Honouring our war dead
12 Nov 2015
A two-minute silence was observed across campus at 11am on Wednesday, 11 November
Armistice Day sees the nation fall silent for two minutes at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month – when the Allies of World War I and Germany signed the armistice and ceased hostilities on the Western Front in 1918 – to pay tribute to those who lost their lives then and in wars that have happened since.
Colleagues observed the two-minute silence in various locations across the campus, including the Old Quad off Oxford Road.
Before the two-minute silence, music students in the Martin Harris Centre played The Last Post – a bugle call used in the British Army camps to signal the close of a day of battle, to let those who were still out and wounded or separated know that the fighting was done and to follow the sound of the call to find safety and rest.
In the afternoon, an event organised as part the University’s World War One centenary activities focused on the stories behind the University’s memorials to those lost during the conflict.
Pen Richardson, who has been researching the biographies of those listed in the University’s Roll of Honour and on its memorials, described how the individual stories of over 600 individuals lost by the University during the War are being uncovered throughout the centenary period and published in the month they died 100 years ago.
She was joined by Susan Pares, the great niece of Gertrude Powicke, an early female graduate of the University, who worked for the Friends’ War Victims’ Relief Committee and died of typhus in Warsaw in December 1919.
Further information
For more information about our World War One centenary activities, visit: