Roll of Honour 2023

F OREWORD (10)

Illustrations were attached showing the scope of all these plans and how the appropriate War Memorial Appeal could be entered into. These plans immediately ran into trouble with the refusal of the local planners to grant immediate post-war building licences, which swiftly put paid to the Big School extension. This was not the only frustration, contributions to the War Fund were very slow, much to Kendall’s annoyance, eventually closing at just short of the £25,000 target in 1954 (£742,500 today). Finally, after four planning applications had been turned down, the Ministry of Education agreed to sponsor the erection of a separate War Memorial Library (by Field Dodd & Stevens) in the area behind Big School and to the south of the Chapel. Quite separately an ornate screen designed by Harold Rogers (OSE) had been expertly carved by Jack Keeling (Deputy Headmaster of St. Bede’s School, Eastbourne), amongst others, to divide off the Memorial Chapel from the main Chapel aisle, in memory of Jack Simmonds (OSE) killed in action at Enfidaville, Tunisia and paid for (anonymously) by his Housemaster Arthur Macnamara. By 1949 the slow investment rate plus delays to planning, meant that the Aspinall Wall had been abandoned early on, and now the estimates for a new War Memorial Library had come in much higher than expected, and was in jeopardy as well and a tendering process entered into. A further delay due to ‘acute labour shortage in Oxford’ meant the appeal was put back to ‘1950 and yet again to 1951’. Finally in 1952 the planning permission was received, and to add to this good news the Minister of Education sponsored £16,000 (£536,000 today) towards the building cost in her 1952/3 budget. Work started, including the moving of The Great War Calvary a few yards nearer the Chapel and other minor changes to the back of Big School. The building was opened by Henry Kendall at his last Gaudy in 1954 and was in full use by the next Winter Term. Additionally, a WW2 Memorial Wooden Panel was erected in the Memorial Chapel in 1949 showing most of the names of those lost (but inaccuracies also) and was dedicated by the Bishop of Exeter, Robert Mortimer (OSE) in June 1949. This replaced the earlier board, carved by Jack Keeling during the war, which he kept updated as information came though, until he ran out of space. A small silver crucifix in the same Memorial Chapel was presented by the parents of Paul Cooke, killed in action at Comines, Belgium in May 1940. Just how many sons of OSE killed were educated at reduced prices is difficult to trace, but there were only a handful, especially with most of those on the ROH being sadly too young to have children of their own.