Gladwyn Maurice Revell Turbutt, BA, JP

• Matriculated: 1901

• Born: 17 May 1883

• Died: 21 October 1914

• Regiment: Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

• Grave/Memorial: Poelcapelle British Cemetery: no known grave (name on Special Memorial)

Preamble

A much longer and more detailed version of the life of G.M.R. Turbutt was privately printed by his nephew, Gladwyn Richard William Turbutt, DL, MA (Oxon.), Hon. D. Litt. (Derby), High Sheriff of Derbyshire 1998–1999. See: Richard Sheppard, David Roberts and Robin Darwall-Smith, Gladwyn Maurice Revell Turbutt, 1883–1914 (Higham, Alfreton, Derbyshire: The Higham Press Ltd, 2017), pp. ix + 181. The authors of the book version and this abbreviated version, in which most minor errors have been corrected, would like to acknowledge Mr Turbutt’s generosity and thank him most sincerely for his help and encouragement.

Family Background

b. 17 May 1883 at Ogston Hall, Brackenfield, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, as the elder son of William Gladwin Turbutt, JP (1853–1932), and Edith Sophia Turbutt (née Hall) (1851–1932) (m. 1879). A fine sketch of the Hall by Turbutt’s mother is to be found in the Derbyshire Record Office (D37 MP/75). Not counting workers who lived in associated cottages, the family had 13 servants (including two governesses) living in the Hall at the time of the 1861 Census, 7 at the time of the 1871 Census, 13 at the time of the 1881 Census, 12 (including a governess) at the time of the 1891 Census, 7 at the time of the 1901 Census and 6 (including a governess) at the time of the 1911 Census.

 

Parents and antecedents

The Turbutts were a well-to-do, politically conservative, Derbyshire family whose name can be traced back to the early seventeenth century. Although the family was high church, it was not so to an extreme, and Turbutt, who found no difficulty in attending Compline and Benediction during his pre-war stays in France, found St Barnabas’ Church, Oxford, with its “processions and incense and such like” “too high” ([IV] Diary 4 June 1905).

A house had stood on the site of Ogston Hall since the Middle Ages, but after the Turbutts acquired the estate from the Revells in 1724, a new Hall was built (1767–68). This was subsequently enlarged (1850–52 and 1864) and Turbutt, who trained as an architect from 1906 to c.1909 (see below), modified the building still further between 1903 and 1913 by adding battlements and a twin-pillared balustrade in the garden. The Hall also contained a fine library (see below). A major portion of the estate, some 515 acres, was broken up into 56 lots and sold on 19 March 1952.

As a committed churchman, William Gladwin had a benevolent attitude towards his tenants and employees that was prefigured, when a senior boy at Harrow, by his ability to recognize every boy in the school. He inherited the Ogston estate in 1872, when it comprised 2,928 acres and produced an annual income of £4,656 (c.£186,000 in 2005). Although English agriculture was about to experience a slump that would last until the end of the nineteenth century, William Gladwin managed Ogston with care. Indeed, before the heavy taxation imposed on such estates by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberal government (supported by 29 Labour MPs) took effect after December 1909 so that they could finance old age pensions, unemployment insurance and increased defence expenditure (see below), he had effected many improvements there.

Nevertheless, William Gladwin was an active Conservative. In 1881 he contested the old East Derbyshire Parliamentary Division (created for the 1868 election and abolished in 1885 under the Redistribution of Seats Act in order to create seven new constituencies), but was defeated by the Liberal Unionist candidate Alfred Barnes, JP (1823–1901). And when the new constituency of Chesterfield was created in 1885, Barnes became its MP, too. For many years William Gladwin was President of the Mid-Derbyshire Unionist Association, and when the Clay Cross Parliamentary Division was created in 1918 (Liberal 1918–22; solidly Labour 1922–50), he held official positions in it and was very active on its behalf. He was for many years a member of Derbyshire County Council, but after being defeated in 1907 he did not seek re-election. He was also a member of Chesterfield Rural Council and Chesterfield Board of Guardians, a Governor of Derby Training College and a Governor of Derby Grammar School until it was placed under the jurisdiction of Derby Borough Education Authority. From 1889 to 1890 he served as High Sheriff of Derbyshire.

William’s son Gladwyn derived his artistic predisposition and abilities from his mother, the third daughter of Thomas Dickinson Hall, JP, DL (1808–79), of Whatton Manor, Nottinghamshire, who was a landowner and member of the gentry. But despite his cultivation and artistic gifts, G.M.R. Turbutt, as will emerge from the narrative that follows, accepted unquestioningly the validity of several middle-class prejudices – notably about Jews, politically active feminists who were campaigning for the vote, and the politically active industrial working class and its representatives.

Siblings and their families

Brother of:

(1) Rachel Gladwyn (1881–1972);

(2) Richard Babington (1887–1964); married (1923) Christine Margaret Dunn (1899–1976); three children.

After attending Harrow School and taking a 4th class degree in Science at Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1909; MA 1918), Richard Babington took the Army Examination as a University Candidate, passed, and was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant (London Gazette, no. 28,172, 22 August 1908, p. 6,305) to the Royal Field Artillery (the 147th Battery, which was equipped with howitzers), and stationed at Woolwich until the end of October 1911 (LG, no. 28,336, 4 February 1910, p. 866). In September 1911, when the Second Morocco Crisis (April–November 1911) nearly brought about a European war, his unit was ordered to have its guns fitted with shields and he was transferred into the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA). Turbutt wrote in his diary:

The national railway strike was on at the same time and the Government was compelled to use every power at their disposal to quell it promptly for fear of declaration of war. The dockers’ strike was also in full swing. My brother was in part of a force guarding New Cross, & they were encamped in Hyde Park. ([VIII] Anecdota Ogstoniana 1908–14).

On 1 November 1911 Richard’s new unit was ordered to Clonmel, in County Tipperary, and, while training in July 1912 on the Practice Artillery Range at the Glen of Imaal in the Western Wicklow Mountains, Richard had a lucky escape when a shell from his howitzer burst prematurely at the muzzle of the gun, which it damaged badly but without harming any of its crew.

On 31 December 1913 Richard sailed from Southampton with a draft of troops for a spell of garrison duty in Jamaica where, on the outbreak of war, he “worked the wireless station he had set up at Port Royal, Kingston Harbour, for the Admiralty” ([VIII] Anecdota Ogstoniana 1908–14). He was retained there in this capacity until the Admiralty had completed a big new wireless station in the centre of the island at Christiana, then drafted home in early April 1915 and sent to train at Sheerness and Lydd. In September 1915 he landed in France with the 58th Siege Battery as Signals Officer to Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Douglas Hamilton (1867–1936), and in January 1916 he was promoted Captain (London Gazette, no. 29,727, 19 August 1916, p. 8,500) and given command of a section of 6-inch Mk VII guns, acting independently from the rest of the Battery. While serving with this unit during the Battle of the Somme, he was gassed and then severely wounded near High Wood on 27 September 1916, and invalided home. After spending many months in hospital at 27 Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London W1, and then convalescing for a period, he was given command of 390th Siege Battery, RGA, a battery of 6-inch howitzers at Falmouth.

In July 1917 Richard and his Battery were sent to Corso, Italy, and in October 1917 his Battery to Taranto, in the heel of Italy. From here it moved to Alexandria, Egypt, where it remained until January 1918, when it returned to Taranto via Port Said. It then moved north to join General Herbert Plumer’s Army on the River Piave, where it was tasked with backing up the still badly demoralized Italian forces. The Battery subsequently moved to the Asiago Plateau, where it saw out the war. For his services on the Italian front Richard was decorated with the Italian Bronze Medal for Military Valour (Edinburgh Gazette, no. 13,520, 27 October 1919, p. 3,490). He spent the trying period of demobilization at the Villa Rose, Torreglia, in the Colli Eugenei Hills near Padua, but then suffered a bad recurrence of the malaria that he had originally contracted in Alexandria and was invalided home to Birmingham University Hospital via Badighera, Marseilles and Boulogne. In April 1919 he rejoined the Army at Dover and was moved in succession to Shoreham, Woolwich, York, Ripon, Derby, Gullane, Hornsea, Gonrock, Aberdeen and Broughty Ferry before being given a Territorial Adjutancy at Port Glasgow on the Clyde. In 1921 he was promoted Temporary Major (London Gazette, no. 32,345, 3 June 1921, p. 4,525) and after completing a three-year tour of duty, he retired from the Army in December 1925 with the rank of Major. On coming back to Derbyshire to reside at Higham Cliff, near Ogston, he was offered and accepted the job of sub-agent to the various northern estates of  the Conservative politician and Prime Minister Anthony Eden (1st Earl of Avon) (1897–1977) ([VIII] Anecdota). On 21 March 1936 he ceased to belong to the Reserve of Officers on medical grounds (LG, no. 34,266, 21 March 1936, p. 1,819), but during World War Two he became a Sector Commander in the Home Guard with the rank of Colonel. From 1950 to 1951 he served as High Sheriff of Derbyshire.

Education and professional life

From 1892 to 1896 Turbutt was educated at the Reverend George Charles Carter’s (1853–1930; Headmaster 1887–1906) Preparatory School in Farnborough, Hampshire, and he then attended Harrow from 1897 to 1901. Little is known about his time there, but his lyrical description of a House supper that he attended there on 10 December 1904 – i.e. while he was at Oxford – indicates that he was very attached to the place:

Harrow station at last! What joy: It was over a year since I had been down to the dear old place – “Ye scenes of my childhood whose loved recollection / Embitters the present compared with the past.” [Lord Byron, Hours of Idleness] – The sight of the “Hill” inspired in me as it must in the heart of every true Harrovian who loved his school a “thrill” of joy which I shall never forget. To think that I should be back again at that place, the scene of so many joys and sorrows, all of which had become idealized by time, and shrouded in the web of romance, which increases year by year. Even the ugly buildings of the Knoll my old house seemed beautiful. I knew every brick of it, every bar that crossed the windows, & I may say every flaw in the bars, and they brought back the memory of the summer mornings when I used to clamber down sheets let out of a window on the upper storey without bars, to go out birds nesting at 3 a.m. After our cab had rolled its weary way up the hill it stopped at the door of the Knoll – Out we jumped and were received on the door step by our hospitable host, who would not hear a word until he had given us a bounteous tea. The “old chums” match was on, on the same day, & wonderful to relate, we in the old chums were not beaten but we drew with them 2 all. When we went into the House we found a lot of the old boys (familiar faces to us, though we had not seen them for so long). […] Eleven of us were staying in the House, put up where we could get in. Barnes [Richard Langley Barnes (1883–1967)] and I shared a room in the sick rooms. The House supper was put off till eight. We all dressed and came down to a most gorgeous spread prepared by our kind host and hostess. Claret Cup & lemonade to drink and everything that money could buy, reason could allow, and discretion could eat was provided. I sat between Jack Reunert [b. 1881 in Windybrow, Johannesburg, RSA, d. 1946] and C[lare] V[alentine] Baker [1885–1947], both of whom were in the house still, and were when I was there, but how altered. They were both young fellows, now one was a double flannel [i.e. had been awarded two school colours for his sporting proficiency] and the other a 6th form coat and fez [the “fez” is a round hat with a tassel, similar to a nineteenth-century smoking hat, that is worn by Harrovians who play the school’s special version of football], and School racquet players, of course they were on the “Phil” [i.e. members of the Philathletic Club at Harrow, a club for the school’s élite sportsmen]. After dinner Mr Owen [1860–1949] made his kind speech stating how glad he was to see us all again, and then speeches and songs followed thick and fast in unending succession. Last of all [Arthur Grayson] Hartley [1882–1946] made a speech proposing the health of Mr & Mrs Owen which was drunk with unceasingly renewed cheers, & we sang ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’. We ended up with ‘God save the King’ & ‘Auld Lang Syne’, and then adjourned, the boys to their beds (as it was 11.30 and they unfortunates had school at 8 a.m. (some at 7) the next morning. I do pity them.) we to the dining room where were cigarettes whiskey etc., and a charming fire to drive away the thoughts of sleep and dispell [sic] dull care from so happy a throng. I say happy because I feel sure that no-one in that rooms [sic] had ever felt happier (in its best sense) in all their lives. ([IV] Diary 10 December 1904)

Turbutt passed Responsions in September 1901 and matriculated at Magdalen as a Commoner on 14 October. We do not, however, know anything about his academic performance during his first term as he had to return home on 2 December because of illness. But apart from one term in which he was rated β, he performed satisfactorily throughout his time at Magdalen and was rated α in each of them by President (later Sir) Thomas Herbert Warren (1850–1930; President of Magdalen 1885–1928). Warren, it should, however, be stressed, seems to have awarded termly grades for being the right kind of chap with the right collegiate attitudes rather than for academic ability alone. Thus, α seems to have denoted anything from “excellent” to “acceptable”, β anything from “marginally acceptable” to “in serious risk of failing”, and γ, a rarity, “beyond hope”. Turbutt passed the First Public Examination – a paper in History – in Michaelmas Term 1902 and spent the subsequent terms reading for a Pass Degree in History with Modern Languages (Groups B1 [English History], B2 [French Language] and B5 [German Language and Literature]). He passed the Second Public examination – a second paper in History – at the end of Michaelmas Term 1903, and thanks to some hard work in March 1904 (see below), he scraped through German in Hilary Term 1904 and was able to take his BA on 20 October 1904.

In the eyes of his Tutor, the Classicist Herbert Wilson Greene (1857–1933; Fellow 1888–1910), who spent most of his tutorial time teaching translation to candidates for Classical Moderations, Turbutt was an average to below average student who, despite lacking a good memory and clarity of mind, would “do all right” and pass his examinations in the end because he was prepared to work “virtuously” when necessary (see the above table – a more precise source of information than Warren’s overflowing notebooks). In one sense, Greene’s assessment of Turbutt was correct, but that said, one must remember four things. First, Greene was not a particularly inspiring teacher and tended, like most of his Magdalen colleagues, to negative or condescending assessments of undergraduates. Second, although Greene enjoyed translating into and out of Latin and Greek, he never published anything that was scholarly. Third, by the time that he taught Turbutt he was nearing the end of his tutorial life and probably getting bored with repetitive teaching and unresponsive students. Fourth, Magdalen under Warren was dutifully but not overly concerned with academic achievement in the Humanities – as the College’s compendious History makes clear:

The most successful subject [during the Edwardian era] was Natural Science. Indeed, in the second half of the nineteenth century it was the one school [subject] to produce respectable results. […] The large majority of Magdalen’s students, even the demies [Scholars], did not excel in Schools, whatever their potential on admission.

Or to put it another way: at Magdalen under Warren – unlike at Balliol under Benjamin Jowett (1817–93; Master of Balliol 1870–93) – uninspired Humanities dons were required to administer old-fashioned syllabi to undergraduates who, to a considerable extent, lived in their own sport-centred culture, had few worries about future careers, and were able to satisfy the demands of the system by a small amount of barely adequate academic work. Moreover, at Magdalen the Humanities dons tolerated a Junior Common Room essay bank from which their tutees could borrow an ancient essay by a third party on a standard topic and read it out as their own some five minutes later. As we shall see, Turbutt was a gifted young man with scholarly potential in several areas, and being neither a drone nor a Hooray Henry, could well, with the right kind of direction, have become more than an enthusiastic amateur in an academic field that was connected with books, libraries, archives and/or architecture. So it is probably fairer to view his rather indifferent performance at Oxford as the failure of an academically stagnant college to spot the potential in a young man whose interests did not engage with conventional requirements even though he possessed the enthusiasm, intelligence, knowledge and potential that could flourish in private, among friends and mentors whose interests chimed with his own.

Because of his traditional upbringing and conservative views, Turbutt was not disposed to be critical and, as we shall see, had great affection for many aspects of Oxford. So he was not at all averse to spending a fourth year there, going through the motions of studying for a qualification in Law (Group B4 [Law]). Nevertheless, his Diary entries dealing with the years 1904–06 [IV] strongly suggest that despite Turbutt’s very real attachment to Oxford, his major interests were not typical of Magdalen’s undergraduates of the time. The Diaries display a passing interest in cricket when W.G. Grace (1848–1915) played for the Gentlemen of England against the University in the Parks ([IV] Diary 23 May 1905), a proper interest in cricket when Eton played Harrow ([IV] Diary 13 July 1906), an equally passing interest in soccer when Magdalen played Jesus in a cup tie ([IV] Diary 3 November 1904), a loyal interest in rowing when Magdalen went Head of the River ([IV] Diary 25 May 1905; see below), a polite willingness to engage in “badger digging” with “the gentlemen of the party” when he was on holiday with friends in Cornwall ([IV] Diary 9 August 1905), a hospitable interest in shooting when he was at home over the Christmas vacation, a well-bred interest in the sport when he and his family were staying with friends at Sharsted Court, near Newnham, Kent, in autumn 1905 ([IV] Diary 20–21 October 1905), and an occasional flash of enthusiasm for trout fishing ([IV] Diary 16 September 1904 and 5 June 1906). But being by nature a quiet and uncompetitive man, Turbutt tended to stand apart unobtrusively from the profanum vulgus of his contemporaries with their predilection for macho pastimes and blood sports, and he recorded a definite distaste for such “laddish” events as the noisily “debauched” Magdalen “Afters” that sometimes took place in Hall on Sunday evenings during term-time ([IV] Diary 23 October 1904).

Turbutt’s tastes and preferences can be adduced from his seven closest friends during his Oxford years: (1) Arthur Grayson [Dalison] Hartley, Harrow, Oriel College, Oxford (1901–04), future solicitor (“He is my greatest friend up here”: [IV] Diary 11 June 1904); (2) Arthur Andrew Partridge Winser (1881–1966), Academical Clerk at Magdalen (1900–04), 4th in Literae Humaniores, future clergyman; (3) Charles Frederick Pierce (1877–1936), Academical Clerk at Magdalen, future clergyman; (4) Robert Neale Menteth Bailey (1882–1917), Eton, a young man of scholarly tastes and a future Clerk to the House of Commons, who devoted most of his free time to the Working Men’s College in London, and died of wounds received in action in Palestine on 1 December 1917 (judging from what he says in his long letter of 30 May 1915 to Turbutt’s mother, he knew Ogston very well and got on well with Turbutt’s whole family); (5) Richard Godfrey Parsons (1882–1948), Demy at Magdalen (1901–05), 1st in Literae Humaniores, 1st in Theology, future clergyman who became Bishop of Southwark and Bishop of Hereford; (6) Edward Malcom Venables (1884–1957), Magdalen College School, Chorister, and Commoner at Magdalen (1903–07), 3rd in History, future clergyman; (7) Frederick Clyde Patton (1882–1958), Harrow, Balliol College, Oxford, 4th in History.

The seven young men shared a “Liberal High Church” Anglicanism, a social awareness that was, on the whole, to the right of centre, a love of music, especially church music, and, more untypically for the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, a lack of concern with sport. So they were neither “Hearties” nor “Bloods” – let alone “Hooray Henrys”. But nor were they “Aesthetes” or “Grecians” in the Wildean sense; and nor were any of them budding career academics like E.M.R. Stadler, C.H.G. Martin or L.W. Hunter, who had well-focussed interests in specialist topics very early on and while at Magdalen were already pursuing their embryonic careers via academic distinction or relevant qualifications and experience. To be more precise, Turbutt’s cast of mind and disposition – which were certainly shared by Bailey – were those of the serious gentleman antiquary, but not that of the dilettante, who had the time and money to permit his interests to range freely across several areas. Turbutt was particularly interested in architecture, especially ecclesiastical architecture, music, especially church music, drawing and sketching, and old books, especially the business of book production in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England (see [I] Notes). His interest in this latter topic had clearly been stimulated by his father’s interest and the contents of his family’s library, for in February 1902 he gave his father a birthday present consisting of a copy of Tenures by Sir Thomas Littleton (1402–81), one of the earliest treatises – in Norman-French – on English law, and a copy of The Bishop’s Bible (1572). This, Turbutt remarked in his accompanying letter, was:

even larger than our Great Authorized version […] It is one of those which Queen Elizabeth ordered to be chained in the Cathedrals of England, and it still has the Swivel of the Chain. […] I am comparing it with the perfect Bodleian Copy, and I have pages to write on it yet before I can send it you – It appears to be a particularly interesting one as the place where the wicked Favourite Lord Leicester’s portrait ought to be is left blank in my edition, but is printed in the 1572 edition. ([I] Notes. Letter to his father of 6 February 1902)

Consequently, he was a member of Oxford’s Antiquarian Society and it was to this body that he presented a paper on early book production at its meeting in one of Magdalen’s lecture rooms on 17 February 1905.

In 1893, the Turbutt family spent a happy summer holiday in Normandy and Turbutt returned there from 16 March to 11 April 1903, when he and his Harrow friend Frederick Patton stayed en famille with M. Barthié, a Protestant cleric in Bolbec, west of Rouen, so that they could improve their command of French in preparation for Paper B2 (French Language and Literature) at the end of Trinity Term ([II] Diary of Journeys). But the trip soon turned into an opportunity for the two young men to tour the area extensively by means of its developed and reliable railway system. As a result, Turbutt, who was already very knowledgeable about old buildings, especially churches, managed to visit most of the major ecclesiastical and secular sites in the area between Rouen and Caen. Although not quite 20, Turbutt already possessed a live historical sense, a keen eye for artistic detail (which he was already translating into exquisite pencil or ink drawings) and a feeling for the drama of architectural space. Thus, after visiting the Abbaye aux Hommes in Caen, he noted in his Diary:

When we entered the church what a surprise met our eyes! One could not imagine a more perfect piece of Norman architecture, solid, massive, yet beautiful on account of its vastness and simplicity. It seemed strange to think that in that church, which seemed so new owing to the beautiful colour of the Caen stone, William the Conqueror had walked, and now lay interred, that Archbishop Lanfranc himself had consecrated it in 1077 in the presence of the Great Conqueror.

