Leonard Smith (1887- before 1956)
Leonard Smith
(Magdalen College group photo, 1909)
Leonard Smith was the son of Charles Smith (1857–1931), Managing Director of the Chester Chronicle. He was educated at King’s School, Chester, and was a Demy at Magdalen from 1906 to 1910, obtaining a 2nd class in Theology. At the time of the 1911 Census, Leonard was an associate monk in the monastery on Caldey Island, off the Pembrokeshire coast near Tenby. At this time the monks belonged to an Anglican Benedictine order established in 1896 by Dom Aelred Carlyle (1874–1955). But due to a dispute with the Church of England, Carlyle and most of his monks became Roman Catholic in 1913. As Smith was almost certainly an Anglican when he entered the monastery, it may have been this rift which caused him to leave – though his army records list him as a Roman Catholic.
Whatever the case, Smith attested on 12 October 1914 and was passed fit for the Army and for the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), only to be discharged from the latter on 23 October 1914 as being “Not likely to become an efficient soldier (medical grounds)” on the grounds of neurasthenia.[1] At the same time, it is clear that Smith did not enlist in the RAMC as a non-combatant, since on 25 August 1914 he had written to Warren asking for “a general testimonial as to moral character by way of a ‘reference’ for the Honourable Artillery Company which I hope to join as a simple soldier”.[2] But Warren, who may already have spotted Smith’s unsuitability for military service, wrote a note on the letter: “I declined to give general character said he cd [sic] refer the H A C to me[.] THW”. But although Smith did not manage to enlist in the HAC, the fact that he tried is a clear indication that he was not a pacifist. Finally, on 13 August 1917 he informed Warren that he had taken a post under the Board of Agriculture, commenting: “This is a beginning – however humble.”[3]
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[1] Leonard Smith, regtl. no. 40864 Army form B 178.
[2] Magdalen College Archives: PR32/C/3/1079.
[3] Magdalen College Archives: PR32/C/3/1078.