Arthur Percival Dearman (“Percy” within his family, “Mr Percy” in the local village, “Alice” while at Magdalen, “6 foot 5” by the men of his Battalion) Birchall

• Matriculated: 1896

• Born: 7 March 1877

• Died: 23 April 1915

• Regiment: Royal Fusiliers, attached to 4th Canadian Infantry

• Grave/Memorial: Ypres Menin Gate Memorial: Panels 6 and 8

Family background

b. 7 March 1877 in Bowden Hall, Upton St Leonards, Gloucestershire, as the second son of John Dearman Birchall, JP (1828–97), and his second wife, Emily Birchall (née Jowitt) (1852–84) (m. 1873). The family owned Bowden Hall from 1868 to 1924, but after John Dearman’s death, only the eldest son and his family lived there. Nevertheless, not counting gardeners, coachmen and a butler who lived in associated cottages, the family had nine servants (including a governess) living in the Hall at the time of 1871 Census, five at the time of the 1881 Census, nine at the time of the 1891 Census, seven at the time of the 1901 Census and ten (including a governess) at the time of the 1911 Census. The unmarried children of the family tended to live at Saintbridge House, Painswick Road, on the south-east edge of Gloucester (now a nursing home).

Parents and antecedents 

Birchall’s father was a Quaker by birth but became a member of the Church of England when he married his first wife, Clara (née Brook), in 1861. John Dearman Birchall was a successful cloth merchant who had established his own firm in Leeds in 1853, which, by 1871, was employing 13 hands. In 1868, five years after Clara had died of consumption in 1863, he bought Bowden Hall, a Georgian house with a 220-acre estate that had been built in c.1770 and had its bow fronts and stucco work added in 1800. It looked over the Cotswolds to Gloucester Cathedral, and John Dearman Birchall retired there in 1869. He had the park landscaped using the advice of Robert Marnock (1800–89), a leading horticulturist and garden designer. He also had the interior of the house remodelled with the help of the well-known interior designer John Aldam Heaton (1830–97) and own brother Edward Birchall (1839–1903), who worked for Kelly & Birchall in Leeds, a firm specializing in the design of churches in the Italianate and Gothic Revival styles. By the time that the Hall passed out of the hands of the Birchall family in 1924, its estate had grown to 512 acres, and from 1987 to the time of writing it has been a hotel.

Emily, Birchall’s mother, was a second cousin of Birchall’s father and the daughter of a Leeds wool merchant. When she married, she had just sat the Cambridge Examination for Women and been awarded a 1st (Honours), with distinctions in Divinity, Literature and French. She kept a detailed diary of their blissfully happy, seven-month-long honeymoon on the Continent that was published in 1985. John Dearman used his wealth to build up a valuable library and a large collection of blue-and-white porcelain, and to decorate Bowden Hall in a way that combined High Victorian and Aesthetic Movement taste. He occasionally acquired work from members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (founded 1848) and bought a window by Edward Burne-Jones (1833–98) and William Morris (1834–96). In 1894 he served as High Sheriff of Gloucestershire.

Siblings and their families

Half-brother of:

Clara Sophia (1862–1948); later Sinclair after her marriage in 1893 to the Reverend John Stewart Sinclair (1854–1919).

Brother of:

(1) John (“Jack”) Dearman (1875–1941; later Sir John Dearman); married (1900) Adela Emily Wykeham (1877–1965); one child;

(2) Violet Emily Dearman (1878–1962);

(3) Constance Lindasja Dearman (1880–1956); later Verey after her marriage in 1907 to Reverend Cecil Henry Verey (1872–1958);

(4) Edward Vivian Dearman (later BA, DSO) (1884–1916); died on 10 August 1916 of wounds received in action on 23 July 1916 during the successful attack on Pozières, on the Somme, while serving as a Captain with the 1st Bucks Battalion (Territorial Force), the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Regiment).

