Ashtead War Memorials - WWI - Lt Leslie Stewart Herbert Griffin
10th Bn, Gloucestershire Regiment

Leslie Griffin was a grandson of John Griffin [born ca 1833, Reading, Berkshire], Minister, and his wife, Lizzie [born ca 1833, Salford, Lancashire].

His father, Herbert Edward Griffin [birth registered West Ham 6/1870] married Clara Emma Hayward [from London, born ca 1870] for the union to be registered at Greenwich for the September Quarter 1893. The arrival of Leslie Stewart H Griffin also appears there 12/1895.

Considerable research on this individual had already been undertaken by Alan Jennings whose World War One Battlefields website http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/somme/highwoodarea.html contains a photograph of Lieutenant Leslie Griffin’s grave. One cannot do better than quote his findings and he has been notified of an intention to cite this work, with appreciation:

“Within Bazentin-le-Petit, heading uphill, a track leads off from the right of the road to Bazentin-le-Petit Communal Cemetery. This, the village civilian cemetery, contains the graves of two British soldiers. They are somewhat different in appearance to most CWGC graves on the Somme, as they are marked in outline full-length. The graves are of RSM W Pearce of the 10th Loyal North Lancashires, and Lieutenant LSH Griffin of the 10th Gloucesters. It has been speculated that these two bodies were recovered by French civilians after the War and brought back to the village Communal Cemetery for reburial. This may possibly be the case for RSM Pearce, but a letter from the War Office to Lieutenant Griffin's father sent on the 15th of November 1916 states that he is buried in Bazentin-le-Petit Communal Cemetery, where he still lies today. This letter goes on to say that the grave was ‘marked by a durable wooden cross with an inscription bearing full particulars'.

From census information, I believed that he was Leslie Stewart Herbert Griffin, who (aged 5) was living at 16 Lodge Road, Croydon, when he was recorded by the Censor in 1901. His parents were Herbert, a banker's clerk, and Clara Griffin. They were well enough off at that time to be employing a servant. At the National Archives, the file on Leslie Griffin confirmed the identification was correct, and provided a great deal more information.

Leslie Griffin had been educated at St. Dunstan's College School and was living with his parents in Honor Oak Road, Forest Hill, working as a tea broker when the war broke out. He enlisted immediately, giving his age as nineteen years, eleven months, on the 8th of August 1914 as a Private soldier. He had been in the OTC at St. Dunstan's, and after enlisting originally served in No 1 Company the Honourable Artillery Company. In March 1915 he caught measles, and this was evidently a bad case as he was sent back to Britain on the 13th of March 1915. Shortly after this, on the 16th of April 1915 he applied for a commission, requesting the 10/Gloucesters as his unit of choice. He was listed in the London Gazette as transferred from the Reserve on the 10th of May 1915.

When he was killed on the 18th of August 1916, he was unmarried, and left no will. He had been appointed a temporary Lieutenant, effective from the 4th of June,1916 (but published in the London Gazette on the 7th of August, just 11 days before he died). After he was killed, and his parents had been informed, his father, Herbert Edward Griffin, wrote to the War Office in October 1916 to point out that Leslie's death certificate had been incorrectly issued with his rank as Second Lieutenant. The death certificate was reissued showing his correct rank, and a copy on flimsy paper of this bald, typed document exists in his file at Kew.

How must his parents have suffered on hearing of his death? It is almost impossible to imagine, but he was ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ in the London Gazette on the 4th of January 1917. Two days later, his grieving mother, Clara, wrote an angry letter on black-bordered notepaper to the War Office. She believed that Leslie should have been awarded a decoration, as ‘he was commended for bringing in a wounded man under considerable fire on June 16th near Loos’. (There are no details in the London Gazette for ‘Mentioned in Despatches’, so it is not clear if the ‘mention’ was for the incident near Loos).

