In September 1891, the valley played host to two Divisions from Aldershot Camp, probably more than 20,000 men. One Division was encamped on South Farm land, near the source of the River Meon, the other at Soberton. For two weeks, the two Divisions conducted war games. Their choice of the Meon Valley shows how powerful an influence was exercised by the sportsmen who held shooting rights over the land.

The official report carries a handwritten dedication to the Earl of Airlie, of Cortachy Castle, by Evelyn Wood, Lieutenant General of Aldershot Camp and the intended terrain had been north of Whitchurch where the landowner was the Earl of Carnarvon who was willing and whose tenant farmers had given their consent, but “after several visits to the ground and personal interviews with the shooting tenants, I found it impossible to overcome their objections.” The Adjutant goes on to complain that “Manoeuvres are not possible where the sporting rights are leased to persons residing out of the district.”East Meon came to the rescue, with the major landowners, the Bonham Carters, Captain Le Roy Lewis (of Westbury House) and their tenants agreeing “in a cordial spirit”. The only problem was the weather, which delayed that year’s harvest, causing the Manoeuvres to take place ten days later than usual, starting on September 10th.

The Aldershot force was divided into two Divisions (each, typically, 11,000 men or more, comprising cavalry and infantry, artillery and engineering brigades, an ammunition column and field hospital). One was to be based at Soberton, the other would have camped at Buriton but lack of water supply led to it being at Fairfield Farm (South Farm). “The choice of camping ground at East Meon was further restricted to the left bank of the river, the fields on the right bank being under cultivation, with crops in many cases still standing when the Manoeuvres were terminated’.” and sanitation appears to have been poor … “For want of proper instructions beforehand the trenches in the screens were not properly placed and in consequence men urinated against the walls of the screens.”Too much information? The march from Aldershot was an ordeal for the infantry men: “The number of men falling out varied in proportion to the care taken by the officers to ensure proper attention being paid to the fitting of boots and socks and the cleanliness of feet …73 fell out in one battalion, only one in another.”

The weather improved. “On the second day of the Manoeuvres, owing to the heat of the sun, both opposing forces wore helmets, from which some confusion arose. I recommend a proposal made by Lieutenant General His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught, that we should assimilate our practice to that adopted in the German armies, by putting white cap covers on the head-dress of one side.” “Every Staff Officer when coming under fire removed his cocked hat and walked about bare-headed, because opposing troops were invariably directed to fire upon any officer with this too conspicuous head-dress.”The Report contains meticulous descriptions of each exercise; they mainly involved the Soberton Division attempting to march north, with the East Meon Division directed to intercept them. (The two Divisions swapped base camps half-way.) The Umpires were unforgiving … “In one Division, the mistake was made of ordering a (cavalry) squadron leader not to fight on any account and, acting on these orders, he allowed a company belonging to his force to be surrounded without an effort to extricate it. These orders I was obliged to cancel.” “In several instances, (artillery) batteries were pushed forward up lanes before it was ascertained that the exits from such were free from the enemy. The Artillery officers were not generally sufficiently supervised … in many cases received orders such as ‘Take up the best position you can’ or ‘Conform’. On one occasion the Artillery of one Division took up its position within 500 yards of unbroken infantry.” “On 12th September, officer commanding one of the opposing forces placed one battery of his Artillery on low ground, 210 feet under a steep hill, and when the force was driven back no instruction was apparently sent to assist the battery commander in regaining the line of defeat. In consequence he attempted to ascend the hill with a gradient so steep that although three of the guns reached the summit yet the fourth stuck fast and all were so delayed that the enemy’s Infantry arrived within 500 yards before half the hill was surmounted. Thus the battery must have been captured.” “The Cordite blank cartridge being made up of 150 pieces of brown paper makes the ground very untidy …”

As a footnote, the balloon section also had difficulties: “The country was not favourable for the use of balloons, and yet their utility is undoubted when one force stands on the defensive land, the experience gained fully repaid the cost of taking aballoon down with the troops. The force of the wind prevented its ascent on two occasions an on another day the operations were cut short by a dense fog.”