The Reverend John Stewart Sinclair was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, where he was awarded a 2nd class degree in Modern History in 1875 (BA 1876; MA 1879). He was ordained deacon in 1876 and priest in 1879 and worked as a curate in Pulborough, West Sussex (1876–78) and Fulham (1878–1885). From 1885 to 1898 he was Vicar of St Dionis, Fulham, and in 1898 he became Vicar of Cirencester, Gloucestershire, a parish of 7,536 souls with a gross income of £440 p.a., and also Rural Dean of Cirencester. In 1901 he was made an Honorary Canon of Gloucester Cathedral and in 1906 a Proctor of the Gloucester Diocese.

John Dearman was a farmer in the Cotswolds and, according to his obituarist, a “typical English country gentleman of the soundest type”. Before World War One, he served in the Gloucestershire Yeomanry (Royal Gloucestershire Hussars) and was promoted Captain on 24 July 1912. After the war he became the Unionist MP for North-East Leeds (1918–40). An ardent churchman, his obituarist described him as “the type of layman on which the revival of religion will be based” and also claimed that he was “more than the main link between the Church Assembly and Parliament; for he was the main link in the Church Assembly between all sections of the laity”. Like his youngest brother, he “threw himself heartily into movements for better housing and social service, especially with the scouts”.

The Reverend Cecil Henry Verey was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (BA 1896; MA 1899), and after training at Cuddesdon College, near Oxford, he was ordained deacon in 1898 and priest in 1900. He then worked as a curate in Bewdley, Worcestershire, from 1898 to 1902, and then at the Church of St John the Baptist, Windsor, from 1902 to 1908. After that he served as the Vicar of Bloxham, Oxfordshire, from 1908 to 1917 and as the Vicar of Painswick, Gloucestershire, from 1917 to 1929. In 1931 he became the Rector of Buckland with Laverton, in the Diocese of Gloucestershire, a parish of 266 souls with a gross income of £382 p.a.

Education

Birchall attended Glyngarth Preparatory School, Douro Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire (also known as Miss Sanderson’s School, Glyngarth House, Douro Road, Cheltenham) (cf. E.C. Willoughby), from c.1884 to c.1886. Glyngarth Preparatory School was probably defunct before the start of World War Two and is now “a flourishing boarding unit of Cheltenham Ladies’ College” called Farnley House. It is alleged that Glyngarth was the model for the fictitious St Custard’s Preparatory School in Down with Skool (1953), How to be Topp (1954) and Wizz for Atoms by Geoffrey Willans (1911–58) and Ronald Searle, CBE (1920–2011). Birchall then moved to Mr Girdlestone’s School, Sunningdale, Berkshire (founded 1874; cf. E.V.D. Birchall), from 1886 to 1890, and finally attended Eton College from 1890 to 1896.

On 20 October 1896 Birchall matriculated as a Commoner at Magdalen, having passed Responsions in Trinity Term 1896. In Michaelmas Term 1896 he took an additional Responsions paper on Livy, probably so that he could be exempted from taking the First Public Examination paper on Greek and Latin Literature. He then passed the Preliminary Examination in Holy Scripture in October 1897, and later on in Michaelmas Term 1897 he successfully took papers in Jurisprudence and Logic. He stayed at Magdalen until 1900 but left without taking a degree, and although he had initially told President Warren that he wished to take Holy Orders, he decided instead to become a professional soldier. He was over 6 feet tall and a keen sportsman; he hunted and played football, hockey and, especially, cricket. President Warren described him posthumously as “able, lovable, sensible, of fine physique […], a very leading man in his time here and greatly liked”. His obituarist in The Eton College Chronicle commented on “his personal qualities” which

endeared him to a large number of friends, who will never forget him – his fine stature, his brightness and good nature, and, above all, his great charm of manner and his winning ways, which, while still a boy at Eton, were the outcome of a courteous and happy mind.

His History Tutor at Magdalen also wrote:

The news of the death of “Alice” Birchall will send a thrill through four generations of Magdalen men, and I hope that all of his contemporaries will remember the origin of the humorous and delightful, if singularly inappropriate, nickname that he bore. I think I am not exaggerating when I say that he was the finest Etonian who ever came to Magdalen. His noble stature and perfect manly beauty were only the reflection of one of the most chivalrous and upright and virile souls that any of us can remember. When he chose his profession there was but one chorus in College, “What a soldier Alice will make!” and every piece of news that came of him from that day to this has only confirmed our estimate of his qualities.

