Product Code Database
Henry John Patch (17 June 1898 – 25 July 2009), dubbed in his later years " the Last Fighting Tommy Atkins", was an English supercentenarian, briefly the oldest man in Europe, and the world's last surviving Trench warfare soldier of the First World War. Patch was not the longest-surviving soldier of the First World War, but he was the fifth-longest-surviving veteran of any sort from the First World War, behind British veterans Claude Choules and Florence Green, Frank Buckles of the United States and John Babcock of Canada. At the time of his death, aged 111 years and 38 days, Patch was the third-oldest man in the world, behind Walter Breuning and Jiroemon Kimura.
For service during the Second World War, Patch was awarded the 1939–45 Defence Medal. This was subsequently lost and on 20 September 2008, at a ceremony at Bath Fire Station, Patch was presented with a replacement medal. Patch also received two commemorative medals: the National Service Medal and the Hors de combat medal, which signifies outstanding bravery of servicemen and women, who have sustained wounds or injury in the line of duty. The medals are unofficial and not a part of the official order of wear in any Commonwealth realm. In accordance with his wishes, Patch's medals are displayed at the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry Museum in Bodmin.
Patch married Ada Emily Billington (1891–1976) at the Parish Church, Hadley, Shropshire on 13 September 1919. They had two children. Denis and Gordon. Ada died in 1976, aged 85. Patch subsequently married Kathleen Alice Joy at Mendip Register Office on 5 June 1982. Harry was 83 and Kathleen, known as Jean, was 80. Jean died aged 87 on 18 March 1989. At the age of 100, Patch moved to Fletcher House Nursing Home in Wells, where he found a companion in Doris Whitaker. Doris died on 19 March 2007, aged 92. Patch's sons, Denis and Gordon, both predeceased him.
In November 2004, at the age of 106, Patch met Charles Kuentz, a 107-year-old Alsace veteran, who had fought on the German side at Passchendaele (and served on the French side in World War II). Patch was quoted as saying: "I was a bit doubtful before meeting a German soldier. Herr Kuentz is a very nice gentleman however. He is all for a united Europe and peace – and so am I". Kuentz had brought along a tin of Alsatian biscuits and Patch gave him a bottle of Somerset cider in return. The meeting was featured in a 2005 BBC TV programme The Last Tommy, which told the stories of several of Britain's last World War I veterans.
In December 2004, Patch was given a present of 106 bottles of Patch's Pride Cider, which has been named after him and produced by the Gaymer Cider Company. In the spring of 2005 he was interviewed by the BBC Today programme, in which he said of the First World War: "Too many died. War isn't worth one life" and in July 2005, Patch voiced his outrage over plans to build a motorway in northern France over cemeteries of the First World War. In July 2007, marking the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Passchendaele, Patch revisited the site of the battle in Flanders, to pay his respects to the fallen on both sides. He was accompanied by historian Richard van Emden. On this occasion, Patch described war as the "calculated and condoned slaughter of human beings" and said that "war isn't worth one life". In August 2007, Patch's autobiography The Last Fighting Tommy, written with Richard van Emden, was published, making him one of the oldest authors ever. (2025). 9780747591153, Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9780747591153Daily Telegraph Review Section, 19 August 2007, p. 28 With the proceeds from this book, Patch decided to fund an Inshore Lifeboat for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and he attended the RNLI's Lifeboat College on 20 July 2007, to officially name the boat The Doris and Harry. In 2008, the poet laureate of the United Kingdom, Andrew Motion, was commissioned by the BBC West television programme Inside Out West, to write a poem in Patch's honour. Entitled "The Five Acts of Harry Patch" it was first read at a special event at the Bishop's Palace in Wells, where it was introduced by the Prince of Wales and received by Harry Patch.
In July 2008, Wells City Council conferred the freedom of the city of Wells on Patch. On 27 September 2008, in a private ceremony attended by a few people, Patch opened a memorial on the bank of the Steenbeek, at the point where he crossed the river in 1917. The memorial reads,
Also in September 2008, Patch visited the nearby Langemark German war cemetery and laid a memorial wreath on the grave of an Imperial German Army soldier who was killed in action on 16 August 1917; the day that Private Patch's Division had attacked and taken the village of Langemarck during the Battle of Passchendaele. Noticing three nestled beside the German soldier's gravestone, Patch picked them up, brought them back to England, and planted the acorns beside the Fletcher House nursing home, where he was living in Wells, Somerset. Harry Patch and Richard van Emden (2009), The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, Last Veteran of the Trenches, 1898-2009, Bloomsbury. Pages xvi - xvii.
