WW1: A school's effort
The pressure was on young men to go off and fight in the horrible World War 1 which began a hundred years ago this year. We look at the effect on one South African school.
It was a weird war, an irrational one and a massively destructive one. It becagan with the assassination of an Austrian duke in Sarejvo. Then when Germany invaded battered Belgium, Britain decided to enter the war and called on its empire for support, turning it into a massively destructive confrontation. The English-speaking part of South Africa responded.
The pressure on young men was enormous. There was Lord Kitchener pointing a finger and telling you 'your country needs you'. There were people, especially women, pinning white feathers onto youngish men to suggest that they were cowards. They would be asked why they were not out in the front. It all seemed part of a joyous crusade.
The reality was not joyous. The casualties of the war, military and civilian, are reckoned as close to 37 million. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British Army alone suffered some 60 000 casualties. It was an horrific war. But exuberant youth did not know that it was going to be so ghastly.
The Diocesan College in Rondebosch, popularly called Bishops, was founded by the first Anglican Bishop of Cape Town in 1849. Its motto is Pro Fide et Patria – for faith and country. Early on the faith was Anglican, as it still is, and the country Great Britain, 'home' to many. And so patriotically Bishops boys and Old Boys went to war.
The school's first history, by Donald McIntyre, speaks of this time. "Besides runaway pupils who misstated their ages, were accepted by the Military and had to be hauled back to school, there was unrest among the Staff. Bull [Canon CS Bull], who had raised the Cadet Corps to a high efficiency, was the first to go. To the Archbishop's grief he joined the fighting services. Some of his well-drilled cadets migrated to Sandhurst before their school days had ended."
Canon Bull, whose nickname was Oxo, was a vigorous man – a man of the church and a soldier, who wore army boots under his cassock. It was said of him that he could form a procession of one as he marched down the aisle of the chapel. He was awarded a Military Cross in World War I and joined up again in World War II but was used for basic training at Robert's Heights, the former name for Voortrekkerhoogte.
Bishops was not as big in 1914 as it is now and had at most 40 leavers per year. If you went back 20 years, to 1894, that would make under 800 leavers but more than 800 Old Boys fought in World War 1 – in Africa, where Germany owned territory in the southwest (now Namibia) and the east (now Tanganyika) and in Europe. Of those who fought 112 died and over 160 were wounded. There were 191 decorations and some 500 commissions held. (These numbers were much greater in World War II.)
The Old Bishops Boys' regiments varied – amongst them the Royal Flying Corps, the 21st Lancers, the 6th Australians, the 9th Black Watch, the Irish Guards, the Royal Fusiliers, the 4th Suffolk Yeomanry, the Coldstream Guards, the Grenadier Guards, the Coldstream Guards, the Indian Cavalry, the Gordon Highlanders, the Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders and numerous South African regiments.
Their ranks varied., Their were troopers and privates, a major general, captains and lieutenants, colonels, majors, despatch riders, cadets, sergeants and corporals, midshipmen and a brigadier-general.
When war broke out in 1914, 24 boys left Bishops to fight. Two were killed and two were decorated. A schoolboy who left prematurely was the son of General Louis Botha. He joined his father on the campaign in German South West Africa and then returned to Bishops when the war was over.
The Bishops numbers are nothing like some great schools in England. There were 1157 Old Etonians killed, for example, but for a small school at the end of Africa 112 is large number.
Amongst those 112 are four rugby internationals – Captain Adam Burdett, Captain Reg Hands, Lieutenant Mike Dickson and Lieutenant Stephen Steyn. There were also several who had played for the 1st XV while at school – RWL Anderson (France), GHW Blackman (France), E Bramley, CT Brooke (France), AF Burdett (East Africa), WM Dickson (France), AN Difford (Palestine), R Garlake (Gallipoli), HW Girdlestone (France), RHM Hands (France),EJ Hare (France), BB Hewat MC (France), JW Honey (France), CE Horne (East Africa),GW Parson (France), AA Pocock (East Africa),AW McGregor (France), EB Markus MC (France), WH Mortimer, HB Redler MC (Scotland), JD Reid (France), TD Robb (France), N Robertson MC & Bar (France), GB Stent (East Africa),SSL Steyn (Palestine), EY Syfret (France),HW Tiffany MC (France) and JH van der Spuy (France)
At the end of the war Bishops was impoverished but raised money for a new chapel as a war memorial, the school's fourth chapel, this one of unique design accommodating a congregation of 750. It was built in 1926 and dedicated on 31 October that year. The sermon on the occasion of its dedication was preached by the Rev. John Brooke, whose brother Cyril had been killed in France. Johnny Brooke, the son of the fifth principal of Bishops, had played rugby for Western Province.
The chapel is still called the War Memorial Chapel. Above the main entrance to the chapel is a bronze plaque, unveiled by General Smuts, with the names of those who lost their lives in World War I.
Every day their school honours their 112 men who believed they were doing the right and noble thing and gave their lives doing so.
