Who is This ? ? ?

[Fattyowls]

My man settled not far from Corby after the war, in Leicestershire for the huntin'. He was properly Scots and a regular guy, his regiment has it's roots in Hamilton. The photo is of the village of Ovillers, and my man ordered a young footballing subaltern to take a patrol across the ground in the photo to ascertain who held the village on afternoon of the most infamous day of the whole war for British Army. That I know what happened to him is down to my man's eyewitness account. By coincidence he also described a location called La Grande Flamengerie farm, which was a matter of yards from where another of my footballers would be killed in 1917.

 

Pete.

 

[Phil Wood]

Well, the picture looks like the view up Mash Valley - though that doesn't help me!

 

So I'm going to clutch at a straw named Malcolm Frazer.

[Fattyowls]

3 minutes ago, Phil Wood said:

Well, the picture looks like the view up Mash Valley - though that doesn't help me!

 

So I'm going to clutch at a straw named Malcolm Frazer.

 

You have got where is this? spot on Phil. The young subaltern is indeed Malcolm Fraser, he's remembered on the Thiepval Memorial but I think that he is may be in Ovillers Military cemetery which is in the middle distance, based on the detail that my man's diary gives of his last patrol. So you are looking for an officer of the 2nd Cameronians who kept a diary.

 

This is Malcolm, picture courtesy of John Sheron of the Ruleteros Society. Born in New York state to a Scots father and an American mother, he co-founded the Everton that still plays in Chile. One of his fellow founders, Frank Boundy is buried in Guillemont Road having been killed 30 days after Malcolm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bradley]

On 19/06/2017 at 15:55, Fattyowls said:

 
  

  has to be James Jack of the 2nd Cameronians,b.1880-dec22 1962,of which his diaries were turned into the famous
   General Jack`s Diary by John Terraine after his death.
  

[Phil Wood]

By George! I think he's got it!

[Fattyowls]

1 hour ago, bradley said:

  has to be James Jack of the 2nd Cameronians,b.1880-dec22 1962,of which his diaries were turned into the famous
   General Jack`s Diary by John Terraine after his death. 

 

1 hour ago, Phil Wood said:

By George! I think he's got it!

 

He sure has; absolutely spot on Bradley. I tried to keep the word diary out of the clues for as long as I could. The book is a key resource for the BEF in general and me in particular because James Jack was Malcolm Fraser's commanding officer on 1st July at Ovillers. I also have a letter to his uncle who was a Presbyterian minister in Liverpool, published in the local paper which follows and expands the diary entry, so must have been written by Jack. His diary description of the dead of his division lying among the poppies in front of Ovillers is vivid. He also provides detail about the front line at Bois Grenier where Wilf Toman was killed in May 1917 and I think has a quote about the Christmas truce which is helpful. The annotations of the book by John Terraine reflect his views, for example on the genius of Douglas Haig and the successes of the Somme, these can jar for those who don't quite share them. But just as Jack's words were written within hours of the events he describes, so Terraine was writing in the mid sixties and swimming hard against the lions led by donkeys tide of the time. A must read and for once a must read that I have actually read (I hope David is sitting down as he reads that sentence.....).

 

Well done to all,

 

Pete.

 

P.S. Image from www.edinburghs-war.ed.ac.uk

Edited 21 June , 2017 by Fattyowls
Image identification oversight

[neverforget]

Good one Pete. Certainly gave us all the runaround with that one. 

Although I didn't get to cross the finishing line an enjoyable chase nevertheless. I thought I'd found hom when I came across one John Callender. (Him being a regular guy and all that) Quite surprised to discover just how many Cameronians left diaries as part of their legacies too.

Well done to Bradley. A fine debut.

(Coincidentally, I'm on the last chapter of my second read of Terraine's book "Mons - The retreat to victory" at the moment.)

