Collected Letters Volume One: Family Letters 1905–1931

We have settled down into real winter weather here, which is always rather pleasing.

I notice in your recent correspondance an absence of any answer to my remarks re the quashing of the dance conspiracy. What is the meaning of this? Am I to understand that it has not been duly slain and buried? If not, why not? As I said before–‘you have your orders’. They were put before you in a plain and forcible manner so that you have no excuse for misunderstanding them. I hope to hear by return of post that the matter is now a thing of the past.

I can quite believe that the Peacockean platitudes were a come down after grandfather’s production.44 Yes: that is a very appropriate text.

During the course of my walks abroad while I was at the San., I met Mr. Taylor, the old Cherbourg drawing master whom you met. He was very distressed because he had heard that I had given up my drawing at the Coll., but was consoled by my assurance that it was only a temporary fixture so long as it clashed with English. We had a very pleasant little chat indeed.

Today was the Repton match, and I suppose Cherbourg was there, but I didn’t notice them. It ended in a draw of one all after a very exciting game.

Allow me to observe that your noisy salutations to this insolent physician are not at all apropos and also were in somewhat questionable taste. I cannot write any more now.

your loving

son Jack.

1 The Rev. Canon Sydney Rhodes James (1855-1934) was the headmaster of Malvern College 1897-1914. His story is told in Seventy Years: Random Reminiscences and Reflections (1926).

2 William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (1623).

3 Jack fell ill on about 1 June and had to retire to bed. He nevertheless managed to take the exams in the infirmary between 3 and 5 June.

4 He was referring to Mr Allen who on 2 June wrote to Albert saying, ‘I believe you want him to go to the college here; if not, he might have a try for some other school which holds its Exams later’ (LP IV: 25).

5 Warnie was very often referred to in correspondence with family and friends as ‘W.’

6 Warnie had just begun thinking of entering the Army Service Corps, the one career he was always sure he wanted, while his father favoured a job with the London and North Western Railway

The Army Service Corps, which supplied food, weapons and other necessities to the troops, began in 1794 as the Corps of Waggoners. Over time it evolved until in 1888 it was recreated the Army Service Corps. In 1918, in recognition of its good work, it became the Royal Army Service Corps. It was renamed the Royal Corps of Transport in 1965. See John Fortescue, The Royal Army Service Corps: A History of Transport and Supplies in the British Army, vol. I (1930). Volume II by R. H. Beadon was published in 1931.

7 Albert’s letter to Jack of 30 June 1913 (LP IV: 41). Warnie had been caught smoking.

8 ‘Leeborough’ was Jack’s and Warnie’s private name for Little Lea. It had the advantage of yielding the adjectives ‘Leeburian’ and ‘Leborough’, as in a volume of their Boxen drawings called ‘Leborough Studies Ranging from 1905-1916’.

9 On 9 June Jack won a classical entrance scholarship to Malvern College.

10 In a little piece called ‘My Life During the Exmas Holadys of 1907’, Jack paid tribute to the postman: ‘Our postman is called Gordon [Jordan] and is a very nice and sensible man, and often sets me an essay to wright, the subject of which he provides’ (LP III: 90). In his letter to Jack of 30 June 1913, Mr Lewis congratulated Jack on his scholarship, saying: ‘I met Jordan the postman the other night, and as he used to set you essays, I thought I would tell him. He was as pleased as Punch. He said “Sir, the next time you’re writing will you say–Jordan is delighted.”’ (LP IV: 41).

11 See William Thompson Kirkpatrick in the Biographical Appendix. Mr Kirkpatrick had a number of nicknames, including ‘The Great Knock’, ‘Knock’ and ‘Kirk’.

12 (Sir) Donald Innes Hardman (1899-1982) was Jack’s study-mate in School House. On leaving Malvern he went to Hertford College, Oxford. While serving in the First World War during 1916-19 he joined the Royal Air Force and became a professional serviceman. He was promoted to wing commander in 1939, air commander in 1941, air commander of South East Asia 1946-47, and was chief of air staff and organization 1954-57, retiring in 1958.

13 Edward Anderson (1898-1928) was a member of School House 1913-17. After leaving Malvern he served in the war as a 2nd lieutenant. He later moved to Northern Rhodesia, dying there in November 1928.