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In August 2014, Meon Matters published several articles commemorating East Meon’s contributions to, and experience in, World War I, which are reproduced here.

Lest We Forget

Every November, we stand as a community remembering those in the village who died for their country. Simon Mortimore has looked beyond the names of the 21 East Meon men of who died in World War I, and found out more about those who walked away to war and did not return.

Their deaths were widespread. Arthur Charles Titheridge, a Royal Marine on HMS Kent, was the first villager to be killed, in the Battle of the Falklands, in December 1914. Two others died at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, William Henry Damen on HMS Onslow, aged 17, and George Titheridge (brother of Arthur Charles?) on HMS Queen Mary. Admiral of the Fleet Lord Beatty recorded of the latter:

‘At 4.26 p.m. there was a violent explosion in Queen Mary; she was enveloped in clouds of gray smoke and disappeared. Eighteen of her officers and men were subsequently picked up by Laurel.’

Soldiers too died far from home, Arthur William Cooper in Greece in December 1915, in the retreat from Serbia, nnd Mark Neil, a gunner, who died of his wounds in Turkey in November 1916; he is commemorated on the memorial in Basra, as is George Wilford Knight, both artillerymen.

Regiments in the Great War recruited locally, and most East Meon men joined The Hampshire Regiment. The 15th Battalion, in particular, recruited local ‘pals’, and five of our dead served in it.

Their deaths track the passage of the War in northern Europe. Clinton Waterman was 18 when he died at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916; William Samuel Pollard, 24, died on 9th August. Walter Cecil Cooper, age unknown, brother of Arthur, and Frederick George Parfoot, 34, also died at the Somme, all members of the Hampshire.

The depressing tally goes on. Henry Pollard died in the Arras offensive in April 1917; Alfred Luff (a gamekeeper who lived at Nuneaton Cottage) was discharged and died later of his wounds; George Trent died in Belgium in April 1918.

Perhaps the saddest deaths occurred in the last six weeks of the war. The Allies were sweeping up through Belgium, near Ypres, when they hit fierce resistance from German machine gun nests. On one day, September 4th, three men of East Meon, all serving in the 15th Battalion, were killed in a bungled attack. The C/O’s War Diary describes how orders arrived too late for proper assembly of the troops and the barrage missed the target area.

The Battn, in spite of being much disorganised by very heavy casualties by M.G. fire & enemy snipers, succeeded in reaching the line of the light railway, but were unable to hold it owing to the accuracy and strength of the enemy’s M.G. fire and shortage of men. Casualties on this day were very heavy and included the C.O. and the acting adjutant.

A third of the 15th Battalion, 323 men, suffered casualties that day, including Norton Broadway, a farmer’s son, aged 23 years, George Silvester, again a farmers son, 19, and Charles Collyer, 18.

The last 15th Battalion man to die in action was Frederick William Gisborne died on the 21st of October 1918. He and 29 others died attacking another German machine gun nest. After that assault, the Battalion was relieved by US troops … and suffered no further casualties.

At Sea

The first East Meon casualty was Arthur Charles Titheridge, who died on the 8th December, 1914. A Royal Marine on HMS Kent, he was killed in the Battle of the Falklands. This was an engagement between the German East Asiatic Squadron, led by Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee, which had recently had success at the Battle Of Coronel off the southern coast of Chile. It was steaming towards Port Stanley to raid the radio and coaling station there.

A superior British squadron was already coaling at the station, under the leadership of Admiral Sturdee.

The Germans were defeated, putting an end to their presence on the high seas for the rest of the War.

On the 31st May 1916 the most significant naval battle of the war took place, the Battle of Jutland, this would see two men from our community give their lives.

