It's good to learn that this project is still ongoing. I wasn't previously aware – but am now – that this research group, The Royal Sutton Coldfield Great War Project 2014-2024, have placed online the information they have so far gathered. It can be found here:
Sutton Coldfield has an interesting history well documented by a collection of primary sources housed in Sutton Coldfield Library.
sclhrg.org.uk
if Forum members wish to glance at it. Let's hope that eventually it will be expanded still further and even "completed".
(The articles no doubt contain, amongst much else, information collected many years ago by David Phillips, a master at Bishop Vesey's, in connection with the names of those who appear on the School's Roll of Honour.
It is almost exactly eighty years ago, now, when another war was still raging, that I first set eyes on that list of Old Veseyans who had given their lives less than thirty years previously. The names were painted in gold, on one of the wooden panels which lined the walls of the hall known then as "Old Big School" - and presumably still are. Other panels bore the names of others who had achieved particular distinction in sport, academic achievement and other aspects of school life.
It was always the Roll of Honour which drew my attention the most, whenever I was in the hall as it performed its function as the School Dining Room and later as a classroom for music lessons. I don't know why, but for me there was always one name which stood out amongst all the others, Rippingille, F.A. Perhaps it was the unusual name, perhaps the appearance of his name in other lists, indicating his distinction. I may well have noticed, too, the name of two men sharing the surname of Bromwich and wondered whether they were related. I can't remember.
David Phillips's work, "Pro Patria Mori", would tell us, decades later, that 2/Lt. Frank Alexander Rippingille of the 1st Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment died aged 21 on 11th November 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres; he was the first of the 65/70 Old Boys to be lost and had been the School's leading sportsman in the years 1909, 1910 and 1911.
It also tell us that L/Cpl. Leslie Frank Bromwich, aged 19, and Pte. Edgar John Bromwich, aged 26 , were indeed brothers and members of the Sutton family which ran the well-known bakery business; and that they were both in the 15th R.W.R. and were both killed at the same time, at the same place and in the same incident, the explosion of a huge, underground German mine.
Just two names out of countless others. Of young men who could now never achieve what they might have done in their later lives, in business, in sport, in their contribution to family and to community and to society in general. The loss of each one an unimaginable tragedy to family and friends and all who loved them. How good it is that there are people who, after so long, still try to ensure that each man is remembered and honoured, and are prepared to spend time and effort in so doing. They deserve our appreciation - and support, if we are able to offer it).
Lest we forget.
Chris
