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Captain Richard Seddon - son of Richard John Seddon.
My Story
DescriptionAticle in Stuff by Marty Sharpe - May 16 2020.
Captain Richard Seddon - son of Richard John Seddon.
His story is remarkable. First, he was the son of New Zealand's longest-serving prime minister, Richard ''Dick'' Seddon; second, he went to war at the age of 36 — well over the average age of 24; and third, he was the subject of a prolonged and heartbreaking attempt by his mother, Louisa, to have his remains brought home.Newly released files reveal the lengths an anguished New Zealand mother went to in trying to get her son's body home from the Western Front.
Captain Richard Seddon is just another World War I casualty buried in France, one of millions to have died in its blood-stained mud between 1914 and 1918.
He lies beneath a slab of Portland stone, 76cm high, 36cm wide and 7.6cm thick, on the edge of a hamlet in rolling countryside.
In that respect he is entirely unexceptional. In other respects, however, his story is remarkable. First, he was the son of New Zealand's longest-serving prime minister, Richard ''Dick'' Seddon; second, he went to war at the age of 36 — well over the average age of 24; and third, he was the subject of a prolonged and heartbreaking attempt by his mother, Louisa, to have his remains brought home.Louisa, 66 when her oldest son died, was not unique in wanting to bring Richard's body home. Mothers and fathers across the Empire yearned to have their boys buried closer to them. But where others accepted the War Office's dictum to leave them where they fell, Louisa did not.
Now, archive material just released by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission shines a light on her bid to fulfil her son's wish; that he be buried alongside his father.Richard John Spotswood Seddon was born in Kumara, Westland, on May 29, 1881. One of nine children, he grew into manhood as his father led the Dominion from 1893 to 1906.
Richard had a lifelong interest in the military, and at the age of 18 volunteered for the Boer War, an engagement that was strongly supported by his father.
He rose to the rank of Captain and in 1901 was appointed military secretary to his father. In 1911, he went to England for further military training and briefly attended the London School of Economics before returning home in 1913, then resigning from the army.His NZ military file makes for interesting reading. It includes correspondence between him and a senior officer over a spat about Seddon incurring expenses using a motor car when the officer says he should have used a horse. He also appears to have been remiss in reporting for duty on occasion. It's fair to say his resignation was not unwelcome by senior staff.
Nevertheless, he re-enlisted as a Captain in 1917 and sailed to war in March 1918.
He arrived in England in May 1918, went to France on August 7, and was killed two weeks later when a shell landed among him and a small group of other soldiers. He was buried in an isolated grave where he fell. The war ended three weeks later.Ware added that, “privately”, he did not think there would be many similar requests, though he had anticipated one from Princess Beatrice (daughter of Queen Victoria) concerning her son Prince Maurice, but that had not occurred (as yet).
There followed many months, then years, of correspondence in which numerous figures of high standing relayed the anxious condition of Louisa, her fear that her son's remains would be lost, and her strong desire to have his remains shipped home.
The responses from the commission were typically curt and referred repeatedly to the policy of leaving the graves as they were. Reference was also made to a French decree that prohibited the removal of bodies.
Despite that, John Seddon told the commission he was going to France, and, if permitted, would exhume his brother's body and ensure its location was not lost.
He was told that if the body was not in a cemetery, he may be allowed to exhume it and move it to a cemetery. He had his brother's remains moved a short distance to Hebuterne Military Cemetery, 20km southwest of Arras, in March 1919. But Louisa, then aged 68, was not giving up. She persisted in having her wish conveyed to the commission, politicians and the military.
In July 1919, seven months after the Armistice, travel restrictions were lifted and civilians were allowed to enter the former conflict zones. Louisa was one of the first to do so, and was among some 60,000 people to search out their loved ones' graves.
Before her visit to the grave a letter was sent from the office of Britain's Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, to his under-secretary for war, Sir Herbert Creedy, in which it is stated that Lloyd George had been approached by a “pathetically anxious” Louisa, who was willing to pay for the transportation of her son's body, and inquiring whether this might be an “exceptional circumstance” in which the body could be returned home.
The letter was met with the familiar refrain: no.In July the commission received a letter from a military attaché at the British Embassy in Paris, to say Louisa — the “wife of an important personage in New Zealand” — was most anxious to obtain permission to “move her son's body and take it with her when she goes”.
The following month she wrote personally to Ware, saying that before Richard sailed from New Zealand he had told her that if he died at war he wanted to be buried at home with his father.
She wrote a similar letter to NZ High Commissioner in London Sir Thomas Mackenzie, who contacted Ware to say he supported her wishes.
In September 1919 Louisa met with Ware. A letter in the file says the pair had a long walk.
