The War Memorial Chapel turns 100 tomorrow on 31 October 2026.

We have run several articles about the Memorial Chapel, outlining the history behind it.  

https://www.odunion.com/news/archives-history/2180/2180-Bishops-100-years-ago-

https://www.odunion.com/news/archives-history/2157/2157-The-War-Memorial-Chapel-one-of-Bishops-icons

https://www.odunion.com/news/archives-history/2202/2202-The-Bronze-Tablets-with-the-names-and-surnames-of-the-112-Bishops-Fallen-of-WWI

https://www.odunion.com/news/archives-history/1182/1182-The-Memorial-Chapel-at-Bishops

But today was the service to commemorate the Chapel's centenary, as well as the unveilng of the Bishop Tutu Commemorative Statue to mark this special occasion.

The beautiful programme is at communication.bishops.org.za/college/documents/BishopsChapelProgramme_Oct26.pdf  (please copy and paste the link into your browser - apologies for this) 

The School's Visitor, Archbishop Thabo Makhoba celebrated at the special Eucharist for the occasion. 

 It was under the inspiration of Canon Birt that the Chapel was erected in 1926.  Birt presented a comprehensive development plan for the campus to include a new chapel, to seat 750. The method to pay for the newly proposed building was by prescription, to commemorate the 112 fallen ODs in WWI. The figure of £12,000.00 for a Memorial Chapel was set, for the War Memorial Fund.

Furthermore, a Memorial Development Fund of £30,000.00 was proposed for more Houses, classrooms and a separate Preparatory School in Duke Road (which followed in the early twenties) as well as a Science Block, Sanatorium, Cricket Pavilion and a new swimming pool. The Memorial Chapel Fund was extended to £15,000.00 to include the cost of furniture and fittings. Promises of payment were accepted from 1 October 1919, followed by actual payment over a period of three years.

Thus, was born the War Memorial Chapel.    

The foundation stone for the new chapel was laid by the Governor-General, the Earl of Athlone, on 10 June 1925 and on 31 October 1926 the new War Memorial Chapel was dedicated by Archbishop Carter.    

At the dedication service a special procession began from the Brooke Chapel, into the colonnade and then to the entrance of the new chapel. The preacher was the Reverend John Brooke, OD, and brother of Captain Cyril Thornthwaite Brooke who had died fighting in France on 22 August 1917. They were the sons of a former principal of Bishops (the fifth principal), Archdeacon Richard Brooke. In John Gardener’s history of Bishops, it explains a part of the sermon:

“Brooke spoke of the mingled feelings of thanksgiving and sorrow with which they met. There was thanksgiving for the accomplishment of the magnificent Chapel, for the generosity of giving which had made it possible, for the keenness of the boys of the time. But there was sorrow too, for those in whose memory the Chapel had been built.”  

Part of the sermon was quoted, thus: “ODs in the prime of their life, young men of the type our beloved South Africa stands so much in need of, sacrificed in a quarrel for which they were in no way responsible” (the full text appears in the Diocesan College Magazine, June 1927).  

The following year (1927), General Smuts unveiled the War Memorial bronze plaque that appears above the main entrance of the chapel, commemorating the names of all the 112 ODs who had given their lives fighting Pro Fide et Patria.  

The WWI record of Bishops is a distinguished one for a school and from publications such as "Public Schools and the Great War, the Generation Lost" by Anthony Seldon and David Walsh (Pen & Sword, 2013), the account of Bishops and ODs confirms that the effort was a substantial one, as part of the broader effort from schools in Britain and abroad. A minimum of 800 ODs volunteered to go on active service; 112 were killed/died; at least 160 were wounded; at least 170 received honours/awards; and 500 commissions were held (from 2nd Lieutenant to General).  

Between 3 – 5 October 2017 an OD Tour of the Western Front organized by Nicky Bicket (1973F) was undertaken by Bishops Staff, ODs and their families to remember and honour the ODs who gave their lives and to dedicate a plaque to their memory in St George’s Chapel, Ypres in Belgium, places close to where so many of the ODs fell, but also elsewhere on the continent and in the world.  

ODs fell fighting on land, in the air and at sea, in the following arenas: France, Somaliland, East Africa, Gallipoli, The Dardanelles, North India, Loos in Belgium, Flanders, Egypt, Dellville Wood, Mesopotamia in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean Sea, in an airplane over England, Palestine, at sea en route to England, an airplane accident over Scotland, Germany, in South Africa stationed, London and in Cologne in the Army of Occupation. The Honours Awards of which there were a minimum of 170, included the highest, namely, the Companion of the Order of the Bath (C.B.), the Victoria Cross (V.C) and the Military Cross (M.C.) (sixty-three). Officers serving included Major-Generals, Brigadier-Generals, officers and non-commissioned officers.

The following were among the most distinguished awards: the C.B. to Major-General Alexander Hastings Eustace, CB, CBE, DSO (June 1863 – 1939) who commanded the Kohat Independent Brigade on the North-West Frontier of India between 1915 and 1919; and the V.C. to Captain Oswald A. Reid, of the Liverpool Regiment for valour displayed in Mesopotamia.

Today the War Memorial Chapel serves the College, the Pre-Prep and the Prep School as well as the Bishops Community, daily.  All who enter this magnificent edifice can never fail to see it as an aulic, majestic and grand space. Here all can come to worship, as those did 100 years ago, whether it be a celebration of life service, assembly, daily routine chapel services, concerts, weddings or private prayer. The current 808 College students and the Staff members of the College, in a single sitting still manage to fit into this space, conceived and constructed 100 years ago, from visionaries such as Canon Birt and others.  

The memory of those 112 ODs who died in the war can never be obliterated; nor the thought that they would never return to take up their rightful seats in the pews of the very place in which their names live forever.

Ad maioram gloriam dei!

Sources:

Bishops 150, A History of the Diocesan College, Rondebosch by John Gardener at al., Juta, 1997.

Diocesan College, Rondebosch (Cape): “Bishops”, Record in the Great War – 1914 – 1918, pamphlet 1919 (compiled by Frank Reid).  

Archbishop Thabo Makhoba who blessed the Centenary Commemorative Statue, in honour of Archbishops Tutu, created to mark the centenary of the War Memorial Chapel.

The congregation at the occasion of the 100th year of the Memorial Chapel.

The 15th Principal Tony Reeler addressing the gathering on the lawns in front of the Chapel.