British school registers and rolls of honor

[ilkley remembers]

On 3/4/2017 at 21:09, Phil Wood said:

Hello Dick - if I could ask for your help once again.

 

I am researching Alfred Peel who attended Bradford Grammar School and Kingswood School, Bath.

 

If you have sources for either school I'd be gratful for anything they have for Peel.

 

If either source exists and goes beyond the fallen to those who served I'd also love to know if Alfred's brother Edward Percy Peel is mentioned.

 

In hope.

 

Phil

BGS are putting biographies of the schools fallen onto a page within their website. Peel is listed as work in progress the guy completing the entries is Nick Hooper who can, I think be contacted via the OBs web page. Here is the link

http://www.bradfordgrammar.com/oba/bgs-in-world-war-1/ 

 

There is also quite a long obituary for Lt Alfred Peel of Newbury in the Reading Mercury 23/6/17. Is this man likely to be the one you are interested in?

Edited 16 March , 2017 by ilkley remembers

[Phil Wood]

11 hours ago, ilkley remembers said:

BGS are putting biographies of the schools fallen onto a page within their website. Peel is listed as work in progress the guy completing the entries is Nick Hooper who can, I think be contacted via the OBs web page. Here is the link

http://www.bradfordgrammar.com/oba/bgs-in-world-war-1/ 

 

There is also quite a long obituary for Lt Alfred Peel of Newbury in the Reading Mercury 23/6/17. Is this man likely to be the one you are interested in?

Thanks, since I posted I have made contact with Nick Hooper and have the obituary, it's certainly the man I'm researching.

[ilkley remembers]

9 hours ago, Phil Wood said:

Thanks, since I posted I have made contact with Nick Hooper and have the obituary, it's certainly the man I'm researching.

 

From Reading mercury, also have a fuller obituary which will send you when i remember whereabouts on my computer I have it!......Now found the file downloaded as a PDF document and too large to post here. If you want it, Phil, PM me your email address and i can send it as an attachment

Edited 17 March , 2017 by ilkley remembers

[Phil Wood]

He was well obituaryed - 

Newbury Weekly News, 17 May 1917 p5 – Killed in Action

PEEL – May 5, killed in action in France, 2^nd Lieut Alfred Peel, second son of the Rev J Edward and Mrs Peel, aged 22 years.

“No place is here for weeping or lament

Their sacrifice will never run to waste

If we but rightly use, when war is spent,

The victory whose fruits they did not taste.”

A.P.

[The verse is by Alfred himself.]

Newbury Weekly News, 17 May 1917 p8 – Local War Notes

The Rev J Peel (Wesleyan Minister, of Newbury) with his family has been plunged into the depths of sorrow by the intelligence that his son, Alfred, has fallen in the conflict now raging in France, having been killed in action near Arras on May 5^th. Before joining the Army, Lieut Peel was a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He had a distinguished School career at Kingswood School, Bath, and Bradford Grammar School, passing his Oxford and London Matric at fifteen, and being placed first in the 1913 December Scholarship Examination for his college. He received his commission in August 1915, and went to France in May, 1916. He took part in the early stage of the Somme battle, till he was invalided home with trench fever. He rejoined his battalion in France in January, and was intelligence officer at the time of his death.

Reading Mercury, 19 May 1917 – Superintendent Minister’s Bereavement

The Rev J E Peel, superintendent minister of the Newbury and Hungerford Wesleyan Circuit, has sustained a very heavy loss by the death of his son, Lieutenant Alfred Peel, who was killed in action near Arras on May 5^th. The gallant young officer had previously been invalided home with trench fever, but rejoined his battalion last January. Lieutenant Peel was educated at Kingswood School and Bradford Grammar School, where he had a distinguished career, and obtained a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He received his commission in August, 1915, and proceeded to France in May 1916. Fitting reference to the sad event was made by the preacher (the Rev T H Lomas) at the service on Sunday morning at Northbrook Street Chapel, and very general sympathy has been expressed with Mr and Mrs Peel and the members of their family.

