Clapham woman represents the bereaved at the 1927 unveiling of the Menin Gate

Nearly one million British and Commonweath soldiers were killed in the First World War, 54,896 of those with no known grave who were killed in the Ypres Salient in Belgium are commemorated on the massive Memorial to the Missing, the Menin Gate in Ieper (previously Ypres, but known by all Tommies as Wipers). For the 1927 opening ceremony there were 6000 free tickets which had to be applied for. The Times newspaper reported that “The Menin Gate Memorial Committee was arranging in conjunction with St Barnabas Pilgrimages and the Ypres League, for the attendance of a party of British women at the unveiling ceremony on Sunday 24 July. These women will be selected from relatives of men who actually fell in this salient, women who cannot afford to make the journey to Belgium without assistance. Mr DG Somerville, ex MP, chairman of the committee and Engineer-Constructor of the Menin Gate, is paying the expenses, travelling, food and sleeping accommodation, of 200 poor relatives, as a tribute to the gallant dead." There was a large response and it was reiterated that the hospitality could only be extended to those who would not otherwise be able to afford to make the journey and who were "nearly related to the men actually killed in this salient." One of the 200 women was sixty- one year old Mrs Emily Shrubsole of 74 Lavender Road, Clapham Junction whose son, Private Henry Arthur Victor Shrubsole of the 2nd Battalion, Shropshire Light Infantry, had been killed near Bellewaarde Ridge on 7 May 1915, aged 28.

Emily and her husband Harry, a “wood pavior” later a builder, had lived in the Clapham Junction area since their marriage at St Peter’s Battesea in 1884. They were to have about thirteen children, around eleven of whom survived. Several of the children had very topical names; Henry Arthur Victor was born in Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee year of 1887, Albert Edward Jubilee in her Diamond Jubilee 1897 and Jennie Kathleen Pretoria was born during the Boer War when the family lived at 65 Road, Battersea.

In the end sufficient funds were raised so that 700 women were able to attend the ceremony. They were accompanied by a band from the British Legion and special trains were laid on, the train companies specified that passports were not necessary. From this group of women two were selected to lay an official wreath at the opening ceremony and one of these was Emily.

The Times wrote “Before the service began two English women, representing those bereaved in the war, were presented to the [Belgian] King, namely Mrs Emily Shrubsole of Lavender Road, Clapham and Mrs Merriman of Donald Road, Croydon. King Albert spoke with them for some minutes.”

Field Marshall Lord Plumer unveiled the memorial ending with the powerful words “He is not missing. He is here.” A wreath was laid by King Albert and “other wreathes were then deposited in succession by Lord Plumer on behalf of King George, by Sir Laming Worthington-Evans for the British Government, by the two English women for the mothers of the unknown dead, by Field Marshal Sir Claude Jacob” and by many others.

Private Shrubsole’s army record has not survived, but it is possible that he was a regular soldier whose battalion returned from India arriving in Le Havre in December 1914, five months later he was dead.

Large though the Menin Gate Memorial is, there was still not sufficient space to inscribe all the names from this “theatre of war” and 34,888 are commemorated at the nearby Tyne Cot Memorial.

To this day, every night at 8pm the Last Post is sounded at the Menin Gate to commemorate those who gave their lives to save Belgium and over 90 years later Private Henry Shrubsole from Clapham and his comrades are still remembered.

Marietta Crichton Stuart