Remembering Arthur Walderne St. Clair Tisdall, VC - WW1 poet killed at Gallipoli, 1915

 Nick Lock, OBE, Chair of The Management Committee of the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum in Wales* recently took a group to Gallipoli.  

Nick very kindly purchased a poppy cross in order to remember Arthur Walderne St. Calair Tisdall, VC (1890 – 1915).   My grateful thanks to Nic.

*Cyrnol (wedi ymddeol) / Colonel (Retd) Nick Lock OBE

Cadeirydd y Pwyllgor Rheoli / Chair of The Management Committee

Amgueddfa'r Ffiwsilwyr Brenhinol Cymreig / The Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum, Castell Caernarfon / Caernarfon Castle

https://forgottenpoets ofww1.blogspot.com/2021/09/arthur-walderne-st-clair-tisdall-vc.html 

Photographs taken by Nick in Gallipoli, May 2023:

*The Royal Welch Fusiliers Regimental Museum

The Castle,

Caernarfon,

Gwynedd,

North Wales,

LL55 2AY

The Royal Welch Fusiliers (In Welsh: Ffiwsilwyr Brenhinol Cymreig) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army and part of the Prince of Wales' Division, founded in 1689 shortly after the Glorious Revolution. In 1702, it was designated a fusilier regiment and became The Welch Regiment of Fusiliers; the prefix "Royal" was added in 1713, then confirmed in 1714 when George I named it The Prince of Wales's Own Royal Regiment of Welsh Fusiliers. After the 1751 reforms that standardised the naming and numbering of regiments, it became the 23rd Foot (Royal Welsh Fuzileers).

The Regiment retained the archaic spelling of Welch, instead of Welsh, and Fuzileers for Fusiliers; these were engraved on swords carried by regimental officers during the Napoleonic Wars. After the 1881 Childers Reforms, its official title was The Royal Welsh Fusiliers, but "Welch" continued to be used informally until restored in 1920 by Army Order No.56.

From Jonathon Riley: http://generalship.org/military-history-articles/llewellyn-wyn-griffith.html

Henry Christopher Bradby (1868 – 1947) - British first-class cricketer, schoolmaster and poet.

The third son of Edward Bradby, Headmaster of Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, UK and his wife, Ellen Sarah Bradby, nee Johnson, Henry was born on 28th December 1868 at Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire.   Henry’s brother Godfrey Fox Bradby and their sister    were also poets who published collections during the First World War. 

Educated at Rugby School, Henry went on to study at New College, Oxford University.  While studying at Oxford, he played first-class cricket for Oxford University in 1890, making his debut against the Marylebone Cricket Club at Oxford. He made five more first-class appearances for Oxford in 1890, scoring 178 runs at an average of 19.77, and with a highest score of 40 not out. 

After graduating from Oxford in 1891, Henry became a schoolmaster at Rugby School in 1892. 

In April 1895, in Mere in Wiltshire, UK, Henry married Violet Alice Milford, who was the daughter of Robert Newman Milford, an Anglican clergyman, and his wife Emily Sarah Frances Milford.  Alice’s brother, Robert T. Milford, had also studied at Oxford University. 

Henry and Violet's son Daniel Edward, born in 1897, who alo educated at Rugby,was killed during WW1, serving as a Captain with the 9th Bn. The Rifle Brigade (The P:rince Consort’s Own) on the Western Front.  Captain Bradby was killed by a sniper on Easter Monday, 9th April 1917 during the Battle of Arras. 

During his time at Rugby, Henry wrote a number of books about the school.  During the First World War, he wrote the poem April 1918 and  his WW1 collection was “Poems” (Latimer Trend, Plymough, 1925) – for private cirulation.   There was also a collection entitled “Sonnets (Rugby), which was published in 1918.

