Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Cemetery
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‘43rd relieves 52nd Bn. [Battalion] HQ at Dormy House. 2 platoons 52nd relieved 2 platoons 53rd Maple Copse. Both sides artillery active all evening, extraordinary number of enemy’s shells blind. B Coy [Company] bombers beat off enemy bombing party at dusk at Block Hill Street. Our artillery opened heavy bombardment. Bn. Scouts went over the parapet to reconnoitre and reported both going out and coming in. 101 OR [other ranks] reinforcements arrived from base. Wind North. Casualties. 4 killed, 29 wounded (killed includes Lieut. F J Watson).’
Frederick was not the first in the Watson family to feature in the casualty lists. His younger brother, Stanley Lee Watson, had been killed in the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915 whilst serving as a Captain in the 4th Battalion, Black Watch.
Frederick Watson is commemorated on the University of St Andrews Roll of Honour and on the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland Roll of Honour.
Appendix 2
Summary of 1914 Deaths
References
Introduction
1. Cited in Brown M, 1914, The Men Who Went To War.
2. There is no hyphen used in the family name of Lee Steere.
3. There are several shortened versions of his name in print. I have used the version that was used extensively by the Wyndham family in their letters to each other.
4. There is no hyphen used in the family name of Gordon Lennox.
Chapter 1
1. Correspondence with CWGC, 22 May 2008.
2. Certain cemeteries with fewer than fifty burials do contain a Cross of Sacrifice.
Chapter 2
1. Cited in Strawson, J, Gentlemen in Khaki.
2. Sir George Charles Gordon Lennox, the son of Lord Bernard Gordon Lennox, held the post of Sandhurst Commandant 1961–63.
3. Chamber’s Book of Days.
4. He signed all his letters ‘Harry’ and his mother used this shortened form when she wrote to him.
5. French, D, Military Identities The Regimental System, the British Army, and the British People c.1870–2000.
6. Smith was killed while commanding the 2nd Battalion on 19 May 1915. He is buried at Le Touret Military Cemetery. Grave Reference: II.D.14.
7. Beckett, I W, Ypres the First Battle 1914.
Chapter 3
1. One of the school’s boarding houses. Each was titled with an adaptation of the name of their first housemaster, such as ‘Weekites’.
2. ‘Gownboys’ was the boarding house for scholars, who were entitled to wear gowns.
3. Schuster, Sir G, Private Works and Public Causes.
4. He became Lord Louis Mountbatten.
5. 2nd Dragoon Guards.
6. In 1916 William Orpen became an official War Artist alongside Paul Nash, Muirhead Bone and Wyndham Lewis. He was knighted in 1918.
7. Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Dykes is commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing on the Marne at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre.
Chapter 4
1. Lloyd, R A, A Trooper in the Tins. Hurst and Blackett. 1938.
2. Sergeant R J Minahan was killed in action on 25 July 1916. He had been recommended for a commission but was killed before leaving the front line to take it up. He is buried at Contalmaison Chateâu Cemetery. Grave Reference: II.D.3.
3. Terraine, J, Mons, Retreat to Victory.
4. Lloyd, R A, A Trooper in the Tins. Hurst and Blackett. 1938.
5. Arthur Pearce is buried at the Marfaux British Cemetery. Grave Reference: V.I.3.
6. Captain, later Major, Douglas Reynolds died of wounds on 23 February 1916. He is buried at Etaples Military Cemetery. Grave Reference: I.A.20. His son, Lieutenant Peter Reynolds of the 2nd Battalion, The Irish Guards, was killed on 23 May 1940 during 20 Brigade’s defence of Boulogne. Peter Reynolds is buried in Outreau Communal Cemetery. Grave Reference: B.4.
7. Captain Guy Maxwell Shipway is commemorated at Etreux Communal Cemetery. Memorial Reference 50/51.
8. Lieutenant Robert Vereker is buried at Landrecies Communal Cemetery. Grave Reference: B2.
9. Ponsonby, F, The Grenadier Guards in the Great War. Vol 1.
10. Lieutenant Francis Ellison Levita is buried at the Meteren Military Cemetery. Grave Reference: II.N.348. Captain John Kirwan Gatacre is also buried at Meteren. Grave reference II.N.32.
11. Died of wounds on 18 November 1914. Buried at Bolougne Eastern Cemetery. Grave Reference: II.B.13.
Chapter 5
1. Major General ‘Tommy’ Capper was killed at Loos in September 1915.
2. On 6 September 1914, 3 Cavalry Brigade (then under 1st Cavalry Division) and 5 Cavalry Brigade (an independent command) were placed under the orders of Brigadier General Hubert Gough. A week later they were formed into the 2nd Cavalry Division – Gough is promoted – and other units required to make up the divisional structure were added as they arrived.
3. Llewellyn Alberic PriceDavies was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1901 at Blood River Poort whilst a lieutenant in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles).
4. Fergusson was brought back in December 1914 to command II Corps but was removed again in 1916.
5. Militia or nonregular troops.
6. German artillery attacks on Ypres were an almost daily occurrence from this date but it wasn’t until 22 November that the Cloth Hall was set on fire and ultimately destroyed. The town also suffered from occasional bombing by German aircraft. By 1918 little, if anything, remained of the town’s buildings.
