The New Military Cemetery was begun in November 1915, after the Churchyard and Extension could no longer cope with the number of dead from the surrounding Field Ambulances. It was in use until September 1918. Reninghelst, today it is Reningelst, I am using the wartime spelling for the village as well as other towns and villages mentioned, is a small village located in the southern part of the province of West Flanders, known as the Westhoek (the West Corner). This is a rural province and during the First World War Reninghelst was located in a restricted zone close to the front line along with the nearby villages of Ouderdom and Dickebusch. Ypres is some 10 kilometres from Reninghelst. From October 1914, the area around Reninghelst was heavily populated with gun pits, camps, Field Ambulances, railways linking the various supply camps and the main rail head of Poperinghe in the rear and further on into France. The French army occupied the area but were replaced by a multi-national allied force that came into the area and occupied the farms and barns as billets and built new camps the names of the camps tended to reflect the nationality of the units that had originally established them
Cemetery Location
The cemetery is located approximately 200m north-east from the church, on the Reningelst to Poperinge road. The entrance is on the left if you are walking from the church and you go down path between the houses to the cemetery.
Burial of an Artillery Officer
There are 275 men from artillery units buried here. Writing on 25 May 1917 in The War Diary of The Master Of Belhaven 1914-1918, Lieutenant-Colonel The Hon. R.G.A. Hamilton, The Master of Belhaven, records the death of one of his officers: ‘…. On return I heard the sad news that Stewart, one of my subalterns in C/108, was killed at the Lille Gate last night. He had been transferred as captain to B/107. His body was brought down to the wagon-lines in a G.S. wagon and was alongside my camp. I went across to see him – he had been hit in the back of the head by a piece of 5.9. I am very sorry about it; I liked him very much, and had been talking to him only a few days ago. The funeral at Reninghelst at 4 o’clock and General Sheppard and I went over for it.’ Captain William Beardmore Stewart, ‘D’ Battery, 107th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. Died 25 May 1917. Age 33. Grave II.B17. He was the son of Duncan and Moira Beardmore Stewart, Auchenfroe, Cardross, Dunbartonshire.
The Tragedy of a Royal Scots Captain
Another officer from Scotland is buried here Captain Ronald Rioch Davidson, ‘C’ Company, 2nd Battalion Royal Scots who was killed in action on the evening of 27 March 1916 by a shell fragment in the trenches at Shelley Farm, St Eloi. He was a former dux at Montrose Academy, and was studying mathematics at the University of St Andrews where he was also a member of the Officer Training Corps. He had two brothers and a sister. His brother Harold was aged 22 when he died of wounds received during the fighting on the Somme in August 1918 when he was serving with the 2nd Battalion London Scottish. Ronald was commissioned in on 27 November 1914 and he went to France in June 1915 as a 2nd Lieutenant and joined the 2nd Battalion on 30 June the War Diary recording his arrival as a replacement.
He was promoted acting Captain on 6 December 1915. On the 22 September 1915 Roland, then still a 2nd Lieutenant, commanded the Battalion guard of honour when 8th Brigade was inspected by General Plumer commanding 2nd Army and Lord Kitchener the Minister of War. The War Diary recording the event in understated terms.
Following his death on 27 March the Battalion chaplain Reverend Innes Logan wrote to his parents on 31 March unaware that Ronald’s mother was at the time trying to come to terms with the death of her husband Alexander who was a pharmaceutical chemist, from a heart attack on the 28 March and now the death of her second son age just 20. The letter was featured in the local paper the Montrose, Arbroath and Brechin Review on 14 April 1916: ‘You will now have been informed of the sorrowful tidings about your gallant and greatly-loved young son…. There was a great deal of heavy shelling going on, and poor Captain Davidson was hit. He was struck while doing a characteristically brave and brotherly act. His Sergeant-Major had been badly wounded, and Captain Davidson was trying to ease his position and make him a little more comfortable, when he was hit on the head by shrapnel. Death was instantaneous….. I greatly hoped to have been able to give particulars as to his funeral, and have waited a day or two. But though two parties have been sent up to try and bring him down, the shell fire has made it impossible. So he has been buried where he would have chosen, on the field of battle. As soon as possible a cross with inscription will be placed over his grave.’ On the 2 April he wrote again: ‘We were able to bring your brave young son’s body back to our camp yesterday. He was laid in a tent in the camp for the night, and this morning – such a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning – at half-
past eleven he was carried, covered by the Union Jack, to the waiting conveyance. Preceded by the pipers, we took him to (this part was censored but it was to Reninghelst New) British Cemetery, and there laid to rest. When the service was over the pipers played, ‘Lochaber no more’. …I am thankful to be able to write this. I know the knowledge that your boy lies behind the lines in a cemetery, which it is possible to care for, and which cannot be disturbed, is at least something. The Battalion has erected a cross with inscription, and the Graves Registration Commission have charge of the grave.’ He is buried in Plot I, Row D, Grave 12. He was the son of Alexander and Jessie Davidson, 174 High Street, Montrose.
With Royal Scots for Two Days
Also killed by the same shell was 2nd Lieutenant James Wilson MacTurk-Rainie, age 19, and is buried in Plot I, Row C, Grave 12. He was the son of Robert Dick and Jane Samson MacTurk-Rainie, 10 Albert Terrace, Edinburgh. He was educated at Loretto School, Musselburgh from 1908 to 1915 and was a sergeant in the Officer Training Corps at the school. On leaving the school he went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in May 1915 where he became a Cadet-Sergeant and was gazetted to the 2nd Battalion Royal Scots as a 2nd Lieutenant joining the Battalion on 25 March 1916. The War Diary recording his arrival.
