New Commemorations Update - June 2022

Since last month’s update, we have completed reviews of more Non-Commemoration cases and received adjudications from the relevant service authorities. Casualties recently accepted for commemoration will be added onto our Casualty Database in due course.

Here are three featured stories from our recent commemorations.

Chaplain Peter George Smith

Chaplain Peter Smith applied to become a Chaplain to the Forces in February 1918, serving with the Royal Army Chaplains Department in France from June 1918. He was attached to the 9th Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), who were in action in France and Belgium until the end of the First World War. After the Armistice, Chaplain Smith was stationed in Cologne, Germany.

Unfortunately, he was diagnosed as suffering from a duodenal ulcer in May 1919 and recommended for surgery. While his symptoms were thought to have originated in 1917 (prior to enlistment), they were deemed to have been ‘aggravated by active service’ by an Army Medical Board. A London Gazette Entry on 27 November 1919 gave notice of Chaplain Smith relinquishing his commission on account of ill health and his re-appointment to Honorary Chaplain to the Forces. He died at home in Scotland on 3 December, just a few days after the birth of his youngest child.

Chaplain Smith is commemorated on the memorial to Scottish Ministers, Probationers and Divinity Students in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh. His grave, in Kippen Cemetery, Stirling, was designed by the Scottish artist Sir David Young Cameron.

Chaplain Peter George Smith (1878 – 1919). Reproduced courtesy of Lorna Chapman.

Private Alfred Leslie Hopewell

265401 Private Alfred Hopewell served with the 1^st/6^th Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment. He was listed as missing in action and presumed dead when the Battalion saw action at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The Battalion War Diary details a night-time attack that took place at Ovillers, where it noted that battlefield recovery of casualties by stretcher-bearers had proved difficult due to the intense German artillery.

Subsequent historical war records list Private Hopewell’s death on 23 July 1916 and confirm that his mother was awarded a dependant pension. We will now instigate the process of appropriate commemoration. 

Private Geoffrey William Whitmore Marshall

Private Geoffrey Marshall enlisted in September 1914 and served with the British Expeditionary Force from February 1915. Medical reports confirm that, by 1917, Private Marshall was suffering from abdominal pain.  He was discharged as being, ‘No Longer Physically Fit for War Service’ due to ‘sarcoma of abdomen’.  In May 1917, he was awarded the Silver War Badge in recognition of his military service. Sadly, Private Marshall died only a few months later from his illness aged 23 and was buried at Shenington (Holy Trinity) Churchyard in Oxfordshire. Private Marshall’s carved wooden memorial cross states that he died from ‘Injuries received on Active Service in France’.   

Private Marshall’s wooden grave marker in Shenington (Holy Trinity) Churchyard, Oxfordshire. Reproduced courtesy of Pamela Wilkinson.