William Henry Damenwas a 17 year old stoker on HMS Onslow which played a brave part on the battle, engaging with the enemy but suffering significant damage. She was taken under tow by HMS Defender despite being heavily shelled.

Admiral of the Fleet Sir David Beatty led the battle cruiser fleet and wrote: “I consider the performances of these two destroyers to be gallant in the extreme, and I am recommending Lieutenant-Commander J. C. Tovey of Onslow, and Lieutenant Commander Palmer of Defender, for special recognition.”

The second casualty of the battle was George Titheridge;a cook’s mate on HMS Queen Mary, he was aged around 24

Again from the record of Beatty:

“At 4.26 p.m. there was a violent explosion in Queen Mary; she was enveloped in clouds of gray smoke and disappeared. Eighteen of her officers and men were subsequently picked up by Laurel.”

The Somme

Between the 1st and 13th July 1916 British Forces lost some 85,000 men in this controversial period when British tactics were heavily criticised as lacking strategic co-ordination. The 19th July saw Clinton Watermandie of his wounds; he was listed in the census as being at school in Rogate, aged 13, so he would have been 18 years old when he died, serving in the 1st Hampshire regiment.

A few weeks later, on the 9th August, William Samuel Pollard.a 24 year old member of the Rifle Brigade Prince Consorts Own 1st Battalion. died of his wounds at the Somme.

On the 3rd September, Walter Cecil Cooper, the brother of Arthur, was killed whilst serving in the Hamsphire Regiment 14 service battalion He was listed as a farm labourer in the 1911 census, working in East Meon.

Another farm labourer would be the next person to make the ultimate sacrifice, Frederick George Parfoot.who died of his wounds on the 30th October 1916, serving in the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire regiment, once again during the Battle of the Somme. He was 34 years old when he died.

On this day, three young men from East Meon died in the same battle, and are buried alongside each other at Voormezeele Enclosure No.3, Ieper, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. This is David Hopkins’ report on the battle in which they lost their lives.

The first was George Sylvester, Lance Corporal 204876, aged 21, who lived at Peake Farm. He had been born at Hoe Farm Bishop’s Waltham., a farmer’s son working on a farm

The second was Norton Broadway, Private 205501, aged 23 who lived at Lythe Farm. He was born at Exton, another farmer’s son working on a farm.

Charles Collyer was the third, Private 45594, aged 19, the son of John and Esther Collyer of 70 Old Idsworth, Horndean, Hampshire. He was born at Primrose Cottage, Liss,, The 1911 census shows him as a ‘scholar’ (i.e., at school) and living at Hambledon Farm, Rogate.

They died alongside each other on 04/09/1918 at Vierstraat, in Belgium, in a sadly bungled action. At this point, the Allies, now bolstered by the arrival of American units, were pushing back through the old battlefields of northern France and south Belgium. Vierstraat is near Ypres, which had seen horrific losses earlier in the War.

During 1917 the British Army on the western front learned many lessons from the disastrous losses earlier in the Great War. They refined their tactics and training, no longer relying on sheer numbers in attack, and on “the British fighting spirit” which had resulted in such severe losses at the Somme. Instead, they adopted the German approach of “defence in depth” whilst in attack playing to Britain’s growing superiority in air reconnaissance and greater production of artillery and shells. The standard British mode of attack became meticulous reconnaissance, elimination of German Artillery by counter-battery fire, suppression of strong points, advance immediately behind a rolling artillery barrage, which suppressed enemy machine gun fire, and rigorous “cleaning-up” of captured positions.

Unfortunately, all these tenets were neglected, largely beyond their control, in the action of the 15^th Hampshires from the night of 2^nd September until the unit was withdrawn from the front line on the night of 5^th September.

