Many readers will probably not know that the American Legion of Merit was awarded to a Farnham man by Harry S Truman, the citation being dated 29th January 1946.
When the Bourne Conservation Group took over the management of the Old Churchyard in Vicarage Hill on behalf of St Thomas-on-The Bourne Church, the Group decided to research the history of the area, reflected in the 700 or so marked and unmarked graves in the Churchyard. One of these, beside the path that runs across the southern end of the Churchyard, is the grave of Major General Eric Paytherus Nares CB, CBE, MC and Bar (1892 -1947).
Thanks to careful research by the late Wendy Maddox, who compiled detailed records of many families who lived in the Bourne, and of many who were buried in the old St Thomas’ Churchyard, we know that Eric Nares was the youngest of Ramsay and Jeanette Nares’ three sons; the others being Ramsay Llewellyn Ives b.1889 and Owen Ives b.1890, who is reported in the London Gazette of 9th February 1915 as a Second Lieutenant with 4th Battalion, The East Surrey Regiment.
Ramsay, whose father was Rector of Letterstone in Pembroke, was born in 1861, became a solicitor and in 1888 married Jeanette “Minnie” Plumb, a descendant of Thomas Yale who emigrated from Wrexham to America in 1637. Thomas’ nephew founded the Ivy League University of Yale. Ramsay left the legal profession on his marriage to Jeanette and the couple spent their early married life in Egham, moving to Farnham on his retirement in 1929. Too old for active service in the 1914-18 War, he organised several important county war services including the Surrey War Distress and Belgian Relief Funds. He was a Justice of the Peace until his death on 6th February 1934.
Wendy’s research shows that Ramsay was approached by the Chairman of Surrey County Council to organise elementary education in the County in anticipation of the 1902 Education Act (the controversial Balfour Act) which, among other things, abolished school boards and placed all elementary schools in the hands of Local Education Authorities, under the control of County and County Borough Councils. Shortly after, he was appointed Secretary to the Surrey Education Committee and in 1909 Vice Clerk of Surrey County Council, in which post he apparently prevented the then London County Council from establishing water rights in relation to large areas of Surrey – water in Surrey belonged to the people of Surrey.
Eric attended Marlborough and then Sandhurst RMC before serving as a career soldier with the Cheshire Regiment, seeing distinguished action in both World Wars, with tours of duty in India, the Middle East, North Africa, France and Belgium and the Central Mediterranean. In the course of his service he was mentioned in dispatches five times, was awarded the Military Cross with Bar and was wounded twice. He was married, briefly, to a Dutch national, Jeanne Hubertine, who sadly died of sand-fly fever in 1936 while accompanying her husband on a posting in Palestine.
Maj. General Eric Nares CBE MC1
Coming back to the award of the Legion of Merit; this was awarded in recognition of Eric Nare’s co-ordination of the Allied Forces in Italy. It refers to his “outstanding services in Italy from January to November 1944”, his setting “a fine example of Anglo-American cooperation” – often anticipating the needs of the American forces. It refers also to his handling “intricate problems of great importance to the Allied cause…. adroitly (and) speedily” and displaying “forceful competence” in managing “an area wherein representatives of nearly every allied nation served”.
Eric completed his Military Service as Commandant of the British troops in Berlin at the end of the war. He died on 18th June 1947 at Queen Alexandra’s Military Hospital, London, and was cremated following a service at St Thomas on-The Bourne. A Memorial tablet, erected by the Cheshire Regimental can be seen in the Regiment’s Chapel in Chester Cathedral.
The photograph below shows the allied commanders at the Allied Victory Parade in Berlin on 8th May 1946. From left to right – Maj. Gen. Frank A Keating (USA), Aleksandr Kotikov (Russia), Brig. Gen. Charles Lacon (France) and Maj. Gen. Eric P. Nares (UK).
A map of the burial plots in the Old Churchyard and some of the inscriptions on the monuments, recorded by the Farnham Centre of the West Surrey Family History Society, as well as information on the work of the Bourne Conservation Group can be found on the Group’s website www.bourneconservation.org.uk
Source: From an article published in the Farnham Herald 28th March 2024.