In another version of the obituary, the same Tutor put it slightly differently:

“Alice” Birchall was the finest Etonian who came to Magdalen during my twenty-five years. I do not know if the humorous and singularly inappropriate nickname was an Eton one, or whether he got it at Magdalen; but he was never anything but “Alice” to us. His perfect manly beauty was the reflection of the most chivalrous, upright and virile heart that ever beat in a tenement of clay. When we heard he was to be a soldier, the feeling was “good luck to the regiment that gets him,” and every bit of news we have heard proved how amply our forecast was fulfilled.

When writing his will, he gave his address as Saintbridge House, Painswick Road, near Gloucester, where he resided with his sisters.

“He has laid down his life for his friends”.  

Military and war service

On 22 March 1900, i.e. while Birchall was at Oxford, he was commissioned Second Lieutenant as a University Candidate in the 4th (Regular) (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), after which he saw service in the Second Boer War. On 11 April 1902 he was promoted Lieutenant and from 11 May 1904 to 27 March 1907 he acted as the Battalion’s Adjutant, a task that he performed particularly well, prompting a friend to say posthumously that he was “largely responsible for raising the [newly formed 4th Battalion] to the high level of the older battalions of that famous regiment”. On 1 October 1908 he was promoted Captain and simultaneously seconded for service as Adjutant of Territorial Infantry. Once again, he must have done well for in 1910 he was given the unusual distinction of being one of two British officers who were seconded to the Canadian forces as part of an exchange scheme, an appointment which also allowed him to act for a short time as aide-de-camp to Lord Grey (the 4th Earl Grey; 1851–1917), the Governor-General of Canada from 1904 to 1911. He then became a Captain on the Instructional Staff in Western Canada until he was declared unfit for service and invalided home, probably as a result of stress caused by overwork, just before the outbreak of war:

bitter was his grief, on returning to England […], to find himself entirely forbidden on medical grounds to take for the present the share in active service for which he had keenly prepared and eminently fitted himself.

While on sick leave, he compiled a well-received training manual entitled Rapid Training of a Company for War (1914) which went into at least two more editions. The text concludes with a section entitled “The Moral Factor” which is centrally concerned with the questions:

How can [the new armies] be created in the twinkling of an eye? How can men who were civilians yesterday call themselves soldiers today? […] Is it too much to hope that the work of years in peace time can be accomplished in as many months in war time?

Citing Napoleon’s maxim “The moral is to the physical as 3 to 1”, Birchall concluded:

The rapid rise in recruiting which has taken place during the present war, when our arms have met with a set-back, together with the splendid response of the Dominions, have proved that the old Latin motto which served as an incentive to the Roman soldier is equally the sentiment of the Britisher today: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” […] When one realises what our troops have had to undergo, whether it be in the ceaseless fighting, with no rest, in the Mons retreat, or the hardships since involved in days together in the trenches, often in the worst of weather, we appreciate the truth of Napoleon’s remark quoted above. We have no reason to doubt that the new armies will display the same constancy and the same fortitude. No doubt the above pages will reach many whose chance of service at the front seems, at the present time, small. Their task, though less attractive, is equally valuable service to the Empire.

Birchall returned to the Canadian Army as a Staff Captain in the 1st Brigade of the 1st Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) in November 1914 and was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel. He was passed fit on 22 January 1915 and seven days later took over as the Commanding Officer (CO) of the 4th Battalion, Canadian Infantry (Central Ontario Regiment), that was part of the 1st Canadian Infantry Brigade and one of the 12 battalions that constituted the 1st Canadian Division. Although Birchall was one of the two professional soldiers to command one of the Canadian battalions, he, like most of the other COs, had not seen active service and so, although he was “conscientious, unflappable and courageous”, he lacked leadership experience under battle conditions. The 4th Battalion had been recruited in Western Ontario in August 1914, arrived at Plymouth on 14 October 1914, and trained for 14 weeks in extremely bad conditions on Salisbury Plain.

