West Yorkshire Regiment

October 11th 1920

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Brigadier General Stuart Taylor DSO

Two years ago today – just a month before the Great War came to an end – we lost our beloved Fluff Taylor, who died from the wounds he received from an exploding shell ten days previously.

We are delighted to have received this photograph of his grave at La Kreule Military Cemetery in Hazebrouck, south-west of Ypres. He was one of 78 generals to have died as the result of enemy action in the War.

Before his promotion to command the 93rd Division, Fluff had been Commanding Officer of the 15th Battalion of the West Yorks (known as the Leeds Pals) and was much loved, as this letter from one of his men testifies:

“The loss of our dearly loved and much respected Brigadier General has come as a great blow, and I am only one out of many hundreds who are so upset with this sad affair.

I was servant to the Brigadier when he was Colonel in the Leeds Pals, and he always loved us boys and saw to everything we desired; respected by every man in the Battalion, he was known as a thorough gentleman soldier, and, like the boys of 1916 whom he lamented, he died well, I’m sure. It gave me a shock when the news came, and I couldn’t have felt it more if it had been my own father, as indeed he was like a father to me all the time I was in France.

I was wounded in the retirement in March, and the Brigadier wrote at once to my mother, whom he frequently wrote to, and told her not to be alarmed…”

It was Fluff who first suggested, back in 1917, the idea of a war memorial and opened our fund with a very generous donation of £50. We look forward next month to welcoming the Bishop of Oxford to preside over a service of dedication of the Memorial Cross, being constructed at the bottom of our field on the banks of the River Cherwell.

November 10th 1918

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Although the newspapers give us hope of an end to our agonies very shortly, we still have digest the news of those who will not live to see the fruits of their endeavours.

Capt. Kenneth Rudd (West Yorks) was killed exactly a month ago and now we have further information on the circumstances surrounding Kenneth’s death from his commanding officer and friend:

Kenneth Rudd

“Capt. Rudd was with me when he was killed. The Battalion had just reached our final objective in our advance on the morning of October 10th. We were talking to each other when an enemy shell burst just behind us. Capt. Rudd fell and I bent down to him to ask him where he was hit. He replied ‘All over the back, sir.’ He then caught hold of my hand and I could see he was going. I knelt down and kissed him for I loved your boy and in a moment he was dead.

Today I have been out to see his grave. It is in a little British cemetery (near Audencourt, east of Cambrai), with officers and men who were killed in August 1914. A wooden cross with his name and Regiment etc has been put up and I have arranged for some flowers to be planted on his grave…

A short time ago I recommended him for the MC. I do wish he had lived to receive the decoration he earned so well. I am afraid a posthumous award of the MC is very rare.

To me he was always ‘Ruddy’ and I shall always remember him as a most perfect gentleman and one of the best officers I have ever known. We were close friends and I was more attached to him than to any officer I have ever known.

Capt. Rudd died as he would wish to have died. In the face of the enemy, the end of the war in sight and his last fight won.”

 

 

October 25th 1918

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Capt. Kenneth Rudd (West Yorks)

The advances of the past month, including the breaching of the Hindenburg Line,  suggest that (dare I say it?) an end to war is in sight. However, progress has once again been at considerable cost and we have lost a fourth dear friend in this last month.

Kenneth Rudd was killed by shell-fire near Inchy (not far from Le Cateau) on October 10th, the day before the death of Fluff Taylor in Flanders.

To receive the news of the death of a loved one in war is to suffer pain beyond description.  The significance of a letter from someone who witnessed the event and takes the trouble to write a letter of condolence is considerable for grieving family and friends. A fine example of this is the letter received from one of Kenneth’s men, a Corporal Field:

“No words of mine can express the admiration we all had for him. We mourn for him as a brother and hasten to convey the deep sense of sympathy we have with you in your irreparable loss. It was my privilege to look upon him in death, he looked beautiful.

He lies in a grave where a Briton has laid him with reverent hands, and a nice cross marks the last resting place of one ‘who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, never doubting that right would triumph.'”

Whilst he was with us Kenneth was just as keen, devoted and lovable as he proved to be afterwards.