Edited 21 June , 2017 by neverforget

[bradley]

yes,indeed ..... chuffed regarding Jack,although I thought on account of that famous book that the late brigadier general
would have featured before and even that one of the forum would have recognised him before me....
Anyway,brilliant thread keep it going....very very interesting stuff.......

[Uncle George]

So, who, in the middle row, do we have here ? ? ?

 

The chap on the left was one of Ll.G's "two busy Bs", apparently. The fine fellows sitting second left and far right are no strangers to WiT. The chap in the middle we can leave for now.

 

Edited 22 June , 2017 by Uncle George

[Fattyowls]

Is the man sitting second left with the buttonhole F.E. Smith? And the chap sitting under the straw boater John Simon. Would this make the picture Wadham college? Fascinating either way.

 

Pete.

[Uncle George]

6 minutes ago, Fattyowls said:

Is the man sitting second left with the buttonhole F.E. Smith? And the chap sitting under the straw boater John Simon. Would this make the picture Wadham college? Fascinating either way.

 

Pete.

 

Yes, and no. The alpha male/man-spreading Hooray is indeed Effie. And yes, that is John Simon. But no, the picture is not of Wadham.

 

Ll.G's busy B's is not a well-known name, but he played a prominent role during the GW. In his Memoirs, Ll.G, perhaps damning with faint praise, describes him as "able".

 

The man sitting next to Simon is well-known - a writer, poet, MP, historian. During the GW he was an editor.

[Guest]

  Perhaps the Oxford Union. Effing and John Simon were both Pres.in the mid-1890s    As to B- well, past pres. of that era includes John Buchan and Hilaire Belloc.

     And editor of the war years who was Pres. was Francis Hirst.

 

[Phil Wood]

Two Bs so Bradley or Braithwaite - can't say as I would recognise either.  So, as this looks like a college photo  I'm going for Effie's exact contemprary John Bradbury.

[Uncle George]

11 minutes ago, Phil Wood said:

Two Bs so Bradley or Braithwaite - can't say as I would recognise either.  So, as this looks like a college photo  I'm going for Effie's exact contemprary John Bradbury.

 

Yes! John Bradbury, (Joint) Permanent Secretary at the Treasury at age 40/41, and the Government's  chief economic adviser during the GW.

[Uncle George]

31 minutes ago, voltaire60 said:

  Perhaps the Oxford Union. Effing and John Simon were both Pres.in the mid-1890s    As to B- well, past pres. of that era includes John Buchan and Hilaire Belloc.

     And editor of the war years who was Pres. was Francis Hirst.

 

 

Yes, the Standing Committee of the Union, 1896.

 

The editor. Not Francis Hirst, so he must be ...

Edited 22 June , 2017 by Uncle George

[Phil Wood]

Geoffrey Robinson (later Dawson)?

 

[Uncle George]

11 minutes ago, Phil Wood said:

Geoffrey Robinson (later Dawson)?

 

 

No.

 

He was another B.

[Guest]

While we are at it.........     another B, another newspaper editor- and not unknown to the OU  It's teatime and it's hot-so an easy one

 

Oh- and DSO,MC

[Guest]

  Looks like half of Fleet Street had surnames beginning with "B"-     Belloc, Buchan, Blumenfeld, Bell (Moberly), Beaverbrook......    Let's go for H.N.Brailsford

[Uncle George]

15 minutes ago, voltaire60 said:

While we are at it.........     another B, another newspaper editor- and not unknown to the OU  It's teatime and it's hot-so an easy one

 

Oh- and DSO,MC

 

Barrington-Ward.

[Uncle George]

On 22 June 2017 at 19:37, voltaire60 said:

  Looks like half of Fleet Street had surnames beginning with "B"-     Belloc, Buchan, Blumenfeld, Bell (Moberly), Beaverbrook......    Let's go for H.N.Brailsford

 

But I've said he was a writer, poet, MP, historian.

 

This one's getting a little stale now - you've given the name twice (but not as a direct answer to this question)! 

