Tag Archives: London Regiment

Maurice Humphris Garrett

Maurice Humphris Garrett was born in 1884, son to Lewis Berry Garrett and Marion Garrett. His was brother of Ernest Phillips Garret, an Old Westminster and keen cricketer. Garrett joined Westminster School in 1899 and was admitted to Grant’s. Upon his departure in 1901 he is described in The Elizabethan as one of the school’s ‘shining lights’.

He initially joined the Artists’ Rifles Officer Training Corps, a volunteer branch of the Territorial Force, but in 1917 was made part of the 15th Battalion of the London Regiment. He was sent to the Western Front in the same year, and was killed in action in Peronne, France, in 1918. He is commemorated on the Vis-en-Artois War Memorial near Arras.


Garrett as mentioned in the November 1901 edition of The Elizabethan.
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Edwin Charles Kay Clarke

Edwin Charles Kay Clarke was the only son of stock-broker Charles Sidney Clarke and his wife Elizabeth Clarke. He was born in 1890 and admitted to Westminster in 1910, joining Rigaud’s House. He was an accomplished cricketer and won the Pashley Cup for bowling two consecutive years in a row. His Wisden obituary says that he headed the school batting averages in 1909 and the bowling in 1910, and The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News for 16 June 1917 that he headed the bowling averages in both years, but whichever was correct he was certainly a talented all-round cricketer. He was also captain of the football 1st XI, for which he read the game well but was ‘a trifle lacking in pace’. On 1 and 2 August 1910 he played for the Public Schools in an exciting match at Lord’s, which MCC won by two wickets. He top- scored with 79 in the Schools’ first innings and took two wickets.

He left the school in 1910, and joined the Inns of Court Officers’ Training Corps in 1911. He remained with this division for five years, and was promoted through the ranks to become a Captain in 1916.

In 1918 he joined the 8th Battalion of the London Regiment, an unusual regiment that were not affiliated with the Territorial Force, but instead was treated as a corps in its own right. Clarke was sent to the Western Front with the London Regiment in May, and was killed during an attack on Massiere’s Wood in August of that year, for which he was awarded the Military Cross.

Cricket scores for Edwin Charles Kay Clarke in his final year at Westminster.

 

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Charles Iorwerth Mansel-Howe

Charles was the eldest son of Sidney Iorwerth Mansel-Howe. ‘Iorwerth’ is a Welsh name and as it is unfamiliar to many, it has often been incorrectly transcribed as ‘Torwerth’ making records about Mansel-Howe difficult to locate. Charles was born in 1891 and attended the school in Homeboarder’s house from 1904 until 1910. His family’s home was in Pimlico so he wouldn’t have had far to travel to get to school. He appears to have been fairly good at cricket, getting 5 wickets for 30 in his final season and winning house colours.

We do not know what he did upon leaving the school, but he joined the 28th Battalion of the London Regiment, the Artists’ Rifles, on the outbreak of war. He became a 2nd Lieutenant in the 23rd Battalion of the London Regiment in July 1916 and was later promoted again to the rank of Lieutenant. He was killed in action on 9th August 1918, whilst his battalion was preparing for an offensive on the western front later in the month.

Artists’ Rifles cadets digging a trench in 1916
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Cecil Martin Sankey

Cecil Martin Sankey was the only son of Major William Sankey, of Ealing, and Alice Bertha, daughter of Albert Woecki, of Bayswater. He was born on the 27th September 1897, and was admitted into Grant’s in January 1911.

He was opted to study the ‘Modern’ subjects, and he threw himself into the sports scene at Westminster. He represented the school at both Cricket and Football

He left the school in July 1914, and enlisted in the 9th Battalion, London Regiment. He attended RMC Sandhurst from January 1916, and in August was joined the East Kent Regiment as 2nd Lieutenant. He went out with them to the western front in September 1916.

Cecil was awarded the Military Cross on 12th March 1917. In December of that year, he was attached to the RAF, and he rose to Lieutenant in February 1918.

