Exhibition commemorating soldiers from Chiswick who died fighting in WWI

Comedian and War historian Al Murray at the exhibition at St Michael & All Angels Church with David Crane, the publisher of Stranded in France, a wartime memoir that was discussed at this year’s Chiswick Book Festival

Al Murray swaps war stories at St Michael & All Angels Church exhibition about WWI war dead

St Michael & All Angels Church is marking 80 years since the end of World War 2 in 1945 and 110 years since the World War 1 battles of Gallipoli and Loos in 1915, with an exhibition about the people of the parish who lost their lives in the two world wars.

The church’s Remembrance Sunday Choral Requiem Mass on Sunday 9 November took place at 9.55am, followed by the procession to the Bedford Park Memorial Seat, outside the Parish Hall, for the Last Post, laying of wreaths and two minutes’ silence at 11am.

Comedian and war historian Al Murray, who lives in Chiswick, went to the Remembrance service at the Church and visited the exhibition.

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The Church received money from the Heritage Lottery Fund a few years ago to research those from the parish who died in the two world wars.

Exhibition display boards at St Michael & All Angels Church with information about British soldiers from Chiswick who died in 1915 battles

Every year the Church holds an annual Remembrance Exhibition, but this year it is remembering particularly 15 men from Chiswick’s war memorials who died in WW1 in 1915. Among them are Cyril Austin, Harry Tavener and Richard Gamble.

Our thanks to St Michael & All Angels Church for allowing us to use the late David Beresford’s research, which is now all displayed in a dedicated section of the Church’s website.

David led the St Michael & All Angels Church World War 1 Project, tracking the lives of the 128 people named on its war memorials. He died in 2022 at the age of 82.

Cyril Austin

Cyril was killed in action at Neuve Chapelle on 10 March 1915, aged 30.

He was one of six children born to the American journalist and author Louis Frederic Austen, from New York, and his wife Wilhelmina (Minnie) Robinson, who married in Kansington in 1876 and moved to Bedford Park with their three young children in 1881.

Cyril was one of the younger three children who were born after the family settled in Bedford Park. Born on 6 October 1884, he was educated in Belgium and Germany and, taking after his father, became a journalist working for Reuters.

Living in Woodstock Road

In the 1911 census the family were living in Woodstock Road.

Minnie, now 57, was widowed; Cyril’s eldest sister Hilda (32) was an artist, whose work was used by London Underground on railway posters, while his older brothers Harold (30) and Maurice (28) were listed as a composer and an engineer’s draughtsman respectively.

A member of the ‘Artists’ Rifles’

Cyril joined the Artists Rifles (later the 28th City of London Regiment), a volunteer unit formed in 1860 from artistic professions in response to the potential threat of a French invasion.

It particularly attracted recruits from public schools and universities and recruitment was eventually restricted by recommendation from existing members of the battalion.

During the pre-war period Cyril won cups with the Tent Pitching team and the Bayonet team, taking part in the Naval and Military tournament at Olympia in 1913 and 1914, and winning many spoons and cups.

When war broke out, a number of enlisted members of the Artists’ Rifles were selected to be officers in other units.

Serving in the trenches

Cyril, then 29, joined up and served as a Sergeant with the 28th City of London Regiment in France from 25 October 1914.

He was promoted in less than a month – commissioned 2nd Lieutenant into The Queens (Royal West Surrey) Regiment, his promotion formally published on 22 November 1914.

He served continuously in the trenches during the winter of 1914 / 1915 and was mentioned in dispatches for carrying out important and dangerous reconnaissance work, pinpointing the enemy positions.

He wrote several accounts of life in the trenches, which were published as ‘From a subaltern in the trenches’.

On 27 February 1915 he was granted home leave to marry Margaret Elizabeth Russell in HItchen, Hertfordshire, and he returned to the Front the following day.

