Harper, AG

Lieutenant Alan Gordon Harper

Alan was born on January 5th 1889, the middle of three sons born to journalist Peter Harper and his wife, Catherine, all three of whom would go on to attend Dulwich. He started at the College in 1900, alongside his elder brother, Kenneth, and would go on to be a pupil for eight years. He left in the summer of 1908, having been a member of the Science 6th, and went on to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied Botany. During his time there he swam for the University, being granted a half-Blue, and in 1911 spent a term studying abroad at the University of Bonn in Germany. In 1912 he graduated with honours and became assistant to the Professor of Botany at Bangor University. The following year he returned to Oxford, serving as a demonstrator at the School of Rural Economy, being granted a diploma for his study on the effect of defoliation upon larch trees. In 1914 he went out to India, where he was employed as the Professor of Botany at Presidency College, Madras, as well as serving as a member of the South Peninsula Mounted Rifles.
When war was declared that summer Alan returned to England, where he spent some time training at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, before being granted a commission in the Royal Field Artillery in February 1915. Not long afterwards he went over to France, and was at the front for around eighteen months, until being wounded at Longueval on the Somme in July 1916. As a result of these injuries he was forced to spend several months in hospital back in England, but upon his recovery he returned once more to the front, being assigned to the 187th Brigade of the R.F.A. It was while serving with this unit that he was killed, on June 1st 1917, during the preparations for the assault on Messines Ridge.