Lieutenant Cecil William Charles Shelley 2nd Life Guards was killed in action in France on 17th October 1915 at the Battle of Loos near the Hohenzollern Redoubt during a bomb attack. He was 42.

He was the youngest of three sons of Lt Col Sir Charles Shelley Bt and Lady Mary Shelley. All the brothers were in the Beresford in Cecil’s case between 1885 and 1888. He married Sybil Peel on 1903.

He went to Ceylon as a tea planter in 1892 at East Holyrood, Talakawelle.
He volunteered as a Trooper in the Ceylon Contingent when the Boer War broke out.

Commissioned into 7th Bttn KRRC he transferred to the Life Guards in 1914 and was attached as a newly promoted Lieutenant to 2nd Bttn Scots Guards, his father’s and elder brother’s regiment, with which regiment he was serving at the time of his death.

The Unit War diary reads:

“17.10.15/4am The Bn stood to arms and moved into position ready for the attack. G Coy moved up the communication trench ready to move into the front line as the attack progressed. The 4th Bn Grenadier Guards also formed a chain down the communication trench to pass up supplies of bombs and sandbags.

5am The attack commenced. F Coy attacked down BIG WILLIE; LF Coy attacked from BIG WILLIE down towards point 42. RF Coy attacked from just SOUTH of point 60 EAST towards point 42 to meet LF Coy. From the time the attack commenced there was a steady stream of bombs and stores of all kings being passed down the communication trench. Lieut WARDE was wounded in the leg early in the attack but got his wound dressed and returned and continued directing the attack of the bombers.

8am Orders were received from the Division to consolidate the ground gained. There was a noticeable lack of artillery fire on the part of the enemy throughout the operation. F Coy had gained about 150 yards of BIG WILLIE; LF gained about 100 yards; RF gained about 50 yards but were forced to fall back again on the original position. By 10am we had consolidated the ground gained. During the afternoon we improved the gained portions of trench and prepared for a counter attack that evening but it did not come off.

Our casualties were: 3 officers killed: Captain A ORR, Lieut N LECHMERE and Lieut SHELLEY; 2 wounded: Lieut WARDE and Lieut E CLARKE. Other ranks 20 killed, 66 wounded and 16 missing.”

He was initiated into Nuwara Eliya Lodge No 2991 in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. In the upland hill country is is the same lodge as fellow planter and OW Lodge member Richard Frederick Ince Currie, who would be killed less than 9 months later.  Shelley was also a relative of another Old Wellingtonian Lodge member and war casualty Lord Abinger.

Captain Reginald Henry Hamilton Moore Royal Border Regiment was killed in action at Gallipoli on 11 June 1915.

 Moore was the son of Colonel J H Moore RAMC and Mrs J E Moore of 3 Whitehall Place, London and Easterlands, Wellington, Somerset. He was born at Bareilly in India in December 1884.

He was in the Orange between 1898 and 1902 before going to Sandhurst.

He was initiated into Connaught Lodge No 2915.

Commissioned into the Border Regiment in 1903 he was promoted Lieutenant in 1905 and Captain in 1914.

The Battalion departed for the Dardanelles on 16 March 1915 with the 29th Division and Moore was the Adjutant at the time of his death:

“On June 10th we captured a trench. Early the following morning the Turks counter attacked, and in the confusion it seemed as if they would probably drive our men back. Capt. Moore who was at the time acting as adjutant, volunteered to lead an assaulting party back. Those with him say how magnificently he behaved, and at the head of his men he retook the lost position of the trench in a very few minutes.”

Accounts at the time report:

“The Turkish sap had approached to within 30 yards of ‘C’ Company’s trenches and the enemy had sandbagged a small redoubt from which to throw bombs into our trenches. A line of old trench ran from this point right into C Comany’s parapet, very similar to the situation at H11. The plan was for a storming party of thirty men (twenty-five from ‘C’ Company plus five from ‘A’ Company) under Lieutenant Wallace to crawl out of the saps already made by ‘C’ Company preceded by bomb throwers and dash the Turkish sap ahead. And then to move on down the Turkish trench towards the gully. 

As soon as the storming party had successfully stormed the sap head ‘D’ Company under Captain Le Mesurier was to move on in support and reoccupy the trench. This company was to debouch through cutting made in the parapet. The attack was timed to commence at 10pm. The SWB were to cooperate by rushing a small Turkish redoubt in their front. At 10pm precisely the storming party under Lieutenant Wallace crawled under the parapet and made for the Turkish sap & a hand to hand fight with bayonets and bombs proceeded but the Turks gave way and retreated down the trench to lines by the storming party, the opposition being slight. ‘D’ Coy now pushed on behind the storming party and the whole moved down the trench together. The men carrying sandbags and fork for improving the trench. Le Mesurier pushed on ahead and [illegible] with Wallace and together with the bomb throwers gradually pushed the Turks back. 

