Tonbridge School and the Great War
As we approach Remembrance Sunday and the centenary commemorations for the end of the First World War, the school is paying tribute to those among its ranks who served in the conflict, many of whom made the ultimate sacrifice.
By the end of the war 415 Tonbridgians had died, roughly the size of the school at that time. The Tonbridge death rate of one in five of those who served is the average across all public schools; the overall national death rate is one in ten. Death fell disproportionately on the young. About half of Tonbridgians killed were 24 years of age or under, and half of them were aged 20 or under. Most of them were junior officers in the Army.
Over the coming days we are highlighting some of the individual stories of Tonbridgians who served in the Great War.
Today we feature Dr William Rivers.
For more about Tonbridge School and the Great War, including complete records of all who served, as well as features, calendars, a timeline and wartime copies of The Tonbridgian, please click here.
Dr William Rivers (1864-1922)
William Rivers was the elder son of Rev. Henry Rivers and came to Tonbridge as a day boy from 1877-1880. He studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and subsequently specialized in psychology. He started his career at the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic, and went on to more senior appointments at Guy’s Hospital and Cambridge University where in 1897 he became a lecturer in Experimental Psychology and subsequently Director of the university’s new psychology laboratory, the first of its kind in England.
Dr Rivers was also a distinguished anthropologist, particularly studying the development of culture among the peoples of Melanesia. When war came, he joined the RAMC and was posted to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh where he played a key role in the development of techniques to heal shell-shocked soldiers. Here his most famous patients were Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, who portrayed him memorably in his ‘Complete Memoirs of George Sherston’.
William Rivers is portrayed in the film Regeneration, inspired by Pat Barker’s 1991 Booker Prize-nominated novel of the same name. The title refers to Dr Rivers’ research into “nerve regeneration”.
To read more, please click here.
