Clive Rose had been visiting his sister, Enid, and brother-in-law, Captain Charles Pugh, at Bulford Army Camp over the weekend. He had ridden from his home in Ealing by motorcycle, as usual, this time on a new bike. It was around 8.45 on that dark Sunday evening, when he said goodbye to Enid and Charles and set off home for his working week. There were no witnesses to what happened next, but an hour later he was found near Micheldever Station by a passing motorist, lying in the road, unconscious. His motorbike was on its side, with the headlamp still shining. There was no sign of any collision. He was taken in another passer’s-by car to Andover War Memorial Hospital. There he died of his head injury at 6.00 the next morning, 11 February 1929.

Clive was only 26 and unmarried. For his parents and three sisters, this was a bitter and shocking family tragedy. But it was his father, Horace, who took it hardest. Indeed, there are signs that he never got over it. He and Clive’s mother, Lucy, were living in Jersey at the time. Clive was their only son, the youngest of the four. This story follows how Horace decided to commemorate the sadly cut short life of his son.

The inquest, held by the Andover coroner on the Tuesday afternoon, recorded a verdict of accidental death. The decision was taken, presumably by his parents, that Clive should be buried in Andover Cemetery, in the town in whose hospital he died, rather than in Ealing or any other place associated with his family. The cemetery is the extension of the town’s churchyard, lying north of the parish church of St Mary, which it adjoins. There he was laid to rest after a funeral service in St Mary’s on Friday, 15 February. The first opportunity for a memorial was to commission a monument to mark Clive’s grave.

Clive’s short life had showed the promise of a distinguished career. Clive Horace Doran Rose was born in December 1902 in Gurdaspur, Bengal, India. He was living in Folkestone with his mother and two of his sisters in 1911, attending a nearby prep school, his father still working in India. A pupil at Rugby School from 1916 to 1921, he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Oxford. He graduated BA in 1924. He had not long qualified as a chartered accountant at the time of his death.

His father, Horace, born in 1867, had a distinguished career in the Indian Civil Service in Punjab. Arriving in 1888, he was soon promoted to deputy commissioner, then specialised in ethnography. Between 1902 and 1927, he jointly wrote a number of books on ethnographic themes, starting with the intriguing Notes on Female Tattoo Designs in India (1902)! Subsequently, he became a sessions judge. He joined the Indian Army in 1910, serving in France during the First World War. He was awarded the temporary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1917. Retiring in 1918, initially to ‘Hampshire’ (the records are not more specific), by 1921 he had moved with Lucy and their youngest daughter, Enid, to St Brelade, Jersey, for health reasons.

With its carefully chosen quotations from Wordsworth, ‘Trailing clouds of glory do we come / From God who is our home’ and Browning, ‘Once more on my adventure brave and new: / Fearless and unperplexed, / When I wage battle next’, the memorial in Andover Cemetery to Clive ‘dearly loved only son’ stands out from inscriptions usual in this or indeed other cemeteries. Presumably the memorial was erected in 1929 or 1930.

But another, far more ambitious and colourful idea for commemorating his son was maturing in Horace’s mind: a stained-glass window. Where better could that be installed than in St Mary’s church, near his son’s grave? With his administrative and legal experience and social standing, he was well capable of negotiating the careful inquiries which were necessary. He would need to persuade the church authorities, locally in Andover and in the bishop of Winchester’s office, both of the quality and appropriateness of his proposal. One question would be their connection to church and town. The only local link was the tragic death of Clive in Andover hospital and his burial in the cemetery.

There was also the important matter of the design. In 1932 or 1933, Horace commissioned the west London-based stained-glass artist, E Liddall Armitage (1887-1967), to draft a proposal to put to the church authorities. This was relatively early in Armitage’s career, which extended from 1920 to the mid-1960s. Interestingly, a military theme was invoked, despite Clive’s apparent lack of military connection. The proposal was to commemorate Clive by a window of St George triumphing over the dragon. Indeed, his young deceased son would actually be cast as St George.

However, even more poignantly, in September 1933, before the proposed window was approved and could be installed, Horace himself died in Jersey. By his wish, he was cremated and his remains brought for burial in the grave of his beloved son in Andover Cemetery. No further inscription was added to the memorial stone. But his wife now proposed additionally that a brass plaque to Horace’s memory be placed under the memorial window to Clive. In the church council minutes of 30 January 1934, it was noted that ‘Mrs Rose has also given ten guineas to be expended on the interior of the church’. Final approval was given in February and the work was completed by the summer. The Andover Advertiser, quoted in St Mary’s Parish Magazine for August 1934, reported that both window and plaque were dedicated together by the vicar, Revd Patrick F A Morrell (vicar 1929-1940), on Sunday, 15 July. The vicar commented later to the church council on 3 August, that ‘the window was a great acquisition to the church’.

The inscription on the finished window reads ‘Clive, the only son of H A Rose’—no mention of his also grieving mother and sisters. He poses as St George, in medieval plate armour, standing in triumph over the dead body of the red dragon, with four coats of arms and the inscription. The almost photographic likeness of Clive’s face, looks down at the viewer. It is interesting that there is a strikingly similar window of St George designed by E Liddall Armitage installed in the same year, 1934, in St Mary the Virgin, Leake, North Yorkshire. The face of St George in this depiction is more generic as a young warrior. There was a certain economy for the artist in reusing the design, though which came first?The inscription on the brass plaque below the window characterises Horace as, ‘A lover of equity. A lifelong student and writer on ethnology. He ever strove to influence the castes to improve the status of women in the Punjab.’ The whole legacy is very curious and unusual. So, it can be appreciated why it is remembered that this unique window was visited by local Sunday School children brought to St Mary’s church by their teachers. It made a lasting impression. They were amazed as they looked at the young face of St George, the chartered accountant.