Henry died on 28th June 1947 the death being registered in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, UK 

“April 1918”

You, whose forebodings have been all fulfilled,

You who have heard the bell, seen the boy stand

Holding the flimsy message in his hand

While through your heart the fiery question thrilled

'Wounded or killed, which, which?'- and it was 'Killed-'

And in a kind of trance have read it, numb

But conscious that the dreaded hour was come,

No dream this dream wherewith your blood was chilled-

Oh brothers in calamity, unknown

Companions in the order of black loss,

Lift up your hearts, for you are not alone,

And let our sombre hosts together bring

Their sorrows to the shadow of the Cross

And learn the fellowship of suffering.

Henry Christopher Bradby

NOTE: The Battle of the Lys, also known as the Fourth Battle of Ypres, was fought from 7th to 29th April 1918 and was part of the German spring offensive on the Western Front in 1918.

Rupert Brooke's original grave marker

Poets, writers, artists, musicians, etc. who died or were wounded or killed in The First World War who were pupils of Rugby School – 

Rupert Brooke ( - 1915) – his original memorial cross from Skyros Island is now at Rugby School with the memorials of other Old Rugbeians

Arthur Bliss ( ) musician – wounded

William Denis Browne (1888 – 1915) musician

George Drinkwater MC (1880 - 1941) – artist - wounded

Donald Hankey (1884 – 1916) – British poet – wounded 

There are stained glass memorial windows in the Chapel at Rugby school -  the work of Harry Grylls of the firm Burlison and Grylls of London – with thanks to Sarah Wearne@sarah_wearne and Connie Ruzich herrypilgrim via Twitter for the information.

Other Rugby School pupils who fought in WW1 include:

Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882 – 1957) – poet, writer and artist was also a pupil of Rugby School

Geoffrey Faber (1889 - 1961) - British academic, publisher, and WW1 soldier poet

Sources: Find my past, FreeBMD,

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St Martin’s Press, New York, 1978)  p. 64

The “Western Gazette”, 19 April 1895

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/april-1918/

https://rugbyschoolarchives.co.uk/RollofHonour.aspx?RecID=310&TableName=ta_rollofhonour&BrowseID=14

Rifleman H H V Cross (1897 – 1967) – British WW1 soldier poet

 “A good soldier is always as proud of the colours he wears on his shoulder as the colours he wears on his breast. He knows that each brigade and battalion possesses a soul of its own, and he is proud to belong to his battalion and to worthily wear its colours.”  James Green from Green, James. “News from No Man’s Land” (Charles H. Kelly, London, 1917).  James Green was Senior Chaplain to the Australian Imperial Force in WW1.

London Rifle Brigade Insignia

Harold Henry Victor Cross was born on 1st March 1897 in Ipswich, Suffolk, UK. His parents were Frederick Peter Cross, a Master Printer, and his wife, Clara Jane Cross, nee Benham. 

During the First World War, Henry served in the London Rifle Brigade.  He was severly wounded fighting on the Somme on 9th September 1916.

After the war, Harold married Eleanor Cearns in West Ham in 1921. By 1939, the couple were living in Redbridge, Ilford, Essex.   Harold died in 1967. 

Harold’s WW1 poems were published as “A Young Soldier’s “De profundis” (Erskine Macdonald, London, 1916).

A QUIET NIGHT ON THE WESTERN FRONT

We marched along, the sun was high;

We marched along — the halt was nigh;

We marched along, a little parched,

It seemed we marched — and marched — and marched;

We sang a song, a little dry,

We sang a song, a halt was nigh.

The whistle blew, ah! welcomed cry--

'Halt!'--welcomed rest from wearied road,

With opened tunic, laid-down load;

Ah! welcomed rest with opened vest,

'Twere worth that strain to rest again!

H. H. V. Cross, London Rifle Brigade. 'A Route March in Northern France, 1916.'

NOTRE DAME DE DÉLIVRANCE

From city homes — from country homes we came;

From mother's love and father's gift we came,

A wind most terrible blew o'er earth's seas;

It waved a smouldering ash, and blazed up war;

The smoke and heat of that great Hell drew us,

And from our lives we came to live, to live.