 

 

October 20th 1918

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Daily Telegraph 17/10/18

The death of Fluff Taylor strikes at the heart of the OPS family and both my brother Hum and I would like to record our thoughts and appreciation of his life as a pupil, colleague and friend.

Fluff Taylor attended the OPS from 1882-86, coinciding with my arrival at the school (then at 17 Crick Road, Oxford) in 1882.

Fluff, as a Dragon

I can see Fluff now with his reddish curly rough hair and his honest freckled face and bright dancing eyes, dressed in a sailor suit. I used to put him up on a desk in the old school at Crick Road and he sang ‘Kitty Wells’ and recited the ‘Wreck of the Hesperus’ most pathetically.

Then later he was our swimming instructor and started the tradition of fearless diving which has been maintained ever since. In those days the Lodge was a merry place and Fluff was the life of it. Then we heard of his exploits in the Himalayas when fighting fierce tribesmen; the Boer War (which claimed the life of his brother, Rex), Graspan and Magersfontein, then colonial work in Nigeria.

When the Great War came he rejoined the Army, was wounded, went back again and after winning many decorations was hit by shrapnel under his helmet on October 1st.

During all those years he constantly came back to his old school, always the same old Fluff. He chummed with different generations of boys, he got them countless ‘halves’ and ‘no preps’; he told them grand yarns, he pillow-fought in the dorms…  There was always a thrill of delight when GC (Mr Vassall) told us that Fluff was coming.

And always he took me with him to the beautiful cemetery at Holywell and laid wreaths of flowers on the graves of his father and brother; and then he would talk to me of higher things, of the mysteries of life here and hereafter – and lately he always came back in our talks to the absolutely magnificent behaviour of his men – their humour, their readiness to make the best of things and such awful things, their refusal to give in to hunger and sleeplessness and awful sounds and sights; he told me how anxious they were about his welfare and that of other officers.

‘Tommy,’ like the boys and myself, never had a dearer or truer or warmer-hearted friend. His resting place is at La Kreule, but his spirit is ever with us to inspire and to cheer and to love.

My brother, Hum Lynam has written:

Hum Lynam

“In Bedford and Sandhurst days his buoyant spirit, supported by a high reputation as a footballer, won him great influence in School and College. But he was no mere jolly athlete. He won a Scholarship at Bedford and the School Prize for Latin Verse. He quoted Latin in letters from India, with just enough degree of error to prove the genuineness of his knowledge. His descriptions of the antiquities of Crete, his poems, his plea for the serious study of French, showed clearly the instinct of a scholar…

He once wrote a letter to the Draconian to protest that ‘none of the boys (as shown in a photo of the School XI which he had recently received) appears to possess a brush and comb.’ The protest is characteristic. As a soldier he knew and taught the importance of attention to detail: and in one of the best sermons we ever heard – which Fluff preached on March 4th 1917 – he elaborated this point to the complete conviction of right roughest-haired Dragon in the room.”

As our friend, Archer Vassall, has observed,

“There is no Dragon out of the whole number serving who was more intimately bound to the School.”

 

 

 

October 17th 1918

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Brigadier-General Stuart Taylor (West Yorks)

Just as we read of German overtures for peace, we hear of the loss of one of our oldest and staunchest of friends – Fluff Taylor.

Fluff was coming on leave at the beginning of term, but he cabled us to say he could not come. This was followed by a letter saying “a special Hun-killing programme was arranged. On the day I should have come I was watching my lads kill Huns and take others prisoners, and they got a splendid haul.” 

Fluff was wounded in May 1916, just before the Battle of the Somme when his Leeds Pals were hit so badly, and he won the DSO last year. More recently he has been involved in the many attacks raining down on the Boche on the Western Front.

On October 1st, Fluff was touring the front line trenches near Ploegstreet, south of Ypres, when a shell exploded nearby. The Brigade Major was killed and Fluff was hit by shrapnel under the helmet and down his left side. We hear that he died of these wounds ten days later, on October 11th.

Like a bright star he burnt, and is suddenly extinguished; to his friends the world is darker. How he would have loved the glory and splendour of the final triumph for which he worked and fought so hard; but he has attained the still more splendid, though more sorrowful glory of a little white cross above his grave on the Western Front.