14 Kenneth Ernest Lodge (1899-?) was a member of School House 1913-17. During the war he served overseas as a 2nd lieutenant with the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry. He was promoted to captain and remained in the army.

15 Fitzgerald Charles Cecil Baron Hichens (1895-1977) was at Malvern 1909-14 and was the head of School House when Jack arrived in 1913. From Malvern he went to Exeter College, Oxford, but soon left there for Sandhurst from where he passed into the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in 1915, becoming a captain in 1918. Following the war he resigned from the army and obtained a regular commission in the Royal Air Force, in which he became a wing commander. He retired in 1943.

16 ‘Smugie’ or ‘Smewgy’ was Harry Wakelyn Smith (1861-1918) who taught Classics and English to the Upper Fifth and for whom Jack was to have great affection. He had been educated at St John’s College, Oxford, and he joined the staff of Malvern in 1885. In SB/VII, Lewis said: ‘Except at Oldie’s I had been fortunate in my teachers ever since I was born; but Smewgy was “beyond expectation, beyond hope”. He was a grey-head with large spectacles and a wide mouth which combined to give him a froglike expression, but nothing could be less froglike than his voice. He was honey-tongued. Every verse he read turned into music on his lips…He first taught me the right sensuality of poetry, how it should be savoured and mouthed in solitude…Had he taught us nothing else, to be in Smewgy’s form was to be in a measure ennobled. Amidst all the banal ambition and flashy splendours of school life he stood as a permanent reminder of things more gracious, more humane, larger and cooler. But his teaching, in the narrower sense, was equally good. He could enchant but he could also analyse. An idiom or a textual crux, once expounded by Smewgy, became clear as day.’ This deeply loved man died in his little house in the school grounds, where he lived alone, on 13 November 1918, a victim of the influenza sweeping Europe that year.

17 Harry Richard Lucas Cooper (1899-1936), of Oxford, entered Malvern as a minor scholar in 1913. When he left in 1918 he ranked as the second boy in the school, head of School House, a cadet officer in the OTC and a football star. From Malvern he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his BA in 1922. He worked for the Imperial Bank of India, and in 1924 was employed in the Calcutta office.

18 Douglas Spencer Montague Tassell (1872-1956) took a BA in ‘Greats’ at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1894 and began teaching classics at Malvern in 1905. On the retirement of the geography master in 1928 he took over the teaching of geography. Perhaps his greatest work, and that which gave him most satisfaction, was with the Officers’ Training Corps. In 1909 he was put in charge of the Malvern contingent of the OTC, which he commanded until 1919 when he was awarded the Territorial Decoration. Warnie wrote of him: ‘In appearance he was a jaunty, dark haired, short mustached, dark eyed little man, very much the soldier with a permanent expression of busy irritation’ (LP IV: 73). It was he who first reported Warnie for smoking.

19 For whatever reason his article did not appear in The Malvernian.

20 Stanley Forrester Browning (1896-1917) became a member of School House in 1910 and by the time he left at the end of summer term of 1914, he had been a house prefect and in the second eleven at football. In 1914 he joined the Royal Flying Corps, and was a captain in that branch of the service when he was killed in action 3 May 1917.

21 John Arthur Watson Bourne (1896-1943) was at School House 1910-14, during which time he was a house prefect. During World War I he was a captain in the RAF. He then worked as an engineer in the technical and research department of a petroleum company. During World War II he served as a captain in the Royal Signal Corps. He died in March 1943.

22 William Walter Lowe (1873-1945) entered Malvern in the winter of 1888. When he left in 1893 he was junior chapel prefect, captain of the football eleven, and had been four years in the cricket eleven. From Malvern he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he received a BA in 1896. He returned to Malvern as an assistant master in 1896, and was house master 1913-32. He retired in 1932 and died in May 1945.

23 i.e. Canon James, the headmaster.

24 ‘The Fish’ was Henry Geoffrey Curwen Salmon (1870-1933) who went up to Jesus College, Oxford, in 1888 on a Classics scholarship. He joined the staff of Malvern College in 1901 and taught French and German to the sixth form. In 1914 he helped prepare the third edition of the Malvern Register, and he was entirely responsible for the fourth edition of 1924. When he retired from teaching in 1929 he was appointed secretary of the Malvernian Society, which work he undertook with enthusiasm for the rest of his life.

