War Remembrance

Alexander Johnson
1888-1915

William O’Kelly
1888-1941

Geoffrey Talbot
1888-1916

Leonard Hing
1920-1944

William Mayling
1896-1916

William Newman
1923-1944

Frederick William Purton
1895-1916

Ernest Nicholes
1886-1917

Albert Bierton
1892-1918

Samuel George Oakins
1883-1917

Church War Memorial

The war memorial in the church is an oak memorial positioned on the left side of the arch leading into the Bridgewater Chapel, commemorating the dead of both World Wars. It is divided into two panels and, above the upper one, the dates

1914 + 1918

are recorded.

On the upper panel (in two columns except for the final name, centrally placed) below the heading

IN MEMORY
OF

the names of the 23 men who died in the First World War are engraved in black. Each man is listed just by his initial and surname, in order of initial.

W White

On the lower panel, also in two columns and below the heading

1939 + 1945

the names of six of the men who died in the Second World War are listed – but not in order. The name of William O’Kelly is not included.

Below the bottom panel is the inscription

+
REQUIESCANT IN PACE

Click the links to find out more.

Village Green War Memorial

The village’s other war memorial is on the Village Green, outside John O’ Gaddesden’s House. The brick and stone structure was from a design conceived by Adelbert, 3rd Earl Brownlow, who died before its completion. Mrs Wheatley, a cousin of Lady Brownlow and wife of Colonel Wheatley, the Ashridge Agent, then endeavoured to see that his wishes were fulfilled. On 24^th April 1921, the memorial was unveiled by Adelbert, 5th Baron Brownlow during a service conducted by The Revd. Thomas Sidney Goudge (Rector) and accompanied by the Berkhamsted Town Band “in the presence of practically the whole of the inhabitants of the villages Little Gaddesden, Hudnall and Ringshall, whose heroes the memorial serves to commemorate”, as the Hertfordshire, Hemel Hempstead Gazette and West Herts Advertiser put it.

The memorial, constructed under the superintendence of Mr C. H. B. Quennell, F.R.I.B.A. and built by Ashridge estate bricklayers, has three sections:

• outer, flanking walls incorporating 24 moulded stone Doulton terracotta roundels, said to have come from Ashridge House,
• large stone tablets, bearing inscriptions including the names of the dead, supplied and cut by Berkhamsted Stonemasons Frederick Martin and his son Arthur, and
• a central section, recessed under a tiled, sloping roof, with supporting timberwork by local carpenter Harry Temple. Under the ridge are bottles believed to contain the names of villagers of importance before and during the First World War.

The inscription on the left hand tablet, which was amended after the Second World War, reads:

+
In Honour
of the
Men and Women
Who Went From The
Villages Of
Little Gaddesden
Hudnall
And Ringshall
And Served In The
Wars Of
1914 – 1919 And 1939 -1945
The Names Of Those
Who Gave Their Lives
For Their Country
Are Cut
On The Stones Here.
1939 – 1945.
Henry Gordon · Gordon Highlanders
Duncan Gray · Rifle Brigade
Leonard Hing · Royal Artillery
William Newman · Royal Air Force
Ian Patterson · Royal Artillery
Edward Rogers · Suffolk Regt

As with the church war memorial, the name of William O’Kelly is not included.

The right hand tablet bears the inscription:

1914 + 1919
Charles Batchelor · Bedfordshire
Vernon Batchelor · Hertfordshire
Albert Bierton · Middlesex
William Arthur Cook · Beds Yeomanry
William Cooper · R.F. Artillery
James Dunn · Machine Guns
William Fenn · Hertfordshire
Arthur Fowler · Shropshire L.I.
Alfred Garment · Northamptonshire
Bertram Gentle · Royal Rifles
Edward Groom · Royal West Surrey
George Hoar · Hertfordshire
Walter Holland · Rifle Brigade
Alexander Johnson · Royal Engineers
Frank Johnson · Royal Berkshire
William Mayling · Hertfordshire
Alfred Mead · Bedfordshire
Samuel Oakins · Royal Engineers
George Pinnock · H.M.S. Black Prince
Frederick Purton · Bedfordshire
Geoffrey Talbot · R.N. Air Service
William Henry White · R. Fusiliers
Arthur Whitman · Hertfordshire

Click the links to find out more.

The village green war memorial has been catalogued by IWM: “Little Gaddesden, Ringshall And Hudnall” (WMR 63601)

The “Scrap of Paper” (ca. 1919)

A Roll of Honour, dating from approximately 1919 was discovered in a battered state in the Parish Chest in 1987. It had the two panels of names and regiments re-written and was framed and hung in church in 1991. This names 119 men from Little Gaddesden, Ringshall and Hudnall who served in the First World War and has been catalogued by IWM “Little Gaddesden, Ringshall And Hudnall Roll Of Honour (WMR 40253) Little Gaddesden Hertfordshire”.

An eminent later Churchwarden, Michael McCaul, believed that the man responsible for compiling the 1919 Roll of Honour was the Reverend Thomas Sidney Goudge, M.A., D.S.O., who served as an Army Chaplain during the First World War and came to Little Gaddesden as Rector in January 1919.

This Roll of Honour now hangs on the South wall of the Bridgewater Chapel of St Peter and St Paul, Little Gaddesden.

The inscription “The Scrap of Paper” does not, incidentally, refer to the physical state of Little Gaddesden’s Roll of Honour when it was found in the Parish Chest. Rather, it refers to the Treaty of London of 1839, which guaranteed Belgium’s independence. The treaty was breached by Germany invading Belgium in the early days of the First World War. The words “für einen Fetzen Papier” (“for a scrap of paper”) were used by the German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg to seek to belittle the treaty during a fateful meeting with the British Ambassador Sir Edward Goschen on 4 August 1914, the day on which Britain declared war on Germany. The phrase became something of an ironic rallying cry for the cause of the war, as evidenced by the subtitle of the Roll of Honour:

Men who have answered their Country’s call in defence of a “Scrap of Paper”

The 1919 Roll of Honour uses what seems to have been a popular pre-printed template. As well as the prominent words “The Scrap of Paper”, the template contains an extract and facsimile copy of the signatures from the treaty, all within a patriotically decorated border. Blank templates, intended to be filled in by any parish, school or other institution, could at the time be bought from the Fine Art Publishing Co Ltd, who printed them under licence from the Foreign Office. 

The Rhyme of History

In a further irony, history was almost to repeat itself shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. In September 1938 Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, brought a written agreement back from a meeting in Munich with Adolf Hitler that was supposed to resolve the Czechoslovakia crisis. Chamberlain famously voiced his belief that it was “peace for our time”. A year later, Germany had invaded Poland, Britain was again at war with Germany, and Hitler derided his written agreement with Chamberlain as another “scrap of paper”.

2018 Centenary Revision

A 2018 Centenary Revision of the Roll of Honour for Little Gaddesden, Ringshall and Hudnall 1914 – 1919 was hung in the church in March 2019. It hangs on the right hand side of the arch leading into the Bridgewater Chapel. The entries are transcribed below.

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