The Fulflood and Weeke Memorials

St Matthews Church, Weeke and St Pauls Church, Fulflood, where the two memorials to the Great War dead can be seen today

St Paul’s Church Memorial Board

The large two-panelled wooden Memorial Board in St Paul’s Church, Fulflood, is made of oak and was designed in 1920 by the architect Bertram D. Cancellor, who lived in Weeke and practised from offices at Queen Anne Chambers on Winchester High Street. Cancellor’s other works in Winchester include Peter Symonds Grammar School (c.1899), the front of Godbegot House in the High Street (1900) as well as several other Great War memorials, including the Peter Symonds Memorial Plaque. From 1894 to 1910 he was in partnership with Henry L.G. Hill, who is believed to have designed the memorial window to his son, Captain Nicholas Hill, at St Matthew’s Church.

Across the top of the Memorial Board is the text:

TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN THE MEMORY OF THE MEN WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES 1914-1918 THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE

Each of the Memorial Board’s two panels is 63in (160cm) wide by 47in (119cm) high and contains four columns of inscribed men’s names. Seven columns feature the names of 11 men whilst the eighth has 14, making a total of 91. There is no hierarchy to either the St Paul’s or Matthew’s memorials - the men are simply listed alphabetically without their rank.

The Memorial Board was originally located in the church’s Lady Chapel but was moved to its current position on the south wall in the 1980s. It is situated below the memorial window to Kathleen Gould, daughter of Charles Gould, Rector of Weeke with St Paul’s from 1900-1915, and sister of 2nd Lieutenant Henry Gould, who was killed in the Great War and whose name appears on the Memorial Board.

Fundraising for the Memorial

Fundraising for the Memorial Board began in early summer 1920 with the bulk of the money raised that year and in 1921. By 31 March 1921 the fund had amassed £128 4s 2d and the final figure on 31 March 1922 was £177 6s 5d (about £5,000 in today’s money). Dozens of small donations swelled the coffers. Many of the families of men listed on the memorial board donated, as did prominent local figures such as Reverend Gould and his successor as Rector of St Paul’s, Reverend G.C. Fetherstonhaugh. Other contributions were received from the St Paul’s Boys and Girls Sunday School and Western Girls School. Those who contributed to the fund included:

• Mrs E. Drake [mother of Private Thomas Drake] who gave 2 guineas on 2 June 1920.
• Reverend Gould [father of 2nd Lieutenant Henry Gould] who gave 2 guineas on 23 July 1920.
• Western Girls School which gave £3 14s 2d on 2 September 1920.
• Muldowney family [of Private John Muldowney] who gave 5s on 2 September 1920.
• Miss Cole who gave £2 on 2 guineas on 12 January September 1920.
• Warrens the Stationers which gave £4 1s 5d on 12 December 1920.
• Mr E.W. Fifield [father of Signaller Jack Fifield] who gave £5 5s on 15 December 1920.
• Mrs Gould [mother of 2nd Lieutenant Henry Gould] who gave 2 guineas on 12th January 1921.

 

The church vestry minutes of a meeting held on 31 March 1921 record that ‘on association with proposed war memorial the following resolution was proposed by W.E Madams and F.T. Brown and carried unanimously. That the Weeke Parochial War Memorial be carried out in accordance with plan of B.D. Cancellor and that the rector and churchwardens be empowered to apply for necessary faculty’.

Work on the Memorial Board was carried out by Messrs Thomas & Co. of Winchester. When installed the boards formed a screen in a specially-created Lady’s Chapel which also featured an altar, the centrepiece of which was a cross provided by the girls of Western School. The cross bore the inscription ‘To the Glory of God, and in memory of the men of the parish who made the Great Sacrifice 1914-18’. On either side stood two brass candlesticks, the gift of an anonymous donor. Charles Douglas of Cheriton Road, whose son is listed on the memorial, helped to build the altar.

Memorial Board dedication

The Memorial Board was dedicated on the evening of Wednesday 24 May 1922, Ascension Day eve, the religious significance of which would not have been lost on the large congregation. The officiating clergy were the Reverend Fetherstonhaugh, the Reverend Hugh Herring, the Reverend Canon Bowring and the Reverend Canon Philip Braithwaite, the latter giving the address. Canon Braithwaite had lost a son in the final months of the war and also a nephew, Valentine, who was killed at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. (A wooden memorial cross, originally placed by Valentine’s parents on the battlefield near to where he is believed to have been killed, is now held in Winchester Cathedral.)

Canon Braithwaite delivered his address not from the pulpit but from the chancel steps. One cannot know for certain why he chose to do this, but the effect - by bringing churchman and parishioners closer together – would surely have been to add greater intimacy to proceedings and to bond the parties in a shared grief.

The Canon based his address on the Book of Zechariah, Chapter 6, Verse 14 – ‘For a memorial in the temple of the Lord’. The Hampshire Chronicle report of the service (edition of 27 May 1922, p.5) stated:

The Reverend Canon Braithwaite said … that the war would never be forgotten because of those they had lost, the homes desolated, and also because of parents, wives and children bereaved. It could never be forgotten while one person of today was alive. To those brave lads whom they especially thought of that evening, who answered to their country’s call, who came forward and gave their lives freely for them, they might well put up a memorial in the Temple of the Lord, where their names would be recorded.

