Description
Physical description
Silver metal grave marker (148mm x 105mm) bearing portcullis emblem and impressed inscription: 'QUEEN'S WESTMINSTER RIFLES. / CPL R DE R ROCHE. / 8, JAN 1915 / DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI. / R.I.P.' The plate has four rounded corners with a hole in each of them for fixing to cross.
Label
Name plate from temporary grave marker of (409) Corporal Richard de Rupe Roche who served during the First World War on the Western Front with the Queen's Westminster Rifles (16th Battalion, The London Regiment). Corporal de Rupe Roche died on active service on 8 January 1915 (aged 34). He was the elder son of Captain Richard Roche RN and Maria Jane Roche, and husband of Ethel Roche of Culver Cottage, Fletcher Road, Horsell, Woking. He is buried in Houplines Communal Cemetery Extension. (Information derived from the Commonwealth War Graves 'Debt of Honour' database).
The cross belonged to his daughter Miss Barbara Roche who died in 1981; Miss Roche's only memory of her father was waving goodbye to him as he left by train when she was only five years old.
History note
Name plate from a temporary grave marker of (409) Corporal Richard de Rupe Roche who served during the First World War on the Western Front with the Queen's Westminster Rifles (16th Battalion, The London Regiment). Corporal de Rupe Roche died on active service on 8 January 1915 (aged 34). He was the elder son of Captain Richard Roche RN and Maria Jane Roche, and husband of Ethel Roche of Culver Cottage, Fletcher Road, Horsell, Woking. He is buried in Houplines Communal Cemetery Extension. (Information derived from the Commonwealth War Graves 'Debt of Honour' database).
The cross belonged to his daughter Miss Barbara Roche who died in 1981 and was a close friend of the donor's sister, to whom she left all her personal property. Miss Roche's only memory of her father was waving goodbye to him as he left by train when she was only five years old.
Several photographs and two letters of condolence were acquired with the marker (see correspondence file). One photograph shows a simple wood cross with the grave marker fixed to it at Houplines Military Cemetery and the others show Miss Barbara Roche as a young girl with her mother Ethel and a separate photograph of Corporal Roche.
Impressed
QUEEN'S WESTMINSTER RIFLES. / CPL R DE R ROCHE. / 8, JAN 1915 / DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI. / R.I.P