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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Arthur Martin-Leake

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Portrait of Arthur Martin-Leake at The Army Medical Services Museum

On 18th February 1915 it was reported that Arthur Martin-Leake had been awarded a Bar to his Victoria Cross for his ‘most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty’ during ferocious fighting near Zonnebeke, Belgium, in October and November 1914.

Braving constant machine gun, sniper and shellfire, he rescued a large number of wounded comrades lying close to the enemy’s trenches. Recommending him for a Bar to his VC, his commanding officer wrote: ‘By his devotion many lives have been saved that would otherwise undoubtedly have been lost. His behaviour on three occasions when the dressing station was heavily shelled was such as to inspire confidence both with the wounded and the staff. It is not possible to quote any one specific act performed because his gallant conduct was continual.’

Martin-Leake was the first man to be honoured with two VCs. Following his time at Westminster School he qualified as a Doctor at University College Hospital. He served in the South African Wars winning his first VC at the age of 27.

During an action at Vlakfontein, on the 8th February, 1902, Surgeon-Captain Martin-Leake went up to a wounded man, and attended to him under a heavy fire from about 40 Boers at 100 yards range. He then went to the assistance of a wounded Officer, and, whilst trying to place him in a comfortable position, was shot three times, but would not give in till he rolled over thoroughly exhausted. All the eight men at this point were wounded, and while they were lying on the Veldt, Surgeon-Captain Martin-Leake refused water till every one else had been served.

At the outbreak of the First World War Martin-Leake, then aged 40, feared he would be considered too old to volunteer for the Western Front. To avoid being rejected he travelled to Paris and enlisted at the British Consulate before attaching himself to the first medical unit he could find—the 5th Field Ambulance Royal Army Medical Corps.

The website Herts Memories are publishing the letters Martin-Leake wrote home to his mother. They are full of humorous observations – he notes that ‘I met the M.P. the other day with the Herts.He is getting hugely fat, but probably a good deal of his largeness is due to wind which he seems very full of.’

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