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鈥淕ladstone鈥檚 soldier grandson buried with honours鈥� ran the front-page headline of the Daily Sketch of April 24th 1915 鈥� reporting the events of the previous day in the Flintshire village of Hawarden. 鈥淕ladstone鈥檚 soldier grandson鈥� was Lieutenant William Glynne Charles Gladstone, who had been shot dead by a sniper a few days before while serving in the trenches of northern France. His funeral 鈥� with full military honours 鈥� was front-page news in the national press because he was one of only a handful of the fallen to be brought back to Britain for burial.

The only son of the great Victorian prime minister鈥檚 eldest son, Lt Gladstone had inherited Hawarden Castle and the title of squire at a young age. Educated at Eton and Oxford University 鈥� where he was president of the Union 鈥� a glittering career in politics beckoned before war intervened. Aged 29 in 1914, the young squire was already a Liberal MP and also the Lord Lieutenant of Flintshire 鈥� King George V鈥檚 personal representative in the county.

Initially opposed to the idea of British intervention in a war in continental Europe, Lt Gladstone changed his position when Germany invaded neutral Belgium. Commissioned into his local regiment 鈥� the Wrexham-based Royal Welsh Fusiliers 鈥� Lt Gladstone travelled to northern France in the Spring of 1915. He was at the front for a few days before he was shot and fatally wounded in the head by a German sniper near Laventie.

But his body was not destined to remain buried in 鈥渟ome corner of a foreign field鈥�. After the King let it be known that he wanted his representative brought back to Flintshire for burial, Lt Gladstone鈥檚 body became one of only a handful that the authorities allowed to be repatriated.

His funeral procession through Hawarden drew 5,000 mourners with 500 packing into the village鈥檚 church of St Deiniol鈥檚 for the funeral ceremony. An occasion of great sorrow for the Gladstone family and the people of Hawarden, Lt Gladstone鈥檚 funeral also became emblematic of the nation鈥檚 wider loss.

The repatriation of this officer took place at a time when the British authorities were attempting to formalise the burial and commemoration of an unprecedented number of fallen servicemen. By April 1915, the Allied military authorities on the Western Front had already decreed that exhumations were not to take place, and the likes of Fabian Ware, charged with directing British policy in this area, took a dim view of such actions.

The Gladstone story also brings into focus the conflict between the freedom to choose where you bury a loved one (or where they wished to be buried), and the issue of equality in death - at the heart of Ware's policy towards the fallen. The latter ideal won the argument, and that became apparent in the decision not to repatriate the British fallen en masse. Equality was also at the heart of the decision to remove the original wooden cross memorial and replace it with the uniform headstone, still evident in British cemeteries today; at the time this proved particularly unpopular with the British public, who saw the need for recognisable Christian symbolism, that brought comfort to the bereaved, and helped people in their quest to make sense of the war.

Location: St Deiniol鈥檚 Church, Church Lane, Hawarden, Flintshire, CH5 3LT
Image courtesy of Flintshire Record Office and Stephen Knowles
Contributors: Bill Pritchard, author of 鈥淎 History of the Old Parish of Hawarden鈥� and Claire Harrington of the Flintshire Record Office

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