The action centred on Vierstraat, to the South West of Ypres, flanking Mount Kemmel. Ypres was a vital Allied salient to the northern end of the Western Front, which had seen see-saw battles throughout the war. 1918 was to see the 4^th and 5^th Battles of Ypres (the latter also known as the “Advance into Flanders” and “The Battle of the Lys”). Ypres was a saucer-shaped depression, the town at its centre surrounded by low hills. The Allied salient was occupied by a joint army, nominally under the command of King Albert of the Belgians, which comprised British, French, Belgium, and American troops.

In spring 1918 the Germans launched a massive offensive across the whole Front, calculated to end the war with the newly released troops from the Eastern Front (Russia having withdrawn from the War) and before the fighting potential of the Americans was available.

At Ypres the Germans over-ran Mount Kemmel and most of the Allied positions gained in the 3^rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele, etc.), giving them strategic dominance over the salient. However, the Allies’ defence in depth, together with a massive reinforcement programme, brought the German advance to a halt with heavy losses.

In August the Germans were forced to “straighten and shorten their lines” due to lack of resources. In Britain, huge drafts of new recruits were moved to the Front. The minimum age for front line duty was lowered and inhibitions on recruitment of those employed in agriculture relaxed. Hence, probably, the recruitment of George Sylvester (a farmer’s son from Peake Farm), Norton Broadway (farmer’s son from Lythe Farm) and Charles Collyer (agricultural labourer living in East Meon), who all joined up at Petersfield, where the 15^th Battalion, The Hampshires (also known as the “Portsmouth Pals 2^nd Battalion) was training.

At the end of August 1918 it was reported that the Germans were abandoning their positions on Mount Kemmel and the British 2^nd Army was ordered rapidly to press this withdrawal and to exploit it to the full. Caution seems to have been thrown to the winds. On the 1^st -2^nd September the American 105^th and 106^th Regiments fought the Battle of Vierstraat Ridge. Their battle map (above) defines the area and features of the Hampshire’s following disastrous action. The Americans were charged with hingeing from a North to South position to a West to East frontage and taking the eastern end of the Kemmel heights. The map significantly shows the “reported” final position of their advance. Sadly (and as the map hints) this was inaccurate. The commanding and relatively safe position had not been achieved, the Germans were not in full flight but dug in on higher ground in wooded cover with strong machine gun resources and able to deploy both frontal and flanking fire.

The British Command, with a degree of over-confidence, put aside most of its hard-learned tactical approach. The field was not reconnoitred, the battle was launched with inadequate preparation with misconceived awareness of positions resulting in the detailed orders needing to be abandoned at the start, and to cap it all… a failure for any artillery support to materialise. To quote the Battalion War Diary of the day (see Appendix 2) “An attempt to comply with battalion Operational Order D.F.1 was unsuccessful owing to the fact that the posts therein stated as occupied by the Americans were in possession of the enemy….. Orders were given at very short notice and Company commanders were unable to arrange all they wished….” And in a masterpiece of understatement: “Artillery arrangements were not quite satisfactory as the barrage came down to the east of the railway … leaving a number of enemy M.G. posts… unmolested to fire on our advancing troops”.

The advance from the Vierstraat-Kemmel Road start-line towards the hills began at 4.00am. The advancing Battalion was decimated by the heavy unsuppressed machine gun fire from multiple directions, snipers, and gas shelling. It eventually reached the light railway at the foot of the hills … but was unable to hold it due to the accuracy and strength of the enemy M.G. fire and shortage of men”.

Finally …”About dusk 2^nd Lieutenant J J Potter, M.C., collected and reorganised all the men that remained of the Battalion and formed a line…” (all senior officers being dead or wounded by then). The Battalion sustained 323 casualties from sniper fire, machine gun, and gas – more than half its fighting strength.

George Sylvester, Norton Broadway and Charles Collyer were all killed, probably together as they are buried in adjoining graves at Voormezeele Enclosure No.3, Ypres, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium next to each other On the night of 5/6^th September the Battalion was withdrawn from the line to Lappe for “…rest and cleaning up…”, followed a few days later by “…specialist training and reorganisation” and including what must have been a very poignant church parade at the YMCA Hut in Remy.