Captain Ward of ‘C’ Coy was killed by a bomb about 12 midnight but the attack was proceeding satisfactorily. Capt. Harrison was slightly wounded about 12 midnight. The following message was received from G.O.C.: “G.O.C. Division congratulates all ranks in the excellent work performed by them last night and feels confident that they will hold the ground gained at all costs” At 1am and again at 3.30am the enemy bombed the end of the communication trench. At 4.15am they retired. Our casualties were slight. About 4.30am the Turks made a counter-attack on the communication trench and Captain Le Mesurier was hit by a bomb. The men became a trifle demoralized & retreated about half way down the trench, the Turks occupying the portion vacated. 

Captain R H H Moore happened to be in the trench at the time & rushing forward called on the men and successfully recaptured the lost part of the trench. He was killed by a shot in the head in doing so. His immediate and gallant action undoubtedly saved an awkward situation. Lieutenant Bradshaw was wounded in the counter-attack and died later. Lieutenant de Soissons was also wounded. Total casualties: 2 officers killed and 3 wounded, 12 other ranks killed and 33 wounded. The enemy fired about twelve heavy shells at the trenches during the day. ‘A’ Coy under Captain Mostyn relieved ‘D’ Coy in the captured trench and the barricade at the end was strengthened. Snipers successfully drove back bomb throwers who tried to come up and bomb the end of the trench.”

Bartle Bradshaw and Reginald Moore are buried in Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery.

His commanding officer wrote: 

“On 10 June we captured a trench ; early the following morning the Turks counter-attacked and in the confusion it seemed as if they would probably drive our men back. Your son, who was at the time acting as Adjutant, volunterred to lead an assaulting party back. 

Those with him say how magnificently he behaved, and at the head of his men he retook the lost portion of the trench in a few minutes. He was the best type of officer and had proved himself several times in action.”

A brother officer wrote:

“For a short, but critical, period in the Gallipoli operations he commanded the Battalion and his quiet and firm command earned the respect and confidence of all ranks” 

Another wrote:

“On this occasion he again displayed that personal courage and coolness in danger which had been an example to his men from the commencement of the campaign”.

 

Captain Charles Carus Maud Somerset Light Infantry was killed in action on the Western Front on 19 December 1914.

Maud was born 15 January 1875, the youngest son of Lieutenant Colonel William Sheres Maud RE and Mrs W S Maud of Milton House, Bournemouth.

He was educated at Wellington, in the Picton, and was commissioned into the Somerset Light Infantry from the Militia January 1896.

He served during the South African War taking part in the operations in the Transvaal and received the Queen’s Medal with two clasps. He also served in  Northern Nigeria during the Kano-Sokoto Campaign, taking part in the operations in the district of the east of Zaria.

He was promoted Captain on 3 February 1904 and took part in the Sokoto-Burmi operations, being was Mentioned in Despatches and was created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order:

“Charles Carus Maud, Captain, The Prince Albert’s (Somerset Light Infantry). For services during operations in Northern Nigeria, 1903-4”

In the Sudan in 1908, Captain Maud took part in the operations in the Jebal Nyima District of Southern Kordofan and was awarded the Egyptian Medal with clasp, and the 4th Class Mejidie and Mentioned in Despatches.

Captain Maud was killed in action 19 December 1914. The battalion was one of those that took part in the Christmas Truce and the 1/Somersets War Diary for 25th December 1914 states:

“At Ploegsteert officers of the 1/Somersets met some German officers half way between the trenches and it was arranged that the Somersets would bring in their dead for burial in their own battalion cemetery. The bodies of Captain Maud, Captain Orr, and 2/Lt Henson were brought in also those of 18 NCO’s and men. They were buried the same day”.

He had fallen in one of a series of attacks launched in the sector to try and catch the Germans off balance before Christmas.

He was initiated into Malmesbury Lodge No 3156.

He also fell with Old Etonian Brother Captain Richard Morgan-Grenfell of United Lodge No 1529 and of 1st Bttn the Rifle Brigade.

In recent news the family of Captain Robert Harley Egerton Bennett found a series of photographs Bennett took in Ypres between late 1914 and early 1915. He was a friend of Maud’s and he took one of Maud’s grave:

Captain Henry Francis Freke Marsh 2nd Battalion King Edward’s Own Gurkha Rifles (The Sirmoor Rifles) was mortally wounded at night-time when recovering wounded Sikhs from the ground in front of the enemy’s trenches on 2 February 1917 in Mesopotamia.