In a letter to Louisa a short time later he wrote: “You know how deeply I sympathise with you in your failure to obtain what you want and what you think right ... But I still cannot think that you would wish exceptional treatment to be given in one case when it has to be refused in so many others.”
She appears at that point to start acknowledging that her son's body would not be coming home. In December she wrote to Ware that he had been “very kind and helpful to me in respect of my mission”, and if there ever came a time when bodies could be removed from France to New Zealand she trusted he would inform her.In 1921, Louisa's daughter Phoebe Dyer took up the cause. She travelled to France to see the grave and also to beseech the authorities to change their minds on the policy.
A handwritten note by principal assistant secretary of the commission Lord Arthur Browne noted that Phoebe was pleased with the condition of her brother's grave but continued to press for his body to be returned to New Zealand. After being informed of all the arguments as to why this could not occur, Phoebe said she wanted to petition the King.
In August 1921, a month after Phoebe's grave visit, Prime Minister Bill Massey wrote to Britain's Secretary of State for War, Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, to say Louisa was still “most anxious” to have her son buried in the family grave in Wellington, and requesting that her wish be fulfilled.
By this stage Ware's patience was running thin. In an internal letter he says the rule applies to all buried soldiers and “if an exception is made in one case it will, of course, have to be made in many”.Curiously, he also said the commission was not in a position to rule out the possibility that — once itswork was completed and there were fewer such requests — the bodies could be repatriated. This had been expressed verbally to Louisa, but “it is perhaps wiser to say nothing of the kind on paper”.
“I have seen her and her daughters and other relations many times on this question,” Ware wrote.
But Louisa did not stop there. The next year Ware received another letter from Mackenzie, informing him that Louisa had learned of the repatriation of some soldiers' bodies, and was as anxious as ever to have Richard's brought home.
Ware's letter in response included brief formalities then cut straight to the chase. “In no single instance has an exception been made by the commission,” he wrote.He noted that Princess Beatrice had spent two years trying to have the body of her son Maurice repatriated, and in that case the commission had made it clear it was “not prepared to deviate from the line of policy laid down”.
In mid-1922, Louisa contacted the commission, through the NZ High Commission, to say a recent photograph of Seddon's grave showed that rose bushes she had planted beside it appeared to have been removed. Urgent inquiries by the commission revealed that one bush had died and one was dying, but two were still alive.
About this time New Zealand's Attorney-General, the future prime minister Francis Bell, wrote to the commission to say he had been asked by Louisa to intervene in regard to the “special privilege” she had been granted by Ware to have the body repatriated
The commission told Bell that no such privilege or promise had ever been offered. In 1925, Louisa's daughter Louisa Morice visited the grave. She appears not to have sought the repatriation of his body, but was granted permission to take home two temporary wooden crosses that had stood above it.
Successive years saw no easing of Louisa's attempts.Letters from Ware to individuals contacted by Louisa or her prominent emissaries reveal how exceptional her persistence was.
In mid-1926 he wrote that he had hoped demands by families to have soldiers' bodies repatriated would have died down “and this has happened except in a few cases like this”. All governments in the Commonwealth had agreed to the non-repatriation policy, he said, though he noted there had been two recent cases where “Canadian families have had their sons' bodies stolen from the graves in France and taken back to Canada”.
“This is causing us intense trouble as the French police are naturally taking action against them,” he said.
In another letter, written in 1928, he said Louisa “never neglects an opportunity of raising with anyone whom she may come across connected with the commission the question of bringing her son's body back to be buried in New Zealand”. Ware said Louisa might be reminded that by accepting the decision she would be “helping others and helping the Empire”.
“I cannot help thinking that Mrs Seddon may wish to feel that she is at one with some mothers in other parts of the Empire, who long, also, to have their dead back, but feel that all should bear their disappointment alike.
''And let her remember that her son rests in a cemetery surrounded by men from all parts of the King's Dominions who fell beside him in the common sacrifice and rest under a common guardianship.”
It seems unlikely that Louisa would ever have taken any comfort from Ware's suggestions.
She died two years later, in 1931, at the age of 80. She was buried alongside her husband and daughter Mary in the family tomb beneath the Seddon memorial at the entrance to Wellington's Bolton Street Cemetery.Also in the tomb is Richard's wooden cross, which his sister Louisa brought home from France.
The final letter in the file is dated June 1, 1939, three months before England and France declared war on Germany. It was sent by the commission to another of Seddon's sisters, Jane Bean. She had recently visited his grave and was concerned at its condition. The letter reassured her it was weathering normally and was due for renovation in 1940-41.Date of story events1914-18
Captain Richard Seddon - son of Richard John Seddon.
