Harry Cullis Steele Walker

Harry Walker was killed during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle when his battalion, 1st Sherwoods lost, killed, wounded and missing over 50 per cent of its strength. During the action where Harry Walker was killed Private Jacob Rivers of the battalion won the Victoria Cross for gallantry. Unfortunately, he was killed later the same day. The 1st Battalion was a professional infantry battalion and Harry Walker had gone into the army as an officer before the First World War. The London Gazette of 2nd November lists him as a probationary second lieutenant who had, until that point been Cadet Sergeant of the Denstone College Contingent of the Officer Training Corps.

St Leodegarius, Basford. The parish memorial is a peal of eight bells one of which, a tenor bell, was dedicated to Capt WEG Walker and Lt HCS Walker: In affectionate remembrance of Captain William Eaton Guy Walker and Lieut Harry Cullis Steele Walker of the Sherwood Foresters, sons of Major and Mrs Walker, Rock House, Old Basford, who fell in France in the Great War 1914 – 1918. For God, King and Country (WMA 37896). Nottingham Corporation minutes of council meeting 12 April 1915: Expression of sympathy to Mr Councillor Walker on the death of his son serving with the BEF in France.The Nottingham Daily Express reported the death on both 18th March 1915 and 24th March, when it included a photo of Harry Walker. The headlines read “Another Nottingham Officer Killed”, “Second Son of Major Walker Dies in France” “In the Advance on Neuve Chapelle”.Walker, it states had only just attained his majority (turned 21) and was “an officer of great promise”. He was educated at Nottingham High School and Denstone College where he joined the Cadet Corps. On leaving school he went to Plymouth for army training and was granted a commission. He was placed on the reserve list and attached to 3rd battalion Sherwood Foresters. He came home and took up a calling as a mining engineer, engaged with his father at Clifton Colliery. He also studies at University College, Nottingham. He interested himself in the local cadet corps and was captain of the boys’ brigade in connection with New Basford Church.At the outbreak of war he was on his annual camp with 3rd Sherwoods and was called up. He was soon transferred to 1st Sherwoods who had just arrived at Winchester from India. He went to France with the battalion in October 1914. Since then he had seen a good deal of fighting, spending the winter in the trenches. Five weeks ago he had secured seven days leave and returned to Nottingham. Rejoining his regiment, he had passed through the fighting before Neuve Chapelle and it is believed he was killed during the advance on the village. His parents received a telegram on the previous Tuesday. His father, Major Walker, was also associated with the Sherwoods, though he had gained his commission with 2nd Lancashire Royal Engineers.The Nottingham Evening News of 18th March 1915 also states that he was killed in action at Neuve Chapelle and that his father was a city councillor.The Nottingham Guardian of 23rd March had a lot of detail of his memorial service at Denstone College. It was, they state, an “impressive service” for H C S Walker who left in 1912. The whole school attended. The Headmaster celebrated Holy Communion and Lance-Corporal Briggs served as the senior representative of H C S Walker’s old dorm.The Headmaster preaching on the following Sunday had the following thoughts to offer:“Which of us does not feel prouder today, better, uplifted somewhat to higher aims, by the thought that he knew Harry Walker so short a time ago? We all admired him – the undemonstrative resoluteness which snatched victory out of defeat on the cricket field more than once; that quiet persistence in whatever lay to do at the moment, on which I for one so often rallied him. I suppose none of us who knew him so intimately thought it strange when he told us how he did not in the trenches forget Christmas Day and all that it meant – that is what underlines his remark in the last number of the Denstonian, is it not? And when he told us his men said their prayers regularly we were sure that their lieutenant set the example. We thank God for him and his fine example and we will pray for rest and recompense for his pure soul.”His portrait was hung in the College, as were the portraits of many of the fallen from the High School hung in the then Assembly Hall (not the present one, though, which post-dates the war).Research Simon Williams