Paul Francis William Studholme

• Matriculated: Did not matriculate

• Born: 31 May 1898

• Died: 4 October 1917

• Regiment: Devonshire Regiment

• Grave/Memorial: Hooge Crater Cemetery: X.G.12

Family background

b. 31 May 1898 in Kakahu South, Canterbury, New Zealand, as the oldest child of William Paul Studholme (b. 1864 in Christchurch, New Zealand, d. 1941) and Mabel Studholme (née Gray) (1868–1953) (m. 1897). The family came to Britain and settled at Perridge House, near Exeter, Devon, in 1906. At the time of the 1911 Census the family was living there with eight servants, including a governess.

 

 

Parents and antecedents

Studholme’s father, William Paul Studholme, was one of the five children of John Studholme [II] (1829–1903), an alumnus of Queen’s College, Oxford. From 1854 onwards, John [II], together with his two younger brothers Michael (1833–86) and Paul (1831–99), three of the ten children of John Studholme [I] (1787–1847), a gentleman farmer from Abbey Holme, near Wigton in north-west Cumberland, settled in New Zealand. They took up and developed properties which at their greatest extent ran to over one million acres and included the 98,500-acre estate called Te Waimate in a wild, relatively uninhabited area of New Zealand that is near the town of Waimate on the east coast of that country’s South Island. Paul returned to England in 1858. John [II] became the MP for Kaiapoi from 1867 to 1874 and for Gladstone from 1879 to 1881, and the family is commemorated in New Zealand by the name of the small town of Studholme, about four miles west of Waimate.

William Paul studied Law at Magdalen from 1882 to 1886, when he took his BA, and in 1887 he was called to the Bar as a member of the Inner Temple. But he soon returned to New Zealand to help run his father’s estate, and in 1892 he became the sole owner of the 12,000-acre estate called Kakahu, capable of sustaining 14–15,000 sheep. He began to sell it off during the Second Boer War and on the death of John [II], he retired to Britain, where he arrived with his family aboard the SS Tongariro (1883–1910; scrapped) in mid-June 1906. He spent the rest of his life in Devon, at Perridge House, describing himself as a “Gentleman of Independent Means”, and became the County’s High Sheriff in 1936.

 

 

Siblings

Brother of:

(1) Henry Gray Studholme (later CVO) (1899–1987); married (1929) Judith Joan Mary Whitbread (1898–2002); two sons, one daughter;

(2) Eleanor Elizabeth (1902–75); later Brown after her marriage in 1925 to Alan Robert Percy (later Lieutenant-Commander RN; 1902–75); one son;

(3) John Wyndham (later Commander RN, DSC) (1903–68); married (1942) Elsie Margery Oliver (1910–80).

 

 

Henry was commissioned in the Scots Guards as Second Lieutenant on 28 November 1917, promoted Lieutenant, and saw active service in France from 1917 to 1919. He studied History at Magdalen from 1919 to 1921 and was the Conservative MP for Tavistock from 1942 to 1966, during which time he made 293 interventions in Parliament. From 1945 to 1951 he was a Conservative Whip, and from 1951 to 1956 he followed Sir Anthony Eden (1897–1977; Prime Minister 1955–57; from 1961 the 1^st Earl of Avon) as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household. This is largely a ceremonial job, but it requires the office-holder to write a daily report on parliamentary proceedings for the monarch and to be held captive at Buckingham Palace when s/he drives to Westminster for the state opening of Parliament. From 1956 to 1962 Henry was Joint Honorary Treasury of the Conservative Party and in 1956 he was created Baronet Studholme of Perridge in the County of Devon, where he served as a Deputy Lieutenant from 1969. One of Henry’s sons read History at Magdalen, and one of his grandsons read Philosophy and Theology there in the 1980s.

John enrolled as a Naval Cadet on 15 September 1916 and became a professional naval officer, retiring from the Navy in 1953. From February 1939 to August 1940 he commanded HMS Seawolf (1935–45), one of the two ‘S’-type submarines to survive the war, and operated mainly in the North Sea and the Arctic Ocean.

 

 

Elsie Margery Oliver was a 3^rd Officer in the Women’s Royal Naval Service during World War Two.

