Roll of Honour 2023

F OREWORD (1)

F OREWORD

“As we stood while the Warden read the names of those OSE who had fallen in the war; pride and sorrow were mingled in our hearts, in that great paradox of the Christian religion ‘The Glory of the Cross’.” The first Commem Service after World War II Chronicle, December 1945

O VERVIEW As things stands today, the School’s Roll of Honour stretches one year short of a century starting with William Herbert Clarke (Roll 525, SES 1882-6), dying in action or due to fever, during the Second Matabele War in May 1895 at Insigna, Matabeleland (Southwestern Zimbabwe today), while a ‘Commissioner or Native Commander’ with The Gwelo Volunteers Field Force under Lord Salisbury. The last OSE on this hallowed list is John Robert Deverell (Roll 4476, SES 1949-55), who was working for the Security Services, a passenger in the helicopter that crashed on the Mull of Kintyre on 2 nd June 1994 in thick fog. All 25 passengers and 4 crew were killed. While shrouded in secrecy, Deverell and most of the other passengers were listed as ‘intelligence experts’ from MI5, The Royal Ulster Constabulary and British Army on their way to attend a conference at Fort George, near Inverness, Scotland. This was at the height of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ and the crash was a huge blow to the John Major government. As such, this has to be considered an OSE dying during a time of an ‘internal war’ and therefore entirely worthy of being included on the School’s ROH. Including these two deaths, a total of 287 OSE and 4 teachers from the School, have been lost in times of war or because of war.