J.H. Fosdick
John Hyland Fosdick: (Student and Half-back)
John Hyland Fosdick was educated at Bowden House and Charterhouse, before going up to Cambridge. As a freshman at Cambridge, had won his blue for football and at the age of 19, having been asked to join the Corinthians 1914 tour, was obviously seen as a player for the future. He had kept wicket for Suffolk County, was a regular in the Eastbourne football team, played tennis to a good standard, and in February 1914, was selected to play for the Cambridge against Oxford alongside and against a number of players who would form the Corinthian team leaving later that year.
In the Cambridge team were Max Woosnam and J.S.F. Morrison, but also fellow Corinthians, H. Hegazi, R.W. Callendar, and A.W. Foster. Those in the Oxford team who would be part of the touring party were R.S.M. White, A.M Wilkinson and G.B.F. Rudd. Fosdick knew Rudd from his school days from games between Charterhouse and Westminster, where Rudd was a pupil.
Fosdick was also in the Cambridge Officers Training Corps and this was the reason he was one of the first to arrive home after the 1914 tour had been abandoned. On his return he received a commission in the South Wales Borderers in October 1914, later joining the 7th (Service) Battalion. After training, he was posted to France on 19th May 1915 as a Lieutenant with the 7th Battalion Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort’s Own).
Fosdick continued to play football, and turned out for the English army versus the Dutch army and also against the Corinthians in February 1915. He represented the Aldershot Command in a charity exhibition match against a strong Corinthian-Under-Arms team containing four of the 1914 tourists; C.E. Brisley, N.V.C. Turner, R.C. Cutter and J.C.D. Tetley, with whom he would be very familiar with. Corinthians won 4-1.
Fosdick was born at Sproughton, near Ipswich, Suffolk in 1895 and was the only son of Frederick Hyland, a Scottish coal merchant and his second wife, Alice Ann Bailey, the daughter of a wealthy corn merchant and farmer. His sister, Freda Kate Hyland would, in 1928, travel with her husband to Buenos Aires, on the HMS Arlanza, the same vessel that in 1914 bought her brother back to Europe to take up arms. John’s step sister, Eleanor Ann Fosdick, from his father’s first marriage became a painter of some note.
Lieutenant Fosdick was in the trenches at Hooge, Flanders on 30th July 1915 helping to defend the enormous Hooge crater, created by a mine the allies had placed under the German lines. The resulting crater, measuring 120 feet across became the scene of ferocious fighting as both sides attempted to seize control. The Germans attacked and tried to regain the lost position using, for the first time against British troops, flamethrowers against the allied trenches.
On July 30th, less than three months after being posted to France, John was struck in the head by a piece of shrapnel and taken to Abeele clearing station where he died. A telegram sent on July 31st, 1914 to his father read, “Lt. J. H. Fosdick 7th Rifle Brigade reported at 10 casualty clearing station Abeele today with shrapnel wound head serious. Report permission to visit cannot be granted. Progress will be reported”. On August 2nd, over a month later, his father received another telegram that read, “Deeply regret to inform you that Lt. J. H. Fosdick 7th Rifle Brigade died of wounds 31st July. Lord Kitchener expresses his sympathy”. John was aged just 20 years.
He is buried at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery in Belgium. On his gravestone is the following message, “God takes our loved ones from our homes but never from our hearts”.