RIFLEMAN FRANK WILLIAM PROUDMAN
ROYAL IRISH RIFLES
16TH AUGUST 1917 AGE 33
BURIED: TYNE COT CEMETERY, BELGIUM
This inscription is yet more evidence of the comfort relatives derived from their belief in the resurrection of the dead. It comes from a hymn by Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) of which these are the first two verses:
On the Resurrection morning
Soul and body meet again;
No more sorrow, no more weeping,
No more pain!
Here awhile they must be parted,
And the flesh its Sabbath keep,
Waiting in a holy stillness,
Wrapt in sleep.
But it's the penultimate verse that says it all:
On that happy Easter morning
All the graves their dead restore;
Father, sister, child and mother,
Meet once more.
Frank Proudman was killed on the first day of the Battle of Langemarck. Buried on the battlefield, two years later his body was exhumed as that of an unidentified British soldier. Later it was identified, according to the records, by his spoon.
Proudman was a married man and in July 1919 his wife, Wilhelmina Edith Proudman, received his war gratuity. However, when it came to the time to choose his inscription she was dead, consequently it was his mother chose the words. Wilhelmina died in December 1921, a fact that provides an interesting clue to the length of time it took the War Graves Commission to send out the requests for inscriptions.