Published in Windlesora 17 (1999)
© WLHG
Of all the Victoria Cross winners connected with Windsor, Oliver Brooks is one of the best remembered. Although not born in Windsor he spent a large part of his life here, from demobilisation in 1919 until his death in 1940.
He was born in Paulton, a small village near Midsomer Norton, Somerset on 31st May 1889. The family later moved to Midsomer Norton and Oliver was educated at the local Church of England School. His parents, Joseph and Mary Brooks, had seven sons, many of whom became miners in the nearby coal mines.
Oliver was employed at the Norton-Hill Colliery as a carting boy, hauling coal trucks by a chain harnessed to his waist. The work did not appeal to him, and at the earliest opportunity he decided to leave the mines and join the army. Though harsh by modern standards, life in the Edwardian army would have been a vast improvement on conditions in the mines, and Britain was at peace at the time. Brooks enlisted into the Coldstream Guards at Bath on 17th April 1906. He was then only 17 but gave his age on his enlistment papers as “18 years, 11 months”.
Having been accepted into the army he completed his initial training at Caterham and in August 1906 was stationed, for several months, at Victoria Barracks, Windsor. This was to be the start of a long association with the town.
He originally enlisted for three years but this was later extended to seven years. At the end of his service, spent wholly in the UK, he was discharged in April 1913 and transferred to the Reserve List. His Commanding Officer described Brooks as a “steady, honest, thoroughly sober, hardworking man”.
After leaving the army Brooks returned, briefly, to the coal mines but was later appointed manager of the Palladium Theatre in Peasedown, a village near his home town. He may very well have remained there had events in Europe not changed the course of history.
War became inevitable when Belgium, protected by a treaty of 1839, was invaded by Germany. Britain declared war on Germany on 4th August 1914, and the first divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) arrived in France within a week. All army Reserves were immediately called up. On 7th August 1914 Oliver Brooks was mobilised at London and sent to the 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards. He arrived in France on 12th August, becoming one of the original ‘Old Contemptibles’. Guardsman Brooks was promoted to Lance-Corporal on 25th November 1914 and to Corporal on 12th July 1915. He was promoted to Lance-Sergeant the same day and to Sergeant on 9th October 1915, the day after the action which was to earn him his Victoria Cross at Loos.
Despite earlier British reverses on the Western Front, the Allied Commanders were determined to launch a major campaign in the autumn of 1915. A combined operation was planned in Artois using French and British troops, while the French were to launch a second offensive in Champagne. The Allied assault began at dawn on 25th September 1915. To compensate for the lack of men and artillery, General Haig had insisted on the use of chlorine gas for the opening attack. At Loos the gas clouds drifted back over British trenches causing casualties among the first wave of attack troops, and the still intact German machine-gun positions also took their toll.
By nightfall the British Ist Army had advanced as far as the village of Loos, but the Germans soon counter-attacked. Some of the heaviest fighting took place around the Hohenzollern Redoubt, a heavily fortified maze of German trenches just north of Loos. After a three hour bombardment of the British positions the Germans made a determined counter attack on 8th October. On reaching a section of trench known as ‘Big Willie’ the intruders found their way barred by the 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards.
Lance-Sergeant Brooks quickly led a bombing party down the captured trench forcing the Germans to retreat. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross and the award was reported in the London Gazette on 28th October 1915. The citation read:
His Majesty the King has been pleased to award the Victoria Crossto: no. 6738 Lance Sergeant Oliver Brooks, 3rd Battalion, ColdstreamGuards. For most conspicuous bravery near Loos, on the 8th October1915. A strong party of the enemy having captured 200 yards of ourtrenches, Lance-Sergeant Brooks, on his own initiative, led a party ofbombers in the most determined manner, and succeeded in regainingpossession of the lost ground. The signal bravery displayed by this Non-commissioned officer, in the midst of a hail of bombs from the Germans,was of the very first order, and the complete success attained in a verydangerous undertaking was entirely due to his absolute fearlessness, presenceof mind and promptitude.”
London Gazette on 28th October 1915
At the end of October 1915, when the Battle of Loos was winding down into stalemate, King George V visited the front line to review the troops. He did this on horseback so that the men would have a better view of him. Unfortunately, the cheering soldiers frightened the horse, which reared up, dismounted the King and landed on him. The King suffered serious injuries including a fractured pelvis, and was transferred to a military hospital. Nevertheless, he was determined to carry out the VC award to Oliver Brooks as planned. Brooks, now a sergeant, met the King’s hospital train at Aire station, France on 1st November 1915. He was brought to the King’s bedside, in the railway carriage, where the investiture took place. Sergeant Brooks knelt at the side of the bed but assistance had to be given before the seriously injured King could get the VC pin through Brooks’ thick tunic. This is the only occasion on which a VC has been invested at a Monarch’s bedside.