He was killed just 11 days later, at the battle of Neuve Chapelle, an attempt to break through German lines, and buried at Laventie at the Royal Irish Rifles graveyard.

Read more about him on St Michael & All Angels’ website: Cyril Austin

Royal Irish Rifles’ graveyard

Harry Tavener

Harry died on 26 April 1915, aged 23.

His widowed mother Eliza lived with her sister, also widowed, at 3 Emlyn Villas, Stamford Brook, according to the 1911 census.

Harry joined the Territorial 9th, County of London Battalion, the Queen Victoria’s Rifles, very early in the war.

His unit embarked for France as early as the beginning of November 1914 and first experiences trench warfare at Neuve Eglise near Ypres.

The battle of Hill 60

‘During the days before his death, his unit had been actively involved in front line action. The battle at Hill 60, 20 / 21 April 1915, where there is now a memorial to the Royal Victoria Rifles, was fierce and costly.

‘After Hill 60, the remnants of the unit retired to near Vlamertinge by 22 April, but was then in action again (in a much reduced state) at the start of the Second battle of Ypres by 24 April.

‘It seems clear that Harry Tavener would have sustained severe wounds but was able to at least have some treatment at a major casualty clearning station in Poperinge. He was buried at Peperinghe Old Military Cemetary’.

Read more about him on St Michael & All Angels’ website: Harry Tavener

Top left – Harry’s mother Eliza; Top right – George and Harry Tavener with their cousin Norah, 1897
Below – Hill 60 as it is now

Richard Gamble

Richard was reported missing, believed killed, at Festubert on 22 May 1915, aged 33.

He is commemorated on a family plaque with his parents Sidney and Harriet at St Michael & All Angels Church.

They moved to London from Grantham when Sidney became second in command of London Fire Brigade, but Richard never lived in Chiswick. His parents moved to Bedford Park after his death, and lived at 16 Queen Anne’s Gardens.

Richard had a career as a tea planter in India. Having been educated in Germany, he was apprenticed as a mechanical engineer to a firm in Leeds before continuing his engineering studies at Battersea Polytechnic.

Battersea Polytechnic

Tea planter in India and volunteer in the Territorial army

He was appointed Assistant Manager of the Kallina Tea Estate in India, and later in Konapara, Jellapore and Palak.

He volunteered with the Territorial army, attaining the rank of Sergeant in the Leeds Rifles asnd subsequently in the Surma Valley Light Horse, winning prizes for his horsemanship and swordsmanship.

When the war started, ‘he hoped to use his intimate knowledge of German, French, Hindustani etc and his “great ability to control and manage” colonial natives, and “placed his services at the disposal of the India Office in the expectation of his use with the Indian troops”.’

He was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment on 16 January 1915 and sent to Marseilles to be attached to the 6th Light Infantry. He went to the Front on 12 May and four days later was transferred to 1st Battalion, Gurkha Rifles, then in the trenches.

“I have just received orders to go and bomb some Germans”

‘Richard’s last letter home concluded with “I have just received orders to go and bomb some Germans out of a trench, so must say goodbye”.

‘Subsequent reports suggest the actual attack took place on the night of 21 / 22 May in trenches running through Ferme du Bois, 3kn north of Festubert.

‘Richard was leading and described by the observation officer to be well in front of his men, and deliberately cut a large gap through the wire, and then, thinking his men were just behind him, jumped over into the German trench.

‘The German fire was so intensely hot that the men had to lie down, and never reached the trench; the casualties were all the European officers and 45% of the men killed or wounded’.

His name is inscribed on Le Touret Memorial, which commemorates 13,400 British soldiers with no known grave, who died between October 1914 and September 1915.

Read more about him on St Michael & All Angels’ website: Richard Gamble

 Le Touret Memorial, between Bethune and Armentieres

Exhibition 7 – 16 November

The exhibition will be open in the church every day from Friday 7 until Sunday 16 November 2025. There is also a section on children’s memories of Chiswick during World War II.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar