Concordia

Concordia Winter 2018 15 Concordia Winter 2018 14 Jonah Surkes (2010-2015) was elected President of the Cambridge Union in the Lent term. Here is his account of a memorable few weeks. T he 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, a date that ranks alongside 1066 in our historical consciousness. In fact, the British government had given strict instructions to its peace negotiator, Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, that the First World War should end at 2.30pm – to allow the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George the honour of announcing the armistice to the Nation via the House of Commons. Wemyss realised that 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month had a much stronger, poetic quality about it, and that by ending the war a few hours earlier he would save thousands of lives. He was right in both assumptions – if you look at the final page of your order of service you will see the famous image of a sound recording of the last seconds of the war – the allies firing off their remaining shells at great human cost. The King duly announced the end of the war and Lloyd George took his revenge on Wemyss – he denied him a war pension that would have been worth over £5 million today, a last vindictive act in a vindictive war. As the bells rang out on Armistice Day, the mother of the war poet Wilfred Owen, opened a letter informing her that her son had been killed just one week before. I would like to welcome the Master of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, the Chairman of the School Governors, the Chairman of the Old Merchant Taylors’ Society and many distinguished guests from the Merchant Taylors’ community to this commemoration of the ending of the First World War. Today also represents some kind of conclusion to this community’s efforts to remember and reflect on the school’s experience of what was labelled in 1918 as the ‘Great War’, or the “War to end all wars”. Four years ago on this day there were four poppies on our Roll of Honour, commemorating those who fell in the opening months of the war. Today there are 296; the significance being that there are still 14 names without a poppy. For these the war did not end at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Our last commemoration of the fallen will be in 2024. Since 2014 we have used the school archive in an attempt to tell the stories behind many of those names on the Roll of Honour; we have also heard stories of bravery such as that shown by Victor Watson, who won the Albert Medal for running towards a burning airship to save his colleagues, losing an arm when the airship exploded. We have marked the single biggest loss of life in the Merchant Taylors’ community on the centenary of the Battle of the Somme in 2016. We have re-connected with the families of those who lost their lives in the war, such as the great nephews of Fred Arnaud, who fell on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, and the grandson of John Barrett, who fell at Passchendaele in 1917. We have remembered some of our greatest sportsmen, such as John George Will, who represented Cambridge University and Scotland at rugby and whose great nephew bequeathed Will’s archive to the school in 2017. To mark our commemoration, we have also left more permanent tributes for future generations: the Gallipoli flag in the Great Hall lobby; the Memorial Garden, lovingly created and cared for by our ground staff for all members of the community to enjoy; and the digitisation of 140 years of the Taylorian magazine, which can now be read by us all online. Our community’s commemoration has been recognised at a national level. The OMT Football Club and the school featured in the Rugby Football Union’s 2016 film tracing the role of rugby players in the First World War. None of these projects would have been possible without collaboration between the school and the Old Merchant Taylors’ Society. The Society and alumni, via our Development Office, have funded our projects, whilst the OMT efforts to visit every grave or memorial, and to record the stories of those who lost their lives, have ensured that the stories so meticulously set down one hundred years ago, live on today. What was the impact of the Armistice on Merchant Taylors’ School? In December 1917 a meeting was convened at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall to consider creating a memorial to those OMTs who had fallen, by raising funds over the next five years. This now lies at the back of our Great Hall, having been taken from Charterhouse Square where the school stood, to its current location. Parents donated to the project to remember the loss of a son. Many OMTs who were still serving also donated: one of the first was the Reverend Cyril Buck who attended the school from 1891-1899, captaining the First XV and graduating from Trinity College before going on to be ordained in 1910. He served as a chaplain in the War and was killed by shrapnel whilst helping the wounded. He won the Military Cross for conspicuous bravery but, sadly, his name was to be added to the Roll of Honour that he had helped to fund. His story can be found on the steps up to the Great Hall. The OMTs set up a Memorial Trust Fund with the aims of educating the sons of those who had lost their lives in the war and purchasing a sports ground as a memorial. Part of the Trust Fund’s legacy is visible today in the shape of the War Memorial Clubhouse by the tennis courts and the sharing of our wonderful facilities. Rugby lay at the heart of the Old Boys’ commemoration and it was fitting that Ronald Cove Smith, who left Merchant Taylors’ in 1918 to enlist in the Grenadier Guards at the end of the war, should go on to represent the Old Merchant Taylors’ Football Club, England and subsequently captain the British Lions tour to South Africa in 1924. So for the Company, School and OMT Society, the overwhelming response was to remember, to commemorate: never to forget the sacrifice of those who hoped for a better world. And what are we to make of the war, one hundred years on? The war took ten million lives and appeared to have shattered civilisation. Such devastation seems to demand that we search for positives, to justify the loss of so many. It is alleged that the war changed everything, giving birth to the world we live in now. These are bold claims – our GCSE historians know that the politicians created a peace treaty that ensured the legacy of the First World War would be the Second. But if we look outside at the inner quad today, perhaps we do find our answer. In 2016, the President of the Old Merchant Taylors’ Society made a suggestion that the school needed to commemorate all the war generation. “It’s not just those who lost their lives, Jonny”, he said. Remembrance Address by Jonny Taylor And he is right, when we look at the batons and the crosses outside, we realise that of the 1800 boys of this school who fought in the war, 1500 survived. And within a couple of years of 1918, their stories fade from the pages of the Taylorian; very little has been recorded. And the reason that this silence is inspiring is the simple fact that, having played their role on the stage of world history, they returned to their ordinary lives. KCJ Davies, Merchant Taylors’ 1905-1912, Captain in the Gurkha Regiment, founded the forerunner of the Open University in Canada. Major Edward Collins, Merchant Taylors’ 1882-1885, veteran of the Boer War, wounded at the battle of Le Cateau in 1914 and a prisoner of war for four years, returned to Yorkshire to become one of our foremost geologists and archaeologists. A generation of boys from Merchant Taylors’ School were there – at Loos, Gallipoli, the Somme, the Easter Rising, Passchendaele and St Quentin – so that they could return to their ordinary lives, to the lives that we in this hall aspire to. We are their legacy, we are their achievement. We salute the courage, not just of those who gave their lives but those for whom the war was part of a longer journey. “They walked our rooms: they walk them yet. Shall we forget?” Every…One…Remembered.