CAPTAIN JOHN FRANCIS
ROYAL WARWICKSHIRE REGIMENT
2ND JUNE 1915 AGE 27
BURIED: BERKS CEMETERY EXTENSION, BELGIUM
Captain John Francis's inscription comes from the second verse of Sir John Arkwright's 1919 poem O Valiant Hearts which, set to music, became a very popular remembrance hymn until it fell out of fashion.
Proudly you gathered rank on rank for war,
As who had heard God's message from far;
All you had hoped for, all you had you gave
To save mankind, yourselves you scorned to save.
John Francis, educated at Uppingham and Gottingen in Germany, was a director in the family jewellery firm of Deakin and Francis in Birmingham. He joined a territorial battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1907 and volunteered for foreign service on the outbreak of the war. He crossed to France on 5 March and was killed by a sniper just over three months later.
Originally buried in Rosenberg Chateau Military Cemetery, Captain Francis and the rest of the 475 soldiers buried there were exhumed in 1930 when the owner of the chateau decided, despite pleas from the highest level for the bodies not to be disturbed, that he wanted to rebuild his house and that the military cemetery "would detract from the amenities of his home". It was something of a cause celebre, and very distressing for the relatives, but The Times reported that "each body, as it was reverently taken from the earth, was placed in a coffin draped with a Union Jack and removed by motor ambulance to Berks Cemetery Extension".