The Life Of Walter Tull
A brief overview of one of the most famous mixed-heritage soldiers in WWI
1888
Born 28 April to Daniel Tull and Alice Elizabeth Palmer in Folkestone, Kent. Alice was from Kent originally, while Daniel was born in Barbados. Walter Tull’s paternal grandfather had been a slave.
1895
At age seven, Tull loses his mother Alice to cancer.
1897
Just two years after his mother, Tull’s father Daniel also passes away, from heart disease, at which point Tull is sent to an orphanage in Bethnal Green, London.
1908
Now aged 20, Tull is spotted playing football by officials from Clapton FC, an amateur football club, and is signed up. At Clapton he wins the FA Amateur Cup, London County Amateur Cup and the London Senior Cup, reportedly never losing a game.
1909
Walter Tull signs a professional contract with Football League First Division side Tottenham Hotspur, impressing in an off-season tour of Argentina and Uruguay before playing 10 times and scoring twice in the league. He was only the third mixedheritage professional player in the league. However, he is dropped to the reserves later in the season.
1911
Tull signs for Southern Football League side Northampton Town where he will play 111 games over the next three years to great acclaim.
1914
At the outbreak of the First World War, Walter Tull enlists in the British Army, the first member of his football team to do so. He serves in the Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment) 17th and 23rd – sometimes known as the Football Battalions since so many players were deployed there – and the 5th Battalion.
1916
Tull fights in the Battle of the Somme and, having survived, begins training to become an officer.
1917
Tull is promoted to Second Lieutenant, seemingly in contradiction to the racially prejudicial rules of the time that prohibited men of noneuropean heritage from having authority over white troops. He goes on to fight on the Italian front with the 23rd Battalion.
1918
Walter Tull is killed in action near Favreuil during the First Battle of Bapaume as the German’s began their Spring Offensive. Despite the efforts of his comrades who were caught under heavy fire, his body was never recovered.