But despite the usefulness of the French railways, Turbutt showed a distinct dislike of modernity, especially its factories, homogenized landscapes and “hideous modern art” ([II] Diary of Journeys).

At the end of the Michaelmas Term 1903, Turbutt passed two further papers (one in History and an English essay). And in March 1904, with one final paper looming at the end of the summer term (B5; German Language and Literature), Turbutt and Patton spent three weeks in Arendsee i. d. Altmark, a remote little town on the edge of the Lüneberg Heath that boasted few distractions, in order to do some intensive academic work and brush up their German. In pursuing the latter aim, Turbutt, whose former governess, Fräulein Leiter, was German, had more success than he had had in France for on 7 April 1904 he wrote to his mother that he could now say “absolutely anything I want to in German” – a skill that would prove its usefulness in a decade’s time for the interrogation of German prisoners. Since Turbutt was last on the Continent, his architectural taste had become more sophisticated, and the opinions, descriptions and judgements that are contained in his letters rely far less on generalizing adjectives such as “beautiful” and “charming” and are altogether more reasoned, knowledgeable, detailed and subtle. They evince a sure grasp of architectural terminology and, as always, are illustrated with meticulously executed and atmospheric pen-and-ink drawings. But Turbutt was also more ready to indulge in mild stereotyping than had been the case during his month in France – as his remarks on Cologne Cathedral, which he and Patton had visited en route to Arendsee, show:

Externally as well as internally, there is absolutely no originality in it. It is stolid like the German nation. […] The most beautiful thing is the Triforium which I consider perfect and of the highest art. It closely resembles the cloisters of Salisbury Cathedral. ([II] Diary of Journeys)

By the time of Finals, Turbutt was working up to 13 hours a day and allowing himself the occasional long walk or visit to the theatre. On 7 May 1904, for example, he saw A Winter’s Tale for the first time and commented: “What a treat to see something respectable at the Theatre instead of the usual Musical Comedy trash” ([IV] Diary 7 and 8 May 1904). His first paper went well: “Good Luck what an easy paper and very little subject matter. Just the Questions I had particularly prepared. I was in writing hard till 12.30.” But his second paper, “Unseens and German Literature” was harder, and his third paper was nearly disastrous:

very long German proses and [a] very unfair Grammar Paper. Questions [such] as “What influence had Luther’s Bible on the growth of the German language”. I stayed in the whole of the 3 hours, but did not do quite ¾ of the paper owing to want of time. ([IV] Diary 9 and 10 May 1904)

On 16 June Turbutt had his compulsory Viva Voce exam:

I went in at 10 o[’]clock for it, but to my horror my name was called out among those who were to stay, so I was awfully afraid that I had not done sufficient prose for them in the Exam. I was right. They set me another piece of German Prose, and I was so nervous that I thought I should never pass. It was hard. I sat down to it and racked my brains for an hour during which I heard everybody else being viva’d for good or bad. After an hour they took my unfinished prose and told me to come in again in 10 minutes. I fled back to my rooms to look up some words that I had missed in the prose. When I returned they told me that they had looked through my prose and noticed that I was careless about my punctuation which was very important in German. They then asked me whether I had read all the Literature as I seemed weak on the Romantic School. I answered that I had not done all the Romantics as I did not know that they all were included in the period. They then asked me which part of the Literature I liked best, and here I came out in shining colours as I was probably the only person who had read any of the literature besides that set for Schools. I said I preferred the Lessing period, as I felt I knew many of his works fairly well. They were very pleased at this. We then had quite an amicable, not to say amusing discussion on all Germany’s great men most of whom I was well up in, and I gave my criticism of various people. When I left (it was lecture room 2 in the New Schools), I felt a sigh of relief steal over me which was augmented to joy when at 12.30 I read my name on the list as having passed. I have now pass[ed] Smalls. Mods. Divinity. French History and German and am qualified to take my Degree. ([IV] Diary 16 May 1904)

To celebrate, Turbutt and a friend spent the afternoon by riding out to Abingdon to see Dr Paulin Martin (1842–1929),

who had, as I had heard, some nice books. I was not disappointed. He had beautiful treasures. Mathew’s. Cranmer’s – Geneva Authorised Bishops’ Bible, and many editions of each. A nice copy of the 1st Folio of Shakespeare but with the Portrait & Verses from the second, also wanting the last leaf, also 2 second folios, one third and one fourth. The 1526 (Pynson) Chaucer as the one at home, but only the Canterbury Tales part. The 1542 edition (Bonhaus [recte Bonham]), the 1561 with woodcuts and without, the 1598 (Bishop) one. Then “The Chronicles of England” printed [by Gerard Leeu] at Antwerp. 1492. – Wynkyn de Worde’s Polychronicon 1495 also Golden Legent [sic] 1498. Pynson’s Froissart (only one vol.). All the old chronicles such as Fabian. Holinshed. Lanquets. Grafton. 1st Fairie Queene of Spenser. All the first 5 editions of Isaac Walton’s Angler except the 3rd. A Shakespeare Quarto (Romeo & Juliet 163r.) The 1st Prayer book of Ed[ward] VI [1549]. Early missals. And countless other treasures all of inestimable value. There were only about 400 to 500 books in the Library but all plums and collected by himself. I am informing him about several facts about his books that he did not know. I did not have time to see half his treasures but he has invited me over to come and see some more.

There is a great row on in College this evening, probably because Schools [Finals] are over for most people. I think I shall have no difficulty in getting leave to stay on for another year at Oxford now as father wishes it, and I have passed Schools, so the Dons will not object I think. ([IV] Diary 16 May 1904 [loose leaves])

The end of term passed off well, with dinners, parties, outings, tickets for the Trinity Ball (“about 500 people, not very select” ([IV] Diary 21 May 1904 [loose leaves]) and Encaenia, where Turbutt saw Marconi receive an honorary degree. On 2 June, Turbutt received

a most insulting note from Slatter & Rose stationers High Street saying that unless I paid a bill, which I had incurred last term, by Friday they would summons me. This is what Oxford tradespeople do. When one is in ones 3rd year they are so afraid of ones going down that they are a perpetual nuisance. ([IV] Diary 2 June 1904 [loose leaves])

On the same day Turbutt met the Reverend Henry Austin Wilson (1854–1927; Fellow 1876–1927), Magdalen’s Fellow Librarian,

and asked him whether he had read the article in the Bibliographical Transactions on Early Latin Grammars. Magdalen School & College produced no less than 5, after the Garlandia. [John] Anwykyll. [John] Stanbridge. [John] Holt. [Thomas] Wolsey and [John] Collet [sic]. I suggested that the Library should get a copy of the Publication. Till recently the only old grammars of this kind that the College possessed were knocking about in the Boys library at the School!!! ([IV] Diary 2 June 1904 [loose leaves])

While it is true that the first three men named by Turbutt were all connected with Magdalen School and/or College in the last two decades of the fifteenth century and produced grammars, the Christian Humanist John Colet (1467–1519; Dean of St Paul’s 1505–19), who took his MA from Magdalen in 1590, did not. Neither did Wolsey, who was a Fellow of Magdalen from c.1497 to c.1502, even if, later on in his career, he did become interested in the standardization of school textbooks.

On 13 September 1904, Turbutt and his father, who were very close to one another, set off for a fortnight’s trip to Scotland and the Orkney Islands. Their first stop was Edinburgh, where a friend showed them round the major city sights and the University: “Their arrangements are considerably better than ours and they have fine billiard[,] debating and reading rooms. The one point in which we score over them is in our library” ([III] Diary [14 September] 1904). On 15 September they travelled to Forres and then, on 17 September, to Thurso. Two days later they crossed to the Orkney Islands, where they spent the rest of their holiday visiting the islands’ antiquities. They started their return journey on about 22 September, reached Edinburgh on 24 September, and on the following day worshipped at the English Cathedral,

where we had a charming service, with very fair singing. Of course not quite up to Magdalen standard, but nevertheless, very good. The hymn ‘Far from my heavenly home’ was most beautifully sung, as indeed it requires. It is almost wickedness to let a village choir try to sing it. In the afternoon we went to the service there again and had services of Barnby in F and one of Goss’s Anthems. In the evening we went to service at St Gyles, and a very painful proceeding it was. People lounging about in a most irreverent manner. St Gyles has the most beautiful bells that I have ever heard, and as far as the building goes it is very good, except that it has one transept filled up with a huge and ugly organ and abominable choir stalls, and the other transept is ruined by a large erection called a porch.

But once back home, Turbutt adjudged the trip to have been “quite delightful and free from practically all the numerous little inconveniences and unpleasantness which usually attend such impromptu trips” ([III] Diary [26 September] 1904).

After he agreed to take his BA at once, on 20 October 1904, Magdalen’s Tutorial Board allowed Turbutt to stay up for a further year and study Law, a subject that would have been of some relevance for a future member of the Derbyshire Bench ([IV] Diary 7 July 1906). But his Diaries suggest that his heart was not primarily in his studies, even if he began by trying to get his head around the Law of Contracts in Michaelmas Term 1904. But he did not fret too much if the room assigned for the lecture was too full for him to get into, as happened quite often at the start of term. And although at the end of the term he dutifully passed Group B4 of the Pass School in Law (the English Law of Contracts), he sat no more exams.

Nevertheless, Turbutt’s two final terms at Oxford were not wasted and he settled down to enjoy the city’s aesthetic and cultural life to the full, something that rural Derbyshire, for all its delights, could not offer to anything like the same extent. At the centre of Turbutt’s life during his fourth year were the city’s musical events, ranging from public concerts through church liturgy to the Scouts Concert ([IV] Diary 10 November 1904) with P.V.M. Benecke (1868–1944), Magdalen’s shy and polymath Tutor in Ancient History (Fellow 1891–1944) tinkling the ivories, and from Gilbert and Sullivan ([IV] Diary 8/9 May 1905) to more of those private “musical soirées” with friends that had been such “a great abstraction from work” in the previous terms ([IV] Diary 14 October 1904). On 4 February 1905 he was even persuaded to go and hear Sousa’s band, which he adjudged “very entertaining”, “a wonderful band” with a “superb” saxophonist and drummer – a very surprising judgement from someone whose tastes inclined to the conservative and classical. Turbutt also decided to take piano lessons and singing lessons from Dr John Varley Roberts (1841–1920), the prolific composer of church music and Magdalen’s unstoppable, larger-than-life organist and Informator choristarum (1882–1918), and profited greatly from their growing friendship. Dr Roberts, it should be stressed, was a masterly Informator and President Warren’s notebooks contain some newspaper cuttings from November 1899 which report on a visit made by an American organist, Dr Miles Farrow (1871–1953), to various choirs all over England. He considered Magdalen’s choir “the finest […] in England to-day” and gave his reasons for saying so as follows:

There are in this choir sixteen boys and ten men, two daily services, and of course, daily rehearsals for the boys who attend the choir-school. The golden rule of Dr Roberts is to “cultivate soft singing” and “strengthen the head voice.” Never does he allow the least forcing or pushing of the voice, and the consequence is that the quality is the most beautiful that can be imagined, and the music is unaccompanied. Pitch is maintained absolutely. Not once could I detect the least tendency towards flatting [sic] and they sing sometimes whole services without the organ.

Moreover, although he was already an accomplished draftsman, Turbutt also went for drawing lessons with Alexander Macfarlane (c.1839–1921), Oxford’s first Ruskin Master of Drawing (1871–1922). To these new pleasures, one must add the late-night conversations in friends’ rooms or in his own new set of rooms in 5 Long Wall Street, inter-collegial dining with large, well-cooked meals that in those days could be brought to students’ rooms, and more modest opportunities for quiet good fellowship over fruit and coffee such as the evening that he and his friends enjoyed on Sunday 23 October 1904:

Had Venables in to Breakfast. Went to Lunch with Patton, & dinner at Buols Restaurant [at 21 Cornmarket, now defunct]. Had my usual soirée in the evening, consisting to [sic] Pierce, Bailey, Parsons, Venables, a sort of standing invitation, and we talk and eat fruit, and drink coffee etc. and some of us go to the University sermon or Balliol Concert, but none of us to the debauched Magdalen “After”.

It was almost certainly Magdalen’s architecture that had attracted Turbutt in the first place, but once there, he discovered a variety of less obvious inter-collegiate subcultures and was exposed to a range of new, unexpected, sensory experiences, which he began to enjoy with greater consciousness and appreciation. After walking through Oxford on two evenings around Guy Fawkes Day 1904 he noted, for example: “At 11 p.m. I walked up the High Street to post a letter & the effect of light was beautiful. The whole of St Mary’s & the Camera was light [sic] by a magnificent bonfire in B.N.C. Quad […], and the air was full of rockets with coloured stars”, and: “The whole of Oxford is a perfect glow. Every College has its bonfire and fireworks. Magdalen looks lovely. The Town and buildings are lit up red with the glow of the bonfire in St Swithun’s Quad.”

As a graduate, Turbutt was vouchsafed more extensive insights into the lives of the Senior Members of the College, and he has left us a fascinating account of eating dinner on Magdalen’s High Table ([IV] Diary 9 November 1904):

In the evening I dressed then went to the Chapel Service. We had Goss’ Wilderness [Sir John Goss (1800–80), The Wilderness (1862)]. In the evening I dined with the Bursar P.V.M. Benecke, at the High Table in Magdalen. At 7 p.m. I went into the Senior Common Room and when we had all collected there we went into Hall (in order of seniority of Fellows), I being taken by Mr Benecke my host. Mr Cowley, the Vice[-]President, was presiding and said grace after which we all sat down, and then the Undergrads came in. Wine was immediately handed round, and we drank to one another in the accustomed way – i.e. my host drank with me first, and then various Fellows during the course of the meal drank with me – i.e. Mr Greene, Mr Brightmann, Mr Dunn Pattison [killed in action in Mesopotamia on 8 March 1916], Mr Webb, Mr Godley – and the Vice-President sent round word that he wished to drink with me. The dinner consisted of soup, fish, joint, pheasant, sweet, biscuits etc. After we had finished we all retired to the Senior Common Room where wine & dessert were waiting. We all sat down around the room at little tables, and, as the custom goes, the two junior fellows, i.e. Mr Brightman [the Dean of Divinity] & Walter Raleigh [the Professor of English Literature], handed round the dessert.

 

Among the curious customs of ancient standing is one that nobody may get up without the permission of the President, Vice-President, or in the case of neither being present, the Senior Fellow’s permission, so the V[ice-]President was frequently called upon to give permission to ring the bell etc. After a time we retired to the Smoking Room where coffee, cigars, cigarettes were served. Here we remained till I bade my host goodnight at 10.45: He shewed [sic] me all the pictures by Buckler and all the designs of our new roof in the Hall. He also explained to me how that Bodley had wished to put up a roof with geometrical tracery, but that he had been made to alter it when the proofs of perpendicular tracery were found under the plaster. I was weighed among other things, and found myself only 10 stone exactly which disappointed me as I used to be much more. The Oxford air apparently does not agree with me.

Nevertheless, on his third day back at Oxford in the Hilary Term, after an idyllic Christmas vacation in Derbyshire which, with its low-key shooting parties, snow-covered landscapes, tobogganing, skating, dances, family gatherings, church attendance and local social events recalls Jane Austen’s Longbourn and Dickens’s Dingley Dell, Turbutt woke up with the thought: “Few things have given me greater joy in my life than to wake up the first morning of term and find myself in Oxford. It is one of the most charming places in the world, and I shall never forget the delightful time I spent there as an undergraduate” ([IV] Diary 22 January 1905).

Although, at the start of Hilary Term 1905, Turbutt had resigned himself to eight weeks of unexciting but necessary work on the Law of Tort, that expectation was disrupted by his bibliophilia. By early 1902, young Turbutt, whom President Warren would describe posthumously as being of “studious and book-loving tastes”, had been using the Bodleian’s holdings to make careful comparisons of early editions of the Bible, and by summer 1904 he possessed an impressive knowledge of early printed books and a developed interest in bibliography. By 1905 he was wont to bring down early printed books from his family’s library in order to compare them with editions in the Bodleian. In c.1750, Richard Turbutt (1689–1758), Turbutt’s great-great-great-grandfather, had purchased a seventeenth-century folio edition of the collected plays of William Shakespeare, which remained in his family’s possession until the early twentieth century. On 23 January 1905, according to his Diary [IV], Turbutt took his family’s battered Shakespeare with its damaged title page into the Bodleian to get it dated more accurately by the bibliographer Falconer Madan (1851–1935; Bodley’s Librarian 1912–19) and obtain some advice about its restoration. Madan immediately consulted his younger colleague, Strickland Gibson (1877–1958), then an assistant librarian, and the two experts realized that they were dealing with “one of the most interesting bibliographical finds ever made”, for they had realized that Turbutt’s book was not just an early edition but a First Folio – i.e. the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, which appeared in a large folio edition in November 1623, seven years after his death. The First Folio contains 36 plays, 18 of which had never appeared in print before and which would have been lost but for the edition.

Although the title page of the copy was damaged and lacked a date, Gibson and Madan managed to prove that it was a First Folio, and, more importantly, that it was the Bodleian’s long-lost copy. The copy is assumed to have been sent there under an agreement between Sir Thomas Bodley (1545–1613) and the London Stationers’ Company that required a copy of every new book published in England and registered at Stationers’ Hall, London, to be sent to Oxford’s Library. Moreover, Turbutt’s copy is the only extant copy that is known to have entered a library on publication, and its patterns of wear demonstrate which plays were most often read by its early readers. The Turbutts’ copy appears to have been sold by the Bodleian as a duplicate after it had received a copy of the second issue of the Third Folio (1663–64). Although this contained seven additional plays, only one, Pericles, turned out to have been written by Shakespeare. By 1674, the First Folio had disappeared from the Bodleian’s catalogue, and well before the turn of the nineteenth-to-twentieth century it was assumed that this copy had been irretrievably lost, possibly, like the Stationers’ Hall’s original copy, during the Great Fire of London (1666).

The crucial evidence for the veracity of Madan’s and Strickland’s discovery was the printed waste that was used for the end-leaves of the binding. It matched the waste used for the end-leaves of three other books that were sent for binding with the First Folio and identified from the Library’s accounts as those that were sent to the Oxford master binder William Wildgoose on 17 February 1624. Further evidence was provided by the realization that the Turbutts’ First Folio had been “bound in identically the same fashion with the marks of the chain in the same place” ([IV] Diary 23 January 1905). It is now believed that the Turbutt First Folio is the most distinguished in the world because of its original binding from 1624, the presence of all the text leaves, and a most remarkable provenance. Indeed, the volume is held in such esteem that the Bodleian very rarely allows anyone even to touch it.

Turbutt’s Diary then continues, incredulously:

That such a treasure could exist was beyond belief, and that it should once more revisit the walls of its former home was equally curious. […] Mr Madan’s advice was to have nothing done to it except to have a Morocco case made for it, as so many copies were tampered with & one could have no proof of their genuineness.

The find caused considerable excitement in the Bodleian and on 2 February 1905 Madan drafted a letter for publication in the Athenaeum. A week later Turbutt’s father gave permission for the draft to be sent, and after some more research had been completed, the Turbutts’ First Folio was exhibited at the Bibliographical Society, 20 Hanover Square, London W1, on 20 February. On the following day, a report on the event appeared in The Times with which Turbutt was not happy: “It was very bad, and all the names were wrong” ([IV] Diary 21 February 1905). Reports subsequently appeared in The Westminster Gazette and The Star which pleased him even less. But on 24 February Turbutt commissioned the blue case proposed by Madan, and on 1 March he spent much of the day at the Bodleian, “trying to draw conclusions about 1st folios of Shakespeare like an idiot as though enough was not already known about them under all conscience”. So apart from spotting a couple of “peculiarities” that puzzled him, he did not get very far. Although these did not prove to be important, his efforts added to our understanding of the contemporary reception of the First Folio, as Madan pointed out:

This copy adds a definite original contribution to Shakespearian criticism, from a consideration of the comparative wear and tear of the various plays, caused – and this is the point – not by an individual owner but by successive readers in a public library. Mr G.M.R. Turbutt, who suggested this line of inquiry, has carefully examined more than once every leaf of the volume.

