THE WAR MEMORIAL REMEMBERS
THE FALLEN FROM THIS TOWN

by Rex Needle

POPPY DAY and Remembrance Sunday which are being observed this weekend are held to remind us of the horrors of war and those who lost their lives in conflict, particularly the Great War of 1914-18.

Most towns and villages have a permanent monument and in Bourne we have a war memorial in the gardens alongside the river in South Street. The design is based on the cenotaph in Whitehall, London, and is the work of the architects W E Norman Webster and Son. It is not recorded how many men left the town to join the armed forces during the Great War but it is known that 97 men lost their lives and their names are inscribed there although there have been suggestions that the figure is nearer 140 and that 40 names are therefore missing.

The memorial also includes the names of 32 men who did not return from the conflict of 1939-45 and a further three who died on active service before the century ended.

The war memorial was unveiled and dedicated on Sunday 16th September 1956. The land, known as Wellhead Fields and Baldock's Paddock, had been purchased from the Marquess of Exeter by Bourne United Charities in 1945 to be preserved as a permanent open space for the town and part was used to remember those who had fallen in the two recent world wars. A memorial fund was opened and the public were asked to contribute with the result that £1,700 had either been donated or promised by 110 subscribers and £200 of this had come from people living outside the parish. In addition, Mr William Castledine bequeathed £500 towards the cost of developing the land and a benefaction under the will of Alderman Thomas Whyment Atkinson JP, of Haconby Hall, who died in 1954, provided the rental income from 142 acres of land towards the project.

The dedication service was attended by relatives of those named on the memorial, civic leaders, councillors, the charity trustees and many ex-servicemen and women, and the band of the 4th/6th Battalion of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment (TA) provided the music and an escort for the colour party which paraded through the town. Ministers from all denominations took part in the service during which the chairman of Bourne Urban District Council, Councillor L R W Day, read lines from the war poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon. Wreaths were placed at the base of the cenotaph and the day's proceedings ended with the sounding of Retreat. Until then, Remembrance Day in Bourne was observed with a ceremony in the Market Place but ever since, a service of remembrance has been held at the memorial every November to commemorate the town's war dead.

The first casualty of the Great War from Bourne was Sgt Arthur Bates who was serving with the 1st Battalion, the Lincolnshire Regiment. He was a regular soldier who had already been in action during the Boer War and was subsequently posted to India, returning home in 1913 to visit his sister, Mrs Albert Scotney, who lived in North Street. At the outbreak of the war in 1914, he was sent to France, arriving with his battalion on August 17th and was killed in action at Mons a week later, on August 24th. He was 33 years old and is buried in Frameries Communal Cemetery in a suburb of Mons. Sgt Bates was a native of Morton and so his name is also on the village war memorial. Mrs Scotney subsequently lost her eldest son Fred on the Somme in 1916 where he died from exposure after being trapped in mud, and her husband was killed shortly afterwards. News of the death of Sgt Bates did not arrive in Bourne until Wednesday 30th September and he was remembered at a memorial service held at the Abbey Church the following Sunday.

There are two plaques containing the names of those from Bourne who fell in battle. One on the south side of the cenotaph lists those who lost their lives in the First World War and that on the north side contains the names of those who died in the Second World War and subsequent conflicts in other parts of the world. The last name of the last soldier who died in the Great War to be added to the Roll of Honour is that of G Coverley. He had been overlooked when the edifice was built and approaches from his relatives to remedy the omission were refused. The case was taken up by the Royal British Legion and his name was added to the memorial in 1995. The addition, together with the names of three servicemen who had died in more recent wars, William Dodd, Richard Jennings and John Booth, was dedicated at a special service on VE Day, May 8th, conducted by the Vicar of Bourne, Canon John Warwick, and attended by the Mayor of Bourne, Councillor Mrs Lesley Patrick and Lady Jane Willoughby.

35397 Private George Coverley of the Labour Corps died on 16th December 1918 as a result of war wounds. He was aged 35 years and it is said that he died in a military hospital in Scotland and his body brought to Bourne for burial in the cemetery. George Coverley's brother kept the New Inn on the Spalding Road which is now a private residence. No relations of Private Coverley are now left in Bourne.

When the war ended, many grieving parents refused to believe that missing sons were dead and continued seeking information about them through public notices in the newspapers. A poignant example of this which reflects the heartache of war for those at home, appeared in a local newspaper on Friday 24th January 1919:

Private George Hare, No 140820, of the A Company, 34th Machine Gun Company, was taken prisoner on 10th April 1918. Nothing has been heard of him since July 25th last. If anyone can give any information it will be gladly welcomed by his parents at 26, Hereward-street, Bourne.

There was no news and the name of G Hare appears on the War Memorial.

The first man named on the War Memorial from the Great War is Harry Allen, an infantryman serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who was killed in France in 1916. He was the son of Albert and Frances Allen, of Meadowgate, Bourne. He was mortally wounded during a trench raid while his battalion was dug in at the notorious Ploegstert Woods sector in France, universally known to the troops as "Plugstreet". Captain Robert Graves, of the Royal Welch Regiment, who later became one of the Great War's celebrated poets, was severely wounded in another action there about the same time.

There is also a plaque to Harry Allen's memory in the chancel of the Abbey Church in Bourne. The inscription says: “Sacred to the memory of Harry Allen of this town who died of wounds received in action in France 10th October 1916, aged 26 years, and was buried at Wieppe cemetery near Armentiéres. He died the noblest death a man can die, fighting for God & right & liberty, and such a death is immortality.”

Four of our war dead are buried together in the town cemetery with headstones provided by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. They are Private R J Sayer of the Lincolnshire Regiment, killed on 26th October 1940, aged 19, Lance Corporal D Milner of the Loyal Regiment, killed on 3rd October 1941, aged 21, Sergeant J R Everett of the Parachute Regiment Army Air Corps, killed 13th March 1944, aged 34, and Sapper C E Michelson, Royal Engineers, killed 9th November 1944, aged 29. The last headstone is a particularly poignant one because it also contains a memorial inscription to Private W S Michelson, killed during the First World War in Belgium on 7th October 1917, aged 35, and so successive wars claimed both father and son.

The War Memorial only contains the names of those from this town who died during the 20th century but many others were killed in previous wars. A marble tablet was placed in the Abbey Church in December 1885 with the inscription: "For Queen and country. In memory of Laban James Blades, 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards, who died at Souakim, 22nd May 1885, aged 23. Beloved by all his comrades, and particularly by Lieutenant A P Crawley, by whom this stone was erected." Blades was one of the victims of the Sudan campaign and he died of fever while returning home on the hospital ship Ganges.

NOTE: This article appeared in The Local newspaper on Friday 18th November 2005.