Colonel Harold Bingley Finch MC A.M.I.Mech.E was in the Picton from 1913.
He was commissioned into the RASC and fought in the Great War, World War Two and even in Murmansk in 1918 in a little remembered Anglo-American invasion of Soviet Russia, in ultimately futile support of the White Russian cause, where as a Second Lieutenant he won the MC. The citation reads:
“At Bolshe-Ozerki, on 1st September, 1918, he showed great gallantry as guide to a patrol. They found a position unexpectedly strongly held. He- stayed behind with a badly wounded man and one other man.
He personally killed four enemy and wounded several more. The work of this patrol in cutting the enemy’s lines of communication was instrumental in breaking up the enemy attack on Bolshe-Ozerki.”
He retired a full Colonel, like his father before him.
He joined the Lodge in 1952 and became Master a few years later in 1956. His Mother Lodge was Palma Virtuti Lodge No 4187 in Aldershot.
His son Captain Colin Henry Lewis Finch RAPC was initiated in his Father’s year as Senior Warden in 1955, making his middle name somewhat prescient. Like his father he was in the Picton and joined the family business.