Old Marlburians' 1917 dinner, Bailleul

[Moonraker]

In January 1917 44 old boys from Marlborough College dined at Bailleul, near Ypres. The meal ran to eight courses, with wine, champagne and port.

Now the Marlburian Club has organised a commemorative dinner to be held in the same town next January, where the original meal will be re-created. Guests will include descendants of the 44.

Moonraker

[Ian Riley]

Moonraker,

Do you have the names (and units?) of the original diners? Lucky they could all get the night off; was the Army Commander an OM (if that's the correct term)? I would have have thought that it would have taken some serious organisation but it was probably all fixed on the back of a silver cigarette case (I can't imagine a Marlburian having a fag packet in his pocket). I can imagine the forest of e-mails it might take today. I ask as this rings a bell in connection with some King's Liverpool Regiment material that I have read recently but can't quite place.

Off topic - The Liverpool Scottish recreated the dinner in 1996 held at the Chateau d'Elverdinghe (roughly between Poperinghe and Ypres) to celebrate the award of Captain Noel Chavasse's first VC (as medical officer to the battalion) in 1916. A splendidly illustrated signed menu is preserved in the Army Medical Services Museum. The linked page has a couple of minor inaccuracies and some out of date links - apologies). The scope of the menu (as with the Marlborough dinner) is a sharp reminder of how normal life could be not far behind the lines. The (professional) artist for the menu was a Liverpool Scottish soldier, Chas H Clark, who made his living between the wars in part by drawing 'portraits' of most public schools for sale as prints (probably including Marlborough College). The 1996 dinner was held in Liverpool but in 2007 (on the day of the 90th anniversary of Chavasse's death in the Salient) I was privileged to be able to take about fifteen family members into the Chateau grounds. I jokingly said (so I thought - it was a complete fiction) that the VC medical officer was rumoured to have purloined a couple of the silver teaspoons from the table belonging to the noble owner of the chateau, only to find two family members earnestly discussing which one of them owned these (fictional) spoons today. Moral - don't make jokes to those who misguidedly think you are an 'expert'.

'

Ian

[Moonraker]

Here are the names:

Bainbridge EGT Blakeney HdeC Bradley EdeWH Bradley EVH

Browning EL Bryant TE Buckton WW Caldwell LV

Daniell HEB Evans GM Fforde EH Franks GM

Freeman JB Firth-Badger FD Gamlen GL Greenham RGH

Hildebrand ABR Huggan T Joll HH Kinder HFA

Lovell SGS Loyd [sic]EBK Mangles RH Meysey-Thompson HC

Nicholson CL Owen JW Potter CF Price-Davies L

Quare HAB Reiss JA Rogers LN Shaw ER Shaw GT

Smith-Pearse TNH Swaine ES Swayne R Tanner FC Thompson WG Tomes CT Trevor WH Tufnell GG

Twidale WCE Westmacott FC White AJS

Sorry about the confusing format. When I downloaded the info it came in a fairly jumbled format and my attempts to improve it were only partially successful. Initials come AFTER the surname.

Raker M

[rflory]

Here are the full names, ranks and honours of the men at the dinner:

Maj Gen Edmund Guy Tullock Bainbridge, KCB, GOC, 25th Division

Maj Herbert De Coursey Blakeney, 11 Essex Regt.

Capt Edward de Winton Herbert Bradley, DSO, MC, Yorks L I

Capt Evan Vincent Herbert Bradley, MC*, KOYLI

Capt Edgar Lionel Browning, MC*, 9 Stafford Regt.

Lieut. Thomas Egerton Bryant, APD

Capt William Woodyer Buckton, RE

Lieut. Lionel Vere Caldwell, MC, RFA

Daniell HEB – no one by that name at Marlborough College

Chaplain Geoffrey Maynard Evans, MC, KIA 12 August 1917

Capt Eric Harold Fforde, 3 R Irish Fus.

Maj Gen George McKenzie Franks , CB, GOC Division

2 Lieut John Bentley Freeman, 11 R W Kent Regt, KIA at Menin Road, 20 Sept 1917

Firth-Badger FD - no one by that name at Marlborough College

Lieut Godfrey Loraine Gamlen, RGA

Lieut Raymond George Harvey Greenham, APD (Field Cashier, IX Army Corps

Lt Col (later Brig Gen) Arthur Blois Ross Hildebrand , CB, CMG, DSO (RE)

2 Lieut Thomas Huggan, RFC Kld in Flight Accdt., England, 24 July 1917

Maj Harry Jawels Joll , DSO, MC, RA

Lieut. Harold Frewen Aylward Kinder, RE

Lieut Stanley Gerald Shaw Lovell, MGC (formerly 4 Wilts Regt)

Lieut Edward Basil Kirkman Loyd , MC, 2 R Irish Rifles

Lt Col (later Brig Gen) Roland Henry Mangles, CB, Queen’s Regt

Lieut Hubert Charles Meysey-Thompson, KRRC

Brig Gen (later Maj Gen) Cecil Lothian Nicholson, KCB, CMG (Worc Regt)

