100 Years on – We Remember Still

100 Years On – We Remember Still In August 1920 a memorial to those from Penarth who were killed in the First World War was unveiled. This was not the memorial in Alexandra Park, that was not unveiled until November 1924. This was the unveiling of the first Town Memorial, now better known as the Roll of Honour, in St. Augustine’s Church. The memorial remembers 207 men, regardless of denomination, who had a connection with Penarth. ST. AUGUSTINE’S WAR MEMORIAL. ––––––– UNVEILING CEREMONY. On Monday evening the unveiling ceremony of St. Augustine’s War Memorial took place. The unveiling was performed by Lieut.-Gen. Sir H. de Beauvoir de Lisle, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., D.S.O., general officer commanding Western Command. General de Lisle said they were met together to do honour to those who paid the price of victory with their lives. They could not honour the dead too highly. The Rector read over the names of those who had paid the supreme sacrifice, numbering about 200, and those whose names had been inscribed on the very beautiful memorial, which has been exquisitely carved in Italian walnut. The secretary of the Memorial Committee was Mr. N. C. Godby, whose duties in connection with the monument had been extremely onerous, but have been very successfully carried out. Penarth Times, Thursday 12 August 1920 In 2014, to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War, the Friends of St. Augustine’s embarked on the Roll of Honour Project. Part 1 was to conserve the fabric of the Roll of Honour itself. Conservation of the Roll of Honour This impressive memorial in the Arts and Crafts style stands on the west wall inside the church. It consists of a deeply carved overhanging canopy, below which 15 Fields of Conflict are named. Below these are the gilded names of 207 Penarth men. There are then 13 Regimental Badges and below these, in 1920, would have been linenfold panelling. After almost 100 years it needed some care and attention. The Roll was professionally cleaned, names regilded and minor repairs carried out. Some damage had been caused by the snagging of a duster during cleaning. The conservators’ advice for future care included no wet cleaning, no cleaning products including wax polish, and no fluffy dusters or anything which may snag. Whilst working on the regilding of the names, the conservators pointed out that the lettering in the middle section of the left panel was cut by a different and less-assured hand. Following completion of the conservation work, the memorial was rededicated in August 2014. The conservation work was commissioned by the Friends of St. Augustine’s and supported financially by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the War Memorials Trust and private donations. 1 The second part of the Project was to record the history of the Roll of Honour – who commissioned it, who designed it, and how was it financed? The answers to these questions were found in Vestry minutes, PCC minutes and reports in the Penarth Times. The earliest reference to a memorial can be found in the Vestry Minutes for April 1918. The form that a memorial should take was discussed and a committee was formed to look into the matter further. At some point John D. Batten was approached, and by the Vestry Meeting of 29th April 1919 he had submitted a design. This was accepted and John Batten assembled and supervised a team of artists and craftspeople to carry out his proposal. One of the craftspeople was the wood carver, William Wheeler. He was responsible for the linenfold panelling mentioned earlier. Unfortunately the panelling has been hidden or replaced by the panels commemorating the dead of the Second World War. In 2014 William Wheeler’s son John gave a donation to the conservation work in memory of his father. The 8th May 1919 edition of the Penarth Times reported on a Vestry Meeting. Under the subheading ‘Names of all Penarth’s Fallen Heroes Wanted’ it reads ‘The Committee … would like to have the privilege of placing the names of all those in Penarth who have fallen, on the record irrespective of denomination …’. The Committee went on to request that those who wished a name to be included should contact the Rev. H.C. Morton. It has been suggested in recent years that families had to pay to have a name included on the Roll of Honour. There is no evidence for this in the surviving records. However, the memorial was paid for by donations from the public, and this might be how the confusion arose. The cost of the Memorial was about £800, equivalent to at least £25,000 today. Why was the Town Memorial placed inside the church? According to