Fact file:

  • Matriculated: Not applicable

  • Born: 8 May 1888

  • Died: 30 October 1917

  • Regiment: London Regiment (Artists’ Rifles)

  • Grave/Memorial: Tyne Cot Memorial: Panel 153.

Family background

b. 8 May 1888 at 18, Arlington Park Gardens, South Chiswick, Middlesex, as the only child of Ralph Jones Dawes (1855–1927) and Sarah Annie (sometimes Annie Sarah, sometimes Sarah Ann) Dawes (née Chappell; 1863–1960) (m. 1887). At the time of the 1891 Census, the family was living at Arlington Park Gardens, Chiswick, London W4 (two servants); at the time of the 1901 Census it was living at Highfields, Marden, Kent (one servant); at the time of the 1911 Census it was living at Belmont, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire (one servant).

 

Parents and antecedents

Dawes’s father, Ralph, was the son of Richard Spier Dawes (1824–82), a tailor; his mother was the daughter of an agricultural labourer. At the time of the 1881 Census his mother was living in Kensington and a “student of music”, whereas his father, who was lodging in Brighton, was a wine merchant. On Dawes’s birth certificate, the father’s profession is given as “vocalist”. By the time of the 1891 Census both parents described themselves as “Professors of Singing”, though Dawes’s father also taught the piano, and both parents appeared in concerts all over the country, the father being a fine tenor and the mother “a pure soprano”. Ralph Dawes was very popular and appeared in several concerts a month from about 1880 to 1905, after which he was more usually cited as the piano accompanist. He occasionally performed in concerts with his wife, billed as Madam Chappell, but more usually as Miss Annie Chappell. In 1903 Ralph and his son Harold performed piano duets at a concert given by the Broadway Musical Society in Tunbridge Wells. On more than one occasion he performed on the same bill as Mr. W.H. Brereton, the father of Herbert Brereton. He also appeared on programmes with Alfred Dawes and E. Dawes, who may well have been his brothers Alfred Thomas Dawes (1852–1930) and Ernest Jesse Dawes (1862–1918), both of whom, at one time like Ralph, were wine merchants in Brighton.

Dawes’s mother died at Nettleton Manor, a care home near Caistor, Lincolnshire.

 

Education and professional life

Dawes attended Magdalen College School from September 1897 to 1906 and was a Chorister at Magdalen from September 1897 to 1904, when his voice broke. According to the 1901 Census he boarded in Cowley Place, just to the south-east of Magdalen Bridge. He was described as “a first-rate musician, and one of the mainstays of the choir” and he also did creditably in school work, gaining a Junior Certificate in 1903 and 1904 and a Senior Certificate in 1906. After his voice broke, he stayed on at Magdalen College School for a further two years, by which time his parents, with whom he lived for the rest of his life, were living at “Holmleigh”, Heathfield Road, Mill Hill Park, London W3. Although Dawes was an outstanding all-round sportsman who played tennis, hockey (1904–05) and football (1905–06) for the School, he was particularly noted for his prowess at cricket: “he ranks among the best we have ever produced”. Being a formidable batsman and the School’s best bowler, he played for the School (1904–06) and captained the XI (1905–06). In 1905 he was described as being “in a class by himself” as a bowler, and by the following season he was the School’s best batsman, too. At the end of the 1905 season, his tally as a bowler was 205 overs, 45 for 608, an average of 13.2, and his tally as a batsman was 16 innings, 466 runs, an average of 33.2. In the 1906 match between the School Past and Present, the younger team won by 219 to 86, with Dawes scoring 117 runs and taking four wickets. In the matches of 1904 and 1905 against Magdalen College’s 2nd XI, he was opposed by F.L.F. Fitzwygram. He was also an active member of the Debating Society, and in the open debate of 1902, when the motion was “The Abolition of War is Desirable”, Dawes, “who spoke from the practical point of view”, “denounced war as expensive and ineffective”.

After leaving school, Dawes successfully took the entrance exam for the Bank of England. Having also been nominated by a Director, Mr Arbuthnot (probably Charles George Arbuthnot 1846–1928), he was elected to a clerkship on 14 November 1906 and began work in the Bank on the following day on a salary of £1 0s 0d per week. On 23 May 1907 he, together with other trainee clerks, was formally warned that his continued employment would depend upon his handwriting improving: he clearly took this admonishment seriously for on 14 November 1907 he was transferred to the Cashier’s Department and then, on 20 August 1908, to the Accountant’s Department, where, on 19 November 1908, his salary went up to £1 10s 0d per week. On 3 December 1908 he became an Assistant in the same Department, where, on 1 March 1910 and 1 March 1911, when he was still living at home with his parents, he received two more salary increments of 10d per week. On 23 November 1911 he became a 4th Class Clerk in the Dividend Office earning £1 15s 0d per week. He then slowly “advanced” up the salary scale, and by the time he was granted war leave on 29 August 1916, he was earning £1 18s 0d per week, i.e. £182 p.a.