His story is remarkable. First, he was the son of New Zealand's longest-serving prime minister, Richard ''Dick'' Seddon; second, he went to war at the age of 36 — well over the average age of 24; and third, he was the subject of a prolonged and heartbreaking attempt by his mother, Louisa, to have his remains brought home.Newly released files reveal the lengths an anguished New Zealand mother went to in trying to get her son's body home from the Western Front.
Captain Richard Seddon is just another World War I casualty buried in France, one of millions to have died in its blood-stained mud between 1914 and 1918.
He lies beneath a slab of Portland stone, 76cm high, 36cm wide and 7.6cm thick, on the edge of a hamlet in rolling countryside.
In that respect he is entirely unexceptional. In other respects, however, his story is remarkable. First, he was the son of New Zealand's longest-serving prime minister, Richard ''Dick'' Seddon; second, he went to war at the age of 36 — well over the average age of 24; and third, he was the subject of a prolonged and heartbreaking attempt by his mother, Louisa, to have his remains brought home.Louisa, 66 when her oldest son died, was not unique in wanting to bring Richard's body home. Mothers and fathers across the Empire yearned to have their boys buried closer to them. But where others accepted the War Office's dictum to leave them where they fell, Louisa did not.
Now, archive material just released by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission shines a light on her bid to fulfil her son's wish; that he be buried alongside his father.Richard John Spotswood Seddon was born in Kumara, Westland, on May 29, 1881. One of nine children, he grew into manhood as his father led the Dominion from 1893 to 1906.
Richard had a lifelong interest in the military, and at the age of 18 volunteered for the Boer War, an engagement that was strongly supported by his father.
He rose to the rank of Captain and in 1901 was appointed military secretary to his father. In 1911, he went to England for further military training and briefly attended the London School of Economics before returning home in 1913, then resigning from the army.His NZ military file makes for interesting reading. It includes correspondence between him and a senior officer over a spat about Seddon incurring expenses using a motor car when the officer says he should have used a horse. He also appears to have been remiss in reporting for duty on occasion. It's fair to say his resignation was not unwelcome by senior staff.
Nevertheless, he re-enlisted as a Captain in 1917 and sailed to war in March 1918.
He arrived in England in May 1918, went to France on August 7, and was killed two weeks later when a shell landed among him and a small group of other soldiers. He was buried in an isolated grave where he fell. The war ended three weeks later.Ware added that, “privately”, he did not think there would be many similar requests, though he had anticipated one from Princess Beatrice (daughter of Queen Victoria) concerning her son Prince Maurice, but that had not occurred (as yet).
There followed many months, then years, of correspondence in which numerous figures of high standing relayed the anxious condition of Louisa, her fear that her son's remains would be lost, and her strong desire to have his remains shipped home.
The responses from the commission were typically curt and referred repeatedly to the policy of leaving the graves as they were. Reference was also made to a French decree that prohibited the removal of bodies.
Despite that, John Seddon told the commission he was going to France, and, if permitted, would exhume his brother's body and ensure its location was not lost.
He was told that if the body was not in a cemetery, he may be allowed to exhume it and move it to a cemetery. He had his brother's remains moved a short distance to Hebuterne Military Cemetery, 20km southwest of Arras, in March 1919. But Louisa, then aged 68, was not giving up. She persisted in having her wish conveyed to the commission, politicians and the military.
In July 1919, seven months after the Armistice, travel restrictions were lifted and civilians were allowed to enter the former conflict zones. Louisa was one of the first to do so, and was among some 60,000 people to search out their loved ones' graves.
Before her visit to the grave a letter was sent from the office of Britain's Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, to his under-secretary for war, Sir Herbert Creedy, in which it is stated that Lloyd George had been approached by a “pathetically anxious” Louisa, who was willing to pay for the transportation of her son's body, and inquiring whether this might be an “exceptional circumstance” in which the body could be returned home.
The letter was met with the familiar refrain: no.In July the commission received a letter from a military attaché at the British Embassy in Paris, to say Louisa — the “wife of an important personage in New Zealand” — was most anxious to obtain permission to “move her son's body and take it with her when she goes”.
The following month she wrote personally to Ware, saying that before Richard sailed from New Zealand he had told her that if he died at war he wanted to be buried at home with his father.
She wrote a similar letter to NZ High Commissioner in London Sir Thomas Mackenzie, who contacted Ware to say he supported her wishes.
In September 1919 Louisa met with Ware. A letter in the file says the pair had a long walk.
In a letter to Louisa a short time later he wrote: “You know how deeply I sympathise with you in your failure to obtain what you want and what you think right ... But I still cannot think that you would wish exceptional treatment to be given in one case when it has to be refused in so many others.”
She appears at that point to start acknowledging that her son's body would not be coming home. In December she wrote to Ware that he had been “very kind and helpful to me in respect of my mission”, and if there ever came a time when bodies could be removed from France to New Zealand she trusted he would inform her.In 1921, Louisa's daughter Phoebe Dyer took up the cause. She travelled to France to see the grave and also to beseech the authorities to change their minds on the policy.
