Balochistan War Memorial

This memorial in the Grade I listed Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford's High Street remembers one officer, 16 non-commissioned officers, and 76 privates of the 1st Battalion of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry who died of cholera in Balochistan in 1885/6 while “simply garrisoning an unhealthy town on the confines of Afghanistan and Beloochistan, not to provoke war, but in the best interests of peace”.

Balochistan war memorial in St Mary the Virgin Church, Oxford

This Tablet, IS ERECTED BY THE OFFICERS NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE 1ST BATTN. OXFORDSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY TO THE MEMORY OF THEIR COMRADES WHO DIED IN BELOOCHISTAN BETWEEN 1ST MAY 1885 AND 1ST MARCH 1886.
LIEUTENANT ALFRED HUBERT SPENCER
QUARTERMASTER SERGEANT GEORGE AIRD SERGEANT JOHN STORER LANCE-SERGEANT TERENCE McLARKIN CORPORAL WILLIAM NELTHORPE CORPORAL JOHN LEE LANCE-CORPORAL JOSEPH RICHARDS LANCE-CORPORAL HUGH HURNDALL.		ARMOURER SERGEANT JOB HARRISON SERGEANT WILLIAM MILES CORPORAL JOHN BLACK CORPORAL CHARLES HENRY DAVIES CORPORAL ARTHUR MILLWARD LANCE-CORPORAL WILLIAM CASTLE LANCE-CORPORAL FREDERICK STOVOLD
PRIVATES
GEORGE MILES JAMES ODELL CHARLES McCARTHY JAMES HISLOP PETER DOWNES THOMAS HUDDLESTONE JOHN JONES JOHN GREGORY CORNELIUS LANE ARTHUR SMITH WILLIAM HOUGHTON GEORGE GUEST EDWARD BETTERIDGE THOMAS BIGWOOD THOMAS BRYAN PETER FARDOE REUBEN JONES CHARLES BRADLEY WILLIAM PEARCE	JAMES NEWMAN GEORGE HARRIS WILLIAM BEAMAN DAVID FERGUSON JOHN OWEN HENRY THUG JAMES WALKER MATTHEW YATES JOHN GREENWOOD WILLIAM FLINT ROBERT JONES JOHN ROWAN JAMES HONE THOMAS GAYTON THOMAS BENNETT JOHN STONE WILLIAM HARTLEY JAMES PAYNE JOSEPH EVANS	SAM ELLIN WALTER MAIDEN CHARLES H WOOD JOHN SMITH FREDERICK WAGSTAFF RICHARD DONOVAN BERNARD PARKER JOHN McDERMOTT THOMAS LEEDER CHARLES MORGAN JAMES GAMMAGE JETHRO HELLIER THOMAS EDWARDS WILLIAM UNITT GEORGE HEATHCOTE WILLIAM BRETTLE WILLIAM PRYCE CHARLES JEFFS FRANK DOLEMAN	HERBERT WEST SAMUEL WILSON WLLIAM ROWLSTON JOHN LATHAM WILLIAM JONES JAMES ELLISON HENRY PICKUP ARTHUR LOWNDES JOHN JACOBS FREDERICK PRIOR FREDERICK HINSON MARTIN GROGAN JOHN MURRAY FREDERICK SMITH WILLIAM WAKEHAM JOHN OWEN JOHN WITHERFORD HENRY DEAKIN JAMES BURROWS

Lieutenant Alfred Hubert Spencer, the only officer listed, was born at Combe in Oxfordshire, the son of Colonel Robert A. Spencer. At the time of the 1881 census he was still only aged 16 and training at Sandhurst.

Lance-Corporal Hugh Hurndall, who was born in Middlesex Workhouse, was aged 20 at the time of the 1881 census and was based at Chatham.

The Oxfordshire Light Infantry with two battalions had been formed four years earlier in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 43rd (Monmouthshire) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry) and the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry), which explains the “43” in the bugle emblem at the top of the memorial (This regiment became the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in 1908.)

This brass memorial mounted on grey marble was designed by Messrs Gaffin, sculptors of Regent Street in London, and waserected in the north aisle of St Mary's Church in September 1866. The long report about it in Jackson's Oxford Journal of 11 September 1886 states that it was dedicated on Sunday 5 September 1886 at the ordinary morning service, which was “attended by 150 rank and file, the Major commanding, officers, and band of the Dépôt at Cowley Barracks, and there was a large congregation of the general public”. It concludes with the lines:

The memorial is the only one in the ancient Church which bears the names of the men who, during an arduous and fatal campaign, bore the heat and burden of the day. The privates in life were known only to their own kinsfolk, and their comrades in arms, but on this elegant tablet their names will be handed down to posterity, and may be read so long as the material of the monument may last, which will not only bear testimony to a gallant Corps, but commemorate the names of a few of those who in the far east laid down their lives for Queen and country at the call of duty.

Balochistan War Memorial on the Database of the Imperial War Museums
and on War Memorials Online

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Oxford War Memorials: Balochistan