A memorial service that pays tribute to the “Old Boys” of a historic Redcar school who died in the First and Second World Wars has marked its 100th year.
Former students and staff of Sir William Turner’s School gathered at Redcar and Cleveland College, where they were joined by members of the community and current students to remember the fallen.
The service offers a unique insight into the lives of the real people behind the 48 names listed on the school’s War Memorial which now stands on Corporation Road, and a further 55 inscribed on a bronze memorial plaque that is kept in the college and a replica in Coatham Memorial Hall.
Historian Peter Chester said: “Each of those names was a real person, with family and friends and a story behind them.”
Involved with the honorary service for some 30 years, as a historian and former teacher of the Sir William Turner’s Sixth Form himself, Peter played a key role in researching the lives of the men, and boys, behind the names.
“It all started with the chance discovery of a newspaper clipping from 1916,” he said. The clipping mentioned Captain Thomas Heathcock and was tucked into the back of a stack of books that had been given to him as prizes as a former student of Coatham Grammar School.
Captain Heathcock lost his life during the Battle of the Somme and the books had been returned to the school after the war by his mother.
Finding that newspaper cutting in 1989, Peter describes as “a magical moment”. “I thought it was important to tell his story and that was the first.”
Two leather-bound memorial books, researched by Peter, students of the college and Brigadier His Honour Philip Norris, now hold details of the lives of all those Old Boys.
Sharing the little details about individual’s lives at the service each year, Peter said: “It just feels important and the older I get the more important it feels.”
Some 350 Old Boys from Sir William Turner’s School fought in the First World War, 48 of whom died on active service, their names can be found on the memorial Celtic Cross.
During the Second World War, there were 650 Old Boys who served in the armed forces, and 55 lost their lives. Their names are on the plaque which was commissioned in 1948.
Peter Sotheran MBE, Chair of the Sir William Turner Foundation and a former student, said: “This is the 100th anniversary of the school’s first war memorial which in that time has been situated at six different locations.”
He fondly described how according to the War Graves Commission it is the most “peripatetic” war memorial in the country, referring to its multiple homes over the years.
Of the service itself, he said: “It is important to remember the sacrifice former staff and students made over the two Great Wars.”
