Magdalen men who for no reason we know of did not serve in the armed forces

In the case of a small number of men, we have been unable to discover what they did during the Great War and why they did not serve. Although some of these men may have been conscientious objectors, we have no evidence one way or another.

 

Beach, Eric Newton (1892–1942)

Beach was the son of John Newton Beach (1864–1952), a paper and pharmaceutical manufacturer. He was educated privately before becoming an undergraduate at Magdalen from 1910 to 1913 (BA 1915), but he did not appear in the College photographs of 1911 and 1912 unless he was one of the three men who are unnamed. He joined the Inner Temple on 15 June 1915 and took the Bar Examination in June 1916, but was never called to the bar. In 1919 the eminent jurist Sir Charles Darling (1849–1936), the then Treasurer of Inner Temple, created a book to commemorate all the members of the Inn who had served in the First World War, including those already serving in the Army and Navy at the outbreak of war and those who were conscripted. Although Beach’s name does not feature there, it is not known why he did not serve. Beach became a company director. A coroner’s inquest in November 1942 recorded a verdict of “Death from Misadventure”, after Beach died from an “overdose of medicinal (barbiturate) poisoning”.[1] But his private education, absence from College photographs, and failure to practise as a barrister may suggest that he was unfit. He does not appear on the Pearce Register of Conscientious Objectors or among the members of the Friends’ Ambulance Unit (FAU) or the Red Cross.

 

Hough, Edwin Purdon Kighley (1895–1937)

Hough was the son of Kighley John May Hough (1859–1927), a Carlisle solicitor, and was a Commoner at Magdalen from 1914 to 1917. He was awarded a 3^rd in Mathematics Moderations in 1915. Although he was educated at both Repton and Shrewsbury, neither can tell us anything relevant about his life after leaving school. He became a master at Hydneye House School, Hastings, in 1919 and died in a nursing home in Hastings while still a master at the school. He is reported as being a “fine sportsman with many fine cricket scores”.[2] Despite this, his relatively short life suggests that he may have been unfit for military service. Langstaff hints at his bad health while at Magdalen and also notes his claim to be a descendant of John Hough (1651–1743),[3] President of Magdalen during the dispute with James II.[4] He does not appear on the Pearce Register of Conscientious Objectors, or among the members of the FAU or the Red Cross.

 

Milne, Robert Morton Richmond (1886–1967)

Milne was the son of Robert Oswald Milne (1852–1927), a man of private means who was the son of William Henry Milne (1824–94), a Manchester cotton manufacturer. He was educated at Rugby School and left at Christmas 1902, but the school has no obituary for him and he is not listed in the deaths section of its newsletters. He was at Magdalen from 1904 to 1907 and awarded a 3^rd in Law. He was a member of the Bath Club, a sports-themed gentlemen’s club that was established in London in 1894 and used by P.G. Wodehouse as a model for the Drones Club; and in 1907 he was sponsored for election to the Philatelic Society by Baron Anthony de Worms (1869–1938; Hereditary Baron of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Fellow of the Philatelic Society). During the 1930s and 1950s he spent at least a month a year (usually a winter month) in Tangier, or Lisbon or Funchal etc., travelling either with members of his family or on several occasions with the painter Arthur Legge (1859–1942) and on at least two occasions with Charles Henry Holden-White (1869–1948), who had played football for England in 1887 and 1888. In 1938 he and Holden-White lived at the same address in Leamington Spa. When travelling, Milne gave his occupation as student (1922), man of independent means, retired or nil. These journeys to warmer climes, especially in the winter, may suggest that Milne did not enjoy the best of health.

His two brothers served in World War One. Francis Dudley Richmond Milne, MC (1889–1965), was a professional soldier in one of the regiments of Dragoon Guards and went to France as a Second Lieutenant on 15 August 1914. He was later attached as a Captain, first to the Rifle Brigade and later to the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. In July 1918 he was awarded the MC. His youngest brother, Herbert Valentine Richmond Milne (1896–1985), was at Magdalen from 1914 to 1916 and again for a year after the war (BA 1919). According to his entry in the 1922 College Record he had a complicated military career – starting as a Private in the Army Service Corps and ending up as a Second Lieutenant in the Worcestershire Regiment – though according to his Medal Card he was also in the British Red Cross and the St John’s Ambulance Brigade. But there is no indication of what Robert Milne did in World War One, and all we know about his working life is that at the time of the 1911 Census he was staying at the fashionable Berners Hotel, Marylebone, giving his occupation as a clerk with a fire extinguisher company. He does not appear on the Pearce Register of Conscientious Objectors, or among the members of the FAU or the Red Cross, and may have been unfit to serve.

 

Owen, Ingram Ilbert (1885–1973)

Owen was the son of the Reverend Arthur Welsh Owen (1852–1934); he was an undergraduate at Magdalen from 1903 to 1907. He was admitted to the Inner Temple on 23 October 1907 and called to the bar on 17 November 1911, but his name does not appear in Sir Charles Darling’s commemorative volume of 1919 (see under Beach, above). We know, however, that he practised from New Square at Lincoln’s Inn from 1915 to 1922 – which confirms that he did not serve in the Armed Forces, possibly for medical reasons, though several entries in The Times report him playing golf and croquet at quite a high level – none, however, between 1914 and 1920. However, Owen was frequently marked as absent or ill for lectures at Magdalen, and he might well have been out of residence for a time. He was also “thoroughly ‘ragged’” after the Bump Supper of 1905, made notorious by Compton Mackenzie (1883–1972; Magdalen College 1901–04) in his novel Sinister Street.[5] Both his elder brother – Carew Blackburn Owen (1881–1961), a Captain in the Royal Garrison Artillery before becoming a farmer – and his younger brother – Arthur Ryder Bastard Owen (1894–1979), a Lieutenant in the 7^th (Service) Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment before becoming a stockbroker – served in World War One. So the family was certainly not a pacifist one. He does not appear on the Pearce Register of Conscientious Objectors, or among the members of the FAU or the Red Cross.