On 12 February 1915, i.e. two weeks after Birchall became its CO, the Battalion disembarked at St Nazaire, 12 days before the first British Territorial Division arrived in Flanders. Birchall’s Battalion then travelled by train to Strazeele, three miles east of Hazebrouck in northern France, and then marched via Outtersteene and Erquinghem to the Armentières area, where it was familiarized with the trenches and trench warfare from 17 to 21 February. Then, after a week’s rest near Hazebrouck, it returned to the Armentières area on 1 March, where it was in billets at Bac-St-Maur, on the River Lys, some six miles south-west of Armentières, until 14 March. It thus missed the Battle of Neuve Chapelle (10–13 March 1915) which took place about five miles to the south-south-west (see M.A. Girdlestone). From 14 to 17 March Birchall’s Battalion was in the trenches in front of Bois-Grenier, some six miles east-south-east of Bac-St-Maur, where it suffered its first casualties. But after three days out of the trenches, cleaning up, the Battalion returned to the same trenches, now quiet, and remained there until 25 March. It then pulled back some 13 miles westwards, through the town of Estaires, to billets near the village of Neuf-Berquin, where it trained for a week.

On 1 April the Battalion returned to Estaires, where it stayed for six days, and then, on 6 April, it marched 17 miles north-north-westwards to Steenvoorde, just below the Belgian border. After resting here for two days, it turned north-east and marched seven miles to the village of Proven in Belgium, and finally reached Vlamertinghe, just west of Ypres, late on 20 April, where it spent two days in Reserve while, three miles to the south-east of Ypres, the First Battle for the strategically important Hill 60 was raging (see A.H. Huth, T.E.G. Norton, G.U. Robins, W.J.H. Curwen and A.J.F. Hood). At 18.00 hours on the evening of 22 April, the first day of the Battle of Gravenstafel, the Germans attacked the Allied front around Ypres with poison gas, which affected the French Division in the north particularly badly, forced many of its units to withdraw, and left a confused situation and a dangerous four-mile hole in the Allied front line. The Germans did not immediately grasp just how successful their gas attack had been, so did not counter-attack until the following day. They then attacked with four Divisions, and the Canadian Division, which was positioned just to the south of the retreating French, was forced to call up its reserves as soon as possible and launch a counter-attack on the first line of German trenches in order to try and stabilize the situation.

The Canadian Major-General, Malcolm Smith Mercer (1859–1916; a lawyer in civilian life, killed in action by friendly fire near Ypres on 3 June 1916), had decided that Birchall’s Battalion, reinforced by two companies of the 1st (Canadian) Battalion with another two companies in Reserve, and supported on the right by ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies of the 3rd (Regular) Battalion, the Middlesex Regiment, should lead the counter-attack. So at 00.30 hours on 23 April 1915, the 4th Battalion began to march eastwards via Brielen towards the Yser Canal, which runs north–south just to the east of Ypres. The Canadian force reached the canal just after 03.00 hours, crossed it via a pontoon bridge at 04.10 hours, and were ordered to attack northwards in conjunction with a projected attack by the French that was timed to start at 05.00 hours. So at 04.30 hours Birchall’s Battalion and the other Canadians formed up on a 200-yard front just behind the crest of Hill Top Ridge, with the north–south Ypres–Pilckem road on their left (western) flank. So, when dawn came, the men of Birchall’s Battalion could look across the long, gentle, upward slope towards the low, 30-foot hill on Pilckem Ridge that was called Mauser Ridge after the hamlet of Mauser, and was c.1,200 yards to the south of the village of Pilckem and c.2,000 yards to the north and north-west of Sint Jaan and Wieltje respectively. But Birchall’s men would also have been able observe the Germans digging in and laying wire on Mauser Ridge, c.1,500 yards away.