On the 15th May 1918, he was accidentally killed while flying at Northolt, Middlesex. He is commemorated by a stained glass window in the Church of St Matthew, Ealing Common.

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Archibald Robert Hadden

Archibald Robert Hadden was born on the 22nd October 1889. He was the elder son of Reverend Robert Henry Hadden, who was the Vicar of St. Mark, North Audley Street, London, and Eva Prudence, second daughter of John Carbery Evans, of Hatley Park, Cambridgeshire. His father served as Chaplain in Ordinary to Queen Victoria and as Honorary Chaplain to Edward VII.

Archibald joined Ashburnham in September 1902, and was joined by his younger brother Eustace Walter Russell Hadden in 1903.

At school, he took part in the Cadet Corps, and was promoted to the rank of Corporal in 1906. He was also a singer. In June 1907, The Elizabethan records:

Many Ashburnhamites sang in the very successful School Concert last month: D. J. Jardine, J. C. M. Davidson, D. M. Low, C. C. Treatt, and A. R. Hadden were prominent basses, while D. S. Scott and R. W. Dodds shone as alto and soprano respectively.

He left the school in July 1907, and matriculated into Christ Church, Oxford later that year. In 1909, the year his father died, Archibald joined the army as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 9th Battalion London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles). By March 1911, he had risen to Lieutenant, and in September 1914, he was promoted again to Captain.

On the 6th of May 1915, Archibald married Evelyn Forster, the only daughter of Edwin Thomas Morse Tunnicliffe, MRCS, of North Finchley. Between August 1914 and January 1917, he served on the staff of the 3rd London Infantry Brigade under General Monck.

During this time, his brother Eustace died of appendicitis while serving in France on the 11th June 1916. Archibald and Evelyn’s son, Alan Edwin Robert Haddon (GG 1929-1933), was born on 29th August 1916. Archibald went out to the western front, in January 1917, where he joined his regiment. But on the on the 25th April 1918, he was killed in action at Hangard Wood.

Soldiers of the 9th London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles) during a break in training at Hampstead Heath in December 1914 (Q 53457)
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Arthur William Bowman

Arthur William Bowman was the only child of Reverend Arthur Gerald Bowman, and Edith (née Paget). According to the 1881 census, Reverend Bowman was Curate of St Margaret’s and Private Secretary to the Dean of Westminster. He lived at 19 Great College Street, with his wife and widowed mother-in-law, Francis Paget.

Arthur was born on Mayday 1887, and by 1891, Reverend Bowman had become the Vicar of St. Mark’s, Kensington.

Arthur originally attended Eton until 1900, but then arrived at Westminster in January 1901. He joined Ashburnham House and stayed until 1905, when he matriculated into New College, Oxford. The House Notes in The Elizabethan congratulate him on passing his “Smalls” – the first year exams – in 1905.

He married Elinor Marion Conybeare, daughter of Reverend Charles Conybeare. They had one daughter, Barbara Paget Bowman, born 3rd January 1912.

He joined the army in August 1914, and served on the western front as Corporal 23rd Battalion London Regiment. He was wounded in action in April 1918, and taken to Valenciennes as a prisoner of war. According to an Australian POW, who was also there that April, “the [medical] treatment we received here was very good. The German doctors and German nursing sisters were both skilled and attentive. The food too was good, as it was supplied in the main, by French civilians.”

Despite this, however, Arthur died there on the 12th April 1918.

His widow remarried in 1925, to Arthur’s cousin. Humphrey Ernest Bowman had also become a widower in 1923. Arthur’s daughter Barbara grew up to marry Wing Commander Douglas Sender on the 30th April 1932, and they had three children.

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Charles George Raphael Cracknell

Charles was the only son of Charles Collins, of Pimlico, and Annie Letitia, daughter of George Turner, of London. He was born on 5th May 1888, and had one sister, Nora. Charles and Nora’s father died when they were young.