From sluggish routine, sluggish wrong we came.

From heedless walks, from ageing rust we came - - we called it life.

'Twas not! We came to live.

Out of the profound, profound we'll come, out, up;

Out of the deep we'll come, not from the shallows.

H. H. V. Cross,

London Rifle Brigade.'A Young Soldier's De Profundis.'

Sources: 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. 100

Green, James. “News from No Man’s Land” (Charles H. Kelly, London, 1917)

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/67351/67351-h/67351-h.htm

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25932/25932-h/25932-h.htm

“Good-bye, Old Man” a poem written by Mackenzie Bell - British writer, poet and literary critic, who wrote using the pen name Mackenzie Bell

My First World War Exhibtion project is in loving memory of my maternal Grandfather, who was an Old Contemptible.  That is to say, he was a professional soldier and among the first to go to France when war broke out in 1914.  Having joined the Royal Field Artillery in 1905 as a Boy Soldier at the age of 16, Grandfather was a Sergeant by August 1914.  By then he was married with two children. In November 1914 Grandfather was commissioned as an officer -  so great were the losses of officers in the early days of the conflict.

Grandfather died when I was four years old but I still remember the little house in which my Mother's parents lived.  I used to stand underneath a large, black and white framed print of the painting entitled "Goodbye Old Man" by Fortunino Matania (1881 – 1963) – an Italian-born artist who worked in Britain and became an official war artist in WW1.  I wondered what had happened to the horse.  It was not until I began seriously researching WW1 for an exhibition of female poets in 2012 that I discovered what that painting was in fact about. 

In April 2023, a lady called Linda Woodfine Michelini contacted me via my weblog Fascinating Facts of the Great War to tell me that my post about the poet Percy Haselden was incorrect.  I posted the information - found for me by Historian Debbie Cameron* on Fascinating Facts on 12th October 2014 - before I began researching male WW1 poets - hoping to find out more about Percy.  Linda is one of the researchers for the Liverpool Pals in the First World War.  To find out more about the Liverpool Pals, please visit their website http://liverpoolpals.com

Linda explained to me that the poet I was looking for was born Percy Haselden Evans in Wallasey, Wirral, whereas the Liverpool Pal Percy Haselden was born in Liverpool.   It was through Linda's message and my ensuing research into Percy Haselden Evans the poet that I disvovered a WW1 anthology I had not come across previously - “English Poetry of the First World War” Edited by Maurice Hussey (Longmans, London, 1967).  And that is where I discovered the poet Mackenzie Bell and found this poignant poem.

For  my post about Henry Thomas Mackenzie Bell (1856 – 1930) please see

See http://forgottenpoetsofww1.blogspot.com/2023/05/henry-thomas-mackenzie-bell-1856-1930.html

“Good-bye, Old Man”                                   

Good-bye, old man, I seem to see

The meadow where, how happily,

You grazed, at first, a happy foal

Harmless in happiness.  The whole

Green country-side had scarce another

Creature more joyous – gladsome brother

To streams, and winds and soaring-birds.

Then, later, would that halting words

Of mine, could paint my Nellie’s ride

With laughing eyse, and legs astride,

Her first ride on your friendly back.

E’en now I see yon woodland track,

Soft with the fallen russet leaves.

Alack!  Alack!  My poor heart grieves

To quit you, tortured.  By what right

Are you m ade victim in a fight

It is not yours to comprehend?

Yea; men are hard; some day, good friend

May we judge differently;  and think,

May we judge differently;  and shrink

From torture given without appeal,

For me, I know not, yet can feel.

Goodbye, old man, may Death come soon

For you, I crave that only boon –

And, yet another would I seek;

May no dog scent afar your sleek

And well-kept flesh before you die;

And with his hot and famished breath,

Pollute you in the pangs of death.

