John Albert Gordon Smyth was born in Blaby (Leicestershire) on 13th April 1886, the son of Henry and Clara Smyth. Henry, born in Sierra Leone, led the life of an itinerant clerical Minister before settling in South East London.
In the absence of any photographs, we have to consider carefully the evidence concerning John’s ethnicity. Writing in ‘Black Tommies’, the historian and academic, Ray Costello, is convinced that John was of mixed heritage and he cites several pieces of evidence to support this claim. For instance, John’s father, Henry, attended the first Pan African Conference in Westminster in 1900 and later accompanied the organiser of that event, Sylvester Williams, to Manchester to help galvanise support there. That evidence won’t be repeated in full here but, as we will see later, there is further evidence on the paperwork when John enlisted to serve.
John was working in a bank as a cashier when war broke out. He was unmarried. In October 1914 he was commissioned into the 1st Cadet Battalion Royal West Kent Volunteer Regiment. On 19th December 1915 he signed up to serve for the duration of the war at St Paul’s Churchyard. He was a volunteer as conscription for single men was not introduced until the following month. Oddly, he completed two attestation forms that day, one is marked ‘duplicate’ (although they aren’t quite identical). One of the forms shows his complexion as ‘salla’ (?) the other shows ‘sallow’. On both forms his eyes and hair are described as ‘dark brown’. This detail lends further support to the belief that he was of mixed heritage. Intriguingly, the duplicate attestation form is witnessed by ‘Bemand’ (the initials are not absolutely clear). Two Bemand brothers (George Edward Kingsley and Harold Leslie) of mixed heritage, who lived in London, are known to have enlisted, fought and died for their country and it seems entirely possible that, although he would have been around six to eight years older than the brothers, they would have known each other.
We know from the paperwork that Smyth wore glasses (his eyesight was variously described on the two forms as 6/9 or 6/6 [6/12 without glasses – this is not great but probably just about good enough to pass today’s driving test]) and that he had an ‘artificial denture’.
On 3rd April 1916 Smyth joined the Royal Fusiliers. He was sick with Rubella (German Measles) from 8th to 18th May but when he recovered, on 26th June, he applied to become an officer. However his initial application for a permanent commission didn’t fare well. His good moral character was confirmed in a letter from the Vicar of Deptford based on having known him for seven years, but this seems to have cut little ice, scrawled across his application are the words ‘horrible bounder – reject’.
This is a pretty surprising comment, either he made some sort of off-colour remark or he was, literally, ‘off colour’, a fact that was found unacceptable.
He must have applied again because on 8th January 1917 he was discharged from the Royal Fusiliers ‘having been granted a commission in the Royal Lancaster Regiment’. Perhaps high casualty rates had obliged the Army to adopt a more flexible approach?
His final tour of duty started on 4th May 1918 when he arrived in France from England. He was initially reported ‘missing’ on 29th June 1918 and on 6th July he was confirmed as killed in action. He left an estate worth £606 8s 5d (worth over £20,000 today) with his father as the beneficiary. He was buried in the Merville Community Cemetery Extension.
His name appears on the war memorial of St Margaret’s Church at Lee in South London. On a visit to the church in June 2016 the board was not on display but the custodians very kindly brought it out of storage, enabling it to be photographed:
