Left: British troops resting before the battle of Mons
Above: John Parr’s grave at St Symphorien Military Cemetery
trench warfare that would soon shape the dreadful attrition we associate with World War I. John was the son of a milkman and
spent most of his life in Finchley with 6 older brothers. From here he could travel to North Middlesex Golf Club and make his modest contribution to the family’s income. His mother and father, Edward and Alice, were no strangers to poverty and its associated dangers – by the time of the Census of 1911 five of their children were dead. We can imagine their anxiety for young John, the baby of the family, when they learnt his regiment had been mobilised on August 5 and sailed from Devonport just days later. On August 20 his battalion reached its
destination of Monceau on the outskirts of Mons. For the time being all was quiet – a 15 mile march advanced them to Bettignies where they set up billets, formed outposts and dug trenches. The 4th Middlesex diaries record that
their part in the Battle of Mons began at 10.15am on August 23. The shooting war had begun and the British army was soon disabused of the notion that their rapid rifle fire, swift advances and bayonet charges would bring the enemy to its knees and with it a quick victory. Superior in numbers and firepower the Germans inflicted a terrible beating on the British and soon forced a humiliating retreat – a retreat that lasted almost two weeks, covered 250 miles, and
gave rise to one of the most famous stories of the war: the appearance of angels, angels who blocked the enemy’s path and pointed their way to safety. The Angels of Mons. There seems no doubt that some men
believed they saw these divine guardians, but the reason for such visions appears to be human exhaustion and the shock of defeat. During their flight from the Germans, British troops marched continuously – lack of sleep and fear conjured up angels above Belgium, while the defeat inspired terror at home that the Germans were unstoppable and might soon launch a full invasion of Britain. It was the beginning of a process that
Deadly history begins with that one-time golf caddy
would soon require Lord Kitchener to persuade more than two million men to volunteer for duty; would see the introduction of conscription when volunteers became too few; would see women take men’s jobs in munitions factories in order to satisfy the war’s insatiable demand for bombs, shells and bullets; and would create a hellish furnace of total war which would consume more than 15 million lives. From the British perspective this deadly history begins with that one-time
golf caddy, John Parr. As he and his comrade cycled towards that Belgian village it is believed they ran into a cavalry patrol of the German First
Army and were ambushed. Private John Parr was shot down by
rifle fire and became the first British soldier to die in battle in World War I. Such was the speed of the withdrawal
from Mons that the bodies of John Parr and many others were simply abandoned. The first news his parents heard of their son’s well being or otherwise came from one of his pals, now a prisoner of war in Berlin, who wrote to tell them that John had been shot. Wounded? Or killed? They had
no idea, so Alice Parr went to the War Office on October 26 and, in a letter to John’s regiment, pleaded for information. None was forthcoming. It seems that not until early 1915 was their hope extinguished – John is finally listed as killed in action in a document signed in March of that year. John Parr is buried in the St
Symphorien Military Cemetery, just south of Mons. Records of the War Graves Commission reflect the understandable and honourable lie he lived and died, giving his age as 20. He had served in the army for 2 years and 6 days and is surrounded by hundreds of the fallen from both sides of the battle. By coincidence and with painful irony
his grave faces that of George Ellison – the last British soldier to be killed in World War I. ■
ROYAL LIVERPOOL GOLF CLUB 2 014 MAGAZINE
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