Rhubarb 2017

18 ST EDWARD’S r h u b a r b

The Missing Plaques While researching for my Great War book about the School, Members of a Very Noble Friendship , it soon became apparent that the actual figures of OSE war dead were incorrectly remembered in Chapel on the wooden memorial plaques. In fact, seven individuals were omitted at the time although they were as justified as the rest in being included. To make things even more confusing another OSE was mentioned in two School Rolls (but with no plaque) as having been killed in action but had in fact survived and lived until 1942. Another man was always included in the lists of the Great War dead but in fact survived, only to be lost in another war in 1919! The then Warden, The Reverend William Ferguson, and his School Historian Wilfrid Cowell had been the principal collators of the War statistics and had always wanted to include not only those who had died in battle or of their wounds but also those who perished as ‘a result of there being a war’. These included losses due to illness, over-work and accidents entirely due to the war effort. Why these seven were missed is unknown but, despite Cowell’s best efforts, the gathering of information from so

of a mystery as this was John Paul Ridgeway killed in 1915 at Loos, one of two Teddies brothers lost in this war. He had been at St Edward’s for seven years and was remembered in all the Rolls and other memorials and must have had a plaque at some time but, for whatever reason, this had gone missing. Now with the generosity of The School Society, seven new plaques have been mounted in the Chapel, maybe 100 years late but nonetheless totally warranted, and the record is now complete.

many different fronts and with tenuous communication lines may have meant he just wasn’t aware and then elected not to follow up later. Who were these seven ‘forgotten’ heroes? Two were civilians one who died from over-work in Egypt overseeing the building of roads for troop movements in 1916 and another killed in an accident while working with war munitions at Woolwich Arsenal in 1917. The remainder were all lost in action, three on the Somme in 1916, one with the RAF in 1918 - shot down by the German Ace Rudolph Berthold. The last is something

R H U B A R B R H U B A R B

Archivist Chris Nathan (G, 1954-1957)

The new Chapel Plaques

Books

A Restored Earth: Ten Paths to a Hopeful Future Edward Davey (A, 1994-1999) Coming in 2017, A Restored Earth: Ten Paths to a Hopeful Future is an optimistic book about how to address the world’s environmental challenges and make life better and more peaceful for people, nature, and the planet. The world has woken up in recent years to the scale of the environmental predicament it faces. 2015 was a turning point, in which the international community agreed an inspirational new set of ‘sustainable development goals’ and a far-sighted climate change agreement. What is needed now is to move from these commitments to action: A Restored Earth shows how. Whether in addressing climate change, forest loss, soil erosion, fresh water pollution, the biodiversity crisis, ocean acidification, polluted cities, or the world’s waste, the solutions are at hand, and nor do they cost very much. What is needed is for us all to care – and then to make a difference, through personal action and a global response. https://unbound.com/books/a-restored-earth

Painted Illusions Timothy Plant (B, 1957-1961)

The first three editions of Painted Illusions were published in the UK and the USA in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Now, with about 20 years more work and experience behind us, we present a

new edition containing many colour plates of murals painted by us in various parts of the world since the last edition was published. All the black and white illustrations and diagrams have been carefully revised and the text refined.