A fine Great War Somme operations D.S.O. group of four awarded to Captain J. L. Stocks, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, the only Company Commander left standing after his battalion’s attack on Beaucourt in November 1916 - shortly afterwards he too was wounded by shellfire and evacuated home: a gifted sportsman who had represented England at Hockey, he resumed his career as an academic and became Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University

Distinguished Service Order, G.V.R., silver-gilt and enamels, with brooch bar, in Garrard, London case of issue; 1914-15 Star (Capt., K.R. Rif. C.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt.), central wreaths on the first slightly chipped in places, otherwise extremely fine (4) £1600-2000

D.S.O. London Gazette 3 March 1917. ‘For conspicuous gallantry in action. He led his company with great gallantry during the assault. Later, when the other three Company Commanders had become casualties, he did most valuable work in reorganising the companies. He was subsequently wounded.’

M.I.D. London Gazette 25 May 1917.

John Leofric Stocks was born in October 1882, one of 12 children of the Rev. John Edward Stocks, Canon of Peterborough, several of whom would go on to represent their country at hockey - having first gained experience with stick and ball on a large gravel path at their father’s rectory. Yet it is clear from numerous entries in Who Was Who and the Dictionary of National Biography that the Stocks children were talented in many other fields, young John being no exception. A scholar at Rugby, where he also made a name for himself at cricket, he went on to take a First in “Mods” and “Greats” at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Thus ensued a successful career as an academic, commencing with his appointment as a Fellow and Tutor at St. John’s, Oxford 1906-24, albeit with interruptions as a result of him playing at left back for the England Hockey Team - and the outbreak of war.

Commissioned into the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in November 1914, he went to France with the 13th Battalion in July 1915 and, as evidenced by the award of his D.S.O., served with distinction and gallantry in the bloody fighting on the Somme in the following year, initially in costly actions at Mametz Wood and High Wood in July-September 1916. But it was for the successful attack on Beaucourt that November that he was awarded his D.S.O., when his Battalion went into action alongside the 63rd Royal Naval Division. The 13/K.R.R.C’s war diary states:

‘As the Battalion advanced through the village [of Beaucourt] a considerable amount of opposition was encountered from a group of Germans who were engaged by our bombers, and surrendered one by one, and the advance continued right up to the “Red Line” on the north of the village, where two officers and 70 men were captured in a dugout, having been surprised by the swiftness of our advance. Here a defensive line was taken up and the Battalion dug itself in under the direction of Captain J. L. Stocks, who was the only remaining Company Commander, Lieutenant Johnstone, commanding ‘A’ Company, having been wounded after reaching the objective. Frequent reports were received from Captain J. L. Stocks, Lieutenant L. D. Chidson and others, giving the situation, and during the afternoon the C.O. was able to send a map to Brigade H.Q. showing our positions north of Beaucourt (A report by Captain Stocks is attached giving details of the assault, marked Appendix D). During the night a party of about 40 Germans of the 99th Regiment sent up as reinforcements to occupy dugouts near our new line were surprised by our outposts and dispersed, leaving several dead and wounded and three prisoners in our hands ... ’

Shortly afterwards, however, as described by Stocks in a claim for a gratuity, he was felled by shellfire and evacuated to England:

‘On the night of 16-17 November 1916, near Beaucourt-sur-Ancre, while in the line with my Battalion (13/K.R.R.C.), I was struck in the back with a fragment of shell, and haematuria immediately resulted. I was therefore sent back for treatment and reached England on 22 November. Haematuria having ceased, I was discharged from hospital on 5 December. Symptoms, however, recurred with complications, and about a week later I was re-admitted to hospital. I was discharged for a second time at the end of January 1917 ... ’

When pressed to relate this chapter of his active service by a fellow academic after the war, he ‘seemed to think that his was a performance nothing out of the ordinary’ - modesty which may in some way account for the issuance of his campaign medals in February 1926 (his MIC entry refers). But modesty was not Stocks’ only asset, for the same academic further commented that he ‘had a charming personality; casual to a degree, and, apparently, disliked effort ... He loathed pretension - and he never put on a side’. All of them characteristics that were much appreciated back at Oxford University, where he returned to his duties as a Fellow and Tutor at St. John’s.

In the mid-1920s Stocks was offered - and accepted - the post of Professor of Philosophy at Manchester University, where he quickly made his mark as a leading exponent of philosophic socialism - so much so that he would later stand as a Labour Party candidate for Oxford University, though unsuccessfully. His learned works, meanwhile, were considerable, and resulted in the publication of such titles as Voice of the People and Patriotism and the Superstate.

Then in 1936, he became Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University, in which capacity he was on a lecturing tour in Wales in June of the following year, when he suddenly collapsed and died, ‘leaving a great gap in the ranks of English thinkers’. His widow, Mary, who was a noted academic in her own right and also Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool University, was created a Life Peeress in 1966 - she appears, too, to have shared some of her husband’s athletic prowess, for even in her 70s she was able to touch the heads of her standing graduates with her toes!