Service of Remembrance honours fallen Tonbridgians

Tonbridge School’s Service of Remembrance on Sunday 11 November included a tribute to the final ten Old Tonbridgians who lost their lives in the Great War.

The names were read by five boys at the school, which drew to a close the complete recitation in Chapel, between 2014 and 2018, of the names of fallen Old Tonbridgians. All names have been read as near as possible to the centenary of their deaths.

The ten were also honoured in the form of named silhouettes, placed in the school’s Chapel cloisters. The silhouettes are part of the national ‘There but not There’ installation, which honours the fallen of the First World War.

Attended by boys, parents, staff and friends, the service featured hymns, readings and moving performances by the school choir. There was also a procession of service medals won by two Old Tonbridgians, 2nd Lieut. George E.L. Cressey and 2nd Lieut. Edward J. Norman, both killed in action in the Great War, and a former Headmaster, Lieut. Harold N.P. Sloman.

These medals were placed upon the altar: in addition, a wide range of service medals was on display in the school’s Old Big School Gallery.

The service featured the laying of wreaths on behalf of the school, the OT Society and the Combined Cadet Force. In keeping with services across the country, a two-minute silence at 11am marked the time that the First World War officially came to an end.

A Renault FT First World War tank, restored by the Weald Foundation, was on display at the school on Remembrance Day and proved a big attraction. The world’s first modern tank, the two-man Renault FT featured a fully revolving turret: the one at the school, built in 1918, had seen active service in the final months of the conflict, and bore a series of machine gun holes in its side. 

The Address was given by The Lord Lisvane KCB, DL, President of the OT Society and Master of the Skinners’ Company, who told the congregation that his grandfather and father had served in the First and Second World Wars, respectively. “While this year is one of special commemoration, remembrance can’t just be an annual event,” he said. “The legacy of sacrifice is with us every day, and should be just as fresh as the day that sacrifice was made.”

He added: “Remembrance should spark in all of us a determination to seek the path of peace, no mater what the provocation.” 
  
By the end of the Great War 415 Tonbridgians had died, roughly the size of the school at that time. 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.

The Second World War claimed the lives of 301 Tonbridgians.

Tonbridge’s ‘Ten Last Fallen’, named in the Service of Remembrance:

18th October 1918: Capt. Philip Graham Egerton
Died at Ras-el-tin Hospital, Alexandria after a leg amputation necessitated by Wounds received in Action at Es Salt, in the Jordan Valley on the 30th April. 

28th October 1918: Lieut. Wilfred Flower Jackson    
Killed in Action in Mesopotamia at the Battle of Sharqat.

31st October 1918: Capt. Harold Wiliam Golding     
Killed in Action near Ghissignies.

1st November 1918: Pte. Percy Warner    
Killed in Action at Maresches, near Valenciennes.

4th November 1918: Capt. Benjamin Buss      
Died at Wandsworth Military Hospital after an operation necessitated by Wounds received in Action at Shaikh Sa’ad on the 11th January 1916.

4th November 1918: Colonel Samuel Cowell Philson                                    
Died in India (influenza and pneumonia).

5th November 1918: Capt. Herman James Lindale Willink    
Died of septic poisoning from wounds received on the 1st November at Famars, near Valenciennes.

20th November 1918: Lieut. Hugh Ripley Harris                                               
Died in France on his way home from Salonika (influenza and pneumonia).

27th November 1918: 2nd Lieut. Duncan Campbell                                          
Died at Rouen of Illness contracted on Active Service (influenza and broncho-pneumonia).

3rd December 1918: 2nd Lieut. Sydney Edwin Booth         
Killed in a Flying Accident at Ossoigne, near Charleroi.
 

Pictured below, from top:

School Choir during the Service of Remembrance.

Honour Guard in the Chapel cloisters.

The Renault F1 tank.

Service medals on display.

The Lord Lisvane with Headmaster James Priory.

Silhouettes to honour the school’s ‘Ten Last Fallen’.

Third year boys’ History project on display.