Oliver Brooks was given a hero’s welcome when he returned to Midsomer Norton the following month. He was presented with a gold watch and chain and an illuminated address recording his act of bravery.
He returned to the front and was for a while a bombing instructor at the Guards Divisional Headquarters in France. One of his pupils was the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) who was a staff officer in the Grenadier Guards. Brooks was later to praise his former pupil as being “very proficient”.
Sergeant Brooks was seriously wounded on 15th September 1916 on the opening day of the new Somme offensive. Near the French village of Ginchy he received gunshot wounds to his head and left shoulder and was sent to England for treatment and recovery. After spending three months in a London hospital he was discharged and rejoined his regiment, although he never returned to France. Because of his injuries he was to spend the rest of the war in England. In 1917 he was again stationed at Victoria Barracks, Windsor and was later a bombing instructor at Aldershot.
He was demobilised at Victoria Barracks on 27th February 1919 remaining on the Reserve List until 31st March 1920. In addition to the VC he received the 1914 Star with ‘Mons’ clasp, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.
Oliver Brooks had married Marion Loveday on 17th August 1918 in the parish church at Aldbourne in Wiltshire. They had four children – two sons and two daughters. The eldest son was baptised Oliver Victor Loos Brooks at Windsor in August 1919. Brooks, ‘Ollie’ to his friends, soon settled into civilian life in Windsor. At the time he left the army he was living in Alexandra Road and moved to Clewer Avenue in 1925. He became commissionaire at the White Hart Hotel (now Ye Harte and Garter Hotel) where he was a popular sight in his greatcoat and medals. The Prince of Wales would frequently stop and chat to his former bombing instructor, and Oliver Brooks was said to have met every member of the royal family.
In June 1920 King George V held a garden party for VC recipients in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Brooks was present at that event where he met the King who remembered him as the commissionaire at the White Hart “Ah, you have not your usual uniform on today,” remarked the King as he cordially shook hands. Brooks was one of the VC Guard of Honour at the funeral of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey on 11th November 1920 and also at the unveiling ceremony at the Cenotaph.
A party of Canadian VCs visited England in November 1929 and while in Windsor arranged lunch at the White Hart. An invitation to join them was extended to Oliver Brooks when it was discovered he was the commissionaire at the hotel. Earlier that month he had been a guest of the Prince of Wales at the British Legion Dinner for VCs at the House of Lords. Shortly afterwards he took up a new appointment as commissionaire at the newly opened Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane and travelled up there daily from Windsor. He was present at the funeral of King George V at Windsor Castle in January 1936 and received King George VI’s Coronation Medal in 1937.
A well loved and respected local hero, Oliver Brooks died, age 51, at his home in Clewer Avenue on 25th October 1940. The funeral took place on 30th October. A service was held at Holy Trinity Garrison Church followed by burial in Windsor Cemetery in St Leonard’s Road. He was given full military honours and a Coldstream Guards bugler played the ‘Last Post’ at the graveside.
In August 1967 Mrs Brooks presented his Victoria Cross and other medals to the Coldstream Guards. They now form part of the Regimental Medal Collection at Wellington Barracks, London. The Windsor Branch of the Coldstream Guards Association, of which Brooks was an inaugural member, paid for a black marble headstone on his grave, A service of thanksgiving and dedication was held at the graveside on 8th October 1987, 62 years to the day after Brooks had won the VC. The Association also dedicated a plaque to his memory in Holy Trinity Garrison Church, This was unveiled on 24th April 1988. In January 1987 the story behind the unusual VC investiture was told in the children’s television programme Blue Peter.
On 27th May 1998 the Mayor of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, Councillor Kathy Newbound, unveiled a blue plaque at Brooks’ former home in Clewer Avenue in the presence of representatives from the Coldstream Guards and many members of the Brooks family.
The wording on the plaque reads:
ROYAL BOROUGH OF WINDSOR AND MAIDENHEAD
SERGEANT OLIVER BROOKS VC 1889-1940
AWARDED THE VICTORIA CROSS FOR BRAVERY AT LOOS,
FRANCE 1915, SERVING WITH THE COLDSTREAM GUARDS
LIVED AT THIS HOUSE 1925-1940.
Derek Hunt
References and Acknowledgements
Peter Brooks and Carol Scott (grandchildren of Oliver Brooks).
Coldstream Guards
Imperial War Museum VC files
Military Historical Society – for access to the Canon W M Lummis Victoria Cross files
Batchelor, Peter F and Matson, Christopher “The Western Front 1915“, Sutton Publishing 1997
The London Gazette 28th October 1915
Windsor Local History Group 