HUGH GORDON LANGTON (1885 – 1917) - Violinist

A few weeks ago I saw a photograph of the grave of Hugh Gordon Langton posted on a commemorative First World War Facebook Group page.   Someone had visited the Peolcapelle British Cemetery and saw Hugh's grave and felt it was unusual.  I just had to find out more.

Gifted violinist Hugh Gordon Langton, was born in London and studied the violin with some of the most famous music professors of the era.  Like his father, Hugh was a Freemason. 

Hugh joined the 4^th Battalion of the London Regiment during WW1 and was killed during the Battle of Passchendaele on 26^thOctober 1917.   He was buried in Poelcapelle British Cemetery, Langemark-Poelkapelle, West Flanders, Ieper/Ypres, Belgium.   His Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone is unusual in that it has some musical notes engraved on it.  

A note on Hugh's memorial on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website suggested that the musical notes might be taken from the popular song "After the Ball".  But it occurred to me that they might not come from that tune as Hugh was a classical musician.  So I asked our talented musician friend David Windle if he could identify them.  David, who is Musical Director of the Tower Circus in Blackpool, told me that, although the tune is similar, the notes are not from "After the Ball". 

David researched Hugh’s life story and was moved to compose a piece of music with a violin cadenza in honour of Hugh Gordon Langton.  He has called the piece “Langton’s Theme” - David has written the score which includes a violin cadenza and is hoping it will be performed.  Singer Lynne Fox produced a short video to accompany the music David composed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iOho4c_bJg&feature=player_embedded

The local brass Band at Harelbeke near the cemetery have also composed a piece of music which they play every year at Hugh’s graveside.

For further information about David's composition, please contact David Windle on circus2016@outlook.com

REVIEW OF “PHOTOGRAPHING THE FALLEN: A WAR GRAVES PHOTOGRAPHER ON THE WESTERN FRONT” by Jeremy Gordon-Smith published by Pen & Sword, Barnsley, Yorkshire, UK in 2017

Jeremy Gordon-Smith has edited photographs taken by his Great-Uncle, Ivan Bawtree, who worked for the Kodak Company and who became an official photographer of war graves on the Western Front during the First World War.  Ivan worked for a special Graves Registration Unit set up during WW1 when “it was decided that each soldier, regardless of rank, should be given an individual burial with a wooden cross, later to be replaced with a headstone” (pp.13-14).  The Unit worked continuously, dangerously close to the Front Line, and in all sorts of conditions, taking photographs of the graves and cemeteries.  The photographs were developed onto glass plate negatives – fortunately Ivan made two copies – one of which he kept.  Jeremy’s father rescued the plates after Ivan’s death.   The result is an amazing book which, to my mind, is required reading for anyone visiting the cemeteries of the Western Front or anyone who had a relative killed during WW1.

Jeremy takes us on a journey of discovery from the early days of the setting up of the Imperial War Graves Commission (now known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) to the end of the Commission’s work on WW1 graves and cemeteries on the Western Front, which was, ironically, completed in 1938.  Also included are extracts from Ivan’s diaries and an account of the personal story of Ivan’s life up to his death in 1979 and, at one stage, he worked as an Orderly at the Field Hospital next to Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery.

Ivan’s work with the Graves Registration Unit was vital for morale, as it gave those people who were unable to visit the graves of relatives who had been killed or died. “His job facilitated a way for families to mourn their loves ones who had lost their lives in the line of duty.   His work provided relatives with something tangible of what remained of their loved one;  a window they could not otherwise have had… (p. 117).  Many of the photographs in the book remind us of those who came from far away to help the Allied cause – Australians, Canadians and the grave of Li Hung Ching, a Chinese Labour Corps worker who died on 21^st January 1918 (p.218)

I particularly liked the way Jeremy has blended some of Ivan’s WW1 sepia photographs – which are amazingly clear - with recent photographs he took while re-visiting Ivan’s old haunts on the Western Front.  One photograph, taken on Whit Monday at Ypres during a sports day, shows an orchestra that  “consisted of a party of German prisoners and escort.  The prisoners performed with violins made by themselves out of cigar boxes, etc. They did very well.” (p.254).

I found this book extremely moving and it is surely a wonderful memorial to the work of Ivan and his fellow members of the Registration Unit but also to all those who were killed or died on the Western Front during WW1.

"Photographing the Fallen:  A War Graves Photographer on the Western Front 1915 – 1919” (Pen & Sword, Barnsley, 2017) £25.  For further information about this book or to find out about other Pen & Sword publications, please see www.pen-and-sword.co.uk or e-mail enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.ukand/or

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