John Orr Ewing, MC (1884 - 1961) – Major and poet

With grateful thanks to Hannah Dale, Archivist at Cheltenham College, for additional information about John and for the photograph of him in the Boyne House 2nd XV Rugby Team;  and to Cheltenham Historical Society for their kind help.

In Catherine Reilly’s Bibliography of English Poetry of the First World War, there is an entry on page 122 about John Orr Ewing, (MC, Major), giving the title of John’s WW1 poetry collection:  “Hoof Marks, and other impressions (poems), illustrated with sketches by G.H.S. Dixon (H.F. & G. Witherby, London, 1934).

John is on the end of the back row 
on the right

John was born in Bonhill, Dunbartonshire, Scotland on 23rd May 1884.  His parents were Hugh Moody Robertson Ewing and Helen Margaret Robertson Ewing, nee Robertson.  John’s father died in 1889 and on the 1891 Census, John was living with Christian Robertson, his Grandmother, and his mother, Helen M.R. Ewing, who is listed as a widow.  John had the following siblings:

a sister - Christian Leckie Orr Ewing, b. 1885  - and a brother - Hugh Eric Douglas Orr Ewing b. 1888.

John was educated at Cheltenham College between May 1898 and December 1901 and was in Boyne House.  He went on to Sandhurst Military College and served in the British Army with the 16th Queen’s Lancers from 1903.   There is a listing for the marriage of John Orr Ewing and Gwendoline Evelyn Curtis in Kensington in December 1908.

There is an entry in the 1939 register for John Orr Ewing, born 23 May 1884 – a retired Army Officer - and his wife, Gwendoline Orr Ewing, born 9th February 1880.  

John died in Berkshire in 1961 and Gwendoline in Berkshire in 1964.  

  

I managed to obtain a copy of John Orr Ewing’s poetry collection “Hoof-Marks and other impressions” which is beautifully illustrated by G.H.S. Dixon.   Here is one of the poems:

“Roll On!”

Behind the lines in Flanders

A Corps Commander raged –

The Front was not the only place

That War was being waged –

The Nth Dragoons were dirty!

In wrath he named a day,

And, were the Nth not clean by then,

There would be Hell to pay!

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  

At three they had Reveillé –

“Black Jack” was due at ten –

From peep of day they slaved away

Till horses, saddles, men

Outshone the sun in splendour,

Outdid the newest pins –

The curtain rises, this is where

A Tragedy begins: -

First let me introduce y ou

To Trooper Albert Hake,

Who, grooming, as we see him now,

Is hissing like a snake:

Meet, also, one called Ginger,

His horse, A92,

And learn from Ginger’s glossy coat

What ‘elbow-grease’ can do.

When Hake had saddled Ginger

A man could see to shave

In leather’s gleaming surface, or

The glint that bright steel gave;

The back of every buckle

Showed polish, too, and spit –

All justified the looks of pride

That Hake bestowed on it.

Hake went to fetch his jacket,

Parade was nearly due,

Here Destiny took things in hand

To show what she could do –

To Ginger came a tickle

Beneath the blankets’ fold,

He squirmed, he wriggled, tried to bite,

The ropes, ‘built-up’ and ‘head’ were tight,

The thing persisted, come what might,

He had to – Yes!  He rolled!

The sun shone bright that morning,

But ‘ere the dawn, the rain

Had left the lines a sea of mud

That rendered sweeping vain:

So Hake returns to Ginger

To find the awful truth –

The coat that carried silken sheen,

The saddle cleaner than the clean,

Behold them now – a slimy green! –

A tragedy in sooth!

A Soldier’s sense of humour

Here lent its kindly aid.

Past praying for felt Albert Hake,

Yet very nearly prayed!

He held his hands to heaven,

And when he got his breath,

His words were few, but chosen well,

“Roll on! Oh ____ing Death!”

pp. 75 – 77 “Hoof-Marks and other impressions”

Sources: Information from the Archives of Cheltenham College, from Find my Past, Free BMD and

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978),  p. 122

John Orr Ewing, “Hoof Marks, and other impressions (poems), (G.H. Dixon, Witherby, 1934).  On the inside fly leaf of the book is a dedication/inscription:  

As John Orr Ewing married a Gwendoline Curtis, I feel there is some sort of connection but I am not sure what.  If anyone can help please get in touch.