Then, on 5 March 1905, President Warren invited Turbutt to show the Folio to Viscount Goschen (1831–1907), Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1903 to 1907, who was coming to Oxford that day especially to see the book. Turbutt duly put the Folio on display after dinner and recorded in his Diary that it aroused a lot of interest “and I got the various people to sign their names to the list of people who had inspected the volume since it had been on show in the Bodleian”. Then, on the afternoon of 10 March, Robert Theodore Gunther (1869–1940), Magdalen’s Scientific Fellow and the founder of Oxford’s Museum of Science (1926–30), showed Turbutt round the Clarendon Press and introduced him to the University Printer (or Comptroller), Horace Hart (1840–1916), “a genial middle aged short man with a whitish beard and gold specs, very full of conversation”, who showed him round the Press. Turbutt expressed himself “glad to make his acquaintance as he had helped me so much in the information about the Shakespeare, & certainly had contributed a lot towards the knowledge of the Types”. Despite his dislike of the modern, Turbutt was extremely impressed by “the ‘Monotype’”:

a machine which made the type out of molten lead as it went on; a truly wonderful invention, quite new & direct from America. They had two such machines. Another very interesting machine was the one which folded the quires, & also one which sewed them. I was also very much taken with the Collotype room, & the apparatus for the electrotype, all very wonderful. What would Gutenberg & Fust & Schoeffer [early printers] have thought had they been taken round? ([IV] Diary 10 March 1905)

Eight days later, after a detour to inspect the British Museum’s First Folios, Turbutt and his parents set off on a three-week-long journey, mainly by train, that would take them via Calais to Paris, Lyons, Avignon, Arles, Marseilles, Genoa, Milan, Como, Lucerne, the St Gotthard Tunnel, Strasbourg, Paris and Calais. They greatly enjoyed the tour, especially the Papal Palace at Avignon, the Roman amphitheatre at Arles, the sub-tropical environment around Cannes, the palaces at Genoa, and the Alpine scenery in general. Turbutt arrived back in Oxford on 9 April, in the middle of the Easter vacation, and commented: “Oxford seems very funny when the University is down. Not a soul stirring in the Colleges. Mr Brightman is the only Magdalen Don up. Nobody else in College, no Chapel services – nothing. – Everything as quiet as death in the evening.” Ten years later many other visitors to Magdalen, whether in or out of term, would have such spectral experiences, but for reasons that were much more tragic.

For Turbutt, the Trinity Term of 1905 was a mélange of trials and delights, but he had clearly decided to enjoy the latter despite having to wrestle with Torts for a second term, and on 1 May, after ascending Magdalen’s tower to welcome in the dawn to the accompaniment of the College Choir, he left us yet another affectionate account of a custom that continues until this day:

It is customary for undergraduates of Magdalen College if not too lazy to ascend the Great Tower to see the sun rise on May morning at least once during the course of their residence. Many of course there are who scoff at the idea but probably repent it later. Neither my friends nor I however rank among such, and far from scoffing at the old custom, as each year has come round we have got up at 4 a.m., ascended the tower at 4.30 and seen (or not seen as the case may be) the sun rise and heard the Hymn or College Grace which is sung on the top by the Choir. The whole scene is most impressive and those who will take the little trouble of an early rise [will be] well repaid. The Choir [are] in su[r]plices and the undergraduates and Dons in academical costume (cap & gown). The number of other people who are up on the Tower is comparatively few owing to the scarcity of the Tickets to be had, but looking down below the whole of the Magdalen Bridge is crowded with people who come to hear the ceremony, such is the enthusiasm of the Oxford Town. Today the weather was unsettled. Yesterday had brought with it incessant thundershowers and in the night the wind had got up. At 4 am, when I rose, it was blowing a gale, I however dressed and went round to the College to get in before the ticketed town who were admitted at half-past. I felt very much honoured as I had received a special invitation from Dr Varley Roberts to partake of the breakfast which he gave in the College Hall at 5.45 to the choristers[,] dons & undergraduates whom he had invited (the latter class being limited to about ½ doz., and the dons and chaplains amounting to about the same number). On the top of the Tower our robes were gaily blown about by the winds and we had a few spots of rain, but otherwise the weather was not inclement, and while the hymn was being sung the sun shone forth in all his glory. At 5.45 I went to the College Hall where there was a very festive gathering. Dr Varley Roberts our host was the leading feature. Of dons there were Mr Benecke, Webb, Pickard-Cambridge, Cowley. The Chaplains were Revs Blockley, Negus and Myers. Undergraduates: Pierce, Winser, Patheram (the 3 Academical Clerks), Gambier-Parry, Venable[s], and myself. Then there were the 16 choristers and 2 or 3 guests (not belonging to the College) of the Doctor’s. We had a delicious and much wanted breakfast of Coffee, Tea, Cold chicken & ham, Tongue, Toast, bread, butter, jam etc. At about 6.45 we adjourned and those who wished to smoke accompanied the Doctor to Pierce’s rooms, but I went away as I had a train to catch later on in the morning.

The train took Turbutt and his friend Bailey to Ascott-under-Wychwood, where they began a 10-hour circular walk around Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds, during which they visited places of interest and covered 30–40 miles. Such expeditions, or their equivalent on bicycles during which Turbutt and his friends must have covered at least double that distance ([IV] Diary 6 May 1905), became a regular feature of Turbutt’s life and they paid dividends eight years later in the Army, where route marches in full kit alongside arms drill, musketry and trench-digging formed the greater part of basic training.

Eights Week fell in late May, and in the late afternoon of Wednesday 31 May 1905, Turbutt, Parsons, and two ladies hired a punt to watch the last part of the rowing races. Turbutt’s Diary contains what is probably the only surviving account of a train of events that began innocently enough but ended in what most people nowadays would consider unacceptable, not to say shocking, behaviour on the part of educated young men. It begins:

Oh! What an anxious moment! We had already cut the hay in the field in the middle of Addison’s Walks “on spec”, thinking that we should remain Head, but that was a secret. How ignominious it would have been had we lost just on the last night when we had everything ready for our rejoicings. We moored our boat in a good position commanding a view of the Gut [the slightly narrower part of the River Isis with a twist in it about half-way along the Bumps course] and Finish and anxiously awaited the result. At last the gun fired and the race commenced. By the green bank we were leading by nearly a length, and at the end we finished in great style having pulled up considerably and run away from the boat behind. We are Head of the River once more, and have honoured our unique reputation of having been among the first 3 boats on the river for over 25 years. We also hold the record for being Head of the River. When the races were over we punted back to Magdalen and bade farewell to the 2 ladies. At 8 pm the Bump Supper was to take place. We all changed into oldish clothes as we knew what it would mean. There was a band in the Minstrels’ Gallery and they played during the supper. Champagne was provided in unlimited amounts and soon the dinner changed from hilarity to debauchery. Bread corks wine glasses bottles and plates were thrown about the room and there was not a square foot of floor without some broken glass on it. The President, The Dean (Mr Cookson), the Vice-President & Mr Greene were the only Dons present. When the supper was over and everybody had drunk to everybody else innumerable times the President rose & amid roars of applause proposed the health of the King which was drunk with musical honours which were drowned by discordant vociferations of 200 tongues which could not keep quiet. The President then made a speech not one word of which I could hear owing to the noise. The healths and speeches followed one another. Morrell (Captain of boat) [Wolwyche-]Whitmore (President of J.C.R.) [Wilson-]Evans (Captain of University College boat) and many others spoke, and finally an old Magdalen Member. By the end everybody practically had thrown his wine glass on to the floor, and the whole Hall echoed with the noise of breakage. Thus ended the most debauched supper that I have ever been at.

This was the first part of the evening’s entertainment. Next followed the Bonfire which had been built up in the field about 15 feet high. A wooden bridge had been built from the Walks to the field and we all crossed over letting off innumerable fireworks which had been provided in the Cloisters. The President, fulfilling his task admirably, and gently smiling at the coarse jokes and tottering gait of drunken undergrads, lit the bonfire himself which burned up magnificently. He and the Dons stood amid squibs and crackers exploding on every side and watched it for a short time and then retired. When the bonfire was getting low a thing was done which seemed to me the most extraordinary and absurd of the whole evening. As though it was some heathen orgie [sic], two eights boats were solemnly drawn up the river & through the meadow and thrown on to the bonfire. A most amazing waste, considering that the boats cost so much to build. At 12 pm. I retired to my rooms in a most filthy state. The bridge (wooden) across to the field had been burned when fuel was short so we had a dirty muddy bank & a ditch to jump to get back. I jumped it but failing to get a footing in the very slippery & steep bank I slipped back into the ditch, and was covered in mud and water. Two rather severe calamities occurred besides the usual events such as “debagging” unpopular members of the College and burning their trousers. One unfortunate man – [Ingram Ilbert] Owen [1885–1973] – had his rooms completely wrecked. Not a pane of glass left in the windows and not a stick of furniture left unbroken in his room: all his books destroyed & thrown everywhere. Some of the better fellows of the College tried to stop it, but to no avail. [The experience, which is recounted at much greater length in the book on Turbutt (pp. 61–5), had a shattering effect on Owen’s career at Magdalen and, possibly, a very negative effect on the rest of his life.] The other was that in the Hall Murray [probably John (“Jack”) Murray (1884–1967)] had his face by his eye cut by someone who threw a wine glass with considerable force at it. Winser took a loaded revolver from one man – Glover – a wretched man who was horribly drunk [Harold Matthew (later Sir Harold) Glover (1885–1961) got a double first and had a distinguished career in the Indian Forest Service, rising to the Chief Conservator of Forests in the Punjab (1939–43)]. Thus ended an evening which, to say the least of it, was an amusing experience. It was the first Bump Supper strange to say that we had had for the whole four years I had been up. ([IV] Diary 31 May 1905)

There is an eerie sense in which the fires, the violence, the noise and the wanton waste prefigured events that were still eight years away, and Turbutt’s account gives us a surprisingly frank, not to say brutal, insight into the psychological resources that would permit well-educated English gentlemen to fight as fiercely as they purportedly did.

In about May 1905, Madan suggested to Turbutt that they and Gibson should produce an illustrated monograph about the Folio. It would be published by the Clarendon Press and sold by subscription, and Turbutt would contribute an essay on the Folio’s history 1700–1900 (see [IV] Diary 3 May, 24 May and 30 May 1905). The plan came to fruition and proofs were ready for inspection in the Bodleian on Bank Holiday Monday, 12 June. Rather ingenuously, given what had been thrown around and smashed during the rout in Magdalen ten days previously, Turbutt noted in his Diary: “The Library was very crowded owing to its being Bank Holiday, and the whole of Oxford was very vulgarised, but one has to put up with such things sometimes, and we can but trust that the people derive some sort of pleasure from throwing things & orange peel about” ([IV] Diary 12 June 1905). Turbutt’s reputation spread, and on 13 June he was invited out to Begbroke to have tea with Herbert Arthur Evans (1846–1923), the editor of the quarto facsimiles of Shakespeare’s plays, who had tutored Turbutt during the month before he matriculated. Turbutt noted:

We had a long conversation on valuable editions, and he showed me many of his books some of which were very fine as 1st editions of Ben Jonson, & Beaumont & Fletcher, but most of them wanting some portion of the Preliminary or of the text. His perfect copies he has unfortunately been compelled to sell, for want of money, & then I sympathized very much with him as I had been forced to do the same on several occasions & could only afford to keep the inferior editions of my rare books, but after all they are better than nothing and if they are produced during the author’s life-time and are corrected by himself there is a lot of interest attached to them. I met a niece of his there who also apparently took a certain amount of interest in such a mad hobby as bibliography & literature.

On 15 June Turbutt gave a “Leaving Supper” for some of his Magdalen friends and Dr Varley Roberts: “We had a most pleasant evening and were well sustained by conversation and Music. Venables, Winser & Pierce & myself sang and the Doctor played the piano. It is a sad thought [that] this is the last dinner of its kind that I shall have at Oxford” ([IV] Diary, 15 June 1905). On 26 June he attended the Magdalen Ball with Rachel Venables, his friend’s sister, and on 28 June he sang madrigals in the evening concert in the Hall. The next day he awoke feeling very sad,

thinking that it was the last service that I should ever hear at Magdalen as a member of the College in the sense of being resident. This was in short my last day of Oxford life; a life which for four years had been the most delightful imaginable. I had had everything that I wanted and had so far never had to deal with the stern reality of life which is bound to come to everyone sooner or later.

But Turbutt subsequently came back for a few days to finish packing, and when he had finally said his good-byes, “especially [to] Dr Roberts who was one of my best friends”, he noted:

Farewell to Oxford!!! It was a very sad moment when the train rolled out of Oxford and I bade farewell to my University life for ever. I had spent four of the happiest years of my life there, but now, instead of [the] joys of college, the stern reality of life lay before me, and the delightful surroundings of Magdalen were to be transmuted to those of an office in Westminster. But every good thing must as a rule come to an end sooner or later and I thank my God that he has given me so many happy years which I have spent for better or for worse, as he only knows. ([IV] Diary 11 July 1905)

Turbutt was, however, soon back at Magdalen, attending the Gaudy on 22 July. He arrived the previous day, and “after supper Winser, Pierce & myself went out in a punt on the Cherwell by moonlight, & had to climb over the gates into Addison’s Walks on the way back as of course we were locked out”. At 11 a.m. the following morning,

we all assembled in Hall to make a presentation to Dr Varley Roberts for his services to the College during the past 24 years. Just certain of his friends had subscribed, and they [consisted] chiefly of Choristers; but there were one or two others besides like myself. The President was there with Mrs Warren, & Dr & Mrs Varley Roberts came. The President made a speech eulogising the various merits of the Doctor and then the senior chorister and the second presented the gifts. There was an illuminated address with the names of the subscribers on it. (It was painted by one of the Lay Clerks – John Kay –). There was also a beautiful silver salver with the following [Latin] inscription on it. […] There was also a cheque of between £60 – £70. Mr Brightman & Mr Macray among others also made speeches, and the Doctor made a long speech of thanks at the end. The whole ceremony lasted about 1 hour.

In the evening the Gaudy took place:

At 7 pm we all assembled outside the Hall and at about 7.15 proceeded to take our places which had all been previously arranged for us and indicated to each of us by means of a chart. I had been placed at the choir table, and I knew every member of the choir well, and they were special friends. In the centre of the High Table was the President with a large bowl of white lilies and red geraniums in front of him, which are the Magdalen colours. The rest of the high table was decorated with pink carnations, while the other tables were arranged with sweet peas and red and yellow daisies. In the middle of the dinner Pickard-Cambridge, the youngest Fellow of the College, delivered a Latin oration commemorating all the events which had taken place during the last year and which were of interest to the College. There was also a printed list of them, and I was much surprised to see that our Shakespeare was mentioned. After the sweets, the whole choir, boys and men, all of whom are of course present at the dinner, sang the College Grace which was simply too beautiful for words to express. A sense of reverence came over the whole dinner when it commenced, and when it ended nobody could speak for a few seconds. It is indeed one of the things which every Magdalen man must be proud of. At this stage of the dinner the boys left, and dessert was handed round, also cigars and coffee and wines – and the speeches began. The President. The President of Corpus [Thomas Case (1844–1925)]. The Rev. Canon [Edward Russell] Bernard [(1842–1921)]. Mr J[ohn] A[ndrew] Hamilton [1859–1934; from 1927 the 1st (and only) Viscount Sumner of Ibstone] and the Vice[-]President were amongst those to speak – and they all spoke excellently; each one sharpening his wits against the other speeches. At 10.30 or 11 we were adjourned to the Junior Common Room where we smoked and heard glees and songs, the former of which the choir had indulged in, in Hall also, and cheered the company with excellently sung madrigals. After 12 pm people gradually began to disperse and I with Pierce & the Senior Proctor [C.C.J. Webb] left at 1.30, we three being the last people left in the room.

Turbutt spent most of the summer and autumn enjoying himself and the local society at home in Derbyshire or with friends down in Cornwall. Among other things he sorted through his personal papers “before going up finally to town” and noted in his Diary on 16 October 1905:

It is impossible to imagine how much amusement can be extracted out of old letters etc. Many I had to burn as being too personal or private to keep but they caused a great deal of amusement. Many of the papers connected with Magdalen I kept out of association with those 4 happy years of Oxford life. They were unsurpassable for pleasure in spite of one or two little clouds, and the sight of any paper which throws light on any of the events thrills me in a way that nothing else does, so I refused to destroy them.

But two days before Turbutt’s departure for London, his Diary records that at about 3 p.m.,

we [the family] were very much surprised by a ring at the front door bell, and in came a dark little man with a hooked nose and unpleasant expression. On being asked his purpose he stated that he had called to inquire whether there was any chance of buying the First Folio of Shakespeare. He had been sent by Sotheran & Co [the oldest firm of booksellers in the world, established in York in 1761, now at 2–5 Sackville Street, Piccadilly, London] all the way from London on this errand, as Sotheran had written 3 days before and we had not answered the letter. This little man asked to have 5 minutes conversation with Father, but Father, seeing that he had come rather to spy out the land, said that if it was about the book, it was unnecessary as he had no intention of parting with the volume; shewing [sic] that Jews and Americans cannot get everything they wanted provided they pay enough. The little man was quite baffled & with an oily farewell quitted the establishment: what a funny tale he will have to tell Sotheran when he returns. ([IV] Diary 17 October 1905)

Although Turbutt’s Diary says nothing more on the matter for the next six months, Sotherans were already acting, strictly anonymously, on behalf of Henry Clay Folger (1857–1930), an American oil tycoon and collector of Shakespeareana, for later on in the same month and still without betraying his identity, he offered the Turbutts via Sotherans the huge sum of £3,000 (£236,000 in today’s money) for their First Folio so that he could add it to his already large collection of First Folios. The Turbutts needed the money and were clearly tempted by the offer, but gave first refusal to Oxford if the same sum could be raised by 31 March 1906. As the Bodleian had no funds for purchases of this order – the most it had ever paid for a book was £220 10s. (c.£9,000 in today’s money) for a volume of Anglo-Saxon and early English charters, the Library’s Curators authorized a low-key appeal for funds and there matters rested for six months.

Given Turbutt’s interests, it was entirely logical that after leaving Oxford, he should be apprenticed to study architecture in London with Edward Prioleau Warren (1856–1937), the younger brother of Magdalen’s President, who lived at that time at 18 Cowley Street, London SW1, i.e. not far from Westminster Abbey. Turbutt’s post-Elysian life had begun on Saturday 17 June 1905, when he went out by tram to Cholsey, then in Berkshire, now in south Oxfordshire, where Warren had just built himself a new house [Breache House] and taken up residence there on the previous day. Four months later, on 23 October 1905, Turbutt moved into his new rooms in 28 Albion Stret, Hyde Park, London W2, and five days after that he and his father went to his future office “in 20, Cowley St where I am to learn architecture”:

After a short interview with Mr Warren, […] my father left me […] I was given the plans sections & elevations of a cottage built for Mr Bennett at Dorchester to begin on; needless to say, the task – though requiring care – was not very difficult. I had to correct the plans to a scale of ⅛ inch to the foot. […] At 5 p.m. the office work was done so I returned to my rooms. ([IV] Diary 30 October 1905)

Turbutt was neither lonely nor completely cut off from Oxford, for his friend Hartley and his sister lived just opposite him; he soon bumped into Frederick Patton; and other friends called or came to stay. At 5 p.m. on 31 October he went to tea at the Deanery, Westminster, with his Magdalen friend, Richard Godfrey Parsons, who was studying theology as a lay student for a year with the Dean of Westminster. Dr Joseph Armitage Robinson (1858–1933; Dean 1902–11) had formerly been the Norris Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (1893–99) and his scholarly expertise in Patristics had earned him several honorary doctorates, including two at the Universities of Göttingen (1893) and Halle (1894). Parsons:

showed me all over the Deanery which is delightful & most interesting. He also showed me the Jerusalem and Jericho rooms and the Hall used as a Dining Hall for the Westminster boys: also all sorts of little secret passages & ways from the Deanery into the Abbey, and to crown everything, the Abbey by moonlight. The effect inside was most beautiful. We also walked all along the roofs of the Cloisters from which we got a lovely view. He is indeed fortunate to have such a delightful place in London to live in, and nobody could ever forget it. It was a sad moment when I said goodbye to him and returned to my rooms. ([IV] Diary, 31 October 1905)

Turbutt was back at the Deanery with Parsons on the evening of Guy Fawkes Day, a Sunday:

After lunch I looked through a lot of very interesting photos of the Coronation, and the Westminster Pancake. There is an old custom at Westminster School that on Shrove Tuesday the cook makes a large pancake which is thrown among the boys to be scrambled for. The boy who gets the largest part receives a guinea from the Dean. What the origin of the custom is I do not know. At 3 p.m. we went to the evensong at the Abbey. We occupied the Minor Canons’ seats which was a great privilege, and the seats were vey nice. The sermon, which was very good, was preached by the Rev. Hensley Henson [1863–1947], Vicar of St Margaret’s Westminster. The anthem was ‘O come hither’ by [Louis/Ludwig] Spohr [1784–1859], out of the Last Judgment [1825–26]. It was very nicely sung, but the singing cannot compare with that of St Paul’s or Magdalen for quality. ([IV] Diary 5 November 1905)

After that, during the week, Turbutt’s life, like those of his friends, was much more governed by routine than had been the case at Oxford, but there were concerts and plays in the evenings, and Turbutt bought a “Piano Player ‘Euterpe’ which is a very wonderful instrument, playing the most difficult pieces with the greatest facility. It has only been invented a year or two, & is indeed a marvellous machine” ([IV] Diary 20 October 1905). On Sunday 26 November, Turbutt went back to the Abbey for evensong, where he met the Dean, who lent him the stall of one of the Canons for the service and then invited him and the preacher to stay for supper, “which invitation we accepted”. Turbutt then stayed on for Compline, which the Dean held in his private chapel or thereabouts: “The Dean was very kind, & said he hoped I should often come to see him” ([IV] Diary, 26 November 1905). This meeting marked the start of a friendship that would last up to the end of Turbutt’s life. On the weekend of 2/3 December, Turbutt was back at the Deanery with Parsons, who was recovering from scarlet fever, and this time the Dean, who had recognized Turbutt’s enthusiasm for architecture and ancient buildings, showed him

all the kitchens and cellars of the Deanery most of which are very ancient. He also showed me the very interesting plaster effigies of the Kings & Queens of England which have recently been discovered in the Deanery. There was one particularly fine one of Henry VII only with his nose broken off partially.

