Francis William Halsey

• Matriculated: 1913

• Born: 18 June 1894

• Died: 14 November 1915

• Regiment: Royal Garrison Artillery

• Grave/Memorial: Vermelles British Cemetery; Grave VI.C.1.

Family background

b. 18 June 1894 in Woodford Green as the fourth and youngest son of William Halsey (1845–1901) and his second wife, Amy Halsey (née Davies) (1856–1935) (m. 1883). At the time of the 1891 Census the family was living in Prospect Road, Woodford (two servants and a governess); at the time of the 1901 Census the parents were living at 84, Sydney Road, Woodford Green, Essex (governess and two servants); and at the time of Halsey’s death his mother was living at 4, Albert Mansions, Albert Bridge Road.

 

Parents and antecedents

Halsey’s father was the son of Joseph Halsey (1810–79) a schoolmaster in Tower Hamlets. He began his working life in 1859 as an employee of the shipping line Scrutton, Sons & Co., Gracechurch Sreet, London EC3, and a supernumerary employee of the Hudson Bay Company. In 1863 he was employed full-time by the Company as the Head Clerk of the Shipping Department in London, a post which he held down until mid-1892. He then became a Fur Broker for the Hudson Bay Company in London, i.e. the Company’s middleman there who managed its warehouse and handled the auctions of its furs. In return, the Company paid William Halsey a salary of £500 p.a. and he paid £650 of his brokerage back to the Company and kept the rest. By the time of his death in June 1901 he and his family were living at a suburban address and had become prosperous enough to send at least two sons to boarding schools.

Halsey’s mother was the daughter of Reverend Thomas Davies (1815–92) at one time minister of Duckworth Congregational Chapel.

 

Siblings and their families

Half-brother, by William’s first marriage (1872) to Mary Ann Staples (c.1848–1875), of:

(1) Edward Joseph (1875–1934); married (1909) Joan Rankin (1885–1967); three children.

Brother of:

(1) Bernard (b. 1886, d. after 1936, probably in Durban, South Africa); married Marie Marguérite Dumat (b. 1887, d. after 1936, probably in Durban, South Africa); one daughter;

(2) Wilfrid (1890–1959); married (1916) Francisca Johanna Wilhelmina Blaauw (b. 1888, d. probably in 1975 in Capricornia, Queensland, Australia, where she had lived since 1954).

Edward Joseph was a shipping manager in 1911, living in Rochford, Essex.

Bernard was an accountant who lived in the Republic of South Africa, probably Durban. When he died in Ditchling, Sussex, he left £1,104 13s. 8p.

Francesca Johanna was the daughter of Williem Hendrick Blaauw (b. 1858), a shipper from Groningen, Holland, and Caroline Sara Von Hemert (b. 1868). In the 1930s she became particularly interested in Theosophy.

Both Bernard and Wilfrid Halsey served in the Army, were discharged on grounds of health, and claimed disability pensions. When Wilfrid attested in February 1914 he gave his trade/calling as Botanist. He became a Trooper In the 1^st County of London Yeomanry but was discharged on 2 November 1914.

 

Education

Halsey was educated at St Aubyn’s School, Woodford Green, Essex (founded 1884), from c.1901 to c.1907 and then Gresham’s School, Holt, from c.1907 to 1912, where he was a Prefect, the Captain of his House, and, in his final year, the Head of School; he also had school colours for shooting and was a talented pianist. After his death, an obituarist wrote in The Gresham:

One cannot picture Frank Halsey as dead. Life, colour, running water, the wind on the heath, sunlit gorse, the song of birds will always speak of him to those who knew him best. He had many gifts, and not the least was his infectious gaiety: “Bright, eager, a face to remember, / Alert in all work as in play, / A spirit that knew not December, / That brightened the sunshine of May.” His enthusiasm, his delight in simple things, made him an attractive companion by mountain, moor and river. […] He had clear ideas, and fine ideals. Simple, transparently honest, of a spiritual nature, the ugly things of life were repellent to him. Faults? without doubt; but he has done such fine things, that those who knew them have certainly forgotten them. As Captain of his House, as Captain of the School, he inspired a sense of trust that could not question – his loyalty was wonderful. He cared for the things of “good report” and strengthened the belief of others in them.

Halsey was elected a Demy (Scholar) in Natural Sciences at Magdalen in 1912 and passed Responsions in Trinity Term 1912, plus, in September 1912, an additional Responsions paper on the French statesman and historian Adolphe Thiers (1797–1877). But as he was one of the youngest candidates in the group competition at Oxford – as well as one of the best – he spent another year at Gresham’s, where he had already assisted in a chemical research project on which his science master, the chemist Dalziel Llewellyn Hammick (1887–1966) was then engaged. Hammick (later FRS DSc) had been a Demy at Magdalen from 1906 to 1909, and later became a Fellow and Tutor at Oriel College, Oxford (1921–52), and the Aldrichian Praelector in Chemistry (1949–52). Halsey made such good progress at school in advanced Physical and Organic Chemistry and Mathematics that on matriculating at Magdalen on 14 October 1913, he was able to start on what was, in effect, third-year work.

