LIKE many of Britain’s public schools, Sedbergh was changed forever by the brutality and death in World War One.

It is believed a total of 1,260 former pupils and staff took to the battlefields in the Great War.

Altogether 257 men, fighting for King and country, made the ultimate sacrifice.

Records held at the school and kept in pristine condition by archivist Katy de la Riviére show leavers from between 1884 and 1917 who perished in the conflict.

The graves of the fallen heroes spread as far away as India, Iraq and Tanzania - however the majority lie in cemeteries over the English Channel in France.

Poignant reminders of their heroics are also remembered in the main school memorial as well as at smaller memorials in the ‘houses’ the pupils lived in.

Names inscribed upon the walls of the Cloisters create a touching permanent memory and a space of quiet reflection.

“Since the late 19th Century, military training had been an intrinsic part of life at the school,” said Ms de la Riviére.

“It was felt that with the privileges of the emerging middle class came responsibilities, which Michael Howard lists in Public Schools and The Great War as ‘unquestioning obedience to higher authority; care for those under one’s own command; and where necessary a readiness to sacrifice one’s own life in fulfilment of both.”

She added: “Like many other public school pupils Sedberghians were trained in weaponry, strategy and leadership skills to prepare them should they be needed to serve their country, which indeed they were.”

During the war many of the boys fighting on the front wrote back to friends at school describing their experiences. The Sedberghian magazines reprinted some of these letters so that all pupils could follow the campaigns of their former classmates.

And as the war progressed obituaries of fallen classmates and teachers sadly became a regular feature with some magazines printing up to 20 obituaries in a single issue.

It may be 100 years on but it is certain the names of the dead will never be forgotten at Sedbergh School.