25 In his Glossary of Words in Use in the Counties of Antrim and Down (1880), William Hugh Patterson (1835-1918) defined ‘cod’ as ‘(1) sb. a silly, troublesome fellow. (2) v. to humbug or quiz a person; to hoax; to idle about. “Quit your coddin.” ’ (p. 22). Warnie said, ‘It has however a third meaning, namely an expression of humourous and insincere self depreciation; an Ulsterman will say of himself, “Amn’t I the square oul’ cod to be doin’ so and so?”’ (LP IV: 306). Jack Lewis used the expression often, and he seems to have invented the diminutive ‘codotta’ or ‘Kodotta’ which appears occasionally in his letters. A notebook of his poems written about this time was entitled ‘Metrical Meditations of a Cod’.

26 Edwin Cyril Jervis (1896-?) was at School House 1911-15. On leaving Malvern he went to Sandhurst. He joined the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in 1916, was made a lieutenant in 1917 and during the war was seriously wounded. He received the Military Cross.

27 Charles Edward Bristow Bull (1900-77) was at School House 1912-15. During the war he served in the OTC. After the war he was private secretary to Aylesbury Brewery Co. Ltd, and also an actor.

28 This was the younger brother of Jack’s study companion. Wallace George Hardman (1897-1917) was at School House 1911-14. After leaving Malvern he was a 2nd lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment, and was killed in action near Kut on 9 January 1917.

29 The Rev. Gerald Peacocke, who succeeded Thomas Hamilton as rector of St Mark’s, was leaving. He was the son of the Most Rev. Joseph Ferguson Peacocke, Archbishop of Dublin, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin where he took the Hebrew Prize in 1892. He was ordained priest in 1894, and was curate of Carnmoney, Co. Antrim, 1893-6. After four years in Holywood, Co. Down, he was rector of St Mark’s, Dundela, 1900-14. He was prebendery of Geashill, Co. Offaly, 1914-23, and Archdeacon of Kildare 1923-44.

30 Aunt Minnie was the wife of Albert’s brother, William Lewis (1859-1946). See The Lewis Family in the Biographical Appendix.

31 William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597).

32 Noel Herbert Stone (1895-1918) was at Malvern 1910-14. After training at Sandhurst he joined the Worcestershire Regiment and was promoted to captain in 1917. He fought in France and was killed in action near Amiens on 27 April 1918.

33 ‘The Old Boy’ or ‘The Oldish’ was George Gordon Fraser (1870-1958), the headmaster’s assistant in the management of School House. He entered the College as a day boy in 1879 and remained until 1885. On leaving there he went to London University where he obtained a degree in 1889. In 1895 he became an assistant master at Lord William’s School, Thame, and in 1895 he went in the same capacity to Forest School. In 1901 he was appointed an assistant master at Malvern, and in 1917 he became house master of No. 9 House, which position he held until 1927.

34 Stopford Brooke Ludlow Jacks, JP, FRSA (1894-1988), son of Professor L.P. Jacks, entered School House in 1910 and left in 1915. During the war he served with the artillery, became a major, and won the Military Cross. He took a Diploma in Economics in 1920 from Balliol College, Oxford, and became a director of Messrs. Greg and Co., cotton spinners, Manchester. He served as a governor of the Royal College of Arts, chairman of HM Prisons for Women, president of the Prestbury Petty Sessions, and a governor of Malvern College.

35 Mirabile dictu, ‘Wonderful to relate’.

36 Warnie was preparing to take the entrance examinations (25 November-2 December) for Woolwich and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.

37 Armas Järnefelt, Praeludium (1904).

38 Jack already had the last two parts of Wagner’s Ring cycle, Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods, translated by Margaret Armour, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham (1911). For Christmas his father gave him the volume containing the first two parts, The Rhinegold & The Valkyrie (1910).

