DESCENDANTS of two Victorian clerics could hold clues to
identifying a young British subaltern killed on the Western Front
in 1917.
His remains were discovered in a cottage garden in June 2012,
after heavy rain exposed a shallow grave in the village of
Beaurains, near Arras, in northern France. The region was the scene
of heavy fighting during a British offensive in the spring of
1917.
An Army team has narrowed the soldier's identity down to one of
four officers from the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry,
all killed on 3 May 1917, whose bodies were never recovered. They
are searching for family members to donate DNA to determine whose
are the remains.
Two of the officers - Second Lieutenant John Legge Bulmer, aged
22, and Second Lieutenant Charles Croke Harper, 36 - were the sons
of clergymen.
Bulmer's parents were the Revd Edward and Elizabeth Bulmer of
Filey, North Yorkshire. He was head boy at Marlborough College, and
won a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, where he studied from
1913 to 1915. His father was at St Cuthbert's, York, in the
1880s.
Harper was the son of the Revd Edward Harper, Rector of St
Lawrence's, Broughton, near Newport Pagnell, and his wife,
Frances.
"It's a process of elimination," Lynne Gammond, from the Army
team, said. "We know these four people were in that area on that
day, at that time; and they were lost, and nobody else was. The
officer attrition rate was pretty horrendous. We don't know much
about the circumstances of their deaths.
"At the time, bodies were generally marked where they fell, and
would later be put in proper graves, but it wasn't always
possible.
"Once the remains have been identified, the current successor
regiment to the Ox and Bucks [now The Rifles] will be asked to bury
the remains with full military honours in a Commonwealth War Grave
nearest to where they were found."
The two other officers were Lieutenant Stanley Ashman, from
Weston-super-Mare, and Second Lieutenant William Charles Haynes,
from Aylesbury.
Anyone who could help trace the relatives should phone Lynne
Gammond on 07769 887707, or 03067 701322, or email her at
lynne.gammond453@mod.uk.
