Roll of Honour 2023

P AGE 19

W ORLD W AR O NE (1914 - 1918) INCLUDING THOSE WHO DIED LATER AS A RESULT OF THIS WAR

S T . E DWARD ’ S S CHOOL , O XFORD R OLL OF H ONOUR

Name JOHN GARRATT BUSSELL (Capt)

Lef SES 1900

Roll Number 972 Died 28:06:1915

Set / House B

Arrive SES 1898

Where FESTHUBERT, FLANDERS, BELGIUM Serving with 7TH, ROYAL SUSSEX REGIMENT

Age 33

Buried Festhubert Cemetery, Flanders, Belgium Remembered

Brasenose College, Oxford, Memorial, The Tancrez Farm Memorial, France and The St. Edward’s School Chapel (Wooden Plaque) and The Cloisters Stone Memorial

Born in Balderton, Notts 1882, the son of a clergyman. He was a noted member of the St. Edward’s community, both as a pupil and later as a teacher. 16 years old on arrival at the School, he quickly made his mark both scholastically and in sport. He was a School Prefect and a member of the School’s Rugby Football XV 1898-9, he also won the Mile Race in 1900 (though dressed in uniform awaiting his call up to the Boer War)! Volunteered for the Boer War while still a pupil and served as a Private in the Oxfordshire (later Buckinghamshire) Imperial Yeomanry. He was present at the surrender at Prinsloo and the march on Pretoria, as part of Gerald Paget’s bodyguard. He also took part in several other actions and never received a scratch - awarded the Queen’s South African Medal with 4 Clasps. Attended Brasenose College, Oxford - gaining Rugby Football Blues in 1903 and 1904 - BA in 1905. In 1906 he was ordained Deacon, Priest in 1906. In the years up to the war he played for the Harlequins RFC and coached the Oxford Varsity pack of forwards. He married in 1907 and was appointed Vicar of Truro Cathedral, Cornwall. A year later he returned to SES as a teacher, in 1908 appointed Set Tutor (D) and in 1909 the first Commanding Officer of the School’s embryonic OTC. In 1914 he left for a similar post at Marlborough College, then enlisted in the 7th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment at the outbreak of war. He was shot by a sniper near Festhubert in Flanders while ‘sitting in a trench’. ‘The whole School mourned’ (Chronicle)’