Head's Newsletter 13 November 2020

ACT OF REMEMBRANCE, 11 NOVEMBER 2020

This year we marked remembrance with our own online commemoration, laying wreathes on our memorial tablets. The Tiffin Memorial was put up in 1919, and ini- tially listed 117 names of Tiffinians known to have died. Since then, more ex-pupils names have been discovered and a further 11 names have been added. There are a further 115 names of those who died in World War Two. Many of these students who died in the wars were barely any older than students in the Sixth Form. Each year we specifically pick out and re- member an individual name from each of the two war memorials. These names are engraved on the tablets. From the First World War remembered this year Herbert Edward Alsford. Herbert was born in November

he immediately began training with the Royal Fly- ing Corps in December 1917. He was being trained as an observer and was as- signed to 99 Squadron, a bombing squadron, and in March 1918 moved with his Squadron to France. His first mission, now as part of the newly formed Royal Air Force, was on the 21st May 1918 targetting the railway yards at Stuttgart. The squadron were flying in new De Havilland bomber aircraft, the DH9, but these were underpowered and frequently had engine malfunctions. On August 30 th , after one bombing raid, Herbert’s plane was forced to land with engine problems, which were repaired overnight. However, on the following morning Herbert’s machine stalled shortly after take off, and both he and the pilot were killed in the crash. Both are buried at

1899, and lived in Kings Road Kingston. He en- tered the school in September 1911. Very little is known of his time in school apart from the facts that he was a musician and a keen student of botany, and

Essegney Military Cem- etery, near Charmes in a part of France where it is unusual to find British casualties of World War 1. He was just 18 years and 9 months old. His young- er brother also attend- ed Tiffin leaving in 1919.

gained the London University Senior Matricula- tion (similar to A Levels) in 1915, with distinctions in Mathematics and Geography. His parents could not afford to send him to University but he be- came a clerk in Cox’s Bank. During the war, both his parents were working for Sopwiths, the aircraft manufacturers, in Kingston, who produced such famous planes such as the Sopwith Pup, and Sopwith Camel. Their factory was over the road from the current Tiffin School, in Canbury Park Road, and the remains of the air- craft factory buildings are still there. Herbert was called up in November 1917, and perhaps due to the family interest in Sopwith’s,

Herbert’s name is com- memorated on the Kingston War memorial and is the first name on the School’s World War One memorial.