A PURE KNIGHT OF GOD

SECOND LIEUTENANT GEORGE GORDON WATTS

28TH BTTN AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY

20TH SEPTEMBER 1917 AGE 25

BURIED: BUTTES NEW BRITISH CEMETERY, POLYGON WOOD, BELGIUM


It was Sir Galahad who was the perfect knight, who in Tennyson's poem could boast:
My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
It was because he was the perfect knight that he was permitted to achieve the grail quest. And it was as a pure knight that he died having achieved it.
Lieutenant Watts' father specifically uses the term 'knight' to describe his son, but the inscription definitely has resonances of Christ's teaching at the Sermon on the Mount:
Blest are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Matthew 5:8
George Watts is commemorated on his parents' headstone in Payneham Cemetery, Adelaide with the inscription: 'A true knight of God'.