Lawrence Rowntree

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Lawrence Rowntree
Born(1895-03-04)4 March 1895
York, England
Died25 November 1917(1917-11-25) (aged 22)
Ypres, Belgium
Burial placeVlamertinge, Belgium
NationalityBritish
Known forQuaker who later decided to fight as a soldier
Notable workJournal and letters
Parents
RelativesJoseph Rowntree (grandfather)

Lawrence Edmund Rowntree (4 March 1895 – 25 November 1917) was a British soldier killed during the First World War. He was the only[1] son of John Wilhelm Rowntree of the Quaker Rowntree family and Constance Naish, and grandson of Joseph Rowntree.[2]

Born in York and having grown up in Scalby,[3] Rowntree was educated at Bootham School,[4] and began to study medicine at King's College, Cambridge in 1913.

On the outbreak of the First World War Rowntree volunteered for the Friends' Ambulance Unit in 1914,[2] being deployed in October to Dunkirk and Belgium as an orderly and driver.[1] He brought his grandfather's car from Britain to Europe, converting it into an ambulance.[4] In April 1915, he criticised French stretcher-bearers for their cruelty, reporting that he had seen four of them "drop a wounded man off a stretcher from shoulder height, and laugh". He also wrote that men in the hospital sheds were in straw beds "thick with dirt, blood and septic dressings" from their previous occupants.[5] In May, he wrote of his struggles with shell shock and his emotions:

when anyone closed a door or took his boots off, we arose and slew him ... you don't mind the thought of being wounded, you don't mind the thought of death – much, but there is that great black fear sitting there, and making you feel the lowest of miserable worms.[5]

Rowntree was injured and sent to England to heal, writing up his journal in 1916.[4] Despite his family's pacifist beliefs, he later decided to fight as a soldier (declining to register as a conscientious objector under the Military Service Act 1916),[4] telling his mother in a letter that he had been "feeling a call".[2] He joined the Royal Tank Regiment in 1916, and was injured in the buttocks. He was then commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Field Artillery in 1917[4] and was killed in the Ypres Salient on 25 November 1917, several weeks after the Battle of Passchendaele had ended.[4]

Rowntree was buried in Vlamertinghe New Military Cemetery in Vlamertinge, West Flanders, Belgium. The headstone bears the inscription Only Son of J.W. Rowntree, Scaley "I believe in the life everlasting"[3] His grandfather, Joseph, spoke of his death for years after, calling him "my dear Lawrie".[4]

Rowntree's letters to his mother Constance, 1901–1917, are deposited at the Borthwick Institute for Archives in York,[6] having been found by his great-niece.[2] In 2017, a century after his death, an exhibition of his journal and theatrical performances of his life were held at York Castle Museum.[7]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Chrystal, Paul (2021). Rowntrees: The Early History. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword History. ISBN 9781526778901.
  2. ^ a b c d Sanderson, David (4 January 2019). "Call of war is too strong, son told pacifist Rowntree family before dying at Ypres". The Times. Archived from the original on 4 August 2021. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Second Lieutenant Lawrence Edmund Rowntree". Commonwealth War Graves. Archived from the original on 29 December 2018. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Stephen (28 July 2017). "'A French soldier, more dead than alive, came staggering down the shell-swept road.' The war diaries of Lawrence Rowntree". The Press. Archived from the original on 4 August 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  5. ^ a b Reid, Fiona (2017). Medicine in First World War Europe: Soldiers, Medics, Pacifists. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781472513243.
  6. ^ "Borthwick Institute for Archives". University of York. Archived from the original on 7 February 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  7. ^ "Lawrence Rowntree Exhibition". The Rowntree Society. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
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