Harry Patch17 June 1898(1898-06-17) – 25 July 2009 (aged 111)
Harry Patch at age 109

Henry John "Harry" Patch (17 June 1898 – 25 July 2009) — known as "the Last Tommy" — was a British supercentenarian, briefly the oldest man in Europe and the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of the First World War.^[1] Patch was, with Claude Choules, one of the last two surviving British veterans of the First World War, and along with Frank Buckles and John Babcock, one of the last four worldwide. At the time of his death, aged 111 years, 38 days, Patch was the verified third-oldest man in the world, the oldest man in Europe and one of the 70 oldest men ever.

Biography

Patch was born in the village of Combe Down, near Bath in Somerset, England. He appears in the 1901 Census as a two-year-old along with his stonemason father William, mother Elizabeth and older brothers George and William at a house called "Fonthill". Patch left school in 1913,^[2] and started work as an apprentice plumber in Bath.^[3]

In October 1916, he was conscripted as a private into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, serving as an assistant gunner in a Lewis Gun section. Patch arrived in France in June 1917.^[4] During his time in France he fought at Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres). Patch was injured in the groin when a shell exploded overhead at 22:30 on 22 September 1917, killing three of his comrades. After this he was removed from the front line and returned to England on 23 December 1917.^[4] Patch referred to 22 September as his personal Remembrance Day. He was convalescing on the Isle of Wight when the Armistice was declared.^[5]

After the war, Patch returned to work as a plumber, during which time he spent four years working on the Wills Memorial Building in Bristol, before becoming manager of the plumbing company’s branch in Bristol.^[6] Too old to fight during the Second World War, he became a part-time fireman in Bath, dealing with the Baedeker raids.^[6][7] Later in the war he moved to Street, Somerset where he ran a plumbing company until his retirement at age 65.^[6]

In 1918, Patch married Ada Billington, who died in 1976. They had two sons, both of whom predeceased him: Dennis, who died in 1984, and Roy, who died in 2002.^[2] At age 81 he married his second wife, Jean, who died in 1984. His third partner, Doris, who lived in the same nursing home as him, died in 2007.^[8]

Patch had refused to discuss his war experiences, until approached in 1998 for the BBC One documentary Veterans, on reflection of which and the

realisation that he was part of a fast dwindling group of veterans of "the war to end all wars", persuaded him to step into the limelight.^[5]

Patch featured in the 2003 television series World War 1 in Colour, and was quoted as saying "...if any man tells you he went over the top and he wasn't scared, he's a damn liar." In the same series, he reflected upon his lost friends and the moment when he came face to face with a German soldier. He recalled Moses descending from Mount Sinai with God's commandment, 'thou shalt not kill', and couldn't kill the German. Instead, he shot him in the shoulder, which made him drop his rifle. But he carried on running towards Patch's Lewis Gun, so he then shot him above the knee, and in the ankle. Patch said, "I had about five seconds to make the decision. I brought him down, but I didn't kill him."

“Any one of them could have been me. Millions of men came to fight in this war and I find it incredible that I am the only one left.„

—Commenting on graves at a Flanders war cemetery, July 2007, ^[9]

In November 2004, at the age of 106, he met Charles Kuentz,^[10] a 107-year-old veteran who had fought on the German side at the battlefield of Passchendaele (and on the French side in World War II). Patch was quoted as saying: "I was a bit doubtful before meeting a German soldier. Herr Kuentz is a very nice gentleman however. He is all for a united Europe and peace – and so am I". Kuentz had brought along a tin of Alsatian biscuits and Patch gave him a bottle of Somerset cider in return.^[11] The meeting was featured in a 2005 BBC TV programme The Last Tommy, which told the story of six of the World War I veterans alive at the time.^[12]

In December 2004, Patch was given a present of 106 bottles of Patch's Pride Cider, which has been named after him and produced by the Gaymer Cider Company.^[13]. In Spring 2005 he was interviewed by the Today programme in which he said of the First World war: "Too many died. War isn’t worth one life,” and said war was the “calculated and condoned slaughter of human beings". This interview was the inspiration for a 2009 song by the band Radiohead, Harry Patch (In Memory Of).

In July 2005, Patch voiced his outrage over plans to build a motorway in northern France over cemeteries of the First World War.

On 16 December 2005, Patch was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Bristol,^[14] whose buildings he helped construct in the 1920s.^[15] The University's newly-restored Wills Memorial Building was reopened by Patch on 20 February 2008. He was chosen for this honour as he was a member of the workforce that originally helped build the tower, which was opened on 9 June 1925 by King George V, an event which Patch also attended.^[16]

In July 2007, marking the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Passchendaele, in which he fought, Patch revisited the site of the battle in Flanders to pay his respects to the fallen on both sides of the conflict. He was accompanied by historian

Richard van Emden. On this occasion, Patch described war as the "calculated and condoned slaughter of human beings" and said that "war isn't worth one life."^[17]

In August 2007, Patch's autobiography The Last Fighting Tommy was published, making him one of the oldest authors ever.^[18] With the proceeds from this book, Patch decided to fund an Inshore Lifeboat for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and he attended the RNLI's Lifeboat College on 20 July 2007 to officially name the boat The Doris and Harry.^[19]

In February 2008, the poet laureate of the United Kingdom Andrew Motion was commissioned by the BBC West television programme Inside Out West to write a poem in Patch's honour. Entitled "The Five Acts of Harry Patch" it was first read at a special event at the Bishop's Palace in Wells where it was introduced by the Prince of Wales and received by Harry Patch.^[20][21]