In October 2008, Patch launched the 2008 Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal in Somerset. On 11 November 2008, marking the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, together with fellow veterans Henry Allingham and Bill Stone, Patch laid a commemorative wreath for the Act of Remembrance at The Cenotaph in London, escorted by Victoria Cross recipient Johnson Beharry. On 9 November 2008, the Master of the Queen's Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, attended the world premiere of his choral work paying tribute to Patch. The piece sets words by the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, and was performed at Portsmouth Cathedral by the London Mozart Players, the Portsmouth Grammar School chamber choir and the cathedral's choristers. The creation of the work was featured in A poem for Harry, a BBC West documentary that was subsequently repeated on BBC Four. The programme won a gold medal at the New York Festivals International Television Programming and Promotion Awards.
On 18 July 2009, with the death of Henry Allingham, Patch became the oldest surviving veteran and also the oldest man in the United Kingdom. Patch was the last trench veteran of World War I. The penultimate Western Front veteran, the 108-year-old Fernand Goux of France, who died on 9 November 2008, fought for 8 days. He came out unscathed, unlike Patch and the last Alpine Front veteran, 110-year-old Delfino Borroni of Italy, who died on 26 October 2008. Patch was also the last surviving Tommy Atkins, since the death on 4 April 2009 of Netherwood Hughes, who was still in training when the war ended. The last-but-one fighting Tommy, Harold Lawton, died on 24 December 2005. Claude Choules, the last remaining First World War naval veteran, died on 5 May 2011.
In accordance with Patch's instructions, no guns were allowed at the funeral and even the officiating soldiers did not have their ceremonial weapons. Due to public interest in the funeral, which was broadcast live on TV and radio, 1,050 tickets were made available for the service. Some, wanting to pay their respects, slept overnight on the Cathedral green in order to get tickets. The funeral was led by John Clarke, Dean of Wells and Peter Maurice, Bishop of Taunton. Among notables to attend the funeral were Camilla Parker Bowles (then Duchess of Cornwall) and Birgitte, Duchess of Gloucester. Patch was buried at St Michael's Church, Monkton Combe, near his parents and brother.
The BBC commissioned Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate, to write a poem to mark the deaths of Patch and Henry Allingham (who died one week before Patch, on 18 July 2009). The result, Last Post, was read by Duffy on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 on 30 July 2009, the day of Allingham's funeral.
On 5 August 2009, the band Radiohead released the song "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)". Singer Thom Yorke explained that the song was inspired by a 2005 interview with Patch on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. The song was sold from Radiohead's website for £1, with proceeds donated to the British Legion. In mid-2009, Harry recorded some spoken word parts for UK heavy metal band Imperial Vengeance, to be included on the title track to the album At the Going Down of the Sun. The song was about the horrors of the trenches and Patch read part of the poem For the Fallen.
The former UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion composed a poem, The Death of Harry Patch, which he read for the first time on The World at One Radio 4 programme on Armistice Day 2010.
On 6 November 2015, Great Western Railway named one of their Class 43 High Speed locomotives after Harry to commemorate the forthcoming armistice day. The locomotive was wrapped in remembrance vinyls that included images of poppies, soldiers, and text from the 'For the Fallen' poem by Laurence Binyon. The locomotive nameplates read: 'Harry Patch The last survivor of the trenches' and included a coloured line of all eight ribbons from the medals awarded to Patch. The locomotive no longer carries the nameplates or vinyls, these having been removed when the locomotive was retired from service in late 2019 and its subsequent refurbishment and re-entry into service in 2020.
Harry Patch's portrait, painted from life by the artist Bill Leyshon, was commissioned by the Western Daily Press in 2007, and is now in the collections of Somerset Museums Service, Taunton.Tom Mayberry and Stephen Minnitt, 'Discover the Museum of Somerset' (2011), p. 60. In 2009 Harry Patch's portrait was painted by Dan Llywelyn Hall and was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and is now in the collections of Bath's Victoria Art Gallery
After his death, several articles examined how Patch's life and image served as a reference point for thinking about the meaning of the Great War, commemoration and indeed the figure of the veteran. Patch's hard won pacifism can be seen to sit uneasily with contemporary jingoism and militaristic rhetoric.Paul Long and Nick Webber (2018) ‘ "And then there was one" Public History, the Press and Veterans of the Great War’ in Journal of War and Culture Studies, 12 (2): 139–155.; Nick Webber and Paul Long (2014) ‘The Last Post: British Press Representations of Veterans of the Great War’, The Media, War and Conflict Journal, 7 (3): 273–90.
|
|
