Frank Northey Harston
Person details
| Forename(s) | Frank Northey |
|---|---|
| Surname | Harston |
| Rank | Captain |
| Regiment | The East Lancashire Regiment |
| Age | 27 |
| Death | Killed in action |
| Place of Death | France |
| Date of Death | 22/04/1918 |
| Year of Entry | 0 |
| House Letter | - |
| School Notes | Master |
| Comments | No photograph. CWGC gives Major, East Lancs, 11th Brigade - on staff? Obituary in Radleian of 20/7/1918 & of 29/6/1918. |
| Commonwealth War Graves Commission Link | https://www.cwgc.org/find-record... |
| Unit | |
| Prefect | |
| Military Decorations | [MC] Millitary Cross; Mentioned in dispatches twice |
| Album Number | 8 |
| Battle | Unknown engagement |
| Previous Regiment | ? |
| Additional Notes |
Scholar Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 28.7.1917. The Radleian. Citation for the Military Cross. Lt. (temp. Capt.) Frank Northey Harston, E. Lanc. R. He rendered most valuable service as Brigade Major during the advance. When a gap occurred he proceeded at great risk of capture and under continuous fire to rectify matters before daylight. He set a magnificent example throughout. 20.7.1918 The Radleian. Memorial address. In Memoriam Frank N. Harston. "When Hope's late butterflies with whispering wings Fly in out of the dark, to fall and burn- Burn in the watchfire of return, Return, return." These beautiful lines speak for themselves, to all lovers of poetry; and there are many such, now that war has lifted the veil from existence, and reminded men that they need not be ashamed of their true selves. At school, the horror of expressed sentiment prevails, and boys forget that the most virile, the most heroic of the Elizabethans were poets in the profound sense of the word. The modern battlefield has proved a strange school of poets, and the love of nature was never more intimate and more real, than in this nightmare of destruction and rampant mechanism. There were. two men here, whom we knew well, richly endowed with that quality, - not a rare one, perhaps, but often disguised, - the love of Earth: I mean Frank Harston and his friend Lance Vidal. It was the desire to pay a small tribute to the former's memory that started this train of thought; and I felt that it was best to follow it, if I would steer clear of conventional eulogy. The official notice of his death, in our last number, reveals nothing of the man: I can, at least, say something of my own knowledge of him as a friend. By the love of Earth, I mean no maudlin fancy, but a deep, vital sense of kinship with nature, or, more truly, the divine in nature: "if the Mind be possesst with any Lust or Passion, a man had better be in a Fair, than in a Wood alone "-as Cowley writes in a curiously haunting passage. Both these men as we knew them were sane, sterling, generous souls, devoid of affectation and vanity: men whose actions "Smell sweet and blossom in their dust." Such men are not as they had never been; something endures in the consciousness of everyone who associated with them. When nearly every incident of the past is forgotten, a few luminous scenes remain, clear in the memory, like sunlight striking on a distant hill. I remember fishing with Harston, near Bablockhithe, one afternoon in summer. He was a gay and delightful companion, as he was, I imagine, punctilious and strict in form: for he did nothing by halves. Last April he wrote to me expressing the wish that we should one day go fishing together again; and his letter recalled the whole scene most vividly, - the mown grass lying in swathes by the stream, the conversation we had sitting in the inn-garden, and the ride home in the dusk. Harston was only a short while at Radley; he felt the pull of stronger ambitions than the schoolmaster can generally indulge in. He proved his capacity in the field, was twice mentioned in despatches, won the Military Cross, and was acting as Brigade Major at the time of his death; but, above all, he made himself really esteemed and beloved in the Brigade. Personally, I shall always remember him and Vidal as men who loved earth and the sun, and who, full of the joy of living, were not afraid to enter the enchanted "Woods of Westermain,"-the mystery in nature. The poem "Into Battle," which Capt. Julian Grenfell wrote when going into action, is the best tribute to such men, who have gone over. The last lines are- " The thundering line of battle stands, And in the air Death moans and sings, But Day shall clasp him with strong hands, And Night shall fold him in soft wings." M. |
| Burial or Cemetery | GONNEHEM BRITISH CEMETERY, Pas de Calais, France. Grave ref B. 7 |
| Place of Birth | |
| Post School | |
| Shields in Hall |