39 ‘Christmas will be here almost immediately,’ Albert wrote to Warnie on 9 November 1913, ‘and amongst other questions that must be decided is the all important one–are we to have a dance or not? No doubt our friends expect it. To me of course the thing is an expensive nuisance. But I don’t want you and Jacks to drop out of things here’ (LP IV: 99). ‘No dance!!’ replied Warnie on 10 October (LP IV: 101). Jack hated dancing, and years later he wrote in SBJ III: ‘It was the custom of the neighbourhood to give parties which were really dances for adults but to which, none the less, mere schoolboys and schoolgirls were asked…To me these dances were a torment…How a small boy who can neither flirt nor drink should be expected to enjoy prancing about on a polished floor till the small hours of the morning, is beyond my conception.’

40 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Locksley Hall (1842), In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850).

41 Reginald Philip Simon Waley (1897-1951) was a member of School House 1911-15. On leaving Malvern he served as a 2nd lieutenant in the Royal West Kent Regiment. In 1923 he went to work on the Stock Exchange.

42 Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome,‘Horatius’, LXVI, 6.

43 Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, I, iii, 15.

44 Mr Peacocke, the rector, gave his last sermon at St Mark’s on 30 November. Remembering Thomas Hamilton’s farewell sermon from the same pulpit, Albert wrote to Warnie on 30 November saying that Mr Peacocke’s sermon was ‘an extraordinarily poor performance even for him. I remember an old man some thirteen years ago preaching a farewell sermon from the same place, and I have never been more deeply touched by spoken words in my life’ (LP IV: 110).

1914

The year began with anxiety about the entrance examination to Sandhurst that Warnie had taken in November. But more than that was at stake. Albert was worried about what his son could do with his life, and this had been a question he put to Mr Kirkpatrick more than once. After tutoring him for four months, in preparation for Sandhurst, Mr Kirkpatrick wrote to Albert on 18 December 1913, saying:

You ask me as to his abilities. They seem to be good enough. But observe, a question of that nature cannot be answered in the abstract, for the will power, the moral element is involved. You never know what you can do until you try, and very few try unless they have to. Warren had a nice easy time, but no more so than the other fellows he associated with, many of whom were so well off that it did not matter from the economic point of view if they ever did anything or not. Years of association with such boys must have an effect in modifying the outlook. I do not see anything wrong with Warren apart from this slack, easy going quality. He has been blessed by Nature with two of her best gifts–good health and good nature. But it is too late now to make him interested in knowledge. The day for that has gone by. What he needs now is to be at work of some kind, and as soon as possible. I trust there can be little doubt of his passing, and if so, he should go to Sandhurst at once. The life may not be too strenuous, but it will be strenuous enough for him. The mere fact that he has set his mind on it is most important, and I think the army is now no bed of ease. Is he adapted for the life and will he succeed? These are questions very hard to answer. He does not want to go into any business, and dislikes exertion, drudgery, push and all the rest of it. He will probably discover that he cannot escape these things, even in the army. I should like to see a little more ambition in his composition–that is the main defect; but something of the kind may come in time. I have warned him that his present ideas may not be his ideas when he is a little older–a hard saying for a boy of course. (LP IV: 118-19)

On 9 January the Civil Service Commissioners published the results of the November examinations, and the Lewises were elated to learn that Warnie passed 21st out of 201 successful candidates for Sandhurst. The first 25 candidates were awarded ‘Prize Cadetships’ which secured them admission to the College at half fees, and a grant of £50 on obtaining a commission. On 3 February Warnie and Jack crossed, Warnie to the Royal Military College, Camberley, Surrey, for the first time, and Jack back to Malvern.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 130-1):

Gt. Malvern,

Sunday.

7th Feb. [1914]

My dear P.,

Thanks for the cutting which has been read with great interest. In addition to the natural unpleasantness of crossing on a bad night, I am annoyed at having broken my record, as I was sea sick on Tuesday for the first time in my life. It is not a pleasant experience. W. was very ill too, which is strange, as we both thought to have got over that danger.

The rest of the journey to Malvern was pleasant enough, and on my arrival I was pleased to find that Hardman and Quennel1 had moved into the new study, which is a great success. Like somebody’s cocoa, it is ‘grateful and comforting’. So far, to my surprise, the weather has been quite mild and springlike, so I hope to get rid of the cold I had when I left home.

Smugy, I am sorry to say, waxed humorous over my illness, observing in that hoarse whisper of his that I must be ‘a very delicate flower’. He must be excused of course, as the opportunity was too good for him to miss. I suppose it is a priviledge of old age. Otherwise he has been very pleasant, almost effusive, which is an unusual state of affairs with him.