The Dean also provided the two friends with tickets that permitted them to listen to Brahms’s Requiem, performed with full orchestra, from choir seats in St Paul’s:

It was most beautiful and impressive, and performed with the utmost skill and taste by that wonderful choir at Paul’s under the supervision and directorship of Dr [later Sir George Clement] Martin [1844–1916; organist of St Paul’s 1888–1916]. ([IV] Diary 5 December 1905)

On 3 February 1906, Turbutt moved to Tower Hill Manor House, Gomshall, near Guildford, Surrey, and commuted into London daily. Meanwhile, back in Oxford, by 12 March 1906 only £1,300 had been raised for the purchase of the Turbutts’ First Folio. So Bodley’s Librarian, the Celtic and Biblical scholar Edward Williams Byron Nicholson (1849–1912), got permission from the Curators to spread his net wider and implement two strategies. He approached the 5,000+ members of Oxford’s Convocation and published a long letter in The Times asking for contributions from any source. His appeal was reasonably successful but fell short of its target, and on 30 March Turbutt noted in his Diary that up to 28 March:

the subscriptions had only reached £1,700 odd, besides the £200 which my father gave as an old Oxford man. We had almost despaired of their ever being able to raise the extra sum, and I had already been commissioned by my father to go up to Oxford on Monday [2 April 1906] & hand over the volume to Messrs Sotheran & Co. […]: but several gallant persons came to the fore in the hour of the Bodleian’s need. One, a city man, & not an old Oxonian, promised £300, & even then[,] when matters looked black on the last evening [29 March 1906], Lord Strathcona [the immensely wealthy High Commissioner for the Dominion of Canada in London and the grandfather of another Magdalen graduate who would die in the Great War (see R.H.P. Howard)], that munificent peer who has supported so many institutions and saved so many things, saved the Volume for the Bodleian & for England by his splendid subscription of £500. So now the book is once more in its original home, where we will hope that it will remain so long as its tattered leaves and brittle binding last. ([IV] Diary 30 March 1906)

By late March 1906, Turbutt had clearly become a favourite of the Dean – a considerable achievement since Dr Robinson, though a distinguished scholar, was a temperamental, eccentric, ascetic and autocratic loner. On 31 March, Dean Robinson trusted Turbutt’s knowledge and judgement enough to allow him and Parsons to conduct a party of boys from the City of London School around the Abbey on his behalf, with

Parsons doing the historical side, & I, so far as my capabilities extended, the architectural. We ended up by going up the tower and one of the boys taking a photo of us for their magazine. I held a very exalted position in their eyes as I was announced by the Dean as an architect which inspired them with some awe, & which appellation I could hardly claim to justify, having been a humble pupil of the art for only half a year. ([IV] Diary 31 March 1906)

By early–mid-April 1906, Turbutt’s friendship with the Dean had developed even further, for on 17–19 April his Diary records that the Dean had invited him and Parsons to accompany him on a 10-day tour of Normandy in order to study those Romanesque ecclesiastical sites that were linked with the Norman architecture of Westminster Abbey. Turbutt’s account of this journey is spread between his Diary for the years 1904–06 [IV] and a long, retrospective letter to his mother that is stuck into the back of his Diary for the years 1903–04 [III]. The journey began inauspiciously when bad weather caused it to be postponed by 24 hours, forcing Turbutt to spend his first night in the Deanery itself, “sleeping in a jolly oak panelled room called the Tudor room”. But on 19 April 1906, despite extremely bad weather in the Channel, the two young men set out for Amiens, reached their goal, and waited for the Dean to arrive. The trio then travelled by train to Caen on 21 April to meet up with the Dean’s brother, another Dr Robinson, the Rector of All Hallows, Barking, and proceed to Rouen via Caen and Lisieux. From Rouen, they were taken on a tour of “all the historic churches in the neighbourhood” and it was here, on 28 April, that they were “entertained at a small banquet of about 12 persons representing the Chapter of the Cathedral & a few laymen by Canon [Joseph René Camille] Audelin [1854–1915], and this again was a wonderful display of hospitality. We began with plates of oysters, & seemed never to end.” The party was also shown over the Cathedral, its Treasury and the choir school, and on Sunday it attended High Mass at the Cathedral where it was given seats in the Choir close to the High Altar.

The Choir master was extremely sorry that the full choir was not present, (as some were away on holiday), but they put on Handel’s ‘Alleluiah Chorus’ in honour of us, (at least so we gather from what we heard). [And] when the service was over […] one boy was heard to say to another, while pointing to us “Entente Cordiale” [the Treaty signed on 8 April 1904, which put an end to a thousand years of intermittent conflict between Britain and France], we being looked upon as deputies sent from England to keep the peace.

On 30 April the party returned to England via Dieppe and Newhaven and Turbutt went back to work on the following day ([III] Letter to his mother c.2 May 1906).

Turbutt seems to have been on holiday for much of the rest of June and most of July, and he spent most of it in and around London, with the occasional weekend in Derbyshire. On the evening of 29 June, after dining with the Dean at the Deanery, he attended a reception there,

at which a great number of distinguished persons were present to the number of 250–300. The whole house was thrown open to his guests, including the Jerusalem chamber and the Abbot’s pew. The Dean having recently been made Lord High Almoner, the document with the fine seal of Ed[ward] VII was shown to some of the guests who cared to see it. The Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin [John Bernard (1860–1927)] was also staying at the Deanery, & I had a considerable conversation with him about Archbishop Marsh’s Library [opened as Ireland’s first public library in 1701], of which he is a governor. I did not leave till 12.30.

On 4 July, Turbutt took Parsons with him to Harrow for Speech Day, where they both attended the concert, which:

was as usual delightful, but to me it could be nothing else than sad when I thought of all the delightful associations which they conjured up, and which were now ‘a dream of the past for me’. Parsons was tremendously struck by the songs. [… He] has to go up to Oxford this evening to go in for his viva-voce exam in theology tomorrow. I do hope he will come out with all the honours he deserves. ([IV] Diary 4 July 1906)

On 6 June, Turbutt went with E.P. Warren to visit Wotton Place, Surrey, the seat of the diarist and landscape gardener John Evelyn (1620–1706). Although Turbutt was somewhat taken aback by the changes that had been wrought externally and internally since Evelyn’s day, he was far from disappointed with the visit:

the objects of interest inside the house are endless, many of these being of intense interest, and relating to those disturbed times during which the great courtier lived. There are several (2 for certain) portraits of him, & many things connected with him, as the miniatures of the Kings, one of K[ing] Cha[rle]s I being very nice. Also his famous library, which amongst other inestimable treasures contains his Diary, but this we unfortunately did not see. There were also sketches of his of Wotton as it was, and some very interesting oil paintings of London before the great fire. To see all the treasures that that remarkable house contained would take weeks but as we had only an hour or two, and that through the courtesy of Mr Evelyn who wrote & asked us to come and see whatever we liked, we could only make a very superficial study of these priceless possessions. ([IV] Diary 6 July [accidentally dated June] 1906)

On 7 July, Turbutt followed his father by becoming a member of the Derbyshire Bench – though he was probably not active as a Magistrate until at least 1911 since his signature first appears on a relevant document – the licensing book for Alfreton (D249/12/3) – on 28 March of that year.

On 21 July 1906 R.N.M. Bailey took Turbutt on his first visit to Eton, where, inevitably, he was bowled over by the architecture:

I shall never forget my first entrance into the schoolyard, and the impression that it caused: The statue of Henry VI in the middle, Lupton’s Tower beyond, the magnificent chapel on the right side and the quaint old buildings with their lovely chimneys on the left. Our attention was first directed to the chapel, the crown of Eton, towering above everything else and built of stone in contrast to the rest of the quadrangle which is of brick with white stone quoins and facings. We entered by the North Door close to Lupton’s Chapel. My first impressions of the inside are quite indescribable and certainly equalled the splendid exterior. The east end had just been restored, and the Burne Jones tapestry put at the east end in place of a very inferior reredos. A new altar had also been erected, and new flooring put down. The Antechapel was in my opinion the poorest part of the building, & seemed wholly unworthy of Wayneflete after his achievements at Magdalen. The glass in the Chapel is not good, but the effect of the East Window is to me quite pleasing though much despised by most. After seeing the Chapel we went to see the College rooms but on the way Bailey pointed out to me the beautiful lines by the Marquis of Wellesley [(1769–1852), later the Duke of Wellington, Eton 1781–84]. We then went into the College and saw Long Chamber where 15 of the boys sleep in cubicles which are called stalls. It is a long room quite mediaeval in appearance, with a passage down the middle where cricket is played. In the middle of the room it opens out into a square where is the fire place, and this space is the scene of several old customs. Here new boys have to sing a song, and here the boy who is responsible for the chamber fire, if he lets it get below the first bar, get[s] a siphoning [Etonian slang for a beating with a length of rubber hosing]. Here also stands the precious jug of water which has to be brought all the way from the pump in the Cloisters. Bailey showed me the different stalls he had, and we talked to several of the boys. Our Powell [almost certainly Edward Ingram Powell (1891–1918), who was a King’s Scholar at Eton from 1905 to 1910 and a classical Demy at Magdalen from 1910 to 1914] was Captain of the Chambers, and on him devolved the duty of keeping order. […] We saw several of the boys, amongst whom [was one of the three sons] of a Magdalen History don [Charles Robert Leslie Fletcher (1857–1934; Fellow 1885–1906), two of whom were killed in action], and Madan [one of the sons] of the Sub[-]Librarian of the Bodleian [whose second son was also killed in action]. We also went to see R[onald] A[rbuthnot] Knox the Captain of the School & author of the “Signa Severa” [published Eton, 1906] a most capable set of verses, imitating Calvarley and such [Charles Stuart Calverley (1831–84) has been described as the founder of “The University School of Humour”]. Knox, the son of the Bishop of Manchester, is one of the cleverest boys that Eton has had.

On Sunday, the two young men returned to the College, where they:

called on the Vice-Provost who kindly showed us the beautiful Fellows Library built by Godolphin and full of the most priceless treasures. All the cases were opened for me and I saw their Caxtons, Shakespeares, Aldines [books published by the printing office of Aldus Manutius, established in Venice in 1494] and the copy of Ralph Roister Doister which I was very anxious to see. […] After dinner some of the members of College came in to the drawing room and according to custom they sang some hymns, both English & Latin. One of the boys (quite young, only about 14) played all the accompaniments most beautifully on the piano, composing variations for the different verses. I had a very long talk with him afterwards: his name was Ottley and he seemed a very nice boy. I also met Knox there and had a short conversation with him paying due respects of Signa Severa. We expressed our admiration of the little compilation of Latin Hymns which were collected by a Colleger and which he had caused to be published, & he very kindly gave us both a copy of it, which I looked upon as a great mark of kindness. […] The next morning we […] bade farewell to Eton and the school which had given us two such delightful days as I shall never forget. ([IV] Diary 22 July 1906)

On 25 July Turbutt, Bailey and Parsons went to see Bernard Shaw’s new play You Never Can Tell,

which is very popular. I was not particularly struck with it, but there were characters such as “the waiter” which were clever. From what I can find out about him he appears to be a highly objectionable man and a socialist, and his last play was not allowed to be performed in England owing to its gross immorality. It went to America & fortunately met with a similar fate though I believe it was acted. The title was “Mrs Warren’s profession”. ([IV] Diary 25 July 1906)

From 17 August to 9 September 1906 Turbutt was on holiday at Ogston and his Diary begins again in November 1906. On 1 December it contains an account of a weekend in Cambridge, which, of course, included attendance at evensong in King’s College Chapel:

I was extremely impressed by the whole service: In the first place the magnificence of the place with its stained windows & fretted fan vault so beautifully described in Wordsworth’s Sonnet; then the wonderful evening effect, – the chapel lit by its 13 tapers, the light from which could not penetrate to the roof nor to the altar. The two candles on the altar shone like two stars in the midst of space, not being strong enough even to indicate the presence of the altar –. The responses were most effectively sung as was all the service, & I wondered at the time whether I have ever heard church music more superbly performed, but eventually came to the conclusion that the choir were not so good as at Magdalen though they made a great deal by their tricks (if one may call them so). The choir is smaller than that at Magdalen, and yet they have an infinitely larger building to sing in, and they sing much softer than at Magdalen. The consequence is that instead of filling the Chapel there are soft voices heard in the dead silence, and everything is started piano with a crescendo following.

For the next month and despite recurring toothache, Turbutt filled his spare time with dinners, plays and theatrical events, both amateur and professional. From 21 December to 3 January he was back at Ogston, enjoying a traditional Christmas with all the trimmings, which included being snowed in for a while and acquiring a carved ivory chess set in a curio shop in Derby for £2.

The rest of the winter continued in much the same way, but on 15 February 1907, the Dean of Westminster invited Turbutt to lunch “and asked me whethe[r,] as I was lodging in London[,] whether I would care to come & live at the Deanery”, where another of the Dean’s protégés was already in residence. The Reverend R.D. Rackham recorded in his diary that the Dean was in the habit of mentoring about eight lay students or “young gentlemen” per year, who resided outside the Abbey precincts at 17 Dean’s Yard or 2 The Abbey Garden, and on average two per year who resided within the Deanery itself. So Turbutt accepted the Dean’s offer with alacrity and it was arranged that he should move into the Deanery on 18 February when his parents were in town. As Turbutt could take all his meals in the Deanery, he was soon able to meet a range of distinguished clerics and share in the enjoyment of a rich variety of lay guests at dinner. He also became more familiar with the Dean’s eccentricities, one of which was a tendency to commit, even a predilection for, committing faux pas. So, on 26 February, Turbutt noted:

In the evening the Dean dined with the Archbishop at Lambeth where he met Princess Christian, who asked him why the late Baroness Burdett Coutts was buried in the Abbey. “Because”, said the Dean[,] “I allowed it”. This story he told us when he returned & was very much amused at it himself. This story brings to mind another story about Mr Dean, which is one of the best “faut [sic] pas” that I have ever heard. At a dinner party to which the Dean was invited, before the dinner he was introduced to Earl Roberts, and the Field Marshal to make conversation, said that he had known the Deanery very well in Mr Dean’s predecessor’s times, to which the Dean with the best of intentions replied “my predecessor knew all sorts of people”. In a conversation which ensued after his return from Lambeth, the subject was the difference between Mr Warren the architect, & Mr Warren the President of Magdalen, now [since October 1906] Vice-Chancellor of Oxford: In talking of them as being two extremes, & as different as possible considering that they were brothers, I named the President as a profound scholar. This amused the Dean very much who knows him & also his book on [Plato’s] Republic which he said was most awful rubbish, & he remarked that “though he might possibly be profound, scholar he certainly was not”.

On the evening of 28 February Turbutt and the Dean read “the old Abbey Rolls with the names of the monks of the Abbey between 1300–1400, with a view to compiling a complete list”. And the evening of 5 March was spent in the company of Sir Frederick Bridge (1844–1924), the Organist of Westminster Abbey, discussing the finer points of Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625) and his music in advance of the Gibbons festival being organized by Bridge that was due to take place in June 1907. On 20 March, Turbutt was passing by the houses of Parliament

and saw a great crowd which turned out to be the women suffragettes who were trying to gain entry into the Houses. All those who were obstreperous & could not behave in a ladylike way, which very few appeared to be able to do[,] were simple [sic] taken off by the police: over sixty were arrested I am glad to say.

From 2 to 16 April 1907, Turbutt accompanied the Dean and the Reverend Trevitt Reginald Hine-Haycock (1861–1953) on a tour of the southern central part of France ([VI] Diary 1906–08; loose sheets). Hine-Haycock was made a minor canon of Westminster Abbey in 1909 and was one of its Custodians from 1902 to 1909; he was also its Precentor (1909–12), Priest in Ordinary to the King (1905–31), and the uncle of Ralph Hugh Hine-Haycock (1892–1917), who was killed in action by a shell on 3 May 1917 while serving as a Captain in the 10th (Service) Battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. The trio began with a visit to Orléans and its cathedral, which they found magnificent from the outside with its “two western towers soaring above the roofs of the houses in the little square”, but disappointing on the inside, and then travelled on southwards to Brive-la-Gaillarde, where they spent 4 April, mainly inspecting the town church. On 5 April the party caught the train to nearby Rocamadour, where, after they were driven across fields in a “prehistoric chaise” for about a mile, the road

suddenly […] turned and one of the most wonderful scenes that I have ever seen in my life presented itself. There was a great gorge, and on one side literally hanging from the mountain edge was the little town of Rocamadour, the destination of so many pilgrims during the course of the year. The rock against which the village is built is sheer except where it is overhanging & on every available ledge houses are built & paths constructed, frequently connected by arches spanning the intervening precipice.

On 6 April the party drove from Brive-la-Gaillarde to Aubazine, with its imposing Romanesque Abbey and Abbey Church containing the tomb of St Stephen (St Etienne), and then returned to Brive in time to catch the train to Cahors, where they spent two nights. On 8 April they travelled 60 miles to the village of Marcillac-Vallon, where they put up in a filthy hotel serving excellent food, before spending the whole of the next day at Conques, about 20 kilometres away through “splendid scenery”.

The party arrived in late morning and looked at the large Abbey Church, which is dedicated to St Faith (Sainte Foy), and after lunch, the priest-in-charge took them to the Abbey’s Treasury,

& when he opened the iron cases and took out the contents for our inspection we were dumb with amazement. Some of the relics – such as the chasse in which were the relics of St Foy – he had himself discovered buried in one of the pillars of the church, & he alone of all the people in this world knew all about them. He was a born antiquary. The figure is one of St Faith smothered with precious stones & cameos, & the processional cross only stood out more conspicuously amid a multitude of other priceless treasures. He also honoured us by showing us his house and all the furniture & tapestries which he did not show ordinarily. Also the Cloisters which he himself had discovered underground & everything else belonging to the Abbey, including the book of miracles of St Faith which he had rescued from being used to cap jam-pots as he told us.

The party then returned to Marcillac-Vallon, where, before catching the train to Rodez, they were:

most shamefully cheated by the horrid old woman [who owned the hotel and] who had apparently never had an English visitor there before so thought she would cheat as much as possible. […] We said that the bill was exorbitant, but that at any rate we would show ourselves in a true Christian spirit even if she would not, that we should pay the bill as it stood, but should have to, for the sake of our other English travellers, warn the guides with regard to the establishment. Thus we left the house & “shook the dust from off our feet”.

Their arrival at Rodez the same evening was marred by two things. First, there were no cabs into town from Rodez station and they were compelled to take the tram accompanied by a “mad man, half undressed, who screamed fearfully and was a very dreadful sight to see, all bound down with cords to keep him quiet”, which “gave Mr Dean such a turn that he was out of sorts for the rest of the evening”. Second, although the cooking at their hotel was excellent and their rooms quite good, Turbutt, who was relatively tolerant of vintage French plumbing, pronounced “the sanitary arrangements” too “revoltingly disgusting and filthy” for any lady possibly to stay there. Nevertheless, the party stayed at Rodez for two days, mainly looking around the old town and inspecting the Cathedral. On the afternoon of 12 April the party left Rodez for Albi, where, after settling into their hotel, they

went out to see the wonderful Cathedral, which is a most amazing sight as one approaches by rail. The beadle was just shutting up but he admitted us & in the dim light we drank in the wonders of the building. This Cathedral with Amiens I think is internally the most wonderful building I have seen in France. The Screen blinds one with its richness as do the frescoes with which the whole church is covered. When the light failed us, the Dean asked the beadle to take his card in to Monsigneur Mignot [1842–1918], the Archbishop of Albi [1899–1918], whom Mr Dean had entertained at the Deanery a year or so ago. The Archbishop very kindly sent word that he would be delighted to see us any hour we chose to call the next morning.

Under the law of 9 December 1905 separating church and state in France, the Archbishop had been evicted from his Palace by the French Government in December 1906 and had to receive the three Englishmen in a small house nearby.

To this we repaired, and were received by him in his small study, he most graciously shaking us warmly by the hand with both hands & telling us how glad he was to see us. I shall never forget my first sight of him. An old man with white hair and a charming face, dressed in a black cassock with a black cape each having a thin red edge and a row of little red buttons & button holes running from top to bottom. A magnificent violet silk sash twice round his waist & hanging down to his feet, terminated with beautiful tassels & a gold chain about his neck. Such was that fine old patriarch who, in the evening of life, had been expelled from his Palace by an atheistical government to end his life in a little house which had formerly been that of his secretary. […] It was very melancholy.

During their visit, the trio had a long conversation with the Archbishop on the state of the disestablished French Church and its relationship with the Church of England under the present Pope (Pius X (1835–1914); Pope from 1903 to 1914; canonized 1954), of whom the Archbishop clearly disapproved. And when they took their leave, the Archbishop invited them to lunch on the following day, Sunday 14 April, and paid them

the special compliment of entertaining us alone as he apparently wished to have a lot of private conversation. A princely repast was provided for us. Soup. Fish. Mushrooms[,] various entrées (two or three) sweets, cheese, desserts, and four different courses of wines, namely old Santerre [recte Sancerre], Red Wine of the country, beautiful old Bordeaux, & finally to end up – Champagne.

