ABSTRACT
Among the overwhelmingly Protestant upper-and upper-middle-class families from which the late Victorian and Edwardian officer corps was primarily recruited, regular churchgoing was practically universal, a thorough knowledge of scripture was commonplace and family prayers were a normal feature of domestic routine.3 Furthermore, at least until the Second World War Britain’s public schools continued to perform their Victorian function of ‘adhering the upper classes to Christianity’,4 essentially by promoting a conformist and uncomplicated religious outlook among boys from this milieu.5
At Eton as late as the 1930s, for example, all boys were required to attend chapel two or three times on Sundays and at least once on each weekday.6
