John Maxwell Edmonds War Epitaph - Clayton Heights, UK - Etched in Stone on Waymarking.com

The epitaph was written by John Maxwell Edmonds.

"John Maxwell Edmonds (21 January 1875 – 18 March 1958) was an English classicist, poet, and dramatist who is notable as the author of celebrated epitaphs.

Edmonds was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire on 21 January 1875. His father was a schoolmaster and later the vicar of Great Gransden, Huntingdonshire, while his mother was the daughter of a self-made Cornish cloth manufacturer. He was educated at Oundle School before going up to Jesus College, Cambridge in 1896 as a Classical Scholar. He was taught at Oundle by R. P. Brereton and J. H. Vince and at Cambridge under Edwin Abbott Abbott. Periods of illness which had originally made him delay his university career later forced him to be absent from university for several terms, but he nevertheless recovered to take a first in his tripos in 1898.

He taught at Repton School and King's School, Canterbury before returning to Cambridge University to lecture.

He was the author of an item in The Times, 6 February 1918, page 7, headed "Four Epitaphs" composed for graves and memorials to those fallen in battle – each covering different situations of death. The second of these was used as a theme for the 1942 war movie Went the Day Well?:

Went the day well?
We died and never knew.
But, well or ill,
Freedom, we died for you.

That epitaph was regularly quoted when The Times notified deaths of those who fell during the First World War, and was also regularly used during the Second World War. It appeared on many village and town war memorials." link

This war memorial in the corner of the graveyard of Clayton Heights Methodist church has the following full inscription.

WENT WELL THE DAY
WE DIED AND NEVER KNEW
BUT WELL OR ILL
ENGLAND WE DIED FOR YOU
YE THAT LIVE ON
MID ENGLAND'S PASTURES GREEN
REMEMBER US,
AND THINK WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Address: Clayton Heights Methodist Church Graveyard Corner of Stocks Lane and Great Horton Road West Yorkshire United Kingdom Website: [Web Link]

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