LANCE CORPORAL GORDON FRANCIS TURNER
LONDON REGIMENT (LONDON RIFLE BRIGADE)
7TH MAY 1915 AGE 21
BURIED: WIMEREUX COMMUNAL CEMETERY, FRANCE
'Even so, Father' might sound enigmatic to us today but in an age more familiar with the bible it would have been recognised as the equivalent of 'Thy will be done'. The words are spoken by Christ, 'Even so Father for so it seemed good in Thy sight', St Matthew 11:26. The meaning is the same as the much more popular inscription: 'We cannot Lord Thy purpose see but all is well that's done by Thee'.
Henry and Abigail Turner had two sons, Henry and Gordon, and two daughters, Muriel and Winifred. Gordon joined the London Rifle Brigade in 1912, serving first with the 1st Battalion and then with the 5th. He died of wounds in a base hospital on 7 May 1915. Henry, serving with the 23rd Battalion London Regiment was killed in action nineteen days later - 26 May.
Henry Turner had been due to marry Evelyn Worley. Her brother, Robin Worley, serving with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Gallipoli, died of wounds on 28 August. Her sister's husband, Charles Saunders had been killed in action on 28 April.
'Even so Father for so it seemed good in Thy sight.'