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from Daily Telegraph, Monday
4 February, 2000
Villagers against adding deserter's name to
memorial
By David Sapsted
THOMAS HIGHGATE, the first British soldier shot for desertion during the
First World War, will not - for a while, at least - have his name
added to the war memorial in his home village in Kent.A proposal to add the name of the 19-year-old farm
labourer, who
deserted after less than two weeks of action during the Battle of
Mons, was defeated by eight votes to one at a meeting of the parish
council in Shoreham. Instead, councillors have agreed to leave a
space for his name to be added if moves
by Parliament to grant pardons to executed British soldiers succeed.
Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, became divided by the proposal to add
Highgate to the list of 30 names on the stone, engraved memorial,
which the council is restoring with a brass plaque.
George Jameson, the council chairman, said yesterday: "Many
people felt strongly that he should not be on there. Local members
of the British Legion said they would not want to salute a memorial
bearing the name of a deserter. Others felt that, given the
conditions during the First World War and the effects we now know
that shell-shock can have on soldiers in the trenches, his name
deserved to be added."
Highgate enlisted as a private in the Royal Kent Regiment in
1913. At Mons, the first real battle involving the British
Expeditionary Force, he deserted and was found hiding in a barn. He
was wearing civilian clothes and told his captors: "I want to get
out of it, and this is the way I am doing it." He was found guilty
of desertion under the Army Act and shot at dawn on Sept 6, 1914.
Michael Green, of the Royal British Legion, said: "Many men
fought at Mons and stood their ground. Obviously, by deserting,
Highgate put his comrades at further risk. Should his name be
honoured alongside those who stood and served their country bravely?
I don't think so."
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