1737

Lieutenant Vere Harmsworth 1916

Half-length slightly to the left, full face to the viewer, wearing a great coat over service dress and a Sam Browne belt

Oil on canvas, 80 x 55.9 cm (31 ½ x 22 in.)

Inscribed lower left: P.A. de László / 1916 III

Laib L7882(102) / C23(20)  

NPG Album 1915-16 Album, p. 47

Sitters’ Book II, f. 3: Vere Harmsworth †  March 22th 1916.

Private Collection

This portrait was painted just seven months before Vere Harmsworth’s death in the Battle of the Somme. De László made a portrait of the sitter's elder brother Vyvyan in September 1916 [4746], as a pair to this picture. In the early years of the First World War de László painted many portraits of young officers who were briefly at home on leave, or about to depart for the front.

Vere Sidney Tudor Harmsworth was born on 25th September 1895, the second son of the 1st Viscount Rothermere [4759] and his wife Mary Lilian Share. He was educated at Osborne, and Dartmouth Naval College and entered the Royal Navy as a Midshipman but was soon forced to retire as a result of deafness caused by gunfire.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Harmsworth, despite his disability, joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He was captured in the bombardment of Antwerp in October 1914, escaped, and then served at Gallipoli. His correspondence with his father details the horrors of the campaign and he did not hesitate to use his father’s wealth to try and improve conditions for himself and his men. He sent continuous requests for practical items such as a hundred and fifty pairs of wool-lined leather gloves, dust-proof goggles and periscopes, which were invaluable in trench warfare. Food was also a priority: “Our food here is scanty and at no times good. We can’t buy any. So send out plenty of tins of cocoa and milk (combined) cakes of all kinds – chocolate biscuits – Oxo cubes – potted meats – plum pudding.”^[1]

Vere was wounded and sent to recuperate in Britain, where he was promoted to Lieutenant. He had a marked devotion to his men which led to his turning down a safer Staff appointment and returning to serve with them in France, they having been withdrawn from Gallipoli: “No staff for me ever. I am going thro’ the mill with my men. They are little more than boys most of them and far too young to fight at all.”^[2] Vere was only twenty-one at the time of writing. In the postscript of another letter, three weeks before his death: “I am leaving all I have for the betterment of those who have suffered thro’ the War. Most of it for the men of my Battalion. My whole being is wound up in my men, heart, body and soul. Nothing else seems to matter.”^[3]

On 13 November 1916 the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division took on the attack between the areas of Hamel and Beaumont-Hamel in their triumphant capture of Beaucourt-sur-Ancre during the final battle of the Somme. Vere led one of the attempts to get past the redoubt^[4] that had caused so many casualties to the battalion but in doing so was himself fatally wounded. He is buried at Ancre British Cemetery, 2km south of Beaumont-Hamel, in grave VE19.

His Commanding Officer wrote of him, "The men of his battalion who survived the action are thrilled with pride in his name.  He led his company in the attack on the first German trenches. He saw that these were cleared of the Germans, and advanced with a number of men on the second line. In or near this line he was again wounded, this time on the right shoulder. Almost immediately he got up and collected such men as were near him, and led the attack on the third line. Just before reaching it he was hit by a shell, and instantly killed. During the greater part of this time he was commanding the attacking line, and by his endurance and courage got the men forward at a critical juncture."^[5]

Three weeks before his death Harmsworth wrote to his Uncle St John: “We came into the trenches this morning and go over the top tomorrow. It will be about dawn…Whether I am to emerge from this show, I do not know. Fate has not definitely informed me. If there is a shell or bullet with my number on, nothing can stop it eventually finding me…If I fall, do not mourn but be glad and proud. It is not a life wasted but gloriously fulfilled.”^[6] 

Lord Rothermere was devastated by the deaths of his two sons and Vere hinted at this just before the battle of Ancre: “The only person it will matter to is the Pater. He has been so good to me, and he has built up such a position for his three sons, that it will be heartrending for him to have part of his life’s work wasted. After all, if he has only to give up one of us three, he will be paying quite a small share compared with other fathers.”^[7] Vere’s brother Vyvyan died just over a year later of wounds received at the battle of Cambrai.

Rothermere honoured his son’s memory in a number of ways: funding the Royal Naval Division’s monument at Beaucourt, endowing Cambridge University with £20,000 to establish the Vere Harmsworth Professorship of Imperial and Naval History, and founding the Vere Harmsworth Library in the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University.

Towards the end of his life, Lord Rothermere hung the three de László portraits of his sons and that of his mother [6909] on the wall facing his bed at his home Stody Hall, Norfolk.

LITERATURE:

•Bourne, Richard. The Lords of Fleet Street: The Harmsworth Dynasty, Unwin Hyman, London 1990, pp. 83-4

•De Laszlo, Sandra ed., & Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, asst. ed., A Brush With Grandeur, Paul Holberton Publishing, London 2004, p. 180

•Taylor, S.J. The Great Outsiders: Northcliffe, Rothermere and the Daily Mail, Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1996, pp. 167-74

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 85

•DLA162-0036, Kézdi-Kovács, László, “László Fülöp lefestette a kormányzót” [Philip de László Painted the Regent], Pesti Hírlap, 2 October 1927

KF  2013