In July 2008, Wells City Council conferred the freedom of the city of Wells on Patch.^[22]

On 27 September 2008, in a private ceremony attended by just a few people, Patch opened a memorial on the bank of the Steenbeek at the point where he crossed the river in 1917. The memorial reads:- “Here, at dawn, on 16 August 1917, the 7th Battalion, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, 20th (Light) division, crossed the Steenbeek prior to their successful assault on the village on Langemarck. This stone is erected to the memory of fallen comrades, and to honour the courage, sacrifice and passing of the Great War generation. It is the gift of former Private and Lewis Gunner Harry Patch, No. 29295, C Company, 7th DCLI, the last surviving veteran to have served in the trenches of the Western Front."^[23]

In October 2008, Patch launched the 2008 Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal in Somerset. ^[24] On 11 November 2008, marking the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, together with fellow veterans Henry Allingham and Bill Stone, Patch laid a commemorative wreath for the Act of Remembrance at The Cenotaph in London, escorted by Victoria Cross recipient Johnson Beharry.^[25]

On 9 November 2008, the Master of the Queen's Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies attended the world premiere of his choral work paying tribute to Patch. The piece sets words by the then Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, and was performed at Portsmouth Cathedral by the London Mozart Players, the

Portsmouth Grammar School chamber choir and the cathedral's choristers. The creation of the work was featured in A poem for Harry, a BBC West documentary that was subsequently repeated on BBC Four. The programme subsequently won a gold medal at the New York Festivals International Television Programming and Promotion Awards.^[26]

On 18 July 2009, on the death of Henry Allingham, Patch became the oldest surviving veteran and also the oldest man in the United Kingdom.^[27] Patch was the last trench veteran of World War I. The penultimate Western Front veteran, the 108-year-old Fernand Goux of France, who died on 9 November 2008, fought for 8 days. He came out unscathed, unlike Patch and the last Alpine Front veteran, 110-year-old Delfino Borroni of Italy, who died on 26 October 2008. Patch was also the last surviving Tommy, since the death on 4 April 2009 of Netherwood Hughes, who was still in training when the war ended. The penultimate fighting Tommy, Andrew Rigby, died on 9 June 2006, the week before Patch's 108th birthday. Claude Choules, the last remaining First World War naval veteran, lives in Perth, Australia.^[1]

— An extract from The Last Fighting Tommy, Patch's book; the extract was read out at Patch's funeral by Marie-France Andre, the charge d'affaires of the Belgian embassy, August 2009.^[28]

Patch lived in Wells, Somerset, at the Fletcher House nursing home, where he died on 25 July 2009 just seven days after the death of Henry Allingham, who had been the only other remaining British-resident First World War veteran.

Harry Patch received eight medals.

For his service in the First World War he received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.^[29]

In 1998, as a surviving veteran of the First World War who had fought for the Allies in France and Flanders, the President of the Republic of France appointed Patch a Knight of the

Légion d'honneur. The award was presented to Patch on his 101st birthday. On 9 March 2009, Patch was appointed an Officer of the Légion d'honneur by the French Ambassador at his nursing home in Somerset.^[30]

On 7 January 2008, Albert II, King of the Belgians, conferred upon Patch the award of Knight of the Order of Leopold. He received the award from Jean-Michel Veranneman de Watervliet, Belgium's Ambassador to the United Kingdom at a ceremony in the Ambassador's residence in London on 22 September 2008, which coincidentally was the 91st anniversary of the day he was wounded in action, and three of his closest friends killed.^[31]

At the end of the Second World War, Patch was awarded the 1939–45 Defence Medal. This medal was subsequently lost and, on 20 September 2008, at a ceremony at Bath Fire Station, Patch was presented with a replacement medal.^[32][33]

Patch also received two commemorative medals: the National Service Medal and the Hors de combat medal, which signifies outstanding bravery of servicemen and women who have sustained wounds or injury in the line of duty.

In accordance with his wishes, Harry Patch's medals are now on display at the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry Museum in Bodmin.^[34]

Patch died at 9am on 25 July 2009, aged 111 years, one month, one week and one day. Patch died seven days after the death of fellow veteran Henry Allingham, aged 113. The Prince of Wales led the tributes to him, saying: "Today, nothing could give me greater pride than paying tribute to Harry Patch, of Somerset."^[1] Patch was the last First World War veteran living in Europe, and the last remaining British male to have been born in the 1890s.

Patch's funeral was held in Wells Cathedral on Thursday 6 August 2009.^[35][36] At 11.00am, the bells of Wells Cathedral were rung 111 times to mark each year of his life. A quarter peal of Grandsire Caters was also rung, half muffled,^[37] while quarter-peals were also rung in Bristol and at several other churches around the country.^[38] His coffin travelled from his home, Fletcher House, to the cathedral where the service commenced at noon.^[39] The theme of the service was “Peace and Reconciliation" and in addition to pallbearers from The Rifles (the successor regiment to the Duke of Cornwall'

 Light Infantry), Patch's coffin was accompanied by two private soldiers from each of the armies of Belgium, France and Germany.^[36]

Due to the high levels of interest in the funeral, which was broadcast live on TV and radio, a total of 1,050 tickets were made available for the service.^[36] Some, wanting to pay their respects, slept overnight on the Cathedral Green in order to get tickets.^[40] The funeral was led by the Dean of Wells, The Very Revd John Clarke and the Bishop of Taunton, The Rt Revd Peter David Maurice.^[39] Among notables to attend the funeral were The Duchess of Cornwall and The Duchess of Gloucester.

Patch was buried at St Michael's Church, Monkton Combe, near his parents and brother.