Reading Mercury, 26 June 1917 – The Late Lieut Alfred Peel of Newbury

An Appreciation

The appended appreciation of the late Lieutenant A Peel, of Newbury, by a member of the Wesleyan Church in Northbrook Street, will be read with interest:-

We had been rejoicing – with trembling but still rejoicing – over the fact that although the war had clamed so many of the men of our church, only two out of the whole number of members and adherents who were in any way connected with is at Northbrook Street had bee called upon to pay ultimate price of their sacrifice. Many of the country places in our circuit have suffered most severely and quite out of all proportion to their size; but in Newbury to a wonderful extent we have escaped. And then with startling suddenness came the news that Lieutenant Alfred Peel had been killed in action at ______ on May 5^th, and all hearts went out in sympathy to Mr and Mrs Peel and their family in their bitter bereavement. Naturally and unavoidably, considering how small a proportion of his time had been spent at home, Lieutenant Peel was not widely and generally known to out people. Indeed, by force of circumstances he was less a resident than a visitor to Newbury. But to those who had learned to know him the news came as a peculiarly terrible shock. Like many of the ablest men, Lieutenant Alfred Peel was quiet and retiring to a degree and absolutely removed from all self-advertisement. But he had great gifts and qualities, and may well be taken as a type of the hundreds of thousands of magnificent young fellows, the moral and intellectual flower of our country, who have given their lives in this awful war. Alfred Peel was the very last man in the world destined by nature to be a soldier. He had little of that brute courage and daring which commends the life to some men, though he had any amount of that moral courage which makes a man go steadily through a distasteful task. He never weakly asked for sympathy or appeared to expect it in the unpleasant duty which he shouldered so bravely. But it was intensely distasteful to him, and though undoubtedly the physical training and open-air life of the soldier were good for him he never really enjoyed it or did anything but endure it. He had the kindest heart. He was always thoughtful for children and animals and all weaker things. There was a good deal of the poetic temperament about him, and, like many another young and gifted man the war seemed to waken it into activity. Verses which he wrote have appeared in this same magazine initialled A.P. and show the promise of what he might have done in that direction. But essentially Alfred Peel was “the student in arms.” He had a passion for study, and was always to the end hungering to be back at it again. By his own unusual mental ability, which all his masters acknowledged, and his insatiable love of reading and power of application he carried himself to the university by the help of two scholarships he won at Bradford and Leeds. Although he was permitted to enjoy the life at Oxford for so short a time, it was entirely after his own heart, and there can be no doubt whatever that had he been spared he could not have failed to rise to distinction and win laurels at the University. But the war stopped all this, as it has stopped so much in many a young life of promise. To his great honour be it said that Alfred Peel never hesitated before the sacrifice which he felt must be made, but willingly, and with no external pressure, laid aside his books and ambitions, closed his study door and went out into the rough-and-tumble life he disliked so heartily. It was his lot to take part in both the great advances – that of 1916 on the Somme, and this spring. To a man of highly sensitive, nervous temperament, there must have been much that was particularly terrible and nerve-racking in the deadly life of a young infantry officer at the front. But what he suffered he kept bravely to himself. As a soldier, he has left ample testimony that he was valued very highly by his superiors in rank and respected and trusted by the men under his charge. This is just what we should expect, for soldiers of all men are very quick to recognise a straight man when they see him. Of the inner religious life of so reticent a nature it is almost an intrusion to speak. But it must be said that Lieutenant Alfred Peel was a man who very truly had the fear of God before his eyes, and from letters which he has left behind it is clear that upon one and another of his men he had a strong influence for good, and was in the habit at quiet times of speaking of deeper things. And now, like many another, he has paid the price of his sacrifice and devotion to duty with his life, and with thousands in our country and all countries we are asking, “Why this waste?” To-day we stand too near the world-wide tragedy to be able to lift even the fringe of the curtain of mystery. Indeed, it is to be doubted if a whole answer will ever be forthcoming in this world. Yet mercifully for our comfort ever and again, we seem to see a faint glimmer of a partial answer to the problem. Certainly we are all beginning to entirely re-value life and to understand dimly as we never understood before the essential part sacrifice has been ordained to play in the economy of God. And though it is blasphemous to class our Lord’s supreme sacrifice with any lesser human sacrifice, however great, yet to many the generous outpouring of the finest young life, which we have been called upon to witness during the last three years, has thrown a new and most illuminating light upon this great mystery of sacrifice, transforming a theological fact, an article of our Creed, into a warm, pulsating, living reality. And such great words as “He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for out iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed” take on a vivid, almost painful significance. And we feel after all that in some mysterious way this apparent waste, this suffering of the innocent, this slaughter of the best, cannot be a hideous mistake, since it is inextricably bound up in the very heart of things by God Himself.