George Scholefield Dixon (1890 – 1960)   -  artist and illustrator (illustrated John's poetry collection)

Born in Hunslet, Yorkshire, UK on 20th April 1890, George’s parents were George Dixon, a clerk, and his wife Clara Dixon,  nee Scholefield.   George studied at Leeds School of Art. Although a portrait painter, he was primarily an illustrator and commercial artist with works reproduced in such publications as Punch, Tatler and Bystander; he exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and an active member of the London Sketch Club.

Reginald Bancroft Cooke (1887 - 1946 ) – writer, poet and translator

 This WW1 soldier poet has been found for us through some amazing research by author, poet, translator, historian AC Benus. 

AC Benus is the author of a book about German WW1 poet Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele : “The Thousandth Regiment: A Translation of and Commentary on Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele’s War Poems” by AC Benus (AC Benus, San Francisco, 2020). Along with Hans's story, the book includes original poems as well as translations.    ISBN: 978-1657220584

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1657220583 and https://www.amazon.com/dp/1657220583

AC Benus, who often helps me with research, told me that Reginald translated “The Sonnets of Karl August Georg Max Graf von Platten-Hallermünde” (Boston, 1923) and included this poem of dedication in the translated volume. It is this poem that led AC Benus to think he may have written other poems during WW1 … and the search began.

"TO F. G. C. of the Royal Air Force" by Reginald Bancroft Cooke

To you, in memory of war- time days,

When your New Zealand and my Canada

Fought with our England 'neath a single star

Against one foe, who set the world ablaze

To you the thoughts this slender book conveys

I beg to offer from this land afar,

Hoping some verses here perchance there are

Which may be not unworthy of your praise.

For these are stolen fruit. I have but lent

The means whereby another might confess

His heart to those whose hours cannot be spent

In foreign vineyards, there the juice to press

From foreign vines. Therefore to what extent 

His thoughts are mine 'tis yours, my friend, to guess.

If anyone has any idea who F.G.C of the Royal Air Force was please get in touch. 

Mention of "our England" in the poem, led me to research and I discovered that Reginald was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire on 13th July 1887. His parents were Bancroft Cooke, a Managing Director, cotton broker and general merchant, and his wife, Emily Sarah Cooke, nee Madge, who were married in June 1876. Reginald had 4 older siblings: Hester Bancroft Cooke - born May 1877 d 1938 California; Dora Bancroft Cooke – born Nov 1878, died Aug 1890 Birkenhead; Leonard Austin Cooke – born 1881, Died 1955 California; & Arthur Bancroft Cooke, born 1882, died 1943 California. 

In 1901 the family lived in a house called The Lems, Kirklake Road, Formby, Ormskirk, Lancashire, England.  He seems to have spent a great deal of time in the United States of America - I imagine that his father must have had friends and possibly even family there due to his involvement with cotton. Reginald studied at the University of California, Berkley.

Information on the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Record Card shows Reginald enlisted as a Private on 4th October 1915 in London, Ontario.    He gave his home address as Carpentaria, California, U.S.A.    He had been in the University’s cadet corps and was described as a ‘student teacher’.

Reginald originally joined the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment and was allocated the identity No. 475379.  He served 12 months with the PPCLIs and two years six months seconded to the 26th Battalion in France.  His height was five feet ten and a half inches, his eyes were blue and his hair fair.   

After the war, Reginald returned to America and was living in Portland, Maine in 1923, when his war-time poetry collection – “Some Sonnets of a Passing Epoch” – was published  by Southworth Press, Maine. Reginald died on 1st November 1946 in Cumberland, Maine, USA.

Additional research carried out by AC Benus confirms that the information I found about Reginald is correct.  Reginald graduated on 11th May 1910 with a Masters of Arts from Berkley.

Reginald also published a collection of his own poems – “Some Sonnets of a Passing Epoch”, Reginald Bancroft Cooke (Southworth Press, Maine, 1925) - 61 pages

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Some_Sonnets_of_a_Passing_Epoch.html?id=qkZDAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y

According to the inside cover of Reginald's collection, he obtained a Ph.d from the University of Wisconsin. 

Here are some of the poems from Reginald's WW1 collection:

JUTLAND

SHIPS of the line ! Men of the mast ! Yo-ho !

The sea is England's proper battle ground, 

And not since Aboukir has there been found

So fine an admiral as Jellicoe.