EMHG member David Hopkins gave a talk on December 16^th, reporting notable events in World War I. This is his account of the first of two winners of the Victoria Cross who lived in Langrish.

Eric ‘Kipper’ Gascoigne Robinson was born at Greenwich, London on the 16th May 1882, the third child of the Reverend John Lovell Robinson, and Louisa Aveline Robinson. His father was born in Ireland in 1849, entered the Royal Navy in 1871 and served as a Naval Chaplain.

His nickname was possibly given in recognition of the fact that he was a heavy smoker.

In 1897, aged 15, Robinson joined HMS Britannia, the Navy’s officer training ship, an old wooden-walled vessel which had been laid down in 1860 as the 131-gun Prince of Wales.

He was first appointed midshipman in 1898 to HMS Majestic, which had been launched in 1895 as a first-class battleship. In June 1899 Midshipman Robinson was posted to the cruiser HMS Endymion, and sailed to China. He arrived just in time for the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion and was involved in the relief of the Siege of Peking.

Following his exploits in China Kipper was promoted to Sub-lieutenant in 1901 and Lieutenant in 1903. In 1905 he joined the torpedo training school HMS Vernon where he was trained in the use of torpedoes, mines and explosives.

In January 1915 he was on board HMS Vengeance (right) when she sailed to the Dardanelles, as part of the attempted invasion which Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, believed would shorten the war.  On February 26^th, as a result of his reputation for a cool head, he was given command of a shore station to eliminate some Turkish shore batteries.

The force landed unopposed on the Asiatic shore but as it moved towards the Turkish guns, came under heavy rifle fire. The British sailors were wearing white uniforms, standard issue for tropical Mediterranean postings, which made them extremely easy for Turkish marksmen to spot. The ships fired at the local village demolishing windmills, but firing continued from front and flanks.

Kipper led a small task force of sailors and marines towards Achilles Mound, reputed to be the burial site of the Greek hero of the Trojan Wars. There were two Turkish guns in the hollow at the top of the hill, though it was not clear if soldiers were defending the post.

Seemingly oblivious of the heavy fire and weighed down by the explosives and fuses he was carrying, Lieutenant Robinson walked up to the Turkish guns, and placed the explosives and set the fuses.

He then led his men back down Achilles Mound, to the next battery and into the gun position. In full view of the battleships, Robinson’s slow, deliberate pace gave the appearance of sauntering unperturbed from task to task, despite great danger; his reputation for coolness was further enhanced. As they returned to their boats, they were subjected to heavy Turkish fire, partly relieved by accurate fire from HMS Dublin. Only one marine was killed and three of the party were wounded.

Robinson saw further action in destroying a stranded and top secret British submarine, E15, in April 1915. Others engaged in the same expedition were awarded medals for gallantry but he was not – probably because his commendation for a Victoria Cross at Cumcale was still under consideration. However, he was promoted to full Lieutenant.

After the Great War, he commanded a flotilla of motor torpedo boats in the Caspian Sea during the Russian Civil War. During World War II, he came out of retirement, seeing service on the Atlantic convoys and as officer commanding the naval base in Dundee.

After World War II, Rear Admiral Robinson retired to live in the White House, Langrish. He died on 2^nd August, 1965 and was buried at St John the Evangelist’s church, one of two men in the parish who were awarded the Victoria Cross.

This is David Hopkins’ report on Langrish’s second VC, Sergeant Ernest George Horlock, who won his medal in the Battle of the Marne in August 1914, but died at sea in 1917.

Ernest George Horlock was awarded the Victoria Cross on 25th November 1914. The citation in the London Gazette reads: “For conspicuous gallantry on September 15th, 1914, near Vendresse, when his battery was in action under heavy shell fire, in that, although twice wounded, he persisted on each occasion in returning to lay his gun after his wound had been dressed.”

