In a Friday morning ceremony at the Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander W. Anthony Paddon building on The Boulevard in Pleasantville, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment (RNR) and Garrison St. John’s dedicated a classroom in recognition of continued efforts by students and faculty at Beatrix Potter School in England to remember fallen members of the regiment buried at Wandsworth Cemetery in London, UK.
Since 2003, the school has conducted twice-annual Remembrance services and placed poppies on the graves of regimental soldiers who were treated at the military hospital in Wandsworth during the First World War before succumbing to their injuries and being buried in the adjacent cemetery.
The school has adopted “Our Newfoundlanders” as the17 regimental soldiers and nurse buried there have come to be known and dedicated an area in their school to research, displays, photographs and artifacts.
In 2018, students and faculty from the school made the trek to Newfoundland to learn more about the soldiers and took part in various commemorative RNR events such as marching in the July 1 Memorial Day parade with the RNC and meeting the families of “Our Newfoundlanders.”
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