A Remembrance Day Tribute to One of Our Own

Walter David John Tull

28th April 1888 - 25th March 1918

As we approach 108 years since the end of World War one, all of us who owe our freedoms to those who did not return from that conflict should reflect on just how lucky we are.

Trouble with our WiFi pales into insignificance when we reflect on what happened on Flanders fields, or Gallipoli, or in numerous other battles of the so-called Great War.

The term “hero” is banded around far too readily these days.

Football players are our modern heroes. Pop singers mime a tune and are heroes. Basketballer players shoot hoops and are heroes. And so it goes.

“Heroes … just for one day,” as was famously sung by a lad from Brixton. Fame, what’s your name? Here today and gone tomorrow; famous for 15 minutes.

But real heroes are people who don’t seek attention, they do what they do, without thinking of the consequences. No room for bragging, just deeds.

For me, there is no greater example of that than Walter Daniel John Tull. A remarkable man, who just like most people reading this piece, has a link to Tottenham Hotspur.

That his story is not as widely known as it should be is something that I hope this article goes some way to putting right. In the following piece, I will try to do justice to his remarkable story.

The Garden of England

Walter Daniel John Tull was born on April 28th, 1888, in Folkestone, Kent. His father Daniel was the son of a slave from Barbados, and he came to England as a ship’s carpenter, settling in Folkestone in 1876.

Daniel met Walter’s mother Alice Elizabeth Palmer in the local Methodist church. They married and had six children, although one died as a baby. The family thrived as Walter and his older brother Edward attended the local primary school North Board School in Folkestone.

Everything changed when their mother Elizabeth died from cancer in 1895 with Walter just seven years old. His father re-married, and one more child was born to him and his second wife Clara.

But Daniel Tull senior, died from heart disease in 1897. So, Walter’s step-mother Clara was suddenly left alone to care for six children.

London Calling

The local Methodist church stepped in to help and decided that it would be best for Walter and Edward to be raised in the Methodist Children’s Home and Orphanage, in Bethnal Green, London. So, in 1897, Walter (aged nine) and his brother Edward were uprooted from their rural Kentish home and taken to London.

The Tull boys did well. Both showed an eagerness to learn and succeed. Walter excelled on the sports field, especially at football and cricket. Sport would be his escape route and the beginning of an extraordinary career.

Walter’s real passion was football, and he joined Clapton FC in October 1908. They were an amateur team, and Walter won the Amateur Cup, London Senior Cup and London County Amateur Cup with them.

Earning his Spurs

In the Summer of 1909, he signed for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club for a fee of £10.

In joining Spurs, Walter became only the 3rd mixed race player to play in the top division in England. He was 21, but his life had already been an incredible journey.

His debut for Spurs was at Sunderland in September 1909, and he made his first appearance at White Hart Lane against Manchester United later that month.

Everything appeared to be going well for Walter. He was earning about £4 per week at Spurs, a high wage for that time.

Bristol Barracking

In a match for Tottenham at Bristol City in October 1909, Walter was subjected to a barrage of racial chanting and abuse. This was to be a major turning point for Walter and his Tottenham career.

The abuse in Bristol was probably the reason that his future appearances for Tottenham were limited. There is a good possibility that Tottenham did not want to be associated with the racial abuse and the publicity that it caused in those less tolerant Edwardian days.

The Bristol incident was reported by the newspapers, the first time that racial abuse at a football match made headline news.

He played a total of 20 matches for Tottenham, scoring four goals but he was transferred on October 17th 1911 to Northampton Town.

A Load of Cobblers

At Northampton, Walter did well and became settled. He made 111 appearances for Northampton, scoring 9 goals.

However, with the outbreak of World War 1, his career was thrown into turmoil again.

Walter volunteered for military service on December 21st 1914 and was the first Northampton Town player to do so.

You're in the Army Now

The fact that Walter was accepted into the army was abnormal. The British army frequently refused to accept non-white volunteers, usually on the grounds of minor fitness issues. This was, sadly, more about race than health.

Because Walter was a relatively high-profile footballer, who clearly had no fitness problems, they could not refuse him. He joined the Football Battalion of the Duke of Cambridge’s own Middlesex Regiment and served in the 17th, 23rd and 5th Battalions during the war. In 1916, he rose to the rank of Lance Sergeant having fought at the Battle of the Somme.

An Officer and a Gentleman

Walter was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on May 30th, 1917, becoming the first mixed-race infantry Officer in the British regular army. This ran against the 1914 British Manual of Military Law which excluded soldiers who were not “natural born or naturalised British subjects of pure European descent” from becoming commissioned officers.

Walter was then transferred to the Italian front where he fought between November 30th, 1917, and early March 1918. During this time, he was praised for his gallant actions when he led 26 men on a night time raiding mission into enemy territory.

His actions led to him being recommended for the Military Cross. Sadly, he never received that award which he so richly deserved. Apparently, the Ministry of Defence has no record of the recommendation. Sadly, it was likely more to do with his race than any administrative issue that this much deserved award was never made.

Following his actions on the Italian front, Walter returned to Northern France in March 1918.

Final Resting Place

The life of Walter Tull ended in Northern France in March 1918 when he was shot and fatally wounded whilst in combat near Arras in Northern France. His body was never recovered, and his life is commemorated at the Arras Memorial. His name is engraved on a monument dedicated to the 34,785 soldiers with no known graves.

Aged just 29, he never married or had children, but his story has inspired so many people who survive him.

I believe that his remarkable courage, fortitude, determination, talent and skill should be more widely celebrated than they have been.

Unquestionably, in my view, he richly deserves the posthumous award of the Military Cross.

Forever One of our Own

Heroes lead; they don’t follow. They inspire people, do things unselfishly and don’t seek praise or approval.

Heroes do the right things, not the popular things. They don’t live forever, but their legacy does.

The brave actions of Walter Tull are not even half of his story. The bigger part of his tale is the legacy that he leaves and the freedoms we enjoy because of heroes like him.

As a lifelong fan of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, I hope that, one day, the club places a memorial to Walter Tull somewhere on the stadium site. It’s the least he deserves.

Walter Tull will always be “one of our own”.

Who knows where we might be if not for him and those that he served alongside?

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Anthony Heard has his own substack column and is the author of My Purple Patch - Living with ITP