Then, at 05.25 hours, Birchall spotted a troop movement near a farm on the left about a mile away behind the cover of trees and hedges and assumed, wrongly, that he was seeing French troops preparing to attack as detailed above in conjunction with the Canadians. So even though the proposed direct counter-attack would be supported by one battery only – which offered totally insufficient covering fire under such circumstances – Birchall gave the signal to attack across the open fields according to the “fire and movement” principles that he had set out in his training manual. Whereupon ‘B’ Company set off, followed by the other five companies, only to discover that no French support was in the offing. Meanwhile, seeing what was happening from their vantage point on Mauser Ridge, the Germans waited for the Canadians to get past Foch Farm, where the farmer’s untouched supper stood cold on the kitchen table and cows lowed in the farmyard waiting to be milked. And as soon as the Canadians had cleared the nearby screen of hedges and were only about 600 yards away and in full view, the Germans opened fire with rifles and machine-guns, and soon accurate artillery fire was dropping shell upon shell amidst the oncoming lines. From a vantage-point near the Reserve line, the Brigadier could see “the whole advance being carried out in the most perfect order as if on parade”, until the last company disappeared in the dust and smoke. But in reality, Birchall’s men were discovering that they were pinned down on the bottom of a shallow valley and taking heavy casualties under the heavy German fire, since they had little natural cover except numerous piles of manure which simply acted as “target attractors”.

Major Albert Kimmins (1871–1915), the CO of the 1st Battalion’s No. 2 Company, tried to contact the French but to no avail, and although the 3rd Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment pushed across the valley until they were c.400 yards away from the German positions, their advance, too, petered out. Birchall, who carried only a light cane and a revolver, tried to break the deadlock by rallying his troops, but without success, and by 07.30 hours the attack had come to a halt. But at about the same time, following a request from Birchall for reinforcements, men from the 1st Canadian Battalion and the Middlesex Regiment stormed forward another 100 yards and took Turco Farm at the point of a bayonet – only to be forced to withdraw when the farm was shelled by Canadian artillery. No reinforcements arrived and by 08.30 hours, when the Canadian Battalions were between three and six hundred yards from their objective, it had become obvious that further advances were impossible.

A third attack materialized at 16.25 hours with the help of four British Regular Battalions from the 13th Brigade, part of the 5th Division, which had lost about a third of its officers and men during the fight for Hill 60 between 17 and 21 April (see Huth, Norton, Robins and A.J.F. Hood). With the north–south Ypres–Pilckem road on their right, the 1st Battalion of the Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment (on the left) and the 2nd Battalion of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (on the right) led the attack in a north-north-easterly direction. But this time the Germans opened fire as soon as the leading waves of the attacking battalions were visible, slaughtering hundreds of men in orderly rows Although small groups of the attacking troops reached enemy outposts and even got within 30 yards of the German front line, they were ultimately forced to withdraw or find cover with the Canadians who were sheltering 700 yards from the start-line. But then, G.H. Cassar tells us in Hell in Flanders Fields, “Moved by the plight of their comrades, the beleaguered able-bodied survivors of the Middlesex and the 1st and 4th Canadian Battalions jumped to their feet and joined the attack”, taking more casualties from machine-guns and shrapnel, and with Birchall, who was oblivious to danger, coolly encouraging them to move forwards. A Canadian soldier, Private Harold R. Peat, later remembered this attack as follows:

Men went down like ninepins at a fair. But always ahead was the Colonel, always there was the short flash of his cane as it swished through the air. Then he was hit, a bullet in the upper right arm. He did not stop; he did not drop his cane. “On boys, on!” And his men stumbled up and forward.

Another eye witness later recounted that Birchall “knew nothing of fear, and to see him going ahead, waving his cane, and encouraging his men, you would have thought he was on manoeuvres and not in a real battle”. According to the Battalion War Diary, Birchall was eventually killed in action at about sunset, i.e. one of the first unit commanders to be killed at an early stage of the war, but his Battalion continued to fight even after his death, until 21.00 hours, when it was finally forced to withdraw by the weight of superior numbers. The Canadians suffered heavy losses during the fighting: the 1st Battalion lost 404 all ranks killed wounded and missing and the 4th Battalion 454 all ranks killed, wounded and missing. Nevertheless, and despite their joint failure to take a German trench (as was widely believed at the time) – only a German outpost – the Canadian actions prevented the Germans from advancing southwards along the east bank of the Ypres Canal and pouring through the gap in the line that had been left by the French.

