van Coppenolle, LHS
(1899 - 1918)
Key Facts
DATE OF BIRTH:
1st January 1899
YEARS ATTENDED THE COLLEGE:
1915 - 1916
HOME ADDRESS WHEN AT THE COLLEGE:
45 Woburn Place, WC1
REGIMENT
15th Regiment of Field Artillery, Belgian Army
FINAL RANK:
Corporal Gunner
DATE OF DEATH:
28th September 1918
AGE AT DEATH:
19
WHERE HE DIED (or was wounded)
Bixschoote
LOCATION OF GRAVE OR MEMORIAL:
Antwerp Schoonselhof Cemetery
Corporal Gunner Leo Henri Stephan van Coppenolle
Born on New Year’s Day 1899 in Antwerp, Belgium, Leo was the son of timber merchant Leon van Coppenolle and his wife, Alice. He spent his early years in his home country and was a student at the Athenée Royal de Tournai when war broke out. After the German invasion of Belgium he came to London as a refugee and at the start of 1915 came to Dulwich as a boarder in the Orchard. He went on to be a pupil for the next eighteen months, leaving the College in the summer of 1916.
After leaving school Leo enlisted in the Belgian Army that September and spent his first several months posted to training camps in France, before being sent to the front as a member of the 15th Field Artillery in February 1917. That November, after showing particular valour in an engagement at Merckem, he was promoted to Corporal Gunner, a rank approximately equivalent to that of Bombardier. He was killed in action whilst serving at his gun in the Houtholst Wood, in Flanders, on September 28th 1918. His conduct during the war meant that he had earned the Croix de Guerre, as well as being made a Chevalier of the Order of Leopold.
