‘The Love that Stands the Test’

One of Casuals’ earliest players left a lasting imprint on the people of Canada and Great Britain. In an excerpt from his book, Fallen: Volume One - 1914-1916, Llew Walker tells the story of Gerald Spring-Rice, whose death inspired the patriotic hymn, ‘I Vow to Thee My Country’

Gerald Spring-Rice was born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1864, a year after the English FA was founded. He was the sixth child and fourth son of Hon. Charles William Thomas William Spring-Rice, the one-time Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He was the grandson of the Whig politician Lord Monteagle of Brandon, and his mother, Elizabeth Margaret Marshall, was the daughter of an Anglo-Irish MP. Almost every generation of Gerald’s family owned a title or was an ‘honourable’ this or ‘lady’ that. Seemingly, Gerald was also a descendant of William the Conqueror.

Being born into a family with such a pedigree may have been too much for Gerald, as for most of his adult life he lived on the edge of civilisation in the outback of Canada. He was a pioneer, and when he first went to Canada in 1885 it was mostly untouched by the modern world. He hunted with rifles, traded with natives and trappers and survived only at the mercy of the elements.

Gerald was the only son to enter Charterhouse and was a member of a footballing generation that changed the game forever. His team-mates helped give birth to the modern game in England. A.M. Walters, Nevill ‘Nuts’ Cobbold and Andrew Amos would all become Corinthians and play for the English national team at a time when the Scots were superior in every way.

In December 1882, Gerald played for the school against the Pilgrims, losing 2-1. Andrew Watson, the first black international footballer, was on the Pilgrims team that day. Afterwards, it was reported that the pupils had voted Watson the finest full-back they had ever seen and reputedly carried him from the pitch. A remarkable incident, if true, involving a black footballer in the early 1880s.

 When he later played for Casuals against his old school, Gerald played alongside Dr John Smith, perhaps the finest Scottish footballer of his generation. Also in the team was Cecil Henry Holden-White, who played in the first Corinthian game, became club captain and an England international.

Gerald mixed with footballing pioneers and some of the most influential players of the day. The football they played was strictly amateur. Professionalism would not be legitimised until after Gerald left for Canada.

Gerald played for the 1st XI at school, sometimes as a goalkeeper or full-back and occasionally as a forward. He was an all-round sportsman, playing cricket and being a strong swimmer. After Charterhouse, he entered the Royal Horticultural College in Cirencester and played rugby for the college and Gloucestershire.

Gerald’s first game for Casuals came a little over a year after the club was formed and less than two weeks since he had played rugby for the Royal Horticultural College. His debut came in December 1885 against the famous Swifts. He was just 20 years old and played alongside Fred Bickley, one of the founders of Casuals FC. In a match report, one of the goals scored for Swifts was described as ‘irresistible’ and, unusually, ‘a turf destroyer’. These were the early days of sports journalism, and the reporter was likely more comfortable writing about horse racing, golf or cricket.

In his second game, against the equally famous Barnes club, even though Casuals played a man short, Barnes played with only nine men and still managed to beat Casuals 2-1.

Games against Westminster School, Surbiton Wanderers and Charterhouse School followed. Three years later, probably after finishing college, Gerald played his last match, against Royal Military College (Sandhurst). His record for Casuals is one win against Westminster, one draw against Charterhouse, and four losses.

A few months after the Sandhurst game, Gerald left for Canada, and his footballing career ended. He and his brother Bernard headed to the frontier of the Canadian West. They were early settlers in the region and built a wooden shack on the bare prairie. They were pioneers trading with the local indigenous population (the Cree), endured cruel winters and turned the prairie into farmlands. Over the next 25 years, Gerald became a well-known farmer, rancher and Justice of the Peace for Pense and Assiniboia, satellite towns outside the state capital, Regina.

In 1904, Gerald returned home and married Mary Isabella Bush. They returned to Canada, where they had two children, but neither survived childhood.

Another brother, the Right Honourable Cecil Spring-Rice, British Ambassador to the United States, was friendly with US President Theodore Roosevelt. There was speculation that Cecil’s influence convinced Roosevelt to join the war.

Years after the war, in 1920, a local Regina newspaper, the Redcliff Review, published a feature telling a story that one day, toward the end of the last century, a clerk was looking out of the window of his office during a blizzard, and was amazed to see a sailboat drifting along the street. He saw someone fall out into the snow and watched as the captain jibbed and brought the boat up into the wind, and the fallen sailor climbed back on board. They then took the wind and disappeared into the storm. The man who fell off was Gerald, who, with his brother, had created the craft and had successfully taken the ‘snow boat’ on a maiden voyage during a blizzard.

Gerald became a member of the Canadian Forestry Association, which aimed to protect Canada’s natural resources and manage the forests, and he became the president of the Regina Agricultural Association.