Turbutt returned to London on the following day and his Diary then ceases until 15 October 1907 apart from two loose sheets from mid-July. On the first sheet he described a visit to Peterborough Cathedral (13–15 July) and a garden party at Lambeth Palace (20 July), where he helped the Archbishop and his wife entertain some 200 workers from the nearby Doulton pottery works. And on the second he left an account of the dinner party at Westminster Deanery that he attended on 27 July and where he met inter al.: the American Ambassador (Mr Whitlaw Reed (1837–1912)), the Liberal Prime Minister (Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman (1836–1908)), and the Dean of Christ Church (the Very Reverend Sir Thomas Banks Strong (1861–1944)). According to Turbutt, who was very well versed in social etiquette:

The Dean took the head of the table placing the American Ambassador on his left & the Prime Minister on his right (which was an error, for the Ambassador represents a King & therefore ranks above the Prime Minister, the Dean, however, apologised & the Ambassador did not mind at all). I took the opposite end of the table. After dinner we adjourned to the Post Room for dessert (the table was a beautiful polished mahogany one without a cloth, & the Sub-Dean’s magnificent gold (silver gilt) cup was put in the centre). It was, I believe, the first time the Dean had ever used it. After the wine had gone round the Dean proposed the health of the King, & a few minutes later Sir Frederick Bridge and nine choristers came in & sang glees & old English part songs to us (Amongst them were ‘Who killed Cock Robin’, & ‘It was a lover & his lass’.). This was also a performance that the Dean had never before done. The little boys came in in evening dress & sang for about ¾ hr, & the Prime Minister & company were delighted. Later on we all went round the Abbey by lamp light & the Dean explained in his extraordinarily interesting & occasionally humorous way the various objects of interest.

By late July 1907 Turbutt had become so familiar with leading churchmen that on the afternoon of 28 July he felt able “to call on the Archbishop of Canterbury & Mrs Davidson at Lambeth Palace but finding them out left my cards & returned”, and on 2 November Turbutt entertained the Bishop of Wakefield at the Deanery, describing him as “a delightful man & a good conservative, in fact one of the few men who nowadays do not condemn every man who has any money”.

The winter of 1907/08 passed much as the previous one had done, with Turbutt meeting more and more interesting and important people, such as the artist Arthur Rackham (1867–1939) and Mr Asquith (1852–1928; Prime Minister 1908–16), and then there were trips up to Derbyshire and journeys within England as the Dean’s companion. Turbutt also began the very complex task of establishing whether his family was entitled to bear the arms that had been granted to his ancestor William Turbutt (1574–1648) in 1628: it was, but proving it cost Turbutt a lot of time and money and he did not receive the family’s new Pedigree Roll until 19 February 1910. The Dean of Westminster, who was himself very interested in and knowledgeable about architecture, clearly thought increasingly well of Turbutt’s architectural awareness and judgement and liked his deferential ease and sociability. So when, on 9 March 1908, the Princess of Wales (i.e. the wife of the future King George V) and her daughter, the 11-year-old Princess Mary (1897–1965), paid a private visit to Westminster Abbey, it was Turbutt whom he asked to show them the places of interest. In May 1908 Turbutt visited Spain, where he was particularly smitten by Avila – “one of the most wonderful towns I have seen” – and the southernness of Madrid ([II] Diaries of journeys). On 27 June 1908 he accompanied the Dean to a huge garden party that was given by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace, and two days later he attended another “great evening party”, this time at the Deanery, when he spent most of the time in showing people over the house.

Turbutt left the Deanery in April 1909 and probably completed his three-year training with E.P. Warren at around the same time. But he never registered the professional qualifications that he was supposed to have acquired; nor does Who’s Who in Architecture for 1914 contain any mention of his name; nor does his Diary, in which there are no more entries until a retrospective one relating to autumn 1909, have anything to say on the matter ([VIII] Anecdota). So these lacunae probably imply that by autumn 1909 Turbutt had returned to Derbyshire, determined to play his part there on the family estate and in the locality as the “young Squire”. So the retrospective entry mentioned above is of particular interest since it tells us that by the time of Turbutt’s home-coming, his father had, for reasons of financial necessity, not least of which was “increased taxation by the present radical Government”, let the coarse shooting on the estate to a prosperous Sheffield barrister at £70 p.a. (nearly £5,500 in today’s money) – “the first time on record” – and been compelled to make total savings of £300 p.a. (nearly £23,500 in today’s money). But despite such cut-backs, in November 1909 the family had begun “the extension of the Northern terrace & balustrading” of Ogston Hall in order to facilitate access by carriages, especially at night, and repaired the gate posts at the Keeper’s Lodge which had been badly damaged by a hay cart ([VIII] Anecdota). So looking back on 1909, Turbutt wrote, in slightly Pepysian vein:

Of all [the] important topics of this past year none has caused more trouble, & ill feeling or provided a greater topic for conversation than this year’s revolutionary & socialistic Budget, the acme of Radical Legislation & the chef d’oeuvre of their term of office. For the last 3 or 4 years the Radicals have sought a grievance against the Lords of the House, originating with some bill which they did not see their way to passing. Since then they have sent up bill upon bill of a wholly impossible character with the intention that the Lords should throw it out & thus give them a further grievance. As the final shot they have devised a most impious & unjust Budget mainly aimed against The Lords & Landlords, as being closely akin to them, & doing their best to stir up a class distinction between employer & employed which never existed till they invented it, nor can they find cause to corroborate it now. Their party cry is “down with the Lords” and they threaten to abolish the powers of the House if they get into power again – but I doubt but that the Commons of England are too sensible to allow that. The outcome was that the Lords threw out the Budget according to the Radical notion though in reality they refused to pass it till the people of England had been consulted on it. The General election is pending to take place in January 1910. And a sad and bitter Xmas it has been in many ways owing to the amount of evil speaking, lying and slandering, but let us hope that the Truth will prevail. Such speeches have been made as probably have never been made before by any Member of Parliament in a high Government position, notably those at Newcastle & Limehouse, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (a Welshman [David Lloyd George (1863–1945; Chancellor 1908–15; Prime Minister of a Coalition Government 1916–21)] of low breeding as can be seen by the horrible abusiveness of his language; even respectable Liberals and partisans of his are disgusted). He is a man of great powers but without the power of decency to exercise those powers in a manner befitting his position & that of his country. ([VIII] Anecdota)

After Christmas, on 11 January 1910, Turbutt went to Ashby de la Zouche to stay with Lady Maud Hastings (1857–1929), the mother of Edward Hugh Hastings Rawdon-Hastings (1895–1915) (died of enteric fever on 15 September 1915 while on active service as a Second Lieutenant with the 2nd (Regular) Battalion of the Black Watch), who wanted him to read through some old papers. These turned out to include:

letters from Queen Mary, Elizabeth, James I, Prince Rupert, Cardinal Pole, Eliz[abeth] Queen of Bohemia, various Archbishops of Canterbury including Abbot [1562–1633] & Laud [1573–1645] & many others all of great interest, especially those relating to Mary Queen of Scots. Amongst the deeds were many of the 13th century & some possibly of the 12th, while many had seals of all the great people of England. I read to them as many as my short visit would allow of, & said that I would make enquiries in London as to whether these relics of the past should be published. On the afternoon of the 12th the three Miss Hastings & myself went into Leicester (19 Miles) in their new motorcar, to the roller skating rink. I had never tried rinking before, but soon got into it, being able to skate on ice, but I could not cut figures. This roller-skating is the new fashion & all the craze now, & indeed it is a very pretty sight to see the people skating & dancing while the band is playing. ([VIII] Anecdota)

On 24 February, the Turbutts acquired a small farm opposite the Higham Dairy that was entirely surrounded by the Ogston estate. When the Auctioneer announced that the family’s bid of £610 had been accepted for the buildings and 12.695 acres of grassland, he was greeted with “loud cheers, showing that even in Shirland there is a feeling that Estates are good things: the occupant of the farm was delighted when he heard who his new Landlord was” ([VIII] Anecdota). From late March until mid–late April, Turbutt once again accompanied Dean Robinson on a trip to Normandy “to investigate some of the ancient Norman monasteries including Jumièges, St Georges de Boscherville [near Rouen], & Bernay & some interesting towns such as Domfront, Caen, etc.”, but this time for three weeks and without leaving us with a detailed account of their travels. After returning to England, Turbutt stayed at the Deanery for about a fortnight before returning to Derbyshire, where he used his architectural training to supervise the renovation of two tumbledown cottages at the south end of Higham.

On 6 May 1910 Turbutt noted that “our beloved King Edward VII” had died:

everybody felt that the loss to the country was inestimable. Whig & Socialist joined with the Tory in their deep feelings of respect. The throne of England was, I should think, never established more firmly in the hearts of all Englishmen, than under Edward VII – The whole country instantly went into the deepest mourning, every peasant, however humble his position, collected what black was available to show his respect for the departed. On May 20 we had a special service at Brackenfield at 2.30. All the purple hangings were used & the pulpit & chancel rails were draped with black. The vicar gave us a good address on the power of true greatness, but pointed out that we must look forward to greatness to come instead of looking back to greatness which is past. ([VIII] Anecdota)

Later on in the same month, the widening of the balustrade which had been begun in November 1909 was abandoned. On 28 November, Turbutt

heard the somewhat sad news that my dear & kind friend Dr Robinson the Dean of Westminster had resigned that Deanery owing to the pressure of work & London life. He has been given the Deanery of Wells [1911–33] as a place to which to retire where he may carry on his literary pursuits, but universal regret is felt that so great & good a man should have to vacate a position so eminently suited to him, & in which he played so conspicuous a part. He has always been the kindest of friends to me & the Deanery had become my second home. ([VIII] Anecdota)

The real reason for the Dean’s resignation was, however, the strain caused by his protracted dispute with the Canons of Westminster, who felt that he had used his extensive powers without sufficient consultation and collaboration and made a formal appeal to the Sovereign as the Abbey’s Visitor. So the Dean resigned.

But almost immediately after his arrival at Wells, the Dean commissioned Turbutt to organize and oversee the repairs to and partial restoration of his new Deanery to its original form and to create the private chapel in Dean Gunthorpe’s Building – work that occupied him from 1 January to May 1911 ([VIII] Anecdota). Dean Robinson also appointed Turbutt’s friend Parsons as Principal of Wells Theological College. In summer 1911, during a stint of military training (q.v.), Turbutt developed an acute form of rheumatism and had to return home where he subjected himself to various lengthy, expensive and fruitless forms of treatment. So during the next months he busied himself with improvements to the Ogston estate. But no rain fell between 30 June and 1 August and when the drought continued, Turbutt noted on 12 August:

the dearth of water is terrible. Besides [which], excessive heat prevails such as is unprecedented & far eclipses the summer of 1868. Last Wednesday afternoon the thermometer in the east porch registered 93° in the shade, while in London it reached 100° in some districts. The pantry drain being out of order we had the pipes up & on investigation it appeared that it ran into a great cesspool in front of the house [illegible number or words] feet east of the Library bay. In the old days all the drains ran into this cesspool, but my Father had the others diverted. The reports about this hole were extravagant to one’s ideas, it being said by the old man who had arched it over 50 years ago that it was big enough to put a coach & pair into. This story, however, grew till the statement that it was big enough to hold the house was circulated. On striking through the roof we plumbed it & put a lantern down but though we were unable to see the sides (we were on the eastern side) we found that even now, despite the collection of solids at the bottom, it was 103 feet […] deep with 50ft 6 inches of liquid in it. ([VIII] Anecdota)

From 23 to 25 August Turbutt was down at Wells, looking over his restoration work, after which he and his sister went to stay with friends at Chillington, in Staffordshire. Here, in the Library, with his usual sixth sense, he discovered “some very interesting MSS […] including a copy of Langland’s Piers Plowman & Hilton’s works – also Isadore [St Isidore of Seville (c.560–636)]” ([VIII] Anecdota). Turbutt’s Diary is then silent until Christmas 1911, which the family celebrated in the usual way, and looking back on 1911 Turbutt commented: “The old year especially during the latter half has been politically a very troubled one. In September we were nearly at war with Germany over Morocco, in fact the public knew little of its proximity at the time.”

During 1911 and throughout 1912, Turbutt was very busy with plans for improving Ogston Hall and its associated properties, and file D37 M/F 148 in Derbyshire County Record Office constitutes a partial record of his plans and designs: for a new external stairway, for an extension of the lower terrace and for new windows at the Hall, for a cow-house at Morton Rectory, for work on Handley House, for a cottage at Higham, and for an extension to the north aisle of Morton Parish Church and the construction of a vestry. He also supervised the restoration of the old screen there, and shortly before his death he designed a new lych-gate for its graveyard. Although [VIII] peters out in July 1912, Turbutt’s Diary & Garden Designs [IX], which is almost empty, has one entry that gives one a telling insight into its author’s love of the Ogston estate and the care which he and his family took over its maintenance and design: a list of 12 standard apple trees (eight varieties) that were planted in the New Plaisance, Ogston, in 1912. What impresses the modern reader, who is used to being able to buy fruit and vegetables out of season, is the fact that they have all have been planted, clearly with Turbutt’s approval, in order to provide their fruit at different times of the year.

[VIII] contains only one entry for 1913, and that for 31 December, which Turbutt concluded with the following thoughts:

We have now come to the end of the year 1913, and I thank Divine Providence that it has thought fit to preserve my Father & Mother, also my sister & brother & self from all ills and Dangers. My father has been much troubled by the cruel persecution which has been going on all the year against Landlords, or as the present Government call them “wicked tyrants”, & it has undoubtedly shewn [sic] signs on his health, but we must bear with our enemies, & continue to try to do our duty to all men in whatever degree, & trust that their malice in attempting to discredit a class, who are politically in their way, in the eyes of the nation will be of no avail, & I trust that this new year may bring an end to all bickerings and unkind words & that we may live after a more Christian fashion.

For 1914, [VIII] occupies a mere two and a half pages, most of which is taken up with a moving lament for a pet cat called “Billy” who had died aged 18. But Turbutt’s final entry in [VIII], written on 25 June 1914, has an uncharacteristically sombre and strangely oracular feel about it: “The big Ash in front of the house in the Park blew down. It was quite hollow.”

Besides being used as an informal consultant on architecture in Derbyshire, Turbutt was also active as a Justice of the Peace for Clay Cross and Alfreton, as a Commissioner of Boy Scouts, as the President of the Stretton Ploughing Society, as a devout church-goer and, though “gentle and of delicate health”, as an officer in the Territorial Forces. On 31 October 1914, i.e. ten days after his death in Flanders, The Derbyshire Times commented:

Those who knew him intimately will realise that death has removed one of the most sympathetic and promising of landlords and the whole district will feel that an irreparable loss has been sustained. He was devoid of ostentation and was ever ready to give a helping hand to all who asked his aid and advice. As the heir to the Ogston estates he took a deep interest in all that pertained to the farm and land and had acquired a sound knowledge of agricultural problems. To the tenants on the Ogston Estate he was a real friend, as all knew that Mr Gladwyn’s sympathies were for their welfare and many of their troubles and difficulties had only to be named to secure redress. He was a fine type of an English gentleman and upheld worthily the record of his father and the Turbutt family.

And on Monday 6 November, the Alfreton and Belper Journal and Mid-Derbyshire Record reported that on 16 October, i.e. five days before his death, Turbutt had written to the Secretary of the Stretton Ploughing Society:

I regret that I shall not be able to be with you on the 23rd of October this year, but you may rest assured that this fixture will be in my mind and I wish it all success. During the last two months I have been witnessing the horrors of war, accompanied by the devastation of a large portion of the most highly cultivated parts of France, and I pray God we may never see our Derbyshire farms in such a plight. This war has also brought home to me more than ever the extreme importance of the farming industry, without which Germany would at the present moment be starving. Therefore, I feel that our little society is doing infinite good if it can contribute towards the increase of the world’s food supply. I regret that the short time for letter writing at my disposal precludes a longer note.

The same piece also cited tributes that had been paid to Turbutt at Alfreton Petty Sessions on the previous Wednesday (1 November), when the Chairman had said:

those present all knew him in one way or another, and they all admired the painstaking, careful way with [sic] which he did his duties. Whatever they were, whether they were with his father’s tenants, or on the Bench where he showed already great signs of knowledge and care of his work, and where he would have proved himself in time to become a most valuable magistrate in that Petty Sessional Division. Whether he was amongst his friends, or concerned with the duties he took upon himself through his deep artistic feelings, he always showed himself to be superior to most young men.” Another magistrate said that: “Mr. Gladwyn Turbutt was considerate in any case which came before him at that Court. He had sacrificed his life for his country, he had set a good example to many others […] and that example would have a considerable effect in inducing those who had hesitated up to now to do their duty so far as the country and the nation were concerned.” A third magistrate associated himself with these sentiments, adding: “that it had never been his privilege to sit with any gentleman who was so kind at heart”. The Clerk, speaking on behalf of the court’s officials, noted that Turbutt was the youngest magistrate on the Bench and called him “kindly and considerate in all he undertook”. A solicitor emphasized what he thought was Turbutt’s distinguishing feature as a magistrate: “his desire to listen carefully to the evidence, get at the bottom of the case, and do what was just to the parties concerned. […] He had died nobly for his country, not in a war of aggression, but in fighting for righteousness and justice for the world.”

Military and war service

William Gladwyn’s obituary in the Nottingham Evening Post stated that “The [Turbutt] family has always been associated with a branch of the Army”, and it was clearly at the wish of his father, who had served from 1874 to 1884 as an officer in the Derbyshire Militia – i.e. the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters (The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) – and risen to the rank of Major, that Turbutt was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Buckinghamshire (Bucks.) Militia (3rd Battalion, the Oxford Light Infantry, founded 1759) on 18 July 1906 ([IV] Diary) (London Gazette, no. 27,932, 19 July 1906, p. 4,889). He then acquired some second-hand kit from the High Wycombe depot on 27 July 1906 ([IV] Diary), and reported for “preliminary drill” (basic training) at Cowley Barracks, on 9 September 1906 ([IV] Diary), noting later that this was

my last day at Ogston before going out to my preliminary drill at Cowley Barracks, near Oxford. I have at last got all my uniforms as far as I know, but am in complete ignorance about anything further. The experience will be new to say the least of it as I am so entirely ignorant of military matters, nor can I say that I am looking forward to it, but a parent’s will is law, and military training is good if not necessary for everyone.

 

In the first part of June 1908, he attended the annual militia training camp at Browndown, near Portsmouth, with the 4th Battalion, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, and was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion of that Regiment, a training and feeder battalion, on 1 August 1908 (London Gazette, no. 28,177, 15 September 1908, p. 6,686). He was a dutiful rather than an enthusiastic soldier, since his Diary tells us only the bare minimum about his peacetime training. But having been educated to conform to the requirements of family duties and social station, he soon acquired the same firm attachment to the Bucks. Militia as he had to Harrow and Magdalen. Moreover, Turbutt’s live appreciation of pageantry and tradition meant that when, as part of the Haldane Army Reforms (1906–12), the unit was abolished on 1 July 1908 and merged with the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, the Ox. and Bucks. LI, to become part of the new Territorial Force, his Diary contains a lively account of the emotional consequences for a young, historically aware subaltern:

 

He then acquired some second-hand kit from the High Wycombe depot on 27 July 1906 ([IV] Diary), and reported for “preliminary drill” (basic training) at Cowley Barracks, on 9 September 1906 ([IV] Diary), noting later that this was

“my last day at Ogston before going out to my prelimin ary drill at Cowley Barracks, near Oxford.  I have at last got all my uniforms as far as I know, but am in complete ignorance about anything further.  The experience will be new to say the least of it as I am so entirely ignorant of military matters, nor can I say that I am looking forward to it, but a parent’s will is law, and military training is good if not necessary for everyone”.

