Harry Heyward was born in 1889, the fifth child and third of five sons of Dr Henry Heyward, a G.P., and his wife Ann I. Heyward of The Chestnuts, Camberwell. He was educated first at a grammar school in Lewes, and then at Farnham Grammar School in Sussex which he attended with his younger brother Maurice, the two boys being used to walk in from Ewshot each day. Heyward was remembered there for his football and cricket, and for his Speech Day performances, including one “Mrs Malaprop”. He continued to write short stories, and contributed humorous poetry from France during the war. He matriculated at Durham in Michaelmas 1910, entering Hatfield Hall as an Arts student. But while he satisfied the examiners in his first year’s examinations, he never graduated: he was still recorded as a student at Hatfield Hall in 1914. He was a member of the university’s O.T.C. while resident at Durham. Heyward was also reported in July 1914 to have sat for the Bachelor of Divinity examination at London University, where his younger brother obtained a B.A. By this time he was an Assistant Master at Thanet College, Margate.
"When the war came he was commissioned into the 2nd Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, and entered France on 18 October 1915. He quickly wrote to the Farnhamian to keep his old school friends in touch with his activities.
I left England … and arrived at one of the Bases in a very few hours. Here I was kept two days, which were spent in practising scaling walls and throwing bombs. We had to find our meals in a Brasserie, where the demand was for 250, and the accommodation for 50. On the following Monday I entrained to join a certain battalion of my regiment. The journey occupied several hours, and was taken partly in comfortable railway carriages and partly in goods trucks. Here for the first time I saw air duels and anti-aircraft Artillery at work. It was most fascinating to watch the rings of smoke suddenly appearing in the sky forming groups round the machine. On both sides we saw flash lights going up and the crack of rifle bullets. … Now I am settled down in the new battalion, and have experienced the trenches and billets. Different sorts of dug-outs have come to my way, constructed of sandbags, earth and wood; rats and mice, at first my enemies, are now my acquaintances. The food in the trenches is not at all bad, but the life lacks variety. We expect to have some fun next time, however, as we propose to buy a gramophone, and an exhibition of it on the parapet should help to discover the identity of the Boches opposite. These, of course, vary; sometimes they are quite spiteful, and at other times are very docile and gentle."
The Farnhamian, December 1915, pp.17-18.
Heyward’s obituary in the Durham University Journal (March 1917, vol. 21 no.17) records that he was gassed in December 1915, and again wounded in April 1916. A letter he contributed to The Farnhamian in April 1916 provides more detail.
"March 20th, '16.
I cannot claim to have had a bad time at all – one grows accustomed to shells more quickly than might be supposed and though we certainly had a good deal of water to contend with, the winter has not been so very severe.
The worst experience was the gas attack of Dec. 19th, which caught me asleep in a dug-out at 5.30 in the morning. Dr. Brown had impressed the properties of Chlorine so vividly on my mind that it was soon recognised and my helmet rapidly adjusted. Simultaneously with and subsequent to the gas came a furious bombardment in which both sides expended about 120,000 shells. From a position of tolerable security I was able to watch this and it is a sight I shall never forget. The following night is equally memorable as I fell into a trench full of water and only my head remained above water level. Once too, quite recently, a German shell burst near a dug-out in which I was sitting and a piece made a large hole in the roof and hit me on the foot without doing any damage."
The Farnhamian, April 1916, p.20.
In the same letter he describes the trophies be brought home with home on a six-day leave in February 1916.
"I took them home two German whizz bang shells complete, a six inch base weighing several pounds, any number of railway tickets from the railway station of a now well-known town and other curios, the combined weight of which probably accentuated my need of rest."
The Farnhamian, April 1916, p.21.
He enclosed with this letter ‘Another Hymn of Hate’, referencing Ernst Lissauer’s ‘Hassgesang gegen England’ (‘Hymn of Hate Against England’) and with a note of apology to Lord Tennyson.
"Bavarian, Prussians and Saxons are we;
We all are united in hatred of ye.
Bullets we've many and shells just a few,
And all that we have we'll send over to you.
May water beset you and mud hold you fast,
And your rotten old trenches fall on you at last.
Gott grant that the shells we send over so often
May serve just a little your courage to soften.
May snipers who lie and take shots at your head
Catch you when you're bending and fill you with lead.
O! Albion's children from over the sea
We all are united in hatred of ye.
Written somewhere in Belgium, somewhere in the trenches, on a wet day in December."
The Farnhamian, April 1916, p.21.
For a period after he was wounded he served as Brigade Bombing Officer. He was killed in action in the trenches on 10 October 1916. The circumstances of his death are uncertain. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission reports Heyward was attached to 15 D.L.I. at this date, but this battalion was not engaged in fighting.
A younger brother, Maurice Heyward, also a teacher before the war, served with the 3rd Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment, and was then attached to the 8th Battalion Devonshire Regiment as a Second Lieutenant. He was an acting Captain when he was killed while attempting to bring in a wounded officer on 20 July 1916, three months before his brother. Two sets of campaign medals, photographs and other items relating to the two Heyward brothers were sold at auction in Newmarket in 2013. A copy of Harry Heyward’s will was part of this sale. It was made at Acheux, then behind the front line, and the site now of a British Cemetery maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Heyward’s father reported to The Farnhamian in December 1916 that in this will his son bequeathed a large number of books from his collection of “good literature” to the Grammar School Library.
Second Lieutenant Heyward is buried at Bernafay Wood British Cemetery at Montaubon. His sacrifice is commemorated on a war memorial at Farnham Grammar School, and a plaque at Hatfield College.