 

Harold Henry Dawes, De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour, 1914–1924, Vol. 4, p. 44

 

Military service

Dawes attested for the Army on 10 December 1915, but as he was in a reserved occupation with the Bank, i.e. one that was deemed vital to the war economy, the Bank of England would not at first release him for service, and from 11 December 1915 to 6 September 1916, he was a member of the Reserve. On 29 August 1916 the Bank granted him “War Leave”, and he joined the 2/28th (County of London) Battalion, the London Regiment (Artists’ Rifles). This Battalion had been established in August 1914 and stayed in England until November 1915, when the 1/28th Battalion, which had been in France since 28 October 1914 as part of the General Headquarters (GHQ) troops, mainly in St-Omer (2 April 1915–15 May 1916), formally became a (Senior) Officers’ Training Corps and absorbed the existing 2/28th Battalion. When this merger occurred, the former 3/28th Battalion of the Artists’ Rifles was redesignated as the 2/28th Battalion, and in March 1916 the new 2/28th Battalion moved to Hare Hall, Romford, where it became No. 15 Officer Cadet Battalion, in which it is likely that Dawes trained between 6 September and 3 November 1916.

Dawes landed in France on 6 November 1916, almost certainly as part of the draft of 150 men from Britain who joined the 1/28th Battalion at its new base camp, Hesdin, on 9 November, since this was the only such draft to join the Battalion in November 1916. Hesdin was 33 miles south-south-west of St-Omer and 14 miles east of Montreuil, a picturesque town amid beautiful countryside that was the home of the British General Headquarters on the Western Front from March 1916. Dawes probably stayed with the 1/28th Battalion for eight months, training, doing fatigues, and performing formal guard duties, but on 25 June 1917 the GHQ moved to the village of Bajus, c.18 miles due east of Hesdin, and on 28 June 1917, Dawes’s Battalion became part of 190th Brigade, in 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, based at Aubrey Camp. After being issued with the newest sort of anti-gas box respirator, the Battalion began to spend periods of time in the trenches in a railway cutting near Bailleul-Sir-Berthoult, on the north-eastern edge of Arras, taking casualties as it did so. The Battalion returned to Aubrey Camp on 2 September, and from 10 to 24 September it occupied trenches near Oppy Wood, just to the north-east of Bailleul-Sir-Berthoult, after which it was taken by train some 25 miles to the large village of Écoivres, about five miles south of St-Pol-sur-Tarnoise, and then by motor-bus a further 13 miles north-east to La Comté, three miles south-west of Houdain. The Battalion rested here for a day before continuing its training with the Royal Navy Battalions, during which Dawes’s height increased from 5 foot 9 inches to 5 foot 11. On 2 October the 1/28th Battalion began to move northwards on foot and by train, until, on 7 October, it reached the town of Houtkerque in northern France, a mile from the border with Belgium on the road to Watou and Poperinghe. It trained here until 24 October and spent the next two days marching to Reigersberg Camp, in the north-east of the Ypres Salient.

Then, on 27 October 1917, the second day of the final phase of the Third Battle of Ypres that came to be known as the Second Battle of Passchendaele (26 October–10 November 1917; see P.W. Beresford), Dawes’s Battalion returned to the left sector of the front line near Irish Farm and Albatross Farm, with the Canadian Corps immediately on its right. At 05.50 hours on 30 October 1917, the 5th Army, which was once again defending the left flank of the Canadians, who were trying to capture the village of Passchendaele, mounted a replay of its attack of 26 October (see Beresford) and advanced about 1,000 yards. But Dawes’s Battalion was caught by German artillery fire right at the jumping-off line, made little progress in deep mud against heavy machine-gun fire, and was unable to reach its objectives. During the action Dawes, aged 29, was mortally wounded, possibly by a shell while being taken on a stretcher to a dressing station, one of the Battalion’s ten officers and 324 other ranks who were lost between 28 and 31 October. He has no known grave, but is commemorated on Panel 153, Tyne Cot Memorial. He left £639 16s. 10d.

 

Bibliography

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

 

Printed sources:

[Anon.] ‘Killed in Action: 2nd Lieut. Harold H. Dawes’, The Lily, 11, no. 15 (December 1917), pp. 186–7.

De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour, 1914–24 (CD-ROM. United Kingdom: Navy & Military Press Ltd.), Vol. 4, p. 44.

Steel and Hart (2001), pp. 288–91.

Bebbington (2014), pp. 141–5.

 

Archival sources:

Files in the Bank of England Archive:

  • E6/4 (The Bank and National Events: War Memorials).
  • E41/18 (Salary Ledgers: Male Clerks and Porters [1906–1925]).
  • E45/6 (Candidates for Election: Memoranda Book [March 1901–June 1907]).
  • M5/421 (Secretary’s Department: Committee for Examination of Clerks for Election – Minutes [28 May 1906–16 February 1911]).

WO95/128.

WO95/3119/2.