 

September 21st 1918

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C H R I S T M A S   T E R M   1 9 1 8

Yesterday we started the new school year with numbers standing at 170, including 15 girls. Hopefully everyone has returned as refreshed as I am from a break with school life.

Having failed to include them on these pages before, I would like to draw attention to some things I said on Prize Day in July:

“I have long looked forward to having Hum as a recognised partner in the Headmastership of the School, and that I am pressing for a scheme to carry this out; there are difficulties, chiefly the fact that the School is not exactly my own financially! But I expect there is a way out.

I have enjoyed taking a larger share in the teaching than I have done for a good many years, but I was 60 a few weeks ago, and alas as the years glide by one cannot expect to maintain the vigour and resources of even middle age and one is happily not not yet senile enough to imagine oneself as efficient as one should be in running a great school like this.

Parents have been uniformly kind and helpful both to Hum and myself in the changes we have made. The changes have been all to the good and all the good traditions of the Boarders have been maintained. Self-reliance, freedom, absence of unmeaning convention, originality of character, all these have been fostered, the almost unique (in Preparatory Schools) encouragement of parents to see as much of their children as possible during term time and so to keep the home tie strong, this tradition of our school has been carried on – hospitality to Old Boys and parents, another traditional feature, has been maintained as far as and even further than rations will allow.”

In particular, we look forward to welcoming our Old Boys back – indeed a visit is expected shortly from Fluff Taylor – now a Brigadier-General in charge of 93rd Brigade – no doubt ordering me to grant the boys an extra ‘half-day’!

 

 

 

March 21st 1917

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Lieut.-Col Stuart Taylor (West Yorks) has written to the Editor of our magazine formally to ask us to address the question of how we commemorate those Old Dragons who have laid down their lives.

Various Public Schools are already raising money for their Old Boys. Indeed last week we read that Eton has raised £101,000 for a Memorial, and in order to educate the sons of fallen Old Etonians at Eton. 750 of the 5,200 Etonians serving have been killed.

A letter in the Daily Telegraph yesterday (on page 9) invites Old Rugbeians to attend a meeting with the same aim in mind. Other Public Schools are sure to follow this example.

They are, of course, considerably larger schools with many parents of considerably greater means than ours.  Nonetheless, at present we have about 350 Old Dragons serving, of whom 39 have lost their lives and it is right that we now give consideration to this question.

Fluff Taylor’s letter is very timely.

 

A War Memorial

BEF, France.

March 14th 1917.

To the Editor of the Draconian,

11 Charlbury Road, Oxford.

Dear Sir,

I would like to suggest that the time has now arrived for the consideration of a memorial to the gallant Dragons who have given and who may be called upon to give their lives for their country in this great war.

The School is without a Chapel, and I can think of no more appropriate permanent memorial than a Chapel, which will be a lasting tribute to those who have died and a continual reminder of their heroic deaths to those who come after.

I will give £50 to start the fund for the building of the Chapel, and I am sure Old Boys and Parents will subscribe if the proposition is placed before them.

Yours,

Stuart C Taylor (OD), KOYLI (Lieut.-Col., 15th West Yorks R.)

 

We shall be glad to receive any correspondence on the matter.

 

March 6th 1917

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We have a mumps epidemic and thus have been obliged to have our Sunday services at School. We have therefore had Old Boys on leave preaching – or rather talking (the word preaching, except in the case of a minister of religion, has an annoying meaning).

This week Lieut.-Col Stuart Taylor (West Yorks), ‘Fluff,’ gave the boys a capital talk:

Stuart Taylor 2“You see, in the Parks, the Drill Sergeant drilling the soldiers. Perhaps you wonder why it is necessary to be so particular that the soldiers should turn their heads and eyes to the right on the words ‘eyes right,’ why they should spring smartly to attention at the word of command, or why they must stand absolutely still and steady in the ranks. Why is it?

Why shouldn’t 1,000,000 men each be given a rifle, taught how to fire it, and be sent out to kill Germans? Simply because they will have, in the course of their work, to face unusual situations, sudden dangers, where steadiness, coolness and level-headedness are necessary.

