{"id":1034,"date":"2016-10-14T08:24:22","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T08:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/specialcollections\/?p=1034"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:22:04","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:22:04","slug":"garth-smithies-taylor-1896-1916","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/specialcollections\/2016\/10\/14\/garth-smithies-taylor-1896-1916\/","title":{"rendered":"Garth Smithies Taylor (1896-1916)"},"content":{"rendered":"

15 October 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the death in action of Lieutenant Garth Smithies Taylor, a name which many staff and students at the University will have unwittingly passed on numerous occasions when entering the Fielding Johnson Building. The following account of Taylor’s life, death and significance to the University was researched and written by Elizabeth Blood<\/strong>, PhD student in the School of History, Politics and International Relations working on the creation of local war memorials in Leicestershire during and immediately following World War One. Additional information provided by Simon Dixon<\/strong>. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"ULA\/HIS\/FOU\/2,<\/a>

ULA\/HIS\/FOU\/2, Memorial Portraits Book, Photograph of Garth Smithies Taylor<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

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Ut Vitam Habeant<\/em>, the University\u2019s motto, may be unintelligible to those of us who were not taught Latin. When translated to \u2018that they may have life\u2019 its meaning may still elude most of us. It was chosen to reflect the fact that the University, founded as Leicestershire and Rutland University College<\/em> in 1921, was set up in memory of the First World War and the casualties that it claimed. It was the inspiration of the College\u2019s first Principal, Dr. R. F. Rattray, perhaps in light of a Biblical quotation, from John 10.10: \u201cThe thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Records in the University Archives record a number of donations towards the founding of the University College made in memory of nine young men who were killed in the conflict. The names of those soldiers are inscribed on a memorial tablet at the entrance to the Fielding Johnson Building on the University campus. This building, originally the County Asylum, had been used as a military hospital during the war. It is named after Thomas Fielding Johnson, a local hosiery manufacturer who bought the former hospital site and donated it to the people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland for educational use. Among those remembered on the tablet is Garth Smithies Taylor, who was killed in action on 15 October 1916 at the age of just 20.<\/p>\n

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\"First<\/a>

First World War memorial tablet, Fielding Johnson Building, University of Leicester<\/p><\/div>\n

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The above photograph of Taylor is taken from the Memorial Portraits book (ULA HIS\/FOU\/2, Memorial Portraits), a volume of photographs and brief biographies of prominent donors and those they wished to remember. It records that Lieutenant Taylor was in the 2nd<\/sup> Battalion Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Regiment (the Sherwood Foresters) at the time that he was killed.<\/p>\n

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Two donations are recorded in his memory towards the founding of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland College, and this is why his name appears on the Fielding Johnson Building plaque:<\/p>\n

Dr. F. W. Bennett (\u201cTo the Honour of Garth Taylor, killed in action\u201d) \u00a3500<\/p>\n

Capt. & Mrs. T. Smithies Taylor (\u201cIn memory of their son, Lieut. Garth Taylor, Sherwood Foresters\u201d) \u00a3100<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\t\t