Capt John Wortley Owen, RASC

Lt Col Claud Furniss Potter, CMG, DSO, RA

Lt Col (later Maj Gen) Llewelyn Alberic Emilius Price-Davies , VC, CB, CMG, DSO, KRRC

Capt Herbert Alfred Braine Quare, MC, R Munster Fus (Bde Major)

Capt James Arthur Reiss, 17 Cheshires (Staff 25 Div)

Capt Leonard Neville Rogers, Northumb Fus, KIA at Arras on 11 April 1917

Capt Eric Russell Shaw, MC, 8 R Munster Regt, (Bomb Off, 47 TM Brigade)

Capt Gordon Thompson Shaw, MC, 8 R Munster Regt , KIA 28 August 1918

Thomas Northmore Hart Smith-Pearse, Assistant Master, Marlborough College 1916-17

Capt Eirc Scratton Swaine, MC, Northumb. Fus.

Lieut Roderic Swayne, MC, 3 Wilts R

Maj Frederick Courtney Tanner, CMG, DSO, R Scots

Lt Col (later Brig Gen) William George Hemsley Thompson, CMG, DSO, RA

Maj Clement Thurstan Tomes, DSO, MC, R Warick Regt.

Lt Col William Herbert Trevor, DSO, The Buffs

Brig Gen Lionell Charles Gostling Tufnell, CB (E Surrey, Regt)

Maj William Cecil Erasmus Twidale, CMG, DSO, RA

Lieut Frederick Charles Westmacott, KIA in France, 31 July 1917

Lieut Arthur John Stanley White , OBE, 4 Wilts Regt.

A pretty impressive group: four who were or became Major Generals and four who were or became Brigadier Generals. Five were killed in action and one died in a flight accident. An abundant number of orders and decorations: one VC, two KCB, five CB, seven CMG, 10 DSO, 11 MC, two MC and Bar, one OBE.

Regards, Dick Flory

[edwin astill]

In my little book on the 1st Wiltshire Regt, I used material from Lt White's papers - I think he was in the 1st Battalion at the time (GS1716 Liddle Collection Brotherton Library):

It was possible on days when we were out at rest and not having to go up to the line to work, to visit Bailleul a fairly big town six miles away where the H.Q. of our 25th Division was situated. Incidentally the G.O.C. of the Division was called "Butcher Bainbridge" because of his alleged propensity for volunteering his division for any desperate fighting. Bailleul was not a very lively town but at least it had an "Officers Club" and one felt one was back in civilisation. We used to hitch-hike there, not on cars for they were rarely seen, but on lorries. I attended an Old Marlburian Dinner in Bailleul. "Butcher Bainbridge" was in the chair. I was sorry to find that such an unpopular man was an Old Marlburian.

Edwin

[Liz in Eastbourne]

Lt Hubert Charles Meysey-Thompson wrote a bit about it in his diary, IWM 92/19/1. He was a London barrister and nephew of Baron Knaresborough, and was in the Yeoman Rifles (21/KRRC) but had been attached to the 2nd Army Musketry School at Nortbecourt about a month earlier. He said that on Jan 18th 1917 the Army sanitary expert came to look round his department , had lunch with him and drove him back to Bailleul for the old Marlburians' dinner in the newly-opened Club, where 'they do us very well.'

He didn't meet many contemporaries (he was born in July 1883) but said they had a very amusing dinner and he spent the night with Tommy Hughes (not one of the party evidently) . The next day it was snowing hard and he couldn't find anyone to give him a lift back to St Omer, so he got the train. He then had to walk most of the way back to Nortbecourt where he found the snow had made work impossible so all ranks had been turned out for a snowball fight.

Just a bit of atmosphere...

He was badly wounded with the Yeoman Rifles on September 20 1917 and spent the rest of the war in various hospitals.

Liz

[Charles Fair]

These old boy dinners seem to have been quite a common event among ex-public schoolboys or university graduates. My grandfather (Major Charles H. Fair DSO) was an Old Marlburian and refers to a couple in his letters. (Unfortunately he doesn't appear to have be on the list above - he was in the Ypres Salient at the time.) He later became a master at Haileybury, Herts. One of the dinners he refers to and attended was for the Old Haileyburyians serving in the 47th Division. His letters are peppered with references to people who he knew at prep school, Marborough, university or had taught at Haileybury and had bumped into somewhere on the Western Front.

His letters, as well of those of two other OMs that I am related to, feature in a forthcoming book of my family's letters from the front: "Marjorie's War". Publication imminent.

[edwin astill]

I don't suppose any of Gen Bainbridge's family will be at the anniversary dinner: it would be interesting to know if they had any papers of his relating to the war.

Edwin

[Moonraker]

More info

click here

and follow the links.

Moonraker