P. C. Wren - Knowledge

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until his death on 31 December 2006 at the age of 96. Graham-Smith ended up becoming the sole administrator of Wren's estate for many years and possibly the last living person to have any personal acquaintance with Wren. He strongly maintained that Wren had indeed served in the French Foreign Legion,

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This gave us an idea, and as each man fell afterwards we propped him up behind with a bayonet and stood him against the parapet. When the sergeant went out we stuck his pipe in his mouth, and he looked regular life-like, only more determined. Soon there was a row of dead men guarding the blockhouse,

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for a single tour of five years though he would have been 42 years of age on enlistment, somewhat older than the usual recruit and with a record of ill health. He lived out the remainder of his life in Britain concentrating on his literary career. One of the few photographs of Wren known (see above)

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The Historical and Information Service of the Foreign Legion holds no record of service by anyone of Wren's name and have stated their belief that he obtained his information from a legionnaire discharged in 1922. In a history published in 2010, the military writer Martin Windrow examines in detail

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but Captain Wren is recorded as having been on sick leave from 17 February 1915 and leaving the Officers Reserve to return to civil employment in October of that year. Wren's obituaries refer to earlier service with the Poona Volunteer Rifles but this reflects confusion with another officer of the

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At his death, Wren was also survived by his son Percival Rupert Christopher Wren, born in Karachi in 1904. Percival Wren reportedly did not have a close relationship with his father, and the two ceased to have any contact after the son went to live in the United States during the 1920s. Wren also

458:, London. Alice Lucille Shovelier was baptized 18 Mar 1870 the daughter of Crispin Shovelier and Lucy Maria Parker. Alice Lucille Wren died at Poona, India 26 Sep 1914 and was buried 27 Sep 1914. Their daughter Estelle Lenore Wren was born at Greenwich in early 1901. She died at Basford in 1910. 406:

Wren was a highly secretive man, and his service in the Legion has never been confirmed. When his novels became famous, there was a mysterious absence of authenticating photographs of him as a legionnaire or of the usual press-articles by old comrades wanting to cash in on their memories of a

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and they looked so calm and confident that the Oulad-Seghir evidently thought it would be too risky to come to close quarters with us, and gave up the attempt on the post in disgust, so that when our company came to our rescue at the double there was nothing for them to do."

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Isabel was his second wife. She had previously been married to Cyril Graham-Smith, a civil engineer employed in the Indian educational service at Poona. In 1927, Graham-Smith filed for divorce, with Wren named as

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Among the mysteries of Wren's life is the confirmed identity of his first wife. His stepson Alan Graham-Smith was told only that both she and a young daughter "Boodle" died at some date after 1905.

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adopted Isabel's son from her first marriage, Richard Alan Graham-Smith, as his own. After many years in a successful teaching career, Graham-Smith, known to most people simply as Alan, retired to

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the evidence for and against Wren's service with the Foreign Legion before concluding that, in the absence of some further documentary discovery, the question is an insoluble one.

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The only documented record of Wren's military service records his appointment on 1 December 1914 as a reserve officer attached to an Indian infantry regiment – the

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Wren worked as a boarding school teacher for a few years, during which he married Alice Shovelier, and had a daughter (Estelle, born 1901). In 1903, he joined the

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There is a record of the marriage of Percy Wren son of John Wickins Wren and Alice Lucie Shovelier daughter of Crispin Shovelier on 23 Dec 1899 at St James,

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H. F. Oxbury, ‘Wren, Percival Christopher (1875–1941)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006

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High School. Between 1903 and 1907 he also worked with the Educational Inspectorate for Sind and lectured at a teachers' training college.

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and fairground boxer during a three-year period between school and Oxford, as well as enlisting briefly as a cavalry trooper in the

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SOWING GLORY The Memoirs of "Mary Ambree" an Englishwoman in the ranks of the French Foreign Legion (edited by Wren in 1931)

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Wren resigned from the Indian Education Service in November 1917. His wife Alice Lucille died 26 September 1914 in

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Good Gestes: Stories of Beau Geste, His Brothers, and Certain of Their Comrades in the French Foreign Legion

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Indian School Organization, Management, Discipline, Tone, and Equipment, Being the Indian Headmaster's Guide

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from Oxford University's Delegacy for Non-Collegiate Students, in 1931 renamed St Catherine's Society, now

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celebrated figure. It is now thought more likely that he encountered legionnaires during travels in

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The Young Stagers, Being Further Faites and Gestes of the Junior Carlton Club of Karabad, India...

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The Indian Teacher's Guide to the Theory and Practice of Mental, Moral, and Physical Education

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London Metropolitan Archives, Saint James, Hatcham, Register of marriages, P75/JS1, Item 065

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Longman's Science Series for Indian High Schools, 11 volumes edited by Wren (1913–14 Bombay)

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but then a non-collegiate institution for poorer students. Wren claimed to have worked as a

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