PRIVATE FREDERICK JOBLING
DURHAM LIGHT INFANTRY
8TH OCTOBER 1917 AGE 19
BURIED: POPERINGHE NEW MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette
Saturday 24 November 1917
Mr William Jobling, 7, Mulgrove Street, has been officially informed of the death of his son, Pte. Frederick Jobling, D.L.I., which occurred on October 8th. An officer of the regiment writes that Pte. Jobling, who met his death by an enemy shell exploding when on his way to a rest camp, was always bright and cheerful, highly respected, and devoted to his duties. The deceased joined the Army in March, 1915, prior to which he was a wireman at Messrs Craven's Ropery. He had also been wounded on a previous occasion. Another son, Pte. Joseph Jobling, West Yorks Regiment, was killed in action on October 30th, 1916, while a third son, Thomas Jobling, late of the D.L.I., has been discharged from the Army after having his left leg amputated through wounds received in action.
There were five Jobling brothers, Frederick, Thomas and Joseph were the three youngest. Joseph, who was not killed in action but died of wounds in a hospital in Etaples, does not have an inscription. Frederick's inscription was signed for by his mother. It's a quote from a patriotic poem, 'Sergeant, Call the Roll', written by J. Smedley Norton during the South African War. Both poem and author are very obscure, so obscure that the Internet has hardly heard of either of them. However, that wasn't the case at the time. The poem was written in the style of a music hall monologue and permission was needed from the publisher, the Black and White Budget, before it could be recited in public. The Budget reported in 1904 that more than 600 such requests had been received.
M. Van Wyk Smith, in his book 'Poetry of the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902' (Clarendon Press Oxford 1978) expresses the opinion that the poem has "no poetic merit, but [that] as a skilful pastiche of sentiment, patriotism, and melodramatic heartache as appreciated by a Victorian music hall audience, it stands as a supreme example of its kind".
A sergeant is given the task of calling the roll after the battle:
Show us the price of victory,
Just tell us what it cost;
Say what the Motherland has gained,
And also what she's lost.
The sergeant's son is among the dead:
Though his heart is well-nigh breaking,
Tears in his eyes are seen,
He ends his task of sorrow
Like a soldier of the Queen.
Frederick's inscription comes from the last verse:
They have answered God's field order
Given Death the last salute,
The guns are now unlimbered,
And the cannon's roar is mute,
The curfew note has sounded
Its sad and mournful knell,
The sentry's word rings clear and loud,
"Good night! All's well!"