With thanks to Chris Warren for contacting me and sending me a copy of the book he edited and published with his Uncle Jack’s letters sent home from the Western Front - “Somewhere in France: Letters written from the Front 1914 – 1918 by Jack Turner, MC, Croix de Guerre”. And for kindly sending me photographs of Jack, his grave and memorial and illustrations done by Jack and giving me permission to share them.
John – who was always known as Jack – became a primary school teacher and was an accomplished artist.
In 1914 Jack joined the Saltley College Company of the 8th Royal Warwickshire Regiment as an infantryman. In December 1915, he was gazetted as a Lieutenant. The Regiment were in action on the Western Front during the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916, when Jack was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry in the field. On 1st June 1918, Jack was awarded the French Croix de Guerre.
Jack was killed in action by a sniper on 22nd October 1918, by which time he was a Captain. He was buried in ST. AUBERT BRITISH CEMETERY, France, Grave Reference Plot III. A. 17 and is also remembered by a memorial cross dedicated to him in Coggeshall church graveyard, Essex.
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| Captin J Turner M.C's grave in St. Aubert British Cemetery, France |
In a letter home written in July 1915 by Chris’s Uncle Jack when he was serving on the Western Front, he wrote about meeting the Catholic Chaplain Father Albert Purdie and reading his poem about Ploegsteert Wood.
For the poem by Father Purdie, please see
http://forgottenpoetsofww1.blogspot.com/2023/08/albert-bertrand-purdie-1888-1976.html
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| A painting by Jack Turner |
In another letter Jack says: “… we dropped in to see Father Purdie at his billet. I like him much: he is one of the best-read men I have come across – also tall, with a clean boyish face and gold-rimmed glasses. He is not more than 26, quotes Virgil, and is a personal friend of the Meynells* and of the late Robert Hugh Benson*.” Being an artist, Jack continued: “He talks of writing something for me to illustrate. I have already drawn him a lovely Spahi (frun Tunis) smiling at one of the girls I know here: she was amusing him for me. He has also given me a jolly little “Garden of the Soul” (Lady Edmond Talbot’s gift to the Catholic soldiers) which is small but has all the offices in.”
* Alice MEYNELL (1847 - 1922), her husband Wilfrid (1852 – 1948) - pen-name John Oldcastle - her daughter Viola (1885 - 1956) and her son Francis (1891 – 1975) were all poets, and Alice's sister was the artist Elizabeth Lady Butler. Robert Hugh Benson (1871 – 1914) was a British Catholic priest and writer. First an Anglican priest, he was received into the Catholic Church in 1903 and ordained the following year.
Sources: Find my Past, FreeBMD
“Somewhere in France: Letters written from the Front 1914 – 1918 by Jack Turner, MC, Croix de Guerre”
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/24180768/john-turner
https://www.findmypast.co.uk/transcript?id=GBM%2FLIVES%2F4522268
and photographs sent to me by Chris Warren, who is also an accomplished poet, and has published these two magnificent books about the First World War:
“In Flanders Now: The War Poems of Father Albert Purdie 1915 - 1918” and
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| Memorial cross for Captain John Turner, Coggeshall Graveyard, Essex |
