Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

The Inns of Court War Memorial is a simple stone obelisk standing at the top of New Road, on the edge of Berkhamsted golf Course.

This may seem like an unusually remote location for a monument, but it stands here because it commemorates the men of the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps, who trained in the nearby training trenches on Berkhamsted Common before going off to fight in the battlefields of the First World War.

It was erected in 1920 and bears the inscription:

IN MEMORY OF THE INNS OF
COURT OFFICERS TRAINING
CORPS. WHO IN THIS NEIGHBOUR
HOOD TRAINED OVER TWELVE
THOUSAND MEN TO SERVE
AS COMMISSIONED OFFICERS
IN THE GREAT WAR 1914–1918
AND IN AFFECTIONATE
REMEMBRANCE OF THE TWO
THOUSAND WHO GAVE THEIR
LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY
THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED
BY MEMBERS & FRIENDS OF
THE CORPS
SALUS POPULI SUPREMA LEX

The Latin motto of the regiment means “the safety of the people is the supreme law”. At the base, there is also an inscription commemorating Lieutenant Colonel Francis Errington (1854–1942), who commanded the Inns of Court OTC 1913–1916.

In the woodland nearby can be seen the remains of the WWI training trenches dug over a century ago by the OTC trainees. During the course of the war, 12,000 trainee officers passed through Berkhamsted; by the end of WWI, over half were wounded and 2200 were killed in action. Numerous medals were awarded, including three Victoria Crosses.

While most of those who died were buried in Belgium and France, a number of the burials in Rectory Lane Cemetery are connected with the Inns of Court Regiment, listed below.