The first attack by the CEF has given rise to a certain amount of mythology (cf. the picture above). The Eton College Chronicle, for instance, published a long extract from the report by Sir Max Aitken (1879–1964; later the 1st Baron Beaverbrook) that he had written in his capacity as the head of the Canadian Army Record Centre, London, while visiting the Front with the rank of Honorary Colonel. It later featured in the first volume of his three-volume book Canadians in Flanders (1916) but had first appeared in The Times on 1 May 1915 and gave what is clearly an over-stylized, over-dramatized account of Birchall’s last stand that exaggerates the success of the attack:

The battalion at one moment came under a withering fire. For a moment – not more – it wavered. Its most gallant commanding officer, Lieut.-Colonel Birchall, carrying, after an old fashion, a light cane, coolly and cheerfully rallied his men, and, at the very moment when his example had infected them, fell dead at the head of his battalion. With a hoarse cry of anger they sprang forward (for indeed they loved him) as if to revenge his death. The astonishing attack which followed, pushed home in the face of direct frontal fire made in broad daylight by battalions whose names should live for ever in the memories of soldiers, was carried to the first line of German trenches. After a hand to hand struggle, the last German who resisted was bayoneted, and the trench was won, and so the death of this fine fellow was not in vain. His life will live on.

Although, on 28 April 1915, the Magdalen Philosophy Tutor C.C.J. Webb described Birchall in his diary with a certain understatement as “one of the best of fellows”, other posthumous tributes, while sincerely meant, verged on the hagiographical. A friend wrote in The Times on 29 April 1915:

The claim to have been the most popular officer in the Army is a large one, and may be advanced in the name of many a candidate. But it is probable that all who in any true sense had made Birchall’s acquaintance will claim that no officer could have been more deeply, and probably none more widely, beloved and admired. At Eton, at Magdalen, and for 15 years in the Army, he was for ever winning to himself friends by the simple but irresistible charm of his nature – by his manliness and sportsmanship, his humour and high spirits, his enthusiasm for his profession, as in general for the better things of life. […] Beloved alike by his brother officers and men, he was equally prominent as a leader in soldiering and in sport; in the field of manoeuvre as in the football, the hockey, the hunting, but especially the cricket field he always played a fine sporting game. […] In Canada he inevitably won through to the same affectionate and admiring popularity as at home.

People from the Upton locality added their voices to the above eulogies. The Archdeacon of Gloucester said of him:

Few characters combined in so great a degree tenderness and manliness. He always had a place in his heart for the joys and troubles of others whatever their position or their relation to him might be; his sympathy was in no way superficial, but very real. When at home he would visit the cottager and in homely talk at once put himself in touch with the simplest and the humblest. To give one instance of many: An aged woman had been long confined to her bed. The window was small and high, nor would it open. He arranged for the window to be altered, and for a platform to be placed [so] that her bed might be raised so that she might enjoy the view. In manly sport he excelled, and when at home he was at once asked to play with the village cricket team, who welcomed his presence. But he did not think the pitch good enough. So took steps to have it improved, himself being responsible for the outlay. […] With all the pleasantry of manner which was so peculiarly his, he had a deep and high-souled sense of duty, and of religious duty. He was imbued with a spirit of devotion, of reverence for higher things; he realised the power in life which comes from the conviction of truth.

An Upton acquaintance wrote:

Nobody could possibly have the affections and genuine admiration of the people, cricketers especially, more than had Mr. Percy, and it cannot seem true that we shall not have his visits again. We have lost a friend that had thoughts for us at all times, wherever he was, and one of the very best has gone. […] It makes us all feel very sad and brings the reality of things home to us terribly. There is one consolation however, he has died the noblest of deaths, and I am sure that will be a comfort to you. Mr. Percy always spoke of the people of Upton as his friends, and we know that “greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”.

