Remembrance: a part of Pembroke
This week we observe Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday
All over the United Kingdom, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, a two-minute silence is held to mark the end of the First World War. Taking heed of this occasion, we look at two individuals who served in the First World War, and who were dedicated members of Pembroke in the following years.
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Comber's portrait was entrusted to the college by a group of his friends known as his 'Family'[/caption]
Henry Gordon Comber
Matriculating in 1890 to read Modern Languages, after three years as a businessman in Chile, Comber was an active member of university life as a student and as a Fellow. During his time as an undergraduate he was captain of the Varsity Hockey team, the beginning of a long association with Cambridge sports.
Elected College lecturer before he became a Fellow on account of being a “gifted and sympathetic teacher” (Annual Gazette), Comber’s Pembroke career also saw him hold the post of Assistant Treasurer, Assistant Tutor, and, in the University, Proctor. In 33 years as a Fellow his time at the college was interrupted only by the onset of the First World War, during which he served with distinction. Who’s Who places him as being in despatches three times, beginning with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), and a medal record for a Henry Gordon Comber D.S.O.suggests he also received the Victory Medal, British medal, and 1914-15 Star. He served as Adjutant of the CU OTC (Cambridge University Officer Training Corps) and was a Major in the Intelligence Corps at Boulogne. He returned in 1918 with honours including the DSO.
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A letterhead taken from a letter to Oscar Browning, held in the King's College Archive Centre[/caption]
In the post-war period Comber is described as being extremely devoted to the College. He founded the Pembroke Society (PCCS) and was its President from 1932-3. His major project was the reorganisation of College finances when he became Bursar in 1933. He was also heavily involved with the wider University, as Treasurer of the Cambridge rugy, cricket and hockey clubs, and the President of the rugby and lawn tennis clubs.
Aubrey Attwater
Best known for writing Pembroke College Cambridge: A Short History, Attwater matriculated in 1911 to read Classics, receiving a first in his Tripos in 1914. His potential career at the bar was interrupted by the First World War, which saw him become a Subaltern in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, in the same regiment as Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. The following year he took a serious bullet wound in the hip that left him with a permanent disability, but continued to serve a adjutant to one of the Royal Welch regiments. This injury was eventually responsible for his premature death aged only 43.
Following the war he also returned to Pembroke, enthusiastically taking on the role of teaching the new English Tripos. Attwater occupied the same rooms that Thomas Gray had once lived in, and created a “magnificent” personal library, partially because his mobility was so limited as to make access to the library difficult. This collection he left to the College upon his death.
While at Pembroke he was Director of Studies to Humphrey Jennings, described by his biographer as one of Britain’s most important film-makers. Again, this account emphasises that Attwater was a warm person and excellent teacher. Attwater was partially the reason that Pembroke began to offer scholarships in the English Tripos, from which Jennings benefited.
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Both Attwater and Comber are remembered in all accounts not only for their formal contributions to the college, but also for their informal work as teachers, colleagues, and friends. In the 1936 Annual Gazette, Comber’s obituarist writes that “it is the personality of the ‘Old Man’ that is chiefly missed and remembered by innumberable friends at Cambridge and all over the world” (p.14), and that he deeply supported the communal spirit of Cambridge for both past and present members of the college. Attwater is remembered with equal emotion, described as an ‘exceptional’ teacher who created an “intimate atmosphere of private supervisions, where an infectious enthusiasm and singularly wide learning were directed always to help, not to overwhelm” (Gazette 1936, p. 16). He enabled many students to have a truly happy experience of Pembroke. S.C Roberts, who finished Attwater’s short history for publication, says of Attwater’s death, that “as a personality he was irreplaceable” (p. 166), and that 1935 was a “tragic year” in which Attwater and Comber, among other valued members of the college, were lost. Their names are engraved in tiles in the College Chapel
The gallery below shows a small sample of the papers Attwater left to the College, including records of the Perse Society play readings, and his 'Domestica Pembrochiana', which he wrote so “that antiquaries of the future may have a full record of the domestic and personal side of College life”.
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A remembrance service will be held on Sunday the 13th at 10:55am in the Chapel. The Fauré Requiem will be performed by the choir as part of the service, and in the Tuesday recital for the Syrian Refugee crisis at 6pm. Members of the public are welcome at both events. The short gallery below shows our War Memorial in cloisters, and the wooden poppies the mark the centenary of the deaths of Pembroke members who lost their lives in the war of 1914-18. You can read more about the memorial and remembrance in Pembroke here
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Sources: - Pembroke Annual Gazette, vol. 10, 1936 - Who Was Who, online edn 2014, Oxford University Press http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U207783 - Humphrey Jennings, by Kevin Jackson (2004), Picador - Adventures with Authors, by S.C Roberts (1966), Cambridge University Press - Davis McCaughey: a life, by Sarah Martin (2012), UNSW Press - Medal Card of Henry Gordon Comber, the National Archives, Kew http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D1900398 - Pembroke Portraits by A.V. Grimstone (2013), Pembroke College Cambridge