U.K. students unearth Nfld. past
British schoolchildren cross the Atlantic to meet the families of ‘Our Newfoundlanders’
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — On a midNovember afternoon in 2003, students from Beatrix Potter School in south London were gathering chestnuts for a game of British conkers in a cemetery near their school, when they noticed a plot of graves — each one marked with a caribou and the word “Newfoundland” — that didn’t have poppies on them.
When they asked why, head teacher Steph Neale suggested they research the soldiers’ names. What the students discovered started a now 18-year-long project of remembrance.
The graves belong to 17 young soldiers and one nurse who served with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in the First World War. They died in hospital in London, from illnesses and battlefield injuries.
Unlike the other casualties of war buried in Wandsworth cemetery, the Newfoundlanders had no family in England to visit their headstones year after year. So the students at Beatrix Potter School took up the responsibility of tending to the graves and the stories of the people they’ve come to call “Our Newfoundlanders.”
This week, six students, ranging in age from 10 to 12, visited Newfoundland to meet the families of their Newfoundlanders for the first time.
Alice Goldberger says meeting people with family connections to the soldiers has made the school project more meaningful.
“It made us realize that people do respect us for doing this,” Goldberger said after a tour of war memorials at Bowring Park.
“We didn’t realize how much they thank us for putting poppies on graves and researching them,” her classmate Zoe Spenceley added.
The school group is touring St. John’s landmarks such as Bowring Park, the archives at the Rooms museum and the provincial legislature for more historical background on the soldiers’ lives.
They met family members of the Newfoundlanders, and plan to visit nearby towns such as Brigus, the hometown of Bertha Bartlett, the young nurse who died of influenza while volunteering during the war. She’s buried in the soldiers’ plot at Wandsworth.
On Sunday, the students will march behind the Royal Newfoundland Regiment Association in the Memorial Day Parade in St. John’s.
“Not everyone gets to learn their march, so I think it’s a way of them showing the respect and gratitude, and that they really like the fact that we’ve come over all the way from England to see them,” Spenceley said.
Neale says meeting the families has been the most emotional part of the trip, including a gathering at St. Bonaventure’s College.
“When we went to the school, and these families were talking about their lost sons from previous generations, everybody was in tears,” Neale said.
Neale says he’s been blown away by the appreciation they have received from Newfoundlanders for memorializing young people who died almost a century ago.
“It’s more than personal. It’s almost like it’s never gone away,” said Neale.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, July 1 isn’t only Canada Day. It also serves as Memorial Day, to commemorate the approximately 700 soldiers of the Newfoundland Regiment who were killed or wounded in Beaumont-Hamel at the Battle of the Somme more than 30 years before the province joined Confederation.
With so many dead, the students have formed a close connection to the 18.
Their research unearthed photos and detailed biographical information, including their jobs before they left Newfoundland, their height and eye colour, and their hometowns.
Their curriculum involves some role-play, such as writing letters in character as the soldiers.
“We definitely learned a lot more about their, like, personalities and day-to-day lifestyle,” said George Overy.
Zoe Spenceley added: “We feel like we kind of know them a bit more because they were so young.”
Neale says his students are often affected when they learn the soldiers’ ages — the eldest died at age 26, and students are quick to draw parallels to their own older siblings.
Neale says he’s also grown attached after spending years learning about these young people who died so far away from home.
“It occasionally gets to me when you’re talking about them,” said Neale.
“We have a few pictures of this guy called Chelsey Mercer. One is a bit odd. But there’s another one of him looking very proud in his uniform, and you know he’s dead. And he was 18, 19? And you think: how bloody unfair is that?”
In the 16 years since the project began, Neale and his students have been keeping the Newfoundland soldiers’ names present in the U.K.’s memorial services. In 2014, Beatrix Potter students placed poppies around the Tower of London alongside thousands of others.
After the students return home next week, Neale has plans to further develop the school’s Newfoundland memorial project, potentially bringing members of the regiment to London for Remembrance Day this November.