the aforementioned Vestry Meeting, ‘St. Augustine’s is, after all, the oldest institution in Penarth and around it in God’s Acre, lie our forefathers’. Further information about the Roll of Honour may be found in Kathleen Guy and Chris Higley, ‘A History of the Roll of Honour’, Friends of St. Augustine’s, 2015. A presentation copy is on permanent display in the church. ‘The History of the Roll of Honour’ project was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and individual donations. Sons of Penarth The third and final part of the Project was to discover more about the lives of the 207 men and their families, before they went to war. The resulting book, ‘Sons of Penarth’, has been compiled by the Project Team. Research was carried out by Linda Guilfoyle. Contributions from family members and others were collected by Kathleen Guy, who also edited the text. Chris Higley prepared the work for printing. 2 The entry for each man records what is known about his life. In most cases we only have information from documents in the public domain, but even this official information gives us an insight into life in Penarth at the beginning of the 20th Century. We know that in general, families then were larger than they are today, and households often included extended family members. Most of the 207 men were born, lived and worked in Penarth, but some moved further afield and a few looked to the Empire for a new life. For some of the men we are fortunate to have more personal accounts given to us by 21st Century family members. One such man was John Regan: from the 1901 Census we know that he was born in 1882. At the time of the Census he was living with his parents, three brothers and two sisters at 76 Salop Street. From his granddaughter, Kath Williams, we learn that John Regan was always known as Jack. Kath tells us that: Jack Regan became a well-known rugby player at half-back with Penarth RFC. He was Vice Captain and played 5 times against the Barbarians. In the years before the War Jack also toured with Penarth RFC to play against French clubs in 1910, 1911 and 1914. On each occasion they came home undefeated. When he went away to war Jack Regan was the father of a large family with his wife Mary (who was known as Ginny) of four boys and one girl. Ginny was also expecting another child, Eileen, who was born on 6th May 1916 after her father had left for France. Kathleen has two letters home from Jack Regan and a fragment of a third. One of them thanks Ginny for sending a parcel and a snapshot photograph of her and the children including his new daughter. He expresses his pleasure that both his wife and daughter looked healthy after what had evidently been a difficult birth. He also refers to finding a ha’penny in the parcel from his new daughter which he says he will keep for good luck. Sadly, the photograph has not survived. Jack served in the 113th Siege Battery, The Royal Garrison Artillery. He was killed in action on Monday 31st July 1916 and is buried at III.F.11., Peronne Road Cemetery, Maricourt. His granddaughter and other family members still live in Penarth. Jack and Ginny’s family 3 Following Jack’s death, fellow Penarthian Tom Bartlett wrote a letter of condolence to Ginny. This page survives. Tom Bartlett was killed a month later. He was the third of the Bartlett brothers to die in the conflict. Because the Roll of Honour is the Town Memorial, men are also named on other memorials in the town. Jack Regan and Tom Bartlett were both members of Penarth Rugby Football Club. They would undoubtedly have known Arthur Chick, the Monroe brothers and others whose names appear on the Rugby Club Memorial. 4 Nineteen men named on the Roll of Honour are also remembered on the memorial in All Saints Church, including the three Hoult brothers. On 11th November 1924, the Memorial in Alexandra Gardens was unveiled. Mrs E. Fitzgerald and Mrs F. Bartlett, who had each lost three sons in the conflict, took part in the ceremony. George Hoult, the father of Douglas, Percival and Rupert, felt unable to attend. Another man named on both memorials was Oliver Hughes. Oliver, Joseph and their two brothers were all baptised at All Saints Church. Their father was a sidesman. We are fortunate to have a personal account from Oliver’s nephew David Hughes. With the outbreak of the Great War Oliver enlisted in October 1914 and was placed in the 16th (Service) Battalion of the Welsh Regiment (Cardiff City). Their training commenced at Porthcawl, then they moved to Colwyn Bay North Wales for further training, before moving to Winchester where they carried out the firearms training.

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