Reading Mercury, 7 July 1917 – Royal Berks Stories

... Lt A Peel, of Newbury, was killed by a shell at night. He was, at the time, on duty as a trench officer. Sergeant Newberry, who was with him was killed by the same shell. ...

 

Edited 19 March , 2017 by Phil Wood

[Phil Wood]

A couple more:

Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 19 May 1917 – The Roll of Honour

 

Lieut Alfred Peel, Royal Berks, who was killed in action on May 5, was the son of the Rev J E Peel, who three years ago was stationed in the Hunslet Wesleyan Circuit, Leeds. Lieut Peel received his commission in August, 1915. Seven months later he went to the front and after some severe fighting he was the only officer of his company left. He broke down with trench fever and was invalided home. On recovery he was made bombing officer, afterwards becoming intelligence officer.

 

Yorkshire Evening Post, 19 May 1917 – Yorkshire Roll of Honour

 

Lieutenant Alfred Peel, Royal Berks, killed in action on May 5, was the son of the Rev J E Peel, who three years ago was stationed in the Hunslet Wesleyan Circuit, Leeds.

 

Edited 20 March , 2017 by Phil Wood

[rflory]

Andy (stiletto_33853 wrote: "Wonder if I could ask if you have anything on 2nd Lt. Laurence Turner Blades, 1st RB, KIA 5/7/15 from Charterhouse School, he was in the Schools OTC."

 

Andy:  Sorry for being late in answering but I was down with the flu for nine days. 

 

From Charterhouse Register 1872-1931:

 

Blades, Laurence Turner. 

Born 28 July 1896. Son of A. F. Blades. 

Educated at Charterhouse from Summer Quarter 1910 to Oration Quarter 1914

Served with 6th Battalion, The Rifle Brigade

Killed in action in Flanders on 5 July 1915

 

Regards, Dick Flory

[rflory]

From the Register of Kingswood School 1880-1950:

 

Peel, Alfred.

Student at Kingswood School from 1905-1910

Scholar of C.C.C, Oxford 1914-1917

Lieut. R Berks Regt.

Killed at Cheresy in 1917

 

Regards, Dick Flory

[ypres]

Hi Dick.

Just wondered if you happen to have school registers for Rosehill (Rose Hill) Preparatory School.

The school was originally in Tunbridge Wells, then moved to Banstead Surrey in 1903.

[rflory]

ypres:  Sorry but I do not have a register for Rosehill Preparitory School.  Regards, Dick Flory

[ASA1]

Hello Dick,

 

Could I trouble you for another couple of lookups?

 

Lieutenant Hubert Cracroft Williams

Private Edmund Johnson

 

Both served with 1st Queen's and attended Rugby school.

 

Many thanks,

Andy

[ypres]

Thanks for looking Dick, Cheers. Jim

[rflory]

Andy:  Below is what I have on Lieut. Hubert Cracroft Williams and a photo of him:

 

Lieut. Hubert Cracroft Williams:

Born on 12 June 1892, the only son of Arthur Williams, MB, BC and his wife, of St. Leonards-on-Sea.

