Merton College

  • Merton College War Memorial - Taken by © The Warden and Fellows of Merton College 30 Apr 2015

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Reference WMO/92311

Address:

Merton College

Oxford

OX1 4JD

England

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Status: On original site
Type: Non freestanding
Location: External
Setting: Attached to a building/structure
Description: Board/Plaque/ Tablet
Materials:
  • Stone Stone (any)
Lettering: Incised
Conflicts:
  • First World War (1914-1918)
  • Second World War (1939-1945)
About the memorial: Merton College’s Governing Body began to consider a memorial to fallen members in September 1917, more than a year before the Armistice. It commissioned a design for a chancel screen for the Chapel, intended to carry an organ, but the Fellows decided not to proceed with this, ostensibly because not enough had been raised in subscriptions, but also possibly because they felt that recording the names of the fallen within the Chapel would exclude non-Anglicans. Instead they compromised by commissioning two memorials from the distinguished ecclesiastical architect, Ninian Comper. The first is inside the Chapel – a plaque (since covered by carpet) in front of the altar steps; the second, much larger, memorial is this one, on the east wall of the Fitzjames Arch-in an archway between two quadrangles . Oak plaques commemorating individual Mertonians were also placed in their old rooms. The memorial was unveiled in the presence of the relatives of the dead in June 1922 by the lord chancellor, Lord Birkenhead (a former Merton law tutor). As a mark of the equality of sacrifice, the roll of honour included six College servants (and a Fellow’s son, born in the College precincts), and did not record the ranks of the fallen, only their regiments. The names of a New Zealander, an Australian and two Americans attested to the international nature of the recent conflict. But two German Mertonians were excluded. As former Rhodes Scholars, T.H.F. Erbe and C.F.L. von Wurmb had been exempted by their commanders from engaging in direct combat against the British. Erbe died fighting the Russians in September 1914, von Wurmb fighting the French in March 1918. Merton was slower than some colleges to add German names to its Great War memorial, but eventually remedied this in 1994, after a campaign by Tom Braun, tutor in ancient history, who had himself come to Britain as a refugee from Germany in 1938.

The names of the Second World War dead were added to the memorial in 1947. Among them was John Neil Randle, posthumously awarded a VC for bravery in saving his comrades’ lives twice within three days at Kohima in Assam in May 1944, and one of three Mertonian VCs from that conflict. Three significant literary figures are also commemorated: Robert Byron, the travel writer and author of The Road to Oxiana, was en route to Cairo as a war correspondent when his ship was torpedoed off Stornoway in February 1941. The New Zealand novelist and author of Man Alone, John Mulgan, fought at El Alamein before serving with the Special Operations Executive in Greece; he committed suicide in unexplained circumstances in Cairo in April 1945. Another veteran of the desert campaign, as recounted in his memoir Alamein to Zem Zem, was the poet Keith Douglas. Though wounded by a mine in 1943, he went on to take part in the invasion of Normandy, where he was killed on 9 June 1944.
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1914 - 1918/ (names)/1939-1945/[names]

1914-1918

Ronald Hermann ACKERLEY
Gilbert Edgar ADAMSON
Alfred Henry ALLCORN
Cecil Douglas BAKER
Philip Joseph BELLASIS
John Martin BENSON
Ralph Thomas BODDINGTON
Francis Hardinge Follett BOOTH
Alfred John Hamilton BOWEN
Arthur Chester BRANDON
John Legge BULMER
Sydney BURDEKIN
Norman George BUSBY
Frederic William CATON
Hubert Pennington CATTLEY
Thomas Edmund Onslow CHAMBERLAYNE
Ronald Malcolm CLERK
Charles Isaacs COBURN
James Fullarton Caldwell CONN
Frederick Vyvyan COUPLAND-SMITH
Fritz Portmore CRAWHALL
Theodor Heinrich Friedrich ERBE

Karl Henry CULPIN
Alan James DICKSON
Horace Grant DINES
John Charles Edward DOUGLAS
John Cecil George DRUMMOND
Launcelot Lindsay Brook DUNLOP
Arthur DUNNAGE
Tom Denton EDDISON
Thomas Henry EDSALL
Alfred Gordon FAULKNER
Horace William FLETCHER
Charles Edward FRY
Henry Burgh GAIR
Halliday Gordon GILLIES
Charles Edward Hoare HALES
Guy John Meredith HARDY
Edward Bridges HARFORD
Christopher René HARRISON
Walter Bernard HARRISON
Richard George HART
Christopher HARTLEY