You cannot trust a man or boy’s instinct to prompt him to do the right thing. It will make him do the natural thing. The natural thing is to avoid danger, to run away from it. Instinct will prompt this. But habit, which is the child of discipline, will make a man or boy face the danger and act rightly in an emergency…

The soldier is taught to keep his buttons bright, his hair brushed and short, his clothes clean and smart, not because these things in themselves are of great importance, but because they all tend to make him punctual, clean, smart, cheerful and tidy in mind and body throughout his life.

A smart, well turned out, well-disciplined regiment always fights much better than a dirty, ill-disciplined one. There is no doubt whatever about that…

If a bomb dropped in the street and damaged some people, the natural inclination of a man or boy is to avoid the danger and ugliness of pain and suffering, but the habit of your training, to command yourself and your natural instinct, will teach you to go and succour those who are injured and prevent others coming into danger…

And the outward and visible sign of your habit, of your discipline, is the Dragon which you wear on your cap…

That Dragon represents to you and to all who know you and your famous badge, the desire and determination to live a helpful, kind, courageous and unselfish life; to be true not only to others, but to yourself’. There is nothing so sad as the man or boy who succeeds in deceiving himself. It is far worse than deceiving others, because before successfully deceiving one’s own self, all self-respect must have disappeared.

That Dragon of yours stands to you and me as a symbol of courage, truth, unselfishness and kindliness.

I have met men who wore that badge in all parts of the world, in the North West Frontier of India, Mauritius, South and West Africa, Malta, Crete, Egypt and during the present war, in France; and everyone who knows it, loves it and respects it.”

 

November 1st 1916

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Our old friend ‘Fluff,’ Lieut. – Col. Stuart Taylor (West Yorks) has recovered from his wounds. He returned to command his battalion on September 16th and, although he cannot say as much, I think it highly likely he is somewhere in the region of the Somme.

We are most grateful that he has found the time to write to the boys:

Stuart Taylor 2“We are living in stirring times now and there is much doing. I wish I could tell you all about it, but the censor rules are very strict.

There are one or two things I hate in the trenches worse than the Boches – rats and cats.

The rats are enormous grey shiny looking things with great fat tails, and they come out in swarms at night and eat up all the horrid things they can.

You would think the cats would eat the rats, but they do not, I regret to say. They are kittens which have been born since the war, in the desolated and ruined villages and towns of Northern France, and they are rapidly forming a new species of wild cat, living in old disused trenches or holes in the ground and coming out at night.

There is so much to eat lying about that they do not kill the rats or mice.”

 

This is not the way of nature, but it is to be supposed that war is bound to have some sort of effect on all who partake in it – even cats and rats, it now seems.

 

July 20th 1916

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DW Brown 2The length of the lists of those who have become casualties in the newspaper this morning is truly horrifying, and now we have heard that Capt. David Brown (Leics Regiment) has been reported as “wounded and missing” since July 14th.

His father understands that David went out with a sergeant to reconnoitre prior to an attack. The sergeant was subsequently found dead but there was no sign of David.

Further information is awaited.

* * * * * * *

One of the hardest hit regiments on July 1st was the Leeds Pals Battalion (West Yorks). Their commanding officer, Lieut. Col. Stuart Taylor, was not with them as he is recovering from wounds he received in an earlier encounter with the enemy in May.

He has written from the Queen Alexandra’s Hospital in London to the Yorkshire Evening Post:

Stuart Taylor 2“I mourn the loss of tried comrades and dear friends with whom I have been closely associated day and night, in sunshine and storm, for the past fourteen months. But with my sorrow is mingled an immense pride, a great gladness, as I hear from all sources of the magnificent bearing and heroic conduct of our dear lads, who have cheerfully given their lives for their King and country.

The tidings of their gallant conduct and courageous deeds causes me no surprise, as I well knew how splendidly they would stand the test when the supreme call was made upon them.

To those who are left behind to mourn their loss, may God grant consolation in the sure knowledge of their dear ones’ valiant deaths. For the wounded I pray earnestly for a speedy return to health and strength.

For myself, my only wish is that I had been able to be with the battalion in their great and glorious attack.”

On July 1st, 233 of his men lost their lives. In addition, 15 of his 24 officers were killed (and the rest were wounded).