From “English Poetry of the First World War” Edited by Maurice Hussey (Longmans, London, 1967). Pp 45 – 46

* Historian Debbie Cameron researches WW1 and has Facebook Pages and a Weblog

https://historicalclues.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-family-at-war-and-beyond.html?fbclid=IwAR0HwllMT7VZlloljHWqsuSnb4Jc-L17iHmNGINaun2L7eVTrjDWOhEwAxA

Debbie's Group Remembering British Women in WW1 – The Home Front and Overseas

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972083412699/

RBL Women’s WW1 Remembrance Badge

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1767775906637896/

The incorrect post on the Fascinating Facts weblog:

https://fascinatingfactsofww1.blogspot.com/2014/10/percy-haselden-liverpool-poet-1895-1916.html

Claude Templer (1895 – 1918) - British soldier poet

Claude Francis Lethbridge Templer was born in Dharmsala, Punjab, India on 5th July 1895. His parents were Colonel Henry Templer of the 5th Punjab Cavalry, and his wife, Caroline Alice Bertha Templer, nee Levien. Educated at Wellington College, Crowthorne, Berkshire, UK, at the Anglo-Saxon School in Paris and the Royal Military College in Sandhurst, UK, Claude was a cadet at Sandhurst when the war began. 

Commissioned in August 1914 into the 1st Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment, Claude was captured at La Bassee on The Western Front on 22nd December 1914 and sent to Strohen camp in Germany. After eleven unsuccessful escape attempts, he finally managed to escape to Holland in June 1917. Claude was interned in a quarantine camp at Eschede for two weeks before being allowed to return to Britain. During his stay at home, Claude had a private audience with the King.  He returned to his Regiment on 29th March 1918.

On the evening of 4th June 1918 Claude led a raiding party near Auchy-les-Mines. When returning back across No-Man's Land, Claude was struck by a shell and killed. He is listed on the Loos Memorial to the Missing.  At the time of his death, Claude held the rank of Lieutenant / Acting Captain.

“Ypres Salient” by Claude Templer

Tempest of iron prepared the advance of a host ‘gainst a remnant;

Tempest of shouting announced the advance of that host overwhelming,

And as the black rocks o’erwhelmed but unvanquished make stand ‘gainst the ocean,

So did that glorious remnant make stand ‘gainst that host overwhelming,

Till the war pride and war lust of that host like the rage of the ocean,

Broke and recoiled from the wall of their stubborn unyielding resistance.

How many times, say, when you were a host strong and we were a remnant,

When you had guns by the thousand and we had to make war without them,

How many times did you come in your thousands to conquer that salient,

Only to find there the spirit of Agincourt like a flame storm fanned

Burning unquenched in the hearts and the souls of that unvanquished army.

Did you not know in the heart of your hearts when your orders were issued,

When you advanced in the pride of your war lust and glittering harness,

Did ye not know that the men of that little contemptible army

Come of that race that are known as the stubbornest fighters the world through?

Surely ye knew in the heart of your hearts when your orders were issued,

When you were told to go right through to Ypres or to die in the failure,

That you were never the match of that little contemptible army?

RMC Sandhurst Memorial

There is a Memorial in the Royal Military College Chapel at Sandhurst to the memory of Claude: 

"To the glory of God and in proud memory of Claude Templer, Captain, 1st Bn The Gloucestershire Regiment. Wounded and captured 22nd December 1914. Escaped from captivity in Strohen, 29th September 1917, after having made 12 previous attempts from the prison camps at Hanover, Munden, Torgau, Burg (twice), Magdeburg, Augustabad, from the Burg Civil Goal (4 times), the Fortress of Wesel, twice whilst travelling under escort between Wesel and Magdeburg. Rejoined his regiment at his own special request 29th March 1918. Killed by a chance shell whilst returning from a successful raid on the German trenches in the La Bassee Sector, 4th June 1918, in his 23rd year."

