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Note: sgrove School from which he won an Exhibition to Worcester College, Oxford. The war intervened and he joined the Grenadier Guards as 2nd Lieutenant on 29th Aug 1917 and fought in Europe getting gassed and shellshock in the trenches. Invalided out he recovered and read history at Oxford then attended Cuddesdon College to be ordained into the CofE. He became curate at Kidderminster and then at Bolton, Lancashire. He joined the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and was sent as headmaster to the Bishop Westcott Boys School at Nam Kum west of Calcutta, India.
He married and his first 2 children were born there.
The family took leave to England in 1935 and he returned as principal of the Lawrence Memorial Royal Military College at Lovedale, South India. This was a boys boarding school but made co-ed in his time as principal. The 2nd World War isolated the family in India during which time three more children were born. He underwent an appendix operation but his lungs, damaged by gas in the trenches, were unable to handle the anaesthetic and he died.
Extracts from letters by Berners' eldest brother Ronald to Ronald's future wife -
HQ 2nd British Corps, France - 4 Aug 1918
'No 3 brother (Berners) has just rejoined his battalion. He went out in April and was shell-shocked the first day. He hasn't altogether recovered.'
HQ 2nd British Corps, France - 17 Nov 1918
'Our war record has had another addition. No 3 has been gassed. Now fit but enjoying 3 weeks sick leave, devising schemes how not to get back to France. Visiting the Rhine is all right enough for the idle staff, but the poor subaltern knows he has to march all the way, and prefers not to. There is no King & Country glamour about an army of occupation.'
Cecil Berners Hall 37, clerk in holy orders, wife Barbara 33, John Cuthbert 1 and Julian Mary 2 months arrived at London on the "Domala" from Calcutta on 2 Mar 1935.
Rev C B Hall 37, Mrs Hall 34, Master Hall 2 and Miss Hall 1 address Althorne Vicarage, Chelmsford sailed from London to Calcutta on the "Modasa" on 10 Dec 1935.
The 1939 edition of Crockfords Clerical Directory registers for Cecil :- Late Exhibition of Worcester College, Oxford, BA (3rd Class Honours in History), MA 1929, Cuddesdon College 1923, deaconed 1923, priested 1924 Worcester, Curate of St Matthews and All Saints Kidderminster 1923-26, Lector at St Peters Bolton-le-Moors 1926-29, Principal of Bishop Westcott Boys' School Namkum 1930-37, furlough 1935, Principal and Chaplain of the Lawrence Memorial Royal Military School Lovedale Diocese of Madras from 1937.
Note: Berners attended Newcastle Royal Grammar (Jan 1906 to July 1913) and Brom
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