Tag Archives: Football

John Wyndham Hamilton McCulloch

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John was the only son of John Exley McCulloch of Paddington. He was born in December 1894,and arrived up Ashburnham in 1909.

He took part in the debating society. A report in The Elizabethan, notes that “On Thursday, October 19, the House met to discuss the following motion, ‘That in the opinion of this House the advantages of a boarding school are exaggerated.’ÔǪ The Seconder (Mr J.W. McCulloch), dwelt upon the splendid discipline of home life; in a moment of confidence, he gave the Society a glimpse of himself seated over his books in a lonely attic, from which the ‘injusta noverca’ forbade him to stir”.

However, his primary interest at school was sports and his contemporaries said he was a “useful” player. He earned a pink in both Cricket and Football and, in 1913, he played cricket for Middlesex.

On the 4th November 1914, he enlisted as 2nd Lieutenant for the 8th (Service) Battalion Border Regiment, and became Lieutenant the following February. He was serving as a temporary Captain when he was wounded in Flanders on the 20th October 1915.

He died of his injuries at Bailleul the following day.

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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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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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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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John White Ferguson

19150607_Ferguson,JWJohn White Ferguson was the second son of John Ferguson, a well-known yacht builder. As with many scholars he was a keen debater, advocating for both compulsory Greek and compulsory military service! He showed sporting ability from the start, winning the quarter mile and hundred yards at his first Athletic Sports competition. He became a keen cricketer whilst at Westminster and played for the school’s 1st XI, as well as for the King’s Scholars own team. As a footballer his kicking was described as being ‘particularly fine’ in The Elizabethan. His work kicking and tackling was ‘admirable’ in the Charterhouse match of 1908 – although clearly not quite enough to save the game which was lost 4-0.

Upon leaving the school he was apprenticed to his father in the shipbuilding trade. In April 1913 he joined the Clyde Division of the Navy. On the outbreak of war he took part in the siege of Antwerp and received a Distinguished Conduct Medal. In March of 1915 he was transferred to the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. He was killed in action in the aftermath of the 3rd Battle of Krithia on 4th June 1915.

A fellow officer, D.W. Cassie, wrote to the family after the death:

‘I got his, or most of his, official papers and maps. I wanted to get his ring and cigarette case to send home to you but the danger was too great for me to wait and it couldn’t be done. The Hood Battalion is now practically at an end. We have only three officers and 120 men left now, so we no longer count, but before I close I should like to say that I, nor anyone in the Battalion can pay enough tribute to Johnnie’s bravery and gallantry, he died in action, he led his men. …. I am on my way now to Alexandria in charge of 350 Turkish prisoners. It was been given me as a sort of rest after that terrible action.‘

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William Blencowe Wells Durrant

William Blencowe Wells Durrant was the only son ofFrederick Chester Wells Durrant the Attorney-General of the Bahamas, West Indies. Durrant was clearly very academically gifted – he joined the school as a King’s Scholar in 1908 and obtained a Classical Scholarship at Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1913.

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He was less gifted on the football pitch – indeed his first appearance in the annual football match between the scholars and the Town Boys was rather disastrous. Playing in goal, he managed to allow the opposition to score five times! One of the goals was particularly unfortunate, initially hitting the post but then rebounding off Durrant (who had fallen down trying to save it) and landing straight into the net.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given his father’s occupation, Durrant particularly excelled in public speaking. He was a stalwart of the school debating society and spoke in a style described as ‘fluent but rambling’. He also appeared in the Latin Play two years running, playing female parts both times. A reviewer commented that ‘his movements were far too masculineand strenuous, and he wielded his fan with morevigour than grace.’

On the outbreak of war Durrant left Cambridge and took a commission in the Rifle Brigade. He was killed in action near Ypres on 8th May 1915.

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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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John McAdam Craig

According to The Record of Old Westminsters John McAdam Craig was in Rigaud’s between 27th September 1900 and July 1905. However, following his death an Old Westminster wrote the following letter to The Elizabethan:

Passing through Dean’s Yard the other day, I noticed the Roll of Honour contained the name Lieut. J. M. Craig—followed by his regiment, and then-Rigaud’s. No mention whatever of his being a K.S. Surely the entry in the last column should be K.S. (Rigaud’s). I would not even allow Rigaud’s (K.S.). Any honour there may be in belonging to any particular house, or, indeed, in being an O.W. at all, is nothing compared with that of being a King’s Scholar. I only hope that the mistake was an oversight, but, remembering how the non-resident K. SS. were treated in my day, my hope is not very great. Mr. Craig was elected Q.S. at the last Challenge in Queen Victoria’s reign, and it is as a member of that same election that I make this appeal on his behalf. I am, Sir, Yours faithfully,

QUEEN’S SCHOLAR.

Our records show that Craig was indeed elected a Queen’s Scholar in 1900, but as he opted for a non-residential scholarship he was allocated to Rigaud’s House. Fewer and fewer pupils wished to board in College at this stage in the school’s history and although 40 boys sat The Challenge that year only 12 were prepared to become full Scholars.

As well as being a scholar, Craig was a talented sportsman. An early review of his footballing abilities in The Elizabethan noted that ‘though still very light, [he] playedin excellent style, and ought with care todevelop into a first-class centre half. This clearly was the case as Craig continued to playfootball for the school, earning full pinks and leading the Rigaud’s team to victory in the Inter-House competition two years running. He also played an active role in the Officer Training Corps and joined Sandhurst immediately after leaving the school.

Craig served in India before the war, arriving in Marseilles on 12th October 1914 with the 58th Rifles in the Indian division of the Expeditionary Force. Craig was in France for less than a month when he died from wounds received on 31st October at Bethune.

Craig is seated in the centre of the front row, holding on to the trophy.
Craig is seated in the centre of the front row, holding on to the trophy.
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