St Olave’s School Remembering the Olavian ‘Fallen’ in the Great War 1914-18 ‘Till all our fight be fought’ St Olave’s School Roll of Honour ‘Next to the land that’s under us, our honour and our name’ 192 Old Olavians were reported as Fallen 75 Olavian Fallen were Commissioned Officers 5 Olavian Fallen were awarded the Military Cross 3 Olavian Fallen were awarded the Military Medal 4 Olavian Fallen were ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ 26 Olavian fallen didn’t leave the School until after the War had commenced. 3 Master’s were amongst the Fallen 9 School Captains lost their lives 23 were N.C.O’s in the Infantry The highest ranking Officer was a Major. There were 14 Captains,21 Lieutenants and 36 Second Lieutenants 9 Olavian Fallen transferred from the Army to the Royal Flying Corps 15 Olavian Fallen joined the Artillery. 5 Olavian Fallen worked in the Medical Corps 7 were attached the Royal Navy or Volunteer Reserve 2 were in the Tank Corps and 5 were in the Machine Gun Corps Olavian Fallen served in 65 different Infantry Regiments, Artillery Batteries, Ship’s Companies, Air Squadrons and Tunnelling Companies. Olaf to right the wrong ‘Though far away they seem to us, the mighty days of youth’: the nine School Captains BUDD 1916-17 COCK 1915-16 N. HAMILTON 1911-12 J.T.JONES 1914-15 KEES EY 1904-05 MAYBROOK 1912-13 NORRIS 1912-1 3 SANDERS 1911-12 WADE 1914-15 Olavian ‘Fallen’ with School Athletic Distinctions AKERMAN 1901-05 BENDIXEN 1906 DODKINS 1907-11 HUSK 1904-07 GRANT 1890-99 HARVARD 1904-10 MAYBROOK 1908-13 WADE 1904-15 Till all our fight be fought Each one was valued by his chum and friends, each one was fitted for some little part We hear that pitiful long list of names in all this many-sided life of ours. of Old Olavians – many of them boys, going from school into the war-machine. And right across that love, across that life, insatiate It makes one hate the injustice of it all, war with blind stupidity has cut its way and those lads, mere schoolboys, radiant, torn them from their friends. A dozen years have full of hope, upon the threshold of the passed and to most here, the names are outer world, swept out of life, strange. killed on the battlefield. Soon it may be, the list no longer read, will rest, The solemn reading of their names, recalls a vellum roll, within a drawer, mute witness their faces as we knew them in the school, of their willing sacrifice. linked with some tone of glance, some incident of classroom, or the corps, But while the youthful figure, sword in hand, or cricket field. The name recalls the features: calls through the years, our youth to take their one by one, seen as of old, they pass stand, with heart ablaze to fight against before the mind, a living gallery of pictures, the wrong, may these forgotten names dearer made by pity, for the wanton sacrifice live to declare to future generations of their young lives to cruel war’s demands of the school, the cruel injustice, senseless sacrifice of life, the misery, the desolation, Some had already shown their quality, earning wrought by war. high praise at college, and marked out for special service; others were to find their places in the humbler tasks of life. Yet, whether slow or brilliant, each was loved, each of them lived within his mother’s heart, Armistice Day 1930 Headmaster Rushbrooke ‘Dulce de Decorum Est’ – Wilfred Owen. Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares, we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest, began to trudge. Men marching asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; Drunk with fatigue, deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets, just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime. – Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs Bitter a the cud Of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues, - My friend, you would not tell, with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mortui. The Fallen Old Olavians listed alphabetically by surname 2nd Lieutenant Ralph Portland Akerman, 11th Londons (Finsbury Rifles) (1901 to 1905) Netley Military Cemetery, Southampton – Grave reference 1738 Private James Edgar Almond, 9th Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers (1911 to 1916) Beacon Cemetery, Sailly-Lorette, Somme – Grave reference – 111.G.4 Private William Athow, 8th Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers (1890-1899) Wimereux Communal Cemetery – Grave reference 11.L.9A Private Albert George Baker, 5th Londons (London Rifle Brigade) (1909 to 1912) Corbie Communal Cemetery Extension – Grave reference 2.C.90 Private Harold William Baker, 20th Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers (1910 to 1915) Heninel-Croisilles Road Cemetery – Grave reference 11.E.34 