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The Old Ratclifan 2014 | Introductionhe Old Ratclifan 2014 | Ratclife & Te First World War The Old Ratclifan 2014 | R T The Old Ratclifan 2014 | Introductionatclife & Te First World War considerable recognition. War, he volunteered (underage) and joined the City Imperial Yeomanry His wife and their three children (the other two were Elizabeth, aged ten, (1901 – 1902), raised to provide and Henry, aged eight, who were born mounted infantry for the campaign. in Allagheny, Pennsylvania) returned In due course he moved to the 3rd to America and lived at 182 Park Essex and was commissioned in the Street, Canandaigua, New York State. Welsh Regiment in August 1909. If you were to Google this address, He was then seconded to the East it is possible to see the house today, African Police for three years, until Tending the wounded on the inside and out. There is considerable 1912, serving in the British territories battlefeld of the Aisne correspondence in the National of Kenya and Uganda, but mainly in Archives relating to Sang’s pension Kisumu, on the shore of Lake Victoria. done under heavy rifle and shell fire, and the allowance payable in respect He returned and served with the 3rd this position being maintained all of his children. His widow received Battalion, which was home based; day. Many Germans being killed by back pay of £54.15.0d and a gratuity he had put in his resignation a few our rifle and MG fire and our guns, of £100, the children £33.6.8d each; weeks before war broke out, but the Regt losing Maj J H KERRICH, she received a pension of £80 a year immediately withdrew it with the Lt [sic – his promotion had yet to be and an allowance of £15 a year for announcement of hostilities and went confirmed] G R FITZPATRICK and each child until they reached their off to war in August 1914. He was 19 men killed, Capt M HAGGARD, Frederick Jacques Sang, sixteenth birthday. assigned to the 2nd Battalion, as part Lt Hon W F SOMERSET and 2 Lt F ‘A Hampstead Scene’ French, he was almost as competent Rouen, where he died on October 2nd of 3 Brigade, 1st Division, which was W FORD and some 87 rank and file in German. With these attributes, at 3.05am, according to his French Only a few days present from the Battle of Mons, but wounded. In the evening the regt Alfred was born in Paris at 62, Rue he was a natural candidate for death certificate. after Alfred Sang the Aisne was the battalion’s first big were ordered to advance along the Camartin, where his father, who commissioning in the Intelligence On the 25th, an RC Padre, Fr Bradley, was mortally action. On September 1st he was high ground towards COURTECON lived until 1931, was learning at the Corps – established at the outbreak wrote to Fr Cremonini: Your former wounded, Captain taking 140 prisoners and one Maxim easel of some of the great artists of of the war for the first time, with an pupil, Alfred Sang, is seriously Gabriel Roy from the enemy, the Regt remained the period. He went on to become initial fifty five members – despite the wounded by shrapnel both in head Fitzpatrick, 3rd in this position for the night just to a moderately successful, though not fact that he had no military training. and body. He is improving, but will (attached to 2nd) the NW of CHIVY having been unable exclusively, marine artist. When Alfred His military career was to be short; have a very hard fight for his life. Welsh Regiment to advance further as the 5th INF left Ratcliffe, where he was awarded he died of wounds as a result of being He desires me to write to you and (pictured, right), BDE retired in the night. a First Class in the examinations of hit by shrapnel whilst attached to 19 to convey his kindest regards to all was killed the College of Preceptors (this was Brigade. The photograph (above) of his old masters. But, on October in action on You will notice that, amongst those an age long before A Levels or even him receiving the fatal wound (he is 4th, writing from No 8 General September 14th killed on the day was Captain Mark Leaving Certificates), he took his the one with his hands clapped to Hospital, the padre wrote again with at the Battle British howitzers on the Aisne Haggard, nephew of the author Rider degree at the Conservatoire National his head) at the Marne is amongst the news that Lieutenant Sang was of the Aisne. Haggard, of the same battalion; des Arts et Métiers in Paris, which the most unusual I have seen of the buried yesterday. The bit of shell that The Aisne immediately followed the promoted to captain. He was killed in Lance Corporal Fuller won the VC for specifically taught Science degrees. A war; I can think of no other image shattered his skull was removed and Marne, as the French and British the desperate fighting on the heights bringing this officer, then still alive, clever mathematician and mechanical where it has been possible to identify the broken portion of the bones. I did armies followed up the retreating above the Aisne, an area to become back to the British lines. Fitzpatrick’s engineer, he invented a calculating everything for him [this presumably Germans. It was during this battle more famous during the war, in 1917, platoon were able to get onto the machine in 1900. He married an means confession, communion and that trench warfare is considered as the Chemin des Dames. ridge above the Aisne but were American lady, Sara Spang, in Paris, anointing] before he was operated to have its beginnings in the Great unable to hold position and had to where his first child, Frederick, was on. He was buried with all military War, as the Germans selected and The War Diary entry for September withdraw a short distance. He was born in 1899. honours; French generals with a held strong defensive positions 14th gives the bare outlines of killed by a German shell just as their bombardment was coming to an end. He moved to the United States about regiment accompanied him to the and the allies found themselves what happened in the course of a He was buried the following day: I counterattack. incapable of progressing through this time, to Pittsburgh, where he grave and the French people were in them. From here the fighting became regret to say that nothing was found specialised in the corrosion of metals. large numbers. a war of movement and encounter on your husband except the crucifix He has the rare distinction of having engagements, as both sides tried which he wore around his neck and a book still in print over a hundred to out-manoeuvre the other and get which was left on him when he was years after it was first published, The around their northern flank, where the buried. The ground was very exposed Corrosion of Iron and Steel (1910) line had not become established. This to shell and rifle fire, but some days – and there is even a Kindle edition eventually came to an end a couple later, at night, I was able to get there available. He was involved in several of months later at the First Battle of and we put up a small wooden cross metallurgical engineering companies The Battle of the Marne. Note 19 Ypres, fought from mid-October and and piled up stones on the grave, – one in Paris, where he returned in Brigade on the left of the British line. for most of November in 1914. which I hope will remain on the spot 1909, and another in London (he until it can be done more properly was co-owner). He was elected to the a person as they are being wounded. Roy Fitzpatrick (OR 1895 – 1899, The much-damaged village of Beaulne and permanently. [There follows Royal Society of Arts in 1911. Even in this case, it is not certain to He is buried in Bois Guillaume b. 1884), as perhaps unsurprisingly in April 1917. detailed directions] … At Longueval be him, but is thought that it is highly he was usually known, had a lengthy As a young man, he had been likely. He was taken to a dressing Communal Cemetery, I.C.1 (pictured military career. He was born in 14th Sep 1914. Marched through [about three miles to the south of an ardent cyclist and had a great station at Chateau Perreuse and then above). He was thirty-eight years old. Chelsea; his father had himself been VENDRESSE at 8:00am, a general where he was killed, south of the knowledge of the roads of northern evacuated to a base hospital in a He was only the twelfth British soldier a boy at Ratcliffe from 1867 to 1868, action going on from N to E. The Aisne] on the evening of the 12th he France. In addition, not only was he large private house in the village of to be buried in this cemetery and with Roy being the middle boy. With Battalion were ordered to seize high went to see the Curé, who was still completely bilingual in English and Bois Guillaume, on the outskirts of the first officer, which might explain the outbreak of the Second Boer ground to N of BEAULNE which was there, and on the following morning, why the French army gave him such Sunday the 13th, the day before he 64 Register online at www.ratclifanassociation.co.uknline at www.ratclifanassociation.co.uk 65 65 Register o 64