He was in the Orange from 1900 and with the Heylands and the Fields was largely influential in making the Dormitory what it was. He was in the School XV of 1903.

He went to Sandhurst in 1904. Commission and gazetted to the Indian Army he spent a year with the Royal Sussex Regiment. Whilst with the Royal Sussex he became renown for his boxing prowess, winning the Sirhind Cup at Umballa. 

He then joined his Battalion, the 2nd Gurkhas, at Dehra Dun and served with them on the NW Frontier in 1907-08 and on the Abro Expedition of 1911-12, when he was mentioned in despatches.

At the start of the Great War the 1/2nd Gurkhas landed in France in October 1914 and had been rushed to the front to help stem the German assaults near Neuve Chapelle, where they were to stay until the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915. They had a significant role in the battle and the Indian Corps was then vital in defending Ypres after the German Gas attacks in April and May 1915.

The Corps was then moved to the Mesopotamia front as British service battalions became available for the Western Front in late 1915. They took part in the attempted relief of Kut in March, 1915,  Marsh being again Mentioned in Despatches and was awarded the Military Cross:

“for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. Although wounded, he continued to command his company throughout the afternoon and evening, refusing to be carried back to safety. His cheerfulness and bravery inspired great confidence in his men.”

He was Adjutant of his Battalion at the time of his death on the 2nd February, 1917.

In lamenting his death, the Colonel wrote as follows :

“However, there it was, and we had lost one of the best fellows that ever stepped, when performing the most noble act that any man could do. . . .”

Like his fellow Gurkha and friend from the Orange Heyland he joined Siwalik Lodge No 2939 in Dehra Dun. He was initiated in 1910 and passed and raised the next year.

He was a member of the East India Club.

 

Captain Norman Ian MacWatt Seaforth Highlanders was reported wounded and missing on 1 July 1916.

He was in the Hopetoun from 1906 and was made a Prefect.

He went to Sandhurst in 1910 and was made a Sergeant and represented the Royal Military College in the Foils Fencing competition at the Military Tournament. He was commissioned and gazetted Seaforth Highlanders in 1911.

He went to France with the 5th Bttn. He returned to England suffering from gas in May 1915 before returning to France again in February 1916.

He was reported wounded and missing in July 1916, and later presumed killed.

He was initiated into Radnor Lodge No 2587 in Kent in the spring in 1914.

 

 

Lieutenant Kenneth FitzPatrick MacKenzie Cameron Highlanders was the grandson of General Sir George Higginson KCB, a Governor of Wellington College. He was the son of Major William Roderick Dalziel Mackenzie and Maud Evelyn Mackenzie, of Gyldernscroft, Marlow, Bucks.

He was killed in France on 25 September 1915 in the attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt.

He was in the Blücher between 1904 and 1910, and was made School Prefect in 1909.

He went up to Trinity, Oxford with a scholarship and secured Honours in the Final History School in 1912. He was President of the OUDS and played for the Trinity XI.

Whilst up at Oxford he was also initiated into the Apollo, the lodge of the University.

He passed the necessary examination for a clerkship in the House of Lords, but in August 1914 joined the 5^th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders as Second Lieutenant, being promoted in December of the same year. 

He was a member of the Travellers’.

 

 

 

Captain Edward Lambton Pembrokeshire Yeomanry died on active service in Egypt on 28 March 1916  of pneumonia.

Lambton was the son Lieutenant Colonel Francis William Lambton Scots Guards of Brownslad, Pembrokeshire and Lady Alexandrina Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of John Frederick Campbell, second Earl of Cawdor. 

He was the fifth of seven brothers who were in the Orange, which he entered in 1890, and left as a Prefect in 1895. The Lambton and Heyland boys between them formed a core of the Orange for two decades that saw the house become a stalwart building block of College.

After Wellington Heyland went to the Royal Indian Engineering College, or Cooper’s Hill, and gained an Associate’s Diploma. He was employed in the Irrigation Department of the Public Works in Egypt, and at the outbreak of the War was director of Irrigation at Assiut.

He had joined the Pembroke Yeomanry and was permitted to do his drills with the Cavalry at Abassieh and annual training in England while on leave.

For his services in the Public Works he was awarded the Order of the Osmanieh, which he was permitted to wear by King Edward. Two of his brothers were killed in the South African War.

The book “Welsh Yeomanry at War: A History of the 24th Pembroke and Glamorgan Yeomanry” by Steven John recalls the situation of his Regiment:

“On 20 March 1916 the South Wales Mounted Brigade became part of the 4th Dismounted Brigade and was attached to the banks of the Nile, it moved to the Wadi El Natrun, west of the Nile Delta, and was tasked with guarding the coastal strip, the gateway to Alexandria and to the Nile Delta, an area known as the Baharia front. The role of these newly arrived troops was a simple peace keeping one for the time being, and as garrison troops on the Suez Canal Defences.

