The War Years 1914-1918

In 1916, he advised a recently commissioned pupil the following wise words: ‘Touch elbows every day with the rank and file… Your education has fitted you, I hope, to be a leader as far as education can do so.’ At a time when the ‘officer class’ and ‘rank and file’ felt very much ‘them and us’, McClure’s advice was Nonconformist and progressive. ‘Touching elbows’ – looking out for the welfare of the troops – is a fundamental aspect of modern military leadership but was lacking during the First World War. The enlightened style of leadership exemplified by McClure added to his popularity with pupils and staff.

Prior to the war there was a perceived pacifist tendency originating from the Nonconformist, liberal foundations of the School. The publisher Ivor Nicholson wrote in 1909: ‘There is no cadet corps at Mill Hill, one could almost say with a tolerable amount of certainty there never will be.’ In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

At the war’s end, a total of 1,118 pupils, Old Millhillians and masters served in the forces, amounting to 59 per cent of total pupils who attended between 1883 and 1914.

During McClure’s tenure however, from 1896 onwards, this figure soared to 83 per cent. For a Headmaster whose passion and commitment to the School and each pupil was immense, seeing the young men he had known so well enlist was traumatic.

Fitting the Nonconformist and forward-thinking traditions exemplified by Mill Hill, a staggering 120 Old Millhillians enlisted in the newly established Royal Flying Corps (later becoming the RAF). These Old Millhillians became the ‘first of the future few’ with many seeing the potential of air power. Mill Hill produced many decorated pilots, including, Lt Taunton Viney Distinguished Serving Order (DSO) (house /1906-09) and Capt Cyril Marconi Crowe (School

1907-11) Military Cross (MC), Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). However, it was not just the ‘flyboys’ that distinguished themselves.

Millhillians that served accumulated an outstanding number of awards for service and valour.

A total of 191 awards including 107 MC’s, 21 Distinguished Service Orders, 9 DFC’s, 2 Air Force

Crosses and 1 Military Medal. Old Millhillians were collectively awarded 24 national service awards from the UK and abroad. Among them were the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Members of the British Empire (MBE), Knights of the British Empire (KBE), the French Legions d’honneur, the Italian Assiego medal and the Egyptian Order of the Nile.

Many medals were awarded posthumously, for Mill Hill tragically paid a heavy price during the war. Of the 1,118 Old Millhillians who served, 194 paid the ultimate sacrifice, from the first death of William Somerville (School 1883-88) on 25th September 1914 to the last, Geoffrey Lamont (School 1912-17) on 6th November 1918. The bloodiest year for the School, 1917, saw 56 dead. More than one per Sunday Chapel. Each death was noted in the Mill Hill Magazine and read in chapel by McClure, who wrote to each parent of the dead. None bore the brunt of the sorrow more than he.

With each death, he lost a pupil, one that he had nurtured and seen develop.

Writing to the parents of Charles Batty, (School 190914) killed in action 19 January 1916 at Ypres he says: ‘Words are powerless in the face of such sorrow; but many tears were shed this morning when the sad news came… I thank God humbly and heartily that it was my privilege to teach and train such boys.’ All but six of the 194 who perished had been McClure’s pupils, he mourned each and every one.

The School was elated in 1918, when the end of the war came: scenes of utter jubilation followed the leaflet announcing the Armistice. Edward Higham (House 1915-19) writes: ‘The whole school went literally mad, there were processions round the village, everyone equipped with anything that would make noise.’ Inglis Gundry (House 1918-23) writes about McClure: ‘with his white hair billowing in the wind, personally ringing the school bell.’ Boys were seen pushing a captured German field gun into the sheepdip by Belmont. After the immediate hysteria faded the reality of the previous four years set in. Roland Wade (School 1918-23) recalls: ‘McClure seemed a rather remote figure… there was a clear reluctance to go inside for normal classes.’

At the chapel service given to Old Millhillians after the war, his sorrow and loss is clear. McClure notes in his address: ‘Never has this Chapel been used for a worthier purpose than that which brings us here today.’ Some of McClure’s most important contributions came in these sorrowful post war years.

First World War and the Christian Faith at Mill Hill School

The First World War dominated the second half of John McClure’s headship Some suggest that his relatively early death in 1922 was partly due to the personal toll that war took upon him. ‘It is believed… that his own death was precipitated by the presence of death amongst his charges.’ He would have known personally most of the 195 Millhillians who lost their lives in that war. In 1921, just a year before his death, one old boy recalls McClure ‘sobbing’ in the Scriptorium while looking at photographs of now deceased Old Boys. ‘He walked from group to group pointing to each face – ‘dead-dead-wounded-all right-dead-I don’t know…’

There is no doubt that McClure’s Christian faith enabled him to be a source of such strength and hope for all in the school community who had had to endure its terrors. For one Old Boy who was in turmoil about going to fight in the war, McClure’s reply was filled with moral certainty and spiritual justification. Together with the Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom he refers, he saw that the War was no less than a Christian duty – fighting against tyranny and for the Kingdom of God. This was not jingoism – something that he detested – or easy religious rhetoric and justification. Rather he held that there was ‘absolutely no alternative’ but to go to war. ‘This being so, I can say with [Archbishop] William Temple that I believe that those who are fighting at the present time are truly fighting for the Kingdom of God. I say therefore (if I may be permitted to do so), with all sincerity and gravity, in God’s name, go.’ Knowing the horrors that were unfolding, such words would not have been written lightly, but undoubtedly they would have given the boy much-needed courage.

