Springfield, RW
(1896 - 1917)
Key Facts
DATE OF BIRTH:
29th March 1896
YEARS ATTENDED THE COLLEGE:
1909 - 1914
HOME ADDRESS WHEN AT THE COLLEGE:
15 Lambert Road, Brixton
REGIMENT
Honourable Artillery Company (Infantry)
FINAL RANK:
Private
DATE OF DEATH:
15th May 1917
AGE AT DEATH:
21
WHERE HE DIED (or was wounded)
Bullecourt
LOCATION OF GRAVE OR MEMORIAL:
Arras Memorial Bay 1
Private Roland William Springfield
Born on March 29th 1896, Roland was the fourth of five children, of whom he was the youngest of three sons, born to Lincoln Springfield, a journalist who would later edit the weekly magazine, London Opinion, and his wife, Elizabeth. He came to Dulwich aged 11, at the beginning of 1909, and was at the College for the next four and a half years, some of the latter period of which he spent as a boarder in The Orchard.
At the end of 1914 Roland left Dulwich to become a cadet in the London University O.T.C., subsequently being granted a temporary commission in the Royal Naval Air Service in the spring of 1916. That November he relinquished his commission and enlisted as a Private in the Honourable Artillery Company with whom he went over to France for the first time in February 1917. On May 14th he was marching to the front line at Bullecourt when he was seriously injured, dying from his wounds the next day.