Horlock was born on 24 October 1885 at Beech Farm, Alton. He and his parents, John and Emily Horlock, moved to Langrish around 1911 his farther being a carter and mother a laundress on the Talbot-Ponsonby estate. They lived on the estate at Laundry Cottage

In February In 1903, at the age of 18, Horlock joined the regular army. He trained at Woolwich and Larkhill and by the outbreak of World War I had achieved the rank of Bombardier.

He was posted to the 113th Battery Royal Field Artillery and in late August 1914, equipped with 18 pounder artillery pieces, embarked for France. On 15th September 1914, at Vendresse in France, engaged in the Battle of the Marne, the 113th came under heavy shell fire whilst trying to retreat to Mons. He was posted to the 113th Battery Royal Field Artillery and in late August 1914, engaged in the Battle of the Marne, the 113^th came under heavy shell fire at Vendresse,   whilst trying to retreat to Mons.

Family memories recount that Horlock was called the soldier who ‘defied the doc’. Twice, Horlock was ordered to the army hospital by doctors for treatment, but he chose to ignore these orders and returned to his gun. He remained with his gun until it was finally blown up, and he was carried away from the scene. Ten of his comrades had been killed in the action. On the third occasion that Ernest George Horlock was injured, it is reported that he again refused to see a doctor because he was ‘scared of getting a rocket’ for having disobeyed doctors’ orders and continued to fight. Sometime later, by December, he had been promoted to Sergeant.

When King George V visited the Front on 3rd December, 1914 he decorated Horlock with the Victoria Cross, a purse of gold and a gold signet ring with his name, number and battery inscribed on it.

His heroism was subsequently so celebrated that he even appeared on contemporary playing and cigarette cards.

His bravery and Victoria Cross did not go unnoticed in the locality. Horlock was taken on a parade in a landau through the streets of Petersfield, pulled by members of the local fire brigade,. Many local dignitaries turned out for this occasion, which culminated in many speeches, which included the Vicar of Langrish and Lord Peel of East Meon. He was also awarded a gold ring (right) by Lord Peel which he subsequently used as his wedding ring.

In November 1916 Horlock was promoted to Battery Sergeant Major. He was subsequently posted to Egypt. Sadly on 30th December 1917, just two months after his marriage to Ethel Halsted he was torpedoed whilst on the troop ship SS Aragon voyaging from Marseille to Alexandria. He survived the sinking, but when he and other soldiers had been rescued by the escorting destroyer HMS Attack, she too was torpedoed, Horlock was one of the 600 who did not survive.

Ernest George Horlock is buried at Hadra War Memorial Cemetery, Alexandria and his name appears on the war memorials in the Royal Artillery Chapel, Woolwich and in St. John’s church in Langrish. On 16th November, 2014 an inscribed paving slab was added to these memorials, and blessed, identical to another recently laid at the War Memorial at Alton, the town of his birth.

It was dedicated by the Reverend Jane Ball, Vicar of East Meon and the service was attended by members of Ernest Horlock’s family, some of the Horlock Troop of the Royal Artillery (recently returned from Afghanistan and based at Larkhill), and parishioners. His achievements were celebrated at a reception given by Nigel Talbot -Ponsonby in his ancestral home at Langrish House, where Horlock and his family were originally employed and lived on the estate of Nigel’s forbears. The memorial has now been erected for posterity in a gable end of “Hanger View” (the home of Mr John Harris) the southern portion of Laundry Cottage where Horlock and his family lived.

David Hopkins gave this account of the battle in which Edward Bone won his DCM to the History Group on December 16th 2014.

Edward Bone won the Distnguished Conduct Medal on this day, in Geluwe, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. He was promoted to Lance Corporal and survived the remaining six weeks until the Armistice. The son of Benjamin Bone and Sarah Knight, he was born on 01 Mar 1891 in East Worldham, Hampshire. He met Alice May Richards in East Liss and married her. They moved to East Meon after the war.

