Henry Sacheverel Sanders, MA

• Matriculated: 1901

• Born: 19 June 1883

• Died: 21 August 1918

• Regiment: Royal Warwickshire Regiment

• Grave/Memorial: Adanac Military Cemetery: IV.B.36

Family background

b. 19 June 1883 as the only son (two children) of Charles Buckley Sanders (1852–1934) and Lucy Mary Sanders (née Saxton) (c.1851–1936) (m. 1874). At the time of the 1881 Census the family was living at 25 Belmont Road, Exeter, Devon (no servants); at the time of the 1891 Census the family was living at no. 6, Heavitree Village, just to the east of Exeter (three servants); and at the time of the 1911 Census Sanders’s two parents were living at 20 Colehill Gardens, Fulham, London SW6 (no servants). The family also lived at 9 Baring Crescent, Exeter, and at the time of Sanders’s death his parents were living at Clyst St Mary, Caterham, Surrey.

Parents and antecedents

Like Sanders’s grandfather, Sanders’s father was a wine merchant whose premises were at Palace Gate, Exeter. In 1874 he inherited his father’s position as a Freeman of the City of Exeter, and from 1889 to 1890 he was Sheriff of the City of Exeter.

Sanders’s mother was the daughter of Major-General George Harper Saxton (1820–1901). He was commissioned in the 39th Madras Native Infantry in 1838 and later became a senior officer in the Surveying Department of the Indian Army who did particularly good work in the relatively unexplored areas of Orissa (now Odisha), on the north-east coast of the Bay of Bengal. In 1874 he retired from the Army and moved to Exeter, which is presumably how his daughter met Sanders’s father.

Siblings and their families

Sanders’s sister was Vera Elsie (1881–1967); later Wawn after her marriage in 1909 to Frank Twizell Wawn (1883–1967).

Frank Twizell was the son of a retired Major and was working as a bank clerk at the time of his marriage. But he later published several romantic novels: The Road to the Stars (1916), The Joyful Years (1917), A Green Olive Tree (1919), Jacynth: A Pastoral (1923) and The Honest Lovers (1926).

Wife and children

In 1909 Sanders married Ethel Nicola (“Linda”) Walker (1884–1916), whose family came from the village of Bearsdon, near Caterham, Surrey. Ethel Nicola was the daughter of a coal merchant and died of pulmonary tuberculosis, a year after her and Sanders’s only daughter had succumbed to the same disease.

At the time of the 1911 Census, Sanders’s family was living at 107 Ladbrooke Road, London W11 (three servants), with Sanders describing himself as a “Musician of Independent means”. On the night of the Census they had a visitor, Cathleen Nesbitt (1888–1982), an up-and-coming actress who would make her name on the stage and, later, in films. She also became the fiancée of the poet Rupert Brooke (1887–1915), who, as a result of an infected mosquito bite, died of blood poisoning on the Greek island of Skyros en route to the Dardanelles while serving as a Sub-Lieutenant (Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve) in the Hood Battalion of the 60th (Royal Naval) Division.

Sanders was the father of:

(1) Peter Buchan (1910–12);

(2) Lorna Griselidis Nicola (1911–15);

(3) Michael Charles (1913–2004).

Michael Charles married Diana Joyce Smith (1922–2002) (m. 1944), and they had two sons and one daughter. From 1932 to 1935 he read Law as a Commoner at Magdalen and was awarded a 3rd (1935). During World War Two he served with the 8th Battalion, the Surrey Regiment.

Education and professional life

Sanders attended an unidentified preparatory school in Chippenham, Wiltshire, from c.1890 to 1894, then Exeter School, Devon, from 1894 to 1897, and finally Marlborough College, Wiltshire, from 1897 to 1901, where he became a Junior Scholar Prefect and distinguished himself as a remarkable musician. He matriculated at Magdalen as a Junior Exhibitioner and an Academical Clerk on 14 October 1901, having been exempted from Responsions. He took the First Public Examination in Michaelmas Term 1902 and Hilary Term 1903, and then read for a Pass Degree (Groups A1 [Greek and/or Latin Literature/Philosophy], B3 [Elements of Political Economy], and B4 [Law]). In Trinity Term 1904 he was awarded a 4th in Law (Pass Degree) and he finally took his BA on 29 April 1909 and his MA in May 1909. After leaving Magdalen, he studied music in London.

War service

On 2 September 1914 Sanders, who was 5 foot 10¾ inches tall, attested for the 1/9th (County of London) Battalion, the London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles). But he did not go to France with the Battalion on 5 November 1914 as he had been marked out as potential officer material. So he was sent instead to train with the Regiment’s 102nd (Provisional) Battalion (Territorial Force), where he became a Lance-Corporal, and then transferred to the 81st (Provisional) Battalion (TF) that was stationed at Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex. From 23 February to 20 April 1915 he attended an Officers’ Training Course at No. 1 School of Instruction, Brocton Camp, near Stafford, and was judged “keen and reliable”. On 23 October 1915 he was finally commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 1/6th Battalion (TF), the Royal Warwickshire Regiment (London Gazette, no. 29,336, 23 October 1915, p. 10,393), which had landed at Le Havre on 22 March 1915 as part of 143rd Brigade, 48th (South Midland) Division.

