One of our key goals in this project has been to identify and share the final resting places of our Saracens who lost their lives during the First World War. We are very grateful to the Lottery Heritage Fund for their support in this regard, and hope that our initial tour of the WW1 battlefield…
“Forward play as the first consideration, the basis upon which the actions of the whole team should be built.” The words above, taken from the Boys Own Annual 1915/16 leave little room for interpretation on what side of the great rugby union dividing fence President WTA Beare sat! As already discussed in our previous blog,…
Upon the outbreak of war on 4th August 1914, our Saracens 1st XV forward Walter Cairns Black wrote to his parents, confirming his decision to enlist with the London Scottish Regiment “Dear Father and Mother I am writing this letter on the eve of what may be the greatest war the world has known. I…
Having enlisted in December 1914, Norman made the decision to join the ranks, (a decision discussed in the previous blog), one to which the Aldenham headmaster credited to his “extreme modesty.” He spent a year in training in England: travelling between Kempton Park Racecourse, Warlingham, joining the 100th Brigade at Slipstone Camp in July 2015…
Alfred Ball’s war got off to something of a slow start. The battalion, stationed on The Strand in August 1914 was moved to Bedmond (near Hemel Hempstead) and then Watford before mobilisation to France in March 1915. Alfred appears not to have always travelled with them to the front line according to De Ruvigny’s roll…
Picking up Dearing’s story from our opening chapter, he was not one of our Saracens players to join the first rush to enlist. Given his status as a teacher, this ‘scheduled occupation’ along with clergymen and some industrial workers meant he would have been able to stay at home for the duration of the war,…
Of all the potential Saracens we have uncovered so far I have to admit Alfred/Abraham Flatau is one of the most intriguing, and thus a personal favourite. Born in 1875 in the East End to Barnett and Priscilla, Abraham as he was then known, was part of the vibrant Jewish community that used to dominate…
One of great difficulties in locating our fallen Saracens is those players with a relatively common name. Whilst Capellis and Flatau’s are a relatively exclusive clan, narrowing down the options on Evans, Brown and Williams is a somewhat taller order. Take for example WJ Brown, who appears in our team photo, seated on the ground…
At the heart of the Saracens WW1 project, and indeed almost any genealogy projects, has always laid the intention to inspire others to research into their own family backgrounds. For us it is especially crucial, relying as we do often on family photos and stories to corroborate our suspicions about whether a player was indeed…
‘The Somme,’ two words that have become far greater than the name of a small river in Picardy, Northern France. They are now often used as a shorthand for the very worst of the Great War; The privations of the men coupled with the incompetence of the generals and their seeming disregard for individual loss…
Saracens Rugby Club and W.W.1 