed the exam for the Civil Service. But on the outbreak of war, he joined the 28th Battalion of the London Regiment (Artists’ Rifles). The following January, Kellie was transferred to the 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, along with another young officer, Charles Kirch.

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In April 2015, the Battalion was involved in the bitter competition over “Hill 60”, a spoil heap just south of Ypres. The small mound afforded an excellent viewpoint from which to observe the ground around Zillebeke and Ypres, and was the only place in the area that was not waterlogged. From the 12th to the 16th of April, the battalion prepared for an attack on Hill 60. They worked day and night reconnoitring disused French and German trenches, and in opening up communication trenches.

They were ready to attack on the 17th and, with the help of mines and heavy artillery, the Hill was successfully taken by the British. However, Hill 60 projected into enemy territory, which left it exposed and costly to occupy. The German counterattack the following day resulted in considerable casualties, and part of the hill was temporarily lost. The shelling and bombing intensified, and Kellie was killed on the 19th of April, along with Charles Kirch who had joined on the same day.

The Germans’ second attempt to recover the hill was successful, and Hill 60 was lost on 5th May, following a series of gas attacks.

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Guy Neale Landale Labertouche

The Battle of Shaiba was fought on April 12-14 1915, between British forces defending Basra, and men from the Ottoman Empire, attempting to retake the strategically important city. It is considered a turning point in the long Mesopotamian campaign, as after it, the allies generally held the advantage in the area. Labertouche was a Major with the 122nd Rajputana Infantry, in the Indian army, at this time. He received fatal wounds on the 14th of April, and died on the same day.

Labertouche atte19150414_Labertouche,Guynded Westminster from April 1886 until July 1888. He was a homeboarder, and a good cricketer, but little else is known about his time at the school. He was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1871, to Peter Paul, a public servant, and Eleanor Annie. There he attended the prestigious Scotch College from 1881, where they have noted that “he did not star scholastically or in sport”, so nothing is known about his time there; we don’t even know in which year he left, or when his family moved to England.

He received his first commission in early 1892, into the Sussex regiment. From there he spent a few months in 1895 as aide-de-camp to the acting governor of Victoria, Australia, before leaving in November to go to Bombay. He was in the India Staff corps from 1896, and was involved in a number of actions, including suppressing the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. He was married to Janet Muriel Campbell Stewart in 1908, and promoted to the rank of Major in 1910.

Labertouche was commemorated at Basra War Cemetery, in modern day Iraq. After years with little maintenance to the site, headstones were removed by the British army in 2003 for safekeeping. Since then, the cemetery has been almost completely destroyed, although in the last few years, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Iraqi security forces have been attempting to restore it, though it is unclear how much progress they have been able to make.

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Robert Chalmers

19150326_RobertChalmersRobert Chalmers was in Ashburnham House from 1907 until 1911 when he left for Peterhouse, Cambridge. He must have had a change of heart though as he ‘vanished’ from the University after his first year and reappeared at Lincoln’s Inn where he had joined with a view to becoming a barrister. This clearly didn’t suit him either as in May 1914 he took a commission in The Prince of Wales’s Own Civil Service Rifles in the London Regiment.

Chalmers did not go out to the Western front until March 1915. He saw action in Festubert and of his last hours we have an account from a fellow officer, published inThe Elizabethan:

‘He was a gallant fellow. He died fighting without orders and practically with another regiment, otherwise he would certainly get a decoration. Another battalion was attacking, bombingalong the trench, by night, and I had a party working alongside. Chalmers had a patrol of three men keeping touch between us and the attack. The bombers got hung up and the attack was being driven back. Chalmers might have come back to tell us, but he didn’t. Bombs are infernal machines ; it is folly for anybody but an expert to touch them. Chalmers left his patrol, dashed forward, rallied the bombers as they fell back, and led the way, running along the top of the parapet, flashing an electric torch down into the trench and throwing bombs. He won the trench for them. He was absolutely fearless. Of course he was hit. He had two wounds, one slight, in the shoulder, and the other a ghastly wound, in the stomach. When the stretcher-bearers came to attend to him he sent them away to look for his bomb-throwers, and when they returned he sent them back again because he said they had not had time to bind up the others thoroughly. The doctor tells me the pain must have been awful. At last we got him on a stretcher, but an excited fool of a sentry thought we were Germans and held us up for about a quarter of an hour. When we got clear it was nearly light and we could not go back the way we had come. We took him round over all manner of obstacles, barbed wire, ditches, dead bodies, and heaven knows what. The doctor said he had just a chance, but he died next morning. He was conscious and talked to me, addressing me by name, and he never uttered a complaint. The only thing he wanted was to thank the men who were carrying the stretcher.’

He died on 26th March.

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Eric Chasemore Gates

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German postcard commemorating the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.