D’Arcy John Joseph HARTLEY
Robert William HILL
Owen Jardine HOBBS
Archibald Clare HOLLAND
Arthur Illtyd Wates HORLOCK
Hewitt HUGGARD
Aubrey Noel CAREW HUNT
Richard HUTTON
Dmitri JARINTZOFF
Francis John JEFFREY
Robert Wilfred Fairey JESSON
Charles Edward Coursolles JONES
Edward William KAY-MOUAT
Edward Rowley KELLY
William Gabriel KING-PIERCE
Jack Fellows LAMBERT
Edward George LANGDALE
Lionel Shaw LEE
Roland Aubrey LEIGHTON
William Fitzgerald LEVIN
Frederic Henry LEWIN
Eric Edward HIGHAM

James Morrison LOW
Geoffrey LYNCH-STAUNTON
George Henry Reginald MELLERS
Geoffrey Ellsworth MEUGENS
Lawrence Frank MILNER
Leslie NEWALL
Wilfred Herbert Everand NIELD
Kingsmill Pennefather NIMMO
William Edward Graham NIVEN
Albert Julian PELL
Robert Clement PERKS
John Nicol Fergusson PIXLEY
Roger Thompson POLLARD
Robert William Hay PRINGLE
Gerald Edmund Adair RAWLINS
James Bathgate REID
William Kingsley REYNOLDS
John Yate ROBINSON
Wilfrid Frank ROGERS
Arthur Legge SAMSON
William Douglass SCOTT
F W SWORD

Clement Perronet SELLS
Thomas Arthur SHURMER
George Ricardo SIMPSON
Richard Willingdon SOMERS-SMITH
Herbert George Flaxman SPURRELL
Philip Harle STOTT
Christopher Babington SUGDEN
Bernard TOOKE
Hatton Dunnica TOWSON
Charles Reginald CHENEVIX TRENCH
Stewart Houghton TROUP
Alexander Phipps TURNBULL
Henry TURNER
Wilfrid George VINT
Houston Stewart Hamilton WALLACE
Charles Blaquhan WHITEFOORD
Philip Clarence WILLIAMS
Almeric Watkins WOOD
W J WOOD
Charles Walter Fyffe WOOLNOUGH
Charles Cecil YATES
Carl Friedrich Lothar VON WURMB

Notes: Names are shown in the order they appear on the memorial, but with their initials expanded (where known). Erbe & von Wurmb were added in 1994. King-Pierce was mis-spelled, it should be King-Peirce. Jeffrey was also known as Jeffreys.

1939-1945

George Albert Thomas Boris ALLAN
Thomas Reid ALSTON
Richard Graham BALL
Terence BARRY
Robert BYRON
Herbert James COCKMAN
Thomas William Bevis COULSON
Richard Sydney Willoughby DARVELL

Keith Castellain DOUGLAS
Richard Anthony DUDMAN
William Keightley EVERS
Francis George FROW
Anthony Frederick HALLETT
John Gordon HALLIDAY
Jervis Alston HEAD
Thomas Peter Kingsland HIGGS
Robert William JAKEMAN

Geoffrey Alan JONAS
David Wimborne KEITH
Walter Birnley KEMEYS-JENKIN
Peter Bernard LALOR
Keith Posgate LUCAS
John Edmund Seaton MACALISTER
Geoffrey MELLOR
Arthur Howard Moscrop MOLE
John Alan Edward MULGAN

Alexander Norman Grieve MUNRO
John Niel RANDLE
Donald Underwood RAWCLIFFE
Richard Ernest RUSHMORE
Solomon SHIRE
Herbert Frederick Edgar SMITH
John STAFFORD-CLARK
George Frederick Evelyn STORY
Michael Charles STUTTAFORD

Ronald Cedric Louis SUDBURY
Richard Frank TOWNEND
David John WALLACE
William Edward Prior WATSON
Denis Paul Reginald WILD
Vernon Theodore Fowler WINTER
Harry WRIGHT
James Richard WRIGHT

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