Educated at Rugby School from 1906 - 1910 (won Cap, 1910) and at RMC, Sandhurst

Commissioned 2nd Lieut, 2nd Battalion, The Queen's in Feb 1912

Promoted Lieut in Jan 1914

Went to France and Flanders in October 1914

Severely wounded at Yores in the end of October 1914 by shrapnel that struck him in the head, several pieces of which penetrated his skull but he continued fighting for eight hours.

For his gallantry at that time he was gazetted for the Military Cross on 18 Feb 1915

After recovery from his wounds he served as Signal Officer at Harwich

Returned to France and Flanders in October 1915 and attached to 1st Battalion

While the company he was commanding was engaged in work on a new trench in front of the old line, on the night of 18 Oct 1915 he went forward to supervise the work and was accidentally shot and instantly killed.

Mentioned in Despatches in London Gazette of 14 Jan 1915.

 

Sources:

Memorials of Rugbeians Who Fell in the Great War, Volume II

Rugby School Register, Annotated, 1892-1921

Rugby School War Register

 

The photo below is from the first-mentioned source:

 

[rflory]

Private Edward Johnson

Born on 27 April 1887only son of Edmund Litler Johnson and Marian Johnson of Reveley Lodge, Bushey Heath

Educated at Rugby from 1900 to 1904 (Gymnastics Pair, 1904) and at University College, Oxford in 1905

Employed by Consolidated Gold Fields at Reefton, New Zealand from 1908 to 1911

Then employed by his father's business, William Dyson & Company in London

In 1914 enlisted in 25th (Public Schools) Battalion, The Middlesex Regiment but had a severe attack of pleurisy and discharged as medically unfit.

To complete his cure he went first to Mundesley Sanatorium and then to California

Returned to England in August 1916 and enlisted as Private, 19 Bn, The Queen's .

Went out to France in June 1917 and wounded in the head in August 1917

Stationed at Etaples in November 1917

Went to the front in March 1918 and killed near Ypres on 12 April 1918 concussion from a trench mortar without receiving a wound.

 

Sources:

Memorials of Rugbeians Who Fell in the Great War, Volume II

Rugby School Register, Annotated, 1892-1921

Rugby School War Register

 

The photo below is from the first-mentioned sources:

[ASA1]

Fantastic, thanks as ever Dick

[clive_hughes]

Dear Dick,

I would be most grateful for a look-up in your sources for the following casualty, please:

 

Lieutenant Frederick William Ridge Greenhill, 3rd Grenadier Guards, killed in Flanders 10 Oct. 1917 aged 25.  Born 1892, he was educated at The Merchant Taylors' School and Lincoln College, Oxford. 

 

Many thanks,

Clive

[rflory]

 

Lieut. Frederick William Ridge Greenhill

Born on 13 Aug 1880, the son of Henry R. Greenhill, a solicitor, and Susan E. Greenhill of Stamford Hill

Attended Merchant Taylor's School from Sept 1901 to 1911 (School XI, 1907-1911, Capt 1909-11; Monitor)

Exhibitor of Lincoln College, Oxford

Articled to William Sweetland of 4 Cullum Street, Fenchurch Street, London E.C.

Passed Intermediate Law Exam

Enlisted as Private (#7592) in 28th Bn, County of London Regt. (Artists' Rifles) in Nov 1915

Commissioned 2nd Lieut, Grenadier Guards on 26 Aug 16

During Great War served with 3rd Bn, Grenadier Guards in France and Belgium

Killed in action near Poelcapelle on 10 Oct 1917

 

Sources:

Merchant Taylor's School Register 1851-1920

Merchant Taylor's School War List and Roll of Honour

Oxford University Roll of Service

Record of Solicitors and Articled Clerks with His Majesty's Forces 1914-1919

Roll of Honour and War Record of the Artists' Rifles

[Bernard_Lewis]

Full marks to Dick for all the help he's given people on this thread. The GWF at its best. Help freely given.