The War Diary of the 1/6th Battalion contains very little detailed information about the comings and goings of officers and Sanders’s name does not feature there between March 1915 and October 1917, when the Battalion was sent to the Italian Front, where it remained until the Armistice. But he must have joined the Battalion between autumn 1915 and the end of June 1916, when it was going through a long and uneventful period on the Somme and alternating between stints in the trenches at Foncquevillers, opposite Gommecourt, and periods in the Brigade or Divisional Reserve at nearby Souastre and Bayencourt. From 5 May 1916 the Battalion moved around a little more while remaining in the same general area, and from 13 to 26 June it trained at Beauval, four miles south of Doullens. But on 26 June it moved south-eastwards to Mailly-Maillet, where it suffered some casualties, and on 30 June it moved to an assembly area in preparation for the big attack on the following day – the opening day of the Battle of the Somme.

On that day – 1 July 1916 – the Battalion succeeded in reaching the third German line but suffered very high casualties while doing so – a process of attrition that began as soon as the men emerged from their own trenches. At 19.00 hours the Battalion was withdrawn about six miles south-westwards back to Mailly-Maillet, where it was ascertained that only one officer had not been wounded while 21 were killed, wounded or missing, and that of the other ranks (ORs), 120 were dead or missing and 316 were wounded, so that on the following day only 127 survivors were present at roll-call. On 3 July the Battalion moved back around seven miles north-westwards to Couin, where it stayed for ten days. Then, on 13 July, it marched ten miles south-eastwards to bivouacs near Albert, where it stayed for seven days, taking more casualties. On 20 July it moved to Bouzincourt, just to the north-west of Albert, where it spent three days in billets, and on 23 July it marched two miles or so eastwards and took up positions in the support trenches behind Aveluy for six days. On 29 July the Battalion was taken a good 43 miles westwards by train to the village of Maison Roland, some seven miles east of Abbeville, in order to reorganize and train until 16 August 1916, when it returned to the trenches between Ovillers and Thiepval. Here, at 17.00 hours on 18 August, the 1/5th and 1/6th Battalions of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, supported by bombers from the 1/7th Battalion, took Hindenburg Trench and Nab Valley, and this time Sanders’s Battalion lost nine officers and 123 ORs killed, wounded or missing. The Battalion stayed in the trenches on 19 August and on 20 August pulled back to bivouacs in Bouzincourt, where it stayed for three days, taking more casualties. From 23 to 27 August the Battalion was back in the trenches at Ovillers and from 29 August to 30 September it moved westwards, training as it went in the Bois de Warnemont, Vaucelles, Gézaincourt and, finally, Prouville, nine miles west of Doullens.

Sanders’s personal file indicates that during this period, on 25 September 1916, he was given one month’s leave because of “neurasthenia”, whose symptoms were described as “insomnia and nervous breakdown” and an “inability to concentrate attention on his duties”, a condition that had been caused by “the progressive illness of his wife, the hopelessness of her recovery and the apparent nearness of the end”. Ethel Nicola Sanders died on 27 October 1916, aged 32, probably at her parents’ home in Bearsden, near Caterham, Surrey, leaving £7,667 17s. 8d.

We do not know exactly when Sanders returned to the 1/6th Battalion, but it rested and trained in billets until 12 October 1916, when it spent four days in the trenches at Hébuterne. These proved to be the first part of a three-month period during which the Battalion did short and uneventful stints in various parts of the Somme front line, followed by equally short periods in billets, resting and training all over the southern sector of the Somme battlefields. But on 8 January 1917 it was pulled back westwards by train to the village of Liercourt, five miles or so south-east of Abbeville, where it stayed for three weeks until, on 27 January 1917, it was brought back to Méricourt-sur-Somme, on the southern bank of the Somme nine miles south of Albert. After this stint it spent nearly two months in and out of the trenches along the southern bank of the winding River Somme in the general area of Cappy, Biaches and Éclusier-Vaux. Then, on 18 March 1917, the Battalion marched ten miles eastwards to the area of Péronne, where the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line had been going on for four days, and by 28 March it had moved even further north-eastwards, in the direction of Cambrai, and was in the trenches in front of the village of Guyencourt-Saulcourt, where, on 1 April 1917, it took part in the successful attack by 143 and 144 Brigades on Épehy and Peizière. The 1/6th Battalion stayed in this area until 29 April, when it was pulled back to Péronne; by 21 May it had moved northwards to Lebucquière, west of Bapaume; and it continued to train in this area until late July.