The Royal Military College (RMC), was founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, UK, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire. The RMC was a British Army military academy for training infantry and cavalry officers of the British and Indian Armies. The RMC was reorganised at the outbreak of the Second World War but some of its units remained operational at Sandhurst and Aldershot. In 1947, the Royal Military College was merged with the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, to form the present-day all-purpose Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Sources: Find my Past, FreeBMD,

http://www.templerfamily.co.uk/claude_francis_lethbridge_templer.html

https://warpoets.org.uk/worldwar1/poets-and-poetry/claude-templer/

“Poems and Imaginings” (Bossard, Paris, 1920), which is available to view as a free download on Archive:      https://archive.org/details/poemsimaginings00tempiala

Catherine W. Reilly.- “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978),  p. 310

http://www.templerfamily.co.uk/claude_francis_lethbridge_templer.html

https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/our-schools-and-colleges/rma-sandhurst/

Henry Thomas Mackenzie Bell (1856 – 1930) - British writer, poet and literary critic, known by his pen name Mackenzie Bell

Born Henry Thomas Mackenzie Bell at 8 Falconer Square, Liverpool, UK, on 2nd March 1856, his parents were Thomas Bell, a merchant, and his wife, Margaret Mackenzie, who were from Scotland.  Henry was their youngest child. His uncle was the Scottish judge and Solicitor-General for Scotland Lord Thomas Mackenzie. Educated privately, owing to health problems, Mackenzie was due to study law at Cambridge University but instead went to study in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Madeira.

Mackenzie had articles, poems and letters published in various magazines - The Fortnightly Review, The Pall Mall Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The Athenaeum, The Speaker, The Literary World, Temple Bar, The Lady's Realm, Black and White and The Academy. He also wrote articles for the Dictionary of National Biography, The Poets and the Poetry of the Century and the Savage Club Papers.

Mackenzie died at his home in Orme Square, Bayswater, London on 13th December 1930.

Mackenzie’s WW1 poetry collections were “Poetical Pictures of the Great War Suitable for Recitation” Series 1-4 - 1915 – 1918 (The Kingsgate Press, London, 1915), “Selected Poems” (Harrap, 1921) and had poems published in four WW1 anthologies.

“The Wise Horse” 

(A True Story of 1914.) 

ERE the trench warfare is begun, 

And men change post ere rise of sun, 

A troop of our best cavalry 

Are called to charge the enemy. 

Onward ! with faces all aglow, 

With martial ardour, now they go, 

No man in bearing seems to err. 

No gallant steed deserves the spur. 

One moment sees their proud advance, 

With whirling sword or glittering lance, — 

The next beholds a bursting shell 

Fall in their midst — a bolt of Hell. 

A soldier, wounded nigh to death. 

Drops slowly, panting now for breath. 

Seeing him fall, his faithful horse 

With bent neck, looks, then checks his course. 

Once more he looks, looks yet again, 

Sure is it now, he knows the pain, — 

Then, by kind instinct gentle made. 

He bends, and seeks to render aid. 

The man's torn raiment holding fast, 

He lifts him up ; and gallops past 

All danger : then, and not till then. 

Amid a picket of our men 

From his kind mouth he loosed his load. 

And softly neighed for help, nor strode 

Away although that help had come. 

Later, amid the gathering hum 

Of friendly tones, and friendly hands. 

He looks ; he knows ; he understands ; 

And takes his sugar quietly. 

While men say, for his bravery. 

Now he deserves the famed V.C. 

MACKENZIE BELL.

From “A book of poems for the Blue Cross Fund (to help horses in war time) President, Lady Smith-Dorrien by Blue Cross Fund, London” (Jarrolds, London, 1917)

Sources:  Find my Past, Wikipedia and 

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World Wr: A Bibliography” (St Martin’s Press, New York, 1978), p.52