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Ralph Nathaniel Bewick

Ralph ‘Nat’ Bewick of Guisborough was born in 1890 and joined the School on 18 September 1901.

Ralph BewickHe is pictured here in the 1903 School Football XI aged 13. He was described as their “bull-dog centre half” and “opponents found him a hard nut to crack”. The Guisborian Magazine reporting on the Sports Day that year said Bewick “ran like a hare and quite out-distanced everybody, quite the surprise packet of the day”.

He later attended Bede College before working as a teacher at Stanghow Lane School. In 1911, Nat emigrated to Australia, returning to England in August 1914.

At the outbreak of the World War I, Nat enlisted in the Durham Light Infantry and was appointed 2nd Lieutenant on 28 July 1915.

On 1 July 1916, the Battle of the Somme began and at the end of September, Thiepval, one of the original objectives for 1 July, was finally captured.

The Thiepval Memorial, the memorial to the missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 Officers and Men who have no known grave. Ralph Nathaniel Bewick, 2nd Lieutenant, 8th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, died at Le Sars on 29 September 1916, aged 26, and is one of the fallen commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. There is a memorial plaque to Nat in St Nicholas' Church, Guisborough and his name is also recorded on the Grammar School’s War Honours Board — alongside the names of all of the Grammar School’s alumni to die in the First and Second World Wars.

 

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