In the early summer of 1914, the Head Master of Brighton College, Canon W. R. Dawson, spoke to the school in Chapel. He called on every boy present to stand ready to sacrifice his life in defence of his country.
No shot had yet been fired in anger, Austria’s Archduke still lived, few anticipated a European war, and yet Brighton’s Head Master seemed to sense the approaching clouds of conflict.
There were probably 280 boys in the Chapel that day. By November 1918, many of them were dead, some of the 149 Old Boys killed in the Great War. Ten of them were still teenagers.