I find there are even less than eight weeks more this term, which of course is good news for both of us. Quennel has already disappeared from the arena with a cold and an ear ache. We hear to our inexpressible joy that the good matron is leaving this term. More than we dared to hope. And, in considering about future possibles, it is a comfort to know that whatever happens, we can’t get anything worse.2

There must be a lot of talk at home about the Greeves affair. What was the dinner like? When you write be sure and tell me all the latest developments. ‘The case’, as Sherlock Holmes would say, ‘is not devoid of interest.’

What is W’s address? I know it is Camberley, but there are a lot of codotta about companies and so forth, are there not?

I am afraid I must again ‘bite your ear’ for ten shillings. An unexpected outrage has occurred. A tax of five shillings a head is being levied for the Old Boy’s leaving present, and another five for that of the James. I consider this rather stiff, but I am afraid it must be done. Please send it as soon as possible. I suppose the hat will be going round for various leaving presents all through this term. Another of the fees one has to pay for the benefit of a Public School education. But I think these places are doomed. Books like ‘The Horrovians’ form the thin end of the wedge.3 It will end in a terrible debacle. I must stop now.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 137-8):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 16 February 1914

My dear Papy,

Thanks very much indeed for the unexpected donation and also for the exacted fund. An excellent thing–money’ as an old friend of ours is wont to observe.

Although others at Malvern have proved wanting in perspicacity with regard to Warnie’s brilliant successes, I was glad to see that Smugy was free from the general reproach. He lost no time in congratulating me warmly, and asking me to convey all the appropriate remarks to W. in my next letter. Such things are perhaps not great acts of kindness. But they serve to mark the difference between those who care for their old pupils and those who do not. Indeed the more I see of that remarkable old man, the more I like and admire him. I wish you knew him. If ever you come to visit Malvern again, you must not leave without making his acquaintance.

This week he has set us a job at which I hope to be able to do something. The alternatives were,

1 poem in imitation of Horace asking a friend to stay with you at the most beautiful spot you know.

2 A picture of a specified scene from Sophocles.

3 An original ghost story.

As you have probably guessed, I chose the first. I invited an imaginary friend to stay at Castlerock. As that would be impossible in verse I changed it to Moville, which is a little village near the former, as you remember. I treated the cliffs, seas, etc. at some length, and have taken pains over it. It is to be shown up tomorrow, and I hope it will be a success. I have written again in the metre of Locksley Hall; it is to be hoped that Smugy will not think that this shows a lack of invention or variety. If he does, I shall point out that some people like Pope and Addison wrote all their poems in the same metre. But of course Horace was a greater man than either of those. However, after a lot of thinking I came to the conclusion that no other metre would do as well. Horace is really impossible to translate: but I think we can imitate him in tolerable style. Everything so far is very pleasant in the Upper V.

How can people advocate a ‘modern’ education? What could be better or more enjoyable than reading the greatest masterpieces of all time, under a man who has made them part of himself? And against this some are foolish enough to oppose algebra and French verbs! The Greek Grammar has not yet put in an appearance. We are turning our attention to Latin where, of course I get on better.

I have seen Dr. Mackay who orders me to continue those annoying breathing exercises and not to play footer. The latter is a great comfort. The other a useful annoyance.

By the way I find I need another coat here. The present one is getting, not shabby, but tired looking, and the other is too small. Could you get Cummings to make me a new black coat to exactly the same measurements as the last. Only three buttons. Or, if it be more convenient, is there an old one of W’s that would do?

Hichens has been down at the Sanatorium and has just come back. On a walk today I met Tubbs who asked me to go up to Cherbourg tomorrow. I think I shall.

your loving

son Jack.

TO HIS FATHER (LP IV: 152):

[Malvern College]

Postmark: 18 March 1914

My dear Papy,

Please excuse my delay in answering your letter. But I have had no time for any of my private affairs for all this week. I think that your criticism on the report are perfectly just; but I would like to remind you that not only does this persecution get harder to bear as time goes on, but that it is actually getting more severe. As for the work indeed, things are now much brighter, and I have been getting on all right since half term.