On 22 July 1917 the Battalion entrained for the Ypres Salient with the recently promoted Sanders (Lieutenant with effect from 1 July 1917: London Gazette, no. 30,357, 26 October 1917, p. 11,140) and arrived there on 23 July, a week before the start of the Third Battle of Ypres (31 July–6 November 1917). Sanders’s Battalion then trained in various camps well behind the front line until 15 August 1917, when, on the first day of that phase of the battle which came to be known as the Second Battle of Langemarck, it crossed the River Yser in support of 145th Brigade, which was attacking objectives to the east of the River Steenbeeke. Then, at 01.55 hours on 27 August, the 1/6th Battalion began an attack on the Germans who were holding a strong-point known as Winnipeg Farm, only to discover that it was impossible to advance because of the thick mud. As a result, it lost seven officers and 159 ORs killed, wounded or missing, and on the following day it returned to camp at Sint-Jaan-Ter-Bielen, where it trained until 17 September 1917. On 30 September, after two weeks in billets at Louches, in northern France, half-way between St-Omer and Calais, the Battalion returned to Vlamertinghe, just west of Ypres, and went into line.

On 4 October Sanders’s Battalion took part in the phase of the Third Battle of Ypres that has become known as the Battle of Broodseinde, and according to the Battalion War Diary the attack was “extremely successful, all objectives being taken”, with Sanders’s Battalion being responsible for capturing 350 German prisoners, ten machine-guns, and two anti-tank guns, albeit at a cost of nine officers and 213 ORs killed, wounded or missing. The Battalion then went into Reserve near Langemarck from 6 to 11 October, trained near Poperinghe from 11 to 14 October and near the Mont Sint-Elooi from 14 to 16 October, and finally spent 11 days in line near the Mont Sint-Elooi before leaving the Ypres Sector on 18 November to serve on the Italian Front.

We do not know precisely what Sanders was doing between August 1916 and 16 August 1918, when he joined the Warwickshire Regiment’s 16th (3rd Birmingham) Battalion in Bouquemaison, four miles north of Doullens. Had he been wounded in one of the actions on the Somme or in the Ypres Salient and then sent back to England to recuperate and undertake home service? Had he been sent to Italy with the 1/6th Battalion and recalled to France – alone or with others – as a replacement? The War Diary of the 1/6th Battalion for the period from November 1917 to March 1919 is even more sketchy than its predecessor and makes no mention of Sanders whatsoever, and although the War Diary of the 16th Battalion of the Warwickshire Regiment is more informative, it does not mention his name until the day of his death.

The 16th Battalion had also served in Italy before being sent back to France to help stem the massive German advance westwards in the spring of 1918 that was known as Operation Michael. The Battalion landed in France on 8 April as part of 15th Brigade in the 5th Division and was briefly involved in the fighting on Telegraph Hill, south of Arras, on 10/11 April before being rushed north-westwards by train to the fighting that was taking place on a broad front south-west of Hazebrouck. It was occupied here from 12 April to 13 August 1918, losing over 210 of its members killed, wounded or missing, but by the time of Sanders’s arrival as a replacement officer on 16 August 1918, it had been taken by train southwards from Arques, an eastern suburb of St-Omer, to Bouquemaison, still as part of the 15th Brigade in the 5th Division. On 18 and 19 August, after four days of rest and training, the 16th Battalion marched over very bad roads, via Doullens and Sarton, to the village of Couin; and on 20 August it marched a further eight miles eastwards to assembly positions just west of the shattered town of Bucquoy.

On 21 August 1918, amidst a pall of smoke and heavy mist that reduced visibility to just a few yards, the 16th Battalion advanced behind the 1st Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment through Bucquoy, with the aim of pushing the Germans out of Bapaume, five miles to the south-east. By 07.42 hours, the British had taken the Red Line (the hill just beyond the railway) and arrived at the Brown Line, just short of Achiet-le-Petit, a village half-way between Bucquoy and Bapaume. During this advance they captured 350 German prisoners, three 77cm field guns, 20 machine-guns, two trench mortars, and large quantities of stores. But Sanders, aged 35, was killed in action during the fighting and recorded as missing, one of the 16th Battalion’s six officers and 64 ORs killed, wounded or missing on that day. His body was later found by another unit near Achiet-le-Petit: he was reportedly lying near a fairly new shell hole and the men who found him “were of [the] opinion that he was killed by the shell”. He is buried in Adanac (Canada spelt backwards) Military Cemetery, Pys, Miraumont, Grave IV.B.36, and commemorated in the Memorial Hall, Marlborough College. He left £8,502 12s 2d.

Bibliography

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

Printed sources:

[Anon.], [Untitled obituary of Major-General George Harper Saxton], The Times, no. 36,364 (19 January 1901), p. 6.

McCarthy (1998), pp. 76,

Archival sources:

MCA: Ms. 876 (III), vol. 3.

WO95/1558

WO95/1574.

WO95/2755.

WO95/4248.

WO374/60248.