No . 132 The Trusty Servant
Wavell ’ s words , which neatly followed the notes of Reveille , read as follow :
‘ As Wykehamists they are not dead . They can never die . Their names are enshrined here to inspire future generations of Wykehamists , even as they themselves were inspired by the noblest of all memorials , a memorial not of war but of peace . It is one of beauty and quiet with our Chapel , our other buildings , our meads , our Hills , our stream . Our dead live in rest and honour , as they live in our hearts in sorrow and pride .’
War Cloister , now as it has ever been , provides a route up to books from most of the boarding houses . Few Wykehamists stop to read a name and even fewer would know the inscription unless it were read out to them . A young Nick Carter , like so many of his fellow Wykehamists , would have paid scant attention on his way between Trant ’ s and Flint Court , but like all of them he was unknowingly following a Via Sacra . On 9 th September , General Sir Nick
MJN Cloke Browne ( B ), RG Dakin ( K ) and CDS beside Douglas Gillespie ’ s name
was treated to a guided tour of some of the names past which he had once hurried .
Of the many names in War Cloister , perhaps the one that will receive closest attention as we approach 2024 will be that of Douglas Gillespie ( Coll , 1903-08 ), who was killed in action on 25 th September 1915 .
Gillespie enlisted as soon as war broke out and arrived at the Western Front in February 1915 . He was a prolific and eloquent letter writer and kept in touch with his old teachers at Winchester . A letter to the Headmaster , Rendall , written on 14 June 1915 , outlines the idea of a Via Sacra . Gillespie described in detail his idea that the route should follow the line of ‘ No Man ’ s Land between the lines [ from ] the Vosges to the sea ’. Rendall himself wrote , ‘ Why should not we make our own Via Sacra , with its memorial tablets and silent reminders of the great war , a way along which Commoners would pass ... perhaps six or eight times a day ?’
Rendall realised his adaptation of Gillespie ’ s vision in 1924 . A century later , Gillespie ’ s original vision approaches completion in the form of The Western Front Way . An update on the development of the WFW follows this article .
Before Our Own : Herbert Baker ’ s first War Cloister
James Webster ( Co Ro , 92- ) tells the story :
‘ In memory of Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer , killed in battle , his parents have caused this cloister and fountain to be made .’
Even before the First World War , Herbert Baker was already a renowned architect . He had worked with ( and famously fallen out with ) Edwin Lutyens on the design of New Delhi just before the outbreak of the conflict . Appointed as one of the leading architects for the Imperial War Graves Commission in 1917 , he was responsible for the construction of over 100 cemeteries in France and Belgium , his most famous , and probably most-visited , being the cemetery and memorial to the missing at Tyne Cot , near Ypres . In 1917 , he was appointed as the architect for the war memorial cloister at Winchester , which was built between 1923 and 1924 , and which is often regarded as his finest work . Winchester ’ s War Cloister was not , however , Baker ’ s first war memorial cloister , nor even his first with Wykehamical connexions .
Robert Arthur Stafford Palmer ( C , 1902-7 ) was killed in the disastrous campaign in Mesopotamia in 1916 . He had had a promising school and academic career : Sen Co Prae , Warden and Fellows ’ Prizes for English verse and Greek prose ; a scholarship to University College , Oxford ; and Firsts in both Mods and Greats . After Oxford , he had been
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