In the first part of June 1908, he attended the annual militia training camp at Browndown, near Portsmouth, with the 4th Bn, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire LI, and was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the  3rd (Reserve) Battalion of that Regt, a training and feeder battalion, on 1 August 1908 (LG: no. 28,177 [15 September 1908], p. 6,686).   He was a dutiful rather than an enthusiastic soldier, since his Diary tells us only the bare minimum about his peacetime training.  But having being educated to conform to the requirements of family duties and social station, he soon acquired the same firm attachment to the Bucks Militia as he had to Harrow and Magdalen.  Moreover, Turbutt’s live appreciation of pageantry and tradition meant that when, as part of the Haldane Army Reforms (1906-12), the unit was abolished on 1 July 1908 and merged with the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, the Ox. and Bucks. LI, to become part of the new Territorial Force, his Diary contains a lively account of the emotional consequences for a young, historically aware subaltern:

This was indeed a sad day to every officer who had ever served in the old Bucks Militia, & to the whole County of Bucks itself, being the day on which we handed over the colours to the safe custody of the Church, as the Government (Liberal) had no longer any need for us. After 250 Loyal & Distinguished years of service, with a great tradition behind us, it was hard not to feel sorrow and disgust at such an unprecedented action, but as the first duty of the Soldier is to obey & not criticise the actions of his superiors, it is not for me to pursue this. At 11 a.m. the Colour Party paraded for the last time on the Barracks Square: I carried the Kings Colour and [Lieutenant (later Lieutenant-Colonel) Aubrey Vere] Spenser [1886–1973] carried the Regimental Colour: The Buglers played us down to the Church & at the West Door we halted. The officers past & present who awaited our arrival were drawn up on either side of the path. The General Salute was then sounded & every officer & many of the townspeople who were present & had served under the Colours saluted them. We then proceeded into the Church & after a hymn & a few prayers the Colours were handed over by the Colonel to the Vicar, who, after saying a few words, placed them on the altar: Then ‘God save the King’ was sung & the buglers ranged up in front of the chancel rails & sounded the ‘Last Post’. We then quietly dismissed. ([IV] Diary, Loose sheets)

In 1909, Turbutt participated in three periods of training with various Special Reserve Battalions: the first at Browndown with the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, the Ox. and Bucks. LI, for a second time; the second, immediately afterwards, with the 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion, Princess Victoria’s Royal Irish Fusiliers (Cavan Militia) at Finner Camp, Ballyshannon; and the third with the 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion, The King’s (Liverpool) Regiment at Brackenber Moor, south-east of Appleby-in-Westmorland. Turbutt was promoted Lieutenant on 5 March 1910 (London Gazette, no. 28,354, 5 April 1910, p. 2,331), while he was on a four-week training course at Worcester, and in June of that year he and the 3rd Battalion trained for three weeks at Parkhouse Camp on Salisbury Plain:

We had good weather except for very severe thunderstorms, & fortunately my tent was a fairly good one. In the evenings after Mess we used to be able (sometimes) to see Halley’s Comet but only as a very faint & indistinct blur in the sky: no tail or even nucleus were visible, & very unlike the magnificent comet of the earlier part of the year.

Later on in the year, Turbutt went out with the 4th Battalion of The King’s Regiment to train for three weeks at Penally, near Tenby, South Wales. He noted:

It rained practically the whole time & was most unpleasant in that respect. When our day’s work was over I used to go to see the castles round about. This district abounds with ancient strongholds, & amongst those which I saw were Pembroke. Manorbier, Carew, Roche, Haverfordwest. ([VIII] Anecdota)

From 13 May to 10 June 1911 he trained at Grange Field, near Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, where the weather was good for the whole time and where, as in 1910, he won the Subalterns’ Running Cup, an achievement whose likelihood is nowhere presaged in his Diaries except, perhaps, in his accounts of long walks and bicycle rides. In May–June 1912 he spent a month training with the 3rd Battalion of the Ox. and Bucks. LI at Landguard Fort Camp, at the confluence of the Rivers Stour and Orwell, near Felixstowe, Suffolk. Here, in a complex ceremony on 1 June, it laid up the old Colours of the 4th Battalion, the Oxford Light Infantry (which had been with the old Battalion since 1883) and received new Colours from Lady Leucha Diana Warner (1862–1917), the wife of the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk. Once again, Turbutt and Spencer formed Colour Party. Although Turbutt has left us no information about his military activities in 1913, in May 1914 he and his Battalion did their annual training in Headington South Park, just east of Oxford, with musketry practice at the village of Great Kimble, south of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire ([VIII] Anecdota).

Mobilization and the Retreat from Mons  (4 August – 9 September 1914):

Like other Reservists – who comprised c.55 per cent of the 2nd (Regular) Battalion of the Ox. and Bucks. LI, Turbutt was mobilized on the outbreak of war and transferred the 2nd Battalion. Commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel (later Major-General) Henry Rodolf Davies (1865–1950), it had been stationed at Albuhera Barracks, Aldershot, since 29 September 1911 as part of the 5th (Infantry) Brigade in the 2nd Division. At the start of the war, the 5th Brigade also included the 2nd (Regular) Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment, the 2nd (Regular) Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry, and the 2nd (Regular) Battalion of the Connaught Rangers, each of which was supposed to consist of 30 officers and 977 other ranks. The 2nd Division, commanded by Major-General (later General Sir) Charles Carmichael Monro (1860–1929), consisted of the 4th (Guards) Brigade, the 5th and 6th Brigades, and various Divisional troops. Although mobilization was nearly complete on 8 August 1914, Turbutt’s name did not appear on the list of officers at the front of the 2nd Battalion’s War Diary. On 10 August the Battalion began its training with a route march, and on 13 August the bulk of the Battalion – but not Turbutt – left Aldershot with commendable speed and embarked at Southampton on the packed freighter the SS Lake Michigan (1901–18; torpedoed on 16 April 1918 by U-100 with the loss of one life off Eagle Island, near the west coast of Ireland, while en route from Liverpool to Canada).

After a slow and uneventful crossing on a calm sea, the 2nd Battalion disembarked at Boulogne on the afternoon of 14 August to a joyous welcome from the local population. It spent 15 August resting under canvas at No. 3 Base Camp before being sent north-north-eastwards by train to the small town of Wassigny, about seven miles south-south-east of Le Cateau-Cambrésis. After de-training it marched three-and-a-half miles south-westwards to the village of Mennevret, where it spent the next four days in relatively comfortable billets and helping with the harvest in the absence of the village’s able-bodied young men, all of whom had been conscripted into the Army. By 17 August, the last British troops to arrive in France during the opening phase of the War – the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th (Infantry) Divisions – had done so, and they were followed by the 4th (Infantry) Division (22 August) and the 6th (Infantry) Division (second week in September), bringing the British Expeditionary Force’s (BEF’s) strength up to c.164,000 men. The 7th Division – the first constituent Division of III Corps – did not arrive until 14 October 1914.

But by the evening of 20 August, seven German Armies had begun their invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg and France from Antwerp in the north-west to Epinal in the south-east as part of the Schlieffen Plan – the co-ordinated, multi-pronged advance towards Paris. On 21 August, in conformity with the agreed plan of extending the French line westwards, the BEF began to arrive in Mons, in southern Belgium, and by the end of 22 August, two Corps (consisting of four Infantry Divisions) and a Cavalry contingent (consisting of five Cavalry Brigades, i.e. c.70,000 men in all), had arrived in a pear-shaped area that straddled the Franco-German border. The two Schwerpunkte of this concentration were the fortress towns of Maubeuge in northern France and Mons, 13 miles to the north – from where the BEF was poised to advance further into Belgium. But General Charles Lanrezac (1852–1925), who was in overall command of the ten Divisions of the French Fifth Army on the right flank of the BEF, had already been attacked on 21 August by the German Second Army. Moreover, he had already heard about the arrival of the German Third Army on his Army’s own exposed right flank and the imminent fall of the Belgian fortress town of Namur, c.43 miles due east of Mons. So during the night of 22/23 August, he held a difficult meeting with Field-Marshal Sir John French (1852–1925), the Commander of the BEF from August 1914 to December 1915, who promised that in order to cover the French left flank, the BEF’s two Corps would dig in on the southern bank of the Mons–Condé-sur-Lescaut Canal and hold it for 24 hours. The Canal, which lies on top of the large Bérinage coalfield, runs from Condé-sur-Lescaut in the west, past St-Ghislain (roughly eight miles to the east), to Mons (another nine miles or so to the east), where it loops northwards through the suburb of Nimy. It then flows south-eastwards before continuing further to the east and passing a few miles north of the town of Binches (about eight miles), and it is represented near the top of Map 1 by the serrated line.

Of the two British Corps, II Corps, consisting of the 3rd and 5th Divisions and commanded since 21 August 1914 by Lieutenant-General (Field-Marshal from late 1916) Sir Douglas Haig (1861–1928), occupied the right-hand (eastern) section of the line. But whereas II Corps was positioned along the Canal, with the 5th Division on the left and the 3rd Division on the right in the Nimy Salient, I Corps was positioned almost at right-angles to the Canal and athwart the main road (now the N40) that runs south-eastwards from Mons to Beaumont. The front line of I Corps extended south-south-west for about six miles as far as the village of Givry so that it could help protect the British right and the French left if the Germans managed to drive a wedge between II Corps and the adjacent French Fifth Army, thereby threatening them with encirclement from two directions. So at 09.00 hours on 23 August, in fine sunny weather and after a preliminary bombardment, the German First Army (von Kluck) made II Corps the main object of its assault, with the Canal’s Nimy Salient, where the Canal is crossed by three road bridges and one railway bridge, the focal point of that assault. Whilst over to the east, the German Second Army (von Bülow) concentrated its attack on the right of the French Fifth Army, leaving Haig’s I Corps largely out of the battle.

Despite the assistance from the British, which would cost them 1,600 casualties killed, wounded and missing, General Lanrezac decided by late afternoon on 23 August to pull back south of the River Sambre, which flows south-west through Namur, Charleroi and Maubeuge. And by about the same time, the pressure of the German assault had forced the two British Corps to withdraw. The more badly damaged II Corps managed to withdraw through the mining villages that surround Mons to the south and west and establish a line running through Montraul, Boussu, Wasmes, Pâturages and Frameries, leaving the westernmost limit of the BEF wide open to encirclement by the right of von Kluck’s advancing First Army. But I Corps was able to withdraw with relative ease down the N40 to about the level of Rouveroy and Vieux Reng before turning westwards towards the area around Bougnies (where the 4th and 6th Brigades of the 2nd Division, marching ahead of the 5th Brigade, had begun digging in by 17.00 hours on 23 August) – a manoeuvre that left the British right flank vulnerable to attack by the right of von Bülow’s advancing Second Army.

By nightfall on 23 August it was obvious that the Germans had won the battle, and having thrown pontoon bridges over the Canal, they were now advancing westwards in great force towards the mining villages that formed the suburbs of Mons, thereby threatening to drive a wedge between II Corps’s two Divisions. At first, Field-Marshal French thought of maintaining the British position and fighting a defensive pitched battle. He also considered ordering his Army to continue their advance northwards into Belgium, take Mons, wheel eastwards to relieve II Corps, link up with the French Fifth Army, and help them to encircle the advancing Germans once they had got across the River Sambre. But as soon as he understood the rapidity and strength of the German advance and had heard officially that the French were not going to hold their positions behind the River Sambre because of the threat posed by the German Third Army (von Hausen), he decided to order the BEF to retreat at midnight on 23/24 August 1914.

So the great retreat south-westwards from Mons began in earnest at dawn on 24 August, with II Corps on the left (west) of the line and I Corps on the right (east), and by nightfall, I Corps was occupying a line from Maubeuge to Bavai, and II Corps a line from Bavai to Jenlain – a line, incidentally, which maps with the modern motorway D649. By 5 September, when the retreat came to an end at the tiny hamlet of Champlet, in the forest just south of the River Grand Morin and just west of Lumigny, the tired, foot-sore, hungry and thirsty men of the 2nd Battalion the Ox. and Bucks. LI had marched c.178 miles in the heat with only one day of rest. Moreover, although more than half of its men were Reservists, and so not in proper condition for that amount of route-marching, it had lost only five of them during the hike.

While all this was happening across the Channel, Turbutt, who had been put in charge of the first draft of 90 reinforcements, left Aldershot at 22.30 hours on 21 August and reached Southampton at about 04.00 hours on the following morning. Here, at 15.30 hours on 22 August, he and his men embarked for Le Havre on the SS Cawdor Castle (1902–26; ran aground and wrecked with no loss of life in Conception Bay, South-West Africa –now Namibia – on 30 July 1926 while en route from London to Mauritius).

Once at Le Havre, the detachment entrained and, after travelling via Amiens and Rouen, arrived at Le Mans on 31 August. But it was under-trained, and, unlike its Commanding Officer, ill-prepared for lengthy marches in hot weather through hilly country. It finally caught up with the 2nd Battalion on 4 September 1914 near Le Charnois, about three miles west-north-west of Coulommiers, where Turbutt was immediately attached to ‘B’ Company under Captain (later Major) Henry Lindsay Wood (1878–1939).

The Advance to the Aisne (6 September – 1 October 1914) [The First Battle of the Marne (c.6 – c.10 September); the crossing of the Petit Morin river (8 September)]:

At 19.00 hours on 6 September, as the First Battle of the Marne began (roughly 6–10 September – depending on whether one is French or British)the 2nd Division, including the 2nd Battalion of the Ox. and Bucks. LI, turned around and began a march north-eastwards of 70–80 miles – mainly on narrow by-roads – as part of the general Allied advance that became known as “the Race to the Sea”. On the first day, the 2nd Battalion marched to a field near the village of Pézarches, where it spent an uncomfortable night in bivouacs and then, on 7 September, it continued in the same direction for 14 miles and finally reached Saint-Siméon, a large village on the River Grand Morin, at 19.00 hours. At about 07.00 hours on 8 September it crossed the Grand Morin, marched around five miles northwards to the town of Rebais, and halted two miles further on at the village of La Trétoire, roughly two miles below the River Petit Morin, where the Germans were denying the BEF the use of the bridges at Orly-sur-Morin (on the left), Le Gravier, just below Boitron (in the centre), and the town of Sablonnières (on the right) by fighting a delaying action. From La Trétoire, the men of Turbutt’s Battalion could hear the 4th (Guards) Brigade, the advance guard of the 2nd Division, reinforced by two other Battalions from 5th Brigade, exchanging fire with the Germans, who held the river’s steeply sloping and thickly wooded banks. But although units of the BEF’s 2nd Division managed to take all three crossings before they were surprised by torrential rain at 17.00 hours, Turbutt’s Battalion seems to have spent the day in Reserve, without taking part in the action, since Andrew Uffindell never mentions it in his detailed account of the crossing of the Petit Morin.

On 9 September 1914, three to four miles further north, the BEF began to cross the River Marne in force, expecting similarly fierce resistance from the Germans. But as this never materialized along most of the BEF’s front, the bridge at Charly-sur-Marne, c.26 miles from Champlet, was undefended, allowing 6th Brigade, the point unit of the 2nd Division on that particular day, to cross to the thickly wooded northern bank of the Marne with ease. But Turbutt’s Battalion, like other units that had not yet crossed that river, was held back, told to dig in on its southern bank, and await further orders in case the expected counter-attack came from the direction of Château-Thierry, some ten miles to the north-east. But when, by 17.00 hours, this had not materialized, the 2nd Battalion continued its advance northwards through Villiers-sur-Marne to Domptin, where it spent another uncomfortable night in bivouacs. According to Turbutt’s Field Message Book [X], after his Battalion had finally got across the Marne, it fought an action with German units that were just beginning their withdrawal from the Marne to the River Aisne, c.30 miles to the north “on the other side of La Tutorie” – a tiny place that I have not been able to locate. During the action, Turbutt noted that one of his ORs had taken a wedding ring from the finger of a dead German Captain, so he put the man under arrest and replaced the ring.

On 10 September 1914, the final day of the First Battle of the Marne, Turbutt’s Battalion began their day’s march at 04.20 hours. After taking them through Coupru, their route involved a dog-leg north-westwards to Marigny-en-Orxois and finally an uphill march over a minor road to the village of Bussiares up on a ridge. Here, one-and-a-half Companies of Turbutt’s Battalion were attached to 6th Brigade, the point unit of the 2nd Division on that particular day, and became involved in some serious fighting with a German column that was withdrawing up a narrow valley. The ridge was taken at the cost of very few casualties and by the late afternoon the Battalion had reached the village of Monnes. So by the evening of 10 September it was obvious that the Allies had won the First Battle of the Marne and that the Germans were in full retreat. Consequently, on 11 September, with the French on their right flank and the rest of the BEF on their left flank, the 2nd Battalion of the Ox. and Bucks. LI continued its part in the Allied pursuit north-eastwards for 13 miles to Beugneux via Neuilly-St-Front and Oulchy-le-Château, thereby taking advantage of the gap that had opened up between the retreating German First and Second Armies.

The First Battle of the Aisne (13 – c.21 September 1914):

Turbutt’s Battalion spent the night of 11/12 September under bivouacs in more pouring rain. But on 12 September, the day before the start of the First Battle of the Aisne (13–c.21 September 1914), when it was acting as one of the point units of 2nd Division, it set off at 05.30 hours to march the c.13 miles to the town of Viel Arcy, on the southern bank of the River Aisne, where the bridges that crossed both the River Aisne itself and the Canal that runs parallel with it to the south, had been destroyed by the retreating Germans.

Then, after marching six-and-a-half miles to the village of Limé, just south of the large town of Braine, the 5th Brigade had to make a long halt so that the bridge over the River Vesle just to the south of Courcelles-sur-Vesles could be made operational again. But once this had been completed and the 5th Brigade was able to resume its march towards the Aisne, ‘D’ Company of Turbutt’s Battalion, commanded by Captain Allan Harden (1881–1914; killed in action on 21 October 1914 between Langemarck and Poelcapelle during the First Battle of Ypres), ran into German units that were bunching up near Viel Arcy in order to cross the River Aisne and establish themselves in the ideal defensive topography of its northern shore. According to the War Diary of the 5th Brigade, the 2nd Battalion of the Ox. and Bucks. LI took c.120 German prisoners with very little effort, after which, as in the weeks to come, Turbutt’s linguistic skills proved very useful for the interrogation of prisoners. This must have considerably increased his value as an officer since, according to the Crofton Diaries, there was such a shortage of interpreters in August 1914 that the War Office had to ring up Eton – and, presumably, other public schools as well – and ask members of the Modern Languages staff to volunteer for the job.

The British Sector of the River Aisne extended from the city of Soissons in the west to the village of Villers-en-Prayères, c.14 miles to the east of Soissons and a mile or so east of Viel Arcy. On 13 September 1914 the entire BEF, including the 5th Brigade, began to cross the Aisne along the entire length of its sector. So between 17.00 and 20.00 hours, with the weather worsening significantly, Turbutt’s Battalion crossed the Aisne Canal at Viel Arcy and the River Aisne itself at Pont-Arcy under a certain amount of hostile artillery fire. As both bridges had been destroyed, three of 5th Brigade’s four Battalions – including the 2nd Battalion of the Ox. and Bucks. LI – had to make the crossing in single file by means of one of the Royal Engineers’ six ingenious pontoon bridges. And then, just to round off a 16-hours’ march, the 5th Brigade had to continue it uphill and northwards to the little village of Moussy-Verneuil, at almost the easternmost point of the British Sector and roughly three miles south of the central part of the Chemin des Dames. This important east–west highway ran for 19 miles roughly parallel to and some 10–12 miles north of the River Aisne and had been recaptured by the French from the Germans on the second day of the Battle of the Aisne. It started at the village of Vauxcéré in the west and ended at Corbeny in the east and had been properly surfaced in the eighteenth century to make it easier for two of Louis XV’s daughters to visit his erstwhile mistress, Françoise de Châlus (c.1660–1736), in the Château de Boves, near Vauclair.

For the night of 13/14 September, Turbutt’s Battalion was positioned for about a mile along the road that is cut diagonally into the steep slope of the hill and runs down south-westwards from Moussy-Verneuil to the village of Soupir with the now ruined Château de Soupir, its adjacent village church – both used as hospitals during the First Battle of the Aisne – and its commanding view over the river valley. ‘A’ Company was on the right, ‘B’ in the centre, ‘C’ on the left, and ‘D’ in Reserve. The night was wet and cold, and at daybreak Turbutt’s Battalion began to experience intense and accurate artillery fire. “All we could do”, wrote one of the officers,

was to try to dig ourselves in, lying down as we were; if we started walking about they seemed to spot us at once. More than once fragments of shell fell at my feet. It is now about noon and this has been going on since daylight. What made it so bad was that there seemed to be no support from our own guns behind us. I suppose they had not crossed the river.

Elsewhere on 14 September 1914, the pursuit of the retreating Germans continued and the two Divisions comprising I Corps were ordered to capture the Chemin des Dames as a matter of priority. Within this larger context the 4th (Guards) Brigade was tasked with the capture of the Ferme de La Cour-Soupir, a large farm on the edge of a plateau and about a mile uphill from the village of Soupir itself. The CO of the 2nd Battalion of the Connaught Rangers decided on his own initiative to assist the Guards by taking La Cour-Soupir and did so by 05.30 hours. But the Germans counter-attacked at 10.00 hours and heavy fighting ensued until the British artillery could be brought to bear and the front line was firmly established just north of the farm, thus securing I Corps an excellent strong-point on the north bank of the River Aisne. Meanwhile, the 2nd Battalions of the Worcestershire Regiment and the Highland Light Infantry were ordered to advance about two miles further onto the ridges above Moussy-Verneuil (where they had spent the previous night), and when they did so they found the ground covered with Germans who had been killed or wounded by the Guards, the Connaught Rangers, and the British artillery. Turbutt’s Battalion was, however, held back in Reserve until the late afternoon and avoided taking casualties by using a lull in the firing to dig in just to the south of the road along which they had spent the previous night. Nevertheless, it lost 45 men during the course of that day – four killed and 41 wounded – making 14 September their worst day since landing in France.

During the lull, Turbutt wrote a letter to his father in which he spoke of his first experience of serious fighting:

I believe there is a chance of getting a letter through to you, so I take this opportunity, during a lull in operations, to write you a line. Of course we are absolutely in the thick of it, & say what one will in peace time, there is no doubt that war is excessively disagreeable. I think more so to the officer than to the man as the former is accustomed to more comfort. For two days I have been under very heavy and almost incessant shell fire, both high explosive and shrapnel, but have not so far been touched though pieces have whizzed round on every side. One high explosive shell burst within 40 feet or so of me & scattered everything, another landed in a village & killed 10 men & 12 horses, blew holes in two walls & a pit 3 feet deep in the road: they are awful things, & the scenes of desolation are terrible. The Regiment has been very lucky on the whole, having only a moderate proportion of casualties though we were shelled out of the trenches. The weather is terrible with perpetual rain, & I am always soaked to the skin lying in trenches with only a burberry coat. However, in spite of the excessive discomfort I manage to recover when the sun chooses to come out about mid-day & so far I have had no [recurrence of my] rheumatism. We are all kept going by our successes & there is no doubt that our army is making a bold dash for fame against great numerical odds.

