Perhaps one of the most fitting ways to remember those Bradfieldians who gave their lives during the two World Wars and in other conflicts, is by reflecting upon the work of former pupil Thomas Hennell (1903-45), a painter and poet who chronicled the immense destruction and suffering caused by the Second World War through his role as a war artist. 

Hennell was born at Ridley, Kent, in 1903, the son of a clergyman, and attended Bradfield from 1916 to 1921 as a member of D House.  A fellow pupil remembered him 'as a tall, rather lanky personage with a freckled face, very brown eyes and a smile of extraordinary gentleness and charm.'  Hennell's great love of the English countryside and his later passion for documenting it in his watercolours and sketches were foreshadowed during his time at Bradfield, where he was described as a 'splendid naturalist'.  In 1913 Hennell donated birds' eggs to the college museum and in 1919 submitted a collection of lepidoptera for the Hallowell Prize competition.   

Hennell was also a noted poet and one of his very first published poems appeared in The Bradfield College Chronicle in 1921. Its editor relates, 'It was a curious piece of foolery that he passed to me during an English hour in the old gateway classroom, scribbled on a scrap of paper. I was struck by its quality which was of a kind we might now call surrealist... It was called 'In Lodgings Drab'.  It begins:

In lodgings drab there lived a man,

There lived a man with fingers red

With fingers red and eyeballs wan

And eyeballs wan sunk in his head.

After leaving Bradfield, Hennell studied art at Regent Street Polytechnic School during 1921-25 and began to work as a full-time painter in 1930, portraying the landscape, people and crafts of a disappearing rural England - farmers, labourers, scythe-smiths, coopers, ladder-makers, thatchers and potters - in evocative drawings and watercolours.  During this time, Hennell suffered from severe mental illness, which was diagnosed as schizophrenia, and he was treated in three different institutions between 1932 and 1935.  Following his recovery, Hennell resumed his studies of the countryside and wrote a striking illustrated account of his struggle with mental illness, The Witnesses (1938), which impressed many with its courage and honesty.  Hennell must have valued his time at Bradfield, for he remained in touch with the school, donating a collection of Japanese prints to the Art Society in 1941 and visiting in the summer of 1942 to write a review of an Art Exhibition.  

With the outbreak of war in 1939, Hennell contacted the War Artists' Advisory Committee, offering to serve as a war artist, and was recruited, initially to document the 1941 harvest.  He impressed art expert Kenneth Clark and others with the depth, power and originality of his work, and from 1943 was employed as an official war artist.  Hennell went abroad, initially to Iceland after his friend and fellow artist Eric Ravilious died in the crash of a reconnaissance plane, and spent time with the Royal Navy.  Clark sent Hennell to record preparations for the invasion of Germany in May 1944 and thereafter he documented the D-Day landings and every aspect of the intense fighting as the Allies advanced through France, Belgium and the Netherlands.   

In 1945, the Air Ministry commissioned Hennell to portray the campaigns in the Pacific, where he visited Burma, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia.  While in Java in November, Hennell was captured by Indonesian nationalist insurgents and most likely killed soon after.  His death at the age of 42 was much mourned, particularly in artistic circles, since his work had grown significantly during his brief time as a war artist and offered the prospect of further development.  Sadly, Hennell's younger brother David, who had followed him into D House, had died on active service in 1943 with the King's Royal Rifle Corps.

Hennell has been celebrated as one of the greatest British watercolourists of the twentieth century, and more than 300 of his works are held by the Imperial War Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Welcome Trust, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Maritime Museum and other institutions.  His great contribution as a war artist has inspired exhibitions at the Imperial War Museum in 1956, 1968 and 1991. 

All images of Hennell's work appearing in the gallery have been downloaded from the Imperial War Museum and are used in accordance with its Non-Commercial Licence.