Lieutenant Ernest Barton, Royal Field Artillery (1900 to 1907) Kingston-upon-Thames Cemetery, Norbiton, Surrey – Grave reference – B401 Private William Henry Beecraft, 16th Middlesex Regiment (1908 to 1913) Abney Park Cemetery, London – Grave reference – M8.RN.24397 Lance Corporal Douglas Charles Belcher, 102nd Sanitary Section, Royal Army Medical Corps (1906 to 1911) Lembet Road Military Cemetery – Grave reference 1441, Greece. Caporal Leonard Bendixen, French Army. (1906 to 1906) Major Frederick Barberry Bennett, C Battery, 84th Army Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (1892 to 1898) Bronfay Farm Military Cemetery. Grave Ref. 11.G.25 Rifleman George Enoch Benson, 2nd Battalion, The Rifle Brigade (1906 to 1913) Ploegsteert Memorial (Berks Cemetery Extension, Ypres) – Panel 10 Private Lewis Walter Berrow, Yorkshire Dragoons (1903 to 1910) Private William Rushbury Berrow, E Battalion, The Tank Corps (1902 to1907) Cambrai Memorial, Louverval Military Cemetery – Panel 13 Private Stephen Bishop M.M., 17th Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers (1901 to 1905) Berlin South Western Cemetery, Stahnsdorf, Brandenburg – Grave Ref. IX.D.3 Private Herbert William Blackman, 8th battalion, The Rifle Brigade (1901 to 1905) Delville Wood Cemetery, Longueval – Grave Ref. XI.I.3 2nd Lieutenant Charles Edward Blencowe, Royal Sussex Regiment attached 1st Wiltshire’s (1903 to 1907) Tynecot Memorial, Zonnebeke, Ypres - Panel 86-88 Lance Corporal no. 12621 Harold Edgar Bliss, 7th Battalion, the Norfolk Regiment (1905 to 1910) Loos Memorial – Panel 30/31, Loos en Gohelle Lance Corporal John William Donald Boone, 22nd battalion, The Rifle Brigade (1903 to 1915) Private Percy James Brittain, 1/24th Londons (Lambeth & Southwark Rifles) (1906 to 1911) London Cemetery and Extension, Longueval – Grave Ref. 6.F.22 Private Charles Henry Goullee Brown, B Company, Royal Engineers (1909 to 1916) Fosse No.10 Communal Cemetery Extension – Grave Ref. II.D.34 Flight Sub Lieutenant Victor John Budd, Royal Naval Air Service (1910 to 1917) Chatham Memorial, Chatham, Kent - Grave reference 30. Private Edmund Alfred Henry Burn 2/14th Londons (London Scottish) (1911-1913) Beersheba War Cemetery – Grave Ref. N43, Israel. Private Philip Burwood, 2/23rd Londons (1905-08) Godewaersvelde British Cemetery, Nord – Grave Ref. II.D.13 Corporal Edmund Hearn Butler, 2/9th Londons (Queen Victoria’s Rifles) (1897-1904) Arras Memorial – Bay 10, Faubourg D’Amiens Cemetery 2nd Lieutenant John Russell Carrier, 1/5th London (London Rifle Brigade) (1906-08) Thiepval Memorial – Pier and Face 9D 1st Air Mechanic George Charles Castell, 12 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps (1904-07) Avesnes Le Comte Communal Cemetery Extension – Grave ref. ID22 Rifleman Ewart William King Castle, 1/16th London (Queens Westminster Rifles) (1909-15) Vis-en-Artois Memorial – Panel 10 Rifleman Robert Stanley Chapman, 2/5th London (London Rifle Brigade) (1904-10) Mendinghem Military Cemetery, Grave ref. VE17 , Ypres Private Harold Thomas Chester, 1st Royal Guernsey Light Infantry (1910-15) Ploegsteert Memorial – Panel 11, Ypres Private Albert George Child, 3/5th London (London Rifle Brigade) (1909-12) Fovant (St George) Churchyard, Fovant, Wiltshire – Grave Ref. II.A.II Private John Lethbridge Chubb, 19th Canadian Infantry (Central Ontario Regiment) (1911-12) Crucifix Corner Cemetery – Grave ref. 1B 14, Villers-Bretonneaux. Lieutenant Edgar Churcher, 32 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps (1907-10) Lijssenhoek Military Cemetery – Grave ref. X111.B.14, Poperinghe, Ypres Private Ernest Howell Clarke, 95th Machine Gun Company, Machine Gun Corps (1897- 1903) Ploegsteert Memorial – Panel 11, Ypres Lance Corporal Frank Osenton Clifton, 7th Battalion, the East Kent Regiment (1905-08) Menin Gate Memorial, Panel 12 & 14, Ypres Private Edward Millar Cock, 28th Londons attached 9th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment (1915-16) Philosophe British Cemetery – Grave ref. IQ.6 Rifleman Alleyne James Cook, 18th London (London Irish Rifles) (1907-12) La Pugnoy Military Cemetery – Grave ref. 1C 42 Lieutenant William Edwin Cook, 1/2nd attached 4th Yorkshire Regiment (1908-11) Valenciennes (St Roch) Communal Cemetery – Grave Ref. VD.26 2nd Lieutenant Ernest John Curtis, 5th attached 7th Royal West Kent Regiment (1891-4) Artillery Wood Cemetery – Grave ref. 1X.D.15, Boezinghe, Ypres. Naval Officer (Wireless Telegraphy) William Rushbrooke Dale-James, Royal Naval Air Fleet Auxiliary (1894-1900) Rifleman Albert Ernest Dawes, 1/5th London (London Rifle Brigade) (1906-11) Thiepval Memorial – Pier and Face 9D Private Henry Theodore Samuel Deem, 15th London (Civil Service Rifles) (1905-06) Heilly Station Cemetery – Grave ref.