Austin Woodbridge was the son of solicitor Thomas Woodbridge, and the seventh member of his immediate family to study at Westminster School. He was born 18th May 1876, and arrived at the school in 1891, joining Grant’s House. While at the school, he participated in football and cricket to a significant degree, earning his pink-and-whites in 1894. He left the school that same year.
He is recorded in the Elizabethan several times as an Old Westminster participating in sporting events, and, interestingly, as a member of the Freemasons. He became a member of the London Stock Exchange in 1900, and continued to work on the stock exchange thereafter. In 1905, he married Ethel Mary, the third daughter of George Sunday.
The next surviving records of Woodbridge emerge in military documents, allowing us to identify his military progress. Here he served as a member of the 8th Battalion Middlesex Regiment from 1912, before becoming a Major in April 1915. He held a special appointment in 1917, and was subsequently awarded the Military Cross.
At the end of the war he married his second wife, Norah Woodbridge. The fate of Mary Ethel is unknown. Austin Woodbridge continued working active service after the ceasefire, remaining in France and the Western Front. It was here that he passed away, dying of influenza on 28th February 1919.
