England Remembered

Nowell Oxland

Nowell Oxland was the youngest son of the Vicar of Alston in the High Pennines. His most famous poem 'Outward Bound'(1), written on route to Gallipoli in July 1915, invokes the invasion by the Greeks at Troy across the Dardanelles (2), but draws us back to the rolling hills of Cumberland. Landing at Suvla Bay on 6 August 1915 his Battalion prepared to attack the following day. Oxland died of wounds two days after the 6th Border's Brigade had taken Green Hill and Chocolate Hill. He was buried in the Green Hill Cemetery, Gallipoli.(3)

Durham school pal William Noel Hodgson, the renowned war poet Edward Melbourne (4), fighting with the Devonshire Regiment was devastated to learn of his friend's death and composed a poem in his memory.(5)

In a letter to his sister Stella he wrote;

“Thanks very much for the moss from the Gable, which I burned at evening in memory of Oxland who died in the Dardanelles a fortnight… ago, and was my great companion in my hill climbs. I shall miss him much; also three more school pals who were in Saturday’s list”.(6)

Despite surviving the battlefield at Loos, Fricourt and Mametz, Hodgson too was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme 1916.

Both families released posthumous volumes of their poetry (7), however, perhaps the most poignant memorial to Oxland remains in his Father's former parish church, St Augustine's, Alston, where painted panels either side of the altar depicting St Michael and St George clearly show the face of Lieutenant Nowell Oxland.(8)

OUTWARD BOUND by Nowell Oxland (extract)

There’s a waterfall I’m leaving

Running down the rocks in foam,

There’s a pool for which I’m grieving

Near the water-ouzel’s home,

And it’s there that I’d be lying

With the heather close at hand

And the curlews faintly crying

Mid the wastes of Cumberland.

While the midnight watch is winging

Thoughts of other days arise,

I can hear the river singing

Like the Saints in Paradise;

I can see the water winking

Like the merry eyes of Pan,

And the slow half-pounder sinking

By the bridge’s granite span.

Ah! to win them back and clamber

Braced anew with winds I love,

From the river’s stainless amber

To the morning mist above,

See through cloud-rifts rent asunder

Like a painted scroll unfurled,

Ridge and hollow rolling under

To the fringes of the world.....

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William Noel Hodgson MC c.1915

William Noel Hodgson (For Remembrance) - en.wikipedia.org

Notes:

1. Oxland, Nowell - Outward Bound - The Times (Aug 1915)

2. www.iwm.org.uk/history/a-short-history-of-the-dardanelles-campaign

3. Cooper, Stephen - The Final Whistle: The Great War in Fifteen Players (2013)

4. Hodgson, William Noel (“Edward Melbourne”) – Before Action – The New Witness (June 1916)

5. Hodgson William Noel - In Memory of Nowell Oxland, Killed at Suvla Bay 9th Aug 1915 (1915)

6. www.acenturyback.com/2015/09/06 - Josh Levithan (6 Sept 2015)

7. www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history - (24 Feb 2014)

8. cumbrianwarmemorials.blogspot.co.uk - Alston (24 Dec 2011)