Reginald Benjamin Featherstone was born in 1881, and spent just over two years at Westminster from the age of 14. He played a lot of sport, both for the school and for Ashburnham house, and seemed to have a very active time while he was here. He was described as “rather too small” to be a great football player when he first joined, and perhaps it is telling that the house didn’t win a single match that year (and had a rather memorable 8-0 defeat to College). However he went on to play cricket with some success that summer, then returning to school the next September, seemed to have improved at football, playing twice for the 2nd XI, receiving house and school colours for the sport in the Lent term of 1898. He continued to improve, playing for the 1st XI the next autumn. Unfortunately this sporting success at Westminster couldn’t carry on, as Featherstone left the school, for reasons unknown to us, in December 1898.

We don’t know how he spent the intervening years, but almost exactly 3 years later, aged 20, he joined the Devonshire Regiment, starting a 13 year military career from ending with his death on December 18th 1914. He fought in the Second Boer war in 1902 and was promoted to rank of Lieutenant in 1904. At the outbreak of WWI, he was stationed in Cairo, so his battalion didn’t return to England until October 1st, shortly after which he was promoted to the rank of Captain. There he was placed under orders of the 8th Division, created entirely from returning regular army battalions, and used to reinforce the depleted BEF after the first battle of Ypres.

Featherstone has no known grave and is commemorated on the Le Touret memorial in Northern France.