killed in action

Commemorating the Fallen of WW1

The grave of Vere Loxley at Knightsbridge Cemetery. Photographed for ‘Marching in Memory’ for Combat Stress, July 2015

Today we remember …

Battle of the Somme

13th November 1916. Vere Loxley. A Social, 1895. Major, 1st Bn, Royal Marine Light Infantry. Killed in action at Beaumont Hamel.

Vere Loxley was a career soldier who trained at Sandhurst in 1900, then left Sandhurst one year early to join the Royal Marine Light Infantry. He was promoted to Captain in 1911 and was serving as Major when he was killed in the Royal Naval Division’s attack on Beaumont Hamel. He took part in the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915. He was mentioned in despatches.

Aged 35

His younger brother, Reginald, also a Radleian, also served at Gallipoli. Reginald was serving in the Royal Air Force when he died of pneumonia in 1918.

Vere Loxley. Major, 1st Bn, Royal Marine LI. kia Beaumont Hamel

Commemorating the Fallen of WW1

The shield of Geoffrey Adams, still hangs in Radlege College Dining Hall

Today we remember …

Battle of the Somme1st November, 1916. Geoffrey Adams. Senior Prefect. F & C Socials, 1909. 2nd Lt, 4th Bn, Suffolk Regt. Killed in action at Lesboeufs.

The death of Geoffrey Adams on All Saints Day, 1916, traditionally the school’s most important festival, was greeted with profound grief. He was the second of five Senior Prefects to fall in the War, and the first who had been known to all the boys and Dons currently at the school. He was an outstanding Classical scholar, who had just won the 2nd Classical Demyship to Magdalen College, Oxford, which he never took up. He began his career at Radley as a Junior Scholar, and ended it as winner of the Richards Gold Medal, and the Greek and History Prizes. He was Captain of Cricket for two years and played for the Fives and Rackets teams. He took a leading role in the Literary and Debating Societies. After his death the Warden, Gordon Selwyn, oversaw publication of a book of his poetry.

His father, Arthur Adams, became Chair of the War Memorial Committee, speaking for all those parents whose sons had no known grave: ‘Mr A Adams spoke in favour of the larger expenditure on a visible War Memorial. Other parents who had subscribed felt as he did. He wanted a Memorial which the boys would in their hearts connect with the idea of self-sacrifice and resort to for inspiration in difficulties, and he appealed to all members to endeavour to make the memorial welcome to and venerated by the school.’

Geoffrey is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. His shield still hangs in Hall. Aged 20

His story from Magdalen College

Geoffrey Adams. 2nd Lt, 9th Bn, Suffolk Regt. kia Battle of the Somme

Commemorating the Fallen of WW1

The grave of William Marshall at Beulencourt. Photographed for ‘Marching in Memory’ for Combat Stress, July 2015

Today we remember …

Battle of the Somme

12th October, 1916. William Marshall. A Social, 1910. 2nd Lt, 7th Bn, Suffolk Regt. Killed in action at Gueudecourt.

William Marshall was a member of Radley’s first Rugby XV in 1914. After school, he went to Sandhurst, intending to follow a military career. He was slightly wounded in September 1916 and had not been back at the Front for long before he was killed at Gueudecourt.

Aged 19

William Marshall, 2nd Lt, 7th Bn, Suffolk Regt. kia Battle of the Somme

Commemorating the Fallen of WW1

The grave of Maurice Knatchbull-Hugessen at Fricourt. Photograhed for 'Marching in Memory' for Combat Stress, July 2015

The grave of Maurice Knatchbull-Hugessen at Fricourt. Photographed for ‘Marching in Memory’ for Combat Stress, July 2015

Today we remember …

First Battle of the Somme

25th September 1915

Maurice Knatchbull-Hugessen, MC. A Social, 1901. Lt, 2nd Bn, Grenadier Guards. Killed in action at Contelmaison.

Maurice Knatchbull-Hugessen was Head of A Social. After school, he went to Balliol College, Oxford and then out to South Africa where he worked as a mining engineer from 1910-1914. He joined the Royal Fusiliers as a private in 1914, then gained a commission in the Grenadier Guards in 1915. He was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Military Cross.

Aged 28

Ian Ross-Taylor. C Social, 1908. 2nd Lt, 7th Bn, Bedfordshire Regt. Killed in action at Morval.

Ian Ross-Taylor was born in Bombay, India (now Mumbai). He left school in 1911 and joined the Foreign Staff of the Bank of India, Australia and China. He was wounded early in 1915 and after months of convalescence, he returned to the Front in June. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

Aged 22

Maurice Knatchbull-Hugessen, MC. Lt, 2nd Bn, Grenadier Guards. kia Battle of the Somme

Ian Ross-Taylor. 2nd Lt, 7th Bn, Bedfordshire Regt. kia Battle of the Somme

Commemorating the Fallen of WW1

The Butterworth Memorial in the Music School at Radley College. Designed by Laurence Whistler

Today we remember …

Battle of the Somme

20th September 1916. George Butterworth, MC. Don & Composer. Lt, 13th Bn, Durham Light Infantry. Killed in action at Pozieres.

George Butterworth was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford, and from a very early age evinced great musical talent. One of his compositions was played at an Eton school concert while he was still a boy there. Among his musical publications are two cycles of songs from Housman’s “Shropshire Lad,” and an orchestral rhapsody, played at the last Leeds Festival, also at Queen’s Hall in the spring of 1914. He also devoted much time to the collection and arrangement of folk songs and folk dances in collaboration with Mr. Cecil Sharpe, and he took an active part in the formation and in the work of the Folk Dance Society. He contributed musical criticism to The Times intermittently for several years, and whatever he wrote showed shrewd judgment, sound knowledge, and independence of view. He was, in fact, a musician of great promise as well as a man of sterling character, who, if he had not given his life to a greater cause, would undoubtedly have done much to further a national ideal of musical art in this country. The Radleian

As a Don at Radley, he inspired a love of English pastoral music, reflected in the Music Society Minutes after he left. With Lance Vidal (kia 25 September 1915) he encouraged the boys to take up Morris dancing. He composed part of the Shropshire Lad Suite whilst at Radley.

Letter from his Commanding Officer to his father:

DEAR SIR ALEXANDER, I feel I must write you a note to tell you how deeply I grieve with you and yours for the loss of your gallant son. He was one of those quiet, unassuming men whose path did not appear naturally to be a military one, and I had watched him doing his duty quietly and conscientiously.

… Later we went into a line on the right of the Australians, S.E. of Pozieres.

Here we were about 450 yards from the Germans, and I gave orders to dig a trench within 200 yards of them so that we could attack with some chance of success.

This trench was dug in a fog, and was a very fine deep trench which saved many lives in the days to follow, and your son again superintended the work, and it was called Butterworth trench on all the official maps.

… Your son was in charge, and the trench was very much blown in and shallow, and I begged him to keep his head down. He was cheery and inspiring his tired men to secure the position which had been won earlier in the night. Within about a minute of my leaving him he was shot. I could ill afford to lose so fine a soldier…

Aged 31