 

Bernard

[clive_hughes]

Dick, as usual my sincere thanks for taking the trouble to gather this information.

 

Kind regards, Clive

[Masters]

2nd Lt F. Greenhill is mentioned in the 'Times' a few days later.

Educated at Merchant Taylor School, was captain of 1st eleven for 3yrs. along captain of football and fives.

Artists Rifles in Feb. 1916. Obtained commission in Gren. Gds in the following August.  He went to the Front last February and had only returned 14 days ago after 

a short leave when he was killed. 

His Commanding Officer writes of him - Thanks to his leading, the battalion avoided two barrages which would have caused serious casualties.

We were very fond of 'Greeny' and had been delighted when he rejoined the battalion after his sick leave.  He was such a jolly member of the HQ mess

and we will miss him very much.

 

Regards JM.

[Guest]

On 21/01/2006 at 06:11, rflory said:

Ron wrote: "I am researching is Major Douglas Harold Green, OBE, MC who served with the Royal Engineers (Special Reserve). He was educated at Bishops Stortford College and studied engineering at the City & Guilds Central Technical College"

Major Douglas Harold Green, OBE, MC, RE

Educated at City and Guilds College from 1907 to 1910 (BSc, Eng)

In Public Works Department in India before war

Major, RE in France from Feb 1915 to March 1919 (OBE, MC, 4 MID, Chev, O Crown (Rumania)

OBE, London Gazette of 3 Junnnnnnn 19

MC, London Gazette of 14 Jan 16

MIDs: London Gazette, 30 Nov 15, 13 Nov 16, 7 Nov 17, 16 Mar 19

Order of Crown, Chev (Rumania), London Gazette of 20 Sep 19

After war was Engineer and Manager, J Laing & Sons, Ltd, Contractors, Carlisle and Managing Director, The Trussed Steel Company, Ltd, London.

Regards/ Dick Flory

 

On 17/01/2006 at 17:04, bigronhartley said:

Hello Dick, Another of 'my men' I am researching is Major Douglas Harold Green, OBE, MC who served with the Royal Engineers (Special Reserve). He was educated at Bishops Stortford College and studied engineering at the City & Guilds Central Technical College, where he received the degree of BSc (Eng) in 1910. I would be most grateful if you could kindly have a look to see if he is mentioned in the above College Rolls. Many thanks for your help. Regards, Ron

 

If anyone has any further details I'd be most grateful.  Major Douglas Harold Green was my grandfather.  Ideally I'd like to achieve the return of his medals.  I know they were sold by an uncle on 18th September 1998, we have little other effects. (but do have the dress medal set)

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Hi Dick

 

Would you possibly have anything on Benjamin George MacDowel(l) at Aldenham School?

 

Connaught Rangers KIA 22.9.15

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[rflory]

MacDowell, Benjamin George

 

Son of Effingham Carroll MacDowell, MD of Sligo.

Educated at Aldenham School from May 1907 to December 1911 (Crickett, 1911; Football XI 1909-1911)

Lieut. 3rd Inniskililing Fusiliers in July 1914

Killed in action in Flanders on 22 September1915

 

Source:

The History and Register of Aldenham School, Eighth Edition, 1948

[HERITAGE PLUS]

Thanks Dick much appreciated

 

Dave

[Old Owl]

Hi Dick,

Probably a long shot but I wonder if you have anything relating to either: The Kent County School, Beckenham or The Strand School, Brixton Hill, London.

I am researching an offcer called Eric Manger who joined the HAC in 1916 and was then commissioned into the MGC Infantry in early 1917.  He was killed in action

at Nieuport on 10th July, 1917.  Age 19.

Any help would be much appreciated,

Regards,  Robert

 

 

[mrfrank]

Hello Dick.....you wouldn't happen to have access to an image of Edward Graeme Ozanne who I believe was educated at Rugby School. He was KIA on 16Feb15 with 3rd Bn Royal Fusiliers.