Ernest Edward Spears, Frank Wotton Eastlake & Richard Henry Vaughan Thompson |
A sermon given during services on Remembrance Sunday 10th November 2024 at St Giles-in-the-Fields based on the text of John 15.9-17 and the stories of some of the men listed on the WW1 memorial at the back of the church. The photographs of Ernest Spears, Frank Eastlake and Richard Thompson were printed in the pew sheet.
Hours
before he died on the cross, Jesus told his disciples that in its greatest
form, love looks like someone laying down their life for their friends.
Today especially, we look that love in the face.
This is the face of Ernest Edward Spears. He had
just turned nineteen when he died. He was too young to sign up when the First
World War broke out one hundred and ten years ago. Since the age of fourteen he
had been employed as an Assistant at Holborn Public Library. He lived with his
parents at 12 St Giles Buildings, an apartment block on Shorts Gardens. Ernest
would have witnessed casualties being brought to the Endell Street Military
Hospital nearby – the only such hospital run and staffed entirely by women and which by 1916 was one of the busiest in London, admitting the
most seriously injured men, often by cover of darkness. Ernest joined the 12th
London Regiment in July 1916. This photograph of him in his uniform and kit
must have been taken around that time as he was quickly despatched to the
trenches at the upper reaches of the Somme River. I wonder if this picture was
sent to Ernest’s parents? What did they see as his face looked out at them?
Ernest survived twelve weeks in the trenches before he was killed in action.
This
is the face of Frank Wotton Eastlake, who worked with Ernest at the Holborn
Public Library, which was located alongside the Town Hall just down the road on
High Holborn. A south London boy, he was born and grew up in Camberwell where
his father worked for the Post Office. Although you wouldn’t tell from the
photographs, Frank was six years older than Ernest. He was one of the three
quarters of a million men who had joined the army within eight weeks of war
being declared. In this early stage of the war, men like Frank received more
training than those like Ernest who signed up later.
Over the next five months, while waiting for equipment and
uniforms to be prepared, Frank learned how to fight with a rifle and bayonet.
He was sent to France in February 1915 and spent the next eighteen months in
the trenches there before he was killed in action at Vimy Ridge on 23rd May
1916.
Perhaps
news of Frank’s death was on Ernest’s mind when he signed up six weeks later?
In a telegram to Frank’s parents, his Commanding Officer wrote that he was “a
lad who knew no fear and whose death was a great loss to the battalion.” Frank
was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. The citation gives us more of an
insight into his character, explaining the award of the medal was "for
conspicuous gallantry, when he remained in an exposed position on the parapet
of a captured enemy trench and threw bombs for upwards of six
hours….prevent[ing] a counter-attack."
This
is the face of Richard Henry Vaughan Thompson, who was was born in East Sheen
and educated at Winchester College and Oxford University where he read law. His
uncle was a well-known city solicitor and Richard went to work in his firm –
Beachcroft, Thomson & Co. which had offices in Theobalds Road. It was
through that local connection that Richard was later elected to Holborn Borough
Council.
Richard married into a wealthy Scottish family. His
wife, The Honourable Isabel Shaw was the youngest daughter of a former Member
of Parliament who became a Lord of Appeal.
The
Aberdeen Weekly Journal reported that the young couple married in February 1915
at South Kensington Presbyterian Church at a service with beautiful choral
music and a violin concerto played during the signing of the register.
Five months later, Richard was surrounded by the
sound of open warfare on on the frontline. He spent some time in a Red Cross
Hospital in Rouen in 1916 with a broken nose but returned to his troops after
two weeks. On 1st October a telegram was sent to the couple’s London home
informing Isabel of the death of her husband at Thiepval during one of the
costliest battles of the Somme. Richard was 32 when he died. Isabel was at her
father’s estate in Scotland at the time and didn’t receive the telegram until a
week later.
The Holborn
& Finsbury Guardian printed an obituary, which explained that Captain
Thompson was in command of D Company when he was killed. The Major of his
Battalion wrote that he died “while most gallantly leading his company against
one of the strongest positions, and I feel I have lost not only, most probably,
the finest officer of my battalion, but also a true friend.”
The faces
of three of the fourteen men named on the Borough of Holborn War Memorial which
now hangs at the back of this church - and declares in bold, capital letters
that they “died so that Britain might live”.
Sons, brothers
and husbands. Two librarians and a solicitor cum Borough Councillor. Jobs we
don’t necessarily associate with a killer instinct. Men who all worked in the
same building and responded to a call to serve their country and who died in
France within the space of five months - casualties of The Big Push of 1916 -
the most bloody year of the conflict.
How do you feel when you look into the faces of
Ernest, Frank and Richard?
Sad at the loss of such young lives but also joy
that we honour their memory, that their lives have
meaning? Respect for their and
bravery but also embarrassment that
we might not have the courage to do the
same? What if these men had died fighting on the losing side? Would you feel
any different?
The mix of
emotions is powerful and complex and transcends any and all moral positions on
war and conflict. When we try to explain how we feel, words fail us.
I wonder if
the disciples felt the same way when they looked into the face of Jesus as he
gave his beautiful sermon on love on the night before he died. The text we
heard today. In which he explains what love looks like.
That it is bigger than any of us. That it comes from beyond us - a gift from
God that binds us to Him and to each other, so powerful that nothing can
separate us from it - not even death. It’s there abiding in us all - right now
- friends and enemies alike - whether we allow ourselves to feel it or not.
That Jesus is that love in human form - and our lives will be filled with
unbridled joy if we live the life of love that he lived. Jesus calls his
disciples his friends and then says that in its greatest expression, love looks
like someone laying down their life for their friends.
This
Remembrance Sunday as we look at the faces of men like Ernest, Frank and
Richard, we remember the sacrifice they made when they took up arms to defend
this country.
And we are
disarmed as we come face to face with the amazing, transforming, uncomfortable,
power of love in its greatest expression.
A love that we so often fail to express, even in the smallest way!
A love that challenges us.
A love that sees us.
A love that forgives us - even at our worst.
A love that picks up our broken pieces and re-members us to it.
The body of Christ.
And sends us out again to love one another as he loves us.
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