However, Clara Griffin evidently felt that being Mentioned in Despatches was not enough. She asked the War Office to communicate direct with the Commander-in-Chief (Douglas Haig). Her grieving at her loss is obvious, as she wrote: - “Must mothers give their sons and gallant deeds go unrecorded because their sons die in the performance of their duty, is ‘glory’ the only record for the dead who have fallen on the field?". The anguish this mother felt is palpable in her letter. A typed reply was sent by the War Office four days later, informing her that there was no record at the War Office of any award being made. The letter continued that there was no objection to her taking up her concern with the Military Secretary at GHQ in France, but a final handwritten statement added at the end of the letter adds ‘but I fear no good will result’.

Lieutenant Leslie Griffin was killed in action on Friday the 18th of August 1916, serving with D Company of the 10/Gloucesters, in an attack mounted by the 1st Division just north of High Wood. The files cannot say a great deal about the man himself, but behind these simple facts lies the grim reality of war, the suffering of his parents and a life cut short at the age of just twenty.”

Bazentin was in German hands until 14 July 1916 when the 3rd and 7th Divisions captured the two villages (and the communal cemetery) and held them against counter-attacks, and the 21st Division captured Bazentin-le-Petit Wood. The ground was lost in April 1918 during the great German advance but recaptured on the following 25 August by the 38th (Welsh) Division.

Alan Jennings had more to say about conditions at High Wood in early August 1916: -

“By this time the wood was largely destroyed, with shell-blasted tree stumps and churned up ground remaining - plus the dead of both sides. There had been large casualties for both the attackers and the defenders, and although there were a few minor actions over the next two weeks, there was no major set-piece attack (the Fourth Army were at this time concentrating on taking Guillemont).

However, in early August, the British tried to move their lines closer to the wood. This was done firstly by sapping - digging small trenches out from the front line directly ahead, and then digging at 90 degrees to join these up and create a new front line trench ahead of the original one.

More audaciously, as the Germans had done before, one night the British quietly left a section of their front line trench, moved carefully over No Mans Land and rapidly dug another trench ahead of the original. By the morning they were safely within it, and closer to the German front line.

Frank Richards in Old Soldiers Never Die describes the conditions in High Wood at about this time. Parts of the parapets of trenches contained the corpses of those killed in earlier attacks, and he describes heads, arms and legs sticking out. Because of the severe firing, the bodies of men killed had been used as shields by the survivors, and they had then been covered by earth to build up a parapet. Now, when shells landed near, during a very heavy bombardment which the 2nd Royal Welch Fusiliers endured, the dead were blown out of these parapets once more. Reading this, it is perhaps not surprising that so many killed in High Wood have no known grave.”

In an attack on High Wood, some 1st Division troops went in too early and were almost wiped out by their own side’s barrage. Consequently, it is curious that Leslie’s remains, alone from the 10th Gloucesters, were interred in Bazentin le Petit Communal Cemetery.

In 1911, the Griffins had been resident in Lewisham. At the time of the creation of the IWGC record for Leslie Griffin it was noted that he was the 'son of Herbert E Griffin, of Ashtead, Surrey'. HE Griffin’s name appears in a 1927 Street Directory for Ashtead at Greengates, Barnett Wood Lane. Greengates has been traced on the south side of Barnett Wood Lane, three up from the Leatherhead boundary in 1918. Herbert Edward Griffin, of West Worthing, left £50,943 nett, probate 1958. Leslie was an only child.

Leslie's initials are incorrectly shown as JS on both the St George's and St Giles' memorials.

Ann Williams adds: LSH Griffin's parents were still in Ashtead in 1935 when they placed an In Memoriam item for their son in The Times of Aug 19th 1935, say he was Mentioned in Dispatches and awarded the Mons Star. Brian Bouchard comments that the In Memoriam notices from Ashtead went on until 19/08/1940. The Mons Star was for having been under fire 1914/15. In their notices the Griffins added:

"Let all who come after see to it that these dead shall not have died in vain, that their name be not forgotten, and what they strove for perish not".

 
http://www.peterswar.net/Somme/BazPCC.htm

text: Brian Bouchard: if you can add to this page please contact the editor
page added 11 Apr 2009: 28 Nov 17