Brigadier-General & his Brigade Major
There were seventy-six Generals killed in the First World War one of them Brigadier-General Charles William Eric Gordon, age 39, Grave III.D.16 and commanding 123rd Brigade, 41 Division and his Brigade Major, Captain George Frederick Pragnell, age 26, Grave III.D.17 were killed by a shell on 23 July 1917. The War Diary recording their death.
Brigadier-General Charles William Eric Gordon was the son of Colonel W and Edith Gordon of Weathersfield Place, Braintree, Essex. He was educated at Harrow. In 1897 he was gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant with the 3rd (Militia) Battalion, The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) and in 1899 he transferred to the 2nd Battalion. He fought with the Battalion in the second Boer War and then spent ten years in India with the Battalion serving three years as the regimental adjutant. In March 1915 he went to France as adjutant of the South Staffordshire Regiment and in June he joined the Black Watch. He was promoted to Major in 1915, his promotion appearing in the London Gazette on Friday 3 September 1915, and was severely wounded at the Battle of Loos in September 1915. Recovering from his wounds he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in March 1916 and took command of a Battalion of the Black Watch at the Battle of Somme and later that year took command of a Brigade and was promoted Brigadier-General and saw action at Vimy Ridge and the Battle of Messines in 1917. He was three times mentioned in Despatches and was awarded the 3rd Class of the Danilo Order of Valour presented by the King of Montenegro on the 9 March 1917.
Captain George Pragnell was the eldest child and only son of Sir George and Lady Leonora Pragnell of Kingsley Green, Haslemere, Surrey. Sir George was a warehouse owner and served as Deputy Lord Lieutenant of London. George was educated at Dulwich College and on leaving Dulwich became an accountant before he joined the Honourable Artillery Company and held the rank of sergeant when the HAC went to France in September1914. In February 1915 he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in The Buffs (East Kent Regiment) before he transferred in the summer of 1915 to the West Kent Regiment and promoted to Lieutenant. With this promotion he took on the role of recruiting officer focusing on the Lewisham, Deptford and Catford areas of London and recruiting men for the 11th (Lewisham) Battalion of the regiment. He was promoted to Captain in 1916 and returned to France and joining the staff of the 41st Division HQ and in February 1917 was promoted to Brigade Major of 123rd Brigade.
Two Canadian Brothers
There are two Canadian brothers in the cemetery. Lieutenant Charles Richard Magrath Godwin, 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery. Killed in action on 4 April 1916. Age 24. Grave I.A.16 Lieutenant John Lockart Godwin, 1st Divisional Ammunition Column, Canadian Field Artillery, attached to Z.I.C. Trench Mortar Battery. Killed in action 8 July 1916 age 26. Grave I.E.14. They were the sons of Frederick Richard and Anna Bella Lockart Godwin, Ottawa.
Shot at Dawn
There are three men who were shot at dawn in Reninghelst and who are buried in the New Military Cemetery and you can read more here
One of the executions, that of Private William Smith, Age 20, Grave IV.B.28 was witnessed by Achiel Van Walleghem who recorded in his diary 'In the morning an English soldier is shot against the convent wall here for refusing to go into the trenches. It was his own comrades who were appointed to the firing squad. Many of the soldiers have already spoken of how painful this is to them. Some of them weep with remorse.'
Chinese Labour Corps
The Chinese Labour Corps had a camp at nearby Busseboom. In his book ‘Asia in Flanders Fields’ Dominiek Dendooven quotes from the memoir of Gunner Alexander Paton, 118th Siege Battery, who remembered a large notice erected in Reninghelst which stated, ‘Do not speak to the Chinese’ with a wit adding underneath ‘who the hell can’. Although it is humorous it does highlight the British policy of segregation which is also reflected in the separate camps for British West Indian labourers. The Belgian and Flemish connection with China included like the other colonial powers economic involvement with industrial and financial interests as well as Catholic missionaries with one of these missionaries Florent Durein leaving Reninghelst to go to northern China during the First World War. Achiel Van Walleghem records in his diary on 6 August 1917 meeting members of the Chinese Labour Corps: ‘In this area we now have a lot of Chinese men whom the English use as labourers…. They have a blue linen uniform and another one of thick grey fabric and a rain cape and an overcoat, with a straw hat or a brown cap with ear flaps…Their sergeants have stripes, and their policemen a red armband, and one sees they are very conscious of rank… They are quartered in camps surrounded by barbed wire and they live in bell tents….They are principally occupied in mending roads and digging ditches, and mainly along the unloading quays. They’re not lazy and work at least as well as out civilians and the English soldiers…Several thousands of these men are working in Reninghelst and more of them in Poperinghe…In Reninghelst they have 2 big camps, 1 on the farm of the Verhaeghe siblings and 1 next to Henri Verdonck’s farm.’ He also saw first-hand the punishment administered to the CLC members ‘…to keep order among them the arguments of the cane has to be used and so their sergeants carry a thin iron rod which comes down now and then on the men’s skin…. They have other punishments too, and recently on passing by their camp I saw one with a yoke on his neck (like a lavatory seat), and another with a block and chain on his neck and thus collared, these men had to dig a ditch.’ He felt they had little comprehension of the war observing that they laughed when they heard shells coming and stood and stared and clapped their hands however, when some of their number were killed in Poperinghe those CLC members who witnessed it were shocked.
On the 15 November 2017 a memorial park with two statues of Chinese workers was unveiled in Visserijmolenstraat in Poperinge. The Chinese workers look out from the pavilion onto the fields where the Chinese camp once stood.
Burials
UK – 452
Australian – 104
New Zealand – 2
Canadian – 230
South African – 1
Chinese Labour Corps – 7
German – 2
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