War memorials given listed status in salute to Passchendaele
IT WAS a gesture of comradeship that would cost him his life – given leave to return to Britain for a short respite from the Western Front, Major Arthur T Watson chose first to say goodbye to his friends in the trenches.
But as he paused to pick up a bundle of letters from his fellow soldiers to take home, a shell exploded nearby, fatally wounding him.
Now, a war memorial dedicated to the memory of the Co Durham colliery owner is among 13 such structures being given special protection because of their historic significance.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has listed or upgraded the memorials on the advice of Historic England to coincide with this weekend’s 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Passchendaele, in which 500,000 Allied and German soldiers died.
Major Watson’s ambition to become a soldier was initially thwarted when he lost his right eye in a shooting accident. After eventually being commissioned at the age of 46, he fought with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps at the Battle of the Somme, where he was badly wounded, before returning to France in 1917 to fight at Messines and finally at Passchendaele. The Major – a father-of-two, whose family owned the colliery near the village of Hamsterley – was buried at La Clytte Military Cemetery, in Belgium, after his death on Aug 5 1917. Hamsterley’s mineworkers paid tribute to him with an inscription on the memorial to 58 of their number killed in action – which has received a Grade II listing: “The workmen of this village wish to place on record their sorrow at the loss of their friend and employer whose memory they will hold in affection for all time.” Also listed is a memorial in Northampton to Edgar Roberts Mobbs, an England rugby international who, on the outbreak of war, was refused a commission on grounds of age. Undeterred, he raised his own “Sportsman’s Battalion” of 264 men, nicknamed Mobbs’ Own, in the Northamptonshire Regiment. Mobbs was killed in action on the first day of Passchendaele, and his body was never found. Roger Bowdler, of Historic England, said: “These newly listed and upgraded memorials are just some of the tributes to the losses of so many.”