Annie re-married in 1895 when Charles was 7 years old. Henry Watts Cracknell was the son of a pharmacist, and worked as an accountant for Edward Penton and Sons Ltd, a large shoe- and boot-making firm owned by his brother-in-law. Henry Cracknell adopted Charles and Nora, and he and Annie went on to have another daughter, Ursula.

He arrived at the school in September 1902, and became part of Grant’s House. After leaving school in 1906, he followed in his stepfather’s footsteps and trained as an accountant. He was articled to a London firm of accountants.

Charles had been known by his stepfather’s surname while he was at school, but he officially changed his name to Cracknell by deed poll on 21st June 1915.

On the outbreak of war, he joined the Honourable Artillery Company on the 4th August 1914. He went out to the western front with the 1st Battalion on the 17th September 1914. He became 2nd Lieutenant with the 24th (Co. of London) Battalion, the London Regiment on 3rd July 1915, and was promoted to Lieutenant in the November of that year. He served in France between 1914 and 1917, and then joined the British Expeditionary Force to Palestine in October 1917.

He died at Tel-el-Brit on the 27th of December 1917, of wounds received in the defence of Jerusalem.

The Allies entering Jerusalem by the Jaffa Gate on 11th December 1917, by James McBey
© IWM (Art.IWM ART 2599)
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Thomas Reginald Dawson

Thomas Dawson was elected as a King’s Scholar at Westminster School in 1909. He was Secretary of the school’s Scientific Society and an active debater. In one debate he argued against compulsory military service stating that ‘Englishmen are becoming keener every year to volunteer, which makes compulsory service unnecessary.’

Dawson was true to his word and although he won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford in July 1914, he joined the army on the outbreak of the war. He took a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 19th Battalion of the London Regiment but it was nearly a year before he was sent out to see active service on the Western Front.

Dawson was wounded at the Battle of Loos on 25th September 1915. He was sent back to England to have his wounds treated and ended up in hospital in Vincent Square, not far from the school. He died there from his wounds on 4th February 1916 and a number of pupils were able to attend his funeral at St. Philip’s, Sydenham and burial at Elmer’s End Cemetery, now known as the Beckenham Cemetery. Many of them would have remembered him from his time at the school.

The following letter was sent to the Editor of The Elizabethan following his death:

It is with some diffidence that I ask for the inclusion of this letter, because the paragraphs of eulogy that appear with absolute precision in most school magazines on the dead condemn themselves by their sentimental universality as in most cases obviously untrue. Nor shall I eulogise now. Much might be written upon the three young King’s Scholars whom the battle has claimed so far as its toll. First, we saw the death of W. B. W. Durrant, next of K. T. D. Wilcox, and now it is T. R. Dawson—all three only sons. But it is of the last that I should like to speak, for I was one of the few who knew him well, and it would be a pity if to future generations of Westminsters he were but a name on the wall.

19160204_Dawson,ThomasReginald

Dawson’s grave at Beckenham Cemetery

Not popular, not distinguished in athletic or intellectual ability, not striking except in a personality of extraordinary obstinacy and endurance. Such characteristics devoted to low ideals might have brought fame. Directed on the side of the angels, they were realised in full only by those to whom it was given to know him to the very end. It is as the first Head of Water after the revival that the School collectively owes him the deepest gratitude. Head of Water, but he gave up his place in the four when he saw someone better to fill it. But reference to foregoing pages would show in how many ways he did the ‘spade-work’ while others held more showy positions. And it was only his obstinacy that got him into the Army when the War called for officers, for, like Hannibal, he was blind in one eye. And, personally, may the gratitude be recorded of one who knew what it was to be able to rely on him absolutely when all others might fail– gratitude that ‘Bacchus’ Dawson did live once?

Yours as before,

εγρηγορος  Φρονημα

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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.

19150421_Summerhays_Hill60_Nash
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.

19150419_Kellie,EsmondLawrence

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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