Edward Bone served in the 2nd Battalion of the Hampshires^. Just six weeks before Armistice, he and his platoon commander played a vital part in unblocking fierce German resistance to the Allied advance.

From their start lines at Ypres. the Allies had rapidly advanced south-east along the Menin Road. The 2^nd Battalion had leapfrogged engaged units, diverting to the west of Gheluwe and was held up there by heavy fire from entrenched positions. Two platoons infiltrated the town by following a small stream to the northwest of the town, and emerged in the cemetery on the other side, to be pinned down by German machine guns. Heroically, Bone and his platoon commander stormed the machine guns and captured them, taking 27 prisoners. When a strong German counter attack developed from the east of the cemetery, they repelled it with covering fire whilst their platoon withdrew, with wounded and prisoners, to the south, through the streets of Gheluwe, to re-join their battalion.

A week later, in France, the commanding officer of 2^nd Battalion Hampshire Regt, Col H.P.Westmorland, , wrote his account of their action in his War Diary, replicated in Appendix 3: “Two platoons of X company, under the personal command of Lieutenant G.H.Brown, worked down the banks of the Reutelbeek and succeeded in reaching the Cemetery on the east side of the village. Here they were held up after sustaining heavy casualties until two machine guns that were holding them up on the right, were rushed, with great gallantry, by two men of the leading platoon, resulting in the surrender of 27 of the enemy. The locks of the machine guns were removed and the two men withdrew with their prisoners.”

Both the men were promoted, Lieutenant Brown to Acting Captain, Private Bone to Lance Corporal, and both awarded medals, Brown the Military Cross and Bone the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

Edward Bone came to live in the parish of East Meon after the war, to work at Leydene House. With his wife Alice, he lived first in Coombe Bottom and then at Hambledon Lodge at Leydene.

Click here for Family records of Edward Bone

The Rev. Masters was 49 when he volunteered for active service. Subsequent medical examinations established that he had previously suffered from chest congestion, but this doesn’t seem to have prevented him being accepted. He served first as a Red Cross ambulance driver and then, from 1915, as Chaplain to the 4th Army; he served in France, including the Somme, and was twice mentioned in despatches. In October 1918, a medical board sent him home on three weeks’ rest leave,, suffering from debilitation – ‘rest, tonic, change’. He still managed to return to the front, just in time to witness the end of the war.
Even without his distinguished military record, Masters would have been a notable vicar. Educated in Manchester, Inverness, Hanover and Cambridge, he was inducted as vicar here in 1902. (He also offered services as a ‘University tutor’.) He was an accomplished piano player, and during his curacy in Staffordshire he had met and befriended the composer William Havergal Brian, a working class self-taught composer, celebrated after his death.

Masters knew one of the most distinguished architects of the time, Ninian (later Sir Ninian) Comper, and embarked with him on extensive refurbishment of All Saints Church. It was Comper who designed much of the beautiful woodwork – the lectern, with its carved angels, the riddel posts and frontals of the sanctuary altar, together with the statues of the four apostles, the reredos and other screens in the Lady Chapel, the vestry door and the roof of the lych gate. After the War, Comper was invited by Masters to design the magnificent East Window, which John Mackinlay described in a previous edition of Meon Matters, an outstanding and unique War Memorial, which must have had special meaning for our vicar.

Masters went on to become Vicar of St Peter’s in Petersfield, then Rural Dean at Portsmouth, then Provost at the Cathedral and an honorary Chaplain to the King, being honoured with a CBE. He died in September 1939 and is buried in our churchyard, next to Frank Partridge, the second bishop of Portsmouth.

Betty and Stewart Bussell researched the story of Rev Thomas Heywood Masters, as part of their investigations into the histories of East Meon’s vicars. Despite their best efforts, there is no photo or portrait which definitely depicts Rev Masters. However, the photograph of the dedication of the War Memorial in 1923 shows a clergyman standing by the plinth which may be he …