They had only to think of Belgium. What did they see there? Churches and houses in ruins; men and women, young and old, carried away in slavery, starved, ill-treated and even massacred by their enemies. They had only to think of that to understand what would have happened to their England and their Winchester had it not been for those lads who stood between them and the enemy.

A friend of his had furnished him with some particulars which, he was sure, would be as interesting to those present as they were to him. They were to the effect that the men who rallied to the flag from the whole of Winchester totalled 3,454, and of that number 780, or nearly one fifth of the whole, came from the parish of Weeke. The number of Winchester men who had laid down their lives in the war was 459, and those from Weeke totalled 90 – again about one fifth of the whole. Of the 90, 21 were known to have been scholars in their Sunday Schools, and it was gratifying to him (the speaker) to hear from the Rector that a very large part in their war memorial had been borne by the children, who had given the cross on the altar table, besides a large subscription to the general fund. Was not that circumstance full of hope? What would those children be when they grew up? They would be strong, earnest Christian men and women. Therefore, it was well that they should honour the names of those who had gone before – those who came, who conquered and gave peace.

Canon Braithwaite’s message was clear. While recognising the grief felt by many of those present, he stressed that their menfolk’s sacrifice had not been in vain. The bravery of their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers had helped to defeat a barbarous enemy and ensure that England – and Winchester – remained free. In a community where the pain of bereavement ran deep and where religious belief was strong, his words would have provided a measure of comfort.

Curiously, the Chronicle report lists – and Canon Braithwaite refers to – only 90 men on the St Paul’s memorial. For some reason the name of George Goodridge is omitted. This was probably a mistake: Goodridge’s name appears in its correct chronological place on the memorial and has not been added at a later date.

St Matthew’s Church Memorial Book

St Matthew’s Church, Weeke, contains a red leather-bound Memorial Book that lists the names of 90 men who died in the Great War. The book may not have been compiled until after the Second World War as the names of the men lost in both wars are listed in the same handwriting. The front of the book reads:

PARISH OF WEEKE.
IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY

The men’s names are handwritten on 13 pages, with seven names listed on 12 pages and six names on the other.

While all 91 names on the St Paul’s memorial have been traced, no record has yet been found for H.T. Chapman listed only in the Memorial Book at St Matthew’s. Indeed, no record may ever be found, for it is the group’s belief that the entry is an error and should read F.J. Chapman whose name precedes H.T. Churcher on the St Paul’s memorial. It is thought that the person responsible for inscribing the St Matthew’s book may have made a simple mistake and used the initials H.T. for both Churcher and Chapman (see photographs above).

The only name on the St Paul’s Memorial Board that does not appear in the Weeke Memorial Book is Harold Forster. The reason for the omission is unclear.

St Matthew’s also houses a memorial window to Captain Nicholas Weatherby Hill. Nicholas lived with his parents in nearby Butt’s Close in a house designed by his architect father Henry L.G. Hill, who probably also designed the window. Nicholas won the Military Cross shortly before his death on 16 January 1917.

Other memorials

St Thomas School

Sixteen of the 91 men commemorated at St Paul’s and St Matthew’s are also listed on the wooden memorial board erected at St Thomas Senior Church of England Boys’ School. The school used to be in Mews Lane, Winchester, but the building is now a private residence, and the memorial is today held at Kings’ School, Romsey Road, Winchester.

Many boys in Fulflood and Weeke moved on to St Thomas School from Western School in Elm Road, Fulflood – there was an infants and girls’ school on the site. However, not all boys who attended St Thomas’s and later died in the war are included on the memorial – for example, neither Leslie Jacob nor Jack Fifield are listed.

King Alfred Teacher Training College

There is also a memorial to the fallen in the chapel of the former Winchester Diocesan Training College, later King Alfred Teacher Training College and now part of Winchester University. The wooden ‘War Rail’ commemorates the 60 men associated with the College who died in the Great War. Two of them, Andrew Bogie and Basil Vokes, also feature on the memorials at St Matthew’s and St Paul’s.

The Diocesan Training College memorial was erected by past and present students and dedicated by the Bishop of Winchester at a service on 25 September 1920. It consists of oak panelling around the lower part of the chapel walls, as well as extra stalls at the west end and two inscribed panels. The names of the fallen are inscribed upon the frieze of the panelling. On the north wall there is a panel inscribed:

To the Glory of God and in Memory of those Members of this College who gave their Lives in the Great War 1914-1918. This panel work is placed by Masters and Students Past and Present

On the south wall is a quote from 2 Maccabees vi 31:

These men died leaving their deaths for an example of a noble courage and a memorial of virtue, not only unto young men but unto all their nation

Changes to the chapel since the original dedication have resulted in sections of the rail, and part of the inscription, being moved to different parts of the chapel.

Peter Symonds School

Peter Symonds College (formerly School) has an oak Memorial Plaque commemorating the 49 pupils, staff and governors – the latter being Winchester MP the Right Honourable Guy Baring - who gave their lives in the Great War. The plaque, designed by Bertram Cancellor, is situated in the War Memorial Library which was inaugurated in November 1922. Those names which appear on the Peter Symonds Memorial and also those at St Matthew’s and St Paul’s are: Hubert Maidment, Cecil Shefferd, Reginald Male, Herbert Tong and Charles Douglas. Douglas Cowan, who is listed on the school plaque, does not appear on either of the church memorials. The Peter Symonds memorial also lists pupils who gave their lives in World War Two.

DEREK WHITFIELD and JENNY WATSON