This past year, the Society had but one event since the COVID-19 pandemic swept across this country, a small socially distanced and masked Remembrance Sunday Service at Lorraine Park Cemetery. This was the first such service in many years. While relatively unknown to most Americans, Remembrance Sunday is of major importance in the United Kingdom and her former territories since it began following the end of the Great War.

With monuments and memorials to the fallen from both World Wars in every town and village throughout the United Kingdom, not to mention train stations and department stores in every corner of London, in addition to the large public memorials in London parks, it is hard to escape the importance those wars had on the United Kingdom. Today, Remembrance Sunday is a chance to remember not only the war dead from those conflicts but also every conflict since those global wars. Here in Baltimore, we too have Commonwealth War Graves.

The St. George’s Society has a long history of providing graves for British expatriates, beginning in 1901 with the creation of “The Victoria Memorial Fund of the Saint George’s Society,” later known as the “Contingent Fund,” which resulted in the purchase of a lot at Druid Ridge Cemetery, known as the Victoria Memorial Lot. This lot, which was largely aided by a liberal donation from Mr. Edwin Bennett, who not only erected the handsome monument on the lot to the memory of Queen Victoria but also left the Society with a liberal legacy. The graves in this lot are exclusively expatriates or those of British descent.

During the Great War, our Society was involved in the war effort, providing 1,130 meals and lodgings and making arrangements to get over one hundred men back to England in 1914. Liberal contributions were also made that year to the “Prince of Wales Fund.” The following year the annual dinner was dispensed with, and contributions were made to the above-mentioned fund in its place.

The Society, however, was not directly involved in the burials of any British or Commonwealth servicemen. There are four Commonwealth War Graves in Baltimore today, each located at a separate cemetery, for Acting Leading Seaman Joseph Thompson Clark, Cadet William Webster Eden, Private Harry Ross aka Harry Fooksman, and Acting Leading Seaman Eustace Alfred Bromley. While these four servicemen are buried in marked graves, Bromley is buried with two British merchant sailors, Cadet Reginald Cyril Johnson and Seaman Algot Buske, who died with Bromley in the same ship fire, and still to this day have unmarked graves.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, the Society was once again at the ready to provide war relief to the United Kingdom. In 1941 an event took place which resulted in the creation of the Society lots at Lorraine Park Cemetery. On October 23, 1941, Society member William S. Langston was walking down Lexington Street in Baltimore when he saw a British merchant sailor in his uniform. Langston took the sailor aside and said hello. The sailor, Edward Dumbrill of London, England, then serving on the SS Sevillia, had been given four hours of leave because his wife had just had a baby, and Dumbrill asked Langston where he could buy a teddy bear and a tin of tobacco. Langston helped Dumbrill find the teddy bear and invited him back to his home, then above the old Wyndhurst Station on the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad in Roland Park. There in a 14’x14’ room, Langston had a bunch of guys drinking beer and playing darts. About 1am Dumbrill, finding the activity a bit too rough for himself, asked Langston to take him back to the ship. On their way, they stopped at the last bar before they reached the ship in Locust Point to pick up any stragglers and found several crew members. Recognizing Dumbrill the other sailors came out dancing and singing, and they continued on towards the ship. Langston wished them well and drove home. The ship had no gangplank, only a ladder. At half-past five in the morning Dumbrill was found at the bottom of the ladder with his head crushed in and his arm still around the teddy bear. Langston was contacted that morning by the British Vice-Consul to see to burial arrangements for Dumbrill.

In addition to the 17 merchant sailors buried at the cemetery who died during the Second World War, there are three Commonwealth War Graves of servicemen who died during that war, Master John Fishwick, Able Seaman Thomas Frank Cox, and Gunner Ernest Charles Douglas Meadows.

For many years these graves at Lorraine Park Cemetery were remembered on Empire Day, later known as Commonwealth Day, together with the graves at the Victoria Memorial Lot, though they do not seem to have been remembered with a service on Remembrance Sunday, and certainly have not been remembered by any services in many years.

Last year for the first time in years, in addition to marking the Commonwealth War Graves at Lorraine Park with representatives of the Royal Navy and British Army, the Society also marked the four Commonwealth War Graves from the Great War.

It is the intention of the Society that beginning with last years’ service, that these Commonwealth War Graves will continue to be marked and maintained and services be conducted each Remembrance Sunday for many years to come. We hope you will be able to join us this November 14th at Lorraine Park Cemetery to remember the sacrifices these men paid for our tomorrows.

For more information, please download the St.George's Society of Baltimore's newsletter.