Septimus George Backhouse

10393 Septimus George Backhouse was a professional soldier in the 1st battalion Sherwood Forestersand in 1911 was in India with them. On returning from India, the battalion reorganised and then moved to France, arriving at Le Havre on 5 November 1914. They were in the area of Neuve Chapelle on 17th November 1914 when Septimus, then with 'C' company was killed in action. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial, France.

The following is an account published in the Newark Advertiser, from a witness who had been escorting rations to the front trenches: “A comrade was on the look-out for a tea canteen and having procured it, went to Backhouse, his pal and said “Now then, old chap, have a drink”. But there was no response, although the young Corporal was still standing in the trenches, with his hands resting on the earthwork and a cigarette between his lips. The comrade repeated the call to “have a drink” and tapped Backhouse upon the shoulder, the impact of which caused the latter to reel and he fell dead, as he evidently had been, though only for a little time. It was evident that the poor fellow had taken a glance through the loophole, not because he was imbued with a spirit of mere curiosity, but because it was his duty to do so when a “Germhun” bullet, either by management or good luck, on their part, had struck him immediately just beneath the nose and had passed through his head and clean away from near the base of his skull! They reverently laid him down in the trenches, calm and tranquil in the peace of death. At night a number of his comrades were told to bury him and this they did in a grave to himself, just at the back of the trenches where his remains lay a silent memorial of another gallant sacrifice of one more of Newark’s sons in the fight for freedom and for the destruction of accursed militarism”.