Ralph Oscar GLADSTONE

09 July 1915

CROSSHILLS SOLDIER WOUNDED IN ACTION – THE BRAVE MONMOUTHS FIGHT WITH SHOVEL

News has been received by the family who reside at Ashville Holme Lane, Crosshills, to say that Corporal Ralph O. Gladstone, of the Monmouthshire Royal Engineers, has been wounded in the thigh by a piece of shrapnel. The wound is fortunately not of a serious nature.

Corporal Gladstone left Crosshills some four years ago to take up a position at Messes. British Thomson-Houston Co., electrical engineers and manufacturers, of Rugby, and joined the army in October of last year, being sent out to France in December. The ‘Brave Monmouths,’ as they have been deservedly called, have been in the thick of the fighting since they went out to France, and as a regiment have borne themselves with conspicuous gallantry in many hot engagements.

In one of his letters home, Corp. Gladstone tells of an experience which he had at the famous fight for Hill 60. Together with an officer in his battalion, they were ordered to enter the German lines as best they could and blow up a railway line by which the Germans got their ammunition, etc., to the firing line. This difficult task they safely accomplished, and Corp. Gladstone may well be proud of his share in such a perilous undertaking.

Writing recently to a lady relative at Newport, he said:– “I am afraid you must prepare for bad news. I wish you to understand, and all Newport people to appreciate, the fact that they have reason to be more than proud of the 1st Monmouth Regiment. In yesterday's battle (May) they held a most difficult position against two of the most terrible agencies of modern warfare - gases and a hellish bombardment of Johnson and shrapnel. We do not fear death here, and your gallant Terriers went on the longest march of all yesterday as only Englishmen can.

“Col. Robinson and the senior major, I believe, are amongst the dead; Major Evill and Capt. Williams are missing. I think, and I believe, Capt. Stanton, Mostyn Llewellyn, Desmond Murphy, and Cotrell are wounded. This information I had from ----- (censored), one of the officers whom I brought down to a safe place. He thought he was one of three officers left, and said he did not think more than 200 men had come out. We were building pontoon bridges close behind the Germans under a terrible fire of shrapnel and big shells. To-day we are resting and tonight we have to go up to the position lost yesterday and reconstruct the trenches and barbed wire. One of the officers killed was a Monmouthshire county cricketer, and they say he was an exceptionally brave fellow. We have been in the firing line with the Canadians in the recent big fight, when the Germans broke through. We were charging with the infantry, but instead of using bayonets, we simply slaughtered them with our shovels. I had a felling axe for cutting trenches through a wood.”

Corpl. Gladstone expects to be able to visit his family before going back to the Front.

09 November 1917

GLADSTONE – November 2nd 1917, killed in action, Ralph Oscar Gladstone, Second-Lieut. R.E., elder son of the late Ralph Atchison Gladstone, of Newport, Mon., and Mrs. Gladstone, Crosshills, aged 27 years.

09 November 1917

CROSSHILLS – LIEUTENANT RALPH OSCAR GLADSTONE KILLED

Mrs. Gladstone, of Holme Road, Crosshills, received a telegram from the War Office on Wednesday morning informing her that her brother, Second-Lieutenant Ralph O. Gladstone, of the Royal Engineers, had been killed in action on the 2nd November in France. Official word was received in the evening confirming the sad news. Lieutenant Gladstone was very well known in Crosshills, and was for a time in pre-war days in the local Territorials. Shortly before the outbreak of war he was working in Spain for the British Thomson, Houston Co., of Rugby, and immediately on the outbreak of hostilities he joined the Royal Engineers as a private and went out before Christmas 1914 to France. He was wounded at the first battle of Ypres, and for the second time about two years age. He was in hospital at Glasgow, and after his discharge from hospital he was for a time a gymnastic instructor in Monmouthshire. He came home from the Front in January of this year to take up a commission in the Royal Engineers, and went out on August 6th last. He had been chosen for work in the Royal Engineers because of his special knowledge of bridge building. He had been offered a commission on two previous occasions. He is an old Keighley Grammar School boy, and was keenly interested in the Boy Scout movement, starting the Kildwick Church Troop of Boy Scouts. He would have been 28 years of age if he had lived until the 3rd November. He leaves a widow. Much sympathy is felt for his widowed mother in the loss of her eldest boy, who was a fine example of British manhood. His sister, Miss G. Gladstone, is being trained as nurse in a surgical hospital in Accrington.

16 November 1917

CROSSHILLS – THE LATE LIEUT. R. O. GLADSTONE

Mrs. Gladstone has received two splendid tributes to the worth of her husband, Lieut. Ralph Oscar Gladstone, who was killed in action on the 2nd November, as reported in our last issue.

Lieut. Gilbert Rayner, Royal Engineers, writes:– “Dear Mrs. Gladstone, – I scarcely know how to explain to you the deep feeling of sympathy I have for you at the loss of your brave husband. At the time sympathy is of so little avail, but I thought it might be some comfort to you to know how highly he was esteemed and loved by all of us, his brother officers, and not less by his N.C.O.s, and men too. He was indeed in the old trite phrase ‘a very gallant officer’. It will, I know, be some relief to you to know that his end must have been instantaneous and painless, and that we were able to make a coffin and give him a simple military funeral in a cemetery only two or three miles from where he received his baptism of fire in 1914. We are erecting a white cross over his grave, and I hope to get the Graves Registration people to send you a photograph of the grave. If there is anything further that I can do for you to help you in any way, I shall be only too glad if you will let me know. I pray that you may be given strength to bear the sore trials that you have been through, and have got to bear.”

Major J. L. Licker’s letter reads:– “Dear Mrs. Gladstone, – It is with very deep regret that I have to inform you that your husband was killed in action early yesterday morning, 2nd November. He was killed by shell. We recovered his body, and he is being buried in a British cemetery behind the lines. The position of the grave and a photograph of it can be obtained from the Graves Registration Union. His loss to the Company is a very great one, as not only have we lost a very gallant and efficient officer, but we all feel that we have lost a great friend, who was beloved by the men, and by his brother officers. His cheerfulness was an inspiration to the men under him, and to the whole company. The fact that your husband laid down his life for his King and Country may lessen somewhat the great grief which has befallen you. All his brother officers join me in conveying to you our deepest sympathy in your sad bereavement.”

23 November 1917

CROSSHILLS – THE LATE LIEUTENANT GLADSTONE

We reproduce a photograph of the late Lieut. Ralph Oscar Gladstone, late of Crosshills, whose death in action on November 2nd last was reported in our issues of the 9th and 16th inst.

04 July 1919

PEACE SUPPLEMENT TO THE 'CRAVEN HERALD' – CRAVEN'S FALLEN OFFICERS

SECOND-LIEUT. RALPH O. GLADSTONE

Royal Engineers, of Holme Road, Crosshills, killed in action November 2nd, 1917, aged 27 years.