Photo: Bacon
Rev. David Youngson has offered the following:
2nd Lieutenant Reginald Henry CALLENDER
The son of Henry and Jessie G. Callender of Springfield House, Bishopton. He studied at Cambridge University and obtained a blue playing Association Football. He also played for The Corinthians and was part of the team of Stockton Football Club in the FA Amateur Cup Final in 1912 and was a keen cricketer.
He became a Cadet at Bedford in November 1914 and was Commissioned into the Durham Light Infantry 17th Battalion. He went to France in August 1915 and was accidentally killed by a hand grenade whilst lecturing to his men on the 5th October 1915 aged 23. He is buried in Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentieres, Nord, France, Grave Reference IX.D.16.
Janet Callender has offered this:
Reginald Henry’s father and my grandfather were cousins and over the last four years I have researched his life.
Reginald Henry Callender was born 31st August 1892, the eldest of 9 children (6 boys, 3 girls) of Henry and Jessie Gertrude (nee Mills) Callender of Springfield House, Bishopton. Henry was a butcher and cattle dealer and Jessie was the daughter of the local schoolmaster.
Reginald won a scholarship to Stockton Grammar School which he left in 1911. Another scholarship took him to Cambridge University firstly as a non-collegiate student for two terms, based at Fitzwilliam Hall. At Easter 1912 he entered St. John’s College. Whilst there he qualified as a teacher and graduated in History in the summer of 1914.
He was an all-year-round sportsman; cricket in summer, football in winter. He played cricket for Stockton in the South Durham and North Yorkshire League, for St. John’s College, for Cambridge University second team (the Saracens) and just after graduating, for Durham County.
He played football for Stockton, being in the team which won the FA Amateur Cup in 1912. He also played for Fitzwilliam Hall and then St. John’s College, for Cambridge University, for the Combined Varsities (Oxford & Cambridge), and for England as an amateur international, including some matches in Europe. In addition to this he played 1 match for Glossop and towards the end of the 1913-14 season, 5 matches for Derby County who were then in the first division. He also played for the Corinthians. He always played as an amateur and was rated by some as the best amateur outside left in the country.
In the Autumn term of 1914 he took up a teaching post at Bromley Boys School in Kent. He enlisted at the end of November that year and was gazetted in early December. He disembarked in France in August 1914 and at the beginning of October was fighting very near the Belgian border in the trenches. After returning from the trenches to their billet, all the men were to be instructed in bomb throwing. They spent the morning of the 5th October practising throwing bully beef tins. In the afternoon Reginald was demonstrating a hand grenade to his men when it exploded in his hand, killing him, Private Renforth and injuring several others.
I hope you can add at least some of this to the website, especially some details of his sporting achievements as sport was obviously an integral part of his life and thus part of who he was.
Reginald Henry Callender is remembered at Bishopton on B142.01, in Stockton on S138.29 and in the D.L.I. Book of Remembrance page 274