At the close of the nineteenth century Bradfield was a much smaller school which offered a classical curriculum for the pupils housed in the main College buildings, an ‘army class’ which prepared pupils for military service and a ‘navy class’ based in the recently-built House-on-the-Hill. Within twenty years 279 pupils of that generation had lost their lives in the First World War. A further 198 Bradfieldians lost their lives during the Second World War and two have died in Wars since 1945.
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, Bradfield remembered them during an Armistice Day service in front of the Bradfield War Memorials. Bradfield pupils, staff and guests gathered in Quad to pay their respects as representatives of the Bradfield community laid wreaths at the foot of the memorials. The Headmaster addressed the school prior to the playing of The Last Post and two-minute silence and you can read his reflection below.
The following day the College hosted a Remembrance Sunday service in Chapel. To open the service, current pupils read out the names from the Roll of Honour, paying tribute to the former pupils who lost their lives during the Wars. We welcomed back Old Bradfieldian and Royal Marine Dom Rogers (D 96-01) to give the address, during which he remembered his former Head of House John Sanderson (D 94-99) who died during deployment in Afghanistan in 2010. You can also read his address below alongside a short article on the impact of the First World War on The Bradfield Club in Peckham, researched and written by College Archivist John Cardwell.
The Collingwood Cross was erected as a memorial in November 1916, on the other side of Quad outside Big School. Initially it bore some 159 names and the simple inscription, ‘Pro deo et patria’, ‘for God and Country’. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff visited Bradfield for its dedication ceremony and commended the service of public schoolboys in a speech widely reported in the national press. By the end of the war a further 120 names needed to be added to the base.
The memorial was moved to its current location in 1951 in order to accommodate the slate tablets behind it which record the names of some 200 more Old Bradfieldians who lost their lives in the Second World War.
Large memorials and gleaming white headstones now welcome visitors to the war cemeteries of France. But a century ago, these soldiers’ graves were marked with simple wooden crosses. During the war, soldiers were typically buried where they fell or close by. Such was the scale of the killing that many crosses were made in the field by comrades, often from scrap wood or old packing crates.
When those temporary wooden crosses were replaced by permanent stone memorials after the war, soldiers’ families were given the opportunity to keep the originals. Some 16 such crosses were given to the College for safe-keeping and they have been on display since 2018 in the cloisters leading up to Chapel at the end of bloods passage.
This is the humblest of those crosses, made of two rough planks held together by four handmade nails. Its rustic simplicity is strangely moving. It has even lost its name plate and can therefore represent all the Bradfieldians that we remember and honour today.
This physical object brought back from the battlefield helps us to connect with those men in a personal way. It reminds us not only of lives cut short but of the impact upon those who survived, upon those who knew them, and those who loved them. It reminds us of the families and the communities who received these crosses of remembrance and held them dear.
For the bodies whose graves were first marked by crosses such as these, for the Bradfieldians remembered on this double memorial and for their families, their friends and their teachers, the symbol of the cross speaks of the self-sacrifice of a generation by recalling the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
The cross reminds us not just of the Crucifixion of Jesus, however, but also of the salvation offered to us through his passion and death. The cross is a symbol both of sacrifice and of hope in resurrection.
This wooden cross once physically marked the mortal remains of a person who lived and learned where we stand today. Much more importantly, it also represents the faith that he and his comrades now rest in an eternal home.
At this time, the pity of war is acutely felt by many communities across the world. In several countries peace seems simultaneously more distant and more important than ever. We therefore continue to pray for those who die, for those who suffer, for those who weep, and for those who mourn amidst chaos and confusion. Above all, we pray for peace.