The loss of the first officer of the Pembroke Yeomanry on active service occurred on 28 March 1916, when Captain Edward Lambton, a member of a well known Pembrokeshire family, died in hospital in Cairo.”

Lambton was a keen mason. He was initiated into Grecia Lodge No 1105 aged 22 in 1899, the same lodge as fellow OW Crew Coles.

He later joined Castlemartin Lodge No 1748 in 1901, was a Founder of Delta Lodge No 3060 at its consecration on 31 December 1904, joined Anglo Colonial Lodge No 3175 in 1907 and Star in the East Lodge No 1355 in 1908. He was a Past District Grand Warden.

 

 

Captain John Rowley Lunell Heyland 9th Gurkha Rifles was killed whilst directing his men’s fire during the Battle of near Neuve Chapelle on 11 March 1915.

He was the eldest of four brothers serving with the Army, all of whom attended Wellington College. His brother Arthur Heyland, attached to the 2nd Gurkha Rifles was also killed in the same sector in May 1915 and is commemorated on the nearby Le Touret Memorial. The other two brothers were wounded in the war.

John was son of Captain John Rowley Kyffyn Lloyd Heyland RA  and Mary Beatrice Heyland. He went to Wellington College from 1898. He was in the Orange and a fine sportsman. He was in the XV and the VIII. He was credited with being part of a small group with Marsh that turned around the fortunes of his House.

He went to Sandhurst in 1903 and continued his sporting prowess, getting his colours in the XV and shooting in the VIII before commissioning and joining the Indian Army. He spent a year attached to the Royal Sussex before being gazetted to the 9th Gurkha Rifles in 1906.

He was award the MC in 1914 for his services in the field. He was serving as Adjutant on the Battalion at Neuve Chapelle.

He was initiated into Siwalik Lodge No 2939 in July 1912, the same Lodge as Marsh, his fellow Gurkha and OW Marsh, being passed and raised later the same year. Siwalik was a lodge at Dehra Dun on the NW Frontier with a strong military constituency. It became Lodge Siwalik Dr. Durga Prasad No 62 on the formation of the United Grand Lodge of India on 24 November 1961.

 

Captain the Lord Arthur John Hamilton Irish Guards was killed in action in 19 September 1914.

Hamilton was the second son of James Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Abercorn and Lady Mary Anna Curzon. He was in the Benson (then called Bevir’s after his housemaster and member of the Old Wellingtonian Lodge) between 1898 and 1900 before joining the Militia. He was commissioned and gazetted first to the Royal Scots before transferring to the Irish Guards, rising to Captain in 1909.

He was made Deputy Master of the Household by the King, a post which he fulfilled with energy and tact. The Gazette records:

Board of Green Cloth, Buckingham Palace
March 5th, 1913.
The KING has been pleased to appoint
Captain the Lord Arthur John Hamilton to be Deputy Master of His Majesty’s Household.

He was deployed to France with the 1st Bttn Irish Guards as part of the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914. Hamilton was killed on 6 November 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres. Lord Hamilton was originally posted as missing but later in the year his mother heard from a German officer that he had fallen early in September.

He is commemorated on the Menin Gate.

He was a member of the Bachelors’ Club in town and the Duddingston Golf Club in Edinburgh.

Originally made a mason under the Irish Constitution he joined United Lodge No 1629, now merged as the United Studholme Alliance Lodge  No 1591.

 

Charles Jefford Fowler died in France on 1 June 1916 of wounds received on 23 May.

He was the son of Sir George and Lady Fowler, of Oatlands Chase, Weybridge, Surrey. Fowler went to Wellington in the Lent term of 1902. He was in the Blücher and was made a School Prefect in 1906 before going up to Trinity, Oxford. He was initiated in the Apollo University Lodge No 357 in 1906, during his time up at Oxford. He also joined Iris Lodge No 2545 in January 1907.

After taking he degree he became a school master at Sandroyd School in Cobham. He studied for the Bar whilst teaching and was admitted a member of the Inner Temple. He also joined the Inns of Court OTC.

When the war started he volunteered and was commissioned and gazetted to the Royal Fusiliers. He served with the 22nd Battalion.

His Battalion CO wrote:

“He very gallantly led his company through an intense barrage (old warriors describe it as the worst of the war) to almost within thirty yards of the German trench, where he was shot. After his Captain was shot, which was early in the fight, he assumed command. His conduct was most gallant, and his leadership perfection.”