 

 

Education

From 1908 to 1911, i.e. during the eight years when its Headmaster was the Reverend Cyril Robert Carter (c.1863–1930; Fellow of Magdalen 1896–1902 and 1910–30, also Bursar during those 20 years), Studholme was educated at Cordwalles Preparatory School, Maidenhead, Berkshire. Consequently, the school (which was founded in Blackheath, moved to Maidenhead in 1873, renamed St Piran’s School in 1919 and closed in 1949; cf. J.A.P. Parnell and J.F. Worsley) was also known as the Reverend C.R. Carter’s Preparatory School. Studholme then attended Eton College from 1911 to 1916, where he became Head of his House during his final term. His Eton obituarist wrote of him:

He was naturally of a quiet and retiring disposition, but he always did his best both in work and play, and built up a character on which others could perfectly rely. He was fond of rowing and got his Lower Boats. His great opportunity for development came after he left. At Sandhurst and afterwards at the front, without losing his quiet charm, he became more alert to his surroundings, and claimed a larger share of them. His letters showed the happy mind that makes little of hardships and much of the fun that can be found in them.

He was accepted by Magdalen as a Commoner in Spring 1916 but did not matriculate. On 29 October 1917 his father replied to a letter of condolence from President Warren in which he thanked Warren for his “very kind letter”, adding that “such letters as yours do, as far as it is possible, help one to bear the burden. [Paul] was so very well & fit when he went out & had such a promise before him and then to be so quickly over.” He continued:

Paul was so very pleased at having matriculated at [he meant accepted by] Magdalen & was looking forward to his life there after the war so very much. If he had been spared to go up I am sure you would have never had any trouble with him and in his steady quiet ways he would have done credit to the College. […] We have had such nice letters from all who knew Paul well showing that his quiet unobtrusive nature was most appreciated.

 

 

War service

Studholme, who was 5 foot 11 inches tall and had been a Corporal in the Eton Officers’ Training Corps, took an officers’ training course at the Royal Military College (Sandhurst) and passed out sixth. He was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the 1^st (Regular) Battalion, the Devonshire Regiment, on 1 May 1917, arrived in France on 3 July 1917, and joined the Battalion – which had landed at Le Havre on 21 August 1914 and was part of 95^th Brigade, 5^th Division – in the trenches near Anzin-St Aubin, a north-western suburb of Arras, on 21 July. The Battalion stayed in this part of the line until 9 September 1917, and then, together with the rest of 95^th Brigade, moved westwards to the Le Cavroy battle training area at Ambrines, 12 miles from Arras. It remained here until 24 September, when it entrained at nearby Ligny-St-Flochel and began its journey northwards towards the Ypres Salient. On 28 September, the third day of that phase of the Third Battle of Ypres that is known as the Battle of Polygon Wood (26 September–3 October 1917) and the day when the 5^th Division transferred to X Corps, commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Lethbridge Morland (1865–1925) in General Plumer’s 2^nd Army (see J.L. Barratt), Studholme’s Battalion arrived at Le Nieppe, just to the east of St-Omer. On the following day it reached the village of Méteren, just below the Franco-Belgian border, ten miles or so south-west of Ypres and two miles west of Bailleul.

On 2 October, the Battalion travelled by bus to the canal bank near Ypres and at 14.00 hours on 3 October, the final day of the Battle of Polygon Wood, it moved eastwards to Sanctuary Wood. From here, at 20.00 hours, it began to take up assembly positions in preparation for the 12-division attack on Passchendaele Ridge on a seven-mile front that was planned for 4 October 1917 and would later be known as the Battle of Broodseinde, a small village on a low ridge about a mile north-east of Zonnebeke. X Corps was positioned on both sides of the Menin Road that joined Ypres with Gheluvelt to the south-east, and was tasked with protecting the right flank of the main attack from German counter-attacks from the south. 3 Company of Studholme’s 1^st Battalion was positioned on the right, supported by 1 Company, with 4 Company on the left and 2 Company in reserve. On the way from Sanctuary Wood to Battalion HQ, near Gheluvelt and before the battle had really started, the Battalion’s Commanding Officer (Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan Hamilton Blunt, DSO; 1878–1917, no known grave) and Adjutant were killed by the intense German shell-fire, and it seems that Studholme met his end, aged 19, in the same way, not long after the attack had begun at 06.00 hours.