In 1911, Beatrice Webb and her husband, Sydney, visited Gerald in Pense and wrote about the encounter in a personal diary.. By this time, Gerald’s home had become the social centre for the region, and when they arrived they found the annual ‘sports’ picnic underway that included all settlers from the vicinity, their wives, families and workers, all mixing, using first names and, as Webb noted, it ‘was decidedly egalitarian’.

“Gerald Spring Rice, a genial, refined, intelligent Englishman – one of the original settlers… had made himself a home which combined charm and slovenliness in quite an original way,” she wrote. “Inside the Spring Rice’s house all was very confusing and dirty. The verandah was full of old boots, shoes, leggings, of disused implements, of tins and cans of potted food – no bath and very scanty arrangements for washing… Spring Rice himself was always in his shirt with his sleeves rolled up above the elbow – except on Sundays when he put his coat on, however hot it was! He loved his life on the prairie.”

It is tempting to believe that as Regina became more modern and civilised, Gerald missed the wildness of the country when he first settled 25 years earlier. By 1913, he had settled in England, living at Gowbarrow Old Hall, Watermillock, Ullswater. He accepted a position as the Director for Cumberland of Voluntary Aid Detachments and Deputy Lieutenant for Cumberland and became involved with the Penrith and District Boy Scout Association.

When war was declared, Gerald joined the Border Regiment as a transport officer and was commissioned shortly after to lieutenant. How a 51-year-old could sign up to fight is unclear, but his brother Cecil may have used his influence.

There are not many records of Gerald’s service, but one dated 3 March 1916 perhaps emphasises his age, as it records that Lieutenant G. Spring-Rice was admitted to the 3 General Hospital, Le Tréport, with sciatica. He remained there for almost two weeks.

At home, his wife, Mary Isabelle, welcomed refugees into their home in Ullswater and worked as a nurse at the St Andrew’s Hospital, Penrith.

Gerald and the 11th Battalion arrived at Contay Wood on 15 May 1916. By 26 May, the battalion had moved to the Authuille Sector, where the war diary simply stated:

26/5/16 – Batt: relieved the 17th H.L.I. in Authuille Sector. Lt G. Spring-Rice killed.

According to reports, Gerald was killed by a spent bullet. He had been at the front for only 11 days. He was 51 years old.

An obituary from a local paper said, “He was a most kindly, gentle, and unassuming man, who had a quiet and courteous charm of manner and a special knack of getting the best out of those with whom he worked. He was a really fine type of the man who sees his duty and quietly does it, and he has cheerfully and willingly laid down his life in that cause to which he dedicated himself. Knowing the man and his unostentatious way of doing things, one would say that the epitaph he himself would desire most would be the simple one – ‘He did his duty.’”

Gerald was buried in the Authuille cemetery but reinterred at Authuille Military Cemetery in 1920 during the grave concentration programme. He is commemorated on one of two memorials in the Lake District: Aira Force on the western shore of Ullswater and the lower bridge at Watermillock. The upper bridge is a memorial to his brother, Cecil.

After his brother’s death, Cecil received a letter from US President Woodrow Wilson: 

To Sir Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice. The White House – June 9th, 1916

Only the other day did I hear of the distressing loss you have suffered in the death of your brother. May I not convey to you my warmest sympathy? The tragical circumstances of the time are a burden upon all our spirits, and I can imagine what the added burden must be of those who suffer irreparable losses like yours.

Cordially and sincerely yours, Woodrow Wilson.

Cecil replied,

Washington June 10th, 1916.
My dear Mr President,

I am deeply touched by your kind words of sympathy for which my wife and I are deeply grateful. I shall tell my brother’s wife of your kindness, and I know she will feel it very much. My brother and I worked on a farm together in Canada just 30 years ago and I have been with him continually since, so that the loss is a very great one.

With deep gratitude and respect
Believe me, dear Mr President
Yours sincerely
Cecil Spring-Rice

Newspapers in Canada reported that Cecil had also received condolences from King George.

On Gerald’s headstone, the personal inscription says:

FAIS CE QUE TU DOIS ADVIENNE QUE POURRA C’EST COMMANDE AU CAVALIER

A rough translation would be: Do what you must – come what may – it is the knight’s command.

Cecil died in Ottawa, Canada, in 1918 while waiting for a ship to bring him home to England. In 1914, he had written a poem full of patriotic fervour, echoing the sentiments of Newbolt’s Vitai Lampada, intended to inspire men to do their duty and, if necessary, die for their country. But after Gerald’s death, he revised it as a homage to his brother and peace. Cecil had sent the poem to a friend, and it eventually ended up with the composer Gustav Holtz, who put it to music. Cecil’s poem to Gerald’s memory has since become one of the country’s most loved hymns and was sung at the Coronation of Charles III, Winston Churchill’s funeral, and Diana, Princess of Wales’s wedding.

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.
 
And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.
 
Fallen, Volume One, by Llew Walker, is now available to buy from the club shop and contains the biographies of 69 players lost from 1914 to 1916. Fallen: Volume Two will contain the biographies of 55 club players who fell from 1917 to 1918 and after.

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