For the men of Turbutt’s Battalion, 15 September was a day of reorganization and much-needed rest, with very little shelling, but at about noon on 16 September, ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies were sent up to La Cour-Soupir to support the 4th (Guards) Brigade. The Guards were holding an excessively long stretch of the front line and had been heavily shelled and vigorously counter-attacked on the previous day, forcing them to withdraw first into the nearby woods and then, on 16 September, into the stone quarry that was a few yards down from the Ferme de La Cour-Soupir and on the eastern side of the road. On arrival there, ‘C’ Company was told to take refuge in a large cave that formed part of the quarry, c.50 yards east of the farm buildings, whilst ‘D’ Company was positioned somewhat further over to the east. Other large caves beneath the northern side of the quarry housed a makeshift hospital and the headquarters of the 2nd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. But at about 17.00 hours on 16 September, an 8-inch shell missed the farm buildings and crashed down onto the quarry, killing or wounding 59 of the 103 Grenadiers on the edge of the quarry together with three officers and eight ORs from Turbutt’s ‘C’ Company. As this meant that a Subaltern was now commanding ‘C’ Company, Captain (later Lieutenant-Colonel, DSO) Henry (“Harry”) Mountifort Dillon (1881–1918) was sent up to the farm just after 22.00 hours to replace him. Then, at 02.00 hours on 17 September, Turrbutt’s entire Battalion was woken up and ordered to get ready to relieve the 2nd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards at 04.30 hours, and at 06.30 hours the three officer casualties from ‘C’ Company were a buried in a corner of the graveyard of Soupir Church: a fourth would join them in three days’ time.

18 September was a relatively quiet day for Turbutt’s 2nd Battalion up at La Cour-Soupir. Work was started on a bomb-proof shelter behind the trenches; Captain (later Major, DSO, MC) Guy Blewett (1894–1969) organized the burial of the German and British soldiers and the livestock that had been killed during the recent fighting; a communication trench was dug; and obstacles were put in place, using such wire, tools, and machinery as could be found around the farm. 19 September looked like being another quiet day until, at 13.15 hours, German artillery began to shell the farm, the quarry, the road linking them, and the mouths of the caves. The Germans then launched an assault, which Lieutenant-Colonel Davies, the Battalion’s Commanding Officer (CO), countered as follows. He sent Captain Henry Lindsay Wood (1878–1939) and ‘B’ Company round the south of the farm to support the men who were in makeshift trenches on its left. And he took one-and-a-half platoons from ‘C’ Company, with Turbutt – who had been transferred from battered ‘B’ Company – as their CO and Second Lieutenant Jenner Stephen Chance (“George”) Marshall (b. 1895 in Belgium, d. 1914) to act as a concealed Reserve for ‘A’ Company in the equally makeshift trenches on the right. Although the German attack came to nothing, the artillery fire cost Turbutt’s Battalion 35 casualties, nine of whom were killed and 26 of whom (including three officers) were wounded; two of the officers later died of their wounds. The Germans suffered at least as badly, and the British Medical Officer would later estimate that about 500 dead or mortally wounded men were lying untended within 800 yards of the British positions. Another officer wrote in a letter to his family that “a whole herd of cattle” was lying there too, and “going bad”. And here is what Captain Blewitt – who was wounded that day below the eye by a piece of shrapnel but survived the war (cf. J.L. Johnston), wrote about it in his diary.

[Just after 13.30 hours] I went back and relieved Vere Spencer in the trenches, where a hellish artillery fire went on until dark. [German] Infantry advanced on our right, where they succeeded in getting a Maxim into action, near some hay-stacks which rather enfiladed us, but the fire was always high. Then, at dusk, they collected in the turnip-fields in front of us, and we thought that they meant coming through. We got up all the reinforcements we could (3 platoons, under Turbutt and Marshall), and laid them down, with fixed bayonets, behind our trenches, ready to counter-charge when the enemy got into our [barbed-wire] entanglements (of which there was little left). But they never got there, and by 6.30 p.m. the firing died down, when the attack shifted farther down the line to our right. Our position was very peculiar. The Aisne was behind us, and from it the ground sloped steeply up towards a wooded plateau, almost on the edge of which (where the cultivation and woods met) we had our trenches, mostly looking up a slope, and in many places with very little field of fire. To our left front ‘D’ Company’s trenches had a field of fire of only 200 yards, and the enemy must have come to within 100 yards in his attack after dark.

On 20 September, a quiet day with almost no casualties even though the Battalion was fired on by infantry with rifles and machine-guns, Captain Dillon was confirmed officially as the CO of Turbutt’s ‘C’ Company. On 21 September the firing died down somewhat and during the night of 21/22 September, the Battalion was relieved, turned back southwards, and marched to Dhuizel, where it rejoined the body of 5th Brigade, from which it had been acting independently for over a week, losing 125 casualties killed, wounded and missing in the process. It rested and trained at Dhuizel from 23 to the night of 26 September, when it was put on 15 minutes’ alert as sounds of fighting had been heard coming from the northern bank of the River Aisne. But nothing came of the alert and the next two days were quiet, enabling Captain Dillon to find the time to write a long letter to his family about the events of the previous ten days: “Our whole Brigade has suffered very seriously in the [recent] battle. One Regiment has only 250 men and 6 officers left out of 1,000 men and 30 officers”, adding that:

every one of our casualties bar two have been from shells. The German gunners are really good but their infantry is no good at all and we have absolutely annihilated them every time we have had the luck to come across them. If it was not for their guns we would very soon sweep their wretched infantry off the face of God’s earth […]. One gets so used to seeing the grey bundles on the ground that one almost forgets they are men.

The “Race to the Sea” (17 September – 19 October 1914)

On the afternoon of 29 September, the Battalion crossed back over the Aisne to Bourg-en-Comin, and after two days of inactivity it marched back to its old position in the improved deep trenches at La Cour-Soupir. It stayed here from 1 to 13 October, with three of its Companies on the right spending two days in the front line and one day in Reserve, whilst ‘D’ Company on the left remained permanently in the front line. During the first week of its second stint at La Cour-Soupir, the Battalion suffered a small but steady number of casualties – mainly because of the accurate German shelling – which became less severe during the second week, when the nights started to become significantly colder. Turbutt seems, however, to have missed the latter part of his Battalion’s uncomfortable stay in the front line since on 10 October he was transferred to the Divisional Cavalry of the 2nd Division in order to join its Cyclist Company (which consisted of three officers and 90 ORs). He even trained for two days with ‘B’ Squadron of the 15th (The King’s Own) Hussars, another part of the Divisional Cavalry of the 2nd Division, in the Bourg-en-Comin/Longueval–Barbonval area. But because of the fighting around Soupir and the farm, Turbutt’s Battalion was suffering from “the dearth of officers” that was beginning to affect all the BEF, especially officers who could speak French and German. So as his linguistic skills had already been used several times for the interrogation of prisoners, the Army may have felt that he was more useful as an officer in an Infantry Battalion en route to the Belgian front than as a relatively untrained cyclist, and on 12 October he was recalled to his Battalion.

On 13 October 1914, Turbutt’s Battalion was relieved by the French 254th Regiment, and soon after midnight, like the rest of 5th Brigade, it began its long journey northwards towards western Belgium, where the Germans, who had captured the fortified city and port of Antwerp on 9 October, were laying siege to the city of Lille. They captured Lille on 15 October – which meant that their 6th Army was well positioned for advancing westwards and breaking through the Allied lines, so that their 4th Army could encircle the pivotal town of Ypres (Ypern). This would enable them to win the “Race for the Sea” and cut off the BEF from the ports on which it depended for men and supplies.

The 2nd Battalion of the Ox. and Bucks. LI began by marching southwards to Fismes, where it entrained and travelled via Amiens, Boulogne, Calais, St-Omer and Hazebrouck to Morbeque, where the entire 5th Brigade was assembling. The 2nd Battalion arrived on 15 October and two days later, in raw and chilly weather, the whole Brigade set off to march the 12 miles north-north-eastwards to Godewaersvelde, just below the Franco-Belgian border. Then, on 19 October, the first day of the First Battle of Ypres, the 5th Brigade, together with the rest of I Corps, covered another seven miles to Abeele and Poperinghe, in Belgium. On 20 October it rested before continuing eastwards for nine miles with orders to “push back the enemy whenever and wherever possible” and then to take up defensible positions in the trenches north-east of Ypres, on the crest of the low Pilckem Ridge. So Turbutt’s 2nd Battalion rapidly found itself digging in on a line between the villages of Steenstraate and Pilckem, about a mile to the south-east, where it unknowingly faced a large force of German infantry from the recently raised 51st Reserve Infantry Division, 25 per cent of whom were, according to Ian Beckett, “trained reservists from the Landwehr, Ersatz reserve, and Landsturm”, whilst 75 per cent were “either kriegsfrewillige volunteers or untrained, under-aged and over-aged men”. The Germans had already managed to reach the village of Poelcapelle and were now preparing to attack the heavily defended village of Langemarck in four columns.

The First Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November 1914); The Battle of Langemarck (21 – 24 October):

On 21 October 1914, the first of three days of heavy fighting that would become known as the Battle of Langemarck, orders came for the British 1st Division, one of the two Divisions comprising I Corps, to attack Poelcapelle from the direction of Langemarck, whilst the 2nd Division was to advance on Passchendaele, five miles south-east of Poelcapelle. So Lieutenant-Colonel Davies deployed his Battalion along the Langemarck–Zonnebeke Road, i.e. on the left flank of the 5th Brigade, with Turbutt’s ‘C’ Company – now commanded by Captain Ashley William Neville Ponsonby (1882–1915) – on the left of the Battalion and with its left flank along a small stream called the Lekkerboterbeek (also the Haanixbeek or Hanebeek).

So although the 2nd Battalion of the Ox. and Bucks. LI was pointing in the right direction, its left flank was dangerously exposed, since the 2nd Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment was covering its right flank while two other Battalions of 5th Brigade were each in support behind one of its two lead Battalions. Additionally, the 4th (Guards) Brigade was on the right of 5th Brigade, whilst the 6th Brigade was in Reserve in the rear astride the road that ran south-west through Wieltje and Sint Juliaan to Ypres. Or to put things somewhat differently, the integrity of Turbutt’s Battalion during the coming battle depended on the ability of the 1st Division, which was supposed to be positioned on the far side of the Lekkerboterbeek, to be at the right place at the right time. Moreover, despite their proximity the two Divisions had been tasked with different goals, so when they attacked, they would not be facing slightly different directions, thus increasing the risk of a dangerous gap opening up between them.

Although the four Battalions of 5th Brigade were ready to start their advance towards Passchendaele by 06.00 hours on 21 October 1914, the 1st Division had been delayed by the number of civilian refugees and the movements of the French Territorials who were holding Langemarck. Consequently, its right-hand Battalions were not in position until c.08.50 hours, thereby giving the advancing Germans enough time to get very close to the British front line. As a result, Turbutt’s 5th Brigade did not begin its advance until 09.20 hours and Turbutt’s exposed Battalion soon came under heavy small arms fire from a ridge on its oblique left on the far side of the Lekkerboterbeek that should have been dealt with already by elements of the 1st Division. After that, the precise facts relating to Turbutt’s part in the action are few and unclear, but Lieutenant-Colonel Davies later noted later in his Diary:

This was our first big fight. The men advanced splendidly, and officers and NCOs did their duty magnificently. There was always an absolute readiness to advance on the part of the men. […] A good many men were hit, but in spite of losses we advanced quickly and steadily, delay being caused chiefly by the difficulty of getting through the thick fences. We finally got a line with our left about the Haanixbeck [Lekkerboterbeek], and our right joining up with the Worcestershires on the lower part of the Strombeek. Here the fire from the left enfiladed us and it was obviously impossible for us to go on unless the 1st Division came on also, so we stayed where we were, hanging on to the ground we had gained [about 300 yards away from the enemy positions].

Captain Henry Mountifort Dillon, the second-in-command of the Battalion’s ‘A’ Company and the Battalion’s only Captain to go through the battle unscathed, was on the right of the line and composed a long and panoramic letter to his sister on 22–25 October that appeared anonymously in The Oxford Times a month later. Of this part of the action he wrote: “the fire this first day was beyond belief. High explosives, shrapnel, machine-guns, and rifles all blended into one unending roar” – and to such an extent that he was nearly deaf by nightfall. Everyone who wrote about the first day of the Battle of Langemarck concurred that besides the terrible noise, three features of the landscape badly hindered the advance: its openness, its criss-crossing streams, and its high hedgerows.

According to an early published account of the battle, the tenacious German resistance and the “near impossibility” of getting through “a long hedge, interwoven with barbed wire” – except via a very exposed gateway in the middle of the fence – forced Turbutt’s Battalion to stop and dig in 300 yards from the enemy positions. While according to another account, Turbutt lost patience with being pinned down by accurate enemy fire and was killed while attempting to get through the exposed gateway. But according to a third source, he was ordered to take his platoon across the Lekkerboterbeek by means of the single remaining girder of a destroyed bridge, and as he tried to do so, he shouted out “come on boys” and was killed immediately by a machine-gun bullet that hit him in the head.

Whatever the truth, Turbutt was killed very close to where E.F.M. Brown would be killed by a shell on 8 January 1918 and was one of the Battalion’s ten officers and 207 ORs who were killed, wounded or missing that day – nearly 36 per cent of the 2nd Division’s total of 578 casualties. In contrast, the casualties of the 2nd Battalion, the Worcestershire Regiment, were fairly low – two officers and 58 ORs killed, wounded and missing that day – 10.4 per cent of the Divisional total.

At dusk on 21 October, by when the fighting had virtually petered out for the day, a Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry came up on the left of Turbutt’s badly depleted Battalion in order to fill the gap that had developed between it and the right-flank Battalion of the 1st Division (the 1st Battalion of the South Wales Borderers). Fresh supplies and ammunition were also brought up and the dead, including Turbutt and six other officers, were pulled into a field, covered with tarpaulins and buried at night on 22 or 23 October. Besides Turbutt, two other officers of the 2nd Battalion, the Ox. and Bucks. LI, had been killed in action during the fighting, and one had been mortally wounded: Second Lieutenant Leonard Amauri Filleul (1893–1914), aged 21, Lieutenant Christopher Fowler Murphy (1889–1914), aged 25, and Second Lieutenant Jenner Marshall (1895–1914), aged 19. Filleul and Murphy were the sons of clergymen. Together with Turbutt, aged 31, all three were initially buried at the side of the Poelcapelle Road in a place that would be marked by a wooden cross which Lieutenant-Colonel Davies caused to be planted there during the fighting of 1917. Unfortunately, the cross was subsequently destroyed by shell-fire, and after the war only Turbutt’s remains could be identified and were probably re-interred somewhere in the land that now constitutes Poelcapelle British Cemetery. So while the names of Filleul and Murphy appear only on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres, Panels 21 and 37 & 39, Turbutt’s headstone is one of the 36 that stand against the long wall to the left of the cemetery’s main entrance and one of the nine that bear the inscription “Believed to be buried in this Cemetery” (Special Memorial 1). Turbutt is also commemorated on the War Memorial in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Brackenfield, near Ogston, Derbyshire, and on an alabaster memorial inside the church itself.

Turbutt’s death in action has an unremarkable quality about it, forming an anticlimactic end to a life that was full of quiet promise. And it provoked a response that was marked by few of the clichés that would increasingly fill posthumous expressions of condolence. On 27 October 1914, his friend Lieutenant Spencer, who had fought in ‘D’ Company during the recent battle, described him in a letter to Turbutt’s mother as “a perfect example of the best kind of English gentleman”. One of the men from Turbutt’s Company said the same: “He was a gentleman, you see; he was one we could follow; all his men followed him. He was so energetic, always looking after his men.” Turbutt’s Colonel thought him “the best subaltern in the Regiment” and always hoped that he would one day command it. On 30 October 1914 Bailey, who was training in England as a Subaltern in the East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry, wrote the following shocked letter to Turbutt’s mother: “Dear Mrs Turbutt, I cannot say anything, any more than if he was my brother. Some day I shall write. Today I can’t write. I am, Yours very sincerely, Robert Bailey”, and on the same day Dean Armitage Robinson wrote to Turbutt’s father from Wells:

He was very dear to me – he stood apart with a charm of his own, a certain grace of mind & manner, which made him specially loveable. The loss to all of you is beyond earthly repair. But his light & Spirit will be waiting for you. You cannot regret the gift you have given and God has accepted. At such cost the world is won to better things. May God support your faith.

The Dean also requested a photograph and ventured to enclose “a little book which has just come out”, i.e. Holy Ground: Sermons Preached in Time of War, the re-edition of a collection of three sermons that he had originally published in 1900 “on the subject of the war in South Africa” and to which he had added a fourth, and very lengthy, sermon entitled “Holy Ground” which is based on Joshua 5:15 and which sets out the theological implications and lessons of the European war. As the additional sermon was very much the product of a time when Britain, “through a unique development”, had reached an unparalleled position of prosperity and power, it is worth summarizing its argument here. It was first delivered in a packed Wells Cathedral on Sunday 9 August 1914 and then repeated in the University Church in Cambridge on Sunday 16 August 1914. According to a member of the congregation, Dr Robinson was “deeply moved” by the subject and the sermon must have helped to persuade many of the young men in the congregation that it was their divinely appointed duty to embark on a course of action which, as with Turbutt, ended in their deaths.

Like most Church of England clergy and British citizens, Dean Robinson had no doubts about the war, viewing it as the divinely sanctioned defence of “a small and courageous people [the Belgians] against the outrageous attack of a gigantic enemy […], of the righteousness of our cause, as of the inevitableness of our action: none of us, I believe, has a single doubt”. By saying this, the Dean was not just making an abstract philosophical statement, for he then went on to speak of the war’s power to increase a good man’s “consciousness of strength” and “sense of humility” as both were “evoked together by a new call of responsibility” and offered such a man the “opportunity of high service” that could deepen his relationship with God. But the Dean, who had an extremely high view of the British Empire, then went further still. Claiming that the war had “no parallel in history” and describing it by means of the metaphor of “the motherland and the daughter states”, the Dean also saw it as an event that had made his fellow-countrymen realize “that such an Empire as God has given to us is attended with the most costly obligations, and involves personal sacrifices if it is to be maintained at all”. The war, he argued, “is not, as once it was, kings claiming new crowns to satisfy dynastic ambitions, and sacrificing their peoples to their projects of aggrandisement”, for:

it is the People making war, because it feels it must, unless it would be untrue to itself. And the People – which has been too light-hearted in its boast of imperial greatness – is now being sobered and quieted, and, in the true sense, humbled by realizing the magnitude of its responsibility and the costliness of fulfilling its mission.

He then concluded with two thoughts. First, “The renewed consciousness of strength and mission is a subject for national thankfulness. [… God] has indeed pushed us forward to the forefront of His Purpose. For this we thank God. We thank Him that He has made us here the centre of so vast a work for humanity.” And second: “The scene of tomorrow’s carnage is to the man whose eyes are opened, who has seen the vision of the Almighty, a meeting-place between God and man.” And when the sermon was reproduced in the Wells Journal, it ended with the following crescendo imprecation that is absent from the book version:

So then […] will you join us in prayer that Almighty God will pardon our many national sins, that He will give to us all the spirit of penitence and amendment of life, that He will fill us with a sense of national mission and responsibility, and then that He will prosper our arms and protect our sailors and soldiers, and bless our King, and bring back peace; that the blood of England’s sons may be precious in His sight, that He will accept the sacrifices that we offer, that He will guide the issue of war in righteousness to the blessing of our brave foes as well as to ourselves, and to the furthering of His mysterious purpose of the unity of mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It is as hard to see how the contemporary listener could have resisted the sermon’s simple logic, impassioned rhetoric, and conclusive ending as it is to imagine a senior British cleric delivering anything comparable today.

The Turbutt family regularly attended services in three Derbyshire parish churches: St Leonard’s, Shirland; Holy Trinity, Brackenfield (in which parish Ogston lies and where Turbutt, who is commemorated there, used to read the lesson and sing solos as a boy and a man on Sundays); and the Church of the Holy Cross, Morton (out of which the parish of Brackenfield was carved in 1844 and where the Turbutts were buried 1817–72). The Rector of Shirland, Reverend Bernard Hallowes, MA (b. 1869 in the Punjab, d. 1951), published a long obituary in the Shirland Parish Magazine where he, too, described Turbutt as the “best type of an English gentleman” whose life was “clean, manly, straightforward […] based on the sure and safe foundation of the love and fear of God”. He enlarged as follows: Turbutt was

a sincere Churchman, a most regular worshipper, and, as we all realised, what we call A GOOD MAN. Then there was his kindness of heart. It is perfectly extraordinary how from person after person come stories of his kindness and good-heartedness. The management of the Ogston Estate has always been on kindly lines, and both farmers and cottagers felt that they would be safe in Mr. Gladwyn’s hands, and that he would be an ideal landlord. […] Who can forget the cheeriness and readiness of his greetings, the pleasant brightness of his face, and his never failing good humour? He always left you in better spirits than he found you. His was a happy life. He was happy in his home, in his work, and, may we not say, in his death. There was no lingering illness, no weakness or decay of powers. It was just a brave soldier’s death; a swift, unconscious passing through death into life. […] He leaves us the richer for his good and kindly life, and for his bright example. For those who do their duty, as he did, and “count not their lives dear unto themselves” [Acts 20:24] there remains “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away” [1 Peter 1:4]. “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it” [Matthew 10:39].