Eric Chasemore Gates was the elder son of Percy George Gates, M.P. He was a member of Rigaud’s house between1904 and 1908. He went on to pursue a career as a solicitor and was admitted as a Managing Clerk with the firm Pontifex, Pitt & Johnson in January 1914. On the outbreak of war he obtained a Commission as a Lieutenant in the 13th(County of London) Princess Louise’s Kensington Battallion in the London Regiment. He went out to the Western Front in December and was promoted to the rank of Captain by February 1915. He was killed in action near Neuve Chapelle, France, March 12, 1915.

Neuve Chapelle was the first large scale organised attack undertaken by the British army during the war. Although the troops were able to break through the German front line during the offensive they were unable to exploit this success. The battle was intended to cause a rupture in the German lines, which would then be exploited with a rush to the Aubers Ridge and possibly as far as Lille. Tactical surprise and a break-through were achieved after the First Army prepared the attack with great attention to detail.

After the first set-piece attack, unexpected delays slowed the tempo of operations, command was undermined by communication failures and infantry-artillery co-operation broke down when the telephone system stopped working. The German defenders were able to receive reinforcements and dig a new line behind the British break-in. A big German counter-attack by twenty infantry battalions took place early on 12th March. Sir Douglas Haig, the First Army commander, cancelled further attacks and ordered the captured ground to be consolidated, preparatory to a new attack further north. An acute shortage of artillery ammunition made a new attack impossible.

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The Battle of Neuve Chapelle, 1915 by James Prinsep Beadle
Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery

The battle had a big impact on British tactical thinking. The idea that infantry offensives accompanied by artillery barrages could break the stalemate of trench warfare prevailed for the remainder of the war.

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Albert Ernest Morgan

19150310_Morgan,AlbertErnestAt the beginning of the First World War, the Royal Flying Corps, in which Albert Ernest Morgan was a pilot, were used entirely to support ground troops through photo-reconnaissance and artillery observation. Although technology advanced very quickly throughout the war, to start with it was rudimentary at best. Heavy equipment weighed planes down, a lack of usable communications made any work more difficult, and no parachutes made it even more dangerous for the men flying the planes.

After spending less than 3 months on the Western Front, Morgan was involved in directing artillery fire in the Battle of Neuve-Chapelle on the 10th of March, 1915. The plane was hit by shellfire, killing both him and his observer, Aubrey Gordon Irving. They were buried next to each other, their graves now in the Royal Irish Rifles Graveyard, in France. On Morgan’s, rather poignantly, his mother had engraved ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori’.

Morgan started at Westminster in September 1902, aged 13. He was a half boarder (he lived in Bayswater) in Grant’s for the next 3 years, but other than this we know nothing about his time at the school. He seems to have not been involved in any sport or activities while here, and we don’t even know where he went after he left in 1905. We do know that he received his commission in the Royal Fusiliers in 1911, and was in the Royal Flying Corps from 1914, where he was an assistant instructor.

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Richard de Rupe Roche

Richard de Rupe Roche was a Grantite, joining the House in 1893. He was a half-back in the House football team, but although he weighed in at 10st 4lb he did not help the house to victory against Home Boarders in the Tug of War.

Upon leaving school he joined the Army and fought in the Boer War. He was ‘wounded dangerously’ on 28 Mar 1901 at Rondal, and awarded the Queen’s South Africa Medal with Clasps: Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Transvaal, Rhodesia, South Africa. He was discharged the same year but maintained links with the military establishment by joining the Queen’s Westminster Rifles. He was a noted marksman, four times making the final hundred to qualify for the King’s prize at Bisley in the years leading up to the Great War. He also represented Ireland in shooting competitions in 1913 and 1914

Called up in August 1914, he went with his Battalion to France on 1 November 1914, and was mentioned in despatches for his bravery at the end of the month:

‘On the 30th November, Lieutenant J. B. Baber and Corporal R. de R. Roche captured the first prisoners for the Battalion. They had gone out at night to patrol along a ditch some way in front of the line, when they suddenly found themselves surrounded by three different parties of the enemy who had apparently arranged to meet at a certain spot. Two of the enemy patrols passed by without having their suspicions aroused, but the third consisting of three men was making its way towards the place where Lieutenant Baber and Corporal Roche were crouching. The latter immediately opened fire, and after killing one man rushed the remaining two, who threw down their rifles and surrendered.’

The circumstances of Roche’s death during the Houplines operations are also described in The War History of the 1st Battalion, Queen’s Westminster Rifles 1914-18, by J. Q. Henriques:

‘On 8 January, just as it was beginning to get light, Corporal R. de R. Roche was shot as he was crossing the open to get some water for his gun. He was not missed until daylight, when he was seen lying in the open in rear of the trench and in full view of the enemy, who was not more than a hundred and twenty yards away. It was practically certain death to attempt to reach him; but two very gallant men, Rifleman P. H. A. Tibbs, a stretcher-bearer, and Rifleman Pouchot (both of No. 2 Company), crawled out to him to see if anything could be done. As soon as they were seen, the enemy opened fire on them, but both men went on and succeeded in reaching Corporal Roche, who was found to be dead. Rifleman Tibbs was killed as he was kneeling over his body; but Rifleman Pouchot, who saw that both men were beyond help, managed to get back to our lines untouched. He was awarded the D.C.M. for his bravery on this occasion, and thus won the first decoration gained by the Battalion. Rifleman P. H. A. Tibbs was mentioned in despatches. Corporal Roche was a noted rifle and revolver shot, and a very keen member of the Regiment. At home he had always been ready to give to others the benefit of his experience; he had served in the South African War, and in France had already done some splendid work for which he was mentioned in despatches. In him the Battalion lost a good soldier and a true comrade.’

