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Chapter 6 / St Edward’s and the Wars
present a favourable time to start a Cadet Corps at the School?
It is sure to be popular and certain to be beneficial.’ Others
also pressed for this change. Meanwhile the School, under
Warden Hudson, kept abreast of the part OSE were playing in
the war, and J.G. Bussell was a particularly good correspondent
with news about battles and of other OSE. In total 79 served in
this war, and the first death while actually fighting was Alfred
Eyton Spurling (D, 1894–6), in 1901. He became a heroic figure
due to his involvement in Mafeking, the siege he had described
in the
Chronicle
, including the seven months of deprivation
with rations that were ‘one biscuit in the morning and one
piece of polony at night’, though there was no shortage of
tobacco and coffee. He had returned to England to convalesce
from malaria and went back to South Africa in 1901 with the
Imperial Light Horse. He died at Rietport shortly after being
promoted to Sergeant by Lord Kitchener for conspicuous
valour. The
Chronicle
tribute said ‘He made light of his
privations: he shunned applause: he was modest as he was
brave.’ A plaque and window by Kempe in his memory are in
the School Chapel on the south side of the nave.
When the Boer War ended in 1902 Hill says that St Edward’s
was sixth in the country’s school lists ‘in proportion of its
contribution to the number available for service’. Oak panelling
was added to the Chapel walls and the names of the three
who died in the war, Alfred Lund (Roll No 274, 1874–8), the
first OSE to die in a war (of Enteric Fever), Alfred Spurling and
Percy Reginald Agnew (B, 1891–4), on copper plaques. Plaques
for those who died in earlier campaigns appear there too – a
practice continued in the Great War with wooden plaques.
WORLD WAR I
J.M. Sing, newly appointed as Warden, was active in getting a
Cadet Corps (or Rifle Club) established, and the proposal to the
School’s Council was agreed at a meeting on 31 March 1905.
The Rifle Club was begun that year with an initial membership
of 66 boys. Drill rifles were obtained from the War Office and
National Rifle Association, but despite the enthusiasm the Cadet
Corps did not come into existence until 1909. The first Officer
Training Corps (OTC) was set up with uniforms provided and
the first camp held at Tidworth that year. The Rifle Club was
incorporated in the OTC together with its armoury. Malcolm
Oxley (former Sub-Warden) writes, ‘the boys’ own reminiscences
show that they judged the Classics, the games and the Officers’
Training Corps to be the most important features of the School.’
Nearly all the OTC’s first intake was to enlist and fight in the
1914–18 War.
The declaration of war in 1914 did not stop the OTC
attending the annual OTC Camp, even though the War Office
had ordered that the School armoury be safeguarded, and
the guns were deposited in the cellars of Oxford Town Hall.
Ninety per cent of them were returned to the armoury soon
after the outbreak of war and parades were increased to seven
per week.
The enthusiasm for volunteering for the war was country-
wide, and OSE and older existing pupils were swept up in
the patriotic cause. Seven out of ten prefects from the term
preceding war were commissioned by the Autumn Term in
1914. Subsequently almost every boy signed up on reaching
his 18th birthday, thus leaving before the scheduled end of
his school days. Seven of the teaching staff enlisted, four
of whom did not return; one of these was Leonard Davies,
member of the Common Room, Classical scholar and Leander
oarsman. Hill says that his last words to Wilfrid Cowell, the
already very long-serving master, were, ‘Remember, in any
case, I’m glad I went.’
request of the boys. In the early days of the School, as we
have seen, the predominant aim of the Wardens, in addition to
giving boys who attended St Edward’s a first-class education,
was to ensure that religious teaching should be given special
attention. Military matters were certainly not a priority.
Nevertheless career servicemen began to appear amongst OSE,
probably due to the large size of Victorian families and the
need for younger sons to find valued employment. Between
1863 and 1892, one in ten boys went into the services. For
example, a naval OSE with a long and distinguished career was
Herbert Edward à Court, who joined the Royal Navy in 1890
and retired in 1927 as a Vice Admiral.
The School’s foundation came after the Crimean War but
over 60 OSE were involved in various military campaigns before
the Boer War in 1899. The seventh, 12th and 15th boys to join
the School chose the Services and early OSE fought in various
campaigns including the Afghan and Mazin Campaigns, the
Zulu War and the Boer War. They fought in many distant places
with now almost forgotten regiments that included the Cardigan
Militia, the Bombay Cavalry, the Cape Mounted Rifles and the
Assam and Behar Light Horse.
In 1886 a new gym had been opened and Hill says in his
History of St Edward’s School
that there arrived at the School
‘the splendidly martial figure of Instructor Adams,’ who was to
instruct in what the
Chronicle
referred to as ‘the Noble Art of
Self-Defence’, and remained at the School for 27 years. Things
were changing.
THE BOER WAR
There was no conscription for this war but many OSE quickly
volunteered. Hill tells the story of John Garratt Bussell (B,
1898–1900), who joined up while still a prefect at the School,
and as he awaited sailing orders at the end of the Easter
Term of 1900 he was wearing full khaki battledress, which
he removed to run the School’s Mile Race which, despite
technically having left the School, he won by 50 yards. He later
died in World War I, in 1915.
The
Chronicles
of the time recorded OSE activities in the
war and in March 1900 an unnamed OSE asked ‘Is not the
Above: Percy Reginald Agnew
(B, 1891–4).
Top left : John Garratt Bussell
(B, 1898–1900).
Right: Alfred Eyton Spurling
(D, 1894–6), the first OSE to
die in a major war.
John Garratt Bussell:
‘I think we are bound to be home by Xmas. I’m
going to swim it, other means failing’
Letter dated 8th September 1900 at De Aar.
‘We had a fine gallop of about five miles, then
suddenly coming over a rise we saw them (the
Boers), and our Pom-Poms and Maxims began to
talk to them’.
Letter dated 6 October 1900 at Oliphant’s Nek.
A Christmas card sent by Noel Hudson
during the Great War, 1918.