An Oxford friend who became a Chaplain in the Forces went even further and wrote in a letter: “I really never knew a man so manly and so holy at one time. I never felt more certain of a man being ready with God at his death, and I know he rests in peace until we meet again”. Canadian soldiers recalled “how, when food could not come up for all, their Colonel divided his portion among the men”. And the Reverend Canon Brewster said in a sermon, with special reference to Chaucer’s “very perfect gentle knight”:

The old knight of the days of romance still, thank God, is in our midst. And for one such we are thanking God to-day. He bore the name of the old knight, Sir Percival, and in him the knightly character was most conspicuously seen. What else does the short record of his death mean, a death which any soldier would desire for his own? He made no parade of his religion, but we cannot doubt that it was the love of God, the faith in his Saviour, that gave him the power to overcome the world and give his life, as his Saviour did, to save others.

The Upton Wesleyan minister echoed those sentiments:

He lived unselfishly and died heroically, and we feel that in thus giving his life for his country, he has shared, in one aspect, in the death of Him Who died for all and Who has said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto these, ye have done it unto Me.”

Very soon after Birchall’s death, President Warren, who sincerely believed in the God-given role of the British Empire, wrote a powerful letter to Birchall’s family in which he said: “His good sense and high aim were obvious to all. No one in his day and of his age and standing has done more for the Empire and that I consider the best hope for the greater part of the world.” Birchall’s older brother John replied to Warren’s letter on 6 May 1915 in terms which tell us not only a great deal about the family’s high estimation of Percy and the perceived importance of an attack in which, at this relatively early stage of the war, he had met what seemed like the classic hero’s death, but also about Warren himself and his often unrecognized capacity for sensitive empathy:

We have had a very large number of letters about my brother, many of them most touching, & nearly all referring to his great personal charm & “power”, but not one of them has given us more intense satisfaction & pleasure than yours. It came somewhat as a surprise to us to know how he was appreciated at Magdalen. He developed somewhat late, certainly after leaving Eton, but when once he had started he was growing & growing until the end or rather the great change came on 23 April near Ypres. What you say as to his work for the Empire is no truism – again & again in Canada he had opportunities of bringing together those who differed, more especially French & British Canadians: & quite unconsciously he seemed to have the power of solving difficulties & troubles. He only had command of his Canadian Battn for about 2 months, but in that short time succeeded in introducing a spirit of discipline quite unknown before […]. Besides the discipline they all said that what helped them more than anything was their Colonel’s intense coolness under fire. He was twice wounded & then killed instantaneously within a few yards of the German line – & has been recommended for the V.C. The men tell me that out of about 1000 men on parade on Friday morning only 55 answered the roll on Saturday – but they saved Ypres (& ? Calais too) – […] Although quite young he had, most unexpectedly & through a series of so-called accidents, attained the great object of his life – He was fully prepared for a Soldiers death – Under such circumstances grief is impossible – & unthinkable. Let us rather thank God for the passing of a very gallant knight – […] I ought to apologise for writing at such length but your sympathy has encouraged me to do so.

Birchall did not get the Victoria Cross and has no known grave but was mentioned in dispatches in the London Gazette on 22 June 1915. He is commemorated on Panels 6 and 8, Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial; on a bronze tablet in the parish church, Upton St Leonard’s, Gloucestershire; and in the village hall which Sir John Dearman had built there in memory of his two brothers who died in the war and of his son, John Wykeham Dearman Birchall, who died in 1918. Birchall left £39,716 9s. 1d.

Bibliography

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

Special acknowledgement:

* Cassar (2010), pp. 62, 146–9, 165–70.

Printed sources: 

[Anon.], ‘The Canadians: Three Colonels Killed’, The Times, no. 40,840 (28 April 1915), p. 6.

[Anon.], ‘A.P. Birchall: A Friend’s Tribute to a Gallant Officer’, The Times, no. 40,841 (29 April 1915), p. 4.

[Thomas Herbert Warren], ‘Oxford’s Sacrifice’ [obituary], The Oxford Magazine, 33, no. 7 (30 April 1915), p. 274.