Temporary Grave Marker held at the IWM, London
Temporary Grave Marker held at the IWM, London

A less comfortable but probably more accurate account of Roche’s final moments appears in The Daily Graphic, a witness describing how he was actually found ‘gasping for breath, with a terrible wound in his face’, and how Tibbs was shot down as he tried to bandage him with a field dressing; similarly, further mention of the incident is to be found in the diary of Sergeant B. J. Brookes, also of the Queen’s Westminster Rifles, who stated that their bodies lay out in the water – for the area was flooded – for a long time, ‘the stretcher bearer lying with his arm round the neck of the other man’, since the Germans kept a close eye on them in the hope of catching further victims.

Pictured is the name plate from a temporary grave marker of Roche. The cross belonged to his daughter Miss Barbara Roche who died in 1981; Miss Roche’s only memory of her father was waving goodbye to him as he left by train when she was only five years old.

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Thomas Stapleton

On the 11th of January 1890, Thomas Stapleton boarded a ship and set off to make a new life for himself as a farmer in North Queensland. Three years after leaving Westminster in 1885, Stapleton had enrolled at the Hollesley Bay Colonial College. This was a college that provided young men who were intending to emigrate with practical training to prepare them for their new lives.

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Stapleton spent only 5 years in Australia. A series of bad seasons, the spread of cattle ticks and rabbits were making the agricultural conditions difficult. He returned to England, only to emigrate again in 1896, this time to South Africa.

In the Boer War, he served with the Border Mounted Rifles as a Trooper, and as a Sergeant in the Natal rebellion. So by the outbreak of war in 1914, Stapleton was already an experienced soldier. He enlisted as a rifleman in the 1st battalion of the Rifle Brigade on the 13th October and was sent to the Western Front in November.

On the 19th of December 1914, the 1st Rifle Brigade was involved in an attempt to take the ‘Birdcage’ — a fortified German strongpoint east of Ploegsteert Wood. The attack failed — partly because British heavy artillery were firing short of target — and there were heavy casualties. Thomas Stapleton was among them.

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The British Cemetery at Ploegsteert Wood
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Reginald Benjamin Featherstone

19141218_Featherstone,RBReginald Benjamin Featherstone was born in 1881, and spent just over two years at Westminster from the age of 14. He played a lot of sport, both for the school and for Ashburnham house, and seemed to have a very active time while he was here. He was described as “rather too small” to be a great football player when he first joined, and perhaps it is telling that the house didn’t win a single match that year (and had a rather memorable 8-0 defeat to College). However he went on to play cricket with some success that summer, then returning to school the next September, seemed to have improved at football, playing twice for the 2nd XI, receiving house and school colours for the sport in the Lent term of 1898. He continued to improve, playing for the 1st XI the next autumn. Unfortunately this sporting success at Westminster couldn’t carry on, as Featherstone left the school, for reasons unknown to us, in December 1898.

We don’t know how he spent the intervening years, but almost exactly 3 years later, aged 20, he joined the Devonshire Regiment, starting a 13 year military career from ending with his death on December 18th 1914. He fought in the Second Boer war in 1902 and was promoted to rank of Lieutenant in 1904. At the outbreak of WWI, he was stationed in Cairo, so his battalion didn’t return to England until October 1st, shortly after which he was promoted to the rank of Captain. There he was placed under orders of the 8th Division, created entirely from returning regular army battalions, and used to reinforce the depleted BEF after the first battle of Ypres.

Featherstone has no known grave and is commemorated on the Le Touret memorial in Northern France.

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Duncan Stuart Ross Macpherson

Duncan Stuart Ross Macpherson was the only son of Surgeon General William Grant Macpherson and his American wife, Elizabeth Anne Clunas. He attended Westminster for just a year before leaving for Fettes College in Edinburgh where his father had been educated. Father and son were clearly close. After training at Sandhurst, Duncan became a member of the Indian Army. His father, William, requested and received an appointment as Assistant Director of Medical Services to the 4th Quetta Division whilst Duncan was based at the Quetta Imperial Garrison.

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Major General Sir William Grant Macpherson

On the outbreak of war Duncan was attached to the Black Watch and served with them until November 1914. At that point he was transferred to the2/8th Gurkha Rifles. By this time his father was also serving in France, as Brigadier-General in the Army Medical Service Staff.

Duncan was killed in action on 23rd November at the defence of Festubert, near La Bassee, France. He had spoken to his father only a few hours prior to his death. William refused to discuss the death of his son. He continued to serve during the war until his forced retirement in June 1918.

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