Lt Col Dr Cyril Dudley Hely Corbett was a Bensonian who arrived at Wellington in 1896.
He became a school prefect before going up to University College Oxford and then to St Thomas’s Hospital, qualifying as a doctor. During his time at St Thomas’s Hospital he was initiated into Cheselden Lodge No 2870, the lodge associated with the hospital, and in time became a founder of the OW Lodge.
He served in the RAMC and was sent to France in 1916 to take command of a brigade of the Royal flying Corps, an extremely unusual appointment for an RAMC officer. After nine months he reverted to medical duties, being appointed to a base hospital for the treatment of pilots. This formed one of his major professional interests and in 1918 he published “A study of the reaction of pilots and observers to diminished oxygen pressure.”
He died suddenly from influenza whilst in charge of the hospital in 1918. He was 37. His remained are interred at Golders Green Crematorium.
