My Dear Old Boys

Private Henry Lawrence Wadland was determined to fight for his country. He had come back from Canada at the end of 1914 to sign up. Poor eyesight meant he was turned away. Undeterred, he went back to Canada where he signed up with the Manitoba Regiment. He spent a year or so in England and went to the front in July 1917. He was wounded in the fighting at Passchendaele and taken to St John’s Military Hospital in Etpales where he struggled for four days, finally passing away on 10th November 1917. He was 33 years old.

December 1917 saw two of our Old Boys fall. Lieutenant Cyril Walter Bown was killed when his tank, Hermosa, was hit by 8 or 9 shells in the Battle of Cambrai. His death was instantaneous. He is Remembered with Honour on the Cambrai Memorial.

2nd Lieutenant William Leigh Ward had wanted to join up as soon as War was declared but he was too young. Instead he helped the Coastguard until he was old enough to fight. Focused and determined, Ward was well-liked and respected by his men. His death came at the age of 19 when he was killed just after having crossed a dry canal.

September 1917 was a very difficult month for Wellington School. Three Old Boys were taken followed very soon afterwards by 2nd Lieut. Victor Tarbet’s death on October 4th. All were involved in the fighting in Belgium.

Gunner Frank Eric Kent was just 19 when his gun post was hit by a gas shell. There had been no time to put on the gas mask and he struggled very quickly, never regaining consciousness. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Private Edward George James Knight and Private Herbert Thomas Manley were killed within days of each other in the fighting on the Menin Road Ridge. Very little is known about the deaths of either man but we can assume they were brutal. Both Knight and Manley are Remembered with Honour on the Tyne Cot Memorial. Their bodies were never recovered.

The Tyne Cot Memorial is also where 2nd Lieut. Victor Tarbet is Remembered with Honour. Again, little is known about his death but a friend recounts how on the 4th October they helped each other with their packs, shook hands at 5am and both led their troops into battle. Tarbet was never seen again.

11 of our Old Boys fell in 1917. The Battle of Arras and the Battle of Passchendaele, two brutal and unrelenting conflicts, took our boys in clusters. In April 1917 we lost three men: 2nd Lieut. Thomas Yandle, 2nd Lieut. Lewis Albert Edward Sam Bilton and Private George Winton Powell.

The bodies of both 2nd Lieut. Thomas Yandle and Private George Winton Powell were never found and they are Remembered with Honour on the Arras Memorial. Powell’s family suffered months of hoping their son would be accounted for but no trace was ever found. He was 19 years old.  2nd Lieut. Lewis Bilton was shot as he came out of the staff tent. He had been frustrated that it had taken so long to get to the front. He felt a need to ‘avenge his schoolfellows’ who had already been taken and had been desperate to see action.

In July 1917, Serjeant Percy Alfred Clode was killed whilst helping a wounded comrade to safety. He left a widow and a one year old son.

“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
— Terry Pratchett (Going Postal (Discworld, #33; Moist von Lipwig, #1))

On the 11th November 2018, it seems fitting to remember the remaining Old Boys who fell.

William John Crofton Brown was a Wellington boy and an extremely talented musician. He would frequently return to School to play in various gatherings and functions. He was also very bright and a good sportsman. His death was brutal, like so many. His body was never found and he is Remembered with Honour on the Thiepval Memorial. Those who knew and loved him never forgot him; but his early death robbed the world of the wonderful music within him that he never got a chance to write. Nobody can know what we have missed out on.

If anyone is around School today and would like to see the book, I will be in the café between 12pm and 3pm. Feel free to come and say hello.