At first the attack went well, but heavy rifle and machine-gun fire from the ruined Polderhoek Château, north of Gheluvelt, forced the two leading battalions to fall back. Then, at 18.00 hours, the Germans counter-attacked southwards down the valley of the Reutelbeek but were pushed back by heavy artillery fire. The Battalion held its positions through 5 October and withdrew to Bedford House on the following day after losing 12 officers and 291 other ranks killed, wounded and missing. The Battle of Broodseinde is generally regarded as very successful and a vindication of Plumer’s “bite and hold” tactics: ground had been gained, the Germans had lost very heavily, their morale had suffered, and 5,000 prisoners had been taken. But the British and ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) forces had lost about 20,600 men killed, wounded and missing. Although one report claimed that Studholme’s death happened in the context of the first and only cavalry charge of the Great War, his father was probably being more accurate when he wrote in his letter of 29 October 1917:

The sadness of it all is to see those boys trained up to be so strong & manly just to enable him [sic] to go out to be killed. In the first line regiments of infantry practically no-one comes through unscathed. His colonel was killed at [the] same time as Paul & this regiment had 450 casualties. His Major in his formal letter reporting wrote “2^nd Lt. Studholme during the attack was exceptionally cool & quite regardless of the hostile shell fire which at times was very heavy”[.] “I think he was killed by concussion of an enemy shell as when found there was no wound on him but he was quite dead in a shell hole”. One has a great deal to be thankful for in this.

Studholme’s Eton obituarist told a similar story but added, citing Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, that when his Battalion came in for heavy fighting,

the cool and happy look upon his face was noticed by a friend whom he passed on his way up. His body was found later, lying untouched where he had fallen from shell-concussion. It looks like an unfinished life – “but in life three acts are often all the play. For He decrees it shall end Who was once the author of thy existence, and now of thy dissolution.” And it was a life of which Eton can be proud, for it leaves behind it none but happy memories, ending with the supreme service loyally given.

His brother Henry wrote in his diary:

I got back from Bushey about 8.30 and found a telegram waiting for me from my Mother to say that my brother Paul had been killed on 4^th October at Gheluveldt [sic]. How well I remember that moment. It was a most bitter blow. I had had a letter from my brother few days before, saying that he was due for leave soon, but that he might “get a permanent job”, as the saying was, “out here pushing daisies”. Alas, it was all too true, for he had, and it was nearly ten days before my parents got the news.

His body was initially buried near where it had fallen – about 650 yards north of Gheluvelt – but in July 1919 it was transferred to Hooge Crater Cemetery (Belgium), Grave X.G.12 The inscription reads: “Semper paratus” (“always prepared”).

 

 

Bibliography

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

 

Special acknowledgements:

*The editors would like to thank James Studholme, TV Producer/Musician (great nephew of Paul Francis William Studholme), and other members of the Studholme family, for comments on the text, additional information, photographs and access to Henry Studholme’s diary.

 

Printed sources: 

[Thomas Herbert Warren], ‘Oxford’s Sacrifice’ [obituary], The Oxford Magazine, 36, no. 5 (16 November 1917), p. 71.

[Anon.], ‘P.F.W. Studholme’ [obituary], The Eton College Chronicle, no. 1,630 (1 November 1917), p. 312.

Elizabeth Studholme, Coldstream: The Story of a Sheep Station on the Canterbury Plains, 1854–1934 (Christchurch, New Zealand: privately printed, 1985).

Steel and Hart (2001), pp. 242–56.

 

Archival sources: 

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

MCA: PR 32/C/3/1112 (President Warren’s War-Time Correspondence. Letter relating to P.F.W. Studholme [1917]).

ADM149/109.

WO95/1579.

WO339/70840.

 

On-line sources:

‘The late Mr. Michael Studholme’: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18861006.2.49 accessed 11 September 2018).

Wikipedia, ‘John Studholme’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Studholme (accessed 6 September 2018).