A handwritten note by principal assistant secretary of the commission Lord Arthur Browne noted that Phoebe was pleased with the condition of her brother's grave but continued to press for his body to be returned to New Zealand. After being informed of all the arguments as to why this could not occur, Phoebe said she wanted to petition the King.
In August 1921, a month after Phoebe's grave visit, Prime Minister Bill Massey wrote to Britain's Secretary of State for War, Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, to say Louisa was still “most anxious” to have her son buried in the family grave in Wellington, and requesting that her wish be fulfilled.
By this stage Ware's patience was running thin. In an internal letter he says the rule applies to all buried soldiers and “if an exception is made in one case it will, of course, have to be made in many”.Curiously, he also said the commission was not in a position to rule out the possibility that — once itswork was completed and there were fewer such requests — the bodies could be repatriated. This had been expressed verbally to Louisa, but “it is perhaps wiser to say nothing of the kind on paper”.
“I have seen her and her daughters and other relations many times on this question,” Ware wrote.
But Louisa did not stop there. The next year Ware received another letter from Mackenzie, informing him that Louisa had learned of the repatriation of some soldiers' bodies, and was as anxious as ever to have Richard's brought home.
Ware's letter in response included brief formalities then cut straight to the chase. “In no single instance has an exception been made by the commission,” he wrote.He noted that Princess Beatrice had spent two years trying to have the body of her son Maurice repatriated, and in that case the commission had made it clear it was “not prepared to deviate from the line of policy laid down”.
In mid-1922, Louisa contacted the commission, through the NZ High Commission, to say a recent photograph of Seddon's grave showed that rose bushes she had planted beside it appeared to have been removed. Urgent inquiries by the commission revealed that one bush had died and one was dying, but two were still alive.
About this time New Zealand's Attorney-General, the future prime minister Francis Bell, wrote to the commission to say he had been asked by Louisa to intervene in regard to the “special privilege” she had been granted by Ware to have the body repatriated
The commission told Bell that no such privilege or promise had ever been offered. In 1925, Louisa's daughter Louisa Morice visited the grave. She appears not to have sought the repatriation of his body, but was granted permission to take home two temporary wooden crosses that had stood above it.
Successive years saw no easing of Louisa's attempts.Letters from Ware to individuals contacted by Louisa or her prominent emissaries reveal how exceptional her persistence was.
In mid-1926 he wrote that he had hoped demands by families to have soldiers' bodies repatriated would have died down “and this has happened except in a few cases like this”. All governments in the Commonwealth had agreed to the non-repatriation policy, he said, though he noted there had been two recent cases where “Canadian families have had their sons' bodies stolen from the graves in France and taken back to Canada”.
“This is causing us intense trouble as the French police are naturally taking action against them,” he said.
In another letter, written in 1928, he said Louisa “never neglects an opportunity of raising with anyone whom she may come across connected with the commission the question of bringing her son's body back to be buried in New Zealand”. Ware said Louisa might be reminded that by accepting the decision she would be “helping others and helping the Empire”.
“I cannot help thinking that Mrs Seddon may wish to feel that she is at one with some mothers in other parts of the Empire, who long, also, to have their dead back, but feel that all should bear their disappointment alike.
''And let her remember that her son rests in a cemetery surrounded by men from all parts of the King's Dominions who fell beside him in the common sacrifice and rest under a common guardianship.”
It seems unlikely that Louisa would ever have taken any comfort from Ware's suggestions.
She died two years later, in 1931, at the age of 80. She was buried alongside her husband and daughter Mary in the family tomb beneath the Seddon memorial at the entrance to Wellington's Bolton Street Cemetery.Also in the tomb is Richard's wooden cross, which his sister Louisa brought home from France.
The final letter in the file is dated June 1, 1939, three months before England and France declared war on Germany. It was sent by the commission to another of Seddon's sisters, Jane Bean. She had recently visited his grave and was concerned at its condition. The letter reassured her it was weathering normally and was due for renovation in 1940-41.Date of story events1914-18
COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION
Courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library
David Verrall.." A really good article with only a couple of errors.
1. His youngest brother was always known as Stuart.
2. Mrs Seddon wasn't 'buried'! She is interred, along with her husband, under the Seddon Monument where they both lie in marble sarcophagi side by side. I have visited the tomb."
Photo courtesy of National Library
Relates to
PersonRichard SeddonDocumentMother's anguished bid to bring son's body home
West Coast New Zealand History (17th May 2020). Captain Richard Seddon - son of Richard John Seddon.. In Website West Coast New Zealand History. Retrieved 19th Apr 2026 07:39, from https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/27906