 

Potter, Mark (1887–1936)

Mark Potter was the youngest son of Edmund Peel Potter (1847–1933), the owner of a chemical works in Little Lever, Bolton, Lancashire, which was a world leader in the manufacture of sodium and potassium bichromate. The company was finally taken over by Albright and Wilson, and until its closure in 1969 members of the Potter family held senior management positions. Edmund was also a first cousin of Rupert Potter (1833–1914), the father of Beatrix (1866–1943).

Mark was educated at Malvern College, Wiltshire, where he became Head of House 3, but the school has no record of his having served in World War One. He matriculated at Magdalen in 1907. He became a member of the Inner Temple on 3 November 1909 but was not called to the bar until 17 November 1919. As it is unusual for admission and call to be separated by a gap of 11 years, it would have been possible for him to have served during the war; however, his name does not appear in Sir Charles Darling’s commemorative volume of 1919 (see under Beach, above). Further, when he married Marjorie Anita Storey in 1916, The Times accorded him no military rank – unlike all the other announcements that it published on that day. So there is no evidence that Potter served in the Armed Forces during World War One – though other members of his family did. His elder brother Colonel Colin Kynaston Potter (1877–1964) served with distinction in the Second Boer War and the Great War (Loyal North Lancashire Regiment), was awarded the MC, the Territorial Decoration, and the DSO (16 September 1918), and in 1924 was appointed Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Lancashire. Another brother, Gerald Peel Potter (1882–1930), emigrated to Tasmania, and his son, Charles Peel Potter (c.1926–1944), was killed on 21 October 1944, aged 18, while serving as an Ordinary Seaman with the Royal Australian Navy Reserve aboard the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia. While moored in Leyte Bay, prior to the landings, a damaged Japanese dive-bomber deliberately crashed into the ship, killing 30 and wounding 62 officers and other ranks. His sister, the sculptor Mary Kynaston Watts-Jones (1879–1951), executed the War Memorial in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Winster, Cumbria.

Potter does not appear on the Pearce Register of Conscientious Objectors or among the members of the FAU or the Red Cross, and like Owen, Mark Potter did not come from a pacifist family. His death at the relatively early age of 49 suggests he may have been unfit, or he may have been involved in his family chemical company during the war.

 

Robertson, Manning Durdin (1887–1945)

Manning Robertson was the son of Herbert Robertson (1849–1916), a barrister and Conservative MP for Hackney South (1897–1906). His mother, Helen Alexandria Melian Durdin (1855–1933), was the co-heiress of Huntingdon Castle, County Carlow, Ireland, where the family spent much of its time. In 1912 he married Nora Kathleen Parsons (1892–1965), the daughter of Lieutenant-General Sir Lawrence Parsons (1850–1923), who was General Officer Commanding the 16^th (Irish) Division at the outbreak of World War One. In June 1914 Manning Robertson was one of the very few civilians to be presented at the King’s Levée.[6] After leaving Magdalen in 1907 without a degree, Robertson studied architecture and was in private practice as an architect in London in 1915. After the war he was the Deputy Chief Architect in the Housing Department of the Ministry of Health. He then returned to private practice and in the mid-1920s he moved to Ireland, where he had inherited Huntingdon Castle in Clonegal, County Carlow. He had an architectural practice in Dublin until his death, but was better known as a town planner than an architect. He was a friend of W.B. Yeats and designed Yeats’s tombstone at Drumcliff, County Sligo.

His brother, Nevill Warham Robertson MC (1890–1970), served in France as a Captain in the Scottish Rifles (the Cameronians) and after the war went to Wells Theological College and was ordained as a priest in the Church of England. His other brother, Magnus Storm Robertson (1893–1951), served in the Salonika campaign as a Lieutenant in the Cheshire Regiment.

Robertson does not appear on the Pearce Register of Conscientious Objectors or among the members of the FAU or the Red Cross, and his family background makes it unlikely that he was a conscientious objector, though this was not impossible, as is shown in the case of the Graham brothers (see Richard Brockbank Graham). But it is unlikely that he would have been appointed to a position in the Ministry of Health if he had opposed the war, and so it is most probable that he was unfit.

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[1] Bucks Herald, no. 5,773 (27 November 1942), p. 8.

[2] Hastings and St Leonards Observer, no. 6,057 (5 June 1937). p. 2.

[3] John Brett Langstaff, Oxford – 1914 (New York, Washington and Hollywood: Vantage Press, 1965), pp. 98–99.

[4] L.W.B. Brockliss (ed.) Magdalen College Oxford: A History (Oxford: Magdalen College, 2008), pp.181–2 and 259–60.

[5] For more information on Owen and the Bump Supper see Richard Sheppard, David Roberts and Robin Darwall-Smith, Gladwyn Maurice Revell Turbutt (1883–1914) (Alfriston: Higham Press, 2017) pp. 59–65.

[6] [Anon.], ‘Court Circular’, The Times, no. 40,547 (11 June 1914), p. 12.