Halsey took Prelims in Natural Sciences (Chemistry, Mechanics and Physics) in Michaelmas Term 1913 and Hilary Term 1914, and although he sat no further examinations, he attended a course of general practical work at a foreign university during his first Long Vacation (1914). So when war broke out, he and a contemporary, Ashley Hinckes Bird (1892–1970; Magdalen 1912–14), were working in Munich in the pharmaceutical laboratory which had been founded by the pharmaceutical chemist and Privatgelehrter Georg Christoph Wittstein (1810–87) and which, by 1914, had become part of the University of Munich – where Hammick had probably worked in 1909–10. The two young men managed to travel to the Swiss frontier by train but, together with other passengers, were sent back and had to spend three to four nights in a waiting-room on Munich station. Then, without notice or explanation, they were allowed to travel to Basel, whence they came home by a circuitous route through France, losing all their luggage in the process. On his return home, Halsey left without a degree: just over a year later, his newly acquired knowledge of German would prove useful for the interrogation of prisoners.

 

 

“He had clear ideas and fine ideals. Simple, transparently honest, of a spiritual nature, the ugly things of life were repellent to him.”

 

War service

During his year at Oxford, Halsey was in the Oxford University Officers’ Training Corps, and after leaving Oxford he attested on 12 September 1914 and became a Private in ‘A’ (Chichester) Company, the 9^th (Cyclist) Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment, just after it was formed at Chichester in September 1914. He was promoted Sergeant, and on 3 December 1914 he applied to become an officer and was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 3^rd Trench Mortar Battery, Trench Mortar Brigade, Royal Garrison Artillery, on 1 January 1915 (London Gazette, number 29,027, 1 January 1915, p. 126). This was at a time when the newly invented 3-inch Stokes Mortar was becoming an increasingly significant weapon. We do not know the date of his arrival in France, but in order to learn about the new weapon he attended a course at the Trench Mortar School at St-Venant, roughly seven miles south of Hazebrouck, which had been established in about March/April 1915, and he certainly took part in the Battle of Loos (26–30 September 1915), where 3.2-inch Stokes Mortars were deployed. Indeed, he wrote a letter back to school about it in which he minimized the losses and gave great credit to others for their bravery. Sue Smart comments:

The most interesting section concerns the use of mortars. Mortars were known as “the pocket artillery”. Only 545 were fired by the British in 1914, but Halsey’s letter was prophetic in that in 1916 their worth had been realised and six and a half million were fired in that year.

She then quotes Halsey’s letter in extenso:

My mortars are splendid little affairs; unfortunately there exists a deplorable ignorance as to their capabilities amongst superior officers of all kinds, and I do not think we are given the opportunities which we could undoubtedly improve. A weapon which can throw 4lbs of high explosive 700 yards, and can be carried, ammunition and all, by five men for nearly half a mile at a quick walk, is a factor deserving of more recognition than it gets.

Trench mortar teams were nicknamed “The Suicide Club” as they were favoured German targets once they had revealed their positions and Halsey died of wounds received in action, aged 21, after a shell had burst in his dug-out on 14 November 1915. He is buried in Vermelles British Cemetery, Grave VI.C.1.

 

 

 

Echoing the fulsome obituary that is cited above, President Warren also paid posthumous tribute to Halsey’s potential as a scientist, and added that:

his gifts turned many ways. […] He was a fair musician; his chess board became a companion in the trenches; his delight in nature made it a joy to be with him in the open, walking, skating, fishing. In many ways his bright disposition shone forth.

Another obituarist reported that the Oxford authorities regarded him as “a man of brilliant promise”; his effects testify to an interest in Christian Science; and an Oxford friend wrote a poem in his memory which concluded:

But we who knew him here, who shared with him

The watches of another service, we see more.

His name upon our walls, imperishable,

Fragments he wrote, the work he did so well,

The shadow of his presence still with us,

Tell us of what he was and what he would have been.

 

 

Bibliography

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

Printed sources: 

[Anon.], ‘Second Lieutenant Francis W. Halsey, R.G.A.’ [obituary], The Times, no. 41,020 (24 November 1915), p. 10. 

[Thomas Herbert Warren], ‘Oxford’s Sacrifice’ [obituary], The Oxford Magazine, 34, no. 9 (3 December 1915), pp. 109–10.

[F.W. Howson], ‘Roll of Honour: Killed in Action: Francis William Halsey’, The Gresham, 6, no. 8 (18 December 1915), p. 138.

F.W.H[owson], [obituary], The Gresham, 6, no. 8 (18 December 1915), p. 141.

Sue Smart, When Heroes Die (Derby: Breedon Books Publishing Co., 2001), pp. 67–70 and 91.

 

Archival sources:

MCA: Ms. 876 (III), vol. 2.

OUA: UR 2/1/83.

WO95/5494.

WO339/16964.