After a brief illness, 101-year-old Gertrude Harris (née Farr) passed away peacefully on Tuesday. Her father, Private Harry Farr perished under very different circumstances on the western front during the first world war. After being court martialled and sentenced to death for cowardice, on 18 October 1916 he was executed by his comrades from the West Yorkshire regiment (End of shame, 19 August 2006).
In 1992 Harry’s widow, also named Gertie, contacted Andrew Mackinlay MP to support his efforts to secure posthumous pardons for all 306 British soldiers who had been executed for military offences during the first world war. However, after her mother died in 1993, it was Gertie who played a pivotal role in the legal endgame to what became the Shot at Dawn campaign. For the next 14 years, Gertie and her family lobbied politicians and the press, and attended commemorative events.
She featured prominently at the annual Shot at Dawn wreath-laying at the Cenotaph and the inauguration of the SAD memorial site at the National Arboretum. In 2006 she petitioned the high court for judicial review of the Ministry of Defence’s refusal to pardon Harry. Gertie’s dogged persistence eventually paid off. Shortly after a private meeting with Des Browne MP at the MoD, Gertie finally got a pardon for Harry and his executed comrades. In the room of the nursing home where she lived out her final years, on the wall was displayed a framed copy of her dad’s posthumous conditional pardon. What a wonderful woman.
Julian Putkowski
Co-author, Shot at Dawn
