2nd Lieutenant HENRY CHARLES HAMERTON GOULD

14 Bereweeke Road, (Bereweeke House) Winchester

Family Background

Henry Charles Hamerton Gould (above) was the only son of Charles Gould, Rector of St. Matthew’s, Weeke with St Paul’s, Fulflood, between 1900 and 1915. Henry was born in Holmwood, near Dorking, Surrey, on 26 April 1897 while his father was vicar there. His mother, Mary, was the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman.

Henry had three sisters. In 1900 the family moved to Bereweeke House, Bereweeke Road, Winchester, following Charles’s appointment as Rector of Weeke with St Paul’s. The 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 Prep School, near Winchester. His elder sister, Kathleen, died in 1906, aged 10. 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 as a boarder. Henry showed promise as a scholar but when war broke out in 1914 he asked to be transferred to the College’s Army Class, where pupils learned about military matters. 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 Record

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In February 1916 Henry was appointed as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery. He is believed to have been posted to France in time to fight in the Battle of the Somme.

Henry was in action again during the Battle of Arras in April 1917. He died of wounds on 15 April 1917 after a gas shell hit his dug-out, near the French 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.

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. 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 and Twyford Preparatory School. The east window of St Paul’s Church was dedicated to the Reverend Gould and his family.

Activities: Visit St Paul’s Church to look at the two memorial windows dedicated to the Gould family. Also look at the oak Memorial Board which lists the 91 men from the parish killed in the war. Compare Henry’s family background with that of Harold Forster. Henry became an officer in less than a year while it took Harold 18 years. Why do you think that was?