Great Scot December 2017 GreatScot_152_Dec_Online | Page 10

Scotch Commemorates World War I
‘How could I stay?’
This article commemorates the last 30 of the 61 Scotch Collegians who died
as a result of war service in 1917.
SAMUEL (known as Sammy)
ROSENTHAL (1895) was 33 on enlistment,
and by May 1917 was serving in France with the
58th Battalion. He performed well at the battle
of Bullecourt, and was promoted to lieutenant. It
was said that his platoon ‘absolutely loved him’.
He was leading them through shell fire at Polygon
Wood on 25 September 1917 when machine-gun
fire struck him down.
WILFRED NORMAN BEAVER (1897) was
a magistrate in Papua New Guinea when he
enlisted in late 1915. Malaria affected his health on
the Western Front, but he was a lieutenant with
the 60th Battalion in the battle of Polygon Wood.
As Wilfred took his platoon to position on 26
September a sniper shot him in the stomach, and
he died some 10 minutes later. A waterfall in New
Guinea was named after him.
DAVID LANDALE MAUGHAN (1898)
rose from the ranks to become a lieutenant in a
machine-gun company. On one occasion, he
was standing outside in a dangerous location
and refused an offer of taking shelter with his
fellow officers. He said he would stay with his
men. During the attack at Polygon Wood on 26
September 1917, David was shot through the
heart by a sniper. One of his fellow officers was
reportedly killed trying to retrieve David’s body,
which was eventually buried at night and then
reburied in a cemetery, to his aged father’s relief.
A third Old Scotch Collegian to die on 26
September was Private ROBERT SMITH (1905),
a tall farmer and horse breeder from Leongatha.
He had won a book prize at Scotch in 1904.
Robert, who left a wife and three daughters, had
enlisted in November 1916. He was one of nine
men killed by shelling while digging a trench at
Glencorse Wood, near Ypres. He has no known
grave and is commemorated at the Menin Gate,
Ypres.
Private RICHMOND BOYD (known as
Rex) GRAHAM (1912) was killed on the night
of 26 September. Since enlisting at age 21 he
had been hospitalised three times with various
illnesses and injuries, including a scalded foot.
He was killed instantly by shellfire at Polygon
Wood. An eyewitness of his death, who knew him
10
well, remembered Rex as ‘well-educated’, with a
‘College education’.
Fellow Old Scotch Collegian THOMAS
MARCH HALL (1910) was a sergeant in Rex’s
battalion, the 29th, and was killed on the same
day. Thomas was reportedly dux of his class
for each of his four years at Scotch. He had
suffered a serious knee injury after falling off a
duckboard while proceeding through the mud
in January 1917. His recovery took six months
and in late August he returned to his battalion.
Just one month later he was killed. Despite the
best post-war efforts of his brother, Alec (1910),
a Scotch Collegian and veteran, no one knew
where Thomas was shot dead or buried, so he is
commemorated at the Menin Gate.
CHARLES HASELDEN STILL (1909) was
a cousin of the Principal, William Still Littlejohn.
At the outbreak of war, he was a farmer in New
Zealand, and he joined the New Zealand Rifle
Brigade. In June 1917 he was promoted to
sergeant and awarded the Military Medal for ‘acts
of gallantry’. Charles was killed in action at Ypres
on 28 September 1917.
Just two years before the outbreak of war,
FREDERICK RICHARD MCINTOSH (1912)
was representing Scotch at the first team level
in athletics, football and rowing. Before enlisting
in 1915, he had played for Essendon in VFL
football. He reached France in 1917, where he
was hospitalised with furunculosis (masses of
boils). By 15 July he was a full lieutenant. He was
leading men in an attack at Polygon Wood on 26
September when hit by machine-gun fire in the
chest and shoulder. He died in hospital two
days later.
JAMES WHITSON AINSLIE (known as
Jim) AGNEW (1913) and DAVID VALLANCE
KERR ANDERSON (1910) were prize-winning
boys at Scotch. Both were at university when they
enlisted together in 1915. They were assigned
to the 12th Field Ambulance, in which they were
stretcher-bearers. Jim likened stretcher-bearing in
no-man’s-land on the Western Front to ‘working
over the broken surface of an active volcano.’
Dave won a Military Medal there. In 1916 the two
celebrated Foundation Day in France, watched
by mates from other APS schools. Jim and
Dave were felled by the same shell at Ypres on
29 September 1917 as they carried a casualty
together. Jim was killed instantly, while Dave died
of his wounds two days later. Both were just 24
years old.
ANTHONY LESLIE PRYDE (1905), a
former Scotch College Cadet, was a bank clerk
in Sydney before enlisting in November 1916.
By the time he arrived at the 1st Battalion on the
Western Front, on 11 September 1917, he had
less than a month to live. He had been trained to
use mortars, and on 2 October was allotted to a
trench mortar battery. The 28 year old was killed
that day. Anthony left a wife, to whom he had
written earlier in the day, and two sons, who later
attended Scotch.
LAURISTON (known as Laurie)
BROWNELL (1910) left his farm in Tasmania to
enlist in September 1915. By February 1917 he
was a lieutenant with the 27th Battalion in France.
On 3 October, at Ypres, he was mortally wounded
by a shell while sheltering in a shell hole. He was
popular with his men.
GEOFFREY DE TALWORTH BACKHOUSE
(1908) left his farm to enlist in Melbourne in 1916.
He was hospitalised four times before proceeding
overseas and being allotted to the 55th Siege
Battery. He wrote from the front in July 1917 of
being comfortable in his dugout, where he was
conscious of German power but also of how
wonderful Australia was. Geoffrey was killed in
action on 4 October 1917, though no details seem
to exist of how he came to die.
GUY MARTEN BERRY (1911) was the
second of four Old Scotch Collegians to die on 4
October. He was a signaller when he was struck
in the chest and knee by shell fragments that
day. The 22 year old died at a Canadian casualty
clearing station.
FREDERICK BISSET COLLINS (1897) was
a 36-year-old lieutenant when he was killed that
day. Though married with two children, he had
enlisted in August 1915, reportedly spurred on
by news of the death of his cousin at Gallipoli. He
rose from the rank of private to lieutenant in the
21st Battalion, but after some months in England
Great Scot Number 152 – December 2017