Captain Archibald Henry Douglass – known to his fellow officers in the 9th East Surreys as ‘Father’ – died of wounds on 8 April 1918.

He  was born in Brentford towards the end of 1887, to the Reverend Henry Douglass and his wife Clara. He had four older sisters and a brother, Percy, some thirteen years older, who also fought in the war, in the RAMC in India, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Census records show Douglass in Preston in 1911, living in a boarding house, working in an electrical manufacturers, and training as an ‘electrical engineering pupil’. He enlisted in the Middlesex Regiment in December 1914, and was commissioned into the East Surrey Regiment in July 1915, arriving in France on 5 June 1916 – just in time for the 9th East Surreys to take part in the Battle of the Somme, where it suffered heavy losses.

Officers of the 9th East Surreys, March 1917. Including 2nd Lt Sherriff (middle row, standing, centre) and 2nd Lt Douglass (third row, standing, extreme left). By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: ESR/25/Clark/7)

Douglass came through the Somme unscathed, and so was on hand in September of that year to impress a young 2nd Lieutenant fresh out from England – R C Sherriff – who later recalled the first time he met ‘Father’:

‘…sadly sitting in our shed drying a sock over the candle…Father^⁠ was one of the most lovable men I have ever known: to use an exceedingly ungrammatical expression he was the best type of typical Englishman: he hated any form of affectation and he hated vulgarity. A man of few words he would sit for an hour or more at a mess table without saying a word, smoking cigarettes that dangled from his upper lip – leaning forward and fiddling with his fingers under the table. He was also the coolest man I ever saw in the trenches where nothing ever seemed to make the slightest impression on him.” (From: Memories of Active Service, Vol 1, p69. Copyright Surrey History Centre, Ref: 2332/3/9/3/2)

That first meeting would later be immortalised in the opening scene of Journey’s End, where Captain Hardy is initially glimpsed drying his sock over a guttering candle flame.

The officers of ‘C’ Company, 9th East Surreys. Front row, left: 2nd Lt Douglass. Back row, second left, 2nd Lt Sherriff.  By permission of the Surrey History Centre (Ref: SHC 2332/6/4/2/3)

His nickname lends support to the view that Sherriff had ‘Father’ in mind as a possible model for the character of ‘Uncle’ in Journey’s End, but there are other plausible models, including Percy High (a schoolteacher some ten years older than Douglass), and David Hatten (the ‘wise old Hatten’ as he was sometimes called). But besides the image of Hardy hunched over his candle, there is another moment in Journey’s End which is undoubtedly attributable to ‘Father’. Sherriff’s account, in Memories of Active Service, of his first proper week in the front line includes the following exchange of dialogue:

‘”It was a perfectly bloody time”, Douglass replied to Hilton [the Company Commander] – “The Minnie’s came down two at a time – you couldn’t watch both; and when the Minnies didn’t come – aerial darts and rifle grenades did – ugh! it was rotten” – He glanced around the table and said – now in the voice of a really annoyed man – “Pat, you’re Mess president – why the Hell isn’t there any pepper! Must have pepper.”‘ (Vol 1, p212)

Anyone familiar with Journey’s End will recognise the dialogue in an instant:

When Sherriff first came to know him, Douglass was a 2nd Lieutenant, but over the following eighteen months he was promoted to Captain, and by March 1918 was the Battalion Adjutant. He had successfully come through the Battalion’s engagements in Messines in June 1917, and Ypres in August of that year (when Sherriff was wounded home). But on 16 March 1918 – just five days before the Battalion would begin its rearguard action against the attacking Germans in the Kaiser’s Battle – Douglass was wounded by a bomb fragment, being hit in the cheek, leg and thigh. Whether this was accidental, or the result of enemy activity (the East Surreys were in the front line on that date) is unclear. According to Michael Lucas, he is reported at Rouen Hospital on 22 March, and was shortly thereafter returned to England. There are almost no details in his War Office file at The National Archives, and the telegram reporting his final demise, on 8 April, notes that he died, at the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital in Berkeley Square, of meningitis following a gunshot wound to the head.

‘Father’ is buried in Hanwell Cemetery in London, and his grave is listed in the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. But his most fitting memorial will always be found in the pages of Journey’s End.