HE LEFT NO WILL
BUT GOOD WILL
AND THAT TO ALL MANKIND

CORPORAL HARRY JOHN MATHEWSON

CAMERONIANS (SCOTTISH RIFLES)

23RD OCTOBER 1918 AGE 24

BURIED: ST SOUPLET BRITISH CEMETERY, NORD, FRANCE


This is both a lovely and a pointed inscription, Harry Mathewson may have left no will, but what he did leave was a feeling of good will to all mankind, and all mankind has to include the Germans. It's a generous inscription too, chosen by Mathewson's mother whose son was killed in action nineteen days before the end of the war.
There was no compulsion on a soldier to make a will but their pay books - which they had to keep with them at all times - had a will form in the back. The will didn't require witnessing, just signing and dating by the soldier himself. Of course, Mathewson could have made a will but his pay book might not have been recovered from his body.