McClure received many letters from Old Boys at the Front. They were full of affectionate memories of him, recalling how he had been such a positive influence on their lives in happier times; thus exemplifying that none of us knows how far our influence extends or when our words and deeds will be needed as source of strength to others. It is said that nobody would forget his sermon in Chapel on the last Sunday evening of July 1915 as he reviewed the first year of the War. He referred to a school trip he had taken to Italy in April 1914 recalling that only two of the eight boys on that trip had survived the first year of the war. Many of his hearers on that night in Chapel were to meet with the same tragic fate.

As Headmaster, he was in touch with every family who had suffered bereavement, and his letters of empathetic condolence are inspired by Christian faith and imagery. They gave spiritual and moral strength to so many. To the parents of one boy whom he had taken to Italy he wrote: ‘Words are powerless in the face of such sorrow; but many tears were shed this morning when the sad news came, and many prayers sent up on high for you and yours.… May God give to you, his parents, and to all his dear ones, the richest consolations of his Grace.’

Continued overleaf

His tone quickly moved from happiness to remembrance, telling pupils, ‘We must not rejoice.’ This remembrance came in many forms and, by the end of 1918, McClure had instigated three major projects. First, scholarships for the sons of Old Millhillians killed. Second, owing to the great importance of science during the war, greater facilities for its study would be built, leading to the creation of the Science Building in 1924. Finally, McClure was adamant that there be a ‘memorial of artistic beauty’. The latter project became a top priority for the War Memorial Fund and in 1920,

The Gate of Honour, designed in the classical style, was opened by General Horne and attended by the whole School. Inscribed inside the arch were all the names of the dead.

A pupil recalled: ‘I watched from one of the School House common rooms. When the names had been carved, men came and painted gold leaf into the letters. When it was windy, we often saw bits of gold leaf being blown away.’ McClure’s aim of the gate was twofold. As he put it: ‘Partly as a symbol of our thanksgiving for our brethren, partly as a solemn warning.’

There is no doubt that the war altered the day-to-day running of the School in what has been described as a strange and troubling mix of ‘normal’ adolescent school life and brutal military training. However, what did remain a constant was the unrelenting composure of the Headmaster.

He guided Mill Hill through the war by his commitment to the education of ideals, morals and character and his inspirational leadership.

Millhillians of all ages looked to him for advice, bound by a sense of duty he had instilled in them. His daughter writes in ‘McClure of Mill Hill’ that the war brought many Old Millhillians back into contact with their former Headmaster, evidence of the personal relationship McClure had with the pupils and the School. He suffered greatly with so many of ‘his boys’ dead. Despite his acceptance of the War, he despised its consequences and mourned every loss. Sir John died four years after the end of the war at Mill Hill on 18th February 1922, shortly after his 62nd birthday.

To other grieving parents he said: ‘Few of our Old Boys will be missed as much as he; Heaven itself will be the brighter for his smile and the happier for his presence.’ He continued, ‘Like his parents, I cherished hopes and visions of what he would be; that God has decreed otherwise, is hard to bear… but so brave and pure a Christian soldier must have awakened in others some of the faith and enthusiasm which inspired his own beautiful life.’

Reflecting theologically and spiritually on the sadness of early death and drawing on the example of Christ who died a young man, he gave hope to others by emphasising that the importance of a life was found not in its longevity but in its quality. ‘Let us rather think of its quality than of its quantity, of its ideals and purposes rather than its achievements.’

None of us knows how long our journey will be and McClure wisely reminds the bereaved that we cannot judge a life – or indeed the goodness of God – simply by the number of years we have lived. Whether or not we live until a ‘ripe old age’ or are ‘called away in the middle of life’ or our lives are taken at the ‘very beginning of manhood’s great work’ as happened with so many Old Millhillians – a life can be valued if it is ‘directed to the right end and right purpose.’ Going further, in a bold statement of faith, McClure asserts that if we have lived a life according to God’s will then we may claim the words of Christ for ourselves, who said: ‘I have glorified them by accomplishing not what I intended, or I should have desired, but by accomplishing the work Thou gavest me to do. Father, into thy hand I yield my spirit.’

After the War, he gave a powerful sermon in Chapel to commemorate the war dead saying that, ‘Never has this Chapel been used for a worthier purpose than that which brings us here today.’

I believe he would be immensely proud of the way Mill Hill still honours its war dead by our annual Act of Remembrance in front of the Gate of Honour, and in his beloved Chapel, both of which were built because of his leadership. In particular, I think he would be moved, as we all are, by our recent tradition of displaying the photographs of these Old Millhillians in the Chapel as we remember each of them by name. As we do so, McClure’s words speak to us. ‘We are poorer by the loss of so many brave and gallant men, but richer – incomparably richer – by the inspiration of their example, and the precious memory of their life.’

He also spoke profoundly about the inadequacy of words and importance of silence in the face of such loss. His insights provide a deeper meaning for the two-minute silence that we continue to keep. ‘Words, however sincere, seem almost sacrilege; only by silence can we truly express our sorrow and joy, our pride and humility, as we think of those whom we seek to honour the deepest morning, yet with reverent thanksgiving.’

Given his pastoral care, together with the moral and spiritual support that he had given to the Mill Hill community during this time, it seemed fitting that he was present at the national service of thanksgiving held after the war at St Paul’s Cathedral, 6 July 1919. He was invited in his capacity as Chairman of the Congregational Union, the highest honour in the Congregational Church to which one can be elected. By the King’s command, a portrait was painted of the moment of blessing after the service given by the Archbishop of Canterbury outside the cathedral. This painting now hangs in the Royal Exchange and McClure can be seen among the leaders of the Free Churches, standing behind the Royal party.

WARDEN