School, A Job & World War I
Rathbone was educated at Repton School in Repton, Derbyshire and was employed by the Liverpool and Globe Insurance Companies.
At the end of 1915 he was conscripted via the Derby Scheme into the British Army as a Private with the London Scottish Regiment, thereby joining a regiment that also counted in its ranks his future professional acting contemporaries Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and Ronald Colman at different points thru the conflict. After basic training with the London Scots in early 1916 he received a commission as a lieutenant in the Liverpool Scottish, 2nd Battalion, where he served as an intelligence officer and eventually attained the rank of captain. During the war, Rathbone displayed a penchant for disguise (a skill which he coincidentally shared with what would become perhaps his most memorable character, Sherlock Holmes), when on one occasion, in order to have better visibility, Rathbone convinced his superiors to allow him to scout enemy positions during daylight hours instead of during the night, as was the usual practice in order to minimize the chance of detection by the enemy. Rathbone completed the mission successfully through his skillful use of camouflage, which allowed him to escape detection by the enemy. In September 1918, he was awarded the Military Cross. His younger brother, John, fell in action during the war.
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Famous quotes containing the words war i, job, world and/or war:
“... the next war will be a war in which people not armies will suffer, and our boasted, hard-earned civilization will do us no good. Cannot the women rise to this great opportunity and work now, and not have the double horror, if another war comes, of losing their loved ones, and knowing that they lifted no finger when they might have worked hard?”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“The world is full of women blindsided by the unceasing demands of motherhood, still flabbergasted by how a job can be terrific and torturous, involving and utterly tedious, all at the same time. The world is full of women made to feel strange because what everyone assumes comes naturally is so difficult to do—never mind to do well.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The lesson intended by an author is hardly ever the lesson the world chooses to learn from his book.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Our young people have come to look upon war as a kind of beneficent deity, which not only adds to the national honor but uplifts a nation and develops patriotism and courage. That is all true. But it is only fair, too, to let them know that the garments of the deity are filthy and that some of her influences debase and befoul a people.”
—Rebecca Harding Davis (1831–1910)