Pocklington School teachers, Hannah and Andy Towner, recently honoured a fallen OP whilst on holiday in Vancouver Island, Canada.
They visited the Duncan Cenotaph in Charles Hoey Park in July and laid a wreath to remember OP Charles Hugh Pearson Lipscomb who settled in Cowichan Valley, before enlisting as a soldier during the First World War. Hannah and Andy’s visit was reported in the Cowichan Valley Citizen on 23 July and noted the following details from Lipscomb’s life:
“Lipscomb was born in 1880, the son of a parson, and educated at Pocklington School [where he was captain of cricket for three years and the 1st XI when the school played football, not rugby]. He left school in 1898 and emigrated to Canada in 1908.
He settled in the Cowichan Valley and then the city of Duncan, working first for the Cowichan Creamery Association before becoming a partner in the Cameron Farmers’ Exchange of Hilliers’s Crossing.
As well as playing football for Duncan, Lipscomb joined the Cowichan Cricket Club and, in a famous match in 1912, he scored 103 in a score of 333 to three.
He enlisted in July, 1916, and was eventually drafted to England to join the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles. Lipscomb took part in the Vimy Ridge attack as part of the Battle of Arras in April, 1917, when he was wounded and evacuated.
He died in the Australian Hospital at Boulogne on April 18, aged 36. He left a widow and two children under the age of four.
Lipscomb is buried in Wimereux Cemetery in France, two rows away from the grave of John McCrae, author of the well-known war poem “In Flanders Fields”.
The Towners also presented a plaque of the Pocklington School crest to the Cowichan Cricket Club in memory of Lipscomb.
Andy said: “Hannah and I were glad we had the honour of laying this wreath in memory of Hugh Lipscomb.
He continued: “It was also great to meet some of the members of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 53, who were so helpful in arranging this tribute.”
Acknowledgement to Robert Barron from Cowichan Valley Citizen (www.cowichanvalleycitizen.com)