By the time this tribute appeared in print, memorial services had taken place in the other two parishes: the first on All Saints’ Day, Sunday 1 November 1914, in a packed Morton Parish Church (a living with a stipend of £580 p.a. and a population of 643); the second on Tuesday 3 November at Holy Trinity, Brackenfield. The Derbyshire Times carried a lengthy report on the first service. The church bells were muffled throughout the day, appropriate hymns and prayers were chosen, and The Dead March was played on the organ. Canon Alfed Hall Prior (1858–1937), the Rector of Morton from 1910 to 1923, then gave the address. He said:

We are met together today on no ordinary occasion and for no ordinary purpose. We have come here to give thanks for the life and death of His servant, Gladwyn Turbutt, and we wish, also, to commend the soul of this young soldier to our Heavenly Father, and to pray that in the unseen world even fuller measures of refreshment and light and rest and peace may be bestowed upon him, and that the day of his full consummation in bliss may be hastened. And along with these two primary religious purposes, we wish to do what we can to testify publicly to our sense of the beauty of his life and the immeasurable virtue of his example and death. He was one who possessed varied interests – who touched life at many points – and always managed to extract the greatest amount of joy out of all he did. […] Frequent letters from the fighting line have reached Ogston week by week. He was present at the skilful retreat from Mons, he fought on the Marne and the Aisne, and on the anniversary of Agincourt, leading his men on in the defence of Calais, he fell, shot through the head. How much to him were those lines: “And gentlemen in England now a-bed / Shall think themselves accurst they were not here; / And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks / That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s Day.” How glorious to be buried on the battlefield amongst the men with whom he had shared hardships and dangers. What better could he have done with his life than to lay it down for his country’s honour! Few things can be more affecting than the thought of the thousands of lives which are suddenly cut short in the fullness of physical vigour – lives that might have had so much before them – that might have done such great work in the world. Surely Gladwyn Turbutt has fought the good fight. Henceforth there must be laid up for him the crown: of that we are not in one moment’s doubt. Our sympathy goes forth to his kith and kin. The sacrifice is not merely his – but surely theirs who bade him go forth and fight for his country’s honour.

The second service also attracted a very large congregation, and a detailed report appeared in the Alfreton and Belper Journal. The service for the Burial of the Dead was read by the Reverend Michael Sullivan (dates unknown), the Vicar of Brackenfield; the Epistle was read by the Reverend Bernard Hallowes; and the Reverend Thomas Allen Moxon, MA (1877–1943), the Vicar of Alfreton from 1908 to 1916 and Rural Dean from 1910 to 1916, preached from the text: “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, even so saith the spirit, for they rest from their labours and their works do follow them” (Revelation, 1:13). He said:

The note that we feel bound to strike this afternoon is a personal note. In obedience to the call of his country, one whom you and I would have less willingly spared than many whom we know, has laid down his life, a willing sacrifice on the altar of duty. Our first feeling, after the numbing shock loses its full force, is a feeling of profound perplexity. It is a sense of wastefulness. One has been taken away on whom so much of the future seemed to rest, one so full of promise, so brilliant, so unselfish: the very best product of our English homes, of our best English public school and University life, so loyal to his home, his many local duties, his country, and what is rarer still, his Church and his God. This life of rare promise seems suddenly arrested, and now in this great and wonderful festival of All Saints we meet together in the church where he loved to worship. The question which seems to rise from a thousand lips, and which comes to the Christian Church as a challenge is: “What message have you of comfort, of help, of enlightenment to give us at a time like this? If the Church has any message to us, speak out and let us have that message to-day.” And in the name of the Church whose minister I am, I stand here today to take up that challenge, to give such answer as I can, to give you sympathy.

Moxon then spoke

of the inner meaning of the mystery of death, pointing out how many false ideas gathered around it. The Scriptural teaching did not point to death as anything more than an incident in the soul’s development. Hades, the unseen world, was to be thought of as a place, not of sleep but of activity. This was illustrated from our Lord’s work in Hades, and from the story of Dives and Lazarus [Luke 16:19–31]. The idea, then, of wastefulness was false if one learned the lesson of a continued and glorified activity in the unseen world. The idea that death separates was contradicted both by human experience and the Christian doctrine of the Communion of Saints. The Bible teaches that our dead friends are nearer to us, are watching over us, are interceding for us, and, in spite of the fact that our Reformers, for very good reasons, expunged prayers for the dead from our public Liturgy, it would be wrong and cruel to take from individuals the comfort of interceding still in private prayers for those separated by death.

But perhaps the final – sober – word should go to Captain Dillon as a corrective to Dean Robinson’s fervent call to arms in a Holy War and as a reminder of one of the major factors that would, later on in the twentieth century, shake people’s confidence in the Dean’s established and deeply held faith in a providential, anglophile God. On 25 October, after the fighting around Poelcapelle had ended inconclusively and Dillon had taken part in what amounted to the slaughter of hundreds of attacking German troops, many of whom were inexperienced young conscripts, he continued his letter to his sister as follows:

My right hand is one huge bruise from banging the bolt [of my rifle] up and down. I don’t think one could have missed at the distance, and just for one short minute or two we poured the ammunition into [the Germans] in boxfuls. My rifles were red-hot at the finish, I know, and that was the end of that battle for me. The firing died down, and out of the darkness a great moan came. Men with their arms and legs off trying to crawl away; others, who could not move, gasping out their last moments with the cold night wind biting into their broken bodies, and the lurid red glare of a farm-house showing up clumps of grey devils killed by the men on my left farther down. A weird, awful scene! Some of them would raise themselves on one arm or crawl a little distance, silhouetted as black as ink against the red glow of the fire. Well, I suppose, if there is a God, Emperor “Bill” will have to come to book some day. When one thinks of the misery of these wounded, and, later on, of wives, mothers, and friends, and to think that this great battle, where there may have been half a million on either side, is only on a front of about 25 miles, and that this sort of thing is now going on a front of nearly 400! To think that this man could have saved it all! The proposition is almost too vast to get a grip of. It is ruining the lives of thousands. From the Bay of Biscay, through France, Germany, Russia, India, and right to Siberia, poor wives and people are waiting to hear. It really is the greatest calamity the world has ever seen. […] It all fills me with a great rage. […] I don’t care one farthing as far as I am concerned, but the whole thing is an outrage on civilization. The whole of this beautiful country is devastated – broken houses, broken bodies, blood, filth, and ruin everywhere! We have now lost twenty officers and we only started with 26.

Turbutt left £348 7s. 5d. (£15,000 in 2015).

Bibliography

For the books and archives referred to here in short form, refer to the Slow Dusk Bibliography and Archival Sources.

Special acknowledgements:

** Simon Harris, History of the 43rd and 52nd (Oxford and Buckinghamshire) Light Infantry in the Great War, 1914–1918. Volume II: The 52nd Light Infantry in France and Belgium (Clenchwarton: Brooke Publishing, 2012), especially pp. 1–96, with references to Turbutt on pp. 4, 62, 86. Mr Harris, to whom we extend our warmest thanks, has shown particular generosity in allowing us to use information that can be found only in his magisterial book and to make use of four of the immensely helpful maps that are printed there (pp. 33, 40, 49, 81).

*Gladwyn Turbutt, A History of Ogston (Higham: The Ogston Estates, 1975), esp. pp. 128–35 and 140–1.

Printed sources: 

[Anon.], ‘Declaration of the Poll’, Derbyshire Times & Chesterfield Herald, no. 2,440 (10 April 1880), p. 4.

J[oseph] Armitage Robinson, Holy Ground: Three Sermons on the War in South Africa Preached in Westminster Abbey (London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., [January] 1900); reprinted in late 1914 together with a fourth sermon, entitled ‘Holy Ground’, that Robinson had preached on Sunday 13 August 1914 before the University of Cambridge.

[Anon.], ‘The First Folio of Shakespeare’, The Times, no. 37,636 (21 February 1905), p. 8.

[Falconer Madan], ‘The Original Bodleian Copy of the First Folio of Shak[e]speare’, The Athenaeum, no. 4,035 (25 February 1905), pp. 241–2.

[Anon.], ‘Presentation to Dr. Roberts’, The Oxford Times, no. 2,331 (29 July 1905), p. 3.

[Anon.], ‘An Interesting Book: A Shakespeare Folio’, The Scotsman, no. 19,513 (30 December 1905), p. 10.

F[alconer] Madan, S[trickland] Gibson, and G[ladwyn] M[aurice] R[evell] Turbutt, The Original Bodleian Copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905).

E.W.B. Nicholson, ‘Shakespeare and the Bodleian’ [letter], The Times, no. 37,965 (12 March 1906), p. 4.

[Anon.], [leading article on the Turbutt Shakespeare], The Times, no. 37,965 (12 March 1906), p. 9.

[Anon.], ‘Disbandment of the Bucks Militia’, Bucks Herald, no. 3,984 (4 July 1908), p. 8.

G.M.R. Turbutt, ‘The Deanery Westminster’ [Plan of part of the first floor, 1908], in J[oseph] Armitage Robinson, The Abbot’s House at Westminster (Cambridge: CUP, 1911), between pp. 6 and 7.

[Anon.], ‘The Oxfordshire and Bucks Light Infantry’, The Bucks Herald, no. 4,186 (8 June 1912), p. 9.

[Anon.], ‘“A Call from God”: Dean of Wells and the War’, Wells Journal, no. 3,224 (14 August 1914), p. 6.

J[oseph] Armitage Robinson, Holy Ground: Sermons Preached in Time of War [Nabu Public Domain Reprint, n.d.] (London: Macmillan, [August/September] 1914).

[Anon.], ‘Lieut. Turbutt Killed: A Promising Life Cut Short’, The Derbyshire Times, no. 6,327 (31 October 1914), p. 4.

[Anon.],‘The Death of Lieutenant G.M.R. Turbutt: Killed in Action: A Promising Career Ended’ [obituary], The Alfreton and Belper Journal and Mid-Derbyshire Record, no. 2,338 (6 November 1914), p. 5.

[Anon.], ‘End of a Promising Life: Lieutenant Turbutt Killed’, Belper News, no. 962 (6 November 1914), p. 4.

[Thomas Herbert Warren], ‘Oxford’s Sacrifice’, The Oxford Magazine, 33, no. 4 (6 November 1914), p. 59.

[Anon.], ‘Lieut. G.M.R. Turbutt’s Death: Morton and the Late Officer: Fine Tribute by Canon Prior’ [obituary and report on his memorial service on 1 November 1914], The Derbyshire Times, no. 6,329 (7 November 1914), p. 8.

R[ichard] G[odfrey] P[arsons], ‘Gladwyn Maurice Revell Turbutt’ [obituary], The Guardian: The Church Newspaper, no. 3,597 (12 November 1914), p. 1,251, col. 3; also in: Clutterbuck, i (1916), pp. 409–10.

[Captain Henry Mountifort Dillon], ‘Officer’s Graphic Narrative’, The Oxford Times, no. 2,793 (21 November 1914), p. 5; also in: Mockler-Ferryman, pp. 184–8.

[Revd Bernard Hallowes, Rector of Shirland], ‘The Late Lieut. Gladwyn Turbutt’ [obituary], Shirland Parish Magazine (Derbyshire), (November 1914), unpag.

A.F. Mockler-Ferryman, The Oxford & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Chronicle: The Great War, 5 vols (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, n. d.), i[24] (4 August 1914–31 July 1915), pp. 142–88, 411–12.

[Anon.], ‘Shakespeare at Oxford: Treasures of the Bodleian’, The Times, no. 41,149 (24 April 1916), p. 6.

F.A.H.W., ‘In Memoriam: Horace Hart. A Tribute from one of his Staff’, The Oxford Chronicle, no. 4,234 (20 October 1916), p. 9.

Harrow Memorials, i (1918), unpag.

[Anon.], ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Mountefort [sic] Dillon, DSO’ [obituary], The Times, no. 41,687 (15 January 1918), p. 5.

[Anon.], ‘R.N.M. Bailey (College)’ [obituary], The Eton College Chronicle, no. 1,641 (7 February 1918) p. 367.

Compton Mackenzie, Sinister Street, 2 vols (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1919), especially pp. 179–90, 443–6, 529.

[Anon.], ‘Death of Canon E.R. Bernard’, Western Gazette, no. 9,567 (29 April 1921), p. 8.

[Thomas Herbert Warren], ‘Obituary: Mr. A.D. Godley’, The Times, no. 44,000 (29 June 1925), p. 16.

[Anon.], ‘An Oxford Don: Funeral of the Rev. Henry Austin Wilson’, The Glasgow Herald, no. 148 (22 June 1927), p. 13.

[Anon.], ‘Canon A.W. Robinson’ [obituary], The Times, no. 45,071 (8 December 1928), p. 14.

[Anon.], ‘Obituary’ [for Dr Paulin Martin (1842–1919)], British Medical Journal, no. 3,597, part 2 (14 December 1929), p. 1137.

[Anon.], ‘55 Years’ Public Work in Derbyshire: Mr. W.G. Turbutt dies Four Weeks after his Wife’, Nottingham Evening Post, no. 16,867 (25 July 1932), p. 6.

[Anon.], ‘Dr. Armitage Robinson [obituary], The Times, no. 46,444 (15 May 1933), p. 16.

Robert M. Smith, ‘Why a First Folio Shakespeare Remained in England’, The Review of English Studies, 25, no. 59 (July 1939), pp. 257–64.

[Anon.], ‘Bishop of Hereford: A Liberal Scholar’ [obituary], The Times, no. 51,264 (28 December 1948), p. 7.

Edmund Craster, History of the Bodleian Library 1845–1945 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1952), pp. 179–81.

[Anon.], ‘Rev. T.R. Hine-Haycock [obituary]’, The Times, no. 52,770 (4 November 1953), p. 10.

[Anon.], ‘New Administrator for Tristan da Cunha’, The Times, no. 53,701 (29 November 1956), p. 9.

[Anon.], ‘Canon E.M. Venables’ [obituary], The Times, no. 53,959 (30 September 1957), p. 12.

Nikolaus Pevsner and Elizabeth Williamson, Derbyshire, 2nd edition (New Haven: Yale UP, 1986), pp. 294–5.

Peter W.M. Blayney, The First Folio of Shakespeare (Washington: Folger Library Publications, 1991).

T.F. Taylor, J. Armitage Robinson: Eccentric, Scholar and Churchman 1858–1933

(Cambridge: James Clarke and Co., 1991), especially pp. 37 and 44–51.

Dr Janie Cottis, ‘A Fabian at Magdalen’, Magdalen College Record (1992), pp. 69–73.

Tim Card, Eton Renewed: A History from 1860 to the Present Day (London: John Murray, 1994), p. 134.

Christopher Tyerman, A History of Harrow School 1324–1991 (Oxford: OUP, [October] 2000, especially pp. 385, 417–9, 443, 446, 454, 463–4, 477–8, 497, 508, 511, 519, 522–8 [re Turbutt’s Oxford friend Venables].

Richard Sheppard, The Gunstones of St Clements: The History of a Dynasty of College Servants, Magdalen College Occasional Paper 6 (Oxford: Magdalen College, 2003).

Matthew D’Ancona, L.W.B. Brockliss, Robin Darwall-Smith, and Andrew Hegarty, ‘“Everyone of us is a Magdalen Man”: The College, 1854–1928, in: L.W.B. Brockliss (ed.), Magdalen College Oxford – A History (Oxford: Magdalen College, 2004), pp. 387–566, esp. pp. 395, 425, 449–51, 458–9, 490–2.

Beckett (2006), pp. 47, 86–107.

Brian Turvey, ‘A Quest fulfilled’, Derbyshire Life and Countryside, 73, no. 11 (November 2008), pp. 144–7.

Murland (2010), pp. 73–90, 154.

Uffindell (2013), pp. 99–118, 119–45.

[Anon.], ‘Obituary (Godfrey) Francis Harris, MC’ (1922–2014)’, LEPRA News, [no issue no.], (Spring 2014), p. 16.

Sheldon and Cave (2014), especially pp. 49–56, 103–5, 184–6.

Malcolm Graham, Oxford in the Great War (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2014).

Andrea Mays, The Millionaire and the Bard: Henry Folger’s Obsessive Hunt for Shakespeare’s First Folio (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, New Delhi: Simon & Schuster, 2015).

Sarah Wearne, Epitaphs of the Great War: The Somme (London: Uniform [Unicorn Publishing Group], 2016).

Archival sources:

G.M.R. Turbutt: Ten diaries and notebooks (1902–14) (private collection), quoted extensively in Gladwyn Turbutt, A History of Ogston (Higham: The Ogston Estates, 1975):

[I] Notes on early printers and books (c.1902–?); loose letters (1902).

[II] Diaries of journeys with a friend to Normandy and Germany (March/April 1903; March/April 1904); loose postcards from Spain (May 1908).

[III] Diary of a journey with his father to Scotland and the Orkneys (September/October 1904); letter to his mother from 1906 concerning a stay in Normandy (1906).

[IV] Diary (1904–06).

[V] Designs and Sketches (1904–09).

[VI] Diary (1906–08).

[VII] Ford Farm etc., Architectural Scraps (c.1906–12).

[VIII] Anecdota Ogstoniana (1908–14); (G.M.R. Turbutt to June 1914, then R.B. Turbutt to 1929).

[IX] Diary & Garden Designs (1912).

[X] Field Message Book (1914).

Letter from G.M.R. Turbutt to his father, 4 May 1905 (private collection).

Letter from G.M.R. Turbutt to his father, 14 September 1914 (private collection).

Letter from G.M.R. Turbutt to his father, 16 September 1914 (private collection); published as: ‘In Fighting Line: Lieut. G.M.R. Turbutt, Ogston Hall’, in The Derbyshire Times, no. 6,319 (3 October 1914), p. 4; the sentence in double square brackets was omitted from the published version.

Letter from G.M.R. Turbutt to his father, 12 October 1914 (private collection).

Letter from Lieutenant Aubrey Vere Spencer to Turbutt’s mother, 27 October 1914 (private collection).

Letter from Dean J[oseph] Armitage Robinson to Turbutt’s father, 30 October 1914 (private collection).

Letters from Robert Neale Menteth Bailey to Turbutt’s mother, 30 October 1914 and 30 May 1915 (private collection).

Letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Rodolf Davies to Turbutt’s father, 22 December 1914 (private collection).

Westminster Abbey Archives: The Revd Richard Belward Rackham, Anecdota Westmonasteriensa (A diary that Rackham kept from 1895 to April 1910).

Letter from Gladwyn Turbutt to Dr Roger Hutchins, 6 April 2009.

Derbyshire County Record Office (The Turbutt Papers):

–– D37/MP/75 (Thomas Hine’s drawings, plans, rough work etc. in respect of Ogston Hall: Design by Mrs Ellen Turbutt before alterations in 1851).

–– D37/MP/76 (Gladwin Turbutt: Ogston Hall [front elevation]: Proposed Alterations).

–– D37/MP/167 (Horse and Trap outside Ogston Hall).

–– D37/MP/170 (Ogston Hall with a young man).

–– D37/MP/174 (Ogston Hall: Conservatory).

–– D37/MP/176 (Ogston Hall with two boys).

–– D37/MP/177 (Ogston Hall with four people playing croquet).

–– D37/MP/181 (Ogston Hall).

MCA: F29/1/MS5/5 (Notebook containing comments by H.W. Greene et al. on student progress [1895–1911]), p. 53.

MCA: Ms. 876 (III), vol. 3.

MCA: PR/2/13 (President’s Notebooks June 1898–November1900), pp. 251–2.

MCA: PR/2/14 (President’s Notebooks December 1900–December 1903), pp. 258, 300, 329, 379.

MCA: PR/2/15 (President’s Notebooks January 1904–October 1906), pp. 29, 53, 63, 148, 169.

MCA: F29/1/MS5/5 (The Academic Notebooks and Papers of Herbert Wilson Greene).

Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum (Woodstock, Oxfordshire), The Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Rodolf Davies (January 1914–24 August 1919).

OUA (Bodleian Library Archive, Oxford): MS. LP. Shak. c. 4 (The Turbutt Shakespeare Subscription List [1905–06]).

OUA (Bodleian Library Archive, Oxford): d. 274–275 (Nicholson’s Correspondence [1905–06]).

OUA (Bodleian Library Archive, Oxford): Library Records c. 1259–1262 (Shakespeare First Folio Recovery [1905-06]).

OUA: UR 2/1/46.

WO95/1324.

WO95/1347/2.

WO95/1348.

WO95/1351/1.

WO95/4199.

WO95/4213.

WO339/13778.

WO374/31601.

On-line sources:

Wikipedia, ‘Biblical apocrypha’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_apocrypha (accessed 26 September 2019).

The Turbutt First Folio has now been digitized and is freely available at: https://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ (accessed 26 September 2019).