Blow hard, ye winds, adown the North Sea, blow !

Surge, ye tumultuous waves which still surround

Our island homes ! From every bourne and bound 

Join with our guns to sink this upstart foe.

Long shall their landsmen sailors rue “ the day"

When they crept forth too far from sheltering shores,

For many a year their children's children pray 

That they may truly have no further cause

To learn what better had been learned in school,

That on the ocean Britons ever rule.

Page 15

THE PLEDGE OF THE PRINCESS PATS

WHAT deeds are those that blazon bright the name 

Of Connaught's royal daughter on the scroll 

Of history ! While the battle thunders roll

O’er the fair vales of France, and the fierce flame

Of just revenge illumes the land, their fame,

Like a loud trumpet, shall inspire the soul

Of Canada, aye, and from pole to pole 

Long shall resound. And well ye know whence came

These warriors;  how, like a flowing tide,

Gladly their homeland has outpoured her best,

Their deeds a pledge that, trusted and well tried 

On many a field, She shall fight on beside

Her parent, Britain , until, east and west,

Our empire stands triumphant, undefied.

Page 21 

NOTE:  The Battle of the Nile –1st August 1798 – fought near Alexandria in Egypt -  was also called the Battle of Aboukir when Admiral Lord Nelson was in command of the British Fleet. 

Sources:  Find my Past, FreeBMD and The Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry who inform me that the 26th Battalion doesn’t exist anymore, but they are perpetuated now by The Royal New Brunswick Regiment. 

William Robert Fountaine Addison VC (1883 – 1962) - Anglican Church Minister and poet

I think we may have found another WW1 VC poet - William was found for us by Loraine Sherlock, in whose Grandmother's autograph book William wrote the poem featured here and pictured below when he was a Curate at St. Edmond's Church, Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK 

William Addison was born on 18th September 1883 in Odiham, Hampshire, UK.  His parents were William Grylls Addison, an artist, and his wife Alice Addison.  Educated at Robert Mays School in  Odiham, as a young man William went to work as a lumberjack in Canada. After studying at Salisbury Theological College, he was ordained in 1913 and became Curate of St Edmund's Church, Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK, which  now houses Salisbury Arts Centre.

William volunteered to serve in the British Army Chaplain’s Department and became a Temporary Chaplain of the Forces, 4th Class in the Army Chaplain's Department, British Army.  

He served in Mesopotamia and was awarded a Victoria Cross (VC) for most conspicuous bravery on 9th April 1916 at Sanna-i-Yat when he carried a wounded man to the cover of a trench and assisted several others to cover, binding up their wounds under heavy rifle and machine gun fire.   In addition to these unaided efforts, by his splendid example and utter disregard of personal danger, he encouraged the stretcher-bearers to go forward under heavy fire and collect the wounded.

The poem written by The Reverend William Robert Fountaine Addison
in 1913, when he was Vicar of St. Edmunds Church, Salisbury

William married Marjorie H.K. Wallis of Caterham in Christ Church, Brighton in September 1917.  

William’s Victoria Cross was gazetted on September 26th 1916 and almost a year later, the presentation by King George V took place at Buckingham Palace on 3rd August 1917. William Addison was also awarded the Order of St George-Russia.

After the war, William continued as an army chaplain and served in Malta, Khartoum and Shanghai and at various army bases in England. He was Senior Chaplain to the Forces from 1934 to 1938 when he left the army and again became a parish priest. He was Rector of Coltishall with Great Hautbois in Norfolk from 1938 to 1958.  During the Second World War, William returned to the army and served as Senior Chaplain to the Forces. He died in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex on 7th January 1962 and is buried in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.

A replica set of William's medals is on display at the Museum of Army Chaplaincy, and at Sarum College in Salisbury.

The Order of Saint George (Russian: Орден Святого Георгия, Orden Svyatogo Georgiya) is the highest military decoration of the Russian Federation.  The award was established on 26 November 1769 Julian calendar (7 December 1769 Gregorian calendar) as the highest military decoration of the Russian Empire for commissioned officers and generals by Empress Catherine the Great. After the 1917 Russian Revolution it was awarded by the White movement anti-communist forces under Alexander Kolchak until their collapse in 1921. 

Sources:  Find my Past, Free BMD, Wikipedia and http://www.hellfirecorner.co.uk/coulson.htm

With grateful thanks to Loraine for this amazing find.