2nd Lieutenant HENRY CHARLES HAMERTON GOULD

14 Bereweeke Road, (Bereweeke House) Winchester
32nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery
Died of wounds, France, 15 April 1917

Life Summary

Henry Charles Hamerton Gould was the only son of Charles Gould, Rector of St. Matthew’s, Weeke with St Paul’s, Fulflood, between 1900 and 1915. Henry attended Twyford School and Winchester College where he requested he be put into the Army Class after the Great War began. He joined the Royal Artillery in 1916 and died after being gassed at the Battle of Arras in April 1917.

Family Background

Henry was born in Holmwood, near Dorking, Surrey, on 26 April 1897 while his father, Charles Hamerton Gould, was vicar there. Charles had been born on 1 March 1865 in Ecclesall Bierlow, Sheffield, Yorkshire. He attended Harrow School and then New College Oxford where in 1887 he obtained a Third-class degree in history. His clerical preparation included a year at Wells Theological College, Somerset, in 1888 followed by a Masters degree. Between 1889 and 1893 Charles served as Curate at Portsea, Hampshire, before moving to be in charge of St. Mary’s, Holmwood, Surrey, in 1894, the year he married Mary Sumner. Mary (Henry’s mother) was born in 1873 in Buriton, Hampshire, and was the daughter of the Reverend Henry Le Couteur Sumner and his wife Rhoda Anna. Charles. Mary’s marriage was registered in Hartley Wintney and so, presumably, they were married at St. Peter’s, Yately, where Mary’s father was the vicar.

Charles and Mary had four children while living in Holmwood, Surrey – Kathleen Mildred, born 27 February 1896, Henry (1897), Marion Edith (14 May1899) and Monica Margaret (26 February 1900).

In 1900 the family moved to Bereweeke House, Bereweeke Road, Winchester, following Charles’ appointment as Rector of Weeke/Wyke with St Paul’s. The Goulds lived comfortably: Bereweeke House had 16 rooms and by 1911 the Goulds employed four live-in servants, including a cook. Today, Bereweeke House has been converted into several residential flats and is numbered 14, Bereweeke Road.

In about 1904 Henry was sent to Twyford School, a prep school near Winchester. He was to lose his elder sister, Kathleen Gould, Charles and Mary’s eldest child, who died, aged 10, in 1906. A memorial window dedicated to her was installed at St Paul’s Church – it is on the south side with a brass plaque to the right. In 1910 Henry entered Winchester College where he was in D House. In the 1911 Census he was listed living at Culver House, Culver Close, Winchester as a boarder/school boy.

Henry showed some promise as a scholar but when war broke out in 1914 he asked to be transferred from Senior Division, Sixth Book, to the Army Class. In June 1915 he entered Woolwich, the Royal Artillery’s officer training school. The same year his family moved to the New Forest after Charles Gould was appointed Vicar of Fawley with Langley.

Great War Summary

In February 1916 Henry enlisted with Royal Field Artillery (RFA) and was posted to the 27th Battery as 2nd Lieutenant. The RFA was the largest of the Royal Artillery’s three arms, with responsibility for the Army’s medium calibre guns and howitzers. Henry’s battery formed part of 32nd Brigade, RFA which came under the command of 4th Division. A field artillery brigade had a total strength of just under 800 men, so was broadly comparable to an infantry battalion (just over 1,000).

It is not known precisely when Henry entered a theatre of war, but it is thought to have been in 1916, probably in time for the Somme Offensive (1 July-18 November). During the Somme campaign, 4th Division fought at the Battles of Albert (1-13 July) and Le Transloy (1-18 October). Henry was in action again during the Arras Offensive (9 April-16 May). The campaign began well, with the Canadians capturing Vimy Ridge and the British advancing three miles in places. A key factor in this success was the huge artillery barrages, using high explosive and gas shells, that preceded the attacks.

Henry died of wounds on 15 April 1917 after a gas shell hit his dug-out, near the village of Aubigny. It took rescuers four hours to extricate him from the wrecked shelter and he survived for ‘a day and a half of suffering, very bravely borne.’ Henry was a week short of his 20th birthday when he died.

Family after the Great War

After the war, Charles Gould moved with his family from Fawley to become Vicar of Highcliffe, Christchurch, Dorset, from 1925. It has been difficult to find information on Henry’s younger sisters as adults: Marion Edith, born 1898, and Monica Margaret, born 1900. Neither married. The youngest daughter, Monica Margaret, probably stayed living with her parents as The Vicarage at Highcliffe is the address given as her abode in her probate records. She died on 18 February 1939, aged only 38, at Millbrook Nursing Home on Jersey. (Her mother was a Sumner with close family connections in the Channel Islands.) Charles and Mary had had the grief of losing three of their four children. They were still at Highcliffe in the 1939 Register, and Mary was volunteering as a WVS Canteen Manager. Presumably on Charles retirement, perhaps hastened by Monica’s death, he and Mary moved to Winchester, to Wellisford House on Links Road. Charles died on 4 June 1944, aged 79, leaving over £26,000 to his wife.

Their surviving offspring, Marion Edith, is also to be found in the 1939 Register, surprisingly, as a Hospital Sister at Park Pruett Hospital, near Basingstoke. It was a mental hospital before and after World War II and a military hospital during the war. Marion did not need to work. She must have had a vocation to care for people and possibly a wish to be independent. At some point, she too moved to Winchester. It is possible that her widowed mother, Mary, came to live with her as Mary does not feature as an independent householder at some stage after her husband’s death in 1944. Miss M. E. Gould is the householder for Downside on St. Giles Hill in Warren’s Directory of 1953/4. Her mother, Mary, died in 1962 at the age of 89. She was buried with her husband in Winchester, probably in Magdelen Hill Cemetery. By 1964, Marion Edith was living at 26, Quarry Road, according to Kelly's Directory. She was to make at least one more move to 6, Great Minster Street. She died on 4 July 1984 aged 86.

Medals and Memorials for Henry Charles Hamerton Gould

2nd Lieutenant Henry Charles Hamerton Gould was entitled to the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. He was buried at Aubigny Communal Cemetery Extension, Pas de Calais, France (GR. VI. B. 6.) and the inscription on his headstone reads:

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART

Henry is commemorated on the memorials at St Matthew’s and St Paul’s churches, Winchester, and on a memorial plaque on the wall of All Saints Church, Fawley. He is also listed on the memorials at Winchester College (above) and Twyford Preparatory School. The east window of St Paul's Church was dedicated to the Reverend Gould and his family.

Researcher – JENNY WATSON

 

Additional sources
https://www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/archive/henry-charles-hamerton-gould/