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Clifton Rugby Football Club History |
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Harold Ewart Rudman |
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Captain Harold Ewart Rudman - Killed in action 19th July 1916 - Gloucestershire Regiment 6th Battalion 'D' Company.
Above Harold Rudman from The Illustrated London News on February 3rd 1917.
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| Back Row (L-R): ?, Seymour Williams, Egerton, Tom Board, Gilbert Rudman, Tom Cartwright, Fuller, Stanley Sinnott, Spark Evans, Stockley Sinnott, Hutchinson, Thompson. Front Row: Capt. Gardiner, Harold Lewis, James Rudman, Lt. Col. Purchase (Inspecting Commandant R.E.), Col. Plant, Capt. Horniblow (Adjutant), Col. George Gibbs (later the 1st Lord Wraxall), Jolly, Capt. Martin. |
Above the 2nd Gloucestershire Volunteer Royal Engineers at Camp in Weston-spuer-Mare in 1895 with his father James Rudman and his brother Gilbert Rudman.
Above left a close up of his father James and right his brother Gilbert from the 1895 photo. His father died on the 2nd June 1898 at 3 Apsley Road, Clifton and is buried at Arnos Vale Cemetery.
Above Mary Rudman, Harold's sister, which was found in the album of fellow Clifton College and Clifton RFC player Alfred Gardiner.
During the 1901 census the Rudman Family lived at 3 Apsley Road, above.
The 1947 Clifton College Register for Jan. 1891 says
4370 Rudman, Harold Ewart; b.30.10.83; br. 3514, 5063; HH,NT; c-vb; CADET PAIR, S. VIII; L1901; 1914 War, Capt., 6th Glos. Regt.; k.(action), 1916.
The 1912 Clifton College Register adds son of J.Rudman, Clifton and the address 96 Pembroke Road, Clifton.
Above 96 Pembroke Road, Clifton, 1912 home of Harold Rudman.
His brother Francis Reginald Rider Rudman appears in the 1908-09 1st XV photo.
He was the son of Emily and James Rudman, Harold was born on 30th October 1883 in Redland, Bristol . His father was an oil importer and paint manufacturer, and Harold enjoyed a comfortable upbringing with two brothers and a sister in Clifton, although his father died before the turn of the century.
Harold joined Clifton Rugby Club in 1903-04 and after war broke out served as an officer in the Gloucestershire Regiment, 6th Battalion 'D' Company.
He was killed at Fromelles carrying out an attack on German trenches. No Man’s Land became so congested by dead and wounded soldiers that the attack was aborted. In total 178 men of the 2/6 Glosters died. The action, at a point known as Sugar Loaf, was an unmitigated disaster for the Australian 5 th Division, in particular, which suffered 5,533 casualties and 400 captured in a single night. This attack was a diversion for the renewed offensive taking place further south on the Somme, intended to prevent the Germans from sending reserves to replace their casualties in 'the main event'.
Above Fromelles Battlefiled.
Harold Rudman’s body was never found and he is listed on the Loos Memorial.
Above the Loos Memorial.
Above the plaque which was in the Emmanuel Church, Clifton. The church has now been converted into flats.