A Wessex Family in the Great War - The Popes of Wrackleford House, Dorset

Forthcoming blog posts will be about the remarkable Great War story of the Pope family of Wrackleford House, near Dorchester.

My interest was first stirred in the Popes during an early August tour of the churches to the north of Dorchester, most of which remain delightfully open and welcoming.  Outside the church at Stratton, I noted that the war memorial contained the names of three Popes, a fact which struck me as I had been researching, on behalf of the Bible Society, the theme of siblings during the war, already having studied the Bickersteths of Leeds, the Beecheys of Lincolnshire and the Souls of Gloucestershire. In fact the Popes made up thirty percent of the names listed:-

LIEUT-COL. E. ALEXANDER POPE. D.S.O. THE WELSH REGT.

LIEUT-COL. A. R. HAIGH-BROWN. D.S.O. THE MIDDLESEX REGT.

CAPTAIN C. A. W. POPE. R.A.M. CORPS.

2ND LIEUT. PERCY P. POPE. THE WELSH REGT.

LANCE CORPL. R. F. GIFFORD. 21st BATT. CANADIAN INFANTRY.

LANCE CORPL. ERNEST BRETT. ROYAL IRISH RIFLES.

GUNNER A. C. BELL. R.G.A.

PRIVATE ARTHUR GODDEN. THE DORSET REGT.

PRIVATE. H. C. AMOR. 1ST BATT. DORSET REGT.

DRIVER. S. O. BRIEN. R.F.A.

On entering the church there were plaques commemorating the three Popes, and to other members of the same family.  Intrigued, I was determined to find out more.  However the first privilege was to attend a candlelit vigil in the church in commemoration of centenary of the outbreak of the Great War on 4^th August 2014.  I felt a connection to the past, and of the continuity of the soul of England in that place.

St. Mary's Church, Stratton, Dorset with War Memorial in the foregound

 

A search on the internet revealed that the Pope family had had a book privately published in 1919, with biographies and pictures of many members of the family who had served in the war.  However one difficulty was that only two copies of the book existed in the United Kingdom which were available for public viewing and study; one at the University of Cambridge Library, and the other at the Library of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple in London.  No copy seemed to exist in any other domestic archive.  Undeterred, I did locate a copy available to purchase from a private dealer in Canada and the deal was struck.

The book safely made the return journey across the Atlantic to the country in which it had been published by the Chiswick Press, and as I read the pages written with care and love by R.G. Bartelot, a member of the family, my pulse quickened as the story on one family’s enormous war sacrifice unfolded. No fewer than seventeen sons, daughters and in-laws had served in the Empire's cause between 1914 and 1918.

As this information is not widely available in the United Kingdom, I am going to make the story of the Pope family the topic of the next series of blog posts; or, in the words of the book, to reveal the service of:

A WESSEX FAMILY AND THE GREAT WAR