Remembering three of the former QPR Players who were Severely Wounded in the Great War.

The following servicemen had at some point in their careers, played for Queen’s Park Rangers Football Club, and all tragically lost their lives serving their country:

Albert Edward Bonass, Corporal Albert ‘Ben’ Butler, Frank Cannon, Charlie Clarke, Joseph Dines, Albert Edwards, Alan Fowler, Oscar Horace Stanley Linkson, Evelyn Henry Lintott, Robert McLaren Law, John H. Pennifer, Albert Rogers, Harry Vernon Thornton and Corporal John Tosswill.

Apart from this terrible loss of life, these three former Rangers players were seriously wounded:

Dennis Higgins – He was a full-back who played 30 times for QPR and later joined the Sportsman’s Battalion. Dennis eventually became an officer, but was so badly injured at Ypres in Flanders that he never played again.

Lieutenant Harrie Barron, R.G.A – The Irish Independent reported on 7th March 1916 that it was learned by his mother that: ‘He is suffering from serious face wounds, inflicted by a grenade.

He was a distinguished Trinity student and a prominent footballer, having played for the University and Shelbourne Clubs, and subsequently, in England, assisted Queen’s Park Rangers and Sheffield Wednesday as an amateur. His promotion to a lieutenancy was gazetted on 3rd inst.’

James McNaught – The following article appeared in the Middlesex Chronicle on 23rd October 1915: ‘Corporal James McNaught, of the 5th Royal Fusiliers, son of Mrs Kemble, of 8 Lansdowne Road, Hounslow, and who in pre-war days was a well-known professional footballer playing for Queen’s Park Rangers, is now lying wounded in hospital at home.

He was first wounded at the battle of the Marne, and on recovering was again sent to France, receiving his second wound in the fighting around Ypres. He has been operated on several times, but it is feared that one of his legs will have to be amputated.’

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Steve Russell

(Thanks to Colin Woodley for his assistance)