MAJOR JOHN FREDERICK GRAHAM
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
1ST JULY 1916 AGE 38
BURIED: PERONNE ROAD CEMETERY, MARICOURT, FRANCE
John Frederick Graham was an Irishman, born in Rathdown, County Dublin, a mathematics medallist from Trinity College Dublin, who was the Accountant General in Madras, India. He was also a lieutenant colonel in the Madras Artillery Volunteers. On leave in England in September 1915, he offered himself to the War Office and was appointed a major in the Royal Field Artillery. He was killed in action, 'directing his artillery' on 1 July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme.
His inscription comes from a hymn by Horatius Bonar called The Inner Calm. The hymn asks in the first verse:
Calm me, my God, and keep me calm,
While these hot breezes blow;
Be like the night-dew's cooling balm
Upon earth's fevered brow.
The hymn goes on to enumerate the various situations in which the supplicant requires this 'calm': in solitude and in the busy street, in health, pain, poverty, wealth, when wronged, taunted or shamed. And the sort of 'calm' asked for is outlined in the final verse:
Calm as the rays of sun or star
Which storms assail in vain,
Moving unruffled through earth's war,
The eternal clam to gain.
Graham's inscription was chosen for him by his widow, Mrs FM Watt Smyth, who married Lieutenant-Colonel Gerald James Watt Smyth in January 1917. Their son, Major Brian James Watt Smyth, was killed in action in Burma in February 1945. His inscription reads: Blessed are the pure in heart.