H R Chaldecott

Hardinge 1895
HR Caldecott, 2nd from right, OA Chaldecott 2nd from left.
Courtesy of Wellington College Archive

Harold Richards Chaldecott OBE was in the Hardinge from 1893, a year ahead of his brother Oswald Arthur Chaldecott who would also join him in the Lodge in the 1920s. They are both show in the 1895 Hardinge Dormitory photograph above, along with Frank Finnis, fourth from the left, second row from the back. A school photograph in ones early years, cross-legged on the ground seems a little unfair for two distinguished gentlemen, and we hope they will forgive this intrusion.

He went on to Glasgow University and studied to become a Naval Architect. He graduated to work for Armstrong Whitworth.

He served as a territorial gunner from 1909, rising to Captain in the Great War, and after the war worked in the shipyards in the North East as manager of the Elswick Shipbuilding Yard in Newcastle and as a naval inspector.

He was made an OBE in the 1918 Birthday Honours List.

Chaldecott was initiated into Victoria Commemoration (Reserve Forces) Lodge No 2666, now known as Reserve Forces Lodge of Northumbria Lodge, and joined the OW Lodge at the July meeting in 1922, becoming Worshipful Deputy Master in 1930. He was awarded LGR.

His son, Capt John Stickland Chaldecott, who had followed his father and uncle to Wellington and into the army, died on active service in 1941 serving with the Queen’s Royal Regiment and was described as “one of nature’s perfect gentlemen”.

Detail from above: HR Caldecott, 2nd from right, OA Chaldecott 2nd from left