Essays

The toll of the First World War fell not only on the 536 Old Alleynians honoured on the College War Memorial and on this website but also on many of the 2,500 OAs who returned…

During 2019 Dulwich College celebrated the 400th anniversary of its Foundation in many diverse ways. The aim was to mark this important milestone in our history by the creation of works of art, our landscaping…

How did life at Dulwich College change during the World War One? In many respects it didn’t. The boys were educated according to the curriculum of the day, they sat exams and brought home reports…

While we know that all of British society was affected, often personally, by the Great War, some groups within society as a whole may have felt that impact more than others. Just how were students…

As all Year Nine boys, past and present, can no doubt recall, in 1914 the Russians mobilised with almost reckless haste to join the First World War on the side of their French and British…

It is unremarkable that the Old Alleynian poets of First World War were very much in keeping with those who have been more celebrated ever since the guns ceased firing almost a century ago. What…

Gordon Campbell was born on 6th January 1886, the son of retired Colonel Frederick Campbell and his wife Emilie. He was the couple's ninth child, and the seventh of what would go on to be…

The battle of the Somme remains one of the most evocative names in British military history, its high casualty lists and seemingly minor gains leading it to become very closely linked with the wider debates…

It may be of surprise to some that for Old Alleynians the worst day of the First World War was not the result of events in the totemic battles of the Somme, Third Ypres or…

Ferry services along the Thames had long provided an important part of London's transport system, but they were rarely been profitable, and often failed after the loss of a vessel with its passengers. In 1904…

In the Spring and early Summer of 1918, the German Army carried out four major offensives on the Western Front in an attempt to achieve victory before large numbers of American troops arrived in France…

The battle of Jutland remains the most controversial naval engagement in history, and 100 years on, the debate continues. Andrew Gordon’s The Rules of the Game contains probably the best analysis of the actual fighting. Two conclusions can…

The decision to adopt, for the third time, unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917 was predicated on the German belief and calculation that they could starve Britain into submission before the policy so outraged American…

“Men who march away” was the title of a celebrated patriotic poem of 1914, written by Thomas Hardy. Those soldiers were separated by a century from the redcoats who had fought at Waterloo, which is…

Much like the Somme offensive of 1916, the Gallipoli campaign of 1915 has, amongst historians of the war, become a byword for poor planning, inadequately defined goals, overconfidence and haphazard execution. Notoriously conceived by Winston…