[Anon.], ‘Death of Lieut-Col. A.P. Birchall’, Gloucester Journal, no. 10,048 (1 May 1915), p. 6.

[Anon.], ‘In Memoriam: Arthur Percival Birchall’, The Eton College Chronicle’, no. 1,527 (13 May 1915), p. 808.

[The Rector of Upton St Leonard’s (ed.)], Arthur Percival Birchall, Supplement to Upton St Leonard’s Parish Magazine (8 pp.) (June 1915). It contains:

• An extract from the Official Report of the Canadian Army Record Officer at the Front (The Times, 1 May 1915);
• An excerpt from Sir John French’s Official Report of 24 April 1915;
• A long extract from a letter from Major R. Hayter (Brigade Major of the 1st Canadian Brigade) of 30 April 1915;
• A long extract from an article in The Times of 29 April 1915;
• A long extract from an article in the Oxford Magazine of 30 April 1915;
• An appreciation by the Archdeacon of Gloucester that appeared in the

Gloucester newspapers;

• An extract from a letter from an Upton friend;
• An extract from a sermon by the Revd Canon Brewster;
• Brief extracts from letters from a Major in the Royal Fusiliers, from an Artillery Officer, from the sister of a brother officer, from an Oxford friend, from another Oxford friend, now a Chaplain, from a senior officer in the Royal Fusiliers, from President Warren, from the Wesleyan minister of Upton St Leonard’s, and from a friend whose only son is reported missing;
• An extract from a sermon given by the Bishop of London on 10 May 1915 at the Canadian Memorial Service at St Paul’s Cathedral.

John Buchan, ‘A Soldier’s Battle: The Second Fight for Ypres: April 22–May 13’, The Times, no. 40,905 (13 July 1915), p. 7.

[Anon.], ‘Col. Birchall Knew No Fear’, Toronto Star (30 October 1915), unpag.

Aitken (1916), pp. 57–60.

Harold R. Peat, Private Peat (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1917), esp. pp. 164–5.

O’Neill (1922), pp. 68–9.

William Lorraine Gibson, Records of the Fourth Canadian Infantry Battalion in the Great War, 1914–1918 (Toronto: Maclean, 1924) (available on-line).

Gillon (1930), pp. 64–5.

Duguid (1938), I, part 2, pp. 268–70, 283.

F.E.F., ‘Sir John Birchall’ [obituary], The Times, no. 48,826 (17 January 1941), p. 7.

Nicholson (1962), rev. edn in Bodleian (1964), pp. 66–71.

David Verey (ed.), The Diaries of a Victorian Squire: Extracts from the Diaries and Letters of Dearman & Emily Birchall (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1983). [Facing p. 114 are coloured pictures of the richly decorated hall and library at Bowden Hall.]

Leinster-Mackay (1984), p. 83.

Emily [Jowitt] Birchall, Wedding Tour, January–June 1873, and Visit to the Vienna Exhibition, David Verey (ed.) (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1985).

Dancocks (1988), pp. 141–3, 153, 158, 242.

Helena Michie, ‘Victorian Honeymoons: Sexual Reorientations and the “Sights” of Europe’, Victorian Studies, 43, no. 2 (Winter 2001), 229–51 (pp. 235–41).

Archival sources:

MCA: PR32/C/3/139-41 (President Warren’s War-Time Correspondence, Letters relating to A.P.D. and E.V.D. Birchall [1915–1916]); includes a copy of the obituary of E.V.D. Birchall that was published as a Supplement to the Upton St Leonard’s Parish Magazine in October 1916.

MCA: Ms. 876 (III), vol. 1.

OUA: UR 2/1/29.

OUA (DWM): C.C.J. Webb, Diaries, MS. Eng. misc. d. 1160.

WO95/2279/4.

WO95/3763.

Books by A. P. D. Birchall: 

Captain A.P. Birchall, Rapid Training of a Company for War, 2nd edition (London, Aldershot and Portsmouth: Gale & Polden Ltd, 1915), esp. pp. 138–42.