7. Sir John French estimated that on 19 October there was only one German Corps between Menin and the English Channel.
8. Samuel Holt Lomax died of wounds on 10 April 1915. He was cremated and his ashes were buried in a plot at the Aldershot Military Cemetery, where he was later joined by his wife under a private headstone.
9. Only eighty-four Gordon Highlanders took part in this charge which included drivers, cooks and store-men.
Chapter 6
1. After Alexandria the regiment was granted the privilege of wearing their regimental number on the back of their headdress as well as on the front, a perpetual reminder of the occasion when they had fought back to back on 21 March 1801 against the French.
2. Harold Christopher Richmond was mentioned in despatches on 31 May 1915.
3. The graves of the Irish Fusiliers and the Gloucesters that have been in place since 1900 were recently vandalized. An entire stone cenotaph marking the fallen from the Gloucester Regiment has disappeared. In 2004 a four-year contract to maintain the graves of the 25,200 soldiers who died fighting for Britain in the second Boer War given to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. It is the first time the Commission will take responsibility for the fallen from a conflict that pre-dates the Great War.
4. Lieutenant Baxter was subsequently awarded the MC for his gallantry on 23 October.
5. Sergeant T J Knight was killed in action on 29 October 1914. He is buried at Harlebeke New British Cemetery. Grave Reference: XVIII.D.4.
6. PhilipVan Neck is buried at Zantvoorde British Cemetery. Grave Reference: 7.V.H.14.
7. Charles Hylton Van Neck is buried at Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery. Grave Reference: XVI.B.17.
8. Cited in The Coldstream Guards 1914–1918.
Chapter 7
1. Frederick William Joseph Miller is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Panels 9 and 11.
2. The Royal Dragoons.
3. Later promoted to command the 8th Battalion South Lancashire Regiment, Harold Brassey was killed on 15 July 1916. He is buried at Bouzincourt Communal Cemetery Extension. Grave Reference: II.F.1.
4. Ponsonby, F, The Grenadier Guards in the Great War. Vol. 1.
Chapter 8
1. Viscount Henry William Crichton is buried at the Zantvoorde Military Cemetery. Grave Reference: V.B.11.
2. So called because of the colour of their uniform.
3. Corporal Wallace Walter Rhodes is commemorated on the Menin Gate. Panel 3.
4. Lieutenant Sir Richard William Levinge is buried at the White House Cemetery, Ypres, Grave Refe
rence: I.D.28.
Chapter 9
1. Private E Lawson is commemorated at White House Cemetery. Special Memorial 5.
2. Corporal of Horse Herbert William Dawes is commemorated on the Menin Gate. Panel 3.
3. Major Lord Charles George Francis Fitzmaurice was on the staff of 6 Cavalry Brigade. He later used the surname Mercer-Nairne and is buried under that name at Ypres Town Cemetery. Grave Reference: E.I.10.
4. Sergeant John Arthurs is commemorated on the Menin Gate. Panel 5
5. Both Alex Vandeleur and Hugh Grosvenor are commemorated on the Menin Gate. Panel 3.
6. Charles Sackville Pelham is buried at Ypres Town Cemetery. Grave Reference: II.D.4.
7. Royal Scots Greys.
Chapter 10
1. One of the Langhorne sisters, her sister Nancy became Nancy Astor.
2. WO 95/1278.
3. 3. Ponsonby, F, The Grenadier Guards in the Great War of 1914–18. Vol. 1.
4. John Lee Steere obviously did not know that Hervy Tudway had died from his wounds.
5. Captain Beaumont Nesbit took command of the company after John Lee Steere had been killed.
5. The Carthusian, October 1915.
Chapter 12
1. Grave Reference: V.A.1.
2. The Hon William Parnell is buried at the Guards Cemetery, Lesboeufs. Grave Reference: I.C.I.
3. Major Geoffrey Parnell is buried at Flatiron Copse Cemetery, Mametz. Grave Reference: VII.H.2.
4. Buried at the Ari Burnu Cemetery, Gallipoli. Grave Reference: E.16.
5. Buried at Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery. Grave Reference: III.E.3.
6. Buried at the Khartoum War Cemetery. Grave Reference: 10.C.5.
7. Sydney Allan James Gibson is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. Pier and Face 13A and 13B.
8. Rhodes, A, ‘Repetition’, in M Stephen (Ed.) Never Such Innocence: A New Anthology of Great War Verse.
Bibliography
Unpublished sources
The National Archives
Unit War Diaries in WO95
Service Records in WO 339
Naturalization papers in HO 144
Private Papers
The letters of John Lee Steere
The letters of Gordon Wilson and officers of the Royal Horse Guards
The letters of Lady Constance Wyndham and Hon William Reginald Wyndham
The letters of Lady Elizabeth Congleton
The letters of Harry Parnell, 5th Baron Congleton
The diary of Major Lord Bernard Gordon Lennox
The diary of Lieutenant Hon William Reginald Wyndham
The diary of Lieutenant Colonel Howard Ferguson Murland
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