Edited 26 June , 2017 by Uncle George

[Fattyowls]

11 hours ago, bradley said:

yes,indeed ..... chuffed regarding Jack,although I thought on account of that famous book that the late brigadier general
would have featured before and even that one of the forum would have recognised him before me....
Anyway,brilliant thread keep it going....very very interesting stuff.......

 

Bradley, I failed to welcome you WiT? which was remiss. I am sure I speak for the rest of the usual suspects in saying good debut; I too thought that Jack would go quicker than he did, but as the clues may suggest he is a source I have used extensively.

 

Pete.

[Uncle George]

So, to put #6815 to bed, the middle row of the Standing Committee of the Oxford Union, 1896 are:

 

John Bradbury, F.E. Smith, P.J. Macdonell *, Hilaire Belloc, John Simon.

 

Image from Simon's memoirs, 'Retrospect' (1952).

 

* I don't know.

[seaJane]

2 hours ago, Uncle George said:

* I don't know.

Macdonell, Sir Philip James (1873–1940), judge, was born in London on 10 January 1873, the eldest son of the journalist James Macdonell (1841–1879) and his wife, Anna Jemima (Annie), daughter of Daniel Harrison, of Beckenham, Kent, and niece of the writer Mary Howitt. He was nephew of the jurist Sir John Macdonell. After being educated at Clifton College under J. M. Wilson he went up to Brasenose College, Oxford, as a Hulme exhibitioner at the age of seventeen. He was president of the union in 1895, after obtaining a first class in modern history in 1894. He took his BA degree in 1897, in which year he represented Oxford against Cambridge as a fencer.

In 1900 Macdonell was called to the bar by Gray's Inn (of which he was Bacon scholar), but the same year he went out to South Africa and was war correspondent of The Times until 1902. This proved to be a turning point in his life and thenceforth he served the British empire in three continents. Beginning his legal career in Transvaal and continuing it in Northern Rhodesia, he was secretary to the Transvaal native commission in 1903 and assistant crown prosecutor (Witwatersrand court) from 1907 to 1908. In the last-named year he was appointed public prosecutor and legal adviser to the chartered British South Africa Company in north-west Rhodesia, and from 1911 to 1918 filled the same posts in Northern Rhodesia. 

 

(first 2 paragraphs of his Oxford DNB entry)

[Uncle George]

10 hours ago, seaJane said:

Macdonell, Sir Philip James (1873–1940), judge, was born in London on 10 January 1873, the eldest son of the journalist James Macdonell (1841–1879) and his wife, Anna Jemima (Annie), daughter of Daniel Harrison, of Beckenham, Kent, and niece of the writer Mary Howitt. He was nephew of the jurist Sir John Macdonell. After being educated at Clifton College under J. M. Wilson he went up to Brasenose College, Oxford, as a Hulme exhibitioner at the age of seventeen. He was president of the union in 1895, after obtaining a first class in modern history in 1894. He took his BA degree in 1897, in which year he represented Oxford against Cambridge as a fencer.

In 1900 Macdonell was called to the bar by Gray's Inn (of which he was Bacon scholar), but the same year he went out to South Africa and was war correspondent of The Times until 1902. This proved to be a turning point in his life and thenceforth he served the British empire in three continents. Beginning his legal career in Transvaal and continuing it in Northern Rhodesia, he was secretary to the Transvaal native commission in 1903 and assistant crown prosecutor (Witwatersrand court) from 1907 to 1908. In the last-named year he was appointed public prosecutor and legal adviser to the chartered British South Africa Company in north-west Rhodesia, and from 1911 to 1918 filled the same posts in Northern Rhodesia. 

 

(first 2 paragraphs of his Oxford DNB entry)

 

Thanks sJ. I had seen he was on Wikipedia's list of Presidents of the Oxford Union, but that's as far as I went. 

 

For such a distinguished education